LATEST Photography & Digiscoping news
I'm now in possession of a Canon EOS 1D MkIII Dslr
and I seem to have a good one. Plenty of negative
remarks about this camera and it's AF tracking
abilities on the web at the moment. The AF seems
to be lightning fast and reliable in AI Servo mode
to me
View this fast moving parakeet HERE
High ISO settings seems to be around 1 1/2 stops
better than my 1Ds MkII in terms of noise.
Lots of new DSLR Cameras & Nikon Long VR Primes announced & New Sigma O.S. (I.S. / VR ) equivalent Bigma
Canon EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM firm details released by Canon, bit more expensive than I imagined (hoped) at £8999.99 RRP inc. VAT / €13299.99 inc. VAT and June availability. Weight is 4.5kg See Canon release HERE
Canon announce
NEW Canon EOS 450D (Rebel Xsi) announced. 12mp pixels and 3 inch monitor and 3.5fps . This does look slightly larger and more rounded than the 400D and appears to be a great budget camera for aspiring bird photographers. It looks less of a toy than Canon's previous entry level dslr cameras. As with the Canon 40D, the new Canon 450D looks like a more substantial leap in technology than the previous model.
Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII 21.1 million pixels (full frame) 5fps and many of the benefits of the Canon 1D MkIII (this is the one for me!!)
Canon EOS 40D 10.1 million pixels 1.6x crop. 6.5fps and many of the features of the EOS 1D MkIII. Looks to be a great little camera for the bird photographer.
Nikon announce
Nikon D3 12.1 million pixel full frame (new Nikon FX format). Lots of excellent features but for the bird photographer, you do wonder about 12mp at full frame.
Nikon D300 12.3 million pixels at 1.5x crop (familiar Nikon DX format). A new 3 inch monitor
Nikon super telephoto VR prime lenses finally announced.
AF-S 400mm f/2.8G ED VR
AF-S 500mm f/4G ED VR
AF-S 600mm f/4G ED VR
Sigma announce
New 150-500mm f5 - f6.3 O.S. lens. An image stabilised Bigma!! Sounds interesting. it is slightly longer and heavier than the current Bigma. With HSM and image stabilisation, this sounds like a very nice walkaround lens.
New 120-400mm f4.5 - f5.6 O.S. lens. This replaces the current 80-400mm O.S. lens.
Canon announces the 10.1mp Canon EOS 1D Mark III ( successor to the EOS-1D Mark II N ) with some innovative features. The ability to fine tune the focus point should eliminate the problems of front or back focussing issues but also give user control over what is in focus in a shot... with every mm of depth of focus being vital with long lenses, larger sensors and close-up shots, you don't want to waste any d.o.f. You can do this via other means but a bank of presets will be excellent. Let's hope it a feature added to all future Canon DSLR cameras.
Naturescape's Skimmer II - I have been using this for a couple of months, although opportunities are a little sparse due to weather and the fact that it's quite specialised in when it's appropriate to use. Nice exchange rate helped, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. There's not much to it, as you can guess, but it does the job very well and when you use the Wimberley C-10 clamp (as I do), you can't get down much lower
