So I got an Eos 500D
On Sunday I picked up more photographic stuff at another car boot sale, one of which was this thing, which I initially thought looked interesting but got a bit dubious about, especially when I found out that the photo conversion software is hideously expensive. But when I checked it turned out that CEX still buy them, and for about £16 more than I paid for it if you take part exchange rather than cash. They also offered an Eos 500D at one of the local branches at a price I could afford, especially with that thrown in for part exchange... Cue visit to local CEX store, and purchase of the body (with three batteries and a charger) for a bit over £100.
I went to the park and took some test pictures today using my 18-55 zoom, unfortunately not in very nice conditions, it was very overcast, and was a little disappointed; they don't feel notably better than I was getting with the 300D, and in general were not particularly sharp. But the metadata shows that they were all fairly low speed and wide aperture, which does tend to have that effect. I've since tried with the 50mm lens I got, and in program mode rather than full auto mode, and got much better results, especially with flash. I'm not going to post anything today because they're much better pictures of e.g. the mass of computer cables hanging on hooks on my work-room door, random books, etc.
My feeling at the moment is that it's working, but I really need to up my game on selecting appropriate camera settings, it's less forgiving than the 300D or my old Nikon. I may also want to look at a better zoom, but I already knew that. I really hope that the weather's better tomorrow, and I can get out and give it another try.
Also posted at http://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2089432.html, where there are
comments. Please comment here or there using OpenID.
I went to the park and took some test pictures today using my 18-55 zoom, unfortunately not in very nice conditions, it was very overcast, and was a little disappointed; they don't feel notably better than I was getting with the 300D, and in general were not particularly sharp. But the metadata shows that they were all fairly low speed and wide aperture, which does tend to have that effect. I've since tried with the 50mm lens I got, and in program mode rather than full auto mode, and got much better results, especially with flash. I'm not going to post anything today because they're much better pictures of e.g. the mass of computer cables hanging on hooks on my work-room door, random books, etc.
My feeling at the moment is that it's working, but I really need to up my game on selecting appropriate camera settings, it's less forgiving than the 300D or my old Nikon. I may also want to look at a better zoom, but I already knew that. I really hope that the weather's better tomorrow, and I can get out and give it another try.
Also posted at http://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2089432.html, where there are
comments. Please comment here or there using OpenID.