by benjaminjk | Feb 28, 2014 | DIY, Gear Reviews, photography |
I installed magic lantern on my EOS M a few weeks ago, and I am going to share 4 reasons why you might want to try it as well. Magic lantern is a firmware hack for canon cameras. You install it in a process very similar to updating the firmware on your camera. I am using the most up to date version of ML for the M, which is still not a stable release. There are some potential bugs, but they do not seem to affect every camera, and I have had no problems with it. The EOS M is already a great little camera, and the Magic Lantern firmware adds even more functionality to it. The amount of stuff added to the camera is initially a little overwhelming. For the videographer, there is some really nice stuff, most notably – HD Raw video. I have not been able to test out the raw video because I do not have a memory card that is big or fast enough. I just dabble in video, so I will be focusing on the features that I have found work for my needs. Focus Peaking If you use manual focus lenses like I do, this is probably the most amazing feature I have ever seen on a digital camera. There are 2 flavors here, the first is normal focus peaking, which overlays a color artifact on the parts of the image that are in focus. This makes focusing possible with out zooming the viewfinder in 5x or 10x. It work amazingly well if you are using a tilt-shift lens, or a very...
by benjaminjk | Feb 17, 2014 | photography |
How to photograph birds in their natural habitat I have been shooting a ton of birds lately, partly because I have recently acquired a 300/2.8 and a 2x teleconverter; and partly because with all of the winter weather we have had has made it a little easier. A few people have asked me how I get the images, so, here goes. All of the bird images that I have taken recently are of birds feeding in my backyard. There are a few things that you will need to get started. A long telephoto lens I use a Tokina AT-X Pro 300/2.8 and a 2xTC that effectively means I am shooting a 600/5.6 on a full frame canon camera. 300mm – 600mm is where you are going to want to be for small birds. I’ll tell you the truth, if I had an 800mm lens I would use that; and if I could get my hands on a 1200mm lens – I would be using that. I just don’t think you can ever “get close enough” in real life. The longer the lens you have, the farther away you can hide, allowing you to have more opportunities to photograph birds. 2. You are going to need a good tripod. Photographing birds requires tremendous patience and you must wait in ready position to photograph, if you wait for a bird to land close to you and then pick up a camera, it will startle and fly away. Have the camera mounted to a tripod, pointed in the general area where you are photographing and then when...
by benjaminjk | Feb 10, 2014 | photography |
It was pretty darn cold out today, with the mercury hovering just below 28 F, very cloudy with a sharp wind coming from the west. It is possible that the wind will be bringing us a few more inches of snow. It was a little too cold for me to stay out much longer than 45 min today, and the Nuthatch was the only one brave enough to visit during that short of a stay out. Hope you enjoy. Images made with a Canon 6d and a tokina 300/2.8 + 2xTC Shot at iso 1600 1/500th of a second at...
by benjaminjk | Feb 10, 2014 | photography |
Looking back on my posts for the last few weeks, there is one very common thread – it is cold here. And, That won’t change with this post. I was out riding around the other day and stopped to make an image of Lake Norfork and the HWY 62 Bridge. This image was made with a Canon 6d + 17-40L set at 17mm. I used a B&W ND110 filter to get a 75 second exposure at f16. Processed in Lightroom 5...
by benjaminjk | Feb 9, 2014 | photography |
Old man winter continues to pound us here in Northern Arkansas. We have accumulated a few more inches of snow over the last week,and there is more forecasted early next week. I am not sure when we will have the opportunity to fully dig out, but the roads were clearer today and we decided to see what we could see. This image is a HDR image made from 7 frames evenly exposed 1 EV apart. My EV 0 exposure was 1/60th of a second at f13. Canon 6d – 70mm lens....
