a camera to lust after

P bought a new camera: Canon EOS 300D digital rebel. To get used to it as soon as possible, we bundled up and went out to downtown on Saturday night for a shooting spree (we didn't shoot people with guns, of course). Getting off the brown line at Library, we wandered around the area, taking pictures of the triangular Cook County Jail, which could appear in a sci-fi movie as a head quarter of some kind of secret organization, and this Calder sculpture that looks as if it is on the verge of marching ahead, stomping the entire city flat with its clumsy feet, among other things. (The photo here was taken with my own camera, Olympus c-730, which is not a bad camera at all, but it turned out to be neigh nothing compared to the 300D.)

The images the 300D can capture are just mind-boggling. Even by the hand of someone who is still learning to manipulate the camera, with the poor light conditions at night, 300D can produce an amazingly sharp, detailed picture without any kind of noticeable pixelation, noise, or weird color effect. From about 35 yards, P took several pictures of the Calder sculpture reflected on the window glasses of an adjacent building, with a zoom lens the specifications of which I am not familiar with. To our pleasant surprise, though, in addition to the razor-sharp image of the reflected sculpture itself, every single bar of window screens was also clearly visible in the picture. It almost scared me when I realized that characters on documents hung on the wall of another building across the street, reflected on the same window glass, were almost legible.

The ultimate and tangible control this digital SLR gives us is addictive. The "click" the lens makes when it is mounted to the camera, the feel of the focus and zoom rings, and the nicely balanced weight of the camera and lenses... and of course, its amazing ability to take great pictures as if it were something like making a cup of instant coffee in the morning. In addition to all that, it makes the most pleasant and satisfying shutter noise. This camera ignited a flame of desire for an SLR in me!
(Chicago, IL, Nov./20/2004)
calder
Originally uploaded by uBookworm.