A bit about me
I have worked in Further Education for over 20 years but before that I worked in retail and then prior to retail, the motor industry. The outdoors has always been a passion, wether it be a high mountain top, rugged moorland or windswept beach, I am happy. More recently local parks, nature reserves and woodland have opened my eyes to the wildlife on my doorstep.
Gear update.
Its probably about time I updated you with some purchases over this year (its been an expensive one 😂😂). The first purchase was a used EF 24-70 F2.8 lens, this was because I wanted to do some more music gig stuff and the F4 was just not letting enough light in. Once again the wonderful MPB came up trumps with a quality used one. I instantly fell in love with this lens at the first gig I shot, it is so sharp and the amount of light it lets in is incredible.
So I was smitten with the F2.8...............it didn't therefore take long for me to start sniffing around an obvious upgrade to the 70-200f4. Now these are not cheap and I just couldn't justify the expense of buying one of these without sacrificing some of the lens. A quick trade deal with MPB (again) saw the 70-200f4 and the 24-105f4 being replaced by the might 70-200f2.8. This lens is an absolute beast, it is pin sharp, focus is lightning fast and the images are amazing. The only downside is that it is pretty heavy.
Both lenses have been heavily used over the summer and into the autumn shooting plenty of music events which I am absolutely loving.
The most recent purchase really smashed the piggy bank, this was in the shape of a brand new Canon R6 Mk2 Mirrorless camera, I will tell you more about it in the coming months as I get used to it but for now I can share that it is very competent and I am very happy with it. I shot my first music event with it last weekend and it surpassed all my expectations.
I didn't consciously go out and buy Canon equipment, it just kind of happened by accident. Someone at work was selling a camera and a lens for a good price so i thought, why not?
The camera itself is an Eos6D, a full frame "enthusiast" DSLR which is still available new today in its MK2 guise. It isn't particularly compact which to be honest suits me because some of the modern mirrorless cameras feel a bit small in my hands. I have added a second battery, a Peak Designs strap and I use Scandisk 64gb sd cards. To start with I only shot JPEG images but a friend pointed me to Canon's excellent DPP processing software so I now shoot in both JPEG and RAW. The JPEG images are useful if I am at a football match and want to wirelessly drop some images onto my phone and upload them to social media whilst in the field.
I read somewhere that experts recon that the lens on the camera is actually more important than the camera itself, this certainly seems to be reflected in the prices of some of the glass we can attach to our cameras !
The first lens i used was the one that was attached to the camera when i bought it, this was the EF 24-105 F4 L lens. Being an "L" lens its one of Canon's premium lens and I have been impressed by its clarity, quick focus and it's general ability to flatter a very amateur photographer.
The next lens that was added to the collection was something to give me a little more reach whilst I was photographing grassroots football. This came in the guise of another L lens (yep there is a pattern developing), the 70-200 F4 IS-USM. The F2.8 version of this lens was ruled out on weight and more importantly cost. I am still astounded how versatile this little lens is, it spends a significant amount of time attached to the 6D. Both landscapes and football are handled with ease and if I push the iso to it's limit on the camera, the lens has an impressive low light ability. The image stabilisation system lets me take handheld shots at a far slower shutter speed than would normally expected.
With lockdown still in place I was confined to staying local, so no big seascapes, mountains or fells were possible. This led me to start photographing birds in the garden on the feeder, the 70-200 was ok but i couldn't help thinking that something with a bit more reach would be nice.
The range of the L lens are not limited but they are eyewateringly expensive. I read that 'the' lens for wildlife is the 200-400 f4 but at in the region of £6k used it was not an option. The 100-400 f5.6 is a popular choice but its quite heavy and again quite expensive.
In the end I found a great deal on a EF 400 F5.6 prime lens and have never regretted buying it. It takes a bit of getting used to but I have been rewarded with some lovely images. It has got no image stabilisation and at F5.6 it isn't the fastest glass in the world but its light enough to hand hold and carry all day, although attaching it to my Benro carbon monopod at RSPB Bempton Cliffs was a revelation.
So there we have it, the camera and the lenses that currently sit in my camera bag, well almost. The 400mm is too long to fit in the bag so it has to strap to the side in its own case. On the other side of the rather over worked Lowepro Flipside Trek usually sits a tripod or the monopod. The tripod is a must have for long exposure shots which thanks to a couple of Urth ND filters I can even take in full sun, on the subject of filters I have recently bought a Lee landscape kit with a ND Grad filter, I can't really report on this as yet because I have had little chance to use it much.
