I like statistics. I like seeing how I act in an objective manner, it provides a certain distance and understanding that can come from looking on the outside in. So, when I decided that I wanted a new lens to replace the one I’ve had for nearly four years, I thought that having an understanding of how I use my equipment would be invaluable in deciding what next to purchase.

Before looking at numbers or usage, I decided whether I wanted to simply replace the unit I have or buy something else. As I am primarily purchasing a lens for travel, having one lens is still a must. As patient as Justine is when we’re out and I’m taking photos, I just couldn’t imagine adding the requirement of swapping out lenses to the mix. Ideally, I’d have two cameras and two lenses, but this is not a realistic proposition for me, at least right now.

I like the lens I have now, it gives me the ability to frame shots in camera (which many purists call lazy, but when you’re visiting somewhere once, I just want to be able to get the shot and get it right) and the long zoom range helps out with that foreground or background blur I so love. A wide aperture would also achieve that but since I need a lens with a wide range of focal lengths it’s not as viable. So, how do I use my “main” lens? Do I exclusively use it zoomed in to get the lovely bokeh — as all the cool kids call it — or do I only take wide shots? The numbers will obviously be skewed by a few factors, such as taking shots intended for use as panoramas (though if I had a wider lens, perhaps I would take fewer of those), as well as re-factoring and re-shooting with slightly different settings.

All the statistics were generated from my Lightroom database, using the free ImageReporter application to give me the numbers. I then plotted the data using Google Spreadsheet. Roughly 24,000 shots were used, with 15,000 of those being from holidays and the remainder other usage. I figured seeing all my usage, as well as holiday and non-holiday would give a good snapshot of how I use my lens. I only selected photos from my Canon ESO350D and the 18-200mm lens I use almost exclusively.

To start, I had a look at how I use the ISO settings. I figured this would give a good indication on whether the lens I use is fast enough or if I have to compromise at a higher ISO. Of course, if I carried a tripod that would also sort out frequent use of high ISO.

So, it seems in general, I tend to use ISO100 a large amount of time, stepping down to ISO400 and ISO1600 as needed. The stepping down is presumably due to light conditions and having a faster lens would probably compensate. I find it interesting I only step down in such large amounts though, so I’ll try to use the “middle” ISO settings when I can.Moving on to what I really wanted to see, we have each major focal length plotted against the percentage of time I use it.

From this chart, a few things are evident. When on holiday I actually use wide angles a lot more than I do when not on holiday. This is not something I expected. It is also interesting to not the sharp from after 130mm. I suspect this is because once above 130mm I would just use 200m. Whether the 200mm is mainly used for bokeh or for bringing the subject closer is a more difficult thing to assume. Excluding the 200mm range, it’s obvious that around 75% of the time — at least when on holiday — I am using the 20-100mm range, meaning that a shorter zoom lens could quite possibly be satisfactory. The benefit possibly being that with a shorter zoom range, the same amount of money may buy me a slightly better quality lens.The lens I had previously been intending to purchase — the Sigma 18-250mm Optically Stabilised HSM — still seems like it could be ideal. Adding in an HSM motor and optical stabilisation is of immediate benefit, and the longer range may possibly be useful while on holiday. Of course, given that I tend to use half of that means that a lens in the 17-120mm range would be perfect. Sigma sells an 18-125mm unit, but it seems to be exactly the same as the 18-250mm one I’ve been eyeing off as far as image quality is concerned. I think a 17-70mm lens (which both Sigma and Canon make) may be a little shorter than I would like, but close to 70% of the time I am using that range so perhaps it’s a good buy for me. Canon does a 24-105mm lens which may be a little expensive but in any case, the wide is not quite wide enough as is evidenced by the high usage at the wide end of the spectrum.

The moral of the story is that having made a decision then deciding to put some further analysis into the decision hasn’t really made much difference. What I want doesn’t exist — at least in my price range. The big decision right now is whether to get a 17-70mm lens or the 18-250mm lens. Will I regret not getting the longer focal range, given that I use it around 11-12% of the time while on holiday? Should I just get the 17-70mm and take two lenses.

At least I’ve got some pretty graphs to help my decision along.

I got a new radio-controlled remote for my 350D which should help a lot in the remainder of this project.

The receiver part of the unit is a little bulky, and the batteries in both the receiver and transmitter are difficult to replace (the receiver having a strange battery and the transmitter requiring the unit to be unscrewed to get to it).

However, the unit works well from a long distance, and doesn’t require line of sight. It also can do burst mode (or timer, obviously) which is a bonus. Despite it’s minor flaws it’s a great little toy.

Last year, Canon ran a competition — Find Your Shot — in which I entered one or two photos. At the time, I was surprised to see the type of photos that were being considered as the “winners” of the week. My shots definitely weren’t the best, but it seems as though a popularity contest emerged as part of the competition and people were able to get their photos a leg up even though there were far better ones (again, not mine) submitted.

The winning shot doesn’t really grab me; as the gallery has been taken offline I can’t browse to see if there were ones I liked more, but I certainly don’t think it deserved to have won the photographer a $25,000 holiday.

However, Trav recently pointed me in the direction of a new competition Canon is running called “photo5“. This competition has a bit of a twist which makes it intriguing. The first twist (yup, there’s more than one) is that only the first 2500 people to sign up can even enter. That limits the chances a bit. The second twist is that you’re delivered a box of five “goodies” (a balloon, cellophane, chalk, some circles and the box itself) that you must use to take creative shots. And no, they don’t accept all five items in one shot.

The box arrived this morning, and I already have a number of ideas for the balloon, as well as one or two each for the boxes and circles (though they aren’t that great). The chalk and cellophane I’m a bit stuck with. Other than shooting through cellophane, which is what everyone will do I’m sure, I’m stuck.

Some of the ideas I have planned require a model (depending on the shot it’ll just be your hands, or back, or possibly part of your face) so if anyone is interested let me know. It’ll be fun!

Day Seventeen
Prague
24 August 2007 22:18

We haven’t done this much walking for quite a while now, my feet are reminding me to take it easy. We walked a lot of Prague today.

Breakfast is served in a small cafe two minutes away. The food isn’t bad; I had an omelette today and bacon and eggs and potato yesterday — I get the feeling the waiting staff either doesn’t care for us or maybe Czech people are rude.

Hurrying to the astronomical clock in the main town square, we found a place and watched the clock strike 12:00 midday. A skeleton (death) emptied his hourglass and the twelve apostles appeared in windows. People seemed excited but we both thought it was a waste of time.

We found a “Franciscan Garden”, which is a small garden with some amazingly well kept roses and is tended by monks who live in the church nearby.

Yet again wandering we headed South to see a “dancing house”, apparently a building that sways. We found a building that we thought might be it but it didn’t do anything special.

Crossing the river, we headed up to the Prague Eiffel Tower ripoff. We grabbed a furnicular rather than walking and this was lucky since the tower has to be climbed by stairs. Not as high as the real thing but if it’s any indication I wouldn’t want to try it.

Taking our time, we descended the hill through some interesting back streets and found another small restaurant which was as cheap as others. I had a spicy tomato tortellini and Justine had gnocchi with spinach.

We grabbed a 2 litre mineral water from the supermarket for 3Kc (20 cents!) as well as other junk and headed back to our hotel.

P.S. Up to 4,952 photos now. Today also marks two years with my 350D and I have taken 18,621 photos with it in that time.

After almost eighteen months, I have finally achieved a small personal goal of mine — to clock over the image counter on my camera. That’s right, the image numbers have switched from being high numbers, near the tens of thousands, to being small numbers in the low tens.

I did it while taking promotional photos for Chris’ new album that he’s trying to get “out there” (the photo on the triple J Unearthed website isn’t mind). Luckily, photo 9999 actually turned out rather well — not the best of the bunch, but more than acceptable. Speaking of taking those photos, we managed to get a reasonable number of different promotional shots, and even managed to design what I think is a pretty decent album cover.

Well it’s been exactly one year since I got my grubby mitts on my Canon EOS 350D camera, and just over 5 years 4 months since I bought my Kodak DC4800. In the time I regularly used my DC4800, which was around 4 years, I took around 4,600 photos.

Since having my camera I have taken 7,014 photos, which is about 19 photos per day. Obviously not all of those are good; in fact there is a low percentage of “good” photos, but it’s obvious that I’m getting a lot more use out of this camera than the Kodak one.

Given the higher cost of the camera, lenses and other accessories, the Kodak camera still cost me less per photo than the Canon one, but since the Canon one is still in use it should cross over and start being cheaper per shot rather soon… unless I buy more bits.

Here’s to another great year with my beloved DSLR. Don’t forget to check out the photoblog!

Well I’ve got it home and played with it a bit. I am a bit disappointed with the kit lens’ zoom capabilities and not-as-large-as-I’d-like aperture. However, I was planning on buying others anyway, so it’s just more of an incentive to get them sooner rather than later.

The 1GB Ultra II CompactFlash card is quite fast enough, though. I tested it out by taking as many photos as I could at random stuff, it met the test without any major issues. While it may not be good enough for sports photography, it seems fine for me.

The higher ISO speeds seem to be very useful thus far, and — without having thorougly inspected the shots — there doesn’t appear to be much distracting noise. Very useful for shots with less light!

Autofocus is quite good, only a few times it’s failed me. Although I like manual focus, the automatic focus does a pretty good job of picking up the same things I’m trying to focus on.

While it’s fine for taking photos, RAW mode is a bit of a hassle with taking photos, as is getting the photos from the camera without using Canon’s software (I prefer to plug the camera in, and have it copy all the photos across to a folder with today’s date), but I’ll get used to it.

Overall I’m glad I bought the camera, but know I won’t see it’s full potential until I buy a slightly better lens (and I don’t know if the either the Sigma 18-125mm or 18-200mm I was planning on buying will suffice, due to their slower apertures when zoomed — fine in daylight though, I’d say) and also get used to the camera, which I know will take a bit of doing.