Canon EOS 7D

I have been using a Canon EOS 20D for some years. A very good camera but it's starting to get old. I considered to upgrade to a 50D last year, but it was not that many new features, just a lot of megapixels that I really don't need.

A couple of days ago I was able to borrow a Canon EOS 7D. What a camera!! The biggest surprise was the viewfinder. It's huge and it's very easy to read the information below the photo, even when wearing glasses. The autofocus was incredibly fast when using my Canon EF-S 17-55/2.8 IS USM lens. Even in low light there was no "hunting" and the focus was spot on.

I took some indoor phots without flash at ISO 6400. They became grainy but still usable. In my opinion better than the old 20D at ISO 3200. However, this is my subjective opinion and I have not done any direct comparisons.

The photos I took (JPEG only) seemed very good. Even at 100% pixel peeping the images was sharp. Exposure seemed very good and the camera handled combinations of shadow and sunny areas well. Lost of details in the shadows without burning out the sunny areas. How good it's really is is difficult to evaluate using JPEG, but I have no raw converter that handles the 7D raw format (yet).

The Canon EOS 7D can also make HD quality videos. I didn't test this because I'm not very interested in this feature, but I've seen som examples and it's impressing.

So what is bad? I couldn't really find anything bad about this camera, but not everything is perfect. I don't think it fits my hand the same way as the 20D. There is something "odd" about the grip. Another "problem" is the files it produces. A typical RAW file is 25MB. When taking thousands photos each year those require a lot of disk space. Fortunately disk space has become cheap. The 7D also has a 10.2 MP raw mode which should be sufficient for most applications.

I'm really impressed with this camera. It's expensive, but I think it's worth the money and I'm pretty sure I will end up buying one.

A surprisingly good lens

I've been using a Tamron SP 24-135 as my main lens for some time now. This is a nice lens, some people claims the optical quality is comparable to some of Canons L lenses. DOn't know if this is true, but I'm pretty happy with it. However, I think 24mm is a bit too narrow and have been looking for something wider. Some time ago, I read about the new Tamron 18-250/3.5-6.3. My first reaction was; this must be a piece of crap. A 14x zoom can't possibly be any good. However, I found some pretty good reviews, so I wanted to give it a try. I went to the local photo store and asked if I could try it. Took some photos with it and studied the photos. Wow, this wasn't too bad. So I decided to buy it. I have now taken about 500 pictures with this lens and I'm pretty surprised how good it is. Great as a holiday lens. It's pretty sharp through the whole zoom range. Autofocus works very well, faster than some lenses I got, but slower than Canon's USM lenses. Maximum apperture at 6.3 in the long end sets it's limitations when the light isn't too good. There is a little barrel distortion at 18mm, but on most photos you will not notice this.

What impresses me most is the versiability of this lens. Being able to go from 18 to 250 mm without changing lens is incredible. This year I will I will bring just this lens on my vacation in stead of the usual bag full of lenses.

About the photos: Both photos are taken from the exact same spot. You can see the monument in the upper photo, but it's not easy. The photos do not reflect the original quality before uploading to the web.

GPS Data Logger

As an eager Geocacher, I've been the owner of several GPS Receivers over the last years. The last year I've been using a Garmin GPSMAP 60 CSx. In my opinion a very good GPSr with the SIRF-III chipset. I can receive the satellite signal in places where other GPSr give up. However, it's rather bulky and not very convenient to carry all the time.
Some months ago I read about a GPS Data Logger, the GlobalSat DG-100. The only thing it does is to log your position at certain intervals. It has room for 60,000 positions before you have to connect to your computer and download the positions. It's really a simple and compact device. It runs on a couple of AA batteries (two re-chargeable are supplied with the device) and it charges from your computers USB port. The only bad thing about this device is the software. It's not much good, but it's simple and once you learn your way around it, it's easy to download the coordinates.
The DG-100 now lives in my camera bag. Whereever I go with my camera, it goes with me. I uses the PixGPS Photo Geotagger to match the GPX track files from the GlobalSat DG-100 with the EXIF information in the photos. The information is stored in the EXIF meta data of the photo for future reference and I can plot the location of each photo on a map, for example Google Earth.

Photo Exif Geotagger

I'm sorry it's been so long since the last update. Hope not all my readers have left me. It has been very busy lately because I've been working hard to finally finish the Photo Geotaggers software I've been working on for some time. At the same time I've also been working on then new PixFiler version 5.1 which also is beginning to become stable.

The Photo Geotagger, named PixGPS, has now been released as a beta (test version) and you can download a trial copy. What you need to use this is a GPS Receiver with tracking capabilities and a digital camera that stores EXIF (most do). The PixGPS software will compare the timestamps in the GPS track log with the timestamp in EXIF in your photo and calculate the exact latitude and longitude for the photo. This information will be stored as GPS-EXIF according to the EXIF standard. PixGPS Geotagger can also exsport the positions as CSV or KML files. This allows you to view the locations on your photos in other software, for example Google Earth.

I've been using the software myself for for some weeks now while testing it and I find it useful. I especially think it's nice to be able to view the locations for each photo in Google Earth. I think a lot of software will offer support for GPS data embedded in the EXIF meta data in the future so it will be more and more useful to have the GPS information there.

A really BIG lens

Sigma has recently introduced a new tele zoom. It's a 200-500/2.8 !! This one is really huge and very heavy. Wonder who the customers for such a lens are? From what I've heard, the weight of this lens is 15kg/30 pound. I think it's too heavy for sports photography. It would be great for wildlife photography, but who is going to drag this monster into the woods? You will also need a rather sturdy tripod. This will probably be at least as heavy as the lens. Well, at least Sigma has got a lot of press coverage. You can read more about it at: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0703/07030805sigma200500mm.asp

Backup? What backup?

I'm really surprised how many don't backup of their data frequently. Not even their photos. Don't they realize there are two kinds of disks: Those who have crashed and those who will crash. And making backups have really become easy. Those external disks you just plug into the USB port on your computer are a inexpensive and easy way to backup.

I use two of these USB disks for backing up my photos. One disk is always connected to my computer. I have software that automatically synchronises with the photos on the hard disk. The other USB disk is stored in a safe place (a bank deposit box). Once a month I swap these disks. So worst case, I may loose one month of photos if the house burns down.

Many uses CDs or DVDs for backup of photos. If you do, make sure to use high quality CDs. Some of the cheaper CDs will deteriorate over time and in a few years they are unreadable. I have experienced this myself with CDs that were just 4 years old. A good idea is to backup all photos to at least two CDs.

Fake Anti-SpyWare

The Internet can be a dangerous place, at least for your money. There are lots of crooks that want a piece of your hard earned cash. Just heard about a scam the other day that I thought you should know about.

I'm sure most of you know that your computer can come infected with spyware when you surf on the Net. Because of this, most of us have anti-spyware software installed that removes any spyware from your computer. But, some of this software does not always do what it says. It seems to scan your hard disk as all anti-spyware software does. This is free. The software will always report that you have spyware on your computer. To activate the spyware removal, you have to register (pay for) the software. The software then 'removes' the spyware and everything seems well. The only thing that really happens is that it stops displaying the warning. This program really doesn't anything other than displaying a fake spyware warning and stops showing this when you've paid.

There are a huge amount of such programs out there. You can find a list and more information at http://spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm