Fast cars! Drones! Astrophotography! The Thames!

One evening the skies miraculously cleared, so I took the camera with the biggest lens I've got and star tracker down to the local park. After the usual faff of aligning with Polaris, it was rotated to a suitable target and the camera set taking a couple hundred of shots.

That left a long time hanging around, looking at the stars, listening to traffic and dog walkers fail to control their pets.

Then there was this light, out on the Thames, slowly gliding up-river. It was followed by the familiar whine of a drone. So I left my camera doing its thing and rushed to the bank to see what was going on. 

I had time to snap the above, which didn't tell me much, apart from the need to go Google "Eletre", which I did. And up popped this video, which did indeed show a glowing box with Eletre on the side gliding up and down the Thames. It was the latest electric vehicle from Lotus:

Very cool!

It and the drone was last seen heading under Putney Bridge so I returned to my camera, and this was the resulting image:

An interesting evening

Photography Post: Going Full Frame

I've just checked outside to see if I can see any flying pigs or the Loch Ness monster swimming up the Thames, for the long rumoured, near-mythical Sony A7Siii has finally been launched.

There have been so many years of speculation about it that some abandoned all hope of ever seeing this video focused full-frame camera. And yet here it is. 

Sony is saying it "Exceeds Expectations" but I thought that was a Harry Potter thing.

Canon have also released their R5 and R6, so its time for another photography post, this time about moving up to full-frame myself. My last post on the subject ended with this:

Maybe one day I'll go full frame, but don't feel you have to. Focus on composition and think about what lenses you need.

Later that year I thought I ought to at least find out what I was missing, so decided to rent out a Sony A7iii and 24-105 f/4 lens for the weekend. 

It was a good weekend to choose, as manage to fit in:

• Trooping the colour (below, maybe the last time we'll see these ex-Royals in a Royal coach)
• Hot air balloons over London
• Dale Chihuly's glass sculptures at Kew Gardens

And I was rather impressed. Images were noticeably sharper than the APSC equivalent.

The hire shop (Wex Photo Video) had this deal by which if you later bought the gear, they'd refund the hire cost, and so I splashed out and bought that camera and lens. I rounded out my gear collection with two primes including the stunning 24mm f1.4.

Since then I've taken it on my travels (how very 2019) and even lugged it up Mount Sinai to watch the sunrise (where I became very aware how much heavier it was):

But I don't always take the A7iii. Recently I cycled into central London and took the A6500 as it was a lot more convenient - smaller and lighter. However its good to have the option of switching to the main camera when want to take the best possible photo. 

One benefit about the Sony system is that the full frame A7x and smaller APSC A6xxx use the same E-mount for their lenses, so you can easily switch between the two. In particular, putting a long zoom lens like the 70-300mm on the APSC A6500 effectively extends its reach so it acts like a 105 - 450mm lens.

Not that I'm tempted to get the A7Siii as I'm more a still photographer than videographer, though there are some lenses I have my eyes on.

But I'm not spending just yet. I tend to buy when I have a reason - such as an interesting trip - but because of covid-19 there doesn't seem much chance of that this year.

Maybe in 2021 - though who knows what tech will be available then!

Photography Blog: A6500, GoPro 5 and DJI Osmo Pocket 4k comparison

Following on from the blog post "Do you need full frame?" here is a short video of a bike ride in Richmond Park on New Year's Day that gives a comparison of the output from three cameras.

It was made using the Sony A6500 (with 18-135 lens), head mounted Go Pro 5 and the DJI Osmo Pocket, and hopefully you can see the difference. The most stark is between the A6500 and Osmo Pocket, particularly when videoing wildlife like deer where you can see much more detail on the APSC camera.

The Osmo Pocket shows the deer fur as being a bit mushy, without much detail, but despite that it can be used to tell the story of walking towards the herd.

Partly the difference is sensor size, partly lens and partly better processing (i.e. higher data rate capture)

Photography Blog: Do you need Full Frame?

The Bursledon Blog had a post about cameras and how much the tech is required which interested me as it's a topic I've been thinking about. In particular, the long debated question "do you need full frame?".

This question relates to sensor size which relates to how big a camera is and a whole host of other factors. Basically, the order is:

• Full frame 36 x 24mm 
• APSC 24 x 16mm e.g. my Sony A6xxx series, shown above
• 4/3rds 17 x 13 mm
• 1 inch 13 x 9 mm e.g. my Sony RX100m4
• 1/2.3 inch e.g. my GoPro 5 Black, Mavic Pro drone
• 1/2.6 inch 5.5mm x 4.1mm e.g. my Pixel 2 phone

There is a school of thought that to be a true photographer you have to use full frame and only noobs and amateurs use anything else. But is that right?

As always, the answer it that it depends, most importantly, on what sort of photography you do, and is strongly connected to the choice of lens.

Many years ago I did a camera comparison and Tillerman commented all the photos looked very similar, which is a good point. For scenes such as these, well lit, using medium aperture and results displayed on small sizes on a screen, there is very little difference and so you don't need full frame.

However there are times when this is not true, such as:

• if you want shallow depth of field and use lenses with large aperture, then full frame is better (e.g. for portraits)
• if you want to take photos and videos in low light, then larger sensor (again, with suitable lens) is better

But how often is that the case for you? With me its not that often, as I get sufficiently shallow depth of field for portraits with my APSC camera if use longer focal length and/or shoot wide open. Also, these tend to be family photos, so the moment and expression are most important, not technical details.

That's an important point: very often its composition that is key, not technical details for pixel peepers. On one of my Greenland trips, someone was just taking photos on his phone and they were great - but he was a film director, used to thinking about composition and using what he had.

The APSC camera is usually, but not always, ok with low light scenes. Sometimes you can get away using a tripod, other times there is actually enough light (e.g. London at night isn't that dark). But there are shots my A6500 can't handle - such as I tried to take a video of us sailing off Morocco under moonlight, and the noise & lack of dynamic range were disappointing.

However that's rare, and there's another consideration, which is weight and size. I take pictures for fun, often while travelling, and there is a significant difference in weight between full frame and APSC. On another Greenland trip I was there with my A6300 and someone else had the full frame Canon 5Dm3. In a battle on features the A6300 would win on all counts apart from sensor size and yet was literally half the size and weight, which to me is an important factor.

And if you're going to crop, e.g. for wildlife photography, you might as well go APSC to start with.

If you're a professional photographer then maybe you'd take what is required because its a job, but I was off travelling for fun, and that fun is a lot less if you're carrying many kilos of weight you don't need most of the time.

There's a saying that the best camera is the one you have with you: yes, the APSC camera might struggle with some shots but if the full frame is so large you leave it at home, you might actually get more shots using a smaller sensor camera as you'd actually bring it.

Then there are specialised niches, such as action cameras. Yes, you could strap a full frame camera to you head and take videos of you zooming down mountains, but its much more sensible to use a GoPro even if its sensor is smaller.

Similarly you might want a stabilised camera, using (say) a gimbal. These are what professionals use to get the butter smooth flowing shots, but that all adds weight. Say you have a full frame camera, good lens & gimbal - that might be 2 - 3 kg in total. Plus you'd need other stuff like ND filters, batteries, external mics, recorders etc etc. Yes the results might look great, but I'd never travel with it.

Instead what I've recently got is the DJI Osmo Pocket, small enough to take anywhere and weighing only 118 grams. Ok, the image isn't brilliant but what matters is story telling and the best camera is the one you have on you, and you can take this anywhere.

So there's not simple answer: it depends on what sort of photography you do.

Maybe one day I'll go full frame, but don't feel you have to. Focus on composition and think about what lenses you need.

Drone video of the Bosham Classic Boat Revival 2018

In Svalbard my drone went a bit wonky. The gimbal, which controls the camera, started leaning to one side, as if it was a bit hung-over and wanted to rest its head on its shoulder, and then the footage got this weird jello effect.

If it had been Buff I would have suspect an excess of Delos moonshine but in this case the culprit (according to Google) could have been lack of ND filters, cold, wind, wrong firmware, broken gimbal.... or a whole host of other problems.

A broken drone would have to be dispatched to DJI repair shop asap so it was important to find out if this was high latitude sickness or mechanical fault. I therefore decided it was necessary to take it for a trial flight... but where?

I studied Google Earth, crossing referencing potential locations against the No Fly Drones web site (that says where its safe to fly) and plumped for Bosham. I'd never visited but it looked like there'd be boats and not many trees to fly into (as have done in the past).

It was a lovely day when headed out of London down to the coast and - oh boy - Bosham is so pretty!! Even better, there were lots of nice dinghies sailing around, just right for a bit of drone practice.

It turned out to be the Bosham Classic Boat Revival 2018 as described on their web site here and in Yachts and Yachting here.

So I flew the drone and took some video, hoping the organisers didn't mind too much.

And it looked fantastic.

Camera Tech Update

Nikon new full frame mirrorless! Canon new full frame mirrorless! Fujifilm new APSC mirrorless! Expected Panasonic new full frame mirrorless!!

Oh gosh, must be time for another photo tech blog (will get back to Svalbard shortly).

The photographic world has changed since the last photography tech blog post, going from when:

• the key battle was between DSLRs (Canon vs Nikon)
• to the key battle was between DSLR (Canon & Nikon) vs mirrorless (Sony)
• to now, where its between mirrorless systems (Canon vs Nikon vs Sony vs ...)

As someone who has been mirrorless since the 2013 trip to Greenland I certainly welcome these new developments and greater competition.

I sometimes see YouTube videos on the lines of "what's in my camera bag?" Well I don't have a bag or single setup as it depends what I'm doing but these are some typical configurations. That's the thing about interchangeable lens cameras, you can pick the configuration you want for a given situation. So here are a couple of configurations...

First up there's the basic walkaround setup which is Sony A6500 + the 16-70 F4 zoom:

This covers the main zoom range, reasonable aperture and weight. For the Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race I switched to the slightly longer zoom range of the 18 - 135 lens together with external microphone (and dead cat) as in:

This is pretty flexible setup for both stills and video, able to record 4K with audio and wide range of focal lengths in a relatively small package weighing around 900 grams. However the aperture range isn't not great, particularly at the long end of the zoom.

The A6500 has pretty good sensor able to produce images and video in most conditions but in low light I tend to switch to primes. For wandering the old town of city like Geneva at night, a favourite pair of mine is the 16mm/f2.8 and 30mm/f1.8 as they fit in two coat pockets so there's no need of a rucksack:

If I was taking just the one prime lens it would be neither of these but the lovely 24mm f1/8. The A6500 + 24F18 won't be as good as (say) the A7SII but then few cameras are. For Morocco took the 24mm for night time video and the 18-135mm for everything else.

While these configs are pretty lightweight compared to others (e.g. Canon/Nikon DSLRs or Fuji APSC mirrorless) there are times when something even smaller is required. For example gigs where interchangeable lens cameras are "professional" and hence banned, I use the pocket sized Sony RX100mIV:

It's pretty good 4K for something so small though of course the sensor size means that it won't be as good in low light as the larger A6500 (and note the sensor stabilisation is a lot better in HD mode than 4K).

For Morocco I took the RX100 and the A6500 as part of a two cameras / two lenses approach. The RX100 was good for street photography where the A6500 can be more intrusive. As noted, for the A6500 had the 18-135 zoom and 24mm prime lens pair.

The two camera / two lens approach was also used in Svalbard, where the two cameras were the A6500 and DJI Mavic Pro drone and the two lenses were again the general purpose 18-135 mm and a 70-300 mm zoom for wildlife.

All cameras are compromises: mine is driven by wish to keep size and weight down while maintaining quality and features. As noted in an earlier post there are also things I'd like to see improved in the Sony APSC camera range.

Fingers crossed for something new also coming from Sony...

Photography update: A6500 with dead cat and Sony's A9 game changer

Time for another of the occasionally blog posts on photography and after recent mention of a dead cat I thought I show you what mine looks like.

Above is my Sony A6500 (upgraded from the A6300 & A6000) with external microphone attached and its wind muffler aka a dead cat when sailing on the the tall ship Zephyr a couple of weekends ago.

It seemed as good as excuse as any to mention the launch of Sony's A9, very much the big brother of the A6500. For those that don't haunt the photography blogs and vlogs, this has led to phrases like game changer being used a lot, but with good reason.

Up to the A9 there were many asking of mirrorless cameras (like both the A6500 and A9) why not get a DSLR with its mirror and mechanical shutter. After the A9 the question it seems fair to reverse the question: why would you want to have a mirror?

The A9 can take full frame images faster than a DSLR thanks to on-chip memory that can pipe data off the sensor using a fully electronic shutter: no noise, shake or rolling shutter. And the view finder updates with no blanks, unlike DSLR that goes dark as the mirror flips up and down.

With a mirrorless camera you can do a whole host of additional features from video (*), silent shooting, focus peaking, zebraing, continuous EVF, touch to focus etc.... You get to see the image as it will be taken before you take the photo, complete with histogram, so have to chimp less.

And cameras can be smaller and lighter: the A6500 above fits in the palm of my hand but is a complete 4K video setup with in-body stabilisation (**), monster burst rate, low noise night time shooting...

Of course requirements differ and there are a couple of things that Sony need to work on for the A6500ii or whatever they call it:

• Screen that flips round
• Extra control dial(s)
• 16-50 F2.8 APSC zoom
• A long APSC zoom lens

There is no such thing as a perfect camera, but Sony are doing some really interesting things at the moment: disruptive and innovative.



(*) ok, you can do video with a DSLR, but you have to lock the mirror up. So it effectively is a mirrorless camera with a bit of weight hanging around.

(**) ok, it might not of looked it from the video posted earlier, but that's my fault.

dpreview makes a Greenland style kayak

Regular readers will know I have a side interest in photography and one of the sites I keep track of is dpreview.

To test the video features of the new Canon EOS 80D they chose to show it in action while the presenter did something interesting, in this case make from scratch a Greenland style skin on frame kayak. Previously they'd tested the Sony A6300 by making a video about making local nettle beer.

While not tempted by the Canon (as posted earlier I can't see the point of the mirror and associated weight) that kayak does look tempting.

Alas Seattle isn't exactly on London's tube network, but its a great idea.

Sony A6000 + tinfoil = pinhole camera

The BBC posted some pictures taken using pinhole cameras, and it being a three day weekend in the UK I decided that would be a good project to try out.

So I took the lens off my Sony A6000 and replaced it with some tin-foil taped to the camera body. I then got the finest needle I could find and pierced the foil in the centre. Then I altered the settings to allow photos to be taken without a recognised lens being attached.

The first pictures were disappointing:

Very wide angle and very blurry (note have also used a sepia tone filter).

The problem is that the hole has to be very small, particularly if pinhole is close to the sensor, as noted in this Wikipedia article, so maybe further away would be better?

Therefore I attached the Commlite adapter to increase the distance from pinhole to sensor, cut a square of fresh tinfoil (top photo) and tried again. The results were indeed better:

Still not that sharp, but I guess that's why we uses lenses!

However it was an interesting effect and experiment to try out.

Best Camera 2016 Update

I try where ever possible to use my own photographs for this blog and its no burden but rather a lot of fun trying to take the best possible picture.

Previously I ran a set of posts comparing three cameras: the Canon 550D SLR, the mirrorless Sony NEX 6 and the waterproof Olympus Tough TG-1. Since then I've upgraded one camera - but which one and why?

The new camera is a Sony A6000 and with it I've also bought some E-mount lenses and sold on eBay a couple of Canon ones as part of a transition to mirrorless.

The comparison posts were back in 2013 and in the two years that followed I found that more and more I'd take the NEX 6 as it is as powerful as the 550D but much lighter. I can't see the point of the mirror any more: it just adds weight.

SLR bodies are larger and heavier, as are their lenses, which means tripods (needed for long exposure pics like that of Kew Gardens above) must be heavier and if you're heading off to interesting places like Greenland (below) all that weight and volume is bad.

There is one application where the 550D still is a bit better - sports photography, as there isn't really an equivalent long lens for the E-mount system, as used for these types of pictures:

But when that lens does come (E-mount not FE, please, as full frame is also too big for me) it's fair to say the Canon + kit + 70-300mm lens will be up on eBay - if only to pay for the new Sony lens!

I've been really impressed with the A6000. It is now nearly 2 years old so there are some good deals out there, in particular if the long rumoured replacement does finally get released in the spring. Focusing is quick and its got all the flexibility in setting ISO / aperture / exposure etc. of an SLR.

There are some really nice fast prime lenses available, such as the f1.8 35mm (50mm equivalent) where the camera plus lens together weighs just under 500g and which produce lovely sharp images like this one:

The 16mm lens is even lighter and when on the A6000 the combination is small enough to slip into a coat pocket to be taken (say) to Canterbury Cathedral on Christmas day:

You might recognise this photo of another "cathedral" taken with the same lens though using the older NEX-6 body:

With Nikon and Canon focusing on SLRs, the mirrorless market is up for grabs and the Sony's A7 range (in particular the A7RII) have shown that you don't need a mirror to have a world-beating camera for professionals.

So I feel pretty safe buying into their E-mount system and happy with the results:

Note of course that this is what works for me and each photographer has their own needs.

It would be good if O'Docker were still commenting - it would be great to hear what he thought of all this!

What's your background picture?

I, like so many, spend far too long in front of a computer screen.

No longer do we need screen savers to protect our bulky CRT but virtual desktops can easily be customised with a background picture.

Mine is shown above, a golden sunset over the east coast of Greenland. If you look closely you can see icebergs floating down from the north.

So what is your background picture? Is it a favourite view? A beloved boat?

Post and tell!

The uses of duct tape

Duct tape is wonderful and one of the sailor's most versatile tools.

Tillerman is so keen on it he is thinking about making a boat with it and giving it (either the boat or just lots and lots of duct tape) to his granddaughter for her birthday.

It has also been holding together the back of my iPhone for a couple of months after I found out that dropping it while out for a run was a bad idea. But even duct tape will only last so long.

There really was a reason for upgrading to that Nexus 5 Chris! (*)




(*) Not that I'm saying that this was a good reason. I could have applied another coating of duct tape. But I was well past the upgrade time.

Best Camera Awards

So my awards are:

BEST CAMERA for PHOTOGRAPHERS: Canon 550D

BEST CAMERA for WATER SPORTS: Olympus Tough TG-1

BEST CAMERA for TRAVEL: Sony NEX-6

BEST CAMERA for SPONTANEITY: whatever you have with you, which for me is is most likely for me my iPhone Nexus 5

Rather spookily that's similar to what Tillerman was suggesting in his comments yesterday. But which is the best overall? Well even more spookily, that would be what O'Docker said.

I'm pretty convinced in terms of picture quality the order is:
1) Canon 550D
2) Sony Nex-6
3) Olympus Tough TG-1

However at the same time the order in terms of lightest to heaviest is:
1) Olympus Tough TG-1
2) Sony Nex-6
3) Canon 550D

In terms of weight the Olympus and Sony are close and in terms of picture quality the Canon 550 and Sony are close together.

So the Sony Nex-6 does seem to be a great balance between picture quality, features and weight.

My take away thought from this process is that the Sony Nex-6 should be able to do almost everything that the DSLR can, and there are features such as setting the exposure time, focus selection (as per O'Docker's comments) use of RAW images etc that I ought learn how to do without each time struggling with the UI.

As I posted yesterday, reading the instruction guide is a must for today's feature packed cameras, particularly if you want to do anything more than point and shoot.

Finally, to misquote Jane Eyre: reader, I bought the Sony Nex-6, and I'm very happy with it.

BEST CAMERA OVERALL: Sony NEX-6

(but read the manual)

What makes a good camera - and how to make yours better

In the last blog I posted three sets of pictures from three cameras, the Canon 550D, the Sony Nex-6 and the Olympus Tough TG-1, and Tillerman commented that in terms of blogging there didn't seem to be much of a difference.

It was a good point: there were some minor differences in that the resolution on the Canon (if you zoomed in) was a little better and it's colour was more accurate (the sky colour should say cold & November).

The problem was that none of the images challenged any of the cameras, so all were effectively ok.

But what about more difficult conditions? Alas I haven't more interesting scenes taken with all three but here's some examples of what I think they'd show.

Firstly above is Hammersmith Bridge at night taken from the Thames on the Olympus Tough TG-1. I had so many problems getting the camera to focus and zoom and was twirling round and round in the kayak struggling with settings and in the end it was out of focus and noisy.

Compare that to the scene below taken with the Sony Nex-6 in Geneva:

Despite being taken by hand on a whim it is sharp, in-focus and just as hoped.

This camera has a larger sensor than the Olympus and so there are more photons per pixel and better noise reduction - which means better night images.

So to take more challenging pictures you need a camera with more functions and abilities.

However there's no point having all those bells and whistles if it takes so long to configure each shot that by the time you are ready the moment has gone.

For the sailing photography course with Rick Tomlinson the key instructions were to set the exposure time to 1/1000th of a second and then watch, to be ready to pounce on the flighty image.

And the Canon 550D was ideal for that, as it was quick to zoom, focus and snap, capture the image:

I'm happy with this: the spray has been caught in mid-air, along with the action of the crew and foredecker reaching for the spinnaker pole.

At the other end of the time scale the Canon be set for exposures of 2.5 seconds and capture this celebration of the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes night:

So, yes, a basic camera will have no problem with most images but there's likely to be a time you'll reach its limits, while a more capable camera would have been able to take the shot.

But there's no point having the feature if it takes so long to activate that you miss out: user interfaces really do matter.

However, and this gets to the most important point, there's no point having a camera that can do fancy things if you don't know that it can.

My top tip is this: you can make your existing camera better without spending a dollar if you:

READ THE MANUAL!!!

Then of course go out there and play.

Over on Windtraverler Brittany has been having some fun with the Dramatic settings on her Olympus camera. Apparently mine has that too - who knew? Well I guess if I'd read the manual I would have.

And if I'd read the Sony Nex-6 manual I would have known how to set the focus to manual when in the helicopter in Greenland.

Doh!

But yes, some cameras really are better than others.

So, drum roll please, the JP's best camera awards go to.....

TO BE CONTINUED...

Image comparison Canon 550D vs. Sony NEX 6 vs. Olympus Tough TG-1

So here are three photos from Putney with each of the Canon 550D, Sony Nex 6 and Olympus Tough TG-1

Canon 550D:

Sony NEX 6:

Olympus Tough TG-1

Camera Review: Olympus Tough TG-1

This camera is marketed as being both waterproof and shockproof and in Greenland I was to test both of these and it passed with flying colours.

This really is a camera you can take when out on the water and not worry about what would happen should you go swimming, either intentionally or unintentionally, let alone the odd wave or spay.

It's a compact unit which you can stuff into a small pocket and not notice the weight or mass.

But you won't be surprised to learn that the picture quality suffers accordingly. Detail is blurred, either out of focus or noisy, and low light images are particularly bad. There's also a ring around the lens which keeps popping off which is apparently to allow attachments (e.g. a zoom lens or fish eye) but is all too likely to fall off at just  the wrong time.

Zooming in and out is via two buttons which feels slow compared to a DSLR's quick lens twist.

It's basically a fun camera for the beach, one you can take what ever sport you do and be sure that it will take ok photos, particularly in bright sunlight.

The battery was the weakest of the three, and on several kayak trips it reported battery flat somewhere on the return leg.

Camera Review: Sony NEX-6

I took two cameras to Greenland, and one of the them was the Sony NEX-6.

The idea behind the NEX-6 is to have all the power of a DSLR built around a similar large sensor but in a smaller, lighter package.

There's no mirror which means no optical viewfinder, but instead it includes an electronic viewfinder, which worked well enough. Even in bright sunlight when the screen on the back was all washed out I could still frame the scene, though often I had to shield my eyes a bit.

However there were downsides, mostly from the user interface. In the helicopter from Tasiilaq to Kusulak the auto-focus kept locking on the control panel inside rather than the landscape outside. I wanted to switch to manual focus but spent ages mucking around without success.

As it happened it had been pre-set so that the Fn button had been mapped to the focus options, but even then you have to hit Fn, scroll to the option you want on the screen, then hit select. It's just a bit more a palaver to do anything - and its the same for setting the flash to be on / off / auto / fill / slow-sync etc.

Changing ISO is only sometimes possible and the manual options are slightly less flexible. Colour reproduction was a bit off compared to the DLSR.

But overall in terms of features & photo quality versus weight it was pretty good. Battery life wasn't quite as good as the Canon 550D, which could be because the capacity was smaller or the electronics were trying to do more (e.g. keep that screen lit up).

Two problems were my own fault: firstly I purchased it just before leaving so didn't really know my way around and rule #1 for new owners of a camera should be to spend time learning how to use it.

Secondly I only bought the one lens which was ok for landscapes but its zoom end was really limited and the moment I saw that polar bear I knew I'd made a mistake. With hindsight I should have ordered the twin lens kit with the beautiful 200 mm lens (above).

But in general I was pretty pleased and I can see how it won the T3 camera of year award.

Camera Review: Canon EOS 550D

I love this camera. It feels great in your hand: rock solid with controls just where they should be and the pictures are gems.

You want to switch from auto to manual focus? The switch is on the lens.

You want to change the ISO? There's a button labelled ISO.

You want to set the exposure to 1/1000 of a second but get the camera to do the rest? One flick of the top dial to TV.

You want to set all the settings manually? Select M-mode and play away.

You want to zoom? Its a quick and intuitive twist of the lens

Battery that lasts several days, vast range of lenses to chose from, optical viewfinder, quick focusing, good colour reproduction.... the benefits go on and on.

DSLRs just are the best tools for the photographer.

BUT - there is a reason I didn't take it to Greenland, for there is one unavoidable downside: the weight.

The camera body plus two lenses (above) weighs 1.9 kg, and after lugging that collection around Australia and China I'd had enough. It had to stay behind.

So what did I take to Greenland and why?

Which Camera?

I own three cameras as shown in the photo above (which was taken by my new Nexus 5, so to be accurate I really have four). But which is best?

Of course that depends upon the criteria, so lets do three reviews and then compare their strengths and weaknesses.

Note that I'm more interested in photographs than taking video so the reviews will focus on images even though all are able to record in HD.

First up the Canon 550D, then the Sony Nex-6 and finally the Olympus Tough TG-1.

Super Moon

Over the weekend there was the "super moon", which is when it is at perigee (i.e. closest to the Earth) and full at the same time, and I took the opportunity to take this photo.

Of course the moon appears to be up side down....