Tag: Photography

Using RAW format on my camera

I know this might come as a shock to some of you… but up until now I’ve hardly ever used RAW format on my camera. Laziness I suppose to discover the hidden joys of what RAW format has to offer.

I saw an excellent tutorial on TWIP Photo that made me look in to this again. Like all of these things unless you use a feature or application you quickly forget how to use it. That to a certain extent was my problem… hence only using JPG for ages!!

Anyway I’ve reset the camera to take RAW + Medium size fine resolution JPG’s and with a 2 Gb card that gives me about 170 photos, enough for most days… Medium size is still higher resolution than I tend to use anyway, or if I need higher I can use RAW anyway…

I’ve also updated my Canon Software that lets me fine tune the RAW format files and get the best out of them.

Everything must go……

Well not quite!

So we have been cracking on with selling things on Ebay.

I’ve managed to sell my Olympus OM30 and all the lens’s and accessories, I got quite a reasonable price for it all in the end. I have also donated my old Praktica gear to a school in Malvern via a contact at work. So I’m down to just my EOS30 and EOS20D now, but still two camera bags… my earlier LowePro Mini Treker is on loan to my next door neighbour for him to use on a long trip to Oz in November for his camera and video camera.

I’ve also got rid of some old computer stuff that has been gathering dust in cupboards and the like.

One new thing I have recently bought though is a 2.5″ Hard Disk Enclosure which has a built in card reader, I added a salvaged 40GB HD to it and it’s a useful back up for my pics when out and about and as an external USB2 drive when at home.

The case came from Storage Depot [link] and the case is this one: [link] You can’t view your pictures on the built in screen, but that’s the only disadvantage I’ve found so far. It charges via the USB lead, although it also came with a plug in charger as well.

Photography Update

I’ve recently bought a new camera bag a Lowepro Orion AW beltpack/backpack which I’ve found works very well. It’s in place of my Lowepro Minitrekker, which is a great bag, but I tended to put too many things in it and overloaded my back!!

This evening I was sorting through my things and wondered… what would it be like to go back to using film again… has any one tried? I have two very good film cameras an OM30 and an EOS30.

The OM30 is both small and light for an SLR, I bought it second hand over 20 years ago now, I don’t think I’ve put a film through it in over 5 or 6 years. The EOS30 is a lot newer of course and I used it up until I got my 20D, but likewise it’s remained unused since going digital…

So I might sent myself a challenge by putting a film through one of my old cameras and see how things turn out… have I lost the touch!

The other thing that I noticed that, with a fixed lens on the OM30 how bright the viewfinder image is!! With a lot of us using zoom lens these days with their restricted apertures, we forget what it is like to use a fixed focal length lens.