Tag: canon

Accessories for the Canon EOS Cameras

Zoom telephoto lens

A zoom telephoto lens (up to 200mm) is a common feature of a top lens collection. Even though it is possible to get a great picture with a 24 to 105mm lens, the high focal telephoto lens is a must-have piece of equipment for the photographer taking the landscape photos. The better quality lens includes an image stabilization feature to help avoid issues with camera shake. They are also quite light in weight, which makes them easy to transport when on-the-go.

Memory Cards

A 2GB, 4GB, or 16GB memory card offers the ability to store and look at the picture shortly after taking it. It is simple to upgrade the memory card, but it is necessary to check the write-speed on the camera. This relates to the maximum speed for saving images to the camera. A high-quality image or photos shot in a burst can delay the time it takes to write the photos to the memory card. Also, the brand of card can impact quality and usable storage life. If a memory card seems to be slow to write or you are running out of space, upgrading the card is certain to increase the enjoyment of using the camera and viewing the pictures.

Battery Grip

A battery grip is a simple accessory which makes the camera easier to hold, especially for those with large hands. They offer three main advantages: more battery life, more buttons and another handle. By attaching the battery grip, you include an extra handle making it more comfortable to use and control the camera. Since the battery grips include extra battery life, they are able to extend the usable life of the camera by a significant margin.

Flash

A flash unit helps capture light in low light conditions to increase the potential range of photos. A high-end unit opens up endless opportunities to be more creative in the type of pictures taken and the preferred locations. A wireless flash is designed to illuminate a range of areas. This makes it possible to take photos from a variety of angles and improves the quality of the pictures.

Taking a Snap Shot With Canon EOS

First of all, the main source of power of these cameras is in their lenses. Canon EOS cameras are basically single lens reflex or SLR cameras, which Canon first produced in the late 80s. Since then, the development of these kinds of cameras continued until computerization was integrated with the design. The new Canon cameras today have lenses that range from 12mp to 22mp, which can produce images with clarity.

Aside from this, digital technology also has upgraded the original SLR camera designs produced by Canon, giving birth to the DSLR which is now popularly used by professional photographers. It is this combination of great lenses and technology that makes photos taken by these kinds of cameras so good.

SLR is the acronym for single lens reflex cameras. This basically means that the photographer looks directly through the lens. The person sees what the lens sees, making it possible for accurate and pinpoint photography. SLRs have been the favorite cameras for photographers because of this ability. DSLRs on the other hand are normal SLRs with added digital technology. It incorporates all the advances of computer technology into cameras. This makes everything simple, easy to use and user-friendly. Now people can easily take a normal DSLR, point it at something and quickly take impressive images even without significant knowledge of photography.

Due to the integration of technology, modern DSLR have digital viewfinders to aid photographers in taking the best shots possible. Automatic continuous shooting options and built-in wifi makes instantly uploading recently taken images to social media sites a breeze.

Another feature that makes Canon EOS cameras a rising favorite for many photographers is its ease of use. Unlike traditional cameras- where skill and knowledge in photography is needed to create quality images- EOS cameras automatically adapt their settings to the environment; they allow even novice photographers to capture stunning images.

Its large memory capacity is also an added benefit for avid photographers, especially as it is also capable of increasing its memory through the use of additional memory sticks.

Canon EOS Cameras are mainly focused on Beginners

Simplification of various photographic options shows that Canon gears its products towards amateur photographers. This is because most of their consumers are non-professional photographers who just like to take pictures for memories. Unlike old-fashioned SLR, where it takes a bit of skill and know-how to operate, DSLR cameras simplify it to a few buttons.

Movie Settings for the Canon Eos 1300D or Rebel T6 DSLR

About is file size and frame rate. These things are quite important because they will decide the quality of the videos that you shoot. This camera is pretty good – it’ll shoot 1080p which is full HD and it will also shoot 720p which is standard HD – both of which are perfectly acceptable for social media platforms. In order to make those changes we go again into Video Tab 2 and find Movie Recording Size. If we press on that option then we get four choices. Depending on whether you’ve chosen NTSC or PAL, you maximum rates will be either 60fps or 50fps.

When you’re shooting stills with the Canon 1300D you have lots of choices. They’re all on the Mode Dial and they go from entirely manual to semi-automatic and then to entirely automatic options In most of these Modes the camera is trying to get the best exposure for the stills that you’re shooting within the given parameters that you have presented to it. With movies it’s different. You have two options – you can either shoot Automatic or you can shoot Manual. With Automatic in the movie setting the camera will try to get the best possible exposure for you and in many cases it works very well, so I would suggest that initially at least you shoot in Automatic just to get a feel for how the camera works and you don’t have to worry then about the exposure because the camera will do the best it can for you. However, if you want to go into Manual there are different ways of changing the various parameters for Manual that are different to the way that you would do that for stills. In the Menu, Movie Exposure is in Video Tab 1 and you get the two options, Auto or Manual. If you choose to go into Manual then you have much more control over the settings that you can have. You will see that you have options for setting the Shutter Speed for setting the Aperture and for setting the ISO. For the Shutter Speed, rotate Main Dial. By depressing the AV button here and rotating that Main Dial you can change the Aperture. The ISO is changed by pressing the flash button and rotating the Main Dial.

The Canon 1300D does not have an external microphone socket. It just has an internal microphone, so sound can be a bit limited with this camera. But if you go into Menus and on Shooting Tab 2, the second one down is Sound Recording and you can set that to one of three options. You can have either Auto, Manual or Disabled. I would argue against disabling it entirely because sometimes it’s useful to have sound, even if you don’t intend to use it in the final cut. Auto is not bad but it will try to pick up as much sound as possible and you may not want that – you may not want the ambient sound. Manual is not too bad provided you’re reasonably close to the source of sound. There is a decibel bar going across the bottom and, as with most cameras, the objective is to try to peak on about 12. In terms of its recording in itself it’s actually pretty good, so I wouldn’t be adverse to using the internal microphone, you just have to be a little bit careful.

The next couple of options that we are going to look at are in Video Tab 3 and it may seem that they’re less important than other options, but they do affect the way that your video looks and so they are worth checking out. If we go to Video Tab 3 then at the bottom is the Picture Style option. These are the same options that you get with stills and you can choose to have Vivid or Sepia or many other options and some of them are set so that they bring out the best qualities for portrait and landscape. With video it tends to be better to try and shoot video as flat as possible and so the best option to start with is neutral and so you should always set that to neutral for video until you make the decision that you want to change the Picture Style and shoot something differently. The one just above that in Video Tab 3 is Custom White Balance. It’s very important for shooting videos because if you start moving around and shooting things in different light then the one stable element – the one constant – will be the white balance.

Canon EOS Rebel SL1

The body design

In spite of the fact that the SL1 is much smaller to any DSLR that has come out of the Canon assembly line, it surprisingly offers a bunch of physical controls. There is a dedicated exposure compensation button, exposure lock button as well as an ISO button at the top panel among others. To save precious real estate space the movie mode now sits as the third option on the power switch. Press that and then press the record button at the rear of the camera to start recording. Additionally the Q option now is merged with the SET button at the center of the rear wheel. The remaining buttons on the wheel has however no dedicated role to play. The top mode dial now can spin 360 degrees without stop just as in the Rebel T5i.

AF system and AF points

The EOS SL1 carries the same old 9-point Canon AF system with a center cross-type point at f/2.8. Cross-type AF points are capable of locking focus on a subject faster compared to a standard AF points. Additionally, Canon has incorporated the Hybrid CMOS AF II system in this camera. This combines both contrast-detect and phase-detect AF technologies to improve the auto-focusing performance. This means the camera is highly responsive when tracking subjects during movie mode or when shooting stills in live view.

The fixed touch-screen

The 3″ ClearView II LCD touch-screen is non-articulated making it a bit of a damper compared to other Canon entry level DSLRs. Especially when Canon is trying to compete with MILCs this would have been a major USP. Overall though, the touch-screen is very responsive. In fact the capacitive screen works like a charm even when you are trying to shift through the menu in a hurry, giving the distinct feeling that it is a very user-friendly feature. The center SET button also brings up the fabled Q (Quick) menu of Canon and that opens up the entire controls of the camera at your fingertips.

Viewfinder

The SL1 has a pentamirror powered viewfinder that offers a coverage of 95% of what the sensor sees. This is slightly smaller than what other optical viewfinders offer. This generally creates the problem of inability to make a precise composition. So when composing always leave some margin around what you see through the viewfinder because you will capture additional items in the final picture. There is a dioptre adjustment dial which allows you to set the brightness between -3 and +1.

Continuous shooting speed

The SL1 has a burst rate of 4 fps at one-shot AF or Ai-Servo AF. The buffer overruns in about 28 shots as per Canon specifications. While this may be okay for shooting a playful pet or even your kid enjoying a sunny afternoon out in the park, this is in no way suitable for fast action or sports photography pursuits. At 4 fps it is at best humble. If you set the camera to shoot at silent-mode, when the mirror flips up and locks before the shot is taken, burst rate comes down to a modest 2.5 fps.

Pop-up flash

The EOS SL1 comes with a built-in flash. Canon rates the guide number at 9.4 meter, which is again a feeble flash, especially if you are going to take a group shot in low light conditions. However for portraiture or for fill-flash uses it is a handy flash to have.

Proximity sensor

An interesting feature that will make most photographers happy is the proximity sensor. It is located directly below the hot-shoe at the back of the camera. It certainly helps save a lot of battery when you are looking through the viewfinder.

Remote control

The EOS SL1 is compatible with Canon’s infra-red based remote controller the RC-6. The sensor is located on the right hand grip area.

Storage

The camera is compatible with UHS-1 cards. It also accepts SD, SDHC and SDXC cards. Additionally, it is also eye-fi compatible making it possible to remotely transfer images shot with the camera.

The movie mode and Live-view features

The SL1 was launched along with the Rebel T5i and both the cameras boast the Movie-servo feature. What it means? Well, when shooting video the camera is likely to keep tracking as a subject walks into or away from the frame. In real world the feature is not that quick and compared with something like the dual-pixel CMOS AF system of the Canon EOS 70D, this is quite slow.

There is no built-in stereo sound recording like the Rebel T5i and videographers will have to be content only with a mono mic on the top left hand side of the hot-shoe. However, you can plug in an external stereo mic.

My take

This is certainly a small DSLR which has been designed with the sole purpose of miniaturization of all that is best about a DSLR and to compete directly with Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras that are threatening the entry-level DSLR market. Functional, simple and cost effective are what summarizes this camera in a nutshell. While professionals will never opt for one of these, the camera suitable for someone who is migrating from a point and shoot and is looking for similar size but better controls.

Features of the Canon EOS 70d

Touch screen

The touch screen on the EOS 70d makes light work of changing almost any setting using the Q menu. The touch screen menu is highly responsive and crystal clear to look at. It even includes an option to pinch-zoom pictures for better clarity when viewing the latest snapped images. Besides the onscreen controls, the menus are backed up with standard physical controls to take care of the basic shooting options if preferred. The touch screen is also design to flip out to one side to make easier viewing. This is especially helpful when working with video format.

Auto focus

A high-quality auto focus system is essential to take sharp pictures. The EOS 70d is installed with the latest Dual Pixel AF technology to make it easier to shot fast-moving objects. This DSLR auto focus system includes a total of 19 focal points. This increases the cameras capabilities to focus on the subject. Also, the 70d comes with a bigger 20.2MP sensor to help improve the contrast and clarity of the picture quality.

Video

A further aspect of the Dual Pixel AF technology is the ability to increase the quality of video recordings. Earlier models of the DSLR cameras had issues with loss of focus as objects moved around. This problem is solved with the 70d due to its ability to swiftly auto focus as the camera is moved from subject to subject. The camera supports standard HD (50 and 60p) and full HD video (24, 25 and 30p) capture.

WiFi

The Canon EOS 70d includes WiFi as standard and a welcome feature for a number of reasons. WiFi access offers complete ease in connecting the camera to a computer, tablet or smart phone. This makes it easy to download and view pictures using the Canon EOS app. Pictures can also be printed to a wireless printer or viewed on a DLNA equipped TV. Another benefit of using the app is the ability to remote control the camera. This is certain to help the photo shots taking place in a studio.