Truland Photography

Friday, March 15, 2024

More Spring Weather

Yesterday was another sunny morning with temperatures in the 60s. I managed a four and a quarter mile walk around Oakwood Cemetery which, as you can see, requires a serpentine route.


Here are some of the scenes along the way. I noted Daffodil buds but no blossoms yet. Maybe by the end of the weekend.

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 30mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 81mm, f/5.6

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 40mm, f/8
cropped from horizontal


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Spring Is Here

I had a nice 5.68 mile walk around Schodack Island State Park this morning. When I started out shortly after 10:00 AM I needed gloves and a couple of layers. When I got back to the parking lot two hours later the temperature was around 60 degrees and I had shed the gloves and one of the layers.

I'm pretty settled with the RF 24-105mm f/4L lens as my primary lens with the 16mm and 50mm STM lenses as occasional options. I also have an inexpensive vintage experiment on the way from eBay. One of my Minolta MC lenses from 1970 has a lot of scratches on the exterior elements. I found a related model of the same focal length from about a decade later which is smaller, lighter and supposedly sharper. We shall see. [Update: The MD 200mm f/4 lens has arrived. The lens is nice and worth $50 but it's not something I will use regularly.]

The gallery for this park can be viewed at https://trulandphotography.com/schodackisland. Here are some shots from this morning.

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/5.6

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 30mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/8

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/11

EOS R6, RF 24-105mm f/4L at 24mm, f/4


Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Refilling a Gap

I picked up another refurbished RF 50mm f/1.8 STM lens after having traded in my prior copy when I migrated from the 24-240mm f/4-6.7 zoom to the 24-105mm f/4L zoom. Buying refurbished lenses from Canon, and then only when they are on sale, is a way of not losing out when you do things like this. If the sale is good enough, you can later trade the lens at MPB for about what you paid for it. Trade in value depends entirely on the condition of the lens regardless of whether you bought it new, refurbished or used. It's sort of like an inexpensive extended rental. I bought my prior copy for $80 and traded it for $80. This one was $100.

Canon makes only two 50mm prime lenses in their RF mount. This $200 f/1.8 STM lens and the $2,300 f/1.2 USM lens. I had a copy of the EF version of the f/1.2 last summer, which requires an adapter and foregoes some of the benefits of the RF mount, and would love the RF version but it's big, heavy and very expensive so that's unlikely. There are rumors of an RF 50mm f/1.4 lens but until then, the f/1.8 STM lens will have to do. Here is a comparison of the two RF lenses from The Digital Picture.

The f/1.8 lens is not really sharp at wider apertures, especially at the edges, and the quality of the bokeh is harsher than the faster, more expensive lens. But for a small fraction of the price it's not bad. I tested this copy out yesterday, some shots are wide open at f/1.8 just to test.

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/1.8

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/4

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/2

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/2

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/1.8

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/2.8

EOS R6, RF 50mm f/1.8 STM, f/8