New "Baby"

I finally did it: bought myself a full-frame digital SLR: the Canon 5D Mark II. At 21 megapixels it offers twice as much detail as my 40D, which was already pretty good. Photographic detail is sensuous. We try to enhance it with sharpening, but it's not quite the same thing. I've noticed the work of photographers using full-frame cameras, and there is an extra quality of richness to their images—that I didn't miss until I saw it. I'm thinking of what this baby will do with those rock faces that make me drool, all that geology I've been in love with for years will now be worshipped at a higher level.

And this camera features HD video as well—just like my daughter's point-and-shoots. OK, so it took the professional cameras a while to come up with it, but imagine a moving image through a super wide angle (or even fisheye) lens! The point is not to take feature-length movies with it, just 6–8 second clips that add the astonishing element of movement into a well-composed otherwise still photograph. So far the medium for this fusion has to be the computer screen. Now there's a company that integrates these mini-movies right in with your stills in slide shows. It's called Phvusion (for Photo-Video Fusion), and their software enables a number of special effects for your videos, similar to iPhoto's special effects. One thing the 5D Mark II will not do is change focus automatically once the video starts. So you may have to keep your hand on the barrel, or else invest several hundred dollars in a fine-focus mechanism, a small wheel that attaches to the camera. Changing the plane of focus is one of the best subtle uses for movement in an otherwise still photograph.

I'm glad I kept my Sigma 17–35mm f/2.8 lens around, which works just fine with this camera, although the autofocus is a bit slow at times. And the camera works like a dream with the Canon 70–200mm f/2.8 IS lens, that every wedding photographer now owns. Its "native" normal zoom lens is the 24–105mm f/4 IS lens. Notice that this lens is slightly more wide angle than the 17–85mm digital zoom for the half-frame cameras, but less telephoto. In a short jaunt through my flowering neighborhood, I found myself switching to my 70–300mm zoom more readily than I would have with any of my half-frame cameras, so there is a bit more work involved. I may just break down and buy myself a point-and-shoot for everyday social shooting. A number of my photo gurus have one.