Digital Outback Photo
- Photography using Digital SLRs


 

Using both Canon EOS 5D and Nikon D2x in the field

Dunes

An experience report by Uwe Steinmueller @Digital Outback Photo

Also photos by Bettina Steinmueller

 
 
 

Our main goal for this trip was actually to photograph dunes. We has 3 sessions:

  • Strong overcast that resulted in ultra low contrast images (we hope still to have some winners)
  • Strong overcast with some patches of sun. Resulted in some interesting shots
  • Sun close to sunset (we show 3 photos from this sessions here)

Note: All photos were taken from good tripods and using mirror lockup. We all know that switching to mirror lockup for the Canon Cameras is no fun in the field while the D2x has a special easy to use mode for mirror lockup.

We hope that Canon fixes this problem soon (we hope there for quite a long time already). We also would like to see a 5 sec self timer mode for all DSLRs that would lock up the mirror and then expose 5 seconds later. Why 5 seconds? This is needed to get all the vibrations resolved before the shutter is released. Actually the 5D seems to introduce less vibrations than the other professional cameras (this is more a gut feeling though from the feeling in our hands and the noise levels).


Canon EOS 5D at 160mm (1/400 sec, f/13, ISO 200, IS), FOV 160mm


Nikon D2x at 125mm (1/40 sec, f/14, ISO 100), FOV 187.5mm


Nikon D2x at 200mm (1/40 sec, f/14, ISO 100), FOV 300mm

The autofocus of the Canon EOS 5D could more often lock in on soft low contrast edges than the Nikon D2x (where the AF hunted focussing on low contrast edges).

Both cameras did well but we very much appreciated the longer reach of the D2x with the 70-200mm lens. We mention it again: This is of course very subjective because many other photographers may prefer using wider angles.

As you may know a major problem with dunes is finding scenes without destructive foot prints. Here reaching in with tele lenses helps quite a bit.

 

Technique

We used RSE for the D2x files and DPP 2.0.3 for the 5D photos.

 

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