Hiring camera gear to try it out before you buy it can be a great way to make sure you are buying gear that suits your requirements, rather than buying an expensive lens, only to find it doesn't quite meet your needs.


Camera gear can be expensive, particularly mid-high-end camera bodies and lenses. Before spending significant amounts of money on expensive items, how can you be sure that it is the right body or lens for you?

Online reviews on the web can be a useful source of information, and discussions in online forums can also be enlightening.
However, they typically will not provide specific information about how you intend to use the gear.

Here's a photo from Lake Seppings, located right near Middleton Beach in Albany. In October last year, it was so wet at the lake, that some parts of the boardwalk and path around the lake were under water, and we were unable to walk the whole way around the lake.

Lake Seppings, Albany, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @10mm, 1/30 sec, f/8, ISO100

I haven't been posting much in the last couple of weeks, because we're busy at home getting the walls painted, and new carpets in most of the house. Moving furniture, removing curtains and other fixtures...and then putting them back up after the paint is very time-consuming.



Phottix are having an Easter sale, with 10% off all purchases from the Phottix online store until 10 April 2010. To get your discount, be sure to specify "easter10" as the discount when you checkout.
If you have been meaning to buy some Phottix camera accessories, get your order in before 10 April!



Canon released updated firmware (version 2.0.3) for the 5D Mark II last month. One of the key features included in this firmware is more flexibility with video frame rates - something that many people have been clamouring for a while.

However, due to some issues with the 2.0.3 firmware, Canon withdrew it, and several days later, released version 2.0.4, which includes a fix for the issues identified in 2.0.3.
If you have a 5D Mark II and haven't yet updated your firmware, you can grab the firmware from Canon's web site.

For people with other Canon DSLR models, have a look at Canon's firmware page, and see if there's a newer version of firmware available for your camera.



I recently stumbled on a great list of photography cheat sheets that's worth taking a look at. It includes cheat sheets for portrait lighting, available light reference table, and more.



Some enterprising people have figured out how to connect a Nintendo DS to DSLR cameras, allowing the camera to be controlled by the DS. The project is known as Open Camera Control, and was originally done for taking multiple bracketing shots for HDR photography. However, a DS can provide a variety of camera control functions, depending on the software you install.

The project website claims it can be used to control almost any DSLR camera, as it connects to the camera via the shutter release cable port with some custom circuitry.