Back from the dry land.

It has been while since I went fishing last time.  I have been spending too much time on the dry land, so, I went out fishing to put me back into the fishing mode.

It seems that the river has changed a lot in my absence. The tide is  all different now, and the water has become very cold. However, It took about a dozen casts for me to get my casting rhythm back, and I got a few fish in the end.  Above all, it felt good to be back on the water.

Canon 6D, a camera for a museum lover

I went to the Perth Museum yesterday to take some photos.

I took photos of a dinosaur at first in the entrance hall on my old 24mm f/2.8. I loved its wider angle of view on a full frame sensor. I was standing almost underneath of the dinosaur and I was still able to cover a half of the dinosaur's body.

The only gripe about this lens is the amount of vignetting shown on a full frame body. The light fall wasn't any issue on my Canon 350D body even shooting with the aperture wide open.  However, on a full frame body like 6D, corners are noticeably dark somewhere up to f4 or f5.

The vignetting can be removed on Light Room which is a good thing, but I wonder how good the new EF24 f/2.8IS is in this respect. I have also discovered that my old PL filter is making the thing worse as it leaves a sharp dark area on each corner. So, it looks like I need to get a filter with a thinner frame.

After taking photos of the dinosaur, I bought a ticket to see the exhibition on Egyptian artifacts which is shown at the museum right now.  I thought this would be an ideal ground to test how 6D's sensor performs under low light.

Well, I must say, I am very impressed with the camera in terms of the noise level at high ISO settings. A picture of a scarab necklace for example shows that the image has still retained a texture of a red velvet even at ISO12800.

The number of auto focus points on Canon 6D is quite limited (only 11 AF points against 61 on Canon 5D Mk III), however 6D's AF point at the centre is incredibly light sensitive. Apparently, it can auto focus down at EV-3 which is as bright as a moon light. With such a great low light AF performance, focusing on those statues and artifacts under the dim display lights of the museum was only child's play.

While I was walking through the exhibition, I put the camera on silent drive mode.  Although I love the mechanical sound of 6D's shutter, I think it attracts too much attention at places like museums and art galleries. The silent drive mode dampens a shutter noise which does make my photo shooting more discreet.

Other than its relatively bigger size and weight, I would say Canon 6D is a good camera for  museum lovers including myself.  It has the top level low light performance in terms of image quality and useability (i.e. AF accuracy and silent drive).

Here are some photos I took yesterday.