May 18, 2003

My excuse for not posting anything yesterday is that I was at the annual Pole Pedal Paddle in Bend, Oregon. And no, folks, I didn't compete.

Instead, I was hired by Cloud 9 Photography to shoot the kayak segment of the race. Four hours, 550 images, and ten nearly-frozen fingers later, I turned in the Canon EOS D30 to Bryan. All's I wanted after that was a hot cup of coffee to thaw me back out (despite some sunshine, temps in Bend were right around 35 - 40 F all day) - and the dough to buy myself a high-end digital SLR.

The experience of shooting a pro digital SLR for the first time was surprising and pleasant. Canon has managed to keep all the dials simple and easy to use, the LCD menu was self-explanatory, and coming from using an EOS 10s for years, I could have used the D30 blindfolded.

Since I was shooting kayakers, quick reaction time by the camera and continuous shooting were imperative. Many times, the kayaker would move his/her paddle in front of his/her face right the second when I was pushing the shutter, so the ability to take a second safety shot within a fraction of a second was hugely important. The D30 delivered nicely, with virtually no delay for saving the files. And of course being able to go back and instantly edit the images was great. No more waiting for slides to come back from the lab. No more guesswork if you should adjust half a f-stop to compensate for glare on the water. Instant results, instant adjustments, instant gratification. And all that with a professional outcome.

Another nice feature was that all my existing Canon USM lenses fit the D30 perfectly. The lens I had been given, a 28-105mm, wasn't quite adequate for close-up sports, so I simply substituted my own 75-300mm. I guess my only quibble with that setup was that the autofocus wasn't fast enough, although I don't know if it was due to the limitations of the camera or the lens.

And a second real drawback made the shoot yesterday somewhat of a nailbiter: due to the cold weather, all four batteries that I had with me crapped out after just 20 or 30 minutes of shooting, forcing me to frequently change them, or flipping the on/off switch in order to reboot the battery. I know there is not much one can do in cold conditions like that, but I sure would like to see the battery/camera manufacturers come up with a solution for this particular problem.

I realize of course that the D30 has been discontinued by Canon, and the new EOS D1 reigns supreme now, but at $1,395 versus a juicy $3,400 for the D1, the D30 isn't a too shabby entry into the world of pro digital photography.

DPreview.com also has a sweet and very detailed review of the D30 right here.

Pics of the Pole Pedal Paddle should be up at the Cloud 9 site tomorrow at the latest, so if your interest was piqued, go check it out.