Posted on January 12, 2012, 2:39 pm, by QT Luong, under
Gear.
The short 70-200 tele-zoom is one of the most popular professional lenses. It covers a useful focal length range, good from portrait work to sports shooting and also for distant landscapes as well as details. Canon makes four of such lenses. All of them use a ring USM motor which offers fast, silent focus plus […]
Posted on August 4, 2011, 11:30 am, by QT Luong, under
Books.
William Neill‘s exquisite portfolio of Yosemite photographs, “Yosemite: The Promise of Wildness” became my favorite Yosemite picture book upon publication in 1994, one year after my arrival in California. It has remained so until today (even though I have my own) to the point that the spine has begun to separate. There are many scenes […]
Posted on January 18, 2011, 10:25 pm, by QT Luong, under
Books.
I had first noticed Michael Frye (see his photographs here) for his pioneering light painting nature photographs. I then greatly appreciated his excellent book The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite (2000). The only thing I wished was that it been available a decade earlier. Priced at a bargain $9.95, the book, published by the Yosemite Association, […]
Posted on August 17, 2010, 10:07 am, by QT Luong, under
Gear.
Canon makes two wide-angle zooms for full-frame cameras. Both are L-lenses, reasonably well-built, with fast USM autofocusing, a non-rotating front element, and an environmental rubber seal. The 17-40/f4L was introduced in 2003. The 16-35/f2.8 L II, released in 2007, replaced the 16-35/f2.8L of 2001, which itself replaced the 17-35/f2.8L of 1996. I have not used […]
Posted on June 29, 2010, 1:23 am, by QT Luong, under
Gear.
About a decade ago, I switched from Nikon to Canon. I was attracted, among other things, by the availability of a 24mm tilt and shift (T/S) lens, which brings to 35mm some of the controls available to the large format camera photographer. While it has served me well, its T/S functions making it possible to […]
Posted on November 11, 2009, 1:23 pm, by QT Luong, under
Gear.
I am often asked for lens recommendations (although I have already wrote a page of technical comments). For those wishing to make photographs similar to mine, and using a Canon full frame camera, I always suggest the Canon 25-105/4 L IS as an all-purpose lens. I consider this lens to be the best zoom ever […]
Posted on September 15, 2009, 1:41 pm, by QT Luong, under
Books.
I have seen many of my images reproduced on a variety of mass media (editorial publishers usually send a copy), sometimes in a somewhat unsatisfactory way. I understood that the limitation of reproductions are due to the problem of having to render continuous varying tones with discrete dots of inks, and that the primary mass […]
