15th April 2007, Photography Gear Collecting Dust:
As years go by our interests and ambitions are changing little by little, well sometimes even faster. I got dragged deep into bird photography 'by accident' when I decided to document my bird sightings with digital camera in 2002. Just two months into it and I was totally sold for bird photography and has been since that. I had took with SLR slides to document my traveling and landscapes for a few years, so I was not a total beginner in that sense.
Recently I have sold a bunch of gear I feel I do not need anymore, mainly studio stuff. As you now know I'm an outdoor photographer but mixed in with product and still life studio shooting a couple of years ago. A lot of valuable lessons learned, anyhow now it is time to look into new directions and keep only minimum set of gear for ad-hoc studio sessions.
Last year I bought a long awaited Canon 5D for my primary camera body, leaving 30D as a birding only -camera. In hindsight 5D has spoiled me to a degree I'm not carrying 30D for a birding many times. Getting closer is the key for the kind of birding work I'm doing, and once close enough, 5D beats 30D in autofocus accuracy and imaqe quality each and every time. Which has leaded me into an idea to get 1 -series birding camera at last. Five years of bird photography with several hundreds shooting days committed I feel deserving the camera (Canon 1DMKIII) for serious birding. Doing _action_ photography with 30D is harshly put wasted time compared to using the right gear for job from the off!
50mm focal length or equivalent field of view on crop camera has become my every day carry-on and travel system more and more during last year. For traveling and location shooting I have a tendency to get my best captions with just 50mm lens. A couple of years ago I was looking for wider lens and ended up with Canon EF 17-40/4L on 20D. It may be hard to believe but after I left wide zoom home and had only 50mm with me, my level of keepers and better pictures (by my own standards) went up steeply!

By looking it now, my wide angle work has always been 'flat', lacking good interaction between main subject and background, if not missing main subject altogether... Further, my approach for zoom has been the typical beginner/touristy one: zoom ring is hitting towards wide and long ends while my feet are staying motionless ;)

Fortunately I noticed the shortcomings and started to work with fixed normal length and much more discipline. After a lot, and I mean a lot, more practice I may allow myself 24mm lens again, but 17-40/4 will go for sale now. I have tried 17-40 again sometimes, but the results are even not at the level of material I would put on my blog :)

There are also some new waters to be tested. Nowadays my hobbies are not connected to only birds, but plants and fungi as well. I found that weird lens Canon TS-E 90/2.8 while I was looking a solution for product photography. Happy side-effect is that this lens seems to be the job with 5D for serious flower and mushroom shooting. I'm still practicing but I feel that results are very promising, learning to cope with tilt and shift movements will take it times though.
To develop photographing skills and eye, or to just have fun, it is good to explore a few more styles than what one has originally planned to go through.