The first post

Published by Neville Brem at Jun 4, 2024

The Dutch women's quadruple sculls in Lucerne

This is the first post on my website! I don’t really know yet what I will write on here, but I am excited. I think I’m gonna share some technical things on here and just do some casual posts. I take the occasion though, to talk a bit about

My current gear

I currently use a Canon EOS 600D I bought second-hand from an swiss second-hand store. It works excellently and I don’t really have plans to upgrade at the moment. It has a 18MP APS-C sensor and a decently well burst mode, which is important for me since I do a lot of rowing photography. The only thing I currently dislike about this camera is the “Live View”-Mode and the Video functionality. It is of course not the best since it is a quite older camera, but I’d like to have those things.

Let’s talk about lenses. To be honest, for the longest time I’ve been using the kit lens Canon EF-S 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 IS II. I was happy with this lens, shot a few portraits, but it wasn’t enough. So I recently picked up the Canon EF 24-105mm F/3.5-5.6 IS STM. I really like this lens, because it has a focal range from wide to tele. That meant that I could now do rowing photography to some extent without having to borrow lenses from friends. I think that this lens was a very good investment for all sorts of ranges of things I like to take pictures of.

Gear I plan to obtain

Let’s regard this as kind of a wishlist. But fact is, that even for rowing photography I’d like to have a more tele lens. I strongly believe in the principle, that you shouldn’t buy new gear all the time but make the best out of the things you have. And I also do that. That’s also why I’ve used the kit lens for such a long time.

But I’d like to have a lens that goes more in this sweet telephoto direction. There are a few options I take into consideration:

  1. Canon EF 70-300mm F/4.0-5.6 IS II USM
  2. SIGMA Contemporary 150-600mm F/5.0-6.3 DG OS HSM

Both are excellent lenses I’ve heard great stuff about. One of my photography friends own the Sigma one and it shoots great images. I also thought about getting something in the 100-400mm focal range, but one of these is a better fit in my opinion. The Canon lens is great for rowing photography over all I think so to get a more wide shot of the boats. For more detailed shots I will eventually upgrade for the Sigma one. Both lenses are currently on my watch list and I am constantly looking out for bang for the buck offers.

Regarding camera bodies, I took the Canon EOS R8 and the Canon EOS R6 Mark II into consideration. They both have the same processor and the same 24.20MP sensor, but the R6 is bigger and has IBIS and a faster burst mode and some other perks. I’ll definitely buy an EF-RF lens adapter for the camera, since I plan to keep the lenses I will have ‘til then.

So yeah. This is a little summary and my thoughts about gear. See you soon!