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Event - Estonian Team Cup Championships in Women's Gymnastics 2005.

Phtography, conditions - When I arrived at the scene, I realized there was NO bacground to shoot against. No drapes or curtains, not even a simple neutral wall to make the pefrormers stand out from the bacground. The walls were a horrible contrasty mish-mash of horizontal and vertical stripes and there were bright contrasty items - tables, cables, speakers and people - on all four sides of the stage. I mean the hall itself was nice and all, but just absolutely not suitable as a photographic backdrop. Then the event had daylight lighting, which in itself would have been excellent. But in this case daylight also meant that all that horrible background was PERFECTLY lit - not good at all.

Additionally the judges were sitting on the opposite side of the windows, facing the light, which meant all the performances, obviously made facing the judges, would be with their backs to where the light was coming from. This meant I had to choose between shooting from the side of the judges to keep the judges and their blue tables out of the backround and have the performers face me - but this would have cut my shutter speeds drastically and would have kept the dancers in the dark against a brightly lit background - or shooting from the side of the windows, keeping the dancers well lit and shutter speeds up, yet introducing lots of distracting detail into the bacground and getting me more butt shots than I would have cared for (can there be too many? well apparently yes:). I opted for a compromise and shot from the third side, but still ended up with either too dim lighting or a distracting background.

I had also hoped that I'd be able to eliminate most of the distracting backround by keeping my lens at F2.8, but an out of focus yet perfectly lit blue table is still screaming at you from the picture - no matter how out of focus it is. Since I'm not much of a fan of excessive post-processing and tinkering in PhotoShop, down the waste-basket the majority of the pictures went. Maybe I should bring along my own drapes and curtains the next time around:)

Photography, the 350D - This was a first true test of my new 350D. The main reason I upgraded from 300D was the fact that the 300D, although an excellent camera, is completely miserable at action photography. A maximum buffer of 4 consecutive frames, even in low resulution, and then a looooong wait before the camera was ready to shoot again, was a recipe for complete and utter frustration. Compounding the problem was the fact that the 300D was unable to empty the buffer while the shutter was half-pressed in anticipation of the next shot. So not only did I have to wait frustratingly long until the buffer cleared, I was even unable to properly compose and focus for the next shot while waiting. Neither was I able to change any of the settings on the camera while the buffer was being emptied. It was terrible, absolutely terrible.

In stark contrast, the 350D starts emptying it's buffer immediately, even if I keep the shutter half-pressed or keep shooting. Neither is the camera locked while the buffer is being emptied - I can change settings and keep working as normal. Oh, and the buffer size itself? I get an approximate 35 consecutive 3 FPS shots before the camera slows down to only a slightly slower 2 FPS at High/Normal JPEG (which is what I use), or an amazing 800 (yes, eight HUNDRED!) consecutive 3 FPS shots in Low/Normal JPEG (whereas the 300D was still only able to muster the same 4 shots at that setting). Never ONCE did the camera give me "BUSY" during the whole shoot, although I was shooting very liberally in continuous drive mode, whereas it was a rare and happy occasion for a 300D to allow me to take one additional picture from time to time under similar circumstances. I am more than happy with the 350D in this respect.

For anyone concerned with battery life on the 350D, since it now uses a smaller battery, all I can say it - Canon must have empolyed some alien technology here. It is absolutely out of this world. Canon officially states that the battery lasts for 400-600 shots. I had determined to drain the battery to see how much it can take, but I gave up before the battery did. I got the battery indicator down to it's "1/3 remaining" state at about my 4000th picture (yes, THOUSAND, not hundred!). It was down to it's warning state now, but in my experience even then the battery still has plenty of juice left. I can't explain this, I just can't. (I took mostly ISO 800/1600 pictures, High/Normal JPEG, no flash, LCD review off, but sometimes reviewing images manually and changing some settings always invoked the LCD as well)

Some have expressed concern about the need to change some settings (ISO, white balance etc) on the main colour LCD now (not the monochrome LCD of the old). I quite prefer the new method, it is much clearer and easier to see than the B&W LCD. The only thing I don't like is the need to press "SET" after you make a change. A half-press of the shutter should do to make the changes stick, I hope that gets fixed in a firmware update.

The small size of the camera - I was thrilled to discover that the 350D was almost pocketable with a 50mm F1.8 lens attatched! A pocketable DSLR - now there's a concept:) With a hand grip/strap attatched (bought mine from ebay) the small size is not a problem at all. I can't comment on how it would be like without a strap, because I always use one (also used on my 300D) and recommend that to others as well.