My camera’s had this particularly annoying issue for the past few months where giant black dots appear on the image. As you can imagine, this proves problematic when I’m actually taking pictures of giant black dots. Or polkadots. Or ladybugs. You get the idea.

The issue is that, over time a digital SLR’s sensor will get dirty. Dust and pocket lint and nacho cheese will find a way to adhere itself to the electronic sensor, and these artifacts will appear in the final picture – but only in certain conditions. For example, wider apertures, like 2.8 render the dust near-invisible. But when I go to take long exposures, or use a smaller aperture – say, f/9 – years of neglect become more visible than I’d like. Which means my portraits now portray everyone as lepers. It is my own special brand of social commentary.

Cleaning the sensor is a pretty simple affair, though it is easy to fuck things up. If you damage the sensor, you now have a very expensive brick – albeit, one with an LCD screen. Things not to do include poking, scratching, scraping or licking any part of the sensor. Instead, a magic concoction, composed of pixie dust and the tears of a wronged girlfriend, must be applied liberally with a felt-tipped applicator, all purchased from your local Henrys. This will remove the year of neglect and cookie dust forced upon the poor sensor.

Today I did all these things, and I’m happy to say, I did not fuck up. In fact, you might say it was a great success, and my camera shoots like new again. Figure 1, pictured above, is a testament to this. Chloe looks pleased.

Next time, we learn how to make a camera strap from jerky – food and function.

Those who’ve read my Broken Social Scene concert review had the pleasure of viewing a few of the pictures I took that night. Initially, I was supposed to get a press pass for the show; two calls to Arts & Crafts later, and nothing materialized. In the end, I had to smartly hide my camera beneath my coat, effectively smuggling it into the show. Apparently, any camera with a removable lens is, by default, being used for professional – and potentially lucrative – purposes.

In smuggling my DSLR in, I was hoping to get some superior shots of the evening, in comparison to those wielding their point-and-shoots. A DSLR has some significant advantages in concert situations like these, making it far more ideal – in particular, vastly better sensors, far more suitable for low-light situations, and much better glass.

Yet, there was one downside to this flaw – my choice of lens. The 17-35mm L f/2.8 Canon lens is currently the best I have, and a very solid wide-angle lens at that. It would have been perfect for the show – had I remained at the front of the stage, before a number of obnoxious fans pushed me back. Now 30 some-odd feet back from the stage, that focal rage was no longer going to cut it, and the resulting pictures reflected that.

In the aftermath, it was actually one of the first times I missed having a trusty point-and-shoot by my side. In this sort of situation, I would have benefited from one feature in particular – optical and digital zoom. Even 30-feet back, I would have been able to get some fairly decent, close-up shots – a fair tradeoff for a bit of extra noise, I’d say.

My point is that it’s very hard to determine what sort of situation you’ll be shooting in at concerts. If all had gone according to plan, my position at the beginning of the show would have proved perfect for my 17-35mm’s focal range. Of course, from where I ended up, shooting with a range above 100m would have worked as well. This makes it very hard to determine what lenses are the best for a such a situation, and even then, whether an SLR is even necessary.

———————————

My current love affair is a Canon 50mm f/1.2 L-series lens. I’m a sucker for both sharpness and depth of field, and this lens has a definite abundance of both. Not only would this get me some really superb and shallow portraits, but the f/1.2 would be absolutely amazing for indoor scenarios, when natural light is desirable. Of course, it comes in at a wonderful price tag of around $1,400 – as much as I paid for my Canon 30D body. Yet, it’s the absolute best Canon 50mm you can get, and it may prove better to save up a little longer for this, than going for Canon’s 50mm f/1.4 – which is four times less money. Yikes.