Eliya's photostream  

Photography is one of the many ways that we, as a species, communicate our experiences of the world to one another. In a rectangle, we combine color, content, context, light, space... and we show one another a little portal into the world each of us uniquely sees.

Digital photography, whether scanned or snapped, represents a new way to share these ideas with one another, but digitization makes photographs something more than just images. Now that they are made of data, the images become part of the same quantum logical soup as the rest of the digital world. 1s and 0s. Bits of truth. We today are empowered to relate these bits of information to one another in an infinite variety of ways. Not only that, with the advent of the internet, our very interactions with one another become part of the data stream. The flow of data is itself represented as data.

For myself, I also love the analogue world around me, mostly the natural world, and here on Flickr, I have an opportunity to share some of my views of it with whatever segment of humanity happens across my photostream. It is the digitization of photography, along with the digitization of communication and interaction, that has made this possible.

I have a passion for natural beauty as well as for technology. I love gadgets, lenses, optics, physics, things with lots of buttons on them, and spending my disposable income on equipment. I've invested in a few fancier items, and occasionally I'll rent stuff I can't afford to buy.

I love receiving comments on my work, so leave me plenty!

I make no profit from my work, nor do I wish to. If you want to use any of my photos for your own purposes, please contact me and make a request.

Bodies:

Canon EOS 7D
I absolutely love this machine. It is made of pure joy and puppies, and my only regret is that they probably had to do some nasty things to the puppies. Oh, and my other regret is that the gorgeous detail-rich 18mp RAW files are over 20mb each, so I had to buy some bigger CF cards. Everything about this camera is fantastic. I simply can't imagine what they're going to add to the next generation to make this camera any better. Sure, it's a cropped sensor, but wow this thing is awesome.

Canon EOS 30D
My first SLR, and the machine primarily responsible for really getting me into photography. Now that I have a 7D, I could point out a few shortcomings, but the bottom line is that it takes fantastic photos, and it's a great camera.

Canon SX1IS
I picked this up as a "smaller" point-and-shoot that I could carry on longer hikes. The 20x zoom and super-macro mode make it a remarkably versatile camera, and I like the creative challenge of switching over to the 16x9 aspect ratio. The quality of the pictures is great for a point-and-shoot, but I'm truly spoiled by dSLR sensors. In particular, the dynamic range of the SX1IS is not great, even when shooting in RAW. Still, it can take some great pictures.

Lenses I use:

Telephoto:
Canon EF 300mm F4 L IS USM
Canon Extender EF 1.4x
I wanted to make an investment in a good telephoto setup. This combination gives me decent reach (300 or 420mm), portability (this setup can be shot handheld with good results), and the sharpness of a prime L-series lens. For the price, I could have gone with the 100-400, but I was underwhelmed by that lens when I rented it. Also, on the 30D (and probably the 7D, I'm not sure), the 100-400 cannot autofocus when used with the 1.4x extender (yes I know there's a hack to sorta do it with tape, but that only sorta works)

Canon EF 28-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS USM
I don't use this lens often, but it's a decent walkaround lens. The quality is good and it is reasonably versatile. It's more that I find I usually want to go as wide as possible or as long as possible, so the in-between stuff isn't as useful.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm F3.5-4.5 IS USM
I love love love love this lens. It is probably on my camera more than any other.

Canon EF 100mm F2.8 L USM Macro
This lens is razor sharp, and macro photography can be a lot of fun. I've also used this lens for portraits and landscapes, and it does a great job at both. I wish I had the image-stabilized version, but it's fast enough that it usually doesn't matter too much.

Canon EF 50mm F1.8
You can't beat the price of the 50mm F1.8, and it takes some really nice pictures. Sure, the more expensive primes are better in many ways, but this little lens has a lot of charm. Also it's my fastest lens by far, so for low light it's a lot of fun. Also, the focal length is great for portraits.

Lenses I have but don't use:

Sigma 18-200mm
The versatility is great and all, but I find the quality of this lens a bit disappointing. I'm not sure what it is, I just feel like pictures with this lens often lack a certain something.

Canon 24mm f2.8
I thought a fast prime would be fun, but every picture I take with this thing comes out blurry. Eventually I just gave up on it.

Canon 70-200 F4 L
A great lens, super sharp, but the lack of image stabilization was leading to too many blurry pictures, and 200mm just isn't enough reach for wildlife, so usually I leave this lens behind.