A Bright and Colorful Workshop with the Canon EOS M3

Hallo Guys! 🙂

🙂
A lot of you have been asking us in person as to who is it who loves taking photos, that’s both of us.  But today, Ponggo’s taking over the writing. *Yeah right, you will actually find my entries in italics because I’m talkative like that.*

T: As usual, I prepared some nametags but a part of me just had to go back to my abstract nametags. They may take a longer time to make but the process is really fun. It’s like some color therapy for me.

Wait, now on to Ponggo. 🙂

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I guess everyone knows that we do love taking photos. Whenever we travel, my backpack always weighs at least 14kg. Imagine all the questions that I get in the airport! Also, upon our trip home, we’re always torn about being happy / disappointed because we end up having lots of photos of the place but we rarely have photos of ourselves as we’re both busy carrying DSLR’s and heavy lenses.

Now that Tipsy is pregnant, she cannot carry all her stuff anymore. If I were an octopus or something, I would have loved to help her but I only have two hands. Hehe.   So we started searching for a new camera for her. Of course given our arsenal of DSLR’s, it was very hard for us to decide which camera we are going to get. We needed something small, has great image quality, fast autofocus and at the same time, compact! It was hard to find one. There are a lot of options for the micro 4/3’s system but the down side of this for us is that we do have to invest in lenses again… which we don’t want to do!

So what did we get? The Canon EOS M3! It was quite an easy choice for us since we have been Canon users for the longest time. From the days where film was the norm in photography, I already had Canon cameras. My first DSLR was the 400d, so from then on, the list of lenses and bodies started to grow. This is the reason why the Canon EOS M3 was an easy choice for us. It was small, lightweight and had the same sensor as the DSLR’s APS-C’s. (Tech talk: Basically, 24mp in an APS-C sensor would have better resolution than that of a 4/3 sensor or smaller sensors. A higher megapixel count does not usually equate to nice and crisp photos, the size of the sensor usually dictates it. )

The only thing missing from the kit when I got the cam was the Canon EOS M mount adapter for EF lenses. I had to purchase one so that I can use all my lenses with it. For the first few minutes that I was trying the camera, it felt weird to me. It was so small and light! (To others, they would like this very much, but for me, it took me a while to get used to it, since I currently use a Canon 5D mark 2, which is huge!) Of course, I had to try it with my favorite lens, the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L! It was fun to see this monstrous lens attached to the camera.

The first assignment of this cam was one of our watercolor workshops! Since our workshops are all about color… the images should be vibrant when it comes out of the cam… and… the camera did not disappoint us!

Using the lens that came with the kit, the focusing was faster than the previous models. This could probably be because of the fact that the AF system of this camera is new. People did complain about how slow the AF of the first EOS M camera is and Canon fixed it in this model. Of course, you cannot compare the speed of the AF of this unit to the 7D’s but it is already good. Using the adaptor and attaching the EF lenses, I had to disable the continuous AF Setting otherwise it kept on hunting for focus and it would quickly drain the battery. For me, with this setting off, AF was better. Part of my wish list in the next firmware upgrade of Canon for the Canon EOS M3, I hope that there will be a function to use the AF assist lamp from the 580ex2! I think this would be better than using the small AF light from the camera especially when using the big L lenses.

T: During the Watercolor Doodles Workshop, we asked the participants to draw & paint their own dancers. J  

Before, whenever we shoot still images for the blog, we would always use one of our DSLR’s. Yes, quality was nice but the down side to it is when you are transferring photos already. Since we use CF cards for our cameras, we always have to use separate card readers. There were a couple of instances when we needed to download files to our computer but we didn’t have the card readers with us. We had to wait until we got home so that we can send the files. With the Canon EOS M3, the nice thing is that, you just have to connect your smart phone or tablet to it and you can download it instantly. The camera also has Near Field Communications (NFC) technology which would easily transfer files, from the camera to your device. Given that I am using the new Asus Zenfone 2, which has NFC capabilities, all I gotta do is tap the backside of the phone with the camera, wait for a few seconds and they are connected! The phone then becomes the camera control, you can shoot and download files using the phone! Great for those who like to post good quality photos to their social media accounts! Given that I plan to use it in one of my helicopters, I tried the range of the connection, it was around 10m before the video link started to break up. This is great already since on a regular basis, you do not need to use the link for more than that range. I wonder what the maximum is… hmmm…

Another feature that we liked about the Canon EOS M3 was the movable screen. you can tilt it depending on what angle you need so that you can see what you are shooting. This is another thing that the 7D and the 5D do not have and is a very welcome addition to the camera.

Oh and to make it more fun, I am working on a new rig to use this camera to shoot images from the air!

– Ponggo

P.S. By the way, if you need more technical information, head over to www.canon.com.ph 

or might as well check and follow the Facebook page of Canon for exciting announcements!

www.facebook.com/canonphils