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My Canon 5D Mark I camera for sale

Hi, just a note to let people know that I’m selling my trusty Canon 5D Mark I camera body. Price is $1000, which is a good deal considering they are selling it used at www.keh.com for over $1200. I’ll include all of the original stuff — the CD, the manual, cables, and the battery charger with 2 batteries. The camera’s in fine shape and would be a great way for someone to get into full-frame sensor photography affordably. Full-frame sensors offer four advantages for any photographer.

The first is to help you obtain shallow depth of field, which is great for portrait or nature photography when we want that dreamy selective focus look. All factors being equal, crop factor cameras such as the Canon 7D will produce more depth of field for a given shot than a full-frame sensor body such as the 5D.

Second, full-frame sensors are great for wide-angle landscapes because your wide angle behaves like a wide angle. Your 28 mm lens, for instance, gives you a true 28 mm field of view rather than behaving like a 45 mm lens as it would on a Rebel or 7D. And a 20 mm lens will give you that super wide angle look rather the 32 mm lens look you’ll get with the same lens on a 7D or 60D.

Third, full-frame sensors have larger pixels that are more efficient at gathering light, resulting in a higher signal to noise ratio, which in the real world means cleaner images at higher ISOs.

And fourth, diffraction (the loss of sharpness that occurs at small apertures like f22) is better controlled in full-frame sensors. You’ll see diffraction kick in less early on a full-frame body than on a crop factor body.

So, should you sell your 7D or 60D to buy my 5D? I don’t think so — the smaller sensor cameras are great and offer plenty of advantages in their own right. I look at the 5D as a perfect landscape camera complement to a 7D or 60D or as a great entry body for someone getting started with landscape and/or portrait photography.

So, you say you can afford the Canon 5D Mark II? Great, go for it! It’s a fantastic body with some notable upgrades over the 5D. But if you want to get into full-frame sensor photography for less than half the price of a new 5D II price, my 5D I camera just might be for you.

Canon 5D Mark I images are of fantastic quality. I used this camera to take the chachalaca photograph that was honored in this year’s BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and many of the images at my exhibit a couple of years ago at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO. The 5D images looked great, even for prints at 30 x 45 inches!

Here’s a gallery of some of the images I currently offer as poster prints and luxury aluminum prints that I took with this very camera. I’ll continue to offer these images confidently as fine examples of my work for years to come!

So, if my 5D is so great, why am I selling it? Well, I’m making some gear adjustments at the moment in preparation for a big coffee-table book project on which I’ll be working next year. I have some expenses related to that, and I also find I’ve been using the camera less and less since I purchased the Canon 1D Mark IV. It hurts to let go of the 5D but it has to be done!

Just drop me a line if you’re interested, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any questions. By the way, I can ship the camera from the US, so there won’t be any exorbitant shipping costs.

Cheers,

Greg

BTW — The picture of the camera above was a quickie done in our kitchen with the Mark IV, the Canon 50 mm f1.8 plastic fantastic, Canon ST-E2 wireless flash transmitter, and a 430 EX Speedlite flash fitted with a mini-softbox. I shot handheld at f2.8, 1/200 second, and ISO 500. I shot in manual mode to render the Christmas lights a nice bright color. This left the camera underexposed. My son Josh held the flash above right to provide fill on the camera. The flash was set in slave mode and TTL at -1 flash exposure compesation. I imported directly into Lightroom, made a few minor tweaks, and inserted it in this post.

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About the author: Like all photographers, Greg Basco loves the gear. He’s seen and shot with lots of different equipment, both Canon and Nikon. Check out his fine art prints, stock images, and photo tours. Contact Greg for more info on image licensing or on location photography assignments.

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Dec 22, 2011 | Categories:Photo Gear News | Tags: 5D | 12 Comments »

The business of photography — I’m featured at Photoshelter!

Making a living as a photographer these days can be tough. Indeed, there’s an old joke that goes “What’s the difference between a photographer and a pizza?… A pizza can feed a family of four.”

Back in the day, photographers could make quite a good living selling stock for editorial uses (magazines, books, etc.) and for advertising. In the case of nature photography, there was a relatively small number of serious pros supplying a rapidly growing image market fueled by skyrocketing public interest in nature, the environment, and conservation. Then along came digital (cue scary music here).

Within a pretty short time, the panorama changed dramatically. With so many people able to produce pretty good images with affordable digital cameras, the market was quickly flooded. Photo buyers who didn’t need the absolute highest quality images could find decent nature stock photography everywhere and at rock-bottom prices, or even for free.

At the same time, digital photography opened up a world of new opportunities for the professional photographer in catering to the growing interest in photography as a casual and very serious hobby/part-time profession. I started photography right at the time that the digital revolution was taking hold, and Photoshelter was interested to talk to me about how I’ve carved out a market niche with my rainforest photography.

If you’re interested in nature photography as a business, I hope you’ll find this feature interesting. Just click the pic above or click here to read it at the Photoshelter blog. If you don’t know about PhotoShelter, it’s the preferred solution for today’s pro to manage and market imagery. If you’re interested in joining, click the PhotoShelter badge below. You can save up $30 on your PhotoShelter signup, and I get a bit of commission to buy pizza — gotta feed the family!

Cheers,

Greg

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About the photographer: Greg Basco is an internationally published nature photographer specializing in the Costa Rican rainforest. His images have been honored in the BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice competitions. Check out his fine art prints, stock images, and photo tours. Contact Greg for more info on image licensing or on location photography assignments.

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Dec 21, 2011 | Categories:Featured | Tags: business, Photoshelter | 2 Comments »

Great Deal on the Canon 5DII!

My B and H contact just informed me that there is a great deal on the Canon 5DII. Price is just $1995, and it even comes bundled with a nice card and a cool bag as well as some video production software. Order now, and you’ll be just in time for 2-day shipping to make sure it gets to you by Christmas!

Cheers,

Greg

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Dec 21, 2011 | Categories:News & Info | Tags: 5DII, Canon | Leave A Comment »

Behind the Lens — Iguana in the Crowd

(Gregory Basco)

I’ll confess right off that I really love this image as I think I succeeded in making something nice and dramatic out of an animal that is not especially pretty and doesn’t really do much, the green iguana (Iguana iguana). In Costa Rica, there’s a pretty well-known restaurant where wild green iguanas hang out in the trees over a meandering river, and I stop there with many of my workshop groups as it’s a great place to get eye level with these interesting creatures. Plus the place has great ice cream cones!

TECH NOTES: Canon 5D Mark I, Canon 300 mm f2.8 L IS lens, handheld, f2.8, 1/200, ISO 320

PROCESSING NOTES: full-frame, standard tweaks in Lightroom

Here’s the thought process I went through while taking this photo.

First, in terms of gear, my 300 mm with a max. aperture of f2.8 was a great choice for me here because it allows for the shallow depth of field look that I love and it gives me a fast shutter speed when handholding. In this case, one sometimes stands on a bridge over the river while pineapple-laden trucks roll past. Your tripod might well end up as a bipod or monopod if you’re not careful!

Second, I needed to consider which camera to use. At the time of this picture, I had a full-frame Canon 5D and 1.6x sensor 40D. The latter body would give me more effective magnification at a given working distance but a small sensor body offers two disadvantages in this situation. First, larger sensors offer less depth-of-field (see here for a fantastic, thorough explanation of this phenomenon). Plus the image quality of the full-frame body is always nicer than that of a 1.6x sensor body in my opinion. The 40D did have better autofocus but in this situation, fast autofocus wasn’t an issue. So, 5D it was.

Third, I had my flash mounted. Did I want to use it? When I came upon this scene, I knew I’d want to shoot through some foreground iguanas. When shooting through a foreground object, flash tends to light it up, and that’s not what I wanted here. Fortunately, I had nice bright overcast light to work with, which was perfect.

Fourth, what about my settings? I knew I wanted to use f2.8 to get the shallowest possible depth of field for that dreamy deep forest look. Plus a fast aperture would help to get me a decent shutter speed. I decided that 1/200 was good enough as my lens has pretty good image stabilization, and I was able to rest my elbows on the bridge’s guardrail. That put me at ISO 320, which was just fine. I could have gone up more in ISO but even with the good high ISO performance of the full-frame 5D, I decided that it was better to keep the decent shutter speed I have and be able to produce an image with lower noise. The shutter speed/ISO noise tradeoff is always an important issue to consider.

Fifth, the composition here was key. There were a lot of iguanas! I walked around a bit until I saw this iguana lifting his head a bit while the others napped. I composed carefully to have the out of focus iguanas all contribute to making the main iguana really pop out, and I made sure to have the main iguana’s eye right by one of the thirds of the frame (the power points — see below). Composing according to the rule of thirds is not an ironclad rule, but I thought it would work well for this situation.

Sixth, to meter the scene, I decided to work in aperture priority and evaluative metering mode. Most of the tones in the scene were darker than the face of the main iguana. So, I knew that I would have to apply a bit of negative exposure compensation, in this case, -1/3 stop did the trick.

Seventh, from there I simply selected the autofocus point closest to the iguana’s eye and used that to autofocus. I have my autofocus on one of the back buttons of my camera, totally decoupled from the shutter button. Thus I was able to lock focus and recompose before snapping the shutter.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and the thought process behind the image. Successful nature photography is all about previsualizing an image (even when shooting action or capturing a fleeting moment), analyzing the tradeoffs that your previsualized image entails, and then making choices. Hopefully this little article will give you some ideas for the next time that you’re out in the field photographing.

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below, and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

The image analyzed here is available as a poster print, an affordable and classy way to jazz up any space in your home or office!

Cheers,

Greg

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Dec 11, 2011 | Categories:Behind The Lens | Tags: iguana, photo tips, shallow DOF | 8 Comments »

Photographer Michel Bury Opens Costa Rica Photo Exhibit

My friend and former Foto Verde Tours client Michel Bury has just opened a beautiful exhibit in Montreal of his work taken on a Costa Rica photo tour with me a few years ago. The exhibit looks just great and showcases Michel’s talent and artistic eye. Be sure to watch the video below (but get out your French dictionary!), and check out the images at Michel’s website. You might also be interested to see my featured photographer interview with Michel here on the Deep Green blog.

Cheers,

Greg

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Nov 28, 2011 | Categories:Photo Tours | Tags: Foto Verde Tours, tour client | Leave A Comment »

Behind the Lens — Strawberry Poison Frog

(Gregory Basco)

The strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio, aka — the blue jeans frog) is high on the list of animals to see and photograph in Costa Rica. Nonetheless, they are tiny, very active, and quite shiny, a combination that makes for a challenging photo subject. I was happy with this picture taken last year in a lowland rainforest. I did shephard the frog a bit to get him to pose on the little mushroom I wanted but he wandered off looking just fine after the shoot ended.

TECH NOTES: Canon 5D Mark I, Canon 100 mm f2.8 macro lens, handheld, f2.8, 1/500, ISO 800

PROCESSING NOTES: full-frame, standard tweaks and a touch of noise reduction in Lightroom

Here’s the thought process I went through while taking this photo.

First, in terms of gear, a macro lens was the obvious choice as these frogs are very small, usually less than one inch long.

Second, this is one of the reasons I love shorter macro lenses instead of the heavy 180 mm macro lenses that many macro photographs seem to favor. These guys move around a lot, so using a tripod would have been very difficult if not impossible. Nonetheless, I find the 50-60 mm macro lenses to be too short for macro work of frogs and butterflies because one must be so close that the animals are easily scared off. I find my 100 mm macro lens to be a good balance between working distance and handholdability.

Third, I needed to consider which camera to use. At the time of this picture, I had a full-frame Canon 5D and 1.6x sensor 40D. The latter body would give me more effective magnification at a given working distance but a small sensor body offers two disadvantages in this situation. First, larger sensors offer less depth-of-field (see here for a fantastic, thorough explanation of this phenomenon). Although this seems counterintuitive for macro photography, I wanted as little depth of field as possible for this image in order to give the image a bit of a dreamy feel and to make the subject really pop. Second, larger sensors offer better high ISO performance. This was in fact the key reason that I chose the 5D over the 40D. Since I knew I would be handholding and working with very little margin for error in terms of focus, I was going to need as much shutter speed as possible.

Fourth, though I’m a big fan of flash, it can be tricky with these highly reflective little poison frogs. Since the light, though low, was quite nice and soft, I decided to work without flash.

Fifth, in terms of the composition, I knew I wanted to frame loosely in order to leave some negative space for the frog to look into and also because I thought the scene would lend itself well for a double-page magazine or book spread. Luckily, the frog cooperated and even gave me a nice pose that set up a triangle in the composition (see below).

Sixth, to meter the scene, my main concern was not blowing out the little cup mushroom, which was quite a bit brighter than the other parts of the image. I was working in aperture priority so I went with my gut feeling and evaluated the scene in its entirety, choosing -1/3 stop of exposure compensation to protect the highlights. Most of the tones in the scene (the greens, the reds, and the browns) were a bit darker than average so without some negative exposure compensation I was afraid the camera would try to bring the tones up to a middle exposure, in the process blowing out the detail in the bright mushroom. A quick check of my histogram after a test shot confirmed that this was a good choice. (Note, I can’t remember for sure if I got it exactly right the first time. I may have fiddled with a couple of test shots but it sounds better the way I wrote it above!).

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below, and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

The image analyzed here is available as a poster print, an affordable and classy way to jazz up any space in your home or office!

Or go here to license this image for editorial or advertising use.

Cheers,

Greg

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Nov 26, 2011 | Categories:Behind The Lens | Tags: behind the lens, macro, poison frog | 8 Comments »

Behind the Lens — White-faced Capuchin Monkey

(Gregory Basco)

Monkeys are always tough to shoot in the rainforest. They’re either sleeping or moving so fast through the high canopy that getting a good picture is very difficult. I was lucky with this encounter while on the grounds of my favorite lodge in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. I was leading a workshop and just after breakfast a troop of white-faced capuchin monkeys came down to feed on some cashew fruits (actually they’re hypocarps, not fruits since they do not enclose the cashew seed, for you botany geeks out there). Cashew are small trees so this brought the monkeys down to eye-level, but cashew trees are pretty bushy. When I saw this monkey moving out of the cashew tree toward a nearby coconut palm, I knew that was the shot I wanted because it offered a more open environment.

TECH NOTES: Canon 20D, Canon 300 mm f2.8 L IS lens, handheld, f2.8, 1/250, ISO 800

PROCESSING NOTES: full-frame, standard tweaks and a touch of noise reduction in Lightroom

Here’s the thought process I went through while taking this photo.

First, in terms of gear, when I’m in an area like Tortuguero, I pretty much always walk around with my 300 mm f2.8 lens mounted on my camera. This allows me to be ready when great wildlife surprises like this show up.

Second, tripod or no tripod? In this case, even though the early morning light was very low, and it was a dark, drizzly morning, handheld was the way to go with these monkeys. They move around a lot. I knew that the image stabilization on my lens would help ensure a sharp image.

Third, what aperture? What shutter speed? I knew immediately that I wanted to avail myself of the fast 2.8 aperture that my 300 mm lens offers. This would blur the background and also help with shutter speed by letting in more light. Since these monkeys move a lot, even when they pause for an instant, I wanted at least 1/200 or so to mitigate both my camera shake and the subject’s movement. This meant taking my ISO up — but how far? With the Canon 20D, I considered 800 to be the maximum usable ISO. Luckily, that got me to 1/250.

Fourth, though I’m a big fan of fill-flash, the light on this morning, though low, was quite nice and soft. Since it was drizzling I also wanted to avoid any flash reflections off wet leaves and fur. Plus, even though I had my flash mounted, the batteries had gone dead. So, it was destined to be a natural light shot, which turned out just fine.

Fifth, in terms of previsualization, I knew I wanted a monkey with a nice soft green background and hints of palm leaves for a tropical feel.

Sixth, to meter the scene, my main concern was not blowing out the monkey’s white fur, which was quite a bit brighter than the other parts of the image. I was working in aperture priority and evaluative metering so I went with my gut feeling and evaluated the scene in its entirety, choosing -1/3 stop of exposure compensation to protect the highlights. This worked out fine. You can see that even though the light was soft, it was early morning, so there is some direction to it. In fact, you can see by the varying tones of the white fur that it was coming from the right. My exposure choice kept the white fur on the monkey’s left side just in check, which preserved the subtle shadowing on the other side of the monkey’s face. This soft side light gives a really nice sense of dimension to any image.

Seventh, in terms of composition, this was a case where you do the best you can. I mentioned before that I anticipated this guy going to a coconut palm. I didn’t expect him to come quite so close though. Since there was a group of us shooting, the last thing I wanted to do was move back and maybe scare the monkey and in the process ruin other people’s images. So, I composed as best I could to get a bit of a diagonal with the big palm leaf the monkey is sitting on and was lucky to capture this moment when he was feeding and looked directly into the camera; the moment is crucial here as for me it adds a ton of interest. A vertical might have been an option but white, featureless sky would have creeped in if I had included much more vertical space, and though I don’t have anything against white skies, that certainly would have been a distraction in this situation.

So, although it really would be better with more space top and bottom, in the end I consider it a successful and quite pleasing image of this monkey species. And it sure was a fun start to the day for all of us on the trip!

If you have questions or comments, please leave them below, and I’ll respond as soon as I can.

The image analyzed here is available as a poster print, an affordable and classy way to jazz up any space in your home or office!

Cheers,

Greg

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Nov 12, 2011 | Categories:Behind The Lens | Tags: monkey, Tortuguero, wildlife photography | 3 Comments »

Great deals on SanDisk memory cards

B and H Photo Video just informed me that they have some great deals on San Disk memory cards. There really are some good prices, but the offer is for a limited time, so click the pic above if you’re in need of some memory.

Cheers,

Greg

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Nov 03, 2011 | Categories:News & Info | Tags: sandisk | Leave A Comment »

15 Tips for Rainforest Macro Photography

I have a new article on the NatureScapes website that offers some helpful ideas for dealing with the challenges of rainforest macro photography. You can read the article here, and if you want to join me for macro photography in Costa Rica, check out the workshop trip that I’m leading with NatureScapes in May of 2012.

Cheers,

Greg

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About the photographer: Greg Basco is an internationally published nature photographer specializing in the Costa Rican rainforest, with credits including National Geographic and Newsweek magazines and numerous promotional ventures with Canon. His images have been honored in the BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice competitions. Check out his fine art prints, stock images, and photo tours. Contact Greg for more info on image licensing or on location photography assignments.

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Nov 02, 2011 | Categories:Photo Tips | Tags: macro photography tips, rainforest macro | 3 Comments »

Behind the Lens — Moonlight Frog

(Gregory Basco)

The red-eyed tree frog (Agalychnis callidryas — aka, the gaudy leaf frog) is probably the most famous and most photographed frog in the world. And with good reason; it’s an amazing creature. There are lots of nice pictures out there, some taken with flash at night and others taken with natural light during the daytime. I’ve done both and have some nice images to show for it. In the end, though, most pictures of this frog tend to start looking a lot alike. Thus, I wanted an original image that really said something about the nocturnal habits of this shy creature. I wanted a kind of regal portrait that had good sharpness, that focused on the frog’s namesake eyes, and that looked as if it were lit by moonlight. This is the image I previsualized.

TECH NOTES: Canon 5D Mark I, Canon 100 mm f2.8 macro lens, handheld, Canon 430 EX speedlite (held in my left hand, camera held in right), Canon ST-E2 flash transmitter, Westcott Micro Apollo Softbox, f16, 1/200, ISO 50

PROCESSING NOTES: full-frame, darkened a couple of small spots on right side in Lightroom, added a touch of canvas on right in Photoshop

Here’s the thought process I went through while taking this photo.

First, in terms of gear, a macro lens was the obvious choice as I knew I wanted to get in nice and tight. My 100 mm macro was perfect as it allowed me to be far enough away that I didn’t scare the frog off but close enough that I could hold my flash in my left hand and in the position I wanted.

Second, as for the settings, I went to my standard settings when using flash as the only light for closeup/macro work (the shot was taken at night, it’s a nocturnal frog after all!). These settings consist of three variables:

–A low ISO because you know your flash will give you all of the power you need

–A small aperture (say f16 or so) to give enough depth of field but not too much to put you into diffraction territory

–A shutter speed at or just below the camera’s sync speed. Going any higher would mean you would need to go into high-speed sync mode, which would give you no advantage and only lead to loss of flash power. Going any lower would give no advantage and, if you went too slow, any stray ambient light (say from a flashlight) might start to creep into the exposure, compromising sharpness and creating potential white balance problems. Ambient light (artificial or natural) isn’t necessarily bad for nocturnal photography (see my creative lighting ideas post here) but it’s not what I wanted for this situation.

Third, with these settings, a picture without flash would yield a totally black frame. So, the next consideration is the flash setting. I decided to work with TTL flash, which works much better than manual flash when the distance between flash and subject varies, as is the case when one is chasing frogs around.

Fourth, now I needed to think about where I wanted to place the flash. Since I wanted that moonlight look, I knew that the flash needed to be placed off-camera, specifically, somewhere above the frog which is where the Earth’s moon would be. I also wanted the flash slightly behind to avoid illuminating the front of the frog, and I also knew I wanted it to come slightly from one side. This would really make the eyes pop by creating shadows. I’m a big fan of chiaroscuro lighting. A wireless flash transmitter enabled me to trigger the flash without the use of any cables or cords. I wanted soft light so I placed a small softbox on my flash.

Fifth, since I’m holding the camera in my right hand, and the flash in my left hand, how do I focus? Autofocus would be one option but since I didn’t have anyone to hold a flashlight for me and since the area was quite dark, the camera would have had a lot of trouble locking focus (the 5D series bodies are not known as AF champs). I chose to pre-focus my lens manually at the distance I thought I wanted and then moved the camera in and out until I thought the subject (in very faint light) was on the plane of focus. This took a few tries as you can imagine. I was working around a pond at a lodge on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, and there was some stray light from a building that made it just possible to focus without the aid of a flashlight or auto-focus.

Sixth, in terms of composition I wanted pretty much what I got here but I messed up a little bit. Since I had no free hands and was leaning out into the pond, I composed just a little bit too tightly on the right side of the frame. Unfortunately, this was the best frame I got becuase of the frog’s pose. So, I added just a bit of canvas (very easy to do with a black background) in Photoshop to restore the composition to what I had intended. Thus I don’t consider the image a complete success but I am pretty happy with the final result. I hope you appreciate the disclosure — most nature photographers never mention these things!