a (fashion) shooter

I shot a story in a restaurant in Los Angeles yesterday – not with my usual full-frame cameras, but instead with the 1.6 crop Canon Rebel T2i / 550d. Why? In part to see how successful I could be in getting the background blur I want and need for tabletop photography in a busy room. Also, because I travel a lot, and having a small, light and usable camera is important at times. Knowing that the dynamic range of the newer crop-chip cameras is on par with the 5D2/1Ds3 cameras, it seemed feasible that this camera could do a stellar job. As I travel a lot, the 550d acts as a backup for my full-frame cameras when on the road – because it is small, light, and has an on-camera flash, which comes in handy now and then!)

I also used inexpensive consumer leneses: Canon 50mm 1.8, the kit zoom lens 18-55 IS, and the 24-85 3.5-4.5) These cheaper lenses are sharp enough most of the the time. But when pointed down, the focus and zoom tend to drift due to gravity, which means a LOT more work and constant refocusing and re-compositing. When working with time constraints, this is a big problem. The more expensive lenses which I use most of the time (70-200 2.8 L, 100mm macro,  50mm 1.4 etc. are much better in this regard. They stay where you put them. And the tripod collars on the 70-200 and macro are real time savers.)

A few issues with the T2i:

Viewfinder is not great for precise manual focus when using narrow depth-of-field! After using the full-frame cameras with their optional precision focusing screens, the T2i’s manual focusing is vague. Stopped down it is no problem, but using a 50mm or 85mm near wide open, you really can not tell precisely where you are focused until after the shot is taken and you can view it on an LCD screen.

I somehow thought I could use my Canon remote cable release for this camera, but no! I ended up using the 2 second timer instead, which is not nearly as convenient or fast as a remote release.

What worked well:

The image quality on this camera is really very good. No one I know of in the publishing world is going to complain about the files coming out of this camera. And these are going to Gourmet Magazine.

Tethered transfer times to the computer are good (I was shooting RAW connected with Canon’s Digital Photo Pro software. )

Battery life is very good. After the shoot the battery still showed just about full-power. The older cameras (including the 5D Classic, T1i…) would chew through batteries much faster, especially when shooting tethered.

In conclusion: The T2i/550d worked very well in this commercial application. Files look great, and everyone is happy. However,  I do not recommend the cheaper consumer lenses for table top photography. While the IQ was fine, their mechanical characteristics made for some frustrating focusing and compositional issues.

While the T2i has been replaced with the T3i, the T2i can be had for good prices now. I bought this one as kit with the 18-55 IS as a refurb directly from Canon for under $500. IMO it makes a great small and light travel camera, and it also makes a good backup for the full frame bodies.