subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 5 October 2019 25
USING DSLRS
Guy Edwardes
Wildlife and landscape photographer Guy Edwardes has
been taking pictures for more than 30 years, and now has
a library of some 250,000 images. He spends the majority
of his time running both one-to-one and group workshops
in locations as diverse as Dorset, Bulgaria and Costa Rica,
and covers subjects including birds of prey, fungi and
wildflowers. Visit http://www.guyedwardes.com‘I BOUGHT my first SLR – a Canon
EOS 650 – more than 30 years ago.
I was shooting purely wildlife
images at that point, so I needed
an SLR in order to be able to
use long enough lenses. I mainly
photographed birds, and had a
very low hit rate at the time, thanks
to the slower autofocus, but I
persevered. I switched to digital as
soon as the first full-frame Canon
DLSR – the EOS-1Ds – was
launched. That was in 2002, and
I’ve never touched film since.
I need several things from
a camera: a fast frame rate for
action shots of wildlife, with large
raw buffer; enough megapixels
for landscape photography; good
low-light capability for night and
landscape work; and a wide range
of lenses. At the moment, I have an
EOS-1D X, a 5DS R and a 5D Mark
IV, which I tend to use more than
the other two.
The weight of a mirrorless system
is part of its appeal for many
photographers, but travelling light
isn’t a priority for me. In fact, I like
to carry as much as I possibly can,
because you never know what might
come along. Even if I go out on
my own to shoot, say, fungi in the
forest, I won’t take only my macro
gear – I’ll take another body and
more lenses in case I see a deer or
some other wildlife. In any case,
with some mirrorless systems, the
lenses aren’t necessarily lighter than
those for DSLRs, and a lot of the
Sony ones are even heavier.
I don’t like that mirrorless bodies
themselves are smaller, as it means
the buttons are more fiddly. I have
fairly large hands and the way
a camera fits in the hand is
important. Whenever I’ve used
a client’s mirrorless camera, I’ve felt
as if it might slip out of my hand.
The biggest thing stopping me
from switching to mirrorless is theelectronic viewfinder. For me, the
resolution still isn’t high enough.
Whenever I look through even the
very best EVFs, I feel completely
disconnected from the subject –
like I’m looking at a computer
screen. Even with the viewfinder
blackout you get with a DSLR, the
real-time aspect of it is crucial for
wildlife photography.
Although it’s not out of the
question that I might one day
get myself an Olympus kit for
photographing birds in flight, so
much of my other wildlife relies
on shallow depth of field, and this
is where shooting with a DSLR
excels. In the longer term, I suspect
that manufacturers may stop
updating their DSLRs, so in a few
years’ time I could be mirrorless
whether I like it or not.’‘Travelling light isn’t a priority for me. In fact,
I like to carry as much as I possibly can’
A full-frame DSLR with a long lens (in this
case, 600mm) and wide aperture creates
a diffused background with no distractions© GUY EDWARDES