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Canon DSLR Freebies Just Arrived

Finally, my Canon DSLR freebies has arrived. Exactly twenty-eight (28) days after I registered online. Canon actually said “You may expect to receive your premium item(s) within ten (10) working days from receipt” of my email/registration. So, less the numerous holidays we have for November, it actualy took 17 days for the freebies to arrive.

[tip]
When you buy a Canon DSLR camera, or even a Canon Point-and-Shoot camera, you are entitled to a 3-year warranty, a free Tamrac camera bag, and a hard-cover book called “Better Images with Canon EOS DSLR” by Jukka Kolari/Peter Forsgard. You don’t get these from the store you bought the camera from. These are emailed to you after you register online.
[/tip]


There were a lot of complaints in one of the discussions in a Canon facebook page where folks complain that their freebies have not yet arrived after more than 3 months. There’s even one who said he registered online last April 2010. I have also entered my share of gripes a few days ago, especially after Canon replied to my follow up email saying I’m to receive it within the week, Friday at most. Well, it did arrive… one week after (that’s today).


Now, that I’ve received the goods, I can leave all my gripes behind and forget I ever complained at all. After all, they did say that these are “gifts” and they did use the word “may” in “You may expect to receive your premium items within ten (10) working days…”. Of course, I can say all these now because I’ve already the gifts in my hand. But for the others who have yet to receive theirs…

By the way, the guy who delivered the goods not only required me to sign the receipt (which is normal), but he also asked me to cut out part of the box (shown in picture to the right) and give it to him, saying that Canon specifically requested it. I find it strange that none of the forums ever mentioned this as a prerequisite. I, nevertheless, did as told. I took this picture right before I cut it off the box, for my reference later. So, guys, I think you should retrieve your camera box now and keep it somewhere you can reach in less than a minute, unless you want the delivery guy to wait half an hour as you scramble and re-arrange your attic just to find the box.

Finally, a post about Canon, even if it be just about freebies, wouldn’t be complete without some pictures, would it? Below are a couple of pics I took during the free basic photography seminar, with free lunch, hosted by Canon last November 13. There’ll be another free seminar, complete as always with food, on November 30 which I surely will not miss.

Seminar speaker: Antonni Cuesta

Some 60Ds from attendees.

And here are a couple of shots I took at home just recently.

Some of my wife’s figurines

A moon shot around 5:45 a.m. hand-held (18-55mm kit lens).

Another moon shot attempt a month later with tripod (18-55mm kit lens).

moon shot 200mm

Then, a little over 2 months later, I did my first moon shot at 200mm using my 18-200mm IS lens, with tripod.
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Diving Into Digital SLR Photography


Just days prior to my acquisition of my very first DSLR camera, and thus soon taking the plunge into digital slr photography, I wasn’t able to help myself from buying a couple of books on digital slr photography, “The Digital Photography Book” volume 1 and volume 2 by Scott Kelby. As this is my first foray into this jungle, I’m not sure if Scott Kelby is considered a cool author in the photography world. (If he is, then I must have been guided into making him my first photography books’ author). These books actually also come as a 3-book series boxed set but I opted to buy only the first two, thinking that as a first-timer, I may have to spend a lot of time reading and experiencing whatever knowledge and wisdom is in books 1 and 2.

I have pored through book 1 and has so far been enlightened on a lot of points I have earlier been ignorant about. The book was formatted in such a way that it provided easy reading for me and Mr. Kelby simply spewed out tips and tricks that other photographers would probably prefer to just keep to themselves. I like his injection of humor and I indeed got into a lot of “Oh, so that’s how they do it…” moments.

I now see photographers as artists and not just dumb clickers who point and shoot. When I say photographer, I mean of course the ones who make digital slr photography a serious business, or at least a serious hobby. I understand for instance how they mind those little artifacts that we laymen wouldn’t have minded having in our pictures. I understand why they lug around those bulky-looking tripods wherever they go. Inspite of their fine artistic hands and fingers, they don’t trust that those wouldn’t create even the minutest shake that could snatch away perfection out of their final output. They have to use tripods. And some go as far as choosing tripods made with carbon fiber to dampen even the humanly undetectable vibrations.

Of course, there are instances where they couldn’t use tripods.Well, they got tricks to compensate. In wedding settings inside churches for instance, they would increase their ISO settings just enough so that noise is kept to a minimum and use their fastest lens to minimize the effects of hand shake. Kelby btw showed a technique of holding the camera to add extra stability and thus minimize hand shake, in the absence of a tripod.

After reading the book, I thought of increasing my budget in order to accomodate additional gadgets e.g. some particular glasses for specific purposes. No, actually I plan to buy those extra glasses some other time. These little beasts are not cheap, you know. I just have to type out these sentences to show that I use ‘glasses’ instead of ‘lenses’. Kelby says I’d sound more non-amateurish if I do that. Wait, will I sound professional if I include, say, ‘white balance’ and ‘f-stops’ whenever I talk about pictures?

At this point though, I still don’t agree with a photographer’s trick in shooting waterfalls where the output shows a very fine water flow that almost makes the water look like thick mist. It still just looks so artificial to me. This seems to be a standard among them, however, as I always see these effects in all exhibits I see where waterfalls or water is featured. Me, I still prefer to be able to see actual droplets and coarse splashes. Wow, I’m yet to enter the portals of digital slr photography and I’m already a rebel.

Now, I’m literally kicking-eager to go to the Canon outlet to get my camera. Oh no, not the skyhigh-priced ones. As I’m an absolute first timer and the budget is sorta tight, I’d settle, for now, for a Canon Rebel, the E0S 550D. I suppose this will turn out to be cool enough for my amateurish purposes. Earlier, I had set my sights on the new 60D. However some friends tell me to start off with the Rebel and that, should I pursue this art further later, I can upgrade to something even better than the 60D or 7D (or the Mark units, chill), or perhaps jump to the Nikon wagon altogether.