This is what it’s looked like outside my house for the last few months. Second avenue and side streets around 83rd (where I live) have been torn up. People have been kicked out of buildings (the one next to mine is going to be some sort of air ventilation system) and every day 83rd street is a different width.
Camera-wise, I shot this with the 5D which I had for a very short while. Yes, it was nice to get the “full effect” with my 20mm lens. But the focus was too slow for me. Odd but my 40D was faster at locking onto subjects, and what I eventually wound up with (and still use at the time of this writing) the Canon TI1 is also faster at locking onto subjects. I was lusting after the Canon 60D for a while, but when I saw that the TI3 was now available (or would be when and if things straighten out in Japan) – what a horrible way to look at things isn’t it? But yes, that’s really the camera I’ll probably ended up. And I’m doing so little shooting recently (working with this blog) that it doesn’t matter anyway.
And this, btw, isn’t even SECOND AVENUE. This is just a side street. The huge Italian restaurant across the street is now long gone. And people walking on first avenue or third avenue whisper to each other: oh, let’s not walk on Second. It’s such a miserable place.
But we are made of stronger stuff. My friend Rojo who runs the bodega on 2nd, says that we should have a banner made, or a flag made: 2ND AVENUE RULES! Or something along those lines. It’s going to take more than a bunch of heavy machinery and constant drilling to bother us.
But the drilling (I think they’ll strike oil soon) and the honking of displaced cars, was so loud, that I had to ask him if to repeat that.
The image does have a very nice
technical rendering.
Before you got the 5D I thought
I wouldn’t be able to see any
difference with your 40D shots
with these on-line images.
Now I’m not sure but I think I
could probably tell them apart
in a blind trial.
It could be the quality of the
28mm lens on the 5D though?
I think you will be able to say
much more than many about this
camera once you start making
prints from its files.
Stephen
P.S. The shot reminded me, somewahat,
of Donna Ferrato’s ‘Construction’
portfolio. Could it be ‘ART’?
I am so glad you got a used 5D; I wouldn’t part with mine for any digital camera in Christendom. You have noticed the two qualities that I love: the treatment of highlights and the ability to use wide-angle lenses. I’ve never used a 5D Mk II, but it would take a lot of convincing for me to trade mine for that model.
Chris — as do I. Love at first sight.
Nice photo. Interesting contrast between modern perfectly straight highrise in background and crooked older buildings in foreground. Also I think you captured a couple of UFOs in the sky. The invasion may be under way.
The only downside I’ve noticed. It goes through batteries pretty quickly coated to the 40d.
After about 250 shots that 1/3rd battery warning ces on. Which is why folks get the grip which I don’t like as it adds weight.
I also see that it take 3 different model number batteries. I wonder what if anything is the difference.
Non-photographic, New Yorker comment: An exterminator that I was talking to recently, told me that, no matter how often he’s been to and likes a restaurant, he will not go in if he sees construction in the immediate vicinity. In a somewhat similar vein, an acquaintance sold his investment in a Second Avenue restaurant when the mess started, due to the business disruption. This project reminds me of the road construction in the Bronx around where the Whitestone drive-in was; seemingly went on through my entire early driving years. These are the things that make New Yorkers tough.