the 20d.

Not sure if I have just gotten somewhat lucky on timing or if it is the camera, but I have to say after a few months of owning a Canon 20D I bought used off good ol' craigslist from a photographer who had taken some pretty cool photos with it (including one I was immediately jealous of under Liberty Bell) it is exciting again to bring it along on my backcountry excursions and take pictures. Oh, and separately I also found on craigslist just the normal kit lens (an 18-55mm IS) that I got a really good deal on from some Russian kid who had me thinking initially I was about to buy some Russian knock-off but it all worked out in the end. Ah, craigslist.

But anyway, I just went out and got a few filters–(2) Hitech neutral density grads (0.3-stop and 0.6-stop, both soft edge) to fit a new Cokin P series adapter along with a Cokin circular polarizer. Those are pretty much the only filters you need to have with a digital camera, or so I think for just doing pretty run-of-the-mill landscape stuff like I tend to do. I wish I had just gotten a 0.9-stop instead of the 0.3- and also a hard-edge filter might be in my future. But that was it. I chose the body I did cos the guy selling it was including three Canon batteries with it, which run about fifty bucks a piece. I then promptly sold my Mamiya RB67 Pro-S setup which–after one backpacking trip up into the John Muir Wildnerness outside of Yosemite last year–I knew I would never again put in a backpack, rendering it fairly useless to me (um, it was really, really heavy).

So with three batteries, a couple of new 4GB cards, those filters and the body + 18-55 IS I have headed out on seemingly a bunch of trips and gotten lucky on just about all of them–from backpacking to Hidden Lake and climbing Sahale Peak (meant to be Buckner but conditions did not allow for it this time) in North Cascades National Park, to backpacking to Lower Cathedral Lake and tooling around Yosemite (all just in the last month) I have really gotten to know the 20D well and have had a lot of fun. I guess it's neat to realize that I can actually do something with the shots, too–as in print them and frame them if I ever decide to do such a thing. I thought (and probably still do) that I would like to eventually sport the 17-40L, the 10-22 USM and the 24-105L lenses (all Canon) but considering a) that is close to three grand in glass and b) the 18-55 is nice and portable and quite sharp–it might be a while before I wind up with those.

I still enjoy hauling a Hasselblad around for serious black-and-white work (I did to Cathedral Lakes–just have to develop the film), but the 20D is a fine replacement for my cherished but aged Canon G2.