I can see for miles with this thing...

Oh I love new kit and a little windfall convinced me I could splurge on my latest heart's desire - a better zoom lens for my fledgling photographer me. As an amateur photographer and birdwatcher I always try to get an image of birds I see while out. My wallet and skills limited me to a multi purpose super zoom which while good still tended to give disappointing shots where my birds were small and often out of focus shots. I was forever looking through my binoculars and musing, "I wish my camera cold get as close as these bins." and looking at online images posted by friends and Youtubers, amateur and pro alike and thinking, "I'll never be able to produce anything like this." And while I know a bad workman blames his tools, I think I needed just a little better kit to get me where I want to go. After deliberating for a few weeks and as usual perusing review websites and YouTube I decided I NEEDED a super zoom. My photography gurus, Chelsea and Tony Northrup were preparing a super zoom face off of the latest and greatest but I can't stretch to those, however, I discovered  a Sigma 50-500mm 1.4-6.3 APO DG telephoto lens and i took delivery of said lens yesterday.

Now I have to get my nose to the grindstone and make sure I practice, practice, practice and learn a lot more about how to get the best out of my new gear. I'm off to play.

Can't connect your Canon EOS camera to your computer? All USB cables are NOT created equal....

For a long time I have been unable to connect my Canon EOS 60D camera to my computer, well to ANY computer actually. It's one of those dastardly "it-used-to work-and-now-its-doesn't-and-I-can't figure-out-why" mysteries. You know the sort that will drive you insane. Either there is no response at all or I get that message that says the USB device is not recognised. Launch EOS utility and nothing happens.

After having struggled for what seems an eternity to  figure out WTH is wrong with my Canon EOS 60D, I finally have a solution of sorts. I have uninstalled and installed the EOS Utility several times; tried it on all the different computers that live at my house. This meant it was also tried with different OSes: Windows XP (yes, you heard me) Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and a Mac mini running 10.6.8 (Yes we are a mixed OS household). All to no avail. Forums told me it was Windows or it was the firmware update or it was the EOS utility. Tinkering with all of these yielded no results so I resorted to simply taking the SD card out of the camera and transferring it to the computer to import images in a quaint and old fashioned manner. Now where's the fun in that?


The answer to my quest? The USB cable. I had seen occasional posts talking about different USB cables being used but I had continued to labour under the patently ridiculous assumption that if you've seen one USB cable is a USB you've seen them all. Foolish me. Today while trying to clear my shambolic desk I stumbled across a rogue micro USB cable and upon close inspection, I spied the Canon logo on the micro head and I began to get very excited.

Look closely - it says "Canon"

I plugged in my camera and hey presto the EOS Utility started its autorun magic. Order is restored.

I recommend you hunt through all of your existing micro USB cables - if you are anything like me there will be dozens - and check the end. Look for the Canon brand embossed on the plug (I don't know the proper name but look at my photo above). If you can't find the cable, beg borrow or steal one or I'm sure you can get a replacement on t'internet.