Various Thoughts on Photography (and video) with the 5D Mark II

I'm currently enjoying my Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR and my lenses. As many of you know, it is a excellent camera, and I have taken some pictures with it that I am proud of, but my photography skills still leave a lot to be desired. I would say that while I definitely have room for improvement with regard to my compositional expertise, it is the technical aspects that I need to improve more, and it is those techniques that I feel more comfortable with tackling.

I've recently shot a number of photos and some videos and I wanted to make some comments about some of those techniques that I want to improve. I'll blog more about other ones that come to mind in a future post. Here are the ones I will talk about today:

• White balance issues:  I recently took some photos at the annual ARRL Field Day, and amateur radio event.  After the sun went down, I wanted to take some pictures using my fast glass, notably my Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM.  I increased the ISO speed to around 800.  The 5D Mark II has no problem with this.  I had already thought ahead to custom white balancing the evening shots.  Our Field Day event was held in a picnic shelter.  At dusk, several high-pressure sodium vapor lights came on to illuminate the picnic tables and our radios.  I realize that sodium vapor lights can only be corrected to a degree, but I wanted to attempt it anyway.  I grabbed my X-Rite ColorChecker Passport and opened it to the ColorChecker section and took a picture.  I figured that later in Adobe Camera RAW, I would use the neutral eyedropper to correctthe color balance.  The problem, as it turned out, was that the light that was falling on the ColorChecker was a combination of the sodium vapor lighting and the twilight.  The twilight tones were probably actually stronger.  The pictures that I ended up taking were actually taken a little bit later and from further inside (or under) the picnic shelter, where the sodium vapor light was more predominant.  The lesson to be taken away here, is to use white balance tools under the same lighting conditions and the photos that will be corrected.
• During that same weekend, it took a short walk with the camera to take a distant shot of the picnic shelter along with the antennas, and the tents that were set up.  I wanted this to be an all-encompassing shot of the entire Field Day site.  I walked back about 500 feet or so.  I was using my Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM lens, and its field of view was perfect.  The problem that I had with these shots was that part of the foreground was distractingly out of focus.  I would have preferred to have it in focus.  The only solution to this problem would have been to stop down the lens and correspondingly lengthen the shutter speed.  As the photos in question were already night shots and I was pushing my luck to get acceptably sharp photos, I would've have needed my tripod.  I had packed the tripod for the weekend, but I never thought to grab it.
• I was still taking evening pictures of fellow amateur radio operators making contacts at their stations.  I was still using the same 35mm f/1.4 lens.  That lens is a fairly "fast" lens and also focuses fast due to its ultrasonic motor.  For several of these photos, I wanted to keep the flash turned off, in order to capture the lighting coming off of the radios and the computer monitors.  I should've used a feature of my Canon Speedlite 580EXII that I tend to forget:  the ability to leave the flash turned on, but disable its ability to fire.  By doing that, I still get the benefits of the AF-Assist lamp, which can lead to quick and accurate focusing.  I don't really have any complaints about the focusing on the shots that I took without the AF-Assist lamp, but I still feel it could've helped.  I also have the Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter that performs the AF-Assist functions but without the weight of a full flash unit.  This can be used when it is already know that all of the pictures will be taken without flash.
• The final technique that I want to talk about is shooting video with the Canon 5D Mark II.  Although some people may dismiss the video capabilities, I happen to think that the Mark II is an excellent video camera.  It is rapidly taking the place of my eight year old Sony VX2000 MiniDV-based camcorder as my primary tool for video.  There are two points I want to mention now about the video capabilities of the Mark II.  The first is that a custom white balance can be set for the video.  Since I was shooting under mixed lighting conditions, and since the video was going straight to YouTube (I don't edit these videos; they are more documentary in nature), I should have set a custom white balance before shooting my evening video.  I don't have a computer or editing software that is powerful enough to handle the 1080p video that the Mark II produces (I suppose I could shot standard VGA video), so the video that ended up on YouTube was the raw, un-corrected video.  The other point is that while the Mark II has a front-facing monaural microphone, I own a Rode stereo video-mic that includes a shock-mount and a "dead kitten" wind sock.  I should have used it.  Besides the radio, there were plenty of other environmental sounds to capture.  A stereo capture would have added a new dimension to the video.

 As I have said before, I'm still learning, and I will always be learning how to use my camera and my other photography tools.

Until next time.

Ned

Adding Another Blog

I'm adding a third blog.  There are times when the topic is not amateur radio or photography, so I've created a miscellaneous blog for those posts.  It is located at http://nedsmisc.blogspot.com/.

New Photography Blog

I have decided to create a new blog devoted to photography. I'll be able to keep my amateur radio topics separate from my photography topics. If a post happens to involve both, then I will probably post in both. I'm going to try to move my photography posts from the amateur radio blog over to here. We'll see how that goes.

Ned

Want a New Tripod

Lately, in my picture taking endeavors I have been trying to concentrate more on some of the technical aspects of photography. When I am shooting hand-held, for example, I am trying to keep the shutter speed high enough to avoid noticeable blur in the photos. There is a guideline that indicates your shutter speed should be at least faster than the reciprocal of your focal length. For example, if you are using a 50mm lens, then the shutter speed should be faster than 1/50, which would typically mean faster than 1/60 of a second when discussing whole stops. That guideline was probably developed from some trial and error. The fact is that longer focal length lenses, such as telephotos are typically heavier and tend to magnify camera motion more because they are trained on some distant subject.

As I take pictures these days using my month-old Canon EOS-5D Mark II, I'm trying to pay attention to those numbers in the viewfinder. If my shutter speed doesn't meet that guideline and I'm shooting hand-held, I first see if I can open the aperture any further. If I am already at my maximum aperture, then I will adjust the ISO speed of the camera. The 5D Mark II excels at taking pictures with high ISO settings and keeps the noise level to a minimum.

Sometimes, you don't want to increase the ISO speed because you want the cleanest picture you can get. At that time, you need to suspend hand-held shooting and grab a tripod and a remote shutter release. I currently have a Giottos carbon-fiber tripod which is reasonably light and is strong and stiff. To the tripod, I have mated an Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 SP ballhead. This is arguably one of the best ballheads out there. Ballheads are very quick and easy to use. This tripod and head combination is great, but it is relatively big and bulky, although it is not that heavy. This Christmas, while spending time with my parents in Florida, I wanted to take pictures of the lights. I didn't have my tripod because it would have been too much to carry on the plane. My Dad's Slik aluminum tripod really wasn't up to the task of supporting the 5D Mark II with battery grip and 24-70mm f/2.8L zoom. I then decided that I needed a compact tripod along with a smaller ballhead to complement my other tripod/head combination. I think that I have settled on a Gitzo GT1541T Traveler carbon-fiber tripod along with a Really Right Stuff BH-40 ballhead. The Traveler is a 4-section tripod that collapses to 16" when the legs are folded back over the center column. The ballhead should easily support my typical camera/lens combinations.

Besides trying to think about using a tripod more, I'm looking at the other techniques for taking sharper photos. One of them is using a remote shutter release or some other remote trigger. I've got two remote options at my disposal. The first is Canon's timer remote control. This is a wired remote control that also be programmed to take photos are specific intervals, can take a pre-determined numbers of photos, and a couple of other functions. Of course the main purpose of the remote shutter release is to ensure that you aren't touching the camera at the time that the picture is taken. My other remote method involves a couple of PocketWizard radio triggers. One PocketWizard sits in the camera's hot shoe with a cable running to the camera's remote control socket. The other PocketWizard is in my hand. I just hit the Test button to take a picture. Another technique to get sharper photos is to use mirror lockup, ideally in combination with a delay timer on the camera. You hit the shutter release button on the remote the first time and the mirror swings out of the way. Then after a delay determined either by the camera or the photographer, the actual picture is taken, but by this time the vibrations caused by the mirror moving out of the way have diminished. The other method that I can think of to achieve sharp photos is to use Live View. Until I got the 5D Mark II, I didn't have this option. But by using Live View and manual focus and Live View's 5x and 10x magnification modes, I can fine-tune focus on my subject. A tripod and several of these techniques are going to be absolutely necessary when I acquire a tilt-shift lens (either the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II or the TS-E 17mm f/4L), I suspect.

I'm also trying to work on my photographic composition. So far, my photos have more of a photojournalistic style to them, and although the document something, they can be rather boring. I know one thing, photography is like many other things: there is always more to learn.

Ned

Canon EOS 5D Mark II On The Way

My new digital camera is on the way. It is the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. It will replace my 5D. I am really excited about the camera arriving and using it. As you can imagine it offers a number of updated or added features that make the upgrade worthwhile. I happen to find many of those features compelling. The first feature that I look forward to is the increased resolution. I will be going from 12 megapixels (MP) to 21 MP. The new camera captures data off of the sensor with a 14 bit depth, whereas the 5D was 12 bits. This equates to four times as much data, smoother gradations in tone, and more than likely more exposure latitude. The new camera allows for a greater high ISO range. The 5D topped out absolutely at ISO 3200. The 5D Mark II tops out at ISO 25,600. Although 25,600 is one of its extended high ISO settings, its maximum regular ISO speed (sensitivity) is 6400. I've seen pictures on Flickr taken with the 5D Mark II at ISO 6400 and they are quite clean considering the high ISO speed. For me, having the high ISO speed of 6400 (I'm sure that I will use 12,800 and 25,600 once in a while), means that many more pictures can be captured in natural light, at some pretty low light levels. Over the past couple of years, I have upgraded many of my lenses to better, faster (larger aperture), higher quality lenses. One of my lenses has a maximum aperture of f/1.2 and another is f/1.4. I'm really curious to see how dark it can be and still take a sharp picture hand-held with the lens wide open.

The 5D Mark II also supports Live View. In Live View, the mirror is flipped up and the shutter is opened and you can compose your picture on the LCD panel. For me, I will probably not regularly use Live View, but I can see four types of shooting where I will use it, plus one more type of shooting that I will mention in a little bit. With macro shooting and a narrow depth of field, focusing can be critical. With Live View, you can focus easier on the LCD screen and you have the option of zooming in five times or 10 times and really nail the focus. Another type of shooting is portraiture with my Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM lens or my Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM lens. With both lenses, depth of field can also be narrow, and therefore focusing is critical, and Live View can be used to achieve accurate focusing. Another type of shooting is nighttime shooting. With nighttime shooting especially with manual focus it is sometimes not possible to tell if your subject will be in focus, simply because the viewfinder is too dark. From what I understand, in Live View mode the LCD display will compensate for the dark conditions and brighten the display allowing focus to be determined. The fourth time, I would probably use Live View is with a tilt-shift lens. I don't have that type of lens yet, but I am looking at the Canon TS-E 17mm f/4L. With shift movements, you are controlling perspective, such as straightening the converging vertical lines of a building or trees. Although I understand that Canon sells a focusing screen with grid lines etched in it, you can also display grid lines on the Live View display and get your vertical lines truly vertical. With tilt movements, you are typically controlling depth of field, but again the Live View mode may make that easier to determine. While I am here, I will mention that I don't think I will have trouble adjusting to the new LCD display. It has approximately three times the resolution and is supposed to be much more readable in the sun.

Video is another very interesting feature on the 5D Mark II. It supports full HD recording in arguably one of the better codecs, H.264. The video possibilities with a large sensor, and potentially large apertures, along with other creative possibilities such as depth of field control with a tilt-shift lens, are pretty neat. Another thing to keep in mind is that this camera has excellent low light capabilities. I'm really looking forward to shooting some video with the 5D Mark II. I do already have a standard-definition 3-CCD MiniDV camcorder (the Sony DCR-VX2000) and for shooting video, nothing beats a dedicated camcorder where all of the controls are ergonomically placed.

Other features to be excited about are how the review histogram can be displayed. You can have the luminance histogram and RGB histogram displayed simultaneously, so you know if you are clipping the exposure on the overall picture or individual color channels. The 5D Mark II apparently has better dust and water sealing. It also has a self-cleaning sensor. I got burned before with a dirty sensor. I discussed it in an earlier post.

Me and a friend went together on the purchase. He has wanted the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens and, of course, I have wanted the 5D Mark II. Canon sells a kit that combines the two and saves the buyer some money over buying them separately. I also made a separate purchase and am waiting for the battery grip, a L-bracket, a spare battery, and a UDMA-capable CompactFlash card.

Check out my Flickr, Pbase, and Picasa photo albums for upcoming pictures from the 5D Mark II.

Ned

Adobe Bridge CS4

Within the past couple of weeks, I upgraded my copy of Photoshop. I previously had version CS, and now I have version CS4, which is the latest release as of now. Photoshop is an amazing product, and I look forward to learning much more about it. In the past, I had only used Photoshop to do some minor contrast adjustments, set different colorspaces, resizing, and sharpening. I also tended to use Corel's Paint Shop Pro X2 for similar tasks. Now I want to concentrate my learning towards Photoshop and start using it for much more, including things like compositing, retouching, and advanced color correction.

For the reminder of this post, however, I want to talk about a product that comes with Adobe Photoshop CS4, and that is Bridge CS4. In my old version of Photoshop I was accustomed to its image browser, but I really just used it to find a picture and open it and nothing more. The image browser was self contained in Photoshop. Bridge CS4 is a stand-alone application and the first time I ran it I was blown away. Perhaps some of the features that I am going to discuss were already available in the old image browser, but I never became aware of them. They are so much more accessible in this new browser, anyway.

Bridge CS4 is divided into several panes. The main one is the image thumbnails themselves. They show the pictures already rotated if orientation data was recorded in the file. Just as you would expect, you can click one picture or use Shift or Ctrl to select several images. If you select one image, that image will show up as a larger preview in another pane. Below the preview pane is a pane for viewing and updating image metadata. Metadata is data that either the camera embedded in the file when it took the picture or it is data that is recorded later in an application such as Bridge. Camera data consists of such things as camera model, lens used, focal length used, f number (aperture), ISO speed, shutter speed, white balance settings, metering modes, whether flash was used or not, portrait/landscape orientation, colorspace, and so on. Data that is recorded later can include photographer contact information, copyright notices, keywords, geotagging information (although some cameras can record this when the picture is taken), and ratings. The final pane is for filtering and for collections. I'm not sure what collections is all about right now, but I will check it out later. Filtering is really neat. After Bridge has had a chance to scan the folder, it builds a list of various criteria that can be filtered. Some examples are date created, lens used, focal length, ISO speed settings, and portrait/landscape orientation. Based on one particular folder on my hard drive that has about 3,100 pictures in it, I can quickly see that I mainly shoot at ISO 100, that by far my favorite lens is my Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens, and that my favorite focal length is 24mm and my next favorite is 105mm. Those, of course, are the two extremes of that lens. I can tell you this because Bridge CS4 tallies the number of times each focal length (or other criteria) is used. For me this has some real practicality. I've been debating about getting a new, fast prime lens. I have been looking at the Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM and the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM. Although I will likely get both eventually, I can tell from my past picture taking that I will get far more use (according to Bridge) out of the 24mm lens, so that is probably the one I will get first, if I can find it in stock (that's another story).

The ability to add metadata is a nice feature, too. I can add keywords to images, and add my contact information to photos as well. The contact information can be stored in a template and applied to a whole bunch of pictures at a time. Keywords can be applied to one picture at a time or multiple pictures. It just depends on how many pictures you select in the thumbnail pane. There were several things that I was curious about when it came to metadata. The first was whether the process of adding metadata to the JPEG was destructive in any way to the image. Based on my research it is not. The JPEG has a header part and an image part, and the process of adding metadata only involves the header and not the image. Of course, my concern stems from the fact that using an image editing program to repeatedly open a JPEG and re-save as a JPEG, will lead to degradation. The next thing that I was curious about was whether other applications messed with the metadata previously written. Bridge does not really handle geotagging, so I wondered if I can add most of the metadata in Bridge and then add the geotagging information via the Picasa and Google Earth combination. This process works fine and leaves all metadata intact. Finally, I was wondering how websites such as Flickr and Picasa would read the metadata. The Picasa website doesn't really use a lot of the metadata, but it does use the geotagging data, and the keywords, and the shooting data (aperture, shutter speed, etc.). Flickr can use pretty much all of the data that can be recorded. It has ways to map the location of the picture. It will show the shooting data with just one click of the mouse, and will show the majority of the metadata with another click of the mouse. The keyword metadata is automatically shown as Flickr's tags.

I am very impressed with Bridge and expect to be using it quite a bit. I did forget to mention one pane of the Bridge screen, and that is the folder view, where it shows your entire directory tree. I will post more about this application once I learn more about it.

Ned

Lessons to Learn

Last weekend, I visited the home of a friend and co-worker. She had asked me to come over not only to chat, but also to photograph her immediate and extended family. I figured that this would be a perfect opportunity to dust off my Alien Bees studio lights, and take some portraits for them. I did not realize at the time, but there would be several things that I would still need to watch out for.

I took a wide variety of equipment out, including my Canon EOS-5D SLR, a number of lenses (many in my collection are now Canon's L-series, which is typically considered the "good stuff"), an Alien Bee B400 and B800, two silver/white umbrellas, light stands, a Sekonic L-758DR flash meter, three PocketWizard Plus II transceivers (for remotely firing the strobes), and a Photoflex Multidisc reflector (which was used for some photos outdoors). That weekend I mainly used a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, but I did use a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens for a short time (it was generally too "long").

I got the light set up, and I got out my light meter. Since this was the first time that I had used it for flash photography, I had to pull up the owner's guide on my friend's computer. I was planning to use the L-758DR PocketWizard capability. It took about ten minutes, but I figured out how to fire the strobes with the meter, and to also understand the peculiarities of the meter. I adjusted the camera and strobe output in order to get a proper exposure. During this photo shoot, I think that I had the exposure generally correct. Unfortunately, I had other issues, as seen in this photo (the color may be washed out since this was shot in Adobe RGB color space and has not yet been converted to sRGB).



1. Distractions: It's like I wasn't even trying to take a decent photograph. On the left hand side of the photo you see several distracting items. I just wonder if I'm not paying attention to those things when I am looking through the viewfinder (because whether they appear is dependent on the focal length used). Anyway, I should have moved those items out of way.

2. Annoying reflection: The fireplace facing is marble and is highly reflective. At the top left corner of the marble you can see a reflection of the umbrella. Although you can't make out the spokes of the umbrella, you can clearly see the hotspots caused by the folds of the umbrella.

3. Color balance is off: The adult in the picture above was wearing a purple sweater. In the photo the color does look pretty close to the way that I remember it, but when viewed larger it seems to be too blue. I did notice this during the shoot, because on the viewfinder her sweater definitely appeared too blue.

4. Dust on the sensor: The photo above does not show a rather large dust particle. It was obscured by the adult's hair, but it is definitely there and was present during my whole weekend of shooting. I had shot pictures on the previous day at the Franklin Park Conservatory. Many of those pictures were quite busy with leaves, flowers and so on in the picture. They were also typically shot with a wider aperture. These family portraits on the other hand was mostly shot at f/9.0. Smaller apertures tend to accentuate the dust. I figure that of the 89 photos I shot at their house that day, I have 53 where I need to fix the dust.

5. Shadows: I suppose the shadows are not too distracting, but I should have tried to avoid them. I own three Alien Bees strobes, but one quit working a couple of years ago and I have never sent it back in for repair. More light would help with the shadows.

6. Posing: I don't know squat about posing. I relied on the mother and father mostly for posing. I did speak up sometimes when I saw a particularly annoying reflection in someone's eyeglasses, but that's about it.

How to eliminate or lessen these issues?

#1 and #2: For distractions and reflections, I am actually looking at two types of products that should be able to take care of that. The first item is a backdrop and its accompanying supports. I am currently looking at the hand-painted muslin backdrops from Aura Backdrops. They are 10' by 20' in size and include a rod pocket for the support beam. The one issue that I can see with a backdrop that I haven't encountered yet with walls, is that the backdrop will need more light on it, to separate it from the people. I can relegate my Alien B400 (the least powerful) to a shorter backlight stand to take care of that, but then I need another Alien Bee unit, I think. I am looking at the Alien Bee B1600 (their most powerful) which can also be used with the second type of product I am looking at for getting rid of reflections (not distractions). That item is the softbox. A proper softbox should be able to provide a nice uniform light that, even if it is reflected, might be mistaken for something else (such as a window). It's hard to mistake the reflection of an umbrella. I am currently looking at Photoflex's Multidome. The Multidome has an internal diffusion panel and the front diffusion panel and also has optional gold and silver inserts to modify the light.

#3: There are two ways to be proactive about color balance. The first is to shoot in RAW. The 5D supports RAW and I need to start using it. As RAW implies, the camera is recording the raw data from the image sensor. Color balance can be adjusted on the computer later. The other thing that can be done to be proactive (whether or not RAW is used) is to shoot a gray target under the same lighting conditions that will be used for the portraits. I've got a Lastolite EZYBalance 20-inch target on the way. What I notice on the JPEGs that I did shoot that day is that prior to me adjusting the camera's white balance from auto to flash, the colors appeared too cool. After changing the white balance, the colors appear too warm. Of course, I still haven't converted them to the sRGB color space. Shooting a gray target should allow me to nail the color balance.

#4. Dust on the sensor: I didn't see this until I got home. The dust is too small to see on the 5D's LCD display, but it clearly shows up on 19" monitors. How do I eliminate dust? The first is to be aware of it. If you take a longer focal length lens, manually focus it to infinity, stop it down to a smaller aperture, and shoot against a plain background, the dust particles should be easy to see. I already have the complete VisibleDust kit including the lighted-loupe, static brush, and swabs, and I also have a Giottos Rocket Blower. I need to start carrying those items with me. Of course, short of examining the actual sensor each time, which I feel is just an invitation for dust, the problem is going to be trying to see dust on the 5D's LCD display. Now that dust is on my photos, I've got to learn how to eliminate it. I figured Photoshop had a tool for dust removal. Sure enough, one of the best tools is the spot healing brush, but I currently have Photoshop CS, and the spot healing brush was not released until Photoshop CS2. However, in a couple of days (when my latest B&H order arrives), I will have upgraded to Adobe Photoshop CS4.

#5. Shadows: As I alluded to earlier, another key/fill light could help out. If I buy a B1600 and and have my B800 repaired, then I will have four strobes. One can do a lot with four strobes.

#6. Posing: I've just got to learn how to pose people. I recently purchased one of Monte Zucker's portrait books. Of course that book contains just one person's opinion, but his portraits were usually highly-regarded.

So that's quite a lengthy post, but I wanted to share with you some of the pitfalls with shooting portraits, and I hope that you will learn from my mistakes. By the way, I thought that the Photoflex Multidisc that I used (for the first time) outside worked quite well, as shown in this photo.



Until next time.

Ned

Devoting Some Time To My Other Hobby

Well, actually I have several hobbies, but I have only declared two of them to be my primary hobbies (the ones that I tend to spend a lot of money on) and those are amateur radio and photography. Over the years I have spent quite a bit (of money) on amateur radio equipment, but I have also sold some stuff in the past couple of years. I still have two HF radios, two mobile radios, and two HTs, and some of the accessories that go along with that, but my station is not nearly as extravagant as a lot of others. Photography seems to be where I spend the money the most.

I've got my Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM lens now, and used it shortly after buying it to photograph some of the Columbus Marathon that our ARES group was providing communication support for. I've been taking quite a few pictures at Dawes Arboretum and the Franklin Park Conservatory. I'm also in the process of trading up my point-and-shoot digital camera (the one that I take on business trips). The new P&S camera is actually a 10 megapixel, down from a 12 megapixel, but promises to be less noisy at the higher ISO settings. Plus the new camera also has the latest processor (Canon's DIGIC 4), a 20x optical zoom, USM focusing, optical image stabilization, and records stereo videos in the H.264 mode. The new camera is the Canon Powershot SX10.

I'm considering my next photography purchases. I want to expand into more macro photography. I've already got three items that are biased towards that type of photography: a Sigma 50mm macro lens, a Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, and a Canon MR-14EX Speedlite. However, I want to sell the old Sigma lens and put the money (it won't go far) towards four new items: the Canon 180mm f/3.5L macro lens, the MT-24EX twin-flash Speedlite, a focusing rail system, and the Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens (a very specialized lens). In my recent research on the MT-24EX and the MP-E lens, I re-discovered the Flickr website. I had an account on Flickr that was created a year or two ago, when Yahoo decided not to do photo-hosting. I never really used Flickr, but I had some photos on there that were transitioned from the old Yahoo Photos area. Flickr is a vast area and I look forward to regularly visiting it. In addition to Flickr, I spend quite a bit of time on two other photo-sharing websites: Pbase and Picasa. All three sites seem to have there strengths and weaknesses. I won't go into all of the pluses and minuses at this time, but I can tell you what I tend to use each one for. Pbase has been really good for me as I research new cameras or lenses. In most cases when a user uploads a photo to Pbase, the camera and shooting data is read from the JPEG's EXIF data and displayed automatically. The EXIF data includes the lens' focal length setting. Users have to flag photos in a batch mode with specific lens information, but once this is done, it helps out potential buyers immensely. I've used Picasa lately to display most of my photos. The site will also show shooting data, and will allow the photos to have tags, have geographic information associated with them, and most recently, allow people in the photos to be tagged. I can see that one of Flickr's strengths is the sharing of photos with other photographers. As a user, you can build up sets of photos, then collections (which are usually sets of sets). You can also submit photos to hundreds or thousands of groups (and those groups can have pools of photos), have slideshows, order prints (which the other two sites can do also), and tag and geotag photos. The tagging feature makes this a useful site for doing research also, assuming that users take the time to tag their photos.

UPDATE: I started composing this post about three weeks ago. I find it tough to get back in the same train of thought that I was in originally, so it is time to post it. I'll start a new thought in another post. To update some of these original thoughts: I've got the Canon SX10 now; I've sold the other P&S (a Canon PowerShot A650IS) to a co-worker; and I discovered that the older Sigma lenses don't always work on newer Canon EOS bodies and produce an error message (it's something related to timing), so I don't feel comfortable selling it on Ebay.

My photos on the aforementioned sites:

• Flickr
• Picasa
• Pbase

Ned

Acquiring New Lens

The photography gear that I own is based on the Canon EOS system, specifically the EOS-5D. I also own a Canon PowerShot A650 IS point-and-shoot camera for taking on my business trips. I'm planning to acquire the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens in the coming days. It will nearly round out the lenses that I feel that I need. One lens that will still be missing is the EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM. That lens will replace the Sigma 14mm lens that I had previously. There are other lenses that I would like to have, but my sights are on all "L" series lenses and they are expensive. I've considered such lenses as the EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, the EF 180mm f/3.5L USM Macro, the EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM, and a wide-angle tilt-shift lens. I suppose if I had to prioritize those lenses, I would get the tilt-shift lens as it would allow me to experiment with something new.

I think that this coming weekend, I am going to get my 85mm f/1.8 prime lens out and take some pictures with it. I've had that lens for six months or so and have not used it much. I'm also going to take the opportunity to use my Expodisc. For those not familiar with the Expodisc, it is a diffusing disk that clicks onto the end of the lens. It doesn't stay there, but it serves two purposes while it is there. It transmits 18% of the light falling upon it, and it is neutral in tone. The 18% number is significant because that is medium gray. You snap the Expodisc onto the lens, then set the camera to Manual mode, then you choose your aperture or shutter speed and dial it in. Then you adjust the other parameter (shutter speed or aperture) until the camera's exposure meter says that you have a proper exposure. You need to make sure that the camera is bathed in the same light that the subject will be, which works perfectly on a sunny day. Once you are in the proper light, you snap a picture. Then you configure the camera for a custom white balance. Most cameras will ask you to choose a picture to base the custom white balance off of. That picture will be the one you took previously of the Expodisc. Now you remove the Expodisc and put it away. You leave the camera in Manual mode. Assuming the lighting stays the same, the exposure settings will stay the same. You can always change the aperture or shutter speed, but you have to change the other value accordingly. For example, if you had initially chosen f/4 at 1/500-sec, and you wanted to go to f/8. That's two stops. You need to lengthen the shutter speed by two stops. For shutter speeds a stop is either a doubling or halving. In this case, a one stop change is 1/125-sec, and two stops is 1/60-sec. 1/60-sec is the new shutter speed. Using a tool such as the Expodisc or an external incident light meter is especially beneficial when the lighting is tricky. The Expodisc is a fairly new product, but I've been using an incident light meter for years (until recently a Minolta Flash Meter IV). I believe my first use of the light meter was to determine the proper exposure for a snowy scene. I've read several books and websites that simply say if you have a sunlit snowy scene, then overexpose by such-and-such stops, but no matter what number they mention, I cannot remember. For me, it is easier to use the light meter.

Assuming that I take some pictures this weekend, I'll try to post them to my Picasa site.

Ned

Canon EOS-5D Mark II Announced

This new digital SLR was announced a few days ago. I currently own a 5D and it is a great camera. I feel that I am taking higher quality pictures with it than ever before (even during the film years). Part of the better quality is due to the fact that over the past year, I have upgraded many of my Canon EF lenses to their "L"-series versions. Canon announced this camera, though, and there are a number of compelling reasons for me to consider the upgrade.

The new camera has a suggested price of $2699, and my favorite online dealer, B & H Photo and Video, is taking pre-orders at that price, too.

Here are some of the new features, and what they mean to me:

• 21 megapixel resolution: higher resolution is usually better (for a given sensor size, however, the individual pixel sites are smaller, and don't collect as much light. Therefore, they need to be amplified more, and that means more noise). You start out with more information. It can always be downsampled accordingly.
• dust reduction system: including a vibrating element over the CMOS sensor, plus the ability to manually clean the sensor. I've had my 5D less than a year, but I can already see the results of a couple of specks of dust in my pictures.
• ISO ranges from 100 to 6400, plus expansion down to 50 and up to 25,600. I've already seen some on-line samples shot at 12,800 and 25,600. I felt that the ISO 12,800 were quite usable. The reason why high ISO capability is desirable is that there are certain times when you may not be able to use flash. High ISO might mean the difference between getting the picture or not.
• 3.9 frames per second: this is a small improvement over the 5D in terms of continuous shooting. I don't do a lot of this type of shooting, so this is not too important to me.
• DIGIC IV processor: what this means is that the analog-to-digital conversion is performed at the 14-bit level instead of the 12-bit level of the 5D. 16,384 shades of grey versus 4,096. The results should be smoother tones.
• Lens Peripheral Illumination Correction: some of the wide angle lenses when wide open have a vignetting problem (light fall-off). This feature helps to counteract that.
• SRAW1 and SRAW2: I guess that these are different sizes of RAW file. The 5D Mark II also allows you to separately control the sizes of the JPEG and RAW files.
• AF Microadjustment: if a lens doesn't focus perfectly, you can tweak its focus. You can do that for up to 20 lenses. There is also a global camera AF microadjustment.
• Three-inch 920k pixel electronic viewfinder: this should be an adequate size and should be quite crisp. Supposedly there is also an ambient light sensor to control the backlighting level for improved viewing outdoors.
• 1080p Movie mode: There is the ability to record high-definition movies in 1080p using the H.264 codec. Suitable inputs and outputs (including HDMI, and microphone-in) are provided.
• Water Resistance: the weather sealing of this camera is supposedly improved over the 5D. That's a good thing.
• IR port: for using a infrared remote control to snap your own picture.
• Live View: probably one of the best new features. Normally on a SLR camera, you are using an optical viewfinder (which is quite decent on a camera such as this), but Live View allows you to compose the picture on the viewfinder and see live luminance histograms, fine tune focusing (using magnification), and compose a shot at a weird angle.
• Auto ISO: When engaged this feature attempts to choose an ISO speed that preserves the (1/focal length) rule. This is useful when using a telephoto lens.
• Flash Control in the camera: I own a Canon Speedlite 580EX II. Supposedly you can control the flash's functions in the camera.
• Face Detection: also a part of Live View. This is an autofocusing component.
• Histograms: an alternating luminance and RGB histogram can be displayed. No more having to go into a menu and choose one.
• Copyright metadata: The camera can encode this data into the JPEG saving you from having to do it later.
• Shutter Cycle rating of 150,000: I believe that the 5D is rated at 100,000. Therefore the 5D Mark II has a more durable shutter.
• AF-On button: normally autofocusing is initiated by half-pressing the shutter release. This button allows you to autofocus separately.
• Buffer: Supposedly with a UDMA CompactFlash card, up to 310 JPEGs can be continuously shot with the camera.

Those are some pretty neat new features. I've also downloaded a couple of videos shot with this camera. Aside from the fact that my four year old computer has a little trouble with a 1080p H.264 video, I can tell that the quality is quite high. Another blogger promises to post some video that he shot during a 72-hour stint with the camera.

I went to B & H's website. I know that the camera won't be available for a couple of months. I tried to add my email address to a "Notify Me When Available" list. It wouldn't let me. The website said that interest in this camera is at an unprecendented level and the mailing list is full (I'm paraphrasing a little bit).

More on this subject in the future.

New camera on the way

I've ordered the Canon EOS-5D camera and it is on the way. I have recently been reading some posts about the 5D successor. There has been no announcement of a "5D Mark II" but that doesn't stop some people from guessing what the features will be: higher resolution, 14-bit depth versus 12-bit, higher frame rates, etc. I decided to go ahead and get the current 5D instead of waiting. As a friend has reminded me all too often, there will always be something better that comes along. I'm looking forward to moving up to the 5D from my current 10D. There are so many improvements from my 10D. For me one of the more important upgrades is the full-frame sensor. My wide angle lenses will be wide angle again. It's always possible to replicate the magnification factor that I had with the 10D by purchasing a teleconverter (such as the 1.4x TC). Other upgrades are a faster top shutter speed, the ability to simultaneously record RAW and JPEG, E-TTL II flash metering, 9 AF points, larger electronic display, and much more. One of the things that I have been reading so much about is the full-frame sensor versus the cropped field of view sensors. Many articles indicate that with the full-frame sensor, you need to have good lenses. I've got about three good lenses, but I've also got about three mediocre lenses. As many people know a lens performs its best in the center of the image, and performance falls off at the edges. With a camera such as the 10D, you are working within a lens' sweet spot, but the 5D uses all of the lens. I am a little concerned about how the 5D will perform with my mediocre lenses. All I have to do is think back just a few years ago when I still shot film on a EOS-1 or EOS-1V. I thought those lenses performed acceptably on those "full-frame" bodies. Anyway, I currently have a Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L USM, a Canon 100mm Macro USM, and a Sigma 14mm f/2.8 (and I think it is in their L-series equivalent category). My other lenses are a Canon 28-70mm, a Canon 70-210mm, a Canon 50mm f/1.8, and a Sigma 50mm Macro. All of these are non-USM by the way. I do have an ambitious plan to upgrade everything to L-series in the next few months. Here's my order of priority: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, and 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. If the 24-105 works as a decent portrait lens as I suspect it will, I will scratch the Canon 135mm f/2L USM off the list. I will let you know how the new camera performs. As always, my photos are usually available on my Pbase site or on my Picasa site.