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
Showing posts with label Canon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canon. Show all posts
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saturday, March 21, 2009
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
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
Sunday, March 8, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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
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
Sunday, September 21, 2008
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:
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.
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.
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.
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