Messages

1

Software & Accessories / Re: Maximal possible speed Eos 7D CF-Card

« on: June 07, 2013, 11:40:39 AM »

Komputerbay cards have the same chip and controller as the 1000x lexars. They are binned as not passing QA for 1000x so they are hit or miss. I have three, all manifest different issues such as difficulty formatting in camera, stalling during ML raw recording, incorrect size reporting. That said, they are cheap compared to the other offerings and mine write 95MBps and read 150MBps. Supposedly Komputerbay will swap your card if you get a clinker but I haven't tried that yet. I wouldn't trust them for critical work.

2

Portrait / Re: My photos look so dull

« on: May 26, 2013, 07:17:02 PM »

Its always easier to shoot it right than to fix it in post. This image is challenging due to the unflattering shadows on the face. OP should try to fill these in a little with flash or a reflector.

3

Lighting / Re: Urgent Help Please Elinchrom Flash lights

« on: May 09, 2013, 11:49:38 AM »

Try enabling the trigger on the one that fires most reliably and put all the other heads in slave mode.

4

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: First photos with the EOS Kiss X7 (aka Rebel SL1 / 100D)

« on: May 06, 2013, 02:38:25 PM »

A lot of shots seem to have a bluish cast. i'm much more impressed with the output of the nikon 3200 which is > $200 cheaper than the SL1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonfrance/sets/72157629851394125/

Looks like it was a cloudy day and the white balance was a bit off, but that's easily fixable.  I agree, I like those particular shots from the D3200 more, but only because they are better shots overall, not because of a massive difference in IQ.

Well all things aren't equal in the way these were shot and the nikon examples may be cooked but the 3200 clearly has better resolution, color balance, smoother tones, and higher dynamic range. The rendering of the skin tones and textures in particular is amazing for a sub $500 camera. I haven't used the sl1 yet so I'll reserve judgement until we see more samples but based what I've seen so far there really is no comparison.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: First photos with the EOS Kiss X7 (aka Rebel SL1 / 100D)

« on: May 06, 2013, 11:22:51 AM »

A lot of shots seem to have a bluish cast. i'm much more impressed with the output of the nikon 3200 which is > $200 cheaper than the SL1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonfrance/sets/72157629851394125/

6

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: May 01, 2013, 05:45:32 AM »

The only way to get these images to card is to "compress" them before sending them through this 7.5MB/s buffer.

Thats what the new black magic cameras will do, write compressed .dng. Also clipping out the interesting part of the frame would save bandwidth, no point in writing the black bars. Remains to be seen if it can compress the frames fast enough.

7

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware 1.2.1 Available for Download

« on: April 30, 2013, 12:17:03 PM »

15. Removed "support" for 3rd party batteries...

Yes, this is true unfortunately..All my 3rd party batteries no longer register with the camera so i won't know how much charge they have left..this really sucks.

Sorry about that. However, I guess as you have a number of batteries, you must have numbered them in order to keep track of them. I am guessing that you have a "bin" for charged batteries and another for uncharged batteries. Keep them fully charged. Always keep a spare. More depending on the shoot. Shoot till the battery dies. Recharge immediately (or as soon as you possibly can...). I think that all you will miss is the flashing battery indicator... As for me, even though I have only Canon batteries, I seldom pay attention to the indicator when I am in the throes of shooting. I usually look at it as an afterthought...

When you are shooting video if the battery conks out when you are rolling you are very likely to lose the current shot. It can be recovered with voodoo but its not easy.

No audio on the HDMI out makes that feature less useful for recording as well. You'll need to use a good slate and / or roll the recorder and record on internal then try to match the TC in post. Very disappointed that they hyped this feature and failed to mention the NO AUDIO part. Nikon / Sony HDMI out has audio.

8

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: ML apparently discovers hook to 'raw' liveview feed

« on: April 28, 2013, 07:25:21 PM »

At 5mb per frame 24p footage would be ~ 120MB per second or ~8GB per minute. Cropping the frame rather than just writing the raw dump is a time consuming process. Its faster to just write the data rather than write a cropped window of it. Judging by the image size this kinda looks like a 3 pixel bin of the sensor data. New black magic cameras record compressed raw. Not clear if digic 5 has enough power to do this.

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EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: Canon 5D Mark iii HDMI Clean Output?

« on: April 28, 2013, 06:31:45 PM »

Biggest disappointment so far is the lack of audio on the HDMI output signal. I'll be that the leaked firmware is the same thing canon will be releasing. No audio on the external recorder makes this feature less useful. I think Canon does care about video users. The c300 and c100 have been a big success. Dumbing down the still camera capabilities keeps them from cannibalizing sales of higher end gear with bigger margins.

10

EOS Bodies / Re: Download Firmware 1.2.1 link for 5DIII

« on: April 27, 2013, 01:56:50 PM »

Just to report on the latest firmware 1.2.1 for 5D3, looks like it's no longer able to detect the 3rd party LP-E6 battery level anymore.

When I put my 3rd party LP-E6 (off-brand, bought from eBay) into the camera, there's a warning screen that says:

Communication with Canon LP-E6 battery is Irregular. Continue to use this battery?

If I choose Cancel, the camera will turn off instantly. If I choose OK, the camera will turn on & run as normal, but the battery level will stay at 100% all the time & I can no longer register nor delete the serial number.

This is kinda bummer for me as I just bought 18 DSTE-branded LP-E6s & I'm expecting it to arrive next week. If the DSTE-branded LP-E6s can't show the battery level, I'll be very disappointed.

Anyone else have this problem as well?

I get the warning with 3rd party batteries (pearstone and ebay), haven't noticed wether the battery level changes or not. This is a cat and mouse game with the aftermarket battery mfgs. I'm sure they will try to fix this in new battery revisions.

11

Animal Kingdom / Re: Birds with attitude

« on: April 26, 2013, 06:29:44 PM »

So many amazing shots in this thread, nice work!

12

EOS Bodies / Re: Download Firmware 1.2.1 link for 5DIII

« on: April 26, 2013, 04:57:50 PM »

Installed and running.  The HDMI signal from the camera is showing no overlays and image is edge to edge on a 1920x1080 TV.  It was nice to find the new "Mirroring" menu option.  In the pic below, the camera is connected to the monitor and the LCD remains on, sweet!  When I press record, both stay on, however the red  recording dot only showed up on the camera LCD.

Do you have audio out over HDMI? Are there any other HDMI settings in the menu other than the mirroring option?

13

EOS Bodies / Re: Download Firmware 1.2.1 link for 5DIII

« on: April 26, 2013, 12:05:27 PM »

Personally I am waiting for the official release, but here is the md5sum from the file I pulled from the web

$ gpg --print-md md5 5D300121.FIR
5D300121.FIR: 3C AB 84 0C D3 D4 CF 17  5B 5B 4E 0E A5 14 EB A9

I am going to compare that to what Canon releases next week.

Can anyone with the firmware from canon confirm the checksum? Even if the canon release is different one will still be able to update to the canon release version overwriting this one, correct?

Pstodart: Did you figure out the audio recording? Video/audio to the card works as expected right?

14

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 5D Mark III Firmware Coming April 30, 2013

« on: April 18, 2013, 04:55:16 PM »

Anyone know of some good (cheaper) video recorders to use with that clean HDMI out that would be better than the compressed video on the SD card?

yes.  Atomos Ninjia2 is a bit on the expensive side; the alternative will be Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Shuttle 2 SSD Video Recorder at $327.75, which does not have a monitor, but will do the work.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/841023-REG/Blackmagic_Design_HYPERD_PT2_HyperDeck_Shuttle_2_SSD.html

Lowest price may not lead to the lowest TCO. The shuttle only works with SSDs while the ninja is supposed to work with spinning disks which will make media costs much lower. It would be practical to use the disks to archive camera masters. Ninja has a built in monitor, if you already have one its not an issue but if you don't and you can get by with the one on the ninja thats a savings as well. Also it remains to be seen exactly what the 5dIII will output on the HDMI. Ninja can detect the cadence on a 60i signal and record the stream as 24p. Not sure if the shuttle will be able to do that. If not you will have to de-interlace as a post process which adds time to the work flow. I was tempted by the shuttle and I already have monitors but I think I'm going to opt for the ninja after the new firmware ships and the field reports come in.

15

Lenses / Re: Which Lens Canon 85mm 1.8 or 135 L

« on: April 12, 2013, 09:03:01 PM »

The 85 is a great value and has excellent IQ. The 135 is in a league of its own, it seems to have magical properties. Get both, you'll enjoy using both and find unique opportunities for each one. If you are constrained by your budget start with the 85 then get the 135 when you can afford it.