Messages

1

Lenses / Re: 24-70mm f/2.8L II or EF 24-70mm f/4L IS or EF 24-105mm f/4L IS at F9

« on: March 12, 2013, 07:22:20 PM »

Quick comparison of the 24-70 f/2.8 II vs. the 24-105 at f/8:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=787&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=4&LensComp=355&CameraComp=453&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=3

Summary: Slightly more CA and slightly less sharpness with the 24-105. Likely to be indistinguishable in real world viewing.

2

Technical Support / Re: im thinking about buying a DELL 2713HM - how important is wide gamut?

« on: March 05, 2013, 04:47:16 AM »

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you.

I was hoping my U2410 would have better panel uniformity to be honest, but I knew what I was getting in for after reading the tftcentral review. My monitor is calibrated to 100cd/m^2 but the bottom left hand corner is 83 and the right-hand side is 107! Still, it's very much a midrange product and I've decided to put up with it.

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Technical Support / Re: im thinking about buying a DELL 2713HM - how important is wide gamut?

« on: March 02, 2013, 07:22:23 AM »

i think you wrote as i typed my second post.
i have a DTP94 already.

Ha, yeah I did.

web output is as i said no concern for me.

95% of what i do is video burned to blu-ray and prints.

what would you say on how many percent of your images a wide gamut display will make a significant difference?
on most images or only on special images that show some very saturated colors?

That's a good question and I don't really have a good answer. As I said, I've only recently swapped to wide gamut. But if I had to take a stab at a percent of my photos that would significantly benefit from wide gamut editing/printing, it'd be around 5%. It seems to be photos taken in direct sunlight or with saturated flowers and clothing where I've compared sRGB to Adobe RGB and been like ... "wow, before I was editing these colours I couldn't even see".

However, that doesn't go to say that ALL these extra colours and nicely graduated tones that I can see on my monitor will print that way. As it happens, my local printing company supply print profiles for proofing (very handy) and overly saturated reds come nowhere near to the Adobe RGB colour space.

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Technical Support / Re: im thinking about buying a DELL 2713HM - how important is wide gamut?

« on: March 02, 2013, 05:30:51 AM »

I've just swapped to wide gamut and I wouldn't go back. The extra colour depth is noticeable and I really appreciate it for skin tone highlights.

However, wide gamut comes with several caveats. You really need a solid understanding of colour management or it is likely to bite you in the ass.

When you say the Dell "should be calibrated"... I would like to correct this. Dell will send your monitor with a factory calibration report, usually stating that DeltaE (the measure of how well colour is calibrated; lower is better) is < 5 or something. This is 100% lies. My U2410 came with a calibration report stating average DeltaE was 4 (which is 'okay' but not really acceptable for colour critical work), but when I measured DeltaE with my i1 display pro, it was actually around 10. In fact, the monitor had a distinct cool green hue to whites.

Now that I've calibrated it myself using the i1, average DeltaE is 0.7 with max of 1.3. Pretty good by any standards.

Regarding the PB278Q, here is the tftcentral review: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_pb278q.htm
His model came with a maximum DeltaE of 10 in the blue hue measured... which is pretty bad to be honest. Average of 3.4 is not awful but not great either.

RE: The Dell 2713HM, it had a DeltaE average of 2.7 with a max of 5.7. So slightly better.

In a nutshell:

1) Wide gamut is useful for printing because some printers are capable of displaying a wider gamut than sRGB. It is not particularly useful for web display, and can even be detrimental if you forget to convert your photos to sRGB for web use or when sending to other "non photo" people.

2) A good monitor is only as good as its calibration and all 'out of the box' calibration is pretty rubbish. As a photographer you shouldn't be saying "I have x budget for my monitor", you should be thinking "I have x budget for my monitor and calibration equipment"

5

Software & Accessories / Re: Square 100 x 100 mm ND filters

« on: January 25, 2013, 05:02:41 AM »

Quick tip: get a set of Lee ND hard grads instead. That way, you can turn the grad upside-down to use it as a ND filter. However, the hard ND resins only go up to 1.2 (4 stops) max, I believe. Still, you could stack () them.

Then you have a set of hard grads (very useful) and NDs. 

P.S. I have only tried this with a full-frame sensor camera and focal lengths below 70mm. But I imagine it would work with any combo.

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Contests / Re: Gura Gear Giveaway!

« on: December 07, 2012, 05:54:52 PM »

I'd like to win.

7

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Canon Surveys for 5D Mark III

« on: November 09, 2012, 05:41:07 AM »

There was one missing option in the list of questions. That is the ability to see constantly illuminated red AF points instead of the miserable, frequently camouflaged, often invisible tiny black AF points.

-PW

If it's any consolation I wrote about that in one of the free text boxes, and I bet I'm not the only one.

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EOS Bodies - For Stills / Canon Surveys for 5D Mark III

« on: November 08, 2012, 09:06:52 AM »

So I got my feedback request e-mail for the 5D Mk. III from Canon today. Thought a couple of questions were interesting. Firstly:

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important features:

1. Higher resolution (more megapixels)
2. Higher dynamic range (shadow/highlight detail)
3. Faster shooting speed
4. Bigger buffer memory
5. Wider ISO speeds
6. Larger/brighter/more shooting information in viewfinder
7. Faster Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
8. More accurate Auto Focus (when shooting by viewfinder)
9. AF performance (when shooting by liveview)
10. More Auto Focus points

Second interesting question:

How desirable would it be for you to have the following features in your future digital SLR? Please rank your first, second and third most important feature.

1. More compact & lightweight
2. Built-in Flash (with wireless flash control)
3. Vari-angle LCD screen
4. GPS
5. Touchscreen LCD
6. Wireless communication function
7. Better weather resistance
8. Performance of LCD (size/resolution)

I guess it's Canon sussing out the perception of the competition, but it might give some idea as to the future of the 5D. Make of it what you will.

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Canon General / Re: How to shoot parties (general stuff: birthday, halloween, casual gatherings)

« on: October 26, 2012, 07:31:29 AM »

Hmm. Yes!

Okay, so in your situation I'd want to try to capture as much of the ambient of the party as possible. I'd probably start off with your 50mm (80mm 'equivalent' and a nice portrait lens on crop) in manual mode: ISO 400, f/2.8 at 1/60sec. Chimp your screen for a rough idea of where your exposure is landing.

RE: flash I'd probably ceiling bounce or, like you suggest, use that strap-on softbox. I'd probably keep my speedlite in the hotshoe in second curtain sync mode - this is important because at 1/60sec you are going to capture subject motion blur, and you want their movement to be frozen by the flash at the end of the movement, not the beginning. I really like a little motion blur for parties, it makes people more animated.

The other issue you will have to deal with is mixing flash with ambient in terms of white balance. This might be particularly tricky at a Halloween party if there are 'spooky' lighting colours. But if you're indoors and lights are on, your best bet is probably going to be tungsten white balance with a full cut CTO to balance your flash. Since it's Halloween you might want to experiment with other colours on your flash like green or leaving it ungelled (which, with tungsten white balance will be a strong blue colour). Also, if you're able to get your flash off-camera you could light people's faces from below for a spooky effect ... but don't go nuts with that visual cliché.

That's a bit of a rushed explanation of what I'd do... but there's more than one way to skin a cat. Let me know if you've got any Q's.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that 1/60sec with an 80mm focal length is a recipe for camera shake. Subject motion blur with sharp surroundings is cool. Subject motion blur with blurry surroundings is awful. See how it goes, but you might have to ramp up the shutter and ISO if your hands aren't really steady.

On the other hand, with your Tamron at 17mm you could get some nice wide shots at 1/30sec without too much trouble.

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Canon General / Re: How to shoot parties (general stuff: birthday, halloween, casual gatherings)

« on: October 26, 2012, 06:14:40 AM »

You'll want to go easy on that flash for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, at a party, if you're not careful you can end up nuking the ambient entirely with flash and losing all sense of atmosphere. Photos will just look like oddly dressed people standing in a room filled with daylight.

Secondly, flash draws attention. And if you're dumping a full power flash every time you will be "that guy". This isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as you don't do it all night. Enjoy yourself. Pass your camera around if you trust people enough to hold it (or if it's appropriate... I don't know if this is a house party or a club night).

I have some more tips but it would be helpful to know exactly what you're shooting.

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Lenses / Re: looking for equivalent to efs 17-55 f/2.8 in EF line

« on: October 23, 2012, 05:37:18 PM »

The 24-105 f/4.

At a glance the f/4 figure will seem like a downgrade from the f/2.8 of the 17-55, but the short answer is the full frame sensor will more than compensate for the smaller max aperture.

Neuro will probably be along in a mo to explain exactly why. The technical details escape me 

12

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon EOS 4D reference in Wifi remote app video

« on: September 19, 2012, 07:57:17 PM »

As I'm sure has been pointed out before, superstition never stopped Nikon releasing the D4.

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EOS Bodies / Re: Describe the 6D in one word...

« on: September 17, 2012, 06:23:29 AM »

I think it's kind of cool how it focuses down to -3 EV ... That's about it.  The price will fall though.

14

Software & Accessories / Re: Is there a good looking camera bag anywhere in the world??

« on: September 06, 2012, 09:34:19 AM »

Domke.

If you're concerned about 'padding' and your gear getting knocked... then not Domke.

15

Canon General / Re: Hey, that's a nice photo, you must have an expensive camera

« on: August 26, 2012, 06:49:44 AM »

Don't let it bother you. Like others have said, the majority of people will never appreciate the work that goes into creating 'good' photographs, so don't even bother.