Messages

1

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Sigma Announces 18-35 f/1.8 DC HSM Art for APS-C

« on: April 18, 2013, 12:27:20 PM »

It's not THAT revolutionary, Olympus have had a 14-35mm F/2 for their DSLRs for a good while and that's unbelievably good quality. I know a professional press photographer who shoots Olympus specifically for that lens.

But it's the equivalent of a 28-70 f/4. A pretty mundane lens, wouldn't you say? The Sigma is the equivalent of a FF f/2.8 lens. That's a full stop extra in light gathering power.

I don't think Canon would invest their money in pursuing a lens like this, unless Nikon came out with one. I feel Canon would rather make more Rebels with no upgraded features than invest in their devoted/professional crop body shooters. Canon like to deal in extremes, ignorant amateur or needy professional.

APS format cameras are still the top-selling cameras in C and N's lineups. They really, really need to start making some professional grade lenses for these cameras.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG's odd behavior on 5D3

« on: March 16, 2013, 04:33:05 PM »

A side issue, but I thought you shouldn't ever do this as it can damage your camera?

This is a myth. First off, can you imagine a company designing a camera that you had to shut off every time you changed lenses, because doing so would damage the camera? The warranty work would be staggering.

Beyond that, the camera is never really turned off, anyway. Try changing a lens with the camera off, while looking at the "card writing" light. Notice that it turns on briefly? Turning a camera "off" really just puts it to sleep.

I always thought the reason you should power off a digital camera when changing lenses is that when power is on the sensor is charged and will draw dust to it.

However when we use a zoom such as the 24-105 this pulls air in and out of the camera - which is probably why if you just use primes your sensor gathers less dust. Just a thought.

Also myths. The sensor doesn't generate a static charge, and it's behind the shutter, anyhow.

And as a sealed lens, the 24-105 doesn't really draw air into the mirror box. You can feel it pulling through the eyepiece, but it's unlikely that much dust will come through past the focusing screen.

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Lenses / Re: 16-35 maybe 17-40

« on: March 09, 2013, 04:16:14 PM »

Neither lens is known for corner-to-corner sharpness, and both will vignette even without filters. You should, as suggested, take a close look at that Tokina. They make superb ultrawides, though this lens *may* have QC issues. Buy from a place with a generous return policy.

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Lenses / Re: Will Canon step up to Zeiss with a 55mm 1.4L?

« on: February 27, 2013, 11:10:15 PM »

So Zeiss has cracked the high quality normal prime mystery that has eluded all other manufactures for decades.

The question is, now that the cat's out of the bag, will Canon fire back with a 55mm 1.4L?

One thing you may not be aware of is that 55mm and 58mm lenses used to be quite common. Why? On an SLR, they were the shortest focal length that could be built without going to a retrofocus design. That's a big part of why the Zeiss performs so well: it's a relatively easy lens to design and build.

But photographers hated them. A "normal" on 35mm should be 45mm, not 55mm. 50mm became acceptable enough, and they sold much better than the 55's.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of the 50's are older designs.

5

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 26, 2013, 08:10:51 PM »

Yes, I see a bit of green in the CO and a bit stronger blue in the LR. I'm sure one could mess with them to make them identical, but my exercise was first to see if CO would do what Stephen did in LR, and the answer for me is yes. Then the exercise for me turned to learning to embrace the chiaroscuro, and I learned alot about that from your nice shot and Stephen's nice render. So thanks to both of you for the inadvertent lesson for me!

You're welcome. The rendering of the colors is affected by so many variables, even within a single program. In LR, I selected the "Camera Standard" profile, which is designed to mimic Canon's standard color rendering. I also used the "adjustment brush" to get rid of some of the blue speckles in certain areas of the image. It didn't take long.

[edit] And I'm pleased as can be to know that I can shoot at this ridiculous ISO setting and there are at least two editors, probably more, that can deal with it to at least some useful degree. Pretty amazing tech.

It truly is a dream come true for me. I now find myself looking for more ridiculous light to shoot in, and it's very hard to find a situation that I can't make something out of.

Here's a larger render of my adjustments:
http://galleries.stevemelvin.com/primary.jpg

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EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 26, 2013, 01:08:37 AM »

There's actually a solution to that...avoid shooting moving subjects below EV -2 with a slow or long lens without a tripod, and you won't need to boost the ISO that high.

(EV -2 is much too dark to read, so it's not like this is a radical concept....)

b&

Did you see the first image I posted? Lit by a distant streetlight, the only way to possibly take the shot was by boosting the ISO that high. I shot it with a short, fast lens, too.

These high ISO's have opened up a world of possibility for me. I've been shooting in the dark for a long time. My favorite film, after Tri-X, is T-Max p3200. I've pushed that to ISO 50000. The Mk III outperforms the T-Max.

Here's one I did when experimenting the camera when I first bought it. 24mm, 1/25, f/1.4, ISO 102000. All processing done with Lightroom. The light sources is from a street light about 150 feet outside the house. I could barely see her. The AF assist lamp from my 580EX solved the focus issue.

7

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Thoughts on Zeiss Canon 5 lens kit?

« on: February 25, 2013, 09:57:25 PM »

The Zeiss CP's are made in Germany from hand picked glass.  The rejects go into the Zeiss Glass made by Cosina in Japan    

That's nowhere near the truth. I suspect the wink means you meant it as a joke, but I wanted to let other people in on your joke.

Cosina is a world-class lensmaker that produces lens from the bargain-priced Phoenix and Vivitar brands to the high end Zeiss brand. They also make some very interesting lenses of their own design in the high end Voigtländer brand.

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EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 25, 2013, 07:07:05 PM »

It appears that your 5D3 has the same issue that mine does...  in the far bottom right corner of the image it has a more purple hue than it should.  It is more noticeable in your NR 25 image.  On my 5D3 it is most noticeable at ISO 12,800 and above, but sometimes at ISO 6,400.

Yes, I see it in both CR2 raw files I uploaded as well (taken moments apart), but it mostly is gone when LR opens it with default settings...but I hadn't noticed that before...

Anyone else seeing these at very high ISO/low lighting?

Yes, it's pretty common. I think Canon may be working on a firmware update to help with this.

9

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 25, 2013, 01:53:42 PM »

Oh yes it does really look great...time to go LR for me. I did everything in DPP until now...That is quite a great RAW converter and denoise software as I can see.

It is a great converter, but keep in mind that a lot of it has to do with the choices I made when converting the file. The default image that comes up in LR isn't going to look much different from what the original post showed. I did about four or five things to the image in LR's "Develop" module to bring out more from the image. It didn't take me long, because I'm experienced in the program, and have a solid photography and retouching background. You'll need to play around and experiment with whatever program you use to process your images.

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EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 24, 2013, 06:05:23 PM »

Here's the XMP sidecar file. You can use it to make the changes and look at what I did.
http://galleries.stevemelvin.com/Primary 1-1000sec.xmp

Thanks Stephen, can't seem to open the url ... I could be doing something basic that's off. Cheers.

It took me a few attempts to get it to show up right. You probably caught it before I was able to correct it. Right-click and save it. Then place it next to the .CR2 file, making sure they are named identically. In the Library mode, go to the image and go to /Metadata/Read Metadata From File...

http://galleries.stevemelvin.com/Primary%201-1000sec.xmp

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EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 24, 2013, 05:29:27 PM »

Just uploaded the CR2 raw files to skydrive, hope this works:

The primary shot used here at 1/1000 sec:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=1F78FF9C09DCA480!108&authkey=!ADK2oOGh3O_uCXI

A slightly more exposed 1/800 sec shot taken moments apart with the same set up as the primary:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=1F78FF9C09DCA480!107&authkey=!AOL_-sdrd4HXRmY

Here's my work with the primary, using Adobe Lightroom. It took about five minutes:



This is what you posted:


Here's the XMP sidecar file. You can use it to make the changes and look at what I did.
http://galleries.stevemelvin.com/Primary 1-1000sec.xmp

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EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 24, 2013, 02:12:28 PM »

Here's one I did when experimenting the camera when I first bought it. 24mm, 1/25, f/1.4, ISO 102000. All processing done with Lightroom. The light sources is from a street light about 150 feet outside the house. I could barely see her. The AF assist lamp from my 580EX solved the focus issue.

Love the film grain look... I had no flash mounted so my 35mm was strugling to lock focus and I am not sure it really did.

I did use a number of tools that LR offers, including adding grain. I add grain to nearly all of my images these days as it is; it helps images look more natural, as far as I'm concerned. It definitely helps with pattern noise.

13

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 candle light High ISO (102400)

« on: February 24, 2013, 01:05:48 PM »

Here's one I did when experimenting the camera when I first bought it. 24mm, 1/25, f/1.4, ISO 102000. All processing done with Lightroom. The light sources is from a street light about 150 feet outside the house. I could barely see her. The AF assist lamp from my 580EX solved the focus issue.

14

Canon General / Re: The Canon EOS 7D & EF 400 f/2.8L IS II Break a Record

« on: February 22, 2013, 02:24:11 PM »

"If printed at normal photographic resolution, the BT Tower panorama would be 98 meters across and 24 meters tall, almost as big as Buckingham Palace."

98 meters by 24 meters is about as big as an American football field. Isn't Buckingham palace bigger than that?

And just what is "normal photographic resolution?"

15

Canon General / Re: Why did you choose Canon?

« on: January 26, 2013, 03:23:42 PM »

I had been a Nikon owner since 1989, and I knew that that was the only brand I'd ever shoot. Fast forward to 2003, and I had a job that required a digital camera. I still thought that digital was a good five years away from being acceptable. I hated that the SLR's used a smaller-than-35mm sensor, and the point-and-shoots were so damned slow.

I was in Best Buy talking to a salesmen about this; particularly about the lens situation and how I would want a lens that offered wide angle coverage. To that point, it wasn't really possible. He was trying to sell me a 10D, but it was pricey, and none of the available lenses gave me what I was looking for. Besides, I preferred Nikon.

He did realize what I was looking for, after talking to me for a while. What's more, he had it in stock. Almost reluctantly, he pulled out a Canon 300D Digital Rebel with 18-55mm kit lens; the first lens designed specifically for APS-C format cameras. Not only was it speedy, with a lens that went somewhat wide, but it was $1,000.

I was almost shocked at the image quality from this camera. I had no idea digital photography had come this far.

So I accidentally switched to Canon, vowing to switch back someday. But Nikon took a very long time to catch up to Canon, who in the meantime released the amazing and very successful 20D. Once I had that 20D, I knew I was hooked, and I've never looked back.