Messages

1

Landscape / Re: Post Your Best Landscapes

« on: May 07, 2013, 07:30:02 PM »

Well I already posted this one earlier in an HDR thread but it also classifies as a landscape so here it is.  My first foray in to both landscapes and HDR.  I need to break out of portraits - too big of a PITA to round up people to shoot and then have to listen to them whine about why they don't like pictures of themselves.  I can do landscapes and scenics anytime I want to.  This was a 5-exposure bracketed shot that was then merged with Photomatix Pro, with additional follow-on processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.  Also my first trip out with the new 24-70 2.8L II lens.

2

5D MK III Sample Images / Re: 5D MK III Images

« on: May 04, 2013, 10:20:21 AM »

The Manta roller coaster at Seaworld Orlando. 5D MKIII with 24-70 2.8L II, ISO 800, f7.1, 1/2500 shutter.  Used AI servo and the 3X3 AF point grid to instantly lock on as this thing came screaming around a high speed turn.  I only had a fraction of a second to track it and shoot before it was gone from my line of view again.

3

HDR - High Dynamic Range / Re: Post your HDR images:

« on: April 30, 2013, 07:48:08 AM »

Shot about 30 minutes before sunrise.  Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 2.8L II lens, on a tripod, using mirror lockup, a remote shutter release and 5-shot bracketed exposure.  Initial tone mapping done with Photomatix Pro.

One of the most inviting HDr's I have seen in a while. Great taste!

Thank you kindly!  My first attempt at the technique.  I've usually shied away from HDR as a bit of a gimmicky technique.  I'm not very fond of the usual "over processed" look of so many I see.  But I've become something of a fan of Trey Ratcliff, who has really perfected the process of producing natural looking HDR images.  I started with his tutorials, many of which are free at his website.

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/

4

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

« on: April 30, 2013, 07:41:32 AM »

Was hoping they were going to fix the black AF points to illuminate them. Had a really, really hard time a couple of nights ago doing some nighttime street photography. Frequently impossible to find the active AF point unless you turn the camera toward a light colored background.

5

Technical Support / Re: Grey card and spot metering

« on: April 24, 2013, 07:54:47 AM »

Actually, I find exposure and color balance to be closely entwined.  I shoot mainly portraits and a overly cool skin tones can appear to be underexposed and vice versa - underexposed skin tones can appear to be overly cool.  Also, when adjusting exposure, the color tones in the skin don't scale linearly.  As exposure is increased, some underlying tones in the skin will increase in brightness at a greater or lesser rate than others, causing all types of wonky skin tone problems.  Therefore, in my work flow, I deal with exposure and color balance as a single, integrated problem at the point of image capture.

1. I have my subject hold the EZBalance right up to their face, literally with their nose touching it.  The 12-inch size approximates the size of the human head and face very nicely.

2. I step in to pretty much fill the view finder with the EZBalance, take a meter reading, and increase exposure usually about 1/3 above center.  As stated above, I find a centered reading using the EZBalance to still be very slightly underexposed. 

3. I take a shot of the EZBalance as it is filling the frame. 

4. I custom white balance using that image.

5. I take the EZBalance form the subject, fold it back up in to my pocket, step back, and take a quick, casual test shot to evaluate the histogram and look for obvious problems like undesirable highlight clipping.

6. Assuming all looks well, I go to work.

Having a properly exposed and color balanced image in camera has reduced my post processing time by about 80%.

6

HDR - High Dynamic Range / Re: Post your HDR images:

« on: April 24, 2013, 07:36:40 AM »

Shot about 30 minutes before sunrise.  Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 2.8L II lens, on a tripod, using mirror lockup, a remote shutter release and 5-shot bracketed exposure.  Initial tone mapping done with Photomatix Pro.

7

Technical Support / Re: Grey card and spot metering

« on: April 22, 2013, 10:29:18 PM »

I absolutely love the Lastolite EZBalance.  The 12-inch model pops open to a 12-inch wide square with 18% grey on one side and white on the other. It is a non-reflective surface so doesn't get tripped up by reflections.  It is also completely neutral for dead on white balance calibration - either in camera or in post processing.  And with a couple of flicks of the wrist it folds down to about the size of a drink coaster and slides easily in the back pocket.

The 12-inch size is also very handy to easily fill up the frame in the view finder.

I find that centering my exposure needle when spot metering on it still tends to underexpose a bit so I center the needle, and then bump the exposure up 1/3 to 1/2 stop.  I also always do a custom in camera white balance using the grey target as the reference image and get spot on accurate white balance every time.

http://www.amazon.com/Lastolite-LL-LR1250-12-Inch-Ezybalance/dp/B0009QZDL6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366683856&sr=8-1&keywords=lastolite+ezbalance

8

Pricewatch Deals / Re: *UPDATE* Canon USA Rebates Starting April 14, 2013 [CR3]

« on: April 14, 2013, 08:47:58 PM »

Sweet!  I almost bought the 24-70 2.8L II for $2049 during the last rebate period. Glad I waited.  Just snagged it for $1929 using the Adorama Coupon Code.  I actually prefer to do business with B&H (a couple of unsatisfactory customer service incidents at Adorama), but for that savings, I'd do business with the devil himself

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/News/News-Post.aspx?News=4634

9

Speedlites, Printers, Accessories / Re: Light Meter & SpeedLites

« on: April 08, 2013, 10:24:00 PM »

Like others said, you just can't get there with 1 or 2 speedlights in mid-day Emerald Coast sun.  Not enough power. 

I'm in Fort Walton Beach so not too far from you.  With a 430EX II in an umbrella, I usually can't start shooting on the beach until 30 to 60 minutes before sundown.

10

Canon General / Re: Resources on bottle photography

« on: March 31, 2013, 10:50:25 PM »

Several people has already beat me to it but I'll add my huge endorsement for Light Science and Magic.  Great resource not just for glassware like crystal or bottles, but pretty much any kind of reflective surface.  Discussion on rendering metals is fabulous and I relied on it exclusively to figure out how to do a job for a local artist that wanted 30 or 40 framed and glass-covered art pieces photographed.

11

EOS Bodies / Re: On the 5DM3 what is the difference

« on: March 02, 2013, 01:37:28 PM »

When you look through the view finder, the array of focus points is a matrix of small squares.  But each of those small squares also has an even smaller square in the center of it.  When using Single Point AF, you are using the larger, outer square for that point.  When using Single Point Spot AF, you are using the tiny square in the center of each focus point.

12

EOS Bodies / Re: EOS not good for NASA?

« on: January 13, 2013, 05:32:32 PM »

Purchase of commercial-off-the-shelf items is rarely purchased through competitive bids.  Major vendors of computers, software, furniture, and I would expect cameras, lenses, etc, usually have a negotiated schedule of government-only pricing that any government agency can purchase from.  If the vendor doesn't have their own schedule/catalog, there is usually a 3rd party intermediate seller with a schedule.  These schedules are usually compiled and managed by the General Services Administration (thus the term "GSA Schedule"). Any government agency can purchase from these schedule items.  As long as the purchase is made from pre-approved GSA schedule vendor, there is no requirement to obtain competitive bids.  The rationale is that in assembling the schedule of vendors and prices, the GSA has already conducted a competitive selection process. Therefore the purchasing agency doesn't have to run a separate competition. 

For example, B&H Photo is a vendor on a GSA contract.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/federal-gsa-contracts-gov-corporate-edu-sales.jsp

To purchase from a GSA-approved schedule, all the agency has to do is get approval of the expenditure through their own internal purchasing office.  If the requestor's organization has money in the budget, and a local manager with purchasing authority agrees to sign off, the purchase is made. End of story.

I'm in IT and my agency makes purchases for hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchases for IT equipment and software every year without having to go through a competitive bid process because the GSA-approved vendors and pricing have already been compiled by the GSA.  We just look through the catalogs, find what we need, and make the buy.

When I was in contractor/industry side, I spent quite a number of months working on bidding on NASA business so I know NASA also has its own pre-negotiated Enterprise-wide equipment catalogs and schedules with industry vendors.

Most likely someone in NASA determined that, for whatever reason, Nikon more closely met the technical requirements for NASA's mission.  So it would just be matter of going to the catalog and making the buy.

13

Canon General / Re: Canon's Minimum Advertising Price to go into effect Nov 1

« on: October 31, 2012, 10:22:16 PM »

Apple uses the same tactic.  Look around.  No matter where you buy - the Apple Store, Best Buy, Amazon...name the outlet...for any given Apple product, the price differences among any outlets you care to check will never be more than about $10 different in either direction.

14

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: What is white balance and what's the correct way to use it?

« on: October 25, 2012, 07:03:49 AM »

No it is not subjective: Correct white balance means that a white, gray, black or full gray scale surface is displayed without discoloration and have the same RGB values  from the whitest down to black and .
One should distinguish between the use of gray cards that are more suited for exposure and a card where the white balance should be made towards a value around R 220  G 220  B220 and that the card has such metamerism characteristics that a white balance can be made in different color temperatures.
Then that the  image results do not  fit is  a subjective evaluation .

Great response from Mikael.  Too many people just glibly talk about a "grey card" for white balance.  They go on eBay, buy a $5 piece of grey cardboard, try to use that to do white balance, and end up with something that looks really dreadful.  While this grey pieces of garbage may be fine for setting exposure because they are the middle tone that the meter expects, they are often times dreadfully bad for setting white balance.

Do use such an aid for white balance, it needs to be something that is specifically manufuactured for that purpose. I use the Lastolite EZBalance. It has the benefit of being perfectly suited for both exposure and white balance.  Personally, I do a custom in camera white balance by shooting and image of the EZBalance filling the frame, and then using the custom white balance functions of the camera to adjust according to that image.

Even if shooting raw you need to worry about this.  The camera will apply some sort of white balance adjustment to your raw file, whether you want it to or not.  That's what all of the Tungsten, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Flourescent, Auto White Balance, etc etc settings on the camera do.  And while those can be close, they won't be perfectly neutral.  And it takes a very finally trained and perceptive eye to be able to look at one of these images on the screen and know with percision how much Temperature and Tint to adjust to get it back to neutral.

By setting the camera white balance to a custom level by shooting my EZBalance, every image I take that comes off the camera down to Lightroom has whites, greys and blacks that are balanced - equal amounts of Red, Green, Blue. From there I can cool it down or warm it up for taste, but I'm not having to make large adjustments for correction. 

Get that white balance nailed and you'll reduce your post processing work flow by a huge amount.

15

Software & Accessories / Re: EOS Utility quitting with Mac OS X version 10.7.5

« on: October 11, 2012, 06:05:20 PM »

I'm in the same boat and really starting to tear my hair out. Hardly a dream team, OS X 10.7.5, EOS Utility 2.11.4. and EOS 5D3.

The solution I'm ready to go with is to install Parallels http://www.parallels.com/au/products/desktop/ or Bootcamp http://www.pcworld.com/article/249059/how_to_install_boot_camp_and_run_windows_on_your_mac.html so I can run Windows 7 on my MBP. EOS Utility runs 100% stable on Windows 7.

Still in the checking out stage, I'll post when it's up & running. But got to be very soon, the instability of OS X 10.7.5, EOS Utility 2.11.4. and EOS 5D3 is big enough to lose clients over. Arrrrgh!!!

-PW

Forget Bootcamp.  It's a pain in the arse because you can't run Windows and Mac simultaneously.  You have to restart the system and select which OS to run, then if you want to switch, restart again and choose the alternate OS.

Parallels is a pretty decent virtual machine environment that will let you run Windows in a windowed environment on the Mac OS.  Works OK.  But eventually settled on VMWare Fusion.  The overall user experience was much, much better.  On my Mac I run Windows 7, Winows XP, Server 2003, Server 2008, and various flavors of Unix, all within a windowed session on the Mac OS, can share files between the Mac and Windows OSes, copy/paste between, etc.  It's more expensive than Parallels but not prohibitively so.  I just find it to be a much superior product.