Messages

1

Canon General / Re: What am I doing wrong???

« on: February 25, 2013, 07:26:40 AM »

if you let the camera choose the focus point, it will choose use the one with the closest subject. on a face it will focus the nose not the eye.

i shoot portraits with one point focus and ai servo, if i dont have to recompose. maybe it helps to only let the camera choose cross-type points.

+1, looking at those images given the position of the focus points I'd say that's the case. 5D3 allows the focus point to be easily be moved with the joystick so the total auto-selection modes are an abomination in my opinion.

2

Technical Support / Re: Connect DSLR to PC/Projector wireless

« on: February 16, 2013, 01:51:57 AM »

Someone asked me about this for at engagement party and I just said my gear was set to take high-quality RAW photos that weren't compatible with projectors . Reality is it would have just been a distraction for me and without vetting to some degree you're likely to put up a few OOF / wrongly exposed / timed images up on display. Don't know about you but I also normally fire off two or three shots to cover closed eyes and wierd expressions so I would have also been streaming a lot of virtually identical images.

3

Technical Support / Re: at what shutter speed you turn IS off?

« on: January 27, 2013, 10:23:31 PM »

Another reason to switch it off aside from the potential effect on AF speed/accuracy is that some wildlife reacts to the sound of it.

   Wow!  Really??  So does this mean that if you turn off the IS, you only get one shot when the much louder SLR Actuation scares off the wildlife?

Actually that wouldn't suprise me for a lot of animals, for example from Wikipedia "Bats that can detect 200 kHz cannot hear very well below 10 kHz". Mice are shown at 1 to 70 kHz and there are many other examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range. According to the following page the USM motor runs at about 30kHz:

http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/technical/usmlens_technology.do

Note sure what the frequency components of the shutter noise are, but I'm pretty sure the loudest components would all be below 1KHz.

4

Technical Support / Re: Very soft audio w external mike of EOD 5D3

« on: January 21, 2013, 06:21:11 AM »

I'm far from an audio expert, but wouldn't the DR-100 if it's pro product possibly inject DC power over the XLR connector? Mt Spokane could well be correct on the battery, I've had few new duds, plus possibly the mic is faulty and only works when line powered. Could also be a signficant impedance / level mismatch, but don't really no enough about the charatersitics of either to know if that's likely.

5

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Nikon sells a lineup of crop primes, why not Canon?

« on: January 16, 2013, 06:52:40 AM »

it works for canon because a huge percentage of fanboys are stupid.

I used to be a Canon fanboy, the mirror actuation kept me somewhat cool, but I've since found a combination of vanes and a DC motor is both more effective and economical.

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Animal Kingdom / Re: I'll take your cat and raise you a kangaroo...

« on: January 14, 2013, 01:20:48 AM »

Looks too well done.

Just a quick sear on the BBQ, was still nice and rare on the inside.

7

Animal Kingdom / Re: I'll take your cat and raise you a kangaroo...

« on: January 13, 2013, 05:03:03 AM »

Here's a kangaroo shot I took 5 years ago or so, delicious

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HDR - High Dynamic Range / Re: Best HDR Software?

« on: January 12, 2013, 02:49:44 AM »

I've never actually used it for HDR (it does other stuff as well) but PhotoAcute has a demo (watermarked) version if anyone's interested in trying it:

http://www.photoacute.com/studio/index.html

The pro version (which you need for a DSLR) is $149 although by submitting a new camera / lens profile you can get a free license. I did the 7D + 70-200mm f/2.8L II profile a while back although my results were a bit mixed with the super-resolution it'd be interesting to hear from anyone so inclined how it does on HDR.

9

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Tempted to upgrade my 7D to a 5D2 to open up wider indoor shots

« on: January 12, 2013, 01:55:35 AM »

Has anyone upgraded directly from the 7D to the 5D2? How does it do in terms of low-light performance? Is it worth the jump?

I've made that upgrade and low-light ISO and IQ in general is much better. It sounds like you desire the wider field of view you'll get, so the main other thing you may miss is a good spread of AF points. Controls are somewhat different to the 7D (which is better in that regard) but not really enough to be a major concern. Personally I did later sell both and get a 5D3, but only because I also shoot a bit of action type stuff, for portrait style photography I think the 5D2 is much better than the 7D especially in low light.

As Hobby Shooter said I wouldn't dismiss the 6D without trying it. I haven't myself but assume being a later camera the menus and controls are closer to a 7D. I don't know what real-world performance / noise is like but the 6D goes to higher ISO as well. Not sure how it compares to a 5D3 but my 5D3 is noticably better at high ISO than a 5D2.

10

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: Inside the Canon EOS-1D C

« on: January 10, 2013, 08:14:17 AM »

Honestly, I don't expect the ML team to break this. It would take too much work to benefit a small few. Plus they know the implications of possibly pissing off Canon. It's not impossible for Canon to lock out ML on ALL cameras, would you honestly want that to happen?

Seriously, some people just have no respect for IP.

Agree with you on the first point and being a non-profit group of volunteers even though legally I can't think of any leg Canon would have to stand on of course any lawsuit even without merit can cost stacks to defend.

But "no respect for IP" makes no sense at all to me. Even the DMCA which is pretty draconian in my opinion allows reverse engineering for the purpose of making one piece of software interoperate with another under section 1201(f). Under Australian law that 'no reverse engineering' stuff would probably be a borderline case of unconscionable conduct under consumer laws, of course once again if you had the money to defend it so I understand the stance of the ML team. But it doesn't exactly make Canon's stance either lawful or just.

11

Lenses / Re: EF 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x Production to Begin in Q2

« on: January 10, 2013, 07:36:22 AM »

Isn't that extremely expensive? I mean you could get the 500 or 600 IS II for less than/around that.

I was thinking the same, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. It's also at a point where you could get both ends of the focal range at f/2.8 with a prime for less.

12

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Sigma Launches the Sigma USB DOCK

« on: January 10, 2013, 07:27:43 AM »

Final comment: I don't get some of the thinking on this thread at all. This is a puck to reprogram lenses - how often are you going to do that? How many people are actually going to buy one? Is going into OSX or Windows that much of a pain for that twice a lifetime event? Seriously?

What they should do is have the option of a toggle switch on the data line and a debounced pushbutton on the clock line to make it OS agnostic.

13

Technical Support / Re: Press shutter once to take picture, it stays closed, press again and it opens

« on: January 10, 2013, 05:39:52 AM »

I always use live-view myself and the self-timer if not using a release. The thread just reminded me I saw the following vid on YouTube of a 5D shutter in operation filmed at 2000fps I thought was fairly interesting:

Slow motion camera shutter - Canon 5D 2,000 fps	Small | Large

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Sigma Launches the Sigma USB DOCK

« on: January 09, 2013, 06:12:29 AM »

I see they've added that ability for the 5D3 and later .

Canon is a very conservative company - the lens fw update mainly seems to be designed to ensure compatibility of lenses with newer camera bodies, on each new generation release there are a few lenses (even newer ones) that need a trip to Canon service because they have issues. But Canon isn't enthusiastic about (too?) many customizations or features, they leave that to Sigma and Magic Lantern.

Yep fair point, and I guess in Canon's case they already know likely incompatibilities in advance unlike 3rd parties that need to react / reverse-engineer changes later if previously unused commands are used.

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Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Sigma Launches the Sigma USB DOCK

« on: January 09, 2013, 12:24:30 AM »

I don't have any Sigma lenses but reading this made me think it was odd that Canon have never had a way to update the lens firmware through the body. Just taking a look though I see they've added that ability for the 5D3 and later .