Messages

16

Software & Accessories / Re: Which iMac

« on: January 31, 2013, 12:33:32 PM »

Thanks.  So you feel the stock i5 on the 27" is good enough.  What is the advantages of i7 then?

This might be too little info too late, but the Core i7 can hyperthread while the core i5 can not. That means the Core i7 functions as an 8 core processor, while the Core i5 functions as a 4 core processor. I'd spend the extra couple of hundred bucks on the Core i7. The Core i5 is quite old at this point, and I'm surprised Apple offers it in a newly revamped machine like the iMac.

The i5 is a great inexpensive alternative. But honestly for photo and video, just like a previous poster said, you'll the good everything. GPU should def be atleast 1GB. You can definitely get by with the i5 if you don't have the money after getting the GPU, but if you can, get both.

Why does everybody always say a super duper graphics card is mandatory? In both Lightroom and DPP it doesn't help with rendering. I guess if the software you use can take advantage of it, that's one thing but CPUs are king of the hill when it comes to RAW conversion.

17

Macro / Re: Which extension tubes to buy?

« on: December 25, 2012, 03:24:54 PM »

I bought the Kenko set. Very nice quality. I believe the 20mm one is a tighter lock than the others but not so much that's it's super hard to remove. I've been very happy with them.

18

Lenses / Do I need to rent a normal range zoom?

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:50:43 PM »

So I'll be shooting a couple weddings in March and I'm starting to think about gear for it. While the wedding I did in early December was with two full frame cameras, my wife was one of the brides maids so I was able to have both cameras with me with one having my 24-105 and the other a rented 70-200. My question is this. Do I need to rent a normal range zoom to make sure I don't miss shots? I'll give my wife the 24-105 so I'll at least have some fall back there. I normally use the 70-200 for most of the ceremony and a good part of the reception as well. The main things I'm thinking of are the cake cutting and wide shots of people dancing where you need something wide. My thoughts are either #1, use my 40 2.8 lens for this. I always have a hard time using this lens just cause of it's low price yet it's a very nice lens so maybe it's just in my head and that would a good option. The other possibility would be to rent the Canon 35 1.4 like I did for this last wedding and have that for my wider angle option. I'm only wanting to rent one wide aperture lens though and I'm trying to decide between this and the Sigma 85 1.4. Now one other thing that factors in and is part the reason I'm wondering if I can get by without renting a normal range zoom is I also still have my 50D which I can either have ready to go with my Sigma 10-20 or Tamron 17-50 as a backup as well. Full frame is obviously a lot nicer though so I wouldn't want to be using it more than I'm using the full frame or else what's the purpose in renting the full frame camera then? So any thoughts on this? Thanks

19

Software & Accessories / Re: Which iMac

« on: December 07, 2012, 08:26:56 AM »

photo and video, by the biggest and fastest of everything....

I think this negates a valid price vs performance analysis. I just ended up building a hackintosh last night because the 27" iMac is out of my price range and the 21" is pretty much not upgradable at all unless you have apple do it which is super expensive. I think the stock CPU will be fast enough for you. Graphics card won't make a huge difference either. These are all incremental upgrades. The fusion drive though might be worth it. I made my own fusion drive since it's a hackintosh and it only cost me $75 extra. I think apple charges $250 which isn't cheap but for apple standards isn't bad. The only way to do this on an iMac if you don't get it with it is to setup a thunderbolt SSD and by that point you're better off just getting it from Apple. That's my take on it. So from Apple, possibly Fusion drive and then upgrade the ram your self.

Thanks.  So you feel the stock i5 on the 27" is good enough.  What is the advantages of i7 then?

Well you end up spending an extra $400 ($200 for the upgraded 27 and $200 for the processor) for it so my thinking is why not save that money and probably in another 3-4 years put that towards a new one. My best guess is you'll get a max 25% increase in CPU speed with the upgrade. From the last gen iMac to this one you're looking at a 25% increase in processor overall and some benchmarks I believe showed up to 100% increase. So if you  use that as your "upgrade path". Then over the course of 3-4 years you get more value for your money there. I have no doubt the stock 27" iMac will be plenty fast and will be a huge upgrade from your current system.

20

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon 6D vs 5D MKII (Focusing?)

« on: December 04, 2012, 11:19:14 PM »

My final words are.. the center point from the Canon 6D might be better for accuracy from any Canon camera ever build.. believe me, this thing is very powerful..

Hmm. LensRentals did a controlled test and the results don't support your enthusiasm.
In terms of AF accuracy, the 6D is closer to the 5DII than the 1DX/5DIII.

Some others have already commented but I thought I'd also point out that Roger wasn't really testing for AF accuracy on it's own, this article is related to all the previous ones where he's comparing contrast live view focusing vs phase detection AF. Even the lowest level 6D shot is still obviously very much in focus. It just isn't "perfect". So the real answer is without further testing this test doesn't prove anything other than the 5D mark III and 1DX do better with newer lenses than the 6D which isn't that huge a deal. What needs to be tested is how the camera handles in low light and low contrast situations. I look forward to hearing more about this.

21

Software & Accessories / Re: iMac As Display / Calibration

« on: December 04, 2012, 01:14:17 PM »

I ♥ Win 7 Pro.  :|

Eh! Windows 7 is alright. Far from great. Windows 8 looks to be aweful. I've been running 10.6 up to this point and am really happy with some of the new things in 10.8. Mountain Lion feels like a much more polished product than Windows 7

22

Software & Accessories / Re: Which iMac

« on: December 04, 2012, 01:12:28 PM »

photo and video, by the biggest and fastest of everything....

I think this negates a valid price vs performance analysis. I just ended up building a hackintosh last night because the 27" iMac is out of my price range and the 21" is pretty much not upgradable at all unless you have apple do it which is super expensive. I think the stock CPU will be fast enough for you. Graphics card won't make a huge difference either. These are all incremental upgrades. The fusion drive though might be worth it. I made my own fusion drive since it's a hackintosh and it only cost me $75 extra. I think apple charges $250 which isn't cheap but for apple standards isn't bad. The only way to do this on an iMac if you don't get it with it is to setup a thunderbolt SSD and by that point you're better off just getting it from Apple. That's my take on it. So from Apple, possibly Fusion drive and then upgrade the ram your self.

23

Software & Accessories / Re: iMac As Display / Calibration

« on: December 04, 2012, 01:02:56 PM »

So I ended up going with another hackintosh. After reading how hard it is to open up the new iMacs and the fact that the 21" doesn't even have a ram slot, I feel more comfortable going this route. I may still get one eventually but for now this is much cheaper. I upgraded the cpu and motherboard for $250 and it's a faster processor than the iMac has. I also went ahead and bought a 128 GB Samsung SSD and setup a Fusion Drive last night. This has been the easiest hackintosh I've had to build. Very happy with it. Just thought I'd share in case any one is in the same position.

24

Software & Accessories / Re: iPad mini connectivity with 7d

« on: November 24, 2012, 09:27:40 PM »

I thought those cables could only connect to a USB host (like a PC) or is it something a bit different to the standard one?

I believe this is a specific cable by apple that is designed for this. This might eventually justify me getting an iPad as if this works well then I could use at weddings during the formals to ensure everyone's looking and in focus. It's very hard to gauge on a 3" screen. I'd be interested to hear how well this works in live shooting environment as I wouldn't want to be waiting forever for the picture to load up on the iPad.

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Software & Accessories / Re: PixStics - Discussion

« on: November 19, 2012, 12:53:36 PM »

Just released a new version of Pixstics. You can get all the details on it here:
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=8203.msg197489#msg197489

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Software & Accessories / Re: PixStics - Release Log

« on: November 19, 2012, 12:52:25 PM »

I've just updated PixStics. The main new feature is I now have lens recommendations included based off of the data set given. A special thanks to Bryan Carnathan for providing the lens data and great reviews. Below is a complete list of what this update includes:
Bug fix - Files without focal length could result in data not being properly grouped
Improvement - Lens recommendations added based on lenses in group. Provides links to lens specs and review from Bryan Carnathan's The-Digital-Picture.com as well a link to buy the lens.
Improvement - Ratings now properly show rejected images and group images with a rating of 0 with unrated images
Improvement - File processing updated to show "Graph building please wait..." while data is being processed and chart built

If you'd like to check out the new version, it's available at the same url http://leightyphotography.com/PixStics/

As before, please keep discussion to this thread:
http://www.canonrumors.com/forum/index.php?topic=7920.0

27

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon 85mm f/1.8

« on: November 17, 2012, 06:20:57 PM »

I love this lens.  It's small, fast, focuses much faster than the 1.2 and it is a great value.  What's not to love?

I prefer the 100mm F/2.

I am thinking about both.... why the 100/2 over the 85/1.8 ?

Does anyone have comparison shots?

More Compression, smaller noses.

Might also be the fact that the 100 has visibly better image quality than the 85. Look at TDP's ISOs and you'll see what I'm talking about.

28

Lighting / Re: YN622C trigger experiences?

« on: November 17, 2012, 06:19:22 PM »

I have a pair of these. I haven't used it in a wedding yet. They were waiting in my mail box the day I last had a wedding . But from some use while I was in France with my niece and nephew I'm pretty happy with them. I plan to do a review on them at some point but it might be a while. The one thing that does bug me and perhaps it's just the ones I got is one of the very nice bonuses of this over other triggers is the focus assist light. I normally use the center AF point and for some reason the beam is off center so really doesn't assist like it should. I may end up taking it apart. My best guess is the led needs to be pushed around to center it up better. Other than that it's works as advertised at least as far as I've used it so far as I've used it.

29

Technical Support / Re: Best Methods For Long Term File Storage ??

« on: November 14, 2012, 11:42:29 PM »

For those that use Glacier, have you actually had to pull any data off? Reason I ask is their retrieval charge is astronomical if you don't spread it out correctly. Without some special software to this, I think this ones dead in the water for me now

30

Technical Support / Re: Best Methods For Long Term File Storage ??

« on: November 14, 2012, 08:21:10 PM »

You do have a point but that outage was with EC2 not glacier. I'm not sure what the promised durability for EC2 is but glacier is very high due to the fact that it's stored in multiple facilities and multiple hard drives within that facility. I have not had faith to offer retaining data to my clients but Amazon's Glacier looks promising and relatively affordable. I'll of course keep a local hard drive with the data on it. But as you say, that's not enough. With Glacier, I can feel secure that even if my house burns down I'm ok. And I don't have to worry about trying to put data in other locations other than on Glacier.