Messages

46

Canon General / Re: Would you rather . . .

« on: October 27, 2012, 08:55:45 AM »

I think, that the first option is better - it's fairly good enough to be known for thousands of good images. To be known for only one masterpiece in photography sounds like to be lucky just by accident to press the shutter once in the correct place at the correct time with undetermined camera settings.
If you have only one great photo but the rest is a totally crap... what it says about you as the photographer? It's like to be famous just because you have entered naked on the play field during the final cup game trasmitted to millions of viewers and later repeated in all the news - it doesn't make you being watched for your great body neither your running skills

47

Landscape / Re: Autumn Colors Amidst Landscapes

« on: October 26, 2012, 04:49:57 PM »

When I saw this alley in 3D live, I thought it would be a waste to set a high "F" for this one


Park Skaryszewski by marekjoz, on Flickr

48

Canon General / Re: Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

« on: October 26, 2012, 04:07:11 PM »

Probably because no one had the D800 in stock, and low supply means high demand which means no market drive for a lower price.

The stock has been good for some time now but I still have not seen any shocking deals on this body.

I thought $3500 was not unreasonable.  The IQ of a 5DII (already excellent) coupled with the AF system of a camera costing >$3K more, plus 6 fps shooting speed?  That's a powerful combination.  If I had any interest in purchasing a 5DIII, would I want it to be cheaper?  Of course.  But if I had been interested in purchasing a 5DIII, the $3500 price would not have affected my decision.  Amortized over a 3 year life of the camera, $500 becomes something like 46¢ per day.  My morning coffee cost 10 times that.  Just sayin'.

Well, the street price drop is more than $500 in the US and considering Canadian online buyers it is around $1K for us. I do realize the MSRP was not an issue for some. However, this is not what i am talking about. Yes, the extra $500-$750 might not be a big deal for pros who have this cam as a money making machine, or for some who can afford to pay even more than that without any significant financial impact. But consider D800 sitting next to it at $3K and consider over 800 Canon units which Adorama easily moved in just a couple of days at a $750 discount.  I don't think that $2750 is just a pocket change for many in these hard economic times, however folks jumped on this deal right away. Nobody is expecting to have MKIII discounted into oblivion, but people are ready to spend close to $3K of hard earned cash for this item. Again, this is not just about purchaser's expectation of a cheaper price. Its about current market situation (mostly direct competition from D800).

I think you are confusing what competition is. It is pretty clear that the 5D III and D800 are meant for different market segments. They are NOT direct competitors. The 5D III is without question a wedding photographers camera, as well as a great backup sports/wildlifers/birders body, on top of being the greatest general-purpose camera ever made. The D800 has NOT taken terribly well with wedding photographers (while some seem to like it, many more have found it to be very poorly suited to the segment), it does not serve well as a backup sports body, it is a superb studio and landscape camera, and as such it is definitely more of a direct competitor to MFD cameras than the worlds greatest general-purpose camera. I see more bird and wildlife photographers using the D600 than the D800.

I think it is fundamentally flawed to call the 5D III and D800 direct competitors. At the moment, I am not sure the 5D III, with its amazing AF system, good middle-ground megapixels, high frame rate, and pro-grade build really has any kind of "direct" competitor, although the D600 might actually be closer than the D800.

But I think, that if there were people saying "5d3 is too expensive for me as for its sensor capabilities, I'm going to buy d800", then somehow, no matter if Canon or Nikon wanted to make those products competitive or not, it happened so in some way anyway
Even if 5d3 and d800 are different tools for different purposes, there were people, who just wanted to have a new toy and only those toys were available at this time.

49

Landscape / Re: Autumn Colors Amidst Landscapes

« on: October 26, 2012, 03:41:49 PM »

Here's my contribution - tis the time of the season for sure.

Why there is CA on the branches on the first photo? I've never had 16-35 - is it how it behaves or there is some special artistic reason for it?

50

Landscape / Re: Post Your Best Landscapes

« on: October 26, 2012, 02:02:31 PM »

Here are some recent shots.  The first is from a hike in Harriman State Park this past Saturday, while the other two were from a foggy day at work.

Great! The perspective of the bench on the second one is perfect!

51

Canon General / Re: Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

« on: October 26, 2012, 01:59:24 PM »

Smartphones are killing the compact camera business;  the DSLR business is small in comparison, especially the high-end DSLR business.  And don't forget copiers, printers, scanners, medical, and industrial components.

Excellent point and the question remains: is Canon or is not the huge supplier of camera sensors for smartphones?
If Canon delivers such sensors then great - they loose on p&s but get back something on smartphones market.
If Canon doesn't deliver... then... why exactly?

52

Canon General / Re: Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

« on: October 26, 2012, 01:46:34 PM »

In general, reduced revenue means cuts...and often, R&D is one of the first cuts to be made.  Sad, but true.

well a malicious guy could say:  i have not seen much sensor development in the past 4 years.... so what?

On the subject of R&D, check out the Chipworks report on full-frame DSLR camera sensors from a few days ago. Canon is basically still using the same fabrication technology for their sensors that they used in the 5DC, while their competitors have long moved on, so you could say that there hasn't been much sensor development in the past 7 years.
(...)

It's maybe long enough for guys in Sony to change their employer? Seven years is quite long to think about a change
Patents are one thing, but without a good brain fighting against patents is senseless. I still don't know where all those Canon's patents are located, if they are so behind in sesnor technology?

53

Canon General / Re: Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

« on: October 26, 2012, 01:07:50 PM »

...maybe they will start refreshing the entire product line just about soon, like next January?

In general, reduced revenue means cuts...and often, R&D is one of the first cuts to be made.  Sad, but true.

+1 Canon set their R&D budget 'top-down' (as a % of net sales) and not 'bottom-up' (what they need to spend for new products), so expect to see some possible trimming of the R&D allocation

Hopefully it could push them to send to market stuff they have ready on their shelves in R&D department.

54

Canon General / Re: Canon Can't Even Make a Billion Dollars Anymore

« on: October 26, 2012, 01:02:07 PM »

So... nobody's switching to Nikon because of that?

55

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

« on: October 26, 2012, 08:49:11 AM »

Here is a article written by Stefan Ohlsson the swedish Bruce Frazer  and color handling educator for professional photographers     http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url  http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfoto.se%2Fteknik%2Ffarghantering-kalibrering-och-utskrifter%2Fkalibrera-din-kamera&act=url

One of mine pictures from Cape Town are  in the article and showing the differences in colors and problems with for example over saturation  red colors in different profiles

There is something in this, that using serious tools you still achieve different results. One would expect, that serious tools should lead to objective, similar results. The problem with this which I see is: should the result be the most accurate - most similar to the live spectator of the event or it should be the most entertaining for the final photo viewer?
Since the results achieved are so different, I still find it as a problem in more subjective than objective matter, as final results may be quite differently graded by the final viewers.
I agree of course, that using tools gives you serious advantage over only subjective eye justice, but anyway - what you will finally do with it will be just your own vision and personal taste.

56

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

« on: October 26, 2012, 07:03:55 AM »

I would share some experiences and give you some advices to avoid difficult choices later:

1. Shoot RAW, correct WB in PP.

2. To have better insight in PP, before shooting use some grey card - anything from the above suggest list of accessories to get the WB reference

3. Don't change lightning between calibration and shooting because it will change your WB setting. If you use ambient light a little different than the main source, even changing ISO and shutter speed will influence your WB reference

3. Avoid shooting at lights having different temperature:
a) in rooms the tv can cast a strong lighting changing instantly - turn the tv off when shooting because no grey card will help you if the tv's light has an influence on subjects on the photo
b) if you have to use ordinary bulb lights and flash at the same time, try to get most lighting with the flash or the opposite way (avoid mixing different lights in similar proportions, unless you really know what you do). You can achieve this by setting the flash to ETTL and camera to  low ISO, 1/200s casting the light from the ceiling (if white or natural grey)m- this makes more light from the flash than ambient. This will cause the flash to fire with more power and will override the ambient light from the bulbs having different temperature and making mess. You can first fire flash in manual mode with full power (M 1/1) to check what are its the capabilities in your current situation. The opposite situation - to get only some enlighting fom the flash will be achieved with opposite settings - high ISO, low shutter speed, ETTL mode. This you can check by setting (M/128) on your flash and setting all the other exposure parameters accordingly.
c) candles, tungsten, bulbs, flash are sources of difeerent temperature so will give you different WB settings. Try to avoid mixing them
d) some fluorescent bulbs blink with 50 or 60 Hz frequency. If you will shoot with shutter speeds above 1/30s you can be surprised how different your photos will be depending on which moment of the bulb's phase you have pressed the shutter

4. On your final photo try to find a natural WB reference - white or natural grey material which can serve as the WB reference. It helps often just to pick it.

5. When you do not control your light in most cases you will just have some kind of compromise...

57

Lenses / Re: Travel lens\es on crop body

« on: October 25, 2012, 08:26:22 PM »

I will also share my experience from the trip to Greece. One week, lazy most of the time (beach and pool mostly).
I took 5D2, 50 1.4, 24-105, 70-200 F 4 L IS, ext 1.4 II

I didn't make a lot of photos (about 1000 of all), have chosen 139 as "good enough" to keep them.

In those 139 photos:
- 9 made with 24-105
- 11 with 50 1.4,
- 107 made with 70-200,
- 12 made with 70-200 + ext.
Checking all the focals used on photos, the average weighted focal was 133.

When using 70-200: 30% of photos were @200mm and also 30% were @ F4 (what means that it's too short and too dark lens for me because I would use wider than F4 and longer that 200 if I could)

Looking at all the statistics, if i were you and took 7D with 24-105 and would like to make all 139 photos which I decided to keep, I would miss:
- 2 photos because I would need wider than 24mm on crop
- 3 photos because I would need faster than F4 @50mm
- 52 photos because I would need longer than 105mm on crop

That's me, my style of shooting, place where I was and subjects which were shot. You can have quite different needs.

Below I attach bubble graphs for real geeks:
- the bigger the bubble the more photos at specific focal and aperture
- horizontal axis take focals, vertical - take apertures
- the bubbles for different lenses don't have the same size meaning specific amount of photos (ie bubbles on 24-105 showing one photo are bigger than those on 70-200)

Explanation - I'm not crazy, just wanted to check what I use mostly and if my lenses were apropriate for me.

58

Sports / Re: Post your best Football shot (American Style)

« on: October 25, 2012, 03:22:50 PM »

Greets from Poland


Euro American Challenge by marekjoz, on Flickr


Euro American Challenge by marekjoz, on Flickr


Euro American Challenge by marekjoz, on Flickr

59

Landscape / Re: Beautiful sunsets

« on: October 25, 2012, 11:06:56 AM »

Sunset over the Baltic Sea by marekjoz, on Flickr

60

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

« on: October 25, 2012, 08:56:21 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 .
One should distinguish between the use of gray cards that are more suited for exposure and not white balance and a card where the white balance should be made towards whiter area with a value around R 220  G 220  B220, . The cards  should also have such metamerism characteristics that a white balance can be made in different color temperatures.
Best results do we get from a card with  for example  four different surfaces from black to white so that we can adjust curves towards more points than one grey.
And if  the WB results  not  fit the taste -  that is  a subjective opinion and we can adjust cooler,warmer etc  .

I use ColorChecker also for camera calibration in place and it still doesn't matter, because until you don't work in studio or with fully controlled light you get anyway the correct WB just in a place where you check it at specific angle and not for the whole scene. Since I have found out that, my workflow is much simpler because i simply don't use it everywhere nor always
Seriously - if you control the light, it helps a lot. If you don't have too much influence on that, then in most cases it's just a matter of taste.
Theoretically - you are right. In practice if you are a pro then go outside, measure the current temperature of the natural light, set your external lights to the same temperature, cast your light form ideal white or silver surfaces and then it makes sense. If your target has an ideal objective white balance with proper skin tones but the rest is ugly, then what a sense makes setting the WB to the correct WB just in this place?
What is the correct objective white balance in a scene with light sources having different temperature? What is the correct objective WB on the soccer field in the late afternoon when the external lights are on and have of course a different temperature than the sun at the sunset? You have three players in a frame and each of them is differently lit? I'd like to know it myself because neither of: set K, grey card, colorchecker (light changes through 90 minutes), auto, daylight or shadow help. And of course obtaining WB from white shirts of the players doesn't help, because it changes drammatically depending on the angle of the shirt exposed to either light, distance to the light and amount of the shadow on the shirt giving in the end different tones of the green, but correct tones of the skin etc.