Messages

46

EOS Bodies / Re: Will anti-aliasing filters doom even forthcoming Canons to early obsolescence?

« on: January 31, 2012, 03:52:14 PM »

@necator -- from your experience, and if you have the time, a list of types of "moiree-critical things" would be very interesting.  We hear and see often this effect from repetitive fine patterning on fabric.  What else?

47

EOS Bodies / Will anti-aliasing filters doom even forthcoming Canons to early obsolescence?

« on: January 30, 2012, 04:43:17 PM »

In recent years we've seen the M-9, offered by a revitalized Leica at about triple the price usual for such a full frame body,  along with the designer casing and restricted functionality evocative of Apple Computer but with more than a twist of retro love -- at last you can buy new triple-priced lenses without such sissy features as speed or auto-focus.  The customers can't love it enough, and fall to almost mystical terms when they try to describe the IQ.   (There have been whispers that Leica's unimagined success at the high end has driven many of Canon's top execs into counseling.)   Pentax entered digital Medium to raves with the 645D; we have gasped at the entrance of Sigma's SD1 with its Foveon X3 (APS-C) at a stonking $7000, body only.   En route is the FujiX-Pro1, a poor person's M-9, in a way, that has the heavies at Luminous-Landscape dancing the frug the twist and the wa-watusi in anticipation.  Then there is the expected Nikon 800E...

What these five bodies have in common is the absence of anti-aliasing filters.  Stripped of this dulling scrim (some say), an APS-C sensor out-resolves the best full frame, and other aspects of lens IQ leap ahead as well.  Moire (they say) is hardly an issue at today's high resolutions anyway and can be eliminated entirely by in-camera digital signal processing (Leica), Fuji's quasi-random 6x6 color filter array or that triple stacking of photo-sites (Sigma).

So tell us, who that knows, just how easy is abandonment of the AA filter, what does Science and Engineering say?  Will it be a new dawn?  What if anything will Canon offer here?

Finally, is this a case -- for now at least -- in which the interests of still and movie shooters clash? (The lower resolution and higher data rates would make moire more of a problem and harder to manage with the latter, I imagine.)  Light: please, heat: not-so-much.  I have a foot in both camps.  Let us love one another.

48

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Flip out displays -- why the resentment?

« on: January 30, 2012, 11:29:35 AM »

@Eye-Broccoli, @dr croubie, @Harley, @Narcolepsy, @Canon-F-1, @7enderbender:
Perhaps some traditionalists don't realize that the Vari-angle screen can remain flush against the body without ever even once being swung out.  Canon has recessed it into the camera's back, surrounded by a slightly raised, rounded frame.  There's no way I can think of, that it can be accidentally dislodged from this position, even rolling round loose in a sack: only a somewhat forceful action of fingertip/nail can pry it open.  To this extent it doesn't resemble the clam-shell design of many small camcorders.  In appearance it's very little different from Canon's fixed-screen models.  It is more vulnerable once swung out, obviously and of course.  One must take care.  The hinge seems to be very solid.

@WFT: Those vari-shooters are only blocking your view because the fixed-screeners in front of them don't dare stop and sit down, shooting blind as they are.

49

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Flip out displays -- why the resentment?

« on: January 30, 2012, 05:54:06 AM »

@AvTvM: Thanks a lot!  If only I had a "karma" button I'd be banging on it now.

50

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Flip out displays -- why the resentment?

« on: January 29, 2012, 09:00:53 PM »

Attachments, #2 of 2

51

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Flip out displays -- why the resentment?

« on: January 29, 2012, 08:58:45 PM »

Thanks Eye-Broccoli, you've given me a better understanding of the unhappiness.  "Stigma" is a word that hadn't occurred to me in connection with the "Vari-angle".

For readers not accustomed to reaching high or low I attach some examples of what I've been talking about -- I see I'll have to do this in installments.

52

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Flip out displays -- why the resentment?

« on: January 29, 2012, 05:00:50 PM »

Bought a 60D as my first dslr, in part because of what Canon calls the "Vari-angle" monitor, aka "articulating display" or flip-screen.  This was high on my fierce little list as a Must and has proven even more useful and important to me than imagined.  Video, I admit, is my eventual destination but it's been all still photography for six months and here also flipper is essential.

Let me count the ways:  for angles all the way down to ground level, or eighteen inches above your eyes, this allows you to frame without stretching out flat on the street or in the mud, or climbing a tree or a drainpipe -- landscape afficianados take note!  A minority of circumstances perhaps but a disproportionate source of winners.   Essential for reportage, especially the high shots.  Easier for journalists to conceal what they're up to -- the sneaks can face away from a subject.

Very very useful for portraiture out of the studio and even more for self-portraits or any kind of cheap wireless remote shooting.

Two considerations that hadn't occurred: swiveling the monitor away leaves a nice recess for the nose when using the OVF.  Leaving the monitor screen turned inwards in the closed position protects it completely from scratching.  (I leave it in this position most of the time when shooting too -- I find less and less need to check it when conditions are familiar.  When I do use the screen, it's opened out to the left; there are no greasy smears on it.)

In video where pulling focus matters, a good loupe becomes an attractive alternative to a heavy and expensive external monitor, to name just one advantage.

So what's the beef?  Why do so many dedicated Canoneers seem to choke on their lens caps over this?  I've seen the argument that flip screens preclude weather-proofing, yet for years and years cheap flip-screen video-cams have been guaranteed waterproof to at least ten feet!  And they work -- I've used them. The arrangement increases fragility?  The opposite is true.  It hogs valuable real-estate at the expense or more buttons?  There's still plenty of empty space on the 60D my right thumb could reach.

The argument from stills-only shooters that they must now pay for all these unwanted "video" features seems misconceived too, since even if this was only about movies, the mass entry of videographers into this market,  just now getting underway, should help keep prices down for everyone.

Sorry to have gone on so long!  It looks like Canon is leaving Vari-angle out of the high end once again.  What am I overlooking?

53

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon EF 16-35 2.8L

« on: January 28, 2012, 12:50:17 PM »

16-35 @ 16MM f 22

RuneL -- a very soulful image! (pawprints in the sand)

54

Portrait / Re: Black and White portraits

« on: January 26, 2012, 10:32:29 AM »

K3nt,  I think you'll get even more of a WHAM! if you crop a slice off the left, just to our right of what appears to be a step-ladder in the background.   This will remove a secondary, dead-end focus to our left of your subject and concentrate everything to the right.  I don't think that shoulder will be missed.

55

EOS Bodies / Re: tips on getting started shooting in raw?

« on: January 02, 2012, 07:24:41 PM »

If you've found yourself fussing with color, including tone and saturation; if you've wanted to sharpen or (say, for a portrait)  soften the surfaces; if you've wanted to rescue a spontaneous photo which you've badly exposed, even by a couple of stops in either direction -- if you've wanted any of these and a whole list of such things to be available to you organically, without leaving traces that something was wrong to start with, then I predict you will be astonished at the power of RAW, and wonder why you didn't take advantage from the start.  The files will be much fatter; house-keeping will be required; I can't think of any other downside, if you're already an editor.  DPP conversions seem pretty fast, and pre-conversion you'll see these photos RAW in DPP and ZoomBrowser  almost as if they were .jpg;  DPP requires 10 or 20 seconds to reach "hi-quality preview," I think they call it.   The corrective power of film negative over slide/reversal is another way to describe it.

56

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: EOS 60D live view

« on: December 25, 2011, 11:25:17 AM »

Don't forget that your new DSLRs defaults to the optical viewfinder for shooting stills.  To use the "live view" display you must press the "movie" button just to the right of the viewfinder, that is, above the top right-hand corner of the display.  There's a red dot beside it.  You'll hear the click of the mirror, and: presto.  Otherwise the display will come alive only for reviewing what you've shot, and for Menu, Info and Q data.

If you're coming to this from a pocket cam, try using the optical viewfinder.  The autofocus will seem like lightning.