Messages

1

Lighting / Re: Portrait Lighting - Newbie

« on: July 27, 2012, 02:28:32 PM »

The wealth of information that can be gathered from here is wonderful.  All of you had excellent tips, links and ideas  -thank you for this.  I've begun looking into some of this already however no conclusions.  Another pr Miss America photographer online recommended a Novotron V400D 3.   I didn't realize initially that mobile could indicate out doors without electricity.  As of the moment(but may in the future) I may have this need to shoot outdoors and did some reading about the key light and and fill lights. The mobile portrait studio (for now) will be for indoor use where electricity would be available and was planning on driving to the client's homes, doing a setup with a backdrop, etc.  Granted, it is possible, they may want shots in their backyard or at a park but I have the option of calling the shots here and client will follow.  So, to redefine for the moment, an indoor set up which would be expandable for outdoor would be a better description (my apologies for not being as descript as I should have been).  I would think backdrops (black,white,green), Key and fill light, all white umbrellas or black/silver and 1 white, light stands and anything else to be added here would be helpful.  Not sure of lighting wattage (?) needed for indoor (400 or 800 ?), I would presume 10x10 backdrops (?).  Good ideas on the clamps and tape..setup is useless without those I would gather

I believe since the 5D doesn't offer a trigger, some type of triggering system is needed ? I did see the note on the Canon vs. the Knockoff.   I do have access to a second 580 EX (not EX II).  I saw a fellow photographer put both his 580 EX's on stands and bounce them off soft white umbrellas - that's all he had (2 umbrellas, stands and 2 x 580 EX's).   Is this a good route for indoors to start (of course a backdrop is needed).  lastly, I have a 7D that has wireless trigger built in - is there a way to sync this with the 5D MKIII or is this only wishful thinking on my part?

You can do very well indoors with a couple of 580ex II. These do not put out as much light as big studio strobes, but they put out enough for portraits of 1 or 2 people with modifiers like umbrellas. You can get f/8 at ISO 200 or f/11 ISO 400 with just 2 580Exs. If you like portraits at f/2.8 or f/4, then you have plenty of light.

You can certainly get started with 2 lights. In fact one light and a reflector for fill works just fine too. I mostly use 3 to 5 lights (all flashes), main, fill, hair or separation, and zero to 2 lights on the background. It all depends on what style of portraits you want to do. Actually, with white backgrounds 2 lights is not enough to blow the background out. I really need 4 lights on the background.

Shoot through umbrellas are the least expensive and most portable modifiers.  A softbox gives you more control of where the light goes. When you are shooting in a home with light colored walls and ceilings, you will get reflected light bouncing off the walls and ceilings. This actually helps soften the light, but you also get a color cast from the walls and ceilings. You get more reflected light off walls and celings with umbrellas than you do with a softbox. This difference is small and if you shoot raw you can correct the color cast in post processing, so it is not a big deal.  Most photo studios have dark colored walls and ceilings so they do not get reflected light.

For triggering off camera flash, the cheapest way to go is get a 30ft E-TTL cable from Flash Zebra or OCF Gear. This allows you to run a the cable from you 5D to one of the 580Ex that you can use as a master to control the other one. I have used this indoors and it works just fine with 580EX flashes on umbrellas.  I also have PW+II radio triggers that I sometimes use indoors and always use outdoors.

2

Lenses / Re: Bokeh...is the look getting dated?

« on: May 31, 2012, 02:03:52 PM »

Looking back at the history of photos since WWII, yes - you see a LOT of huge DOF photography.  But those were also times where everyone on the planet didn't have a P-n-S camera in their pocket.  People hire a photographer to capture an image in a way that they can't.  (with the exception being photojournalism, where the qualities of a picture are less important than the content)   These days, almost anyone can capture a shot with huge DOF.  And until they figure out a way to get an f/1.4 lens with amazing IQ on an iPhone, I think that shallow DOF, buttery bokeh look is going to be what continues to give our services a perceived sense of value.

Shallow DOF with nice bokeh is one thing a professional photographer can do that you cannot do with an iPhone or a P&S, but if you are in the business of sell portraits posing and lighting are also big factors.

I started out doing a lot of shallow DOF environmental portraits with natural light.  Now I learned how to use lighting equipment outdoors, and I do some environmental portraits with greater DOF. The shallow DOF portrait draws the viewers eyes to the subject, because the background is out of focus.  If you have a beautiful background that is in focus, the viewers eyes can get drawn to the background. You need to light the subject (over power the sun) and slightly underexpose the background to draw the viewer's eyes to the subject.

If the background is busy or not attractive, go for shallow DOF. If the background is attractive, simple  and elegant looking, slightly underexposing the background can be a better technique.

3

Lenses / Re: B+W Filters compared to Promaster Filters?

« on: May 19, 2012, 03:51:24 AM »

I have a neutral density filter from ProMaster. The first time I put it on a lens, the EF 24-70 f/2.8, was at a beach on a day that was windy and cold. After using it for an hour or so, I could not get it off the lens.  When I got back home, I tried to get it off again with no luck. The following day I decided to take it to the store where I had bought both the filter and lens. Before I left, I tried to remove the filter again, and it came off easily.

I think it was a temperature effect. The lens/filter had been room temperature when I put the filter on. The lens/filter cooled down at the beach and the metal on lens must have contracted more than the metal on the filter.

4

EOS Bodies / Re: Why did Canon Release the 5D MkIII (pure conjecture)

« on: May 03, 2012, 11:40:53 PM »

Why did Canon Release the 5D MkIII?

To make a profit.  And guess what?  They will.  'Nuf said.

This.

I think Canon chose to stick with the off sensor ADC technology rather than going to something similar to the Sony Exmor technology because it is much easier to do high quality video in Canon's current technology.

Sony had problems with video. Some of their cameras had problems with sensor overheating and shutting down doing video. Those problems have been fixed in the newest Sony cameras. In the D800 Nikon/Sony have gotten high quality low ISO video, but the high ISO video on the D800 is still much nosier than the 5D III. I think Canon decided not to purse Sony Exmor technology a number of years ago because they thought high quality video was more important and that technology makes video more challenging.

5

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Why so much trust in DXO.

« on: April 20, 2012, 08:07:24 PM »

I think the DxO measurements are accurate and give you good information about the aspects of the camera they are measuring. There is, of course, many other things to take into consideration than just the sensor when picking a camera.

What I have never been able to make sense of is the DxO overall or case usage scores. These numbers don't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I guess part of the problem is they are only rating the sensor, not the camera.

At ISO 100 the D800 has 2.25 stops better DR than the 5D III. If the 5D III had 6 stops of DR and the D800 had 8.25 stops of DR, this would be a huge deal, but the 5D III has 11 stops of DR and that is more DR than any monitor or print can show. The extra two stops of DR will not be seen unless the dynamic range is compressed using single frame HDR adjustment techniques. In the vast majority of photographs you will never see that extra DR. You can increase the DR of a camera like the 5D III using multi frame HDR, so that extra DR is not a critical factor for me.

Professional and good non-professional photographers have learned to work with light, either find good natural light, supplement natural light or create their own light. I recently heard a talk by an old news photographer. He said when he was sent to cover a parade or similar event, his basic rule was find the good light, then find something interesting to photograph in the good light. There are types of photography, like landscape, where that isn't always possible, and those are the photographers most interested in the high dynamic range in their cameras.

DxO is a company that sells software that among other things does single frame HDR adjustments.  They talk about an "exclusive HDR mono-image feature" in their software. They have a vested interest in encouraging camera manufactures to increase the DR of their cameras so that  this feature becomes more useful. Without HDR like adjustments in post processing, you will never see the difference in the dynamic range of the 5D III and the D800.

6

EOS Bodies / Re: Canon is getting owned in sensor technology

« on: April 19, 2012, 08:30:51 PM »

I'm not convinced that Canon's DR is a result of worse sensor technology and not the result of a deliberate design objective to limit it. There's nothing, AFAIK, in CMOS or CCD sensors fundamentally that would produce the characteristic sloping curve you see from Canon's cameras. Moreover, virtually no other camera manufacturer shares the same kind of curve or the pervasiveness Canon has when you look at DXO's DR charts. In fact the only Nikon cameras that share that pattern that I'm aware of are the D3, and it's derivatives the D3s and D700.

So Far as I know, DXO, contrary to their claims, doesn't measure just the sensor, their measurements cover the whole signal processing chain from sensor though amps to ADCs, to whatever the processor does to the values before outputting it as a RAW file. While this is certainly is more for useful for the images you'll see but doesn't really provide a means to say anything about the sensor tech.

So why is Canon doing this? That's a darn good question.

I think Canon and Sony/Nikon have made different trade offs in their sensor design.

The Sony Exmor technology has the analog to digital converters (ADC) on the sensor chip. The Canon sensors take the analog signals off the sensor chip to an ADC in another chip. Very weak analog signals can pick up noise from the circuit boards. This is why the readout noise of the Canon sensors is higher than the Sony Exmor sensors and why the Sony Exmor sensors have better DR and lower deep shadow noise at low ISO.

So why doesn't Canon put the ADC on the sensor chip? There may be some patent issues, but I suspect the real reason is that the Sony Exmor technology has problems with video. The ADC on the sensor chip generate a lot of heat when the sensor is being read quickly, as in high frame rate video. Some Sony DSLR-like cameras that used Exmor have had problems with sensor over heating. Sony has fixed those issues in it most recent cameras. The fix probably involved better cooling for the sensor chip.

All FF DSLR video cameras face the problem that they cannot read all the sensor pixels at 30 fps to do HD video. Nikon is using some kind of pixel skipping to reduce the amount of data that has to be read off the sensor. This means the D800 is not using the whole sensor area, even the whole area within the HD image, to generate its video signal.

Canon has developed on sensor circuits that allow the analog signals of multiple pixels to be mixed for downs sampling to HD video resolution, so they only need to put these down sampled HD video pixels through their off chip ADC at 30 fps.  Canon uses analog signals from the whole sensor area, at least the part that is in the HD aspect image. This allows the Canon sensors to give better high ISO video.

Dan Chung from DPR said that up to ISO 1600 the D800 and 5DIII video noise was similar, but above 1600 the 5DIII clearly had lower noise.

Sony Exmor puts the ADC on the sensor for lower read noise and improved DR. Canon puts analog video down sampling circuits on the sensor for improved high ISO video.

I think Canon thinks that the DR they have now is good enough, and it is for most (but not all) photographic applications. They don't want to trade off the video performance, especially the high ISO video to get better DR.

7

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: DxOMark scores for 5DMkIII out - total score 81, 5DMkII had 79

« on: April 19, 2012, 05:46:10 PM »

In the D800 36MP Exmor sensor has an additional problem. You cannot read the whole sensor at 30 fps to do HD video. Nikon is using some kind of pixel skipping to reduce the amount of data that has to be read off the sensor. This means the D800 is not using the whole sensor area, even the whole area within the HD image, to generate its video signal.

I hate to break it to you but no camera does, not even the 5DmkIII. as you say, has to do with data size. 36MP is a LOT of data to read in one pass. The D800 actually resolves more detail in video than the 5DmkIII as has been documented by EOSHD and other sites at the expense of moire. It's method also allows for less rolling shutter. It's a tradeoff.

Canon has developed on sensor circuits that allow the analog signals of multiple pixels to be mixed for downs ampling to HD video resolution. Canon uses analog signals from the whole sensor area, at least the part that is in the HD aspect image. This allows the Canon sensors to give better high ISO video.

similar technology is no doubt present in sony video sensors. canon doesn't read the full sensor and downscales because of the amount of computational power required is beyond the abilities of their cameras. instead they pixel bin. pixel binning comes at a trade off in resolution as you can see.
http://www.eoshd.com/content/7631/panasonic-gh2-vs-5d-mark-iii

neither canon nor nikon/sony have perfect video on their dslrs. Neither camera is even remotely close to a 1080p downsample of a full sensor readout. everything we have today is a compromise in one way or another.

Canon does its down sampling by combining analog signals on the sensor chip before the ADC.  This allows them to use signals from all the area illuminated by the HD image. The D800 is apparently using pixel skipping to down sample, which uses only part of the sensor area illuminated by the HD image. This may give the D800 slightly better resolution at low ISO video, but at high ISO the 5DIII video is clearly better. 

8

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: DxOMark scores for 5DMkIII out - total score 81, 5DMkII had 79

« on: April 19, 2012, 04:16:31 PM »

It is clear that Canon and Sony/Nikon have made different trade offs in their sensor design.

The Sony Exmor technology has the analog to digital converters (ADC) on the sensor chip. The Canon sensors take the analog signals off the sensor chip to an ADC in another chip. Very weak analog signals can pick up noise from the circuit boards. This is why the readout noise of the Canon sensors is higher than the Sony Exmor sensors and why the Sony Exmor sensors have better DR and lower deep shadow noise at low ISO.

So why doesn't Canon put the ADC on the sensor chip? There may be some patent issues, but I suspect the real reason is that the Sony Exmor technology has problems with video. The ADC on the sensor chip generate a lot of heat when the sensor is being read quickly, as in high frame rate video. Some Sony cameras that used Exmor have had problems with sensor over heating. Sony has fixed those issues in it most recent cameras. The fix probably involved better cooling for the sensor chip.

In the D800 36MP Exmor sensor has an additional problem. You cannot read the whole sensor at 30 fps to do HD video. Nikon is using some kind of pixel skipping to reduce the amount of data that has to be read off the sensor. This means the D800 is not using the whole sensor area, even the whole area within the HD image, to generate its video signal.

Canon has developed on sensor circuits that allow the analog signals of multiple pixels to be mixed for downs ampling to HD video resolution. Canon uses analog signals from the whole sensor area, at least the part that is in the HD aspect image. This allows the Canon sensors to give better high ISO video.

Dan Chung from DPR said that up to ISO 1600 the D800 and 5DIII video noise was similar, but above 1600 the 5DIII clearly had lower noise.

Sony Exmor puts the ADC on the sensor for lower read noise and improved DR. Canon puts analog video down sampling circuits on the sensor for improved high ISO video.

9

Lenses / Re: Looking for an windeangle lens for Eos 60D

« on: April 15, 2012, 01:49:29 PM »

I have a Canon 60D and the Canon 10-22mm. I love this lens. I have taken lots of great pictures with it. One important thing  is its flare resistance. When you have a lens as wide as 10mm, the sun is frequently near your frame if not in it.

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is a better lens for indoor and low light work, but it has a lot of problems with flare when used outdoors.   

The Sigma 8-16mm is the widest available UWA zoom. It is suppose to have good flare resistance, but you cannot use screw on filters.

10

Canon General / Re: Gear / shooting recomendations for first wedding tomorrow!!

« on: April 13, 2012, 04:14:49 PM »

Your equipment sounds fine.

First thing to remember is things happen quickly at weddings and there is usually no opportunity for a do over.

You need to know where you are allowed to take pictures from during the ceremony and make sure you are in the best location for each part of the ceremony. Most venues do not allow flash during the ceremony, so you are going to need to use high ISO. Some venues allow flash during the bridal procession, but if you haven't practiced doing flash under those conditions before, I would forget it and just use high ISO.

Most venues restrict the time after the ceremony for group photos with 30-45 minutes being typical. Make sure you know how much time you have. When taking large group photos, it is important to make sure the people are spaced far enough apart so no one is hidden behind someone else.

11

EOS Bodies / Re: *UPDATE* Canon EOS 5D Mark III Stock Delayed? [CR1]

« on: April 12, 2012, 09:31:24 PM »

Of the problems we have heard rumors about, only the light leak issue seems like it could lead to a recall.

I cannot see recalling for a firmware upgrade or for a fix to DPP.

The light leak issue is apparently real, although I'm not sure how serious it is. I have used my 5D III outdoors for maybe around 100 shots.  I did not notice any tendency to underexpose. Rest of my use has been in the studio with all manual exposure using my flash light meter.

12

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D Mark III & Possible 1D X Issue With PocketWizards

« on: April 02, 2012, 02:45:26 AM »

I tried my 5D III with PW+II triggers. I saw a hint of banding at the bottom of the screen. I had tried them earlier and didn't think there was any banding at 1/200 but when I looked closely, there was just a hint. At 1/160 there is no hint of banding.

I was shooting with a white background. The key and fill light were 580EX II triggered by PW+IIs in modifiers. The background lights were two inexpensive flashes working as optical slaves. I'm wondering if the optical slaves on the background is the issue. I'm going to experiment more when I get some time. I have enough PW+IIs to trigger the background lights that way and see if it helps.

I also tried a 580EX II on camera and there was no hint of banding at 1/200s.

I did a few more tests. I put my background flashes on PW+IIs also, so no optical slaves were used. I still got the hint of banding at 1/200 and it was fine at 1/160.

I also tried the Canon wireless system. I put a 580ex II on a long OCF cable as the master and used 3 other Canon flashes as slaves. There was no hint of banding with the Canon wireless system at 1/200.

What I'm seeing is subtle. The easiest way to see it is to take a shot of a white or light colored wall or backdrop at 1/200 and 1/160s and compare them. With on camera flash and the Canon wireless system, the pictures looked identical. Using the PW+II to trigger the off camera flashes, I could see a darkening along the bottom edge of the frame. If I go to 1/250s, then I got a real band across the bottom, which is what you would expect since that is over the maximum flash sync speed.

I looked through the manual but didn't see any option that might affect this.

I don't think this is a big deal, just annoying.

13

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D Mark III & Possible 1D X Issue With PocketWizards

« on: April 01, 2012, 10:10:55 PM »

I tried my 5D III with PW+II triggers. I saw a hint of banding at the bottom of the screen. I had tried them earlier and didn't think there was any banding at 1/200 but when I looked closely, there was just a hint. At 1/160 there is no hint of banding.

I was shooting with a white background. The key and fill light were 580EX II triggered by PW+IIs in modifiers. The background lights were two inexpensive flashes working as optical slaves. I'm wondering if the optical slaves on the background is the issue. I'm going to experiment more when I get some time. I have enough PW+IIs to trigger the background lights that way and see if it helps.

I also tried a 580EX II on camera and there was no hint of banding at 1/200s. 

14

EOS Bodies / Re: Buy 60D or Save for 5D?

« on: March 22, 2012, 02:20:12 PM »

If you are just starting out in photography/video, I would get the 60D or T3i and invest in some lenses.

I have had a 60D for more than a year and it is a great camera. Haven't used it much for video though. I have 15-85 EF-S, 10-22 EF-S, 24-70 EF, 70-200 f/2.8 EF II, 50 f/1.4 EF, and 85 f/1.8 EF.  My pre-ordered 5D III just shipped today.

The 5D III will be better in low light. Should be able to use 2-3 stop higher ISO and still get acceptable results. The 5D III also has a much better auto focus (AF) system which will track moving subjects better and work better in low light than the 60D. However, the better AF does not help with video. No DSLR has a video AF that really works while you are shooting video, ie track you subject while you pan. Some claim to have active AF while shooting video, but none that I have seen are usable. They all will hunt for focus while shooting video, which is acceptable for armature video of your kids, but looks totally unprofessional.

The sooner you get a camera + lenses, the sooner you can start shooting and learning.

15

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 5D Mark 3 Queue @ B&H

« on: March 22, 2012, 01:32:24 PM »

My order status now says shipped and I have a tracking number.

Order number 528xx, confirmation email at 9:32 PM PST on 3/1, body only.