Messages

1

1D X Sample Images / Re: Who is this idiot??

« on: September 09, 2012, 09:39:48 PM »

A little fill flash would have given you some catchlights in the eyes , maybe a cooler fill, or some gel.  Maybe a more relaxed pose, and a better background.

Apart from that I love the potential, your horizion is level enough and you've showed a considered disreagard for the rule of thirds.

Hey, some of us got the joke even if it went over the empty head of the intended target

2

Portrait / Re: My photos look so dull

« on: August 20, 2012, 11:50:10 PM »

Here's my effort. 100% Photoshop.

3

Canon General / Re: Is Amazon selling fake LP-E6 batteries or did Canon change design?

« on: August 18, 2012, 02:14:42 PM »

"genuine Canon batteries should mostly be identical aside from occasional slight design changes."

LOL that's really helpful. So if it looks different, it's counterfeit, unless it isn't.

Mine was most definitely fake. If buying from Amazon, don't use a marketplace seller, even if Amazon fulfils the order. Same goes for brand name memory cards.

4

Portrait / Re: My photos look so dull

« on: August 18, 2012, 09:51:23 AM »

Bro, I get what you are going for.  You would make a nice museum curator, but in this case your edit looks a bit mummified.  Portraits are a fine line between reality and surreally.  In fact that goes for all creative photography (excluding photo journalism).

Bro, your edit is terrible.



Seriously, those eyes are shocking - far too much contrast and the whites are too bright to the point where she is now a robot. Whole image is just an over-saturated mess.

I'm only saying this because you critiqued someone else's edit, which was infinitely better than yours, even if it was a bit flat. Don't worry though, this whole thread is littered with horrible edits so you're not alone! There's only so much you can do to an image which was awful to start with - bad lighting is bad lighting.

5

EOS Bodies - For Video / Re: POLL: For all 5D3 owners. Error 80 lock-up & card type

« on: July 09, 2012, 03:01:54 PM »

First I've heard of many users having error 80.  I had no errors with a CF Card, with 2 cards or with a SD card.  I do low lwvel formats of my cards occasionally to find and map out any bad sectors.  Its not common to find one on my Lexar or Sandisk cards, but its good practice.

If you google Error 80 and eye-fi, you'll get plenty of results, but I and other people I know have had the error with high speed CF cards. Among photographers, the issue is not a big deal so isn't talked about much but I know a lot of film makers and there is widespread concern over the issue. You can randomly lose an important clip. At a wedding this is a major problem. So far the people I've talked to have all used just a CF card, but film makers coming from a 5Dii would tend to use CF cards any way, so if enough people respond to the poll I'm hoping that a more conclusive pattern will emerge. I would love to narrow down the error to eye-fi SD cards and CF cards, because at least I would have a system for obtaining 100% reliable footage, not just 99.9%.

6

Lenses / Re: What is you wedding kit?

« on: July 09, 2012, 05:18:15 AM »

16-35 II L

How often do you guys use the 16-35L?

I'm assembling a wedding kit, too, but if the uwa below 24mm is only used for close quarters I'd like to save some money here - and given the wide angle, isn't a 17-40L with f4 min. aperture sufficient for starters, too?

The 16-35 is for establishing shots of venues, mostly. Great for the dining hall. I use it maybe 5% of the day and could totally live without it, but it adds a different perspective. The 17-40 would be fine I'm sure, but I've never used one.

7

Canon General / Re: Help me choose a camera & lens combination for beauty/fashion headshots

« on: July 09, 2012, 01:58:15 AM »

5D2 + 100L. You'll find the IS handy and it's a great lens for close-up and portrait work. A used 5D2 is within budget, and there are plenty out there due to people upgrading.

8

EOS Bodies - For Video / POLL: For all 5D3 owners. Error 80 lock-up & card type

« on: July 09, 2012, 01:49:43 AM »

I and many other 5d mkiii owners have experienced the notorious Error 80, where the camera freezes and the only way to unfreeze it is to take out the battery. It's annoying for photographers but potentially catastrophic for film makers, as the current file is lost. There are numerous reports of Eye-Fi SD cards causing Error 80, so if you've only encountered the error with Eye-Fi cards, please discount those errors as this issue is well known.

My thoughts are that if the Eye-Fi cards are definitely causing problems, then perhaps the type of card is a factor. I've had the error twice, both times with Sandisc Extreme 60mb/s CF cards (I don't think there was an SD card in the slot on either occasion).

As well as participating in the poll, please write below and say if you've had the error, and what brand / size / speed / type of cards have been in the camera at the time.

Thank you!

9

Lenses / Re: What is you wedding kit?

« on: June 05, 2012, 08:18:09 PM »

5D3 + 7D

16-35 II L
24-70 L
35L
50 1.4 Sigma
100 L

580 EXII flash + Newton flash bracket.

I have a 135L and 70-200 Sigma OS but I don't use them much for photography. 35L is my favourite lens but I also love the 100L, as it's good for macro, portraits and turns into a 160 on the 7D during the ceremony. I use the 24-70 for prep, 35L / 100L for reception. I stick the 50 on the 7D for a tighter angle during speeches. The 16-35 is for wide shots of venues.

10

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: Film is still hard to beat

« on: May 19, 2012, 11:06:44 PM »

"Film is still hard to beat"--not cost-wise.   

I dunno, I just got my EOS 3 off ebay for $150 shipped.
at $12 a roll of film plus $8 developing, how many rolls do I have to shoot to equal a 5D3 body?

If the roll has 36 exposures then each image costs you 55.55 cents. You've spent $150 on your film body. A 5D3 costs $3499. So you can take around 6000 photos before your costs catch up to that of a 5D3. For a professional, that's not many images, although you won't be as trigger-happy with film as you would be with digital.

Also, there are cheaper full frame digital cameras out there than the 5D3. Compare your film costs to buying a used 5D or even a 5D2 and the economics are very different.

11

Video & Movie / Re: Incident on Marmont Avenue

« on: May 16, 2012, 02:20:27 AM »

Any time a character says to themselves out loud "I'm just being paranoid", you know you need to revise the script. The shocking reveal that what we assumed had happened had in fact happened was also not very shocking.

Story and dialogue aside, this thing had a lot of problems and wasn't a good reflection of the power of the 5D3, but good for them for making it in the first place. I'm sure they learned a lot. There are plenty of bad films with huge budgets, and a few that I stopped watching, whereas at least I saw this through to the bitter end!

This was a much better film, with a crew of 1, filmed on a Canon Rebel with a budget of $50 https://vimeo.com/32655795

12

EOS Bodies / Re: any screen protectors for MarkIII?

« on: May 10, 2012, 07:12:05 PM »

I've already scratched my unscratchable Bestskinsever protector. But at least it served it's purpose I suppose! Tip - don't rest your new 5D3 on your camera bag, as it just may fall off.

13

PowerShot Cameras / Re: Canon S100 vs. Olympus xz-1

« on: April 28, 2012, 10:29:54 PM »

I love my S95, and the low light performance of the S100 is even better, from what I've seen. Not sure if CHDK works with the S100, but I'm using it on the S95 and it's very nifty. I can now do timelapse videos using a sequence of RAW photos, which I hope to be adding to my wedding videos at some point. Need to do more testing but here's one I prepared earlier:

http://youtu.be/zRwBMbJbY-s
	Small | Large

There are much nicer sequences on youtube. I was mostly testing battery life, RAW quality and reliability.

14

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 and Canon's Comeuppance

« on: April 24, 2012, 06:20:52 AM »

I don't use my cameras much for video.  My 645D doesn't do it in any case.  My case still stands looking at individual pixels is pixel peeping no matter what the media.  When I watch videos I don't look at individual pixels on the screen, nor does any other sane person.  I stand by my point that if there is a choice, I'd rather not see moire

I'm not looking at individual pixels, I am looking at a moving image comprised of individual pixels. When you remove half of them, that S___ is noticeable! Like I said, it's not like stills, where you can downscale a 22MP image to 2MP and often see no practical difference. It would be like downscaling a still image after it's already been printed at the required size. That is destructive, and noticeable. Average Joe might not be able to see much difference between, say, a 50dpi print and a 300 dpi print, but you, the photographer would.

15

EOS Bodies / Re: 5D3 and Canon's Comeuppance

« on: April 24, 2012, 05:30:38 AM »

Was saving up for the 5DIII, then something happened. A little something called the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

Guess who'll get my money now.

Canon really bogged up the much touted video / cine on the 5DIII to the rage of cinephiles everywhere,

Doesn't the Blackmagic have a much smaller sensor than the 5D3?

Yes...much smaller, and a different form factor to boot. The BlackMagic is not a replacement for the 5D III. Its an alternative with some very different characteristics.

From what I have actually seen, the 5D III video is a definite improvement over the 5D II, and its a hell of a lot better than what you get from the D800. I don't think the 5D III's video is "botched"...its definitely an improvement, I think its just not as much of an improvement as people wanted, and since the C-series HDSLR's are more expensive, what people want is also not within the price range they want it at. Same deal as always, same reason people want more from the 5D III at a better price point than they already DID get.

I'm disappointed that they have barely (if at all) improved the video resolution of the 5D3, which is still a long way from actual 1080P. Full res 1080p was not an unrealistic expectation, was it? It's still the best camera for me, but that's my biggest gripe.

I think you mean 4:2:2 encoding, which is simply a variant of quality for 1080p. It is still a "full res" 1080p camera, since 1080p simply means the number of lines of resolution. The 5D III may not be 4:2:2, but its still a hell of a lot better with full 3x3 binning. You would need a 7680x5120 sensor, or 39.3mp, for full 4x4 luminance binning and 2x2 chrominance binning for 4:2:2 encoding. Not even the SoNikon alliance was able to create a 40mp sensor yet, and 3x3 binning was the next best option. So technically speaking, the 5D III video is the best it could be for its price point and release date, and 4:2:2 WAS an unrealistic expectation. At least the 5D III doesn't use skip-line encoding like the D800, which may be razor sharp for what it does encode, but it has a ton of rather severe problems as a consequence.

I must admit I understand only a fraction of what you've just said. I thought 4:2:2 was about colour depth, but I'm not a video tech guy, I just know there are not 1080 lines of actual resolution in 5d3 video files. There are 1080 lines of something, sure, but those are not individually resolved lines of information - ie it is not sharp at the pixel level.

Since when does any sane person view videos at pixel level?  The problem with forums like this one is that people obsess over things at minute detail at a purely theoretical level. Perhaps at full theoretical 1080p, you could get it sharp at pixel level but at the cost of moire and aliasing. Moire and aliasing are visible at normal levels so I know which I'd target. Not the one you have to stick your head against the monitor for certainly.

Haha, how ridiculous. When you watch a 1080p video on a decent screen, you're seeing it at 100%. The difference between 5D2 / 5D3 resolution (roughly 720p of resolved detail) and footage from high end cameras like a C300 and above is immediately obvious. If you don't care, you're not making professional films. This is not like "pixel peeping" a still photo, which might only be printed at 8 x 10 inches - it's easy to crop a 22MP file and mess around with it and still retain perfect sharpness for printing. NOT SO for video.

As for Brian's snarky response - whatever, I've never shot Nikon and I don't think I ever will. But it IS possible to bring up a flaw in the 5D3 without detesting Canon mate. And just a big BY THE WAY - the D800 is arguably no better than the 5D3 in this regard. I would rather have moire-free video than more resolution but it's not unreasonable to want both.