Messages

16

Speedlites, Printers, Accessories / Re: IPAD 3 = Lame

« on: March 08, 2012, 03:09:18 PM »

Android for ever! And now, bombard my karma, I don't care... 

17

Lenses / Re: What's your favorite Canon lens and why?

« on: February 26, 2012, 04:34:48 PM »

I can easily say 100-400L without thinking. Easily more than half of my lifetime shots on any camera are with that lens. Great optical quality, great handling and a flexible range.

If you asked me what my 2nd fave lens was, I couldn't answer that easily!

I fully agree! My 2nd one? Let me say 100L f/2.8 macro IS...

18

EOS Bodies / Re: 5dIII = 1ds mkIII THIS IS A GREAT DEAL! P.S. Is 1ds III a goner?

« on: February 26, 2012, 03:52:23 AM »

Used in the UK they are now about 2000 euros - about the same prince as a new 5DII, and you get a better camera if high iso is not an issue

I bought my second hand 1Ds MkIII last year to pair my 5D MkII. I paid for it 3600 euro. It was in perfect conditions with 8000 shots. Searching for it I found cheaper examples but in very poor conditions. 1Ds is a typical pro work horse and very often when they are for sale for peanuts they are at the terminal stage.
By the way, 1Ds MkIII and 5D MkII are both excellent cameras and I use both indifferently...

19

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Finally! Shutter count made easy for almost all EOS cameras

« on: February 24, 2012, 01:27:08 AM »

Mommy told me: when somebody offers something to you, accept it with some grain of salt, but FIRST say thanks...
It  is only a matter of good manners and does not cost that much...

By the way, I'm never realized why Canon doen't allow to access to 1D series shutter count, may be the cameras that mostly need that, considered the mainly professionaland intensive use . I own a 5D MkII which I bought new and a 1Ds MkIII which I bought seond hand. I know everything about the first one, but I'd like to know something about the second one, although it works perfectly. Stupidly, I forgot to ask Canon service to tell me about shutter count when I sent the camera for a service :-(

20

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 1D series bodies the only "professional" bodies?

« on: February 20, 2012, 01:42:07 AM »

Paraphrasing Forrest Gump, pro is as pro does...
By the way, I own a 1Ds MkIII and a 5D MkII. In terms of IQ, I can't find any difference that lets me say that the first is more 'pro' than the second. In terms of perceived quality, obviously, 1Ds's weight and dimension speak loudly 'pro'. Very impressive on the people around! :-)

21

Canon General / Canon iMage Gateway moving...

« on: February 16, 2012, 01:05:02 AM »

Is any of you a Canon iMage Gateway user?
They increase the available space for the user albums and asked to the customer to move previous albums in the new ones. I have two accounts. I have started the procedure two days ago but still now the site states for both of them 'copy in progress'. I understand that they are moving a huge number of customers account, but now the timing is becoming suspected.
Is any of you experiencing the same thing?

22

EOS Bodies / Re: A guy used 1DX yesterday in Germany!!

« on: February 04, 2012, 12:54:03 PM »

Auto focus at f/8, non of the current lens line up is less than f/5.6 and as far as I remember non of the EF range ever has been.  Even the ultra rare 1200mm manages f/5.6, the only lenses which will fit are the old mirror lenses, but they don't autofocus anyway.  Given a camera costing this much what lenses are there which need this feature?

Lenses like the Sigma 50 - 500mm which are f/6.3 work because they tell the body that its f/5.6 it can't be the aperture which is an issue, simply that the software is told only to work at values higher than f/5.6 if it's too dark AF gives up even on very fast primes.

Lens+Extender...

23

Software & Accessories / Re: RAW vs DNG

« on: February 01, 2012, 03:14:15 PM »

A difference in file dimensions means always a loss of information, unless the larger file is wasting space, and this is not the case for RAW format. Compression is not a pyisical proces, but a logical one. Some information will be necessary discarded in the process. May be the discarded bytes were, on a perception physiology  basis, not very relevant, but since the cost of memory space is more and more decreasing, I prefer to keep the pure, simple and tautological RAW format...

24

Lenses / Re: Canon EF 100-400mmL IS

« on: January 30, 2012, 09:50:53 AM »

In the Land Rover Defender forum I attend, there is a member that used to own the latest model of that off road car. He should be very unfortunate getting his sample, or, may be, he wasn't very able to drive such a particular car or to perform a regular maintenance. He post regularly any sort of smear on the new Defender, affirming very unlikely that he owned four samples of the car and each of them was a lemon. Now, you can live very well ignoring that kind of obsession, but the problem is that is quite disturbing to read nasty and hardly demonstrated (a huge number of customer are very happy about that) things about something you had paid a lot of money and that you suppose to resell a day.
Conclusion: on the Internet is very easy to transform an individual case in a general opinion. And it is very easy that this opinion should be built on very specific situation. So, please, before stating some nasty opinion, consider if yours just a specific experience or a real flaw, since in few weeks a lot of people that never got in touch with the object, will sell themselves as great expert on that...

25

Lenses / Re: Canon EF 100-400mmL IS

« on: January 30, 2012, 08:13:16 AM »

The whole dust issue in the 100-400mm is an urban legend.

I fully agree. I live in a very windy and dusty island. I traveled to deserts with my 100-400 that is for me something like a standard lens. After two years of travelling in very hard environment I never got a dust particle inside. Obviously you have to perform regularly a good maintenance, avoiding dust or other kind of dirt to build up for weeks on the barrel. As I wrote in other occasion,  I had it rocket launched from my backpack in Beijing last year and it needed just a new YA2-3629 zooming ring and barrel. No glass was minimally damaged, although the cinetic energy due to the heavy weight was huge.

26

Lenses / Re: Recommendation For Long Lenses

« on: January 17, 2012, 07:23:14 AM »

wow that price is insane... seriously insane... I just go hire a 4x4 and can hire a driver for a small fee then its just me and my wife so there is no schedule and we can do what we want when we want. and it probably costs half that amount for 2 of us... just saying... can pick up a 1Dx with the savings

Too much money is at the present in too few people... 

27

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

« on: January 16, 2012, 05:18:38 PM »

and that resulted in the perspective distortion.

Actually this is not a 'distortion', but just 'geometrical perspective'... It appears a 'distortion' in 2D since our eyes+visual cortex do in 3D vision something similar to a PP, and we don't notice the perspective effects in direct perception...

28

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

« on: January 16, 2012, 05:13:29 PM »

The post edit T/S effects really look like they were don in post.

Obviously, since what I did in this PP what is impossible with a T&S: selecting an arbitrary, poligonal area, just to demonstrate what is possible in PP. Actually I don't like this effect and I never use in my compositions, as, usually, I don't like to aim the attention on a subject other than playing with plain and simple DoF...

29

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

« on: January 16, 2012, 04:51:07 PM »

But you need to know ahead of time that you're going to need that, and frame loosely to allow for the cropping space needed for the corrections.  Plus, you'll have soft corners, not as bad as a de-fish, but definitely soft.

I'm not sure about soft corners... My main field is architecture and I made large use of perspective correction without suffering of soft corners. In the full resolution version of Steven Holl building I can't see any soft corner. Obviously we are comparing a prime lens (24 T&S) with a zoom lens (16-35) and this is not a fair competition!
By the way, the only way for not needing any correction, particularly with a lens quite complex to operate mechanically, is to put it on a tripod. Your Chinese temple, for instance, and the bell tower too, beautiful pictures nevertheless, are not perfectly orthogonal and they need all some adjustment...

30

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II

« on: January 16, 2012, 02:35:19 PM »

What do you mean? Straighten the photo in post?

Then please show me a fullsize, non-cropped image with the same effect and same corner quality. and also, adjust DOF like you can with tiltshift, for example full DOF on a landscape image at f8. Also with rotated plane of focus. It's only possible with tiltshift.

Do you mean something like the two following examples? And in regard of cropping, it is exactly for that reason that I like the big megapixel range of my 1Ds and 5D. I like to be free to recompose my images by cropping them regardless of just falling lines...