Great shot!!! Have a happy and safe Fourth as well

Re: EOS 7D Replacement & Telephoto Lens in September [CR3]

lilmsmaggie said:

neuroanatomist said:

Sabaki said:

CR3 makes this near real...right?

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Real. Just like aliens.

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Aliens are real. The rest of us are just figments of their imagination.

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Of course they are real. They cross the border in their droves every day.

entlassen said:

Looking for opinions into the Honl vs Rogue gel kit systems. Pros/Cons of one over the other. Any feedback would be appreciated! Haven't invested in either system yet.

Also, I am wondering if anybody here with a 600EX-RT actually uses the included gel holder? I know that if you use the official Canon-cut CTO that the speedlite will supposedly auto-detect its existence and modify the flash exposure. What happens if you cut your own gel and stick it into the holder? Anyway, I'm just wondering if anybody actually uses the Canon gel holder for real shoots or if it's just a gimmick.

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I feel you pain with the Canon "gel holder". I'm sure there are some people out there who like this thing but you can safely put me in the "Canon made a great flash and messed up with the gel feature" camp. It does work, but not well and it's niggly and takes too much room in the gear bag when you're hauling a bunch of flashes around on a shoot day.
I used to just cut my own gels and tape them on. As most others have already mentioned, you're then saving a ton of cash by buying a large sheet. You're also not limited to the two gels Canon's holder recognizes. Although, you can use other colours but have to ensure you don't cover the sensors under the flash head and change your WB manually as you normally would with a gel.
I have shelled out for a set of Rouges lately as they were on a great sale and now instead of taping, I've got a set of silicone bands to hold the gels on. As far as I know, the gels are made by Lee and have been durable so far for me. Nothing against any brand that uses velcro but it's a personal thing with me that I don't like anything velcro.

I got some great little containers for these types of things at a Japanese housewares store called Muji.

I don't think the brand is that big in the US but I see they do have stores in New York and California and an online store as well. Don't know about Canada though.

Tip: the really suitable containers are actually in the Health and Beauty section, as opposed to the Storage section. But they're really well made - soft flexible plastic, not brittle - and the right size for small items.

http://www.muji.us/store/health-and-beauty/containers.html

$1.25 to $2.75 for the small boxes.

The place is like the Japanese Ikea!

I'd check you haven't damaged the floor.

Frodo said:

I have one of these lenses.
The focusing ring is very smooth and there is no backlash. I think you would feel backlash when twisting the focus ring back and forth.
It is true that there is variability with the position of the distance scale in relation to the actual focus. My first lens was about 1cm off along the distance scale. The focus ring seized and I got a new one under warranty - this one is spot on.

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Tks Frodo for the info. Good to know there r good copies out of the box...

I got one to fill a void in my L lens coverage. Price versus performance was my main choice. I am really happy with the choice.

B-29 Super Fortress "FiFi" Cockpit © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal Photography, on Flickr

NASA glider sunset Edwards AFB V3 © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal Photography, on Flickr

Canon 5D Mark III & Tokina 16-28 f2.8 © Keith Breazeal by Keith Breazeal Photography, on Flickr

dgatwood said:

A $6 fee for a three cent piece of foam? I think I'd try Home Depot and Lowes first....

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I had to pay £6 for a screw my 1DIII had lost along the way, you know the tiny ones that canon use on the front plates of their cameras (which all seem to have different size screws mind you as nothing from my butchered 350D would fit)

It depends. I control the light entirely on maybe 5% of my shots, the other 95% is a combination of low light and good light... but I've rather have low noise. I rarely kick my iso above 3200... and I never kick it above 6400... So that is just me.

dolina said:

Unless you're using a Sony or a Nikon then it doesn't really matter how awesome XQD is. Last I checked Canon & Phase One are backing CFast.

http://www.cnet.com/news/cfast-2-0-splits-high-end-flash-card-market/

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I'm aware of that. IMO, Canon is backing the wrong horse—a dead horse, give or take a bit of postmortem twitching. When it comes to communicating with flash cards, the SATA protocol has been globally abandoned by the entire tech industry except for a handful of holdouts like Canon and SanDisk who are afraid of progress. It simply can't keep up with PCIe in the long term, and the difference in performance will become more and more obvious as the technology improves....

Thank you to everyone who replied. Doug Kerr's and Lee Jay's explanations were awesome. I always appreciate when people take the time to help me.

Viggo said:

wickidwombat said:

isnt this what the FEL button does or did i read your post wrong?

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The FEL button uses spot and only locks for one image, no?

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I thought it locked for a period of time and if no shots were taken in that time it reverted but as long as you keep shooting its in effect... not 100% though but i thought it was for more than one image. I don't really use it so i'm not sure.

Zv said:

Try setting the highlight slider to -100 then slowly move the exposure slider + way, watching the histogram as you go to bring the shadows back up. Once the histo reaches the right edge stop. This work for me and gives a more natural look. Avoid increasing the shadow slider too much. Also drop the clarity on this to -10 which gives a little more of a natural look.

If this was a landscape shot you might be OK but I think with people in the shot I process my shots with less clarity.

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too much clarity does horrific things to skin i agree dial in some minus globaly and then if needed for tight portraits add some back into eyes etc with the brush

As you say, used 1D4 prices have been pretty stable at around $2700 - $3000 determined by condition and extras - I keep an eye on that and it's been stable since I picked one up several months ago.

Much more interesting (to me) is going to be the arrival of the 1DX successor and how that will impact the 1D4 price once you can get a clean used 1Dx for close to $4K.

It's a good deal if you are purchasing a 300mm or 400mm prime

Well, the Sigma DP#Merrill APS-C series is good, and is on sale. I think that Sigma wants to attract existing Merrill users to try the Quattro. I may be looking at the upcoming 19mm DP1Q whenever it comes out, if the lens is a big improvement over the DP1M.

The DP2M (30mm) and DP3M (50mm) are stellar. The workflow complication involved in adding a Foveon .x3f camera to existing Bayer CFA (Canon et al) cameras exists. Sigma has a global RAW developer, Sigma Photo Pro, that does a good job of rendering, but has some speed and bugginess issues. Unfortunately, SPP doesn't do a lot of simple local adjustments, so you have to manually export image as .tif and then process in LR, PS, a pano program, etc. PITA. Microcontrast and color subtlety are the reasons to use the DP#Ms. These are great landscape cameras. Color accuracy may not be consistent, but hey, I am shooting RAW.

The early news on the Sigma fora is that the DP2M and DP2Q are quite close in image quality, with the DP2M winning on microcontrast and color subtlety, and the DP2Q winning on color accuracy straight out of camera. I am very happy with DP2M and DP3M, and don't expect to get their Quattro equivalents. I would like to see a 20 to 24 MP (DP#M is 15 MP) full frame sensor, which might be a medium format-killer, as long as the on-board and RAW developer processing improves in speed. BTW, the Merrill APS-C sensor is used in QC at Sigma lens factory, sensor installed in a shift frame so a full frame image can be composited.

Anything that educates the customer on the different effects of different types of lenses can only be an advantage to our community.

There are some really nice tips on that site and it is nice to have them all on one site with plenty of graphics.

Good job Canon!

Quasimodo said:

Thanks all of you, and I will try to callibrate it again with 3.38 m.

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That's really too close to get the best results, 5 or 6 M is best, 3.4M is the minimum and a compromise. You are not going to get accurate AF at macro distances, use live autofocus if you can for close shots.

Likely a 12-24mm (or 14-24mm) f/2.8 without IS.

Hi yakman.
I don't think you need to worry about duplicate file naming as the cameras pick up the last file name and go from there, this can lead to very rapid increase in file numbers if you use continuous numbering scheme. Take a hundred shots put card in camera 2 take another 100, return card to camera 1 image number starts at 201 despite only taking 101 shots.
This May or may not bother you or you may set manual reset or auto reset on card change.

Edit, I meant to add I keep mine separate by using larger cards in the camera with the larger file sizes!

Cheers Graham.

Don Haines said:

It's negative logic. You can't prove the non-existence of something by saying that you have not seen it.

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I know a Black Swan who would strongly agree with you on this. ;D

As has been pointed out, the other three IS primes that have replaced the old non IS ones have not lost any speed, but then they were slower lenses than a 1.4, and I'm not sure if there are technical issues in featuring IS on such a fast lens.

Agree with the point at top of page; wouldn't surprise me if it was '1.7' as a marketing differentiation, because we all know there is no (real) difference between 1.8 and 1.7.

Or will it be an f2 based upon a modified planar pancake design ( like the 40 pancake) but set deep into the 35 IS body to give room for the IS ?

Either way I wish they'd hurry up 'cos I want the EBP to evaporate before I stick my hand is my very dusty wallet.

Policar said:

Kestrel said:

I believe what you are experiencing here is spherochromaticism... out of focus highlights will have a characteristic magenta outline in front of the plane of focus and green behind. Stopping the lens down a bit should reduce these artifacts.

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Yes, and it's built into the design to improve bokeh (by making it softer).

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Not sure about that at all. It's not so much they put it in there on purpose as didn't go to the difficulty of getting rid of it. Plenty of lenses with awful bokeh have a ton of longitudinal CA.

For standard to wide FF zooms, the 24-70 II and 16-35 f/4 IS do remarkably well in fighting this type of CA off, the best I've seen for such from any of the main makers (not sure about Zeiss or Leica, they may have some zooms of such that do as well).

300 2.8 IS is basically 100% APO and has none.
300 f/4 non-IS has a lot of that CA.
70-200 2.8 IS has a lot more than the non-IS or IS II or f/4 IS.
50 1.4 has a ton.
85 1.8 has tons beyond tons.
From what I recall, 60 macro had barely any and 100L does pretty well.
135L has some.
I seem to recall that the Tamron 17-50 was surprisingly good when it came this CA type.

Northstar said:

what fun! nice shot! i never see owls where i live...bummer.

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Thanks and I bet plenty of owls have seen you They are VERY hard to spot and I once asked a famous owl photographer how he finds them, and his answer was luck and persistence. He said he walks around and checks every tree until he finds one. Keep in mind that this is what he does full time, of course. I got really lucky with this guy, though the early hour really helped. Usually I hear them and then try to find them, and I have about a 5% success rate if they are nearby and hoot/call more than 2x.

In Premiere Pro, I'm using Red Giant's Colorista 2, Filmconvert, and Osiris LUTs.
To sharpen my footage, I use Unsharp Mask and the normal Sharpen effect.