Is there a down side to putting a +4 diopter on the front of a 100mm f/2.8L, to cut down on the minimum focal distance? ???

So I just received me new 40mm pancake from Adorama. I remember seeing that there was a firmware update for this lens but now I can't find the thread about this. Is there any way to know if my lens has the updated or old firmware? What problems do the new firmware address and how do I update firmware for a lens? I have updated firmware for my camera before, but never for a lens. Thanks in advance.

Hello All,

I recently purchased an 70-200 F/4L IS and have been itching to get out to a local conservation area to try it out. It's been busy recently, but I managed to steal a few hours this past weekend to hang-out in my backyard. I learned a number of lessons (I'm still a rookie) as follows:

1) I now know why wildlife photographers like the super telephoto lenses, 200mm (320 equivalent) is not very good for such small objects such as birds.

2) It's not easy to capture birds in flight. My T3i doesn't have the best auto-focus, but I'm sure the misses related to the 12 inches behind the camera! Hats off to those who manage to get those in-flight shots.

3) Most importantly, it is quite amazing what you can see just in your backyard. No matter where you are, there is always something interesting to capture.

Samples below:





I let the ISO get a bit too high on this one...


A couple of others can be found:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/conceptsbydt/sets/72157633447837108/

Even though the photos are quite heavily cropped, I still think the images held together ok.

Cheers!

Hello everyone,

Few days ago I was at birthday party of my sister-in-law.
I wanted to make few memory shots for her, just for fun, and instead of just few, I made this video of combination of bunch of pictures and video clips.
Everything was filmed entirely with Canon 1Dx.
Music by A-trak (Heads will roll) and W&W (Lift off! - radio edition)
Pay attention at the end of video... it's not over till it's over!
Watch in HD!
I hope you liked it...

Mladen Bozickovic
http://www.youtube.com/user/MBozickov...
http://www.dreamstime.com/Archangel72...
http://www.pixoto.com/archangel72


http://youtu.be/p277gIP5e-Q

http://photorumors.com/2013/05/10/canon-press-event-on-may-31st/

would be nice if it is the 70d announcement!

Hello All,
So I'm seriously considering purchasing the new Fuji x100s. I love my 5Dm3 and my variety of EF lenses, but the entire kit can seem a bit obnoxious at times... particularly for street photography or simply for a camera to casually carry around. I have a point and shoot (S90), but rarely use it as I don't like shooting with an LCD. So I'm looking to get some advice from members who have purchased the x100s or a similar camera. Which do you find yourself using more? Are you glad to have purchased a secondary mirrorless camera to supplement your SLR?

And the other half of this question is a bit more pointed; I'm also considering getting the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II. However, I've come to the conclusion that I likely wouldn't use a TS lens nearly as often as a more compact mirrorless camera.

Thoughts? Thanks!

I have had a revelation, and seen the light. Suddenly I can see in all colors of the rainbow. Vivid greens and blues. Beautiful browns and purple that pops. Yellows that are like looking into the sun, and everything just the way it should be.

In short, I just got back my first 2 rolls of positive (slide) film. Shot a roll of Provia and one of Velvia. Wow. That's all I can say, and on 120 everything is so amazing. The Provia is of a vinyard and wine production facility from Carmel Valley, and the Velvia I shot on my way back down the cost towards LA. So traveling through Big Sur and further down the central coast. Oh. My. <DEITY>. So gorgeous. I'll have to get busy scanning, hopefully I'll be able to do them justice in the scan.

Hello there,

having that thought in the back of my mind through the last days... That 70-200 2.8 II IS. We got Cashback from Canon at the moment (300€ for that lens, which is quite a chunk) and I've been thinking about this monster. I put very much emphasis on sharpness and I am satisfied with the performance of my Sigma 35 1.4, the 100L and the 135L. I feel there is something missing between 35 and 100, 50mm is too close to 35 and 85 too close to 100 so I would've wanted something 70-ish.


I don't shoot macros that much anymore and only use the 100L in bad weather conditions or if there is not enough space to use the 135L. The latter I only use from tripods for portrait work, because of its lack of stabilization and I quite don't like that it is not sealed.

The 70-200 2.8L II IS now could provide me with that 70 focal length I miss plus it would probably outperform the 100L, which I could get rid off then. I am not so sure about the 135L though. I really love this lens, but can't really say how big the difference between it and the 70-200 2.8L is. My pouch would probably stomach keeping both, but I find myself thinking if the 135L would become unnecessary.

Any thoughts on this?

I'm taking shots of jewellery and getting the camera as a reflections on the rings

What can I do about this?

I've tried putting a white paper with a hole around the camera
This is better - but still getting a black dot!

Any advice would be great

Thanks


Omar

Greetings,

i need an advice concerning low-budget-sportphotography.
I'm looking for an EF-tele-lens for my 1Ds2 - and i have no money.
My first thought was the 70-300mm-class.
Here my thoughts thereafter:
1.) the L-lens is out of my budget
2.) considering the 70-300mm for 300€/400$

3.+4.) Canon 70-300mm IS and Tamron 70-300mm VC
well, these lenses are definitely in the budget. But considering the imagequality HERE, well, i don't like it each at 300mm.

So, is there any other alternative? 300mm would be nice, and the 70-300mm is attractive. But the imagequality gives me a headscratch.

Thanks for your help.

Good day, I am in the process of fine tuning my 1dx AF body and lenses combo with lensalign. Naturally, I spent a lot of time aligning the red circle(making sure there is a same amount of white around...One Shot Focus, Normal Focus point).

Now, I am really stuck and don't know what to do in order to 1)Get good results 2) trust myself doing it

Mainly, with the lensalign on my combo 1dx + 50 F1.2, I found that AF needed -10 adjustment.

PROBLEM is : When I take a photo of simple writting, it seems very very fuzzy...and if I take the photo with AF adjustment to 0...then I see good results

Here are all my files : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/98pv8euzc11l7xg/bF4X6vpYuk

let me know if anyone can help.

We are now requiring membership approval of each new member. The reason for this is the 400 new account signups by spam robots each day.

Approvals usually take as day or less to complete.

We are weeding out the spam accounts, but that will take time.

We will not approve membership if the account name looks like a advertisement, is a e-mail address, or just sounds phoney, It is definitely better if a account name has some recognizable link to photography.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but good to see Canon walking away with some awards including best professional lens (24-70 f/2.8), best expert Camera (6D), best video DSLR (1DC), best entry level DSLR (100D) and best expert printer (pro-10).

http://www.tipa.com/english/XXIII_tipa_awards_2013.php

I have a Canon 50mm f/1.8 that seems to have lost its ability to focus. I know this is a "cheap" lens but it has not suffered any falls or damage. There is nothing rattling around inside. I am using it on a 6D. The lens constantly is rotating trying to focus but never actually does.

Any ideas what could be wrong? Anything I can try to remedy the issue?

Thanks!

I've been saving my $ for a 1Dx and my phone is dying. I'm getting a new iPhone5 which will set my 1Dx fund back a little but that little gadget allows me to take decent images when I am not carrying my 1D3 or 5D2. I can carry the iPhone5 everywhere, anywhere, and anyytime. Now, what can I use to mate my L glass to my new iPhone5?

Hello CR!

Here is my latest work, feedback would be nice!

Shot with 7D - 17mm - F/8 - ISO 400 - 1/20 sec

Hello, I'm planning to take some early morning photos of a friend, running on a dirt road as the sun rises, at a distance of about 30 yards from her, with a goal of having the background blurred. The hope is to come up with some shots that can be blown up; the kind you might see in a running shoes store of a runner in training, except this is for her, and not commecial purposes. I'll be using a Canon 5D Mark II, and a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 that's not image stabilized, on a tripod. I'm generally aware of the 5D Mark II's limitations in taking action photograhy/ sports shots, but that's what I have to work with, and I have no real experience at this type of shot. I'm thinking shutter priority, with shutter speed of 1/1000, ISO at probably 800, and am planning on setting the AF to Al Servo, with her in the center of the frame and using the center focus point. She will be running toward me, and the sun will be at my back and in her face, as it rises.

Can any of you give me any pointers on obvious flaws in this game plan, or obvious things I can do to have a better chance of getting some shots in focus with background blurred? I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

I know I’m in the minority, but I find the dual memory slots to usually be more hassle than they are worth.

The ONE THING that would make them useful to me, is the ability to segregate stills and video to different cards. It seems like a simple firmware update could do this? Even the old D7000 has this functionality.

Can the Mk III do this and I’m just not able to find it? Seems like a really silly omission.

I was fortunate enough to get a photo pass to shoot a rock concert in my area.

I am not a pro photog by any stretch, but the chance to marry up my two great interests (music + photography) was too good to pass up. I've attached my really crude 101-level experience and lessons learned from the activity. I welcome the concert vets to straighten me out if I've come away with the wrong learnings.

Gear selection

• Faster wins. Unless you are shooting a daytime outdoor show, you will 95% of the time be shooting close to wide open to avoid ISO values above 6400. Faster glass will let you walk that back to 3200, 1600, etc. depending on the light.
• Closer wins. Shorter focal lengths handle longer shutter speeds better. The golden rule of a maximum shutter of 1 divided by focal length is about right. So a 50mm lens can get by with a 1/50s shutter, but a 200mm lens will need a 1/200s shutter, which often will require disastrous ISO levels.
  • So it's no surprise that I rarely see large sports glass off on the wings of concerts in large venues. I don't think I've ever seen anything longer than an 70-300L at Coachella once the sun goes gown. Most everyone I see in concert photo pits is carrying some sort of ultrawide (fishbowl, 14 prime, 16-35, etc.) and either a standard zoom (24-70 or 24-105) or prime (the 50 F/1.2 and the 135 F/2 are a regular sight). Some folks pack the 70-200 as well.
  • I recognize this point (closer = better) completely dismisses the value of different glass for framing and composition, but if you want a sharp shot in this light, you have to make tradeoffs, right?
  • Also, your proximity to the stage, the size of the stage, etc. will drive the lengths you need.
• What I brought and what I used it for:
  • Body = 5D3. Not a selection issue for me as the alternative was my old T1i.
  • 28mm F/2.8 IS. Not super quick, but IS on such a wide angle is super useful in the dark. Used for wide shots up close at the stage (two guitarists in frame together, wide stage shot, etc.) as well as venue shots from the sidelines. Used it 5% of the night. More about that later.
  • 50mm F/1.4. This is my staple low light tool, but I noticed that it was front-focusing when I was setting up prior to the band coming out, and I didn't want to have to use MF. It stayed in my bag until late in the night for some balcony shots as a result. Used it for about 5% as well. Need to set the AFMA on that and get it sorted.
  • 70-200 F/2.8 IS II. A flagship sports / photojournalist / wedding lens, but F/2.8 is not ideal for concert lighting. That said, there aren't many faster options at this length (other than the impressive 135mm F/2 and the comically large (but equally impressive) 200mm F/2). Though I was planning on using the 50mm most of the night, I ended up using this 90% of the time. It fared better than expected on focusing in low light, but the concerns of length vs. shutter speed needs obviously came up, so the ISO had to climb. The 70mm end was not wide enough just a handful of times, but I made do.

Shooting up front

I got to the stage before the set and one of the organizers was on stage. I flagged him down and he explained the classic thing I've read about:

• I had fifteen minutes stage access, i.e. right at the stage (in front). This is often phrased as being for three songs, but being a prog rock show, that could be 90 minutes. So, for this show, it was stated as '15 minutes'. Then I'd have to skedaddle.
• No flash, of course.
• No video, of course.
• In that first 15 minutes, my head had to stay below the level of the stage, i.e. on my rear-end or kneeling. Thais was not a traditional pit -- it was a four foot stage at a concert hall.
  • This ended up greatly limiting my framing. I was limited to waist up shots of the players for the most part, and shooting the drum kit was simply not happening without framing out the bottom 30% of the kit (the drum risers were not particularly high at this event).
  • This requirement effectively killed the up close / wide opportunity of the 28mm lens. I had the awful choice of 1/3 of the VF being blocked by the stage or my two rocking guitarists being stuck in the bottom corners of a wide shot (not a good look, even after perspective correction).
• For this show in particular, I could not mill about the aisles to shoot after the first fifteen minutes (house rules about blocking view or people leaving for the restrooms).

Camera Settings

• RAW only. Say this ten times. I didn't even bother with the JPG + RAW as my card was rather full already. With ISO 3200+ and with crazily shifting lighting, RAW is really the only way to go anyway. JPG is useful for some shooting needs, but here, RAW is the best call.
• Mode: I believe that Av, Tv and M all work (as always) provided you keep an eye on what you are not prioritizing. As a creature of habit, I shot aperture priority, but I was constantly working the triangle of Ap / shutter / ISO to get the best possible balance I could. Call it 'manual shooting with metering for better exposure'.
• Default setting was wide open or perhaps 1/3 - 2/3 stop narrower, ISO 6400 (3200 with the fast primes, perhaps). ISO and aperture adjusted to get a more desirable shutter speed. Exposure was generally a shade under normal (like -1/3 or -2/3 EV) as you don't necessarily want the background fully exposed (your subject will be too bright).
• Standard (evaluative) metering -- I didn't need to mess with it at this event as the lighting was decent enough. (Spot metering has been a prior call in some dark caves I've shot in the past.)
• One shot focusing. It's the most accurate unless you want to capture a burst of some David Lee Roth jump kicks (and the house lights are on). This was not that kind of show at all.
• Single point AF or the very small plus-shaped point cluster AF. AF worked really well that night. Lighting was decent. Darker lighting + less modern AF glass = AF will hunt and you will miss shots.
• Focused and then reframed on the wide glass (those are more DOF forgiving), but largely moved my AF point to the subject in the desired framing for the longer zoom I was using.

Composition lessons learned

• Obvious, but must be restated -- shooting nearly fully open has a tiny working DOF. F/1.4 - F/2 on the 50 prime is fine for a single subject, but if you want more than one musician in the frame, I had to do one of the following:
  • Stop the aperture down to F/5.6 - F/8, which usually meant increasing the ISO even further (i.e. 8000+)
  • Wait for the two musicians to be about the same distance away. That happens less often than you'd like.
  • Wait for the house lights to come up.
  • Get further away, like on the balcony. Larger distance = larger working DOF for a given aperture.
• Move your feet. Unless you know a band very well, your principal subject might not be where you want them to be.
• Keyboards, mic stands can interrupt your framing, look unattractive, etc. Again, move your feet.
• Knowing the songs really helps. With an emotive frontman or musician, if you know when the hook drops or the solo starts, you can time your shots for a rock face, fist pump, gospel arms, etc.
• Don't forget the stage lighting. Try to frame up the subject against a stage spotlight, or possibly just shoot the band member as a black silhouette in a field of color. (Need to do that more next time.)

Output / post-processing (note I'm somewhat odd in that I just use PS's Adobe Camera RAW instead of LR, Aperture, DXO, etc.)

• Skintones are flat and tough looking at these high ISO settings, even on my great low light rig. Extreme care has to be taken to avoid saturating skin tones in post processing, or your rock star looks like he spent a week in a tanning bed. Also, software that avoids oversaturating skin tones can often fail as the stage lighting (if you didn't back it out with RAW WB processing) pulls the skin tone out of 'skin tone range'. I need to do selective color editing in post, but I never do. More work than I'd like. I just did macroscopic RAW adjustments like vibrance and saturation, but at a fraction of what I'd normally do for the aforementioned skin tone reason.
• White balance management is great with RAW, but I don't know if the goal is to subtract out the lighting tint on the subject or if I want to capture that as part of the composition. I can do either, but I wasn't sure which to do.
• Noise reduction is unfortunately necessary as the ISOs are high. I generally hate what this does to details, so I do it sparingly.
• Sharpness adjustments in RAW processing are a staple adjustment usually, but with low light it amplifies the noise. So I generally did less sharpening to limit the noise reduction needed.

Please set me straight if I've misinterpreted the concert shooting experience with my statements above. There may be a vital trick I am missing.

Thanks for your thoughts!

- A

I found the sky boring and added clouds to make it more interesting.

Do you think this is cheating? I really want to know.

Am very confused. I have made changes but not altered nature. Have I done something wrong?

Thx

Hey guys,

made this film as my Final University Project.

https://vimeo.com/65630806

Timelapses and landscape shots done on 5D mark iii, Close ups mostly with 600D digital zoom, Mid shots with 7D
Used a 16-35mm, 24-105mm, 300mm and 100-400mm during the production.

I'd appreciate if you watch it and let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Dear Respected Members,
thanks very much for your time.
i have 4 Elinchrom Rx 600 Flash HEads with Softboxes.
i also have i Elinchrom Skyport SPEED transmitter (battery inside) and 4 Elinchrom Skyport SPEED recievers attached to Flash heads (they need to be charged for 3 hours before used)
i take shots of my carpets. 2 of the flash heads are placed on one side of the carpet and 2 on the other side of the carpet.
distance betwenn them is 10 feet .the problem starts when i stand in between them and want to take a photo 70% 2 or 3 of them doesnt fire ???
if i stand at the back of the flash ,(transmitter will be close to the reciever )it will fire but the other 2 which are opposite me will not 70% of times.
than what i do is turn them a bit like a way that all transmitters are some how on my side but than i dont get the proper lighting.?
this is really frustrating as wireless transmitter should work any where in studio no matter where are you standing?as elinchrom says it has a distance of 50 meter in studia and 100 meter out side.please pleas share your opinion and the possible reasons to my problem.many many thanks in advance

Is there a 'constant charger' for the 60D

I don't understand why the camera doesn't have a charge input hole
Is there any good reason for this?

Is anything available that lets me run the camera by running off the mains?

Thanks


Omar

I've recently invested in buying a 60D
I need to get a battery grip

I was going to buy one from eBay for £25
My friend suggested I wouldn't be happy if the cheap grip became faulty and damaged the camera!

So... what should I go for?
There's only one branded (non Canon) that I have seen
Not a brand that I know, but sold in well known retailers

Thanks


Omar

Looks like Nikon is making some strides when it comes to video. The low light performance is impressive. But until they allow aperture control on these while shooting, I don't think it will work for many people. When i'm filming a wedding and following a bride from indoors to outside, I have to change my settings while shooting and I need aperture control. I can't stop recording to change settings. Hopefully Canon can match the D7100 for video because it looks impressive. I'll be sticking with Canon 7D for sure because of the aperture control but I do wish the low light performance was more like the D7100. The 5D3 gets me there but at 2.5x the price.
Nikon D7100 vs Canon 7D Part 2 - Video Features | Which is the best Video DSLR