Wondering if Canon sees a bigger market for 60Da vs high mega pixel camera, i haven't seen any post asking for astro camera but lots of folks need high mega pixel camera

If you haven't heard, they updated Apple RAW support last night:
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1513

Hi'ya

I have a new (2 week old) 5d mark ii. I have already taken about 1000 images but have noticed some weird (electronic) banding on three images--two of them this morning.

Has anyone seen this before?

The first image is OK, the next two show the banding. The lens was a EF 50mm f1.4, ISO500, F2.8. The shot before was OK and the shots after were also OK

It looks to me like the bottom section of photo 1 is repeated in photos 2 and 3, as the bunny feet are unchanged (no tripod, I was hand-holding).

I would be interested to see if anyone has experienced this before?

Finally Apple has updated their native support for the 5D Mark III

Just noticed this today while shooting with a friend. She was using exposure compensation a lot (the way she shoots, rather than meter locking she just leaves in it evaluative and uses EV comp, I know kind inefficient but thats another story, anywho...), and she kept wondering why the little marker under the compensation scale on the top lcd wasn't moving. it was, but we realized that when it went over +1/3 it would disappear, the exposure values would still increase as you scrolled up but on the lcd the little moving mark would just disappear until you went over +3 then the little arrow would show up informing you that you are over +3 EV comp. on the negative EV comp side of the scale everything works perfectly, and in the optical viewfinder the EV comp scale on the bottom everything works fine + and -. I am gonna have to exchange the body tomorrow, but just wanted to see if anyone else has this problem, and also make sure that everyone checks, because i might not have noticed this for a while as I normally just use it in the viewfinder.

Hi.

I will be getting my first DSLR soon, however, I am really confused between getting a new 550D or a used 40D.

My photography is focused on portraits, still life and street photography.

And for the lenses, I am considering :
Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 for street photography -outdoor-
Canon EF 50mm - f/1.4 for portraits and still life photography -indoor & outdoor-

So, which is a better choice a 550D or a 40D ? and what about the lenses ?

hope anyone can help

Check your software update. Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.12 has now been released.

No more looking at default icons. Nice to see thumbnails again.

like title says, i preordered one from B&H, received it last week, when i opened it, it had some dust particle behind the LCD screen! i returned it and now they dont have anything in stock, everthing is pre-order. i was wondering if theres an online authorized dealer where i can buy a BODY ONLY that has it in stock.

thanks for your reply.

Tested the 5D Mark III's AWB setting using three different types of lights:

http://www.metrodcphotography.com/review/canon-5d-mark-iii-white-balance-test-raw-sample-images/

Looks like the warmer the light source the more the AWB is off from what it should be.

I am trying to better understand IS Mode 3 in the new 300mm/400mm 2.8L IS II lenses:

From Canon Marketing

"A third Image Stabilization mode (Mode 3) activates IS only when the shutter button is fully pressed, and gives the equivalent effect of a shutter speed four stops faster"

and from the Canon Manual

"MODE 3 - Since camera shake is only stabilized during exposure, following a subject is easier such as when shooting a fast and irregularly moving player during sports photography"


How does Mode 3 make following the subject easier compared to Mode 2?

Since Mode 3 saves battery, why would you ever use Mode 2 with these lenses?

Is the 4 stops claim true for all modes, or does Mode 3 give an effective increase over Mode 2?

Thanks

Aperture Expert reports that an upgrade for A3 for the 5D3 is ready for upload for those who use Aperture.

http://www.apertureexpert.com/?SSLoginOk=true

Whats the difference/danger of getting a white boxed 5D Mark 3?

LR seems to recognize my 5Dm3 but no luck with tethered shooting, did anyone else have luck?

According to Canon Professional Services I took over 343,849 photos on the 1dm3 camera i sent in 2010. That was the second time I had it replaced, i never got a number from them the first time but i am sure it was up there.
My buddy has never had his 50D in for repair and i'd wager he has somewhere around 500,000, why do i think that? Because before we even started our own sports photog company he was using it to shoot sports for other companies and since then only my 1dm3 has been in 2x, last time in 2010.
His 50D was made in the heavens i think! lol

Is available through Software Update.

So happy!

Hello there! Just a quick question: do u ever use this button?
Am I the only one who never used it? Am I missing like the ultimate photography tool or something like that? I would like o read your experiences regarding this small hidden button.

Take care and happy Easter for everyone

Nico

Hi just downloaded the Apple update for Aperture and can now see the RAW images

The images are really good, the jpegs looked good, but the raw images are much better than the Mark ii, better exposure and color balance and less work to get the images to pop IMHO. Not got any strong sunny pictures with bags of contrast to try yet, as this is London. I am really happy with this camera upgrade.

Roll on DxO.

In the owners manual for the mk3 there is a section about "Lenses and Usable AF Points" that breaks down which lens support which AF points and modes. Has anyone seen a similar listing/grouping for 3rd party lenses? I'm considering picking up the "Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 APO EX DG HSM OS FLD", but I might change my mind if I find that it has weak AF support.

FYI - i just placed my order for the 5D3 body only on April 2, and was notified that it has shipped today. They must have just gotten a bunch more.

Columnist David Pogue of The New York Times makes a point. Sometimes we seem to miss the image forest for the megapixel/ISO/AF/etc. trees.

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/spec-obsession-disorder-the-incurable-techie-malady/?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=edit_ct_20120405

Here's the text in case you can't access the NYT site:


April 5, 2012

Spec Obsession Disorder: The Incurable Techie Malady

In my Times column Thursday, I reviewed the Nokia Lumia 900 phone. Plenty of people (including Nokia) consider it Nokia’s last best effort to make some headway in the American smartphone market. Microsoft also has a lot riding on this phone, which runs its Windows Phone 7 software. Like Nokia, it’s currently flopping.

After I review a big-deal product like this, I sometimes go online to see what other critics have written, to see if it struck them the same way. In the case of the Lumia, a number of reviewers mentioned something I didn’t: the Lumia’s processor.

One of the phone’s most notable features is its price: $100 with contract, rather than the $200 phones of this type go for. And one way Nokia got there was to use a 1.4 GHz Scorpion single-core processor, instead of, for example, the dual-core 1.5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8060 found in some of its Android rivals.

Horrors, right?

I smacked my forehead. This kind of thinking drives me batty. Who on earth cares what processor is inside — as long as the phone feels fast? And this one feels fast. Very, very fast.

As far as I’m concerned, for the customer, it shouldn’t matter if the phone has a Snapdragon, a dual core or a hamster wheel. All that matters is how fast the phone winds up.

Among the tech cognoscenti, this is a typical symptom of Spec Obsession Disorder (SOD). You see it all the time.

Back in the day, PC makers used to market their computers by promoting the megahertz rating of the chip inside. Remember that? “Powered by a 2.4-gigaherz Pentium 4,” as though that’s all you needed to know about the computer’s power. The clock speed of a chip was only one tiny factor of many that determined the PC’s speed—and not even the most important factor. The amount of memory, the hard drive speed and size, the bus speed—all of these things determined a PC’s power.

The joke was on Intel, though. Eventually, the company couldn’t make its clock speeds any faster — so it stopped featuring that statistic. It developed other ways to make its processors faster, ways that couldn’t be handily represented by a single number. So nowadays, nobody says, “I’m upgrading to a 3-gigahertz PC.”
Similarly, for years, we were taught to believe that what determined a camera’s quality was its megapixel count — which, I’m happy to report, has been duly debunked. Nowadays, the megapixel count isn’t featured nearly as much, and the smart camera makers (Canon is one) have actually reversed themselves. They’re making cameras with fewer, but better, pixels.

But Spec Obsession Disorder lives on. We still make a fuss about 720p versus 1080p hi-def video, for example. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not entirely sure that most people could tell the difference at normal viewing distance.

O.K., maybe, if they had two side-by-side TV sets, both playing Blu-ray discs. But most people don’t have that. They see a brilliantly crisp picture, and they’re fine with it. (Besides, the source also matters. Standard-def TV doesn’t have enough resolution to fill even a 720p picture, let alone a 1080p one.)
And don’t get me started about contrast ratios. Do you really think the average person could see the difference between a contrast ratio of 500,000:1 and a million to 1?

Spec obsessions also crack me up because, frankly, you’re judging something based on the report of what’s inside. When you bought a PC, did you extract its processor to measure its 3 gigahertz yourself? Do you count the pixels on your hi-def TV or your camera?

No, of course not; you’re just taking the manufacturer’s word for it. And as we all know, that can get you into trouble.

I’ll keep reporting the most important specs in my reviews, because techies care about such things. But to me, the questions should not be, “How much memory is in this tablet? How many nits of brightness does that phone’s screen put out? What graphics processor is in that laptop? How much milliamp-hours does that phone’s battery pack?”

Instead, the questions should be, “How fast is it? How good does it look? Can you read it in sunlight? Does the battery last? How long does the battery last?”

And even those are secondary questions. The bigger ones are, “Is it a good value? Is the design excellent? Should you buy it?”

And on the Lumia 900, the answers to those questions are “yes,” “yes,” and “maybe.”

After all the posts around here about folks testing their 5D3 by taking pictures with the lens cap on and others debating the relative merits thereof, I could not pass up posting this link:

http://blog.phaseone.com/2012/04/01/photography-through-the-lens-cap/

Pretty amazing.

Pretty useless too, but still, pretty amazing.

Hey, I just wanted to share some of my sample images from my Mark III that I was checking with to verify I didn't wind up with a soft copy. Not totally sure how to upload the best quality images to this site or link elsewhere, however, so trying out my first Flickr account and I was going to try an attachment but couldn't seem to get it to work.

The flickr links to 3 samples:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76411819@N04/6902359618/#
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76411819@N04/6902359192/#
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76411819@N04/6902359936/#

Yes, I realize those are small originals on Flickr, I guess I need a pay account for showing the original sizes. I shot these all manual with very little post processing, I only altered the levels a small amount on each photo as I am not so concerned with the color rendering of the camera as I am with the quality of image sharpness. These were just alterations of the jpegs as well, as I haven't yet upgraded my LR from version 3 to 4 with the RAW updates etc.

PS. If anyone has some tips on how to more efficiently upload pics here that are helpful, please let me know. I tried to do a quick search but to no avail.

With all the new mk3's out there, I'm going to snag a used mk2 on the cheap (and I won't be the only one). What advice or process would you use to look at a used body? Shutter count doesn't really matter if the unit was mainly a video rig. Checking for hot pixels is key, but how can I test a camera in 10-15min prior to handing over $1,600 cash?

Anyone shooting film & digital? It occurred to me it may be cool to shoot film sometimes, and I started to look for old 35 mm cameras. I found a Pentax (sorry...) KX, which seems to have been a great camera 30 yrs ago, with a 55/1.8 lens, a flash, a little bag an so on for around US$ 120. Anyone think it's worth it, or is it just to much of a hassle for nothing?

I'm about to invest in an 85mm lens and I've heard amazing things about both of these lenses. Is the 85L really $1000 better than the sigma? I shoot weddings, and want that beautiful creamy look that is so famous in Canon's L primes. Have any of you used both of these lenses? What would you recommend? Thanks!