dSLR thread

[ddrueding]

It was a stitch of 51 shots (17x3 HDR) with a 35/2 on a 1.6-crop body. Exposures were around 1/4, ISO100 and f11.

I like images that have lots to look at, not just trying to "say" one thing. I like that even though I took the picture, and was there, and did the PP work, that I can go back at "actual pixels" and discover stuff I didn't know was there.

 

[udaman]

Snips from cnet interview with Chuck Westfall...what you'd expect from a company PR guy .

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10213645-39.html

I can't give you a timeline today, but we're a whole lot closer now. One of the things I could tell you about is that in 2008, we purchased a manufacturing facility for OLEDs, so in Japan, we're creating the infrastructure to be able to bring this online. The issue for us is not just the perfection of the technology and lowering of the manufacturing costs, it's also being able to generate the quantity of these devices to satisfy our needs across an entire range of consumer products. If you look at our global production, we have in somewhere in the vicinity of 25 million or so compact cameras every year, and it's growing. Digital SLRs last year we did 4.4 million. And that's just cameras. Then you could start talking about the Pixma inkjet printers--a great many of them have LCD displays.

Samsung has their PnS you can buy next month with OLED. But initial shots of the display trade show models, indoors at least (where you'd expect to be able to see a big difference) doesn't seem to be all that much better than a good LCD.

Bet's we see OLED screens on the top PnS models long before one shows up on a dSLR?

What's the future trajectory? Are prices going to come down further? Are the people buying a 50D today--the higher-end enthusiast market--going to be making the jump to full-frame, or is there always going to be big quantum leap between APS-C (the smaller sensor size used in mainstream digital SLRs) and full-frame?
Westfall: We're going to evaluate the market overall in terms of the pricing issues and try to offer the best combination of features for the money. Value is very important to everybody, especially in this economy. That doesn't necessarily mean we would avoid a full-frame sensor just to cut the cost, but on the other hand we can't really say that a low-cost full-frame camera is going to be something that we're definitely going to pursue. We generally take it as it comes to see if we can find a spot in the market for the lower-priced full-frames.

Well it looks like the FF Rebel won't come out until after Sony or Nikon do it 1st. Lame excuse, IMO.

Westfall: In the beginning, we had to take into account that there are going to be a fair amount of users out there who are into the customization aspect, but the overall customer profile on this camera (the 5D Mark II) includes a lot of amateurs as well. Anything we can do to give those customers automation on the basics of video, including exposure, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO--those are things that will make it easier to produce high-quality footage without that much experience. To be honest with you, one of the other issues is that adding the full range of manual controls on this camera makes it a much more complicated instrument. It's not necessarily that we're never going to do it, but it's a generation 1.0. We'd like to get some market feedback, which we've already received now, before we start making any serious changes to the overall feature set or design

Excuses for having their heads up their arses, Panasonic already gives you more control with their new 4/3d's HD video capture dSLR. Kind of like Steve Jobs saying that Apple doesn't want to 'burden' Mac users with an 'expensive' Blu-ray drive option, lol. If people (amateurs willing to spend $3k in a tough economy) wanted full auto controls and not be 'burdened' by 'complexity' of use of *manual* control of both video and still, they'd buy a friggin PnS. Come on Canon, such lame excuses.

I suppose the mono only audio on the video capture with the 500D is because unlike the 5DMkII, Canon did not want to 'burden' the more amateurish Rebel users with the capability of adding a quality shotgun mike/hot shoe input audio mic source? Since it basically would have cost very little to incorporate stereo to the camera.

 

[udaman]

Canon rumors.com says there will be an 1D type AF in the 60D... whenever that comes out.

For now, freelance/pro nature photog Ethan Meleg likes the 50D (scroll down to the redwoods images to see the old VW camper, circa 1990? he's using):

http://ethanmeleg.blogspot.com/

Capturing sharp, well-framed photos requires being fast and efficient with a long lens. I get rusty at this over the winter and have to tune up my technique each spring, which is what I've been up to lately. I've been using my new 50D body and have found it to be excellent for bird photography. I'm most impressed with the incredibly quick and accurate autofocus, as well as the fast frame rate. It blows away my 1DsIII body for shooting birds. A downside is the 50D files have more noise (digital grain) than 1DsIII files, especially in low light. This doesn't surprise me, the 50D is way less expensive and has a smaller sensor. Nevertheless, the files are still pretty good - very publishable - and I expect to use this body for the majority of my songbird photography this spring.

Well, the T1i/500D is supposed to start shipping any week now, it's kind of like the poor (but still flush) man's version of the 50D...except not fast enough FR's for birding

Too much supplemental flash lighting in most of the closer images for my tastes.

 

[ddrueding]

I like the color and composition in those pictures, but they are too small for me to appreciate much.

 

[Stereodude]

Udaman, you're slacking. I thought for sure we'd see a post about the Nikon D5000 by now.

 

[ddrueding]

Still no 1080P. And remote control via WiFi is getting more important for me now. Looks like a need a 5DII again.

 

[P5-133XL]

Is there a program, that will take several high iso digital snapshots of the same sceen and then remove the noise by comparing the snapshots?

 

[Stereodude]

Can't you do that just by layering them to each other with PS? (since the noise should be Gaussian in nature)

 

[P5-133XL]

Don't know having never actually used photoshop.

 

[ddrueding]

Is there a program, that will take several high iso digital snapshots of the same scene and then remove the noise by comparing the snapshots?

It is called image stacking. There are programs out there made to do specifically that (very common in astophotography). In theory, stacking layers in PS should work, but I haven't gotten good results that way.

 

[udaman]

Udaman, you're slacking. I thought for sure we'd see a post about the Nikon D5000 by now.

We'll actually the NDA expired last night East coast time, dpreview had their story up ~11PM last night. I did not post the rumor of the announcement on nikon rumors yesterday, because the rumored spec's didn't seem too hot. Basically a competitor for the Canon 500D...heh 5000/500 which is which ?

But the big difference between the two IMHO, is the Nikon is an upgraded version of the D60, which means you have zero chance of using the wider range of AF Nikkor's (manual focus only) since there is no lens AF motor in the body. Throw in the fact that the D90 does for most part, *everything* better than the 5000 and for just $150 more, it's a no brainer to go with the older D90. D90 has the high res screen, the 5000 has the lower res. smaller 2.7in tilting LCD screen.

Wake me when they put out a FF Canon or Nikon w/1080p hot shoe *stereo* input audio, full manual control over movie mode, then I'll be interested. Yeah, and make it cost <$1k too. GPS and wireless connectivity a +, but not essential. Better make that an articulating 900k OLED screen, faster movie mode AF live view functionality...really, is that so much to ask? Just have to wait for the Xnth updated version, 5yrs from now, I guess.

 

[ddrueding]

One of the rare, really legit uses of HDR. It is a big image, view original size if you feel like touring the city a bit.

 

[LunarMist]

The room needs lighting.

 

[ddrueding]

I barely had a tripod, and the rooms lights were totally the wrong temperature.

 

[ddrueding]

Found a buyer for my XSi, torn between the 5DII and the T1i. The higher resolution, full frame, and support for shooting wireless are tempting, but the price difference is significant.

 

[Tannin]

What's a T1i, Dave?

 

[P5-133XL]

What's a T1i, Dave?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0903/09032504canoneos500d.asp
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/T1I/T1IA.HTM

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks Mark, I should have included its international name, 500D.

Tannin! Haven't heard from you in a while. Been out?

 

[LunarMist]

I'd keep the XSi over the others. 12MP is about right for the small sensors. It's not too late to go Nikon.

 

[ddrueding]

You think I should go Nikon? My impression is that they are currently in the lead WRT IQ, but that the glass costs considerably more.

 

[Stereodude]

That and they don't have F4 "Pro" glass like Canon does.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm actually living off the 35/2 prime these days; I just like the amount of space it captures. Occasionally I'll take out the 50/1.8, and once in the last 4 months I took the 75-300 out for a single shot. I do mourn the loss of my 10-22, but I don't think I'd be using it much, anyway. Of course, that is on a 1.6x body. So if I get a FF body, I'd probably get the 20/2.8 with the 35/2 sliding into the 50/1.8's slot.

If you hadn't noticed, I'm slowly talking myself into a 5DII.

 

[ddrueding]

Looking at the Nikon stuff, the 5DII seems to sit between the D300 and D3 in terms of price, but much closer to the D3 in terms of features. Thoughts?

 

[e_dawg]

Looking at the Nikon stuff, the 5DII seems to sit between the D300 and D3 in terms of price, but much closer to the D3 in terms of features. Thoughts?

But why would you compare the 5DII to the D300 and the D3? The D300 is APS-C and the D3 is a high-speed pro FF body with integrated vertical grip. The closest competitors to the 5DII IMO are the Nikon D700 and Sony A900.

As for which one is best for you, it depends on what you're using it for. I briefly summarized the pros and cons of the entry-level FF bodies a couple pages earlier in this thread. Since I own both the D700 and the A900, you can probably guess which is my least favourite of the three

 

[P5-133XL]

Come on, you are already invested in Canon. Unless you want to replace all your lenses then you are stuck: that's the whole point of proprietary mounts. So why even go there. At the top end, the differences are just not enough to throw away the lens investment. Further, there's always the some unknown future generation camera that will switch the brand you want.

Only real solution, buy both the 5DII and the D700 and then get equivilent Nikon lenses so that when you buy the 5DIIII or the D99 you will be prepared. Don't Worry, by the time that happens, you will have decided to junk 35mm in favor of medium/large format (who wants stink'n 24mm x 36mm when you could have 4in x 5in or 8in x 10in and a real camera) and have to start all over anyway.

 

[P5-133XL]

But why would you compare the 5DII to the D300 and the D3?

For the same reason he can't decide between a 5DII and a T1i. He has the false assumption that newer is always better.

Found a buyer for my XSi, torn between the 5DII and the T1i. The higher resolution, full frame, and support for shooting wireless are tempting, but the price difference is significant.

If the XSi wasn't the right camera for you, I really don't think the T1i will be either: Go straight for the gold (5DII) or wait for the its replacement.

 

[Tannin]

Oh, 500D. Thanks guys. I'm used to the entry-level Canons being called X-something or Rebel-something in the States. Had no idea what a T-something was.

Dave, I've been around, just haven't had much to say for myself. I've lurked a lot, but few of the threads here have much relevance for me these days - I don't own a TV or a home theatre or a stereo system or have any particular computer needs beyond what the Thinkpad and a variety of whatever-bits-are-lying-around-at-the-moment desktop systems provide, don't follow US politics, have heard (or possibly written) most of the idealogical rants several times over - so I've been following the old adage, if you don't have anything useful to say, say nothing! (I do have a fair bit to say on a local Australian photography forum, however. And you can always see what I've been up to lately by visiting http://tannin.net.au

Dave ..... my advice is:screw the gear. Take pictures.

With that said, I haven't tried an T-whatever, but I'm familiar with the 400D and the 450D, plus my 50D has the same sensor and some of the same firmware as the 500D, so I can hazard a pretty reasonable guess. First up, I don't agre with Lunar about the "12MP limit" theory. There is nothing about the 15MP 50D that isn't either the same as or better than the 10MP 40D. The 50D is a remarkably well-rounded camera; Canon's best mid-range product since the wonderful 20D in my opinion, and distinctly superior to the lack-lustre 40D or the change/no-change 30D.

The colour and detail resolution of the 50D is excellent. The pictures it takes are superior to those of the 40D, and even to the 20D - which I continue to regard as bit of a benchmark, second only to the 1D III for rich and pleasing, yet nevertheless realistic tones. (Better in that regard than the 50D too, though inferior in detail, of course.)

Whether these advantages hold good for the 500D I don't know. The 10MP 400D didn't produce as good an image as the 10MP 40D, so maybe they try harder on the more expensive models, but on the other hand, the 40D was later, so maybe it's just a refinment-over-time thing.

In the end though, anyone who spends phenomenal amounts of time stitching together vast panoramic patchworks really ought to aim at getting the highest quality basic images to start with - and that means a 5D II. (Well, short of going ballistic with the credit card and going for a 1Ds III or a D3x.) And if you are going for a 5D II, you'll have enough to spend already, on lenses.

But screw the gear. Take pictures.

 

[e_dawg]

I agree, T. dd, IMO your gear is not the limiting factor here. I would say spending some money on taking composition and photoshop/post-processing courses would yield more dividends. When I look at your pics, I don't think "man, this guy needs better gear". I'm going to refrain from commenting on your composition, since I am not a master in that area, but I do think you could see some improvement in terms of your post-processing. Maybe your monitor / calibration is the problem, as SD and I have repeatedly called the search party for your missing shadows?

 

[e_dawg]

The 50D is a remarkably well-rounded camera; Canon's best mid-range product since the wonderful 20D in my opinion, and distinctly superior to the lack-lustre 40D or the change/no-change 30D.

So you can call the 40D lack-lustre but I can't?!? LOL... welcome back, Tony.... we've missed you.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks guys. As is usually the case, the things you say are correct, and I just hadn't put enough value to them.

It's not that I believe that newer is always better, but that the features I haven't tried could be fun/worthwhile. They usually aren't, but I like to have them/try them anyway. Full frame, video, high-ISO and wireless remote shooting are neat, but almost certainly won't make my pictures better.

I'm settling into a middle road, starting to replace my EF-S lenses with better EF stuff. If the buyer for my XSi does come through, I'll just do the simple upgrade to a T1i/500D.

So my next purchase looks to be replacing my damaged 10-22 with a 17-40/4L.

 

[Tannin]

Hmmm ... looking at your Flicker page, Dave ... well, I'm certainly no master of composition once I'm outside my avian specialty, and I'm no fan at all of panoramic photography, but these strike me as strong, simple, thoughtful compositions.

There is a lot of high-octane bullshite spouted off about composition (not having a go at you here, E_dawg!), and in the end the best thing you can do with most of it is ignore it (unless it suites your present purpose to heed it). I think any photographer (or visual artist of any other kind) is well advised to resolutely ignore any and all rules of composition until he has become fully committed to a personal style, to personal likes and dislikes. When you know what you like and you know what you do, sure, look at what other people do and what other people say. Till then, screw 'em. Do you want to be a bad imitation of some other photographer? Or a good imitation of yourself?

Mind you, I see a strong and consistent style in the random samples of your work I just looked at, Dave, so this advice no longer applies. Whatever stylistic and compositional influences you had earlier on, they can't have done you too much harm. Composition classes are like ninth grade: most people go through it, and good, strong characters with a firm sense of purpose in life tend to emerge from it reasonably human and largely undamaged. Now is a good time to look at what other people say. You may or may not take something of value away from it.

But E_dawg's complaints about PP carry more weight with me. Either the air in your part of the world is consistently grey and hazy, and the light terribly flat, or else there is something very odd about the look of these pictures. I hate over-saturation more than most people do, and I rarely trouble to disguise my contempt for self-styled "photographers" who think that every damn image should cover the full tonal range with plenty of that horrible artificial stuff they call "punch", but there is a persistent flatness there in most of the images that strikes me right away.

By the way, the sort of stuff you are doing says to me that there is definately a 5D II in your future.

 

[Tannin]

Just a flying visit, Dave. At least so far as posting goes - I always check in and read stuff two or three times a week if I'm not on the road. But I ain't going away anytime soon. Too much history here.

Since when weren't you allowed to call the 40D lack-lustre?

I thought it was prety good when it came out and wound up buying two of them, but I'm not impressed with their (lack of) reliability, and I mostly consign them to the jobs I care least about, preferring the 50D and the ancient old-faithful 20D. (Obviously, for the serious bird work I use the 1D III.)

Err .. since this is a camera thread, should I list the gear I'm using these days? Why not?

• 1D III - primary birding camera. 500/4.
• 50D - secondary birding camera. 100-400. Sometimes swap lenses with the Mark III for particular purposes.
• 20D - primary general-purpose landscape camera, permanently wedded to the 24-105
• 40D #1: wide-angle duties (10-22 and Tokina 10-17 fish). Dud shutter release/AF mechanism. Will have to go off to Canon when the other one gets back. For wide-angle work, focus is not so critical anyway, and I often go manual, so it wlil do for now.
• 40D #2: off being fixed at present - dud shutter after 11 months and bugger all work. Will go to Belinda eventually. Borrowed my old 400D back to fill in for it the other week.

No new lenses of any note, except for the 24mm tilt-shift, which doesn't really do what I need and I'm going to sell. Great lens, wrong focal length for me - I should have got the 90mm one, or possibly the 45. Or else I should get a 5D II to use it with. Apart from anything else, you need a top-class viewfinder to see what you are doing well enough to use one of these efffectively, and none of the crop cameras offer this, though the 50D comes closest. And also the very sweet little Tokina 10-17 fish. I love this lens!

 

[ddrueding]

I was thinking of getting the 24mm T/S, but had the same concern. That was the primary reason for my interest in getting a tethered laptop with a good screen. I still way go that way, but I have no idea how hard it would be to get a tilted focal plane to align with a multi-shot panorama. Just trying to visualize it gives me a headache.

 

[ddrueding]

I am aware of this flatness you speak of, Tony. And unfortunately, it has been quite bad lately. Most of these were even shot the day after a strong rain, hoping to clear out the air. This time of year, the sky is mostly without clouds, so I lose that interest as well. I'll try to get some other shots of interest up in the next day or so, just to see if I can change this trend.

 

[ddrueding]

Perhaps one of these would help?

Hoya 77mm Ultraviolet UV(0) Haze Multi-Coated Glass Filter

 

[Handruin]

I'm still trying to find my way with photography and I'm hoping with enough practice and special interest groups that some theoretical light bulb will eventually turn on for me. Lately I tend to struggle with the post processing more than anything else. That's not to say everything else is perfect, but I've lately been dreading sitting behind photoshop tweaking hundreds of images.

I really want to grasp the art of lighting my subject(s) better both indoor and out. I'm sure there are many other aspects I need to work on, but there is something to be said for just going out and having a nice time taking pictures of things even if I'm not doing it the best possible way. I'm slowly getting it in my head that I'm really just creating a photo journal of my life as it is now and also of other people's lives. Maybe in the next 10-15 years if I'm still this interested in the hobby I will have figured out all the things I need to make me happy.

 

[Tannin]

Handy, if you are having to tweak hundreds of images you're not doing it right.

For most pictures you take, your in-camera JPG should be the only thing you need. I'm not saying that you should never PP or anything like that, what I am saying is that if you get the exposure, the composition, and the WB right, the in-camera JPG is all you need to look at to enjoy the picture, and any PP you do to it will usually be fairly minor.

If you are having to spend any amount on PP as routine, you need to go back to basics for a while. Imagine you are shooting slide film, where you can't edit, crop, or do anything much. Shoot JPG as well as raw, and don't resort to the raw file unless you are really stuck on something.

And don't use bloody Photoslug for looking at lots of images! Apart from butchering the look of a picture by doing silly stuff with colour management, Photoslug is way too slow and cumbersome and horrible to use to emply as your primary image viewing and editing tool. Use fast, high quality made-for-purpose viewing and light-duty editing software like PMView (or XNView, or any of dozens of others). These programs are a pleasure to view images with, fast and responsive and intuititive. Use them!

Photoshop should be reserved for when you need heavy-duty editing power. Photoslug is like an old-fashioned Land Rover or a Centurion tank: it can go anywhere and do anything, but you'd have to be a moron to want to use it for driving to the supermarket or cruising on the freeway. If the only thing you need to do to an image is straighten the horizon half a degree or crop it a little, using Photoslug is just making life painful for yourself. And if you regularly need to do more to an image than that, you needt o look at your in-hand camera skills.

(I'm not saying I don't PP images. Almost all of the images I sell or put on my web page have been post-processed to bring out that last small percentage of potential that makes it a bit special - but there are many thousands of other images that I still like to look at, and these aren't PPd at all. Nor should they need to be.)

 

[Handruin]

For the longest time I wasn't PP my images anything more than adding a little bit of sharpness from within Canon's Digital Photo Pro and some noise reduction if they needed it (case by case). I'd look at the whole lot of images and get through them fairly quickly and then let DPP do the RAW > jpg conversions while I work on something else.

Lately I've been playing with PP in photoshop on select images and I've been able to get some of the coloring better (so I think, but what do I really know?). I'm sure I am doing some things incorrectly on the photo front. For example, going to a friend's kid's bday party, I wanted to take basic pictures for her and her kid. The lighting in the place was a horrible mix of florescent and incandescent lighting which I can't change. What do most people do in this situation? I don't have an extra helper with me to bounce light and hold flash sticks. So I rely on the 580EX as my source of flash and bounce it in various ways to get what I can. I tried a mixture of flash and no flash, with the images not having the flash contain more grain because the ISO was pushed higher.

I don't use photoshop for everything. That's why I said I was dreading doing all those images in photoshop. The majority of my photo viewing comes from either DPP or irfanview (using canon's dll's for raw image viewing). I guess I've just been suffering from some complex thinking I should be PPing every image to get the best out of them all...when maybe it doesn't much matter. You're right though, basics probably can't hurt. I've never felt like my photos were that far off were very basics were needed.

 

[udaman]

Handy, if you are having to tweak hundreds of images you're not doing it right.

For most pictures you take, your in-camera JPG should be the only thing you need. I'm not saying that you should never PP or anything like that, what I am saying is that if you get the exposure, the composition, and the WB right, the in-camera JPG is all you need to look at to enjoy the picture, and any PP you do to it will usually be fairly minor.

If you are having to spend any amount on PP as routine, you need to go back to basics for a while. Imagine you are shooting slide film, where you can't edit, crop, or do anything much. Shoot JPG as well as raw, and don't resort to the raw file unless you are really stuck on something.

I disagree, and it's more of a subjective area where you cannot tell someone else they're doing it wrong. Many times you don't have the luxury of composition regardless of film or digital capture. Many times you don't have the luxury of the correct lighting. Subjectively, I don't like the "pro" shots in my link from recent prior posts, the one's with fill flash. I'd rather shoot au naturel, and then PP to enhance the image to something closer to what my eyes see/saw.

I routinely tweak with PP curves and other quick N dirty quickie tools, I can't always get the exposure I want, same with film, which is why digital is great for making multiple exposures (when you have the luxury of taking more than one shot) since you just delete the ones where the exposure is not good. With film you end up with many wasted shots, that cannot be recovered in PP.

In fact, since it's subjective, I'd tweak your 'tar Tannin, it's not what I would feel comfortable with, even if you are.

Bracketing exposures is a time and tested tool for the 'pros'---they use it *all* the time, maybe Tannin just has such awesome skllz he's beyond the rest of us . Same thing for WB, if there was no need for WB bracketing, it would not be a function on any camera...again, except for Tannin who's skillz are so awesome, WB comes out great almost all the time.

Then again, some of us are pickier than others

 

[Tannin]

Way to go Doug. Irfanview is exactly the sort of made-for-purpose software I was talking about when I mentioned PMView and XNView and so on. Superior to DPP and miles better than Photoslug for viewing and light-duty working over.

But why not make life easier for yourself by shooting BOTH raw and JPG? Upload the shots whichever way you like (Lunar's recommendation of Downloader Pro is a good one), then park the raw files in a sub-folder and view, sort and (as desired) discard the JPGs. When you do want to get serious about PPing a particular image, then go to the raw file and Photoslug/DPP/Bibble/Lightroom/whatever.

(And if you need a tool to synch up your raw and JPG images, Tea has written a nifty glorified batch file that can do it for you.)

PS: what do you do with a horrible mix of florescent and incandescent lighting? Go somewhere else!