Category Archives: equipment

A New Body

Not for me of course. A new camera body. A new one for me might be good but I have to stick with the one I have I guess! There has been a lot of information floating around the web for a while about what the next body might be from Canon. I have been paying particular attention to this as I have been considering getting another body for a while.

The reason for my interest is that I would like to replace one of my existing bodies. I have two broadly similar cameras but there are of different vintages. The more I have shot with them both, the more apparent the problems have become with switching from one to the other. There are little issues that become noticeable over time and there are capability differences that also have a bearing.

The little differences are surprisingly important. Canon changed the control arrangements between the release dates of these two designs and switching quickly between them can result in me using the wrong button combinations. I have back button focus set up on my cameras and they use different buttons for this. A small issue but one that is a nuisance when you are in a hurry. (They also have different batteries which is inconvenient although not the end of the world.)

The newer body has greater capability in low light, better frame rates and something that I never thought I would care about – video. It turns out I shoot more video clips than I ever expected. When you have two bodies set up with different lenses, it can be a pain to realize that you want to shoot a quick video but the appropriate lens is on the non-video body. Therefore, two identical bodies would be better.

Consequently, I nearly bought a second body earlier this year. Then the earthquake hit and they became a rare commodity. For ages they were unavailable. Then they would occasionally show up but by then, talk was of the next body coming out. I was in a quandary. Do I wait for the next evolution and risk having another pair of mismatched cameras or do I forgo whatever enhanced capability there may be and have identical bodies?

Today I got some clarity in that Canon announced the new body. As expected, it merged the two lines to create a full frame camera with high frame rate capability. This is very appealing as a full frame sensor was something I did want to get. Canon seem to have been clever and not gone crazy with the pixel count. At 18Mp, it is only slightly more than the current body (so no panic over replacing cards, computers and hard drives to cope with huge files) but this is with a full frame sensor so actual pixel density is slightly reduced. This is not something I am too concerned about.

However, I do have different sensor sizes between bodies. I would have video for both which is a plus. The button configuration has been tweaked again. However, it does seem to be that the key interfaces are still the same and some of the changes are things I have thought about myself. The battery is changed which would have annoyed me but it appears to be the case that the batteries are backwards and forwards compatible so that should be fine.

There is a stumbling block of course – price! Canon has been edging up the price of the APS-H cameras for a while getting them closer to the full frame version pricing. With the merger of the line, it appears that they have got to a price point closer to the full frame version. Have we been trained to accept this? Maybe. What will the street price be? We shall have to wait and see. Am I going to buy one or get a duplicate of the current model while it is still available? I don’t know. I have nearly six months before they become available so I guess I have plenty of time to think about it and get saving!

Ziplining

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Recently, I bought myself a GoPro camera. They seem to be ubiquitous these days showing up on TV shows on a regular basis to provide the footage from unusual angles or mounted on fast moving items. They make good cockpit cameras as well and are really very affordable.

As part of the Kauai trip, we spent a few hours riding zip lines at Princeville Ranch Adventures. I took the GoPro along with us in case a good opportunity came up to use it. I was not alone as another person in our group had one. Originally, I had intended to get a head strap for the camera for use on the lines. Unfortunately, I didn’t order one in time before we left and couldn’t get one locally. GoPro stuff seems to sell out very quickly so I guess I am not alone in liking the gear.

As it was, I think this proved to be a lucky break. Since I didn’t have a mount, my only option was to handhold the camera. Since it has a very wide field of view, this can be done without needing too much accuracy in pointing. I could also then point the camera in any direction I wanted. Having a fixed wide view is not always ideal but it seemed to work pretty well.

From the footage I shot that day, I have put together a short video of the ziplining adventure. I don’t think it is going to win any awards and those people I know who are real editors will, no doubt, cringe at the quality of my cutting but it is a vacation memento at the end of the day so I am not going to get too bothered about it. Besides, as Vincent Laforet said in a recent interview, when you need editing done properly, get a proper editor to do it. You can’t do everything!

Here is the video. Hope it gives you a bit of a feel for a great day out.

Lenskirt Review

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Living in a high rise in the city, I have a lot of chances to shoot things that I can only see through the windows. This has been a tricky thing to deal with over time and I have come up with various solutions with varying success. A couple of times I have thought about making something myself to be the solution but have never got around to it.

Now someone has made something that pretty much does what I want. It is called the Lenskirt. It is a black squared funnel that has a fabric sock at the base which cinches around the barrel of your lens. I has four suckers at the four corners that will attach it to glass. The idea is that it blocks any light coming in from the side and reflecting off the glass and back into the lens.

I love this idea. However, the $49 price seemed a little steep for what it is. However, i did buy one and it has just arrived. Overall, I am quite pleased with it. My suspicions about it being a bit overpriced seem valid but it does do what I want. Moreover, it handles my widest lens (the 17mm) without any problem. It allows flexibility of placement so you can shoot at an angle without seeing the skirt. Therefore, while it is a bit pricey, the alternative is something I have never bothered to do so it is probably worth it to me.

This could have other applications other than shooting through normal windows. It might be useful in an aircraft when you can’t open a window to shoot out as well. I am never a fan of shooting through something since the surface is often of poor quality but sometimes you have no choice.

Could it be improved? Yes. I would have made the rim stitched to sit flat to a surface when attached rather than having to bend out. Also, I might consider a slightly more rectangular shape given the format of shooting (although that would impact on the ability to fold it flat). It is slightly wider than deeper but given the need to look sideways sometimes, a little more width might be good. (The shot above makes it look a lot wider than it really is by the way!) I might also have gone for a less reflective black material just in case. As I try it more, we shall see if other issues come up. However, so far, a welcome addition to my bag.

When Does Noise Matter?

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I will freely admit I am as much of a gearhead as the next photographer. New toys always catch my attention and then it is a matter of time before the battle is won between my sensible side or my not very sensible side as to whether I am going to get something. The price of said item may well have an influence on which side wins that battle.

One thing that is a popular discussion for the pixel peepers is noise. Having started off with a Canon EOS10D when I first went digital and worked through a number of bodies since – none of which have left my ownership I must confess – I have seen some steady improvement in noise reduction capabilities although not always with as much benefit to the final image as I might have liked but I digress.

A while back I was shooting at the Oceana air show with two of my buddies, Ben and Simon. We had trekked down from DC for the show and were greeted by less than ideal weather. The cloud base was solid and low and a bunch of displays didn’t take place. Some did though and we still had a good day. Given the heavy cloud, though, we were struggling for light. I was shooting mainly with the MkIIN and was up at ISO 800 for a lot of the time.

The MkIIN is well into the noisy range at 800 and I knew that was the case but there was little option. A while after this show, Lightroom 3 came out and it had a lot of noise reduction built in that wasn’t in the previous version. I took a look at some of the Oceana shots to see how much better they might look. There was a noticeable improvement and I was happy.

Why am I discussing this now, over a year later? I was mulling over this topic for some reason, probably related to another acquisition decision, and I wondered how the printed version was affected by this noise. There are plenty of things that I fret over in an image when looking at it on screen, usually zoomed in far too close, that really don’t become apparent at all when printing. Is noise one of those things that looks better on paper?

I picked one of the shots from that day to experiment with. The shot in question is this one of one of the Blue Angels taking off. Since there was the treeline behind, the gray sky was not an issue and the burner plumes show up nicely given how dark it is so I like the shot. Now to check it out on a print.

One of the nice features of Lightroom is the ability to mess with the print layouts. I made a couple of virtual copies of the image and one one of them did my best to optimize the noise reduction and on the other switched it off for the most part. On screen, it did not look great. I then set up a page in the print module with two cells right next to each other and put the left side of one image in the left cell and the right side of the other in the right cell. It looks like a full aircraft if I get the positioning just right.

First I printed it on an 8.5×11 sheet. If I look closely, I can see the divide. It actually shows more in the background than on the aircraft. It is visible but it isn’t as noticeable as you might expect. This had got my interest! What about the size of the print. I repeated the layout on some Super B (13×19) paper of the same type and printed it again.

As you might expect, this time is is a little more noticeable – hey, it’s twice the size! However, even now, while it isn’t great, it really isn’t that bad. We are talking about turning the NR almost off.

So, what do I conclude from this? Well, technology is going to always get better, both in camera and on the computer processing it and I am still going to be a sucker for a new piece of kit. However, while there is a noticeable noise difference on screen, the print is really a lot more forgiving. Maybe I should relax about it a lot more and just enjoy the shooting, even when the light is limited.