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We can all exhale now... (1-D mk IV released)

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New Canon cameras are semi-well-kept secrets, sort of like new Apple products.   It's usually obvious _when_ cameras are going to be released but unclear _what_ the new features are going to be.  (Except that cameras don't really change dramatically from year to year like Apple products do.) Everyone knew that a new sports camera was coming out tomorrow in Europe (tonight in North America) but we didn't know what it was going to be.   The usual group of rumor websites had lots of theories and finally everything was revealed earlier tonight, as Canon issued a press release and a few videos about the new 1-D mk IV. (worst website ever...)

There's nothing really groundbreaking here - more megapixels (because it's Canon), higher ISO, more video modes, supposedly revamped autofocus system, blah blah blah...  It's just the next model - that's it.  Nothing revolutionary here.  No major UI breakthroughs.  No styling changes.  No really new features.  Just a slight evolution.  At $5,000, its $1,000 more than the last one.

So now that that's done we can all all exhale, read the press releases, and then get back to doing photography.  Happy shooting!  (and editing)

Football!

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Sorry for the long silence - it's football season again and that means I'm busy!  I love photographing football even though I think it's the hardest thing there is to photograph well.  It's a live event which means there's no second chance, and it can be pretty unpredictable.  You never know exactly what's going to happen and at the Football Championship Subdivision (Division 1-AA) level things are more likely to get crazy.  Any play can end up with a turnover, a touchdown, a gimmick, etc. It also demands the most expensive equipment, which I don't always have.  I've been renting a 1-D mkIIn recently and it's pretty darn nice, until the lights go down in Spanos Stadium.  There's just no way to get good blow-ups and shadows at ISO 3200 from a four year old camera.  Even after the new stadium lighting before last season, it's still a little too dark in there when there's no help from the sky.

The good news is that those problems will all be gone in a year or two.  The lights aren't going to get brighter, but the cameras are getting a lot better.  I've seen some good looking shots from the new Canon 7-D at ISO 5,000 and Nikon just came out with a camera yesterday that goes to ISO 12,800.  Assuming that 6400 is OK, shooting at Cal Poly should no longer be a problem.  All that great technology will filter down through the product lines soon.  (Hopefully Canon can concentrate on image quality and drop their addiction to megapixels.)

I've shot two games so far (Cal Poly hosting Sac State at home and then Cal Poly visiting San Jose State).  This weekend is Southern Utah at home, which is also Homecoming, so that should be a lot of fun.  I've heard there are still 1,000 tickets available for the game so if you're in SLO, come on down!   The weather should be really nice in the evening and the game should be a lot of fun.  Come see the new scoreboard too!

In other football news, a shot of mine of Miami quarterback Jacory Harris was selected for the Miami media guide.  I shot Miami and Cal in the Emerald Bowl last year and got a lot of good shots.  It's good to see some of them getting some usage.

Is the megapixel war over?

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Canon introduced a bunch of new point and shoots today, including the new PowerShot G11, the successor to the PowerShot G10.  The exciting thing is that they've apparently abandoned the race for more (useless, low-end) megapixels!  Check out the specs of the Canon G7 (10 megapixels), Canon G9 (12 megapixels), the G10 (15 mexapixels) and now the G11 (back to 10 megapixels). The reason why this is important is because bigger pixels are better, cleaner, truer pixels, with less noise.  (Especially in lower light.  The noise really overwhelms the picture when the ISO gets cranked up.)  As camera makers try to cram more and more pixels onto a sensor that's not any bigger, the pixels have to get smaller.  Although technology does improve over time, manufacturers have been working harder at making pixels smaller than they have at making them better.   The result was the PowerShot G10, which most photographers apparently thought has similar or worse image quality as the camera it replaced, due to the smaller pixels.

Of course, with higher pixels sizes comes larger filesizes.  The more megapixels the more megabytes, which means cards fill up faster, transfers take longer, backups are larger, processing is slower, etc.  Plus, noisier files compress worse!  (ok - now I'm just splitting hairs...)

So now we've got the G11, with 10 megapixels.  Most people who actually print their photos agree that 10 megapixels is a pretty good size.  I've got a 48" wide print made from an 8 megapixel camera that's surprisingly sharp.  This new camera seems to be Canon's way of saying they agree that 10 megapixels is enough, and working on giving us higher image quality instead of more pixels.

The next question is what this means for Canon's line of digital SLRs.  Right now the two top cameras have full-frame sensors with 21 megapixels.   The 1-Ds mk III is two years old now, and is bound to be replaced in the next month or two.  Will they add yet more megapixels, or will they stop in the low 20's and work on lower noise and higher ISO?

Advice to a friend buying a new camera

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A friend of mine posted the classic "I'm going to get my first dSLR - What should I get?" question which spawned a bunch of comments from friends chiming in about their favorite brands.  I think most people usually recommend the brand that they shoot with, but I didn't.  I shoot Canon for now but I said "Nikon or Sony", which caused him to ask why. I thought I might post the details here before they get lost to the annals of Facebook:

The Canons take pictures just fine - 100% of the pictures I've taken were with Canons! It's just an attitude thing for me now. After being a hardcore Canon user/watcher for a couple years I've figured out how Canon's marketing mind works. The lower end stuff is suitable for most uses but they always hold out the little things that would make photography more convenient for their highest-end stuff.

I'm not talking about expensive features here - I'm talking about things like 5 shot exposure bracketing, a built-in eyepiece blocker, more flexibility for exposure compensation, mirror lockup as a drive mode and not as a custom function, perhaps an actual knob for drive mode, etc.

Many of these are simple things that their highest end model has. I understand paying thousands more for actual technology, but paying thousands to change some firmware constant from 3 to 5 is insulting.   I also think that selling the intervalometer as a $150 accessory instead of building it in to the camera is insulting.

I went with Canon because of the lens selection, and that's why I'm staying with them for now. (In fact, I keep adding to my lens investment.) And I'm hoping that the recent advances by Nikon, Sony, and others will compel them to bring some of these (essentially free to engineer) features down to the mid-range.

When you buy a Canon, you're paying for the millions of dollars they've invested in CMOS image sensor fabrication and high-volume manufacturing technology. You're also paying for the labor of the one intern they hired do do their User Interface work and the tools that work in Technical Marketing.

BTW, I'm officially "cynical" about the whole Canon vs. Everyone Else battle. Just like Lance said "It's not about the bike", photography is NOT about the camera. The most important thing is that you get a usable tool that's gives you the level of flexibility you need and then GO OUT AND TAKE PICTURES!

That's by far more important that the details of which lens you buy, how much you spend, or what brand you use.

Charlie Cramer's fine art printing class

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I had the great pleasure of attending Charlie Cramer's excellent Fine Art Printing Class this past weekend, held at The Picture Element here in Santa Clara, California.  It's an intensive three day class running from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm Friday and Saturday and 9:00 to 5:00 on Sunday.  That's 32 total hours of time talking about printing, looking at prints, making prints of your work, and having your prints reviewed by classmates.  It's an intensive session to say the least and with only eight students, getting the attention of Charlie or his assistant isn't a problem at all. The first half of the class is mostly lecture, as you follow along on your own computer with what Charlie does on the projector.  We covered a lot of good Photoshop techniques for enhancing images and making them more pleasing to the eye.  By Saturday afternoon we switched to working on our own images, making test prints as we went, trying to get the most out of each image.  As the images became more refined we made larger prints, all the way up to 36" x 24".  (Or even larger for wide panoramic shots)   I worked on about 12 images which is probably more than most people did, and I ended up with about 10 nice 11 x 14 images,  a few 24 x 20 images, and a large 48 x 20 panorama.   It's safe to say that I got a lot of prints.

The main part of the class revolves around his "master file" idea and the "print, evaluate, refine, reprint" workflow.  There were a lot of Photoshop techniques to help an image's contrast, color balance, etc. that were discussed and I ended up much more comfortable with Photoshop CS4 than I had been before.  (A lot of the Photoshop interface changed with CS4 and the repetition of doing all the exercises in Charlie's book really helped it become second nature.)

If you're interested in the print as the final destination for your photography and you feel like something's lacking in your prints, then I would recommend this class whole-heartedly.  It's biased toward nature photography but the concepts carry over to any sort of photography.   I happened to get lucky and find this class being offered so close to home but he also offers it in Yosemite Valley, combined with a couple days of shooting.