New Canon Stuff Tomorrow

Canon is introducing a bunch of new mid-range and high-end photography gear today. Well, tomorrow really, since it's still Wednesday where I am. I'll include some links to the DP Review (owned by Amazon) press release pages. The list includes the new 60-D, a low-end L-series 70-300 variable aperture lens, a really neat looking 8 - 15 mm fisheye zoom, revamped 300 and 400 mm f/2.8 lenses, new versions of the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters, and an announcement that new 500 and 600 mm f/4.0 lenses are on the way.

Here are my quick thoughts on each of these, with a bit of a Product Marketing eye:

• 60-D: It had to happen sometime. In fact, the 7-D should have been called the 60-D. After the 7-D, I guess this is now the bridge between the old 20/30/40/50 lineup and the Rebel line. SD cards. This camera might be popular, but it sure had better be a lot cheaper than the 7-D if they want to sell many of them.
• 70-300 variable aperture lens: Is this just an upgraded version of the wildly popular 70-300 series? Is this for people who want an L-lens without really investing in top-quality glass? How much will it cost?
• 8 - 15 mm fisheye zoom: Sweet. This lens is going to be really fun. I love my 15mm fisheye, which this is apparently replacing. It's obviously not as small and pocketable but it sounds like a great lens.
• revamped 300 and 400 mm f/2.8 lenses: Who was asking for this? Why do this?
• new versions of the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters: Seriously? Who asked for this?
• announcement that new 500 and 600 mm f/4.0 lenses are on the way: I sure hope they don't have any backstock of these to clear out now! Again, who's asking for this?

I think all big white glass from Canon can be divided into two categories:

1. The 200-400 mm f/4.0 zoom
2. Everything Else

Is the new 200-400/4.0 zoom out yet? You know, the one that Canon should release to match the Nikon lens that is so popular people will sell their entire Canon setup to get? Not yet? OK, well, wake me up when that comes out.

Embracing the iPhone in small steps

Thanks to a hand-me-down 32 GB iPhone 3GS, I'm giving the iPhone another try. Things are working out a lot better this time around, even though I'm still kicking and screaming while resisting being sucked all the way into the Apple Reality Distortion Field. I've got an iPhone but I haven't activated the phone service with AT&T so for me it's really just a little tiny tablet computer. In my last blog post I ranted against using the iPad as a content _creation_ device, but it's clear that it makes an excellent content _consumption_ device. And for the purposes of this blog, that means viewing photos. It turns out the iPod is a pretty cool little photo viewer. The biggest drawback is obviously the screen size but the quality of the photos (sharpness, color, etc.) seems to be pretty good.

I don't use iPhoto and the machine I sync my iPhone on is not the machine that my photos live on so there are a few little hoops to jump through but it's not bad. The saving grace is that Apple gives you the option of syncing a directory hierarchy of photos to the device instead of syncing from iPhoto: First I tell iTunes to sync photos from the "iPhonePhotos" directory on my laptop's desktop. Then I just mount that directory over the local network and export groups of photos from Lightroom in whatever structure I want and iTunes takes care of the rest. It's not as cumbersome as it may sound. Yes, MobileMe would probably make it easier, but oh well. I'm pretty happy with this solution.

Next time you see me, ask to see some photos on the iPhone!

Camera Bits (Photo Mechanic) President describes why the iPad is a non-starter for photographers as an editing platform

There are a lot of photographers that saw the iPad and immediately thought it would make an excellent mobile platform for downloading pictures from a camera, quick editing, and uploading to the Web. Well, there are a lot of reasons why this isn't so. The two main reasons are power and openness: 1) Power: Photo editing requires a lot of computing horsepower. 20 Megapixel, 16 bit images are BIG, and giving you instant feedback when you move those brightness sliders around takes a ton of computing which the poor little iPad/iPod/iPhone just doesn't have. Also, since the hardware is so hobbled with respect to I/O, you have trouble just getting your photos onto the device.

2) Openness: Assuming hardware power wasn't a problem you would still be up against Apple's stance about app development in the iPad ecosystem. As Dennis Walker pointed out in his letter below, "the iPad is meant for the consumption of media, not the production of media content." Apple won't let you read from flash cards and they won't let you access the filesystem. Combined with the threat of having your app pulled if it becomes too full-featured (a full-featured app might be pulled for duplicating Apple functionality), and there's really no way to expect a serious photo application on the platform.

These have always been my thoughts and now Dennis Walker, the President of software company Camera Bits has written a blog entry saying just as much. You can read his blog entry here.

He goes into more detail than I could but his essay mirrors my thoughts exactly. I'm amazed how excited people are getting about tablet computing. I'm a firm believer in the laptop and I really wish Apple would make a netbook. But an iPad isn't the right tool.

Canon 10-22mm wide-angle zoom lens is for sale

Since upgrading to the Canon 5-D mkII last year, I've been planning to phase out my reduced frame (EF-S mount) lenses. I just picked up the 17-40 mm wide angle zoom which means the 10-22 EF-S lens is ready for a new home. I've found I really enjoy the wide angle view and this is one of my favorite focal ranges. This is always the second lens I'll take when I go somewhere, after a more medium length "walk around" lens. Different photographers are drawn to different things and I find I'm drawn to wide angles. This is also a good lens to make panoramas out of, by taking a single wide shot and then cropping it down to a 2 by 1 aspect ratio, or even a 3 x 1.

Keep in mind that 10-22 on a reduced frame (APS-C, or 1.6x crop) sensor is equivalent to 16-35mm on a "full frame" sensor. So the 17-40 is almost the same lens but not quite as wide. The angle of view is almost 90 degrees in the horizontal direction which means you can stand in the corner of a room and take a picture of the whole thing - sometimes including all four walls.

This lens has been well cared for, but not babied. It was purchased two days before a trip to Burning Man, where it was taped up and sealed pretty well. I've carried it a lot of places and it shows some light scuffing, but that's because it's actually been used. (It also went to Jamaica and Vietnam.) It's always had a filter attached on the front for protection and it works 100% as far as I know and has never gotten wet.

The current price at B & H is $720 after rebate and I'm asking $550. That's about 25% off.

Email me at bjohns@brian-johns.com if you're interested.

New Camera RAW algorithms for 2010 (in Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5)

One of the new features of the upcoming Lightroom 3 and the just-released Photoshop CS5 is the new Camera RAW 6.0 module I've recently started playing with it and the results are Amazing.

Some background:

RAW processing software is the software that does development from RAW files to something you can edit and share. (TIFFs or JPGs) The algorithms that go into RAW conversion software are complex and somewhat secret, since the quality of RAW conversion is a selling point for different software manufacturers. Camera makers like Canon and Nikon make software to process their own RAW files and software makers like Apple and Adobe make software that reads the RAW files of multiple manufacturers' cameras.

I've never used Nikon's RAW software but Canon's software (free with any camera that shoots RAW) makes excellent images but is horrible to use. Most photographers use a tool from a third party that does organization and sorting, as well as the basic image processing. Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture are the two most popular choices.

Potential downside: When you convert your whole photographic life to one of these tools you pretty much have to buy into their RAW processing algorithms. Part of the appeal of tool is the smooth workflow that comes from "development" features being built in to the tool you use for sorting, ranking, and organizing. Both tools allow for external processing engines but it's a really clunky, inelegant solution, so very few people do it.

What this really means is that the chosen tool and processing chain (Adobe vs. Apple vs. Capture One, etc.) really affects the look of your images, as much as the choice of camera, choice of monitor, and choice of paper for printing. By using Lightroom I'm really locking myself in to Adobe's view of my RAW files, which means I hope they do a good job for me. My whole imaging workflow depends on it!

Adobe Camera RAW 6.0:

With the release of Lightroom 3 (now in extended Beta) and Photoshop CS5 (released a couple weeks ago), Adobe has made a huge jump in the quality of RAW conversion, especially for shots taken at high ISO in lower light. The difference is so striking that I've been going back to older photos I took a few years ago and looking at them with Lightroom 3 and marveling at how much better they look. (One of the advantages to shooting RAW is you can easily go back and "redevelop" photos with newer technology.)

I don't think I'm exaggerating here when I say there's at least a 1.5 stop improvement with my high-ISO darker files. In other words, I can now develop a low-light shot taken at ISO 6400 and it will look BETTER than a shot taken at ISO 2000 used to look. I can't understate how huge this is for people that take photos in low-light, like at parties or concerts. It's not outrageous for people to spend a lot of money on newer cameras and faster glass to get better low-light photos - it was one of the reasons I upgraded to the 5-D mkII. Upgrading to newer processing algorithms is like getting a newr, better camera for way less money. Plus, it works retroactively on my older shots! How cool is that?

Adobe points out that their older algorithms are based on their RAW work in 2003 and a lot has changed in 2010. One of the byproducts of the new algorithms is they take more time as they apply mathematical techniques that were either not developed 7 years ago or were deemed too slow. That's fine by me - computers are always getting faster. When you find an image you like you're willing to wait a couple seconds for it to come out.

I remember back when I first got into photography with my Digital Rebel. It had an option to shoot RAW files but the workflow was so slow that I didn't usually do it. It was too painful to deal with sorting all these files (before thumbnails on RAW files worked in MacOS) and do these one-by-one conversions in Canon's Digital Photo Professional, especially on the 800 MHz G4 laptop I had at the time. The process was so inconvenient that I just stopped doing it and shot most of my stuff in JPG. There are a few shots I really like from that time period but all I have now is an edited jpg that I made for an online gallery. No original to reprocess!

So anyway,

So anyway, that's the skinny for now. If you're shooting a camera that can make RAW files but you've been disappointed by how well the low-light, high ISO shots turn out, give them another try with the new version of Lightroom and Photoshop - both of which have a free 30 day trial. You might be blown away by the different is quality visible in your existing shots.

My first experience with the PocketWizard Flex

I recently picked up a pair of the new PocketWizard units that do E-TTL with a Canon speedlight. Essentially, you put one of these on your camera's hotshoe and one on the the flash and then the flash and the camera act as if they were directly attached. You can move the flash wherever you want and the auto-metering "just works" and the exposure is supposedly all taken care of. You can even dial the flash compensation up and down on the camera and the flash does the right thing. That's the idea, at least.

So, I went back to Florida for another party and experimented with putting a gelled softbox (about 10 inches wide) over the flash and holding it a few feet away to try to add a little color to the scene. If you had seen any photos from the last photoshoot you would remember that the venue is pretty plain looking. Adding a little color to each shot from the side really adds a some punch, and what says "party" more than colored lights? Who cares if there are colored lights in the cafeteria line?

The way E-TTL works is there's a pre-flash that fires right before the shutter trips and the camera uses this pre-flash to figure out how much power to use for real when the picture is actually being taken.It turns out the the exposure meter is not equally sensitive to all colors of light, so with some colors the flash would be way too string and other colors the flash would be too weak. For really mild colors it was pretty much dead on though.

The system clearly works although there are some quirks. First of all is the range. It's well known by the company that some flashes emit huge amounts of RF interference which really cuts the range. I found that I could get 20 feet pretty reliably but that was about it. There are PocketWizard-supplied RF shields you can put around your flash to block out the badness, but that seems really awkward. (I've got one on order, so I'll let you know how it turns out.)

In conclusion, it was a great experiment. I look forward to using the system for more conventional, non-party uses in the future. If there were some sort of technology that allowed me to share pictures with you on this blog, I'd show you just how exciting the party looked, but alas, that technology hasn't been invented yet.

Until next time...