ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/320, EV -1.7
Very brisk morning today. One of those where the rain semi-froze as it dripped off the branches.
Month: November 2009
Thanksgiving
Posted by – November 27, 2009
ISO 1600 without Dfine noise reduction
I just wanted to take an opportunity to give thanks
To my father for introducing me to photography
To the readers of this blog who inspire me to stretch myself as a photographer and see differently
To my guides who help me every day
But most of all to my wife Peg who supports me no matter what
Thank you.
5D High ISO?
Posted by – November 26, 2009
ISO 1600, 1/40, f/2.8 at 10pm
So, one of the things I was looking forward to with the 5D was not to just use it to capture great landscapes, but to use it for street shooting as well. As some of you may remember, I tried using the 10D back in Tempe and trying to get street shots in dusk or dark resulted in a LOT of noise. So, walking back to the garage last night I figured I’d try to get a couple test images with the 5D at ISO 1600 and see what we got.
I ran this through Dfine which took out almost all the noise and then processed it in Nik Silver Efex. I really like the way this feels. There’s a little noise, sure, but not enough that it bothers me.
Off the Balcony
Posted by – November 25, 2009
Today's sunset off our deck
One thing Pittsburgh possesses is clouds. Somewhere near our part of the country the jet stream hooks to the south and drags moisture off Lake Erie and sends it our way. In the summer this means it rains a fair amount; in the winter it means we get frequent dustings of snow. In the fall, we get cloudy skies. Our family room faces west, so we can see the sun setting through the doors to our deck.
Tonight, as I was walking from the family room towards the kitchen, I saw this sunset through the trees. I didn’t have much time, so I just grabbed the 5D and took this image with the 50mm Macro. Two minutes after I got outside, the sun had faded and the light in the sky had vanished.
5D #3
Posted by – November 24, 2009
Play of light
So, one piece of fallout from shooting with the 5D is I’m looking for a ‘normal’ prime for this new beastie. I’ve been shooting with my wife’s 50mm Macro, which while a very sharp lens, focuses like molasses. Probably as designed, btw. I did some research today on Canon’s 50mm offerings, and the only one that gets consistent kudos is the 1.2 version, which is (gulp) $1400 or so. The Sigma 50mm 1.4 is liked by many, but seems to have some focussing flaws (which full frame will exacerbate). I’m leaning more and more towards the Zeiss 50mm f/2, which would give me Zeiss optics to go with my 5D sensor (which might just be a marriage made in heaven). The only downside is manual focus which shouldn’t be a problem for me at all. I’m thinking of renting one to see what it is like to handle. This seems like a real plan for me at this point, as shooting with the 50mm Macro has really felt good to me and I am really liking that field of view. Alternatively, I might rent the Zeiss 35mm and the 50mm and compare.
For me these are really exciting times.
For Ove
Posted by – November 22, 2009
A rack of bicycles made me stop
A frequent reader of this blog (Ove) often posts wonderful images of bicycles he captures in his home town. I walked past a rack of bicycles and a parked moped the other day and had to stop and try to get some images. I had to stop, Ove. You inspired me.
Lots more 5D to come. One thing this camera inspires me to do is simplify. Shoot only primes; that sort of thing. I sort of stand outside myself and try to observe my thoughts.
5D Post #2
Posted by – November 21, 2009
This image is from the same session as the first 5D walk-around. This image is more about some work I did in Color Efex than the 5D, per se. But I like this a little more.
A little work with Color Efex
The 5D is changing my shooting style a little bit. I have a number of images I’m working on, and I’ll be posting them over the next few days. It’s weird in that the camera is almost identical to my 10D in its basic functionality, but it feels so different to use that I’m going to work on being as articulate as I can about how it is different before I talk about it too much.
A new era begins
Posted by – November 18, 2009
Out the back of the Building where I work
If you look at the tags section to the right, you may notice a new camera listed there. This image is one of the first few I captured with this new member of the family. As far as digital goes, this is going to be my main ‘go-to’ camera from now on.
I bought the camera used from Paul Maxim, who had upgraded to the newer ‘Mk II’ version a while back, I mentioned at the time that if he ever decided to sell his older version, I’d be interested in buying said camera. We reached a deal, and it arrived recently.
I am going to take my time getting used to it, because it is a different picture-taking experience from the 10D. I’m not ready yet to make proclamations about it, but at first blush, I’ll say this:
- • more dynamic range than the 10D
- • ISO ratings are conservative; ISO 400 is more like ISO 600. I know Sean Reid, my #1 all time favorite web-photo site, talks about this in some detail in his essay about the camera, I experienced it first hand and LOVE this aspect of the camera. I find myself shooting it at -1/3 or -2/3 EV, which protects the highlights and gives me lots of shadow detail at the same time.
- • renders black&white beautifully
- • draws very differently than the 10D, and this is the thing that I have to get used to the most. Images from this sensor have been described as being film-like, and I do find that to be true. WHICH film is a different matter, because I don’t think it is any slide film I’ve ever used (the images are, well, gentler somehow).
I’m going to write a very detailed reaction to this camera, but this is yet to come. What I need to do right now is to thank Paul for holding the camera until I was ready for it, and going above and beyond in his delivery of it. He refused to accept payment for the camera until I had auditioned it, which just astounded both my wife and I both. Thank you Paul, and partly in reaction to that and partly because it’s overdue, I’ve added Paul’s great must-read blog to the blogroll on the right hand side of this page.
Lastly, today a moving truck loaded my things out of the storage place in Arizona and began the long trip home. I teared up, honestly, when the lady at the storage place told me that ‘they’re loading the truck right now.’ There’s a much longer story about how that all came to be, but that I think is a tale best told over a beer or two.
I heart Ken Burns
Posted by – November 16, 2009
Grand Canyon August 2008
I’m a fan of Ken Burns’ documentaries. While I already knew of Shelby Foote and had read his Civil War Trilogy years prior to seeing Burns’ Civil War Documentary (and had indeed walked the battlefields of Gettysburg and Antietam without prompting from Mr. Burns), Burns’ work has influenced me a great deal, especially in the ways I think about the United States and its history and its people. Part of the reason why has to do with the fact that basically I’m a mush. I cry at movies quite often, have been known to walk the streets until the wee hours of the morning just to enjoy the afterglow of a particularly moving performance by a talented actor (Lynn Redgrave’s performance of Joan of Arc at the Circle in the Square being but the first one that comes to mind), and am proud of the fact that these emotions are so easily triggered by artistic endeavors. Burns’ work, at its best, aims squarely at trying to elicit exactly this kind of emotion, to imbue in topics that are sometimes treated too dryly a bit of soul and emotion, and I respond in kind. He makes me think and feel.
Over the past week, Peg and I Netflixed Burns’ National Parks DVD series. I had not been a particular fan of our National Parks. While battlefields such as I mentioned above are now administered by our National Parks system, and so I have enjoyed what the service takes care of (Peg and I visited Gettysburg just last weekend and I clambered around Devil’s Den once again) I didn’t do what many of my generation did as I kid and tour Yellowstone or Glacial National Park or any of those places. I think the first time I ever really became aware of Yosemite was when I looked at Ansel’s images or read one of Galen Rowell’s books. Yeah, yeah, national parks, Old Faithful, whatever. I sorta took them for granted.
No longer.
The six-part documentary left me yearning to visit Yosemite, wishing I had spent more time at the Grand Canyon when I was there, and scheming how I could finagle a visit to Bryce, Zion, et al. Yes, even Yellowstone. But, most especially, above all else, Yosemite. And, of course, take my tripod and camera.
Burns’ work once again had my heart in my throat and affected the way I look at things I had heretofore taken for granted. Thank you, Mr. Burns.
Audition
Posted by – November 1, 2009
This weekend I was able to borrow a Canon 1Ds-Mark II body and play with it for a couple days. It is (was, I guess, there is a Mark III now) Canon’s premier digital SLR body. 16+ megapixels, full-frame, the works. This is truly a tool that a professional would use if one was to shoot with an SLR-type body and not desire to move up to medium format. It probably listed for $7k when new, and still can be found for around $5k (or so a search on Amazon revealed). This image was taken with Peg’s 50mm macro, 1/60th @ f/5.6 at ISO 800.
Well, what do you get for $7k? First off, Canon has a different approach to user-interface design for their ‘pro’ bodies than their ‘prosumer’ bodies, and I like this interface much better. I used to own an original EOS-1n film camera, and this camera operated much in the same manner. Instead of everything being in menus or sub-menus, many of the most common controls are available through ‘combo’ button activations (press button ‘a’ and button ‘b’ at the same time and you can use the wheel to adjust the ISO, for instance). It sounds more complex than the menus but in practice it isn’t. Canon moved away from this, I guess, when they had to add a picture mode dial for their consumer cameras.
You also get increased image quality. It’s impossible to see in this jpeg, but the in-focus areas of these leaves look almost holographically real in a way I’d never seen from my 10D or Peg’s 40D. Really crisp, really contrasty, very high quality. I’d love to use this in combination with a Canon ‘L’ prime or Peg’s 70-200 zoom sometime.
You also get, umm, weight. This camera is very heavy. It’s got a huge battery, and a body (like Nikon’s high-end cameras) that you can rotate 90 degrees to shoot portrait and there are standard controls on the bottom of the camera that mimic the controls on the top so that so don’t have to do that contortion to reach the shutter trigger when shooting in portrait mode. That’s a nice thing, but holy smoke I wouldn’t want to lug this around all day for a landscape shoot, I can tell you that. Really heavy. Nicely balanced, however.
Don’t get me wrong, however, it’s a very, very nice camera, easy to use, and captures wonderful images. If I was to use it for landscape work, it would be firmly perched on my tripod so at least I wouldn’t have to carry the beastie around my neck.
