D3 samples

Seems like new Nikon CMOS sensors are finally caught up with Canon on noise at high ISO.
I guess that'll make the competition intense and i hope will force canon to release the new EOS 5D mark II at lower price. Hehe.


ISO3200


ISO6400

Check more of these photos here..
http://www.nikon-image.com/jpn/products/camera/slr/digital/d3/sample.htm

Canon EF 100mm f2.0

I swapped my EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens with my friend EF 100mm f/2 USM.
here are some test shots..

Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing

This new technology presented at siggraph 2007 is beyond COOL..
Many possibilities and uses.
See the video to believe.



Paper on this technique

EXIF Firefox extension

A few people asked me about what kind of camera I am using and the settings when I take the photos.
If you don't know it already, you can check EXIF information embedded in the JPG file to see the data.
Most of the digital camera saves out EXIF data in the jpeg file.. but sometime , that information is stripped out when trying to re-save in other programs. Most of my photos have EXIF data intact. And there are many ways to view them.
Best way to view them in Firefox is to use this Firefox extension.
Just install the FF extension.. restart firefox.. and right-click on my photos ( in large views) .. choose properties from menu.. that's it.
Get it here

Usage

After installing FxIF, simply right click on an image, then click "Properties". The EXIF data will be displayed in the properties window.

My favorite Photo of the Day

Black Rail, originally uploaded by !• Fabien Barrau •!.

I will start to share the favorite photo I found on the net everyday.
Hope these photos inspire you and may be you'll even learn a trick or two.
Feel free to post comment on your favorites too.

For today. i chose this nice B+W image from Fabien Barrau from Flickr.
I like the strong contrast and vignetting. And simple one point perspective as composition. It won first place in Flickr "I think This is Art BW award".

Note: this is not taken by me :)

The Lenses and Me

I know all the photographers are more or less crazy about lens. And it's for good reason. I think they are probably the first thing you should invest. Camera body is important but without good lens, its useless. And you can keep the lens for many years but the camera body will keep changing esp in this digital day and age. So. I'm just gonna share about the lenses I have, how I use them and pros/ cons of them. Ok .. first of all , this post is not technical reviews about them. If you wanna know more about the sharpness and lens chart, you can find many information from the manufacturers site. And there's Fred Miranda's lens review site. A very good place to read lens reviews. But here, I will just talk about the pros and cons based on my use. Different photographers will have different needs and taste.
I'll start with my canon prime lens.

1. Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM
This lens have many unique attributes. Its the speediest(brightest) , sharpest and lightest lens I have. And its the only prime lens I have. I use it on many subjects and its used to be my main lens of choice . Butnow I am using more Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC for its flexibility.
I had EF 50mm f/1.8 before I bought this lens. That lens was really good value for $$ but It's lacking in USM, 5 blades diaphragm (bad bokeh), cheap plastic construction. That's why I upgraded to this f1.4 version. And I think it's a good choice.

Things I like about this lens;

• Fast f1.4 aperture allow me to shoot in any possible low light situation.
• Fast and quiet USM focusing.
• Super smooth Bokeh and depth of field
  
• Very light , Easy to travel with
• Super sharp. Probably the sharpest non L lens.
  

Things I dont like about this lens;

• minimun focusing distant could be closer
• 50mm on crop body like EOS 30D is a little long. Not suitable for tight indoor portrait, landscape etc. That hinder me from using it exclusively as a normal lens. Currently thinking of trying EF 35mm f/2.0 or EF 28mm f/1.8 USM. 35mm f/2 is very reasonable price around US$200 so i think I'll give it a try. I enjoy the fixed focal length aspect of using prime lens. It forces me to be more creative on framing and composition.

Some of my favorite shots with this lens.

This one is shot at very very low light with ISO 1600

This shot is very tightly cropped. Hence look a little blurry.

I will continue on these lenses later.

2. Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC
3. Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 EX DC
4. Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 Macro LD Di

but I already wrote quite detailed review on Canon EFS 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 Kit lens here and here.

Canon 40D to be weather sealed?

According to some discussion and photos I found , 40D may be weather sealed after all? Or at least partially? It is a good news if it is true.. and seems like it's gonna have a newer shoe-mount just like 1D mark-III to mate with 580ex II for better fit and sealing.

Looking at these pictures from the Northlight site . it does seems to have some sort of weather sealing .. around the buttons and the new hot-shoe mount .. just like 1D mark III..
Lets wait and see..

EOS 40D pics leaked?

I found these bunch of photos on the net on the highly rumored Canon EOS 40D. The successor to my EOS 30D. There has been many rumors of this camera and I am sure its just a matter of time Canon make it an official release. Some leaked /speculated specs includes 10MP sensor, Anti-dust system and may be Live-view mode.
So far these specs didnt make me excited. I used to have EOS400D which has 10MP sensor and anti-dust feature. To me, the difference between 10MP and 8MP is pretty minor but for those who wanna crop or blow their photo very big may wanna go 10MP. So far, anti-dust feature is more of a gimmick and didnt seems to work very well. If canon made improvements from 400D , that'll be a welcome change though the effectiveness is yet to be seen.


I'd personally want to see weather seals in 40D if Canon wanna compete with Nikon D200 and upcoming D300? But most rumors doesn't seems to state that.


On this pic, the custom settings C1, C2 and C3 seems interesting configuration. It'll be a good feature but so far I can live without that. I guess professional photogs who shoots events, wedding or wild-life will be beneficial from those custom setting modes.

Many people asked me why I bought my 30D two months ago when 40D rumors are rampant?
I think firstly price. Current 30D prices are really sweet. Thanks to the 40D rumor. There's no way 40D will be so cheap when it launch. And second, I was trying to predict the 40D features ( like 10MP and anti-dust) and realized wont be much use for me. I rather save the $$ and spend it on the good lenses.

When I am in need to upgrade my 30D in future, I think I can grab a 2nd hand EOS 5D on the cheap. Cause there are many rumors about 5D markII coming out soon.

Well, so far 40D is still a rumor. Just have to wait and see what's the real deal when Canon officially announce it.

UV filters (and how to choose them)

Usually, people get a UV filter to protect their lens from getting scratched and damaged. They serve that purpose nicely as they didn't really affect the picture quality. So you can put it permanently on the lens.. Or do they?

I now have a few lens in my collections but when I buy UV filters, I didn't pay much attention. I was not totally ignorant about it to get a cheapo generic ones though.. So I bought mostly the Hoya recommended by the shop.

Exception is that on my EF 50mm f1.4, there's a canon UV filter. I bought it off B&H together with the lens as I believed Canon will made the good filter for their lens. It may only half true.

I faced the problem when I was trying to capture the gig at the Sandwiches I posted earlier. In the low light condition of the pub, the filter was acting like a focusing screen.. I can see another image of spots and other lights faintly on different areas than the real image. Its totally distracting and its spoiling the image. In the end, I had to take off the filter and took the photos to eliminate those reflections.

When I got home, I started to look more closely into my UV filters I have. Most of them doesn't seems to have multi-coating.

Well, I should have known earlier. I was wearing glasses since I was 12. And I hated those early days when my glasses didn't have multi-coating.. Its very hard to see at night because of those extra reflections and glares. And when I was driving at night I have to pay extra attention because I can barely see the road when there's another car's head light or even bright lamp posts in my view. Only when I got my first multi-coated glasses, I can see clearly at night.

Its the same problem with the filters. I was putting a non-coated type UV filters and they are causing reflections and flares. You wont notice much until you started to shoot in very low light like me or pointing at a bright light source.

Here's some photo I took with Canon UV filter in front of my 50mm lens and without filter.
I boosted gamma a little in Photoshop to highlight the problem.

with canon UV filter

no filter ( bare lens)

So if you're getting a UV filter to protect your lens, try to get a good one if you intend to keep them permanently on the lens. Hoya made good ones and cheap ones. Those cheapest green color boxed Hoya filters are not multi-coated. I think you should get Hoya HMC Pro-1 for better quality protection. Or get B+W filters. Only thing is that they are expensive. But hey, that's why they said "You get what you paid for". I think its true here. well.. mostly..

I have a Marumi DHG UV filter for my Kit lens.. I bought it cheaply with my Kit lens. But when i check it , it have multi-coating on it. So, I put in on my lens and took this photo.

with Marumi DHG UV filter

As you can see, it's pretty good .. there's still a faint reflection.. but its not too bad.. And for a filter that cost NZ$20, its really good.

Well.. that's my findings on the UV filters.. I hope its useful for you. Untill I get a Heliopan or B+W one, I cant tell how good they are.. but I'll post again when I got one.

Cheers.

Sigma EX 10-20mm f4-5.6 vs Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 mini review

I have been thinking of getting a wide angle lens for my camera for awhile. There were not much choice. EF-S 10-22mm seems to be really good as i borrowed my friend Pete's one and played with it. It's a very solid lens. I was trying to convince him to sell it to me as he's not using it much but he didn't. :)
Buying a new Canon 10-22mm is no easy matter . Its US$700 affair. So i was looking around and found a few alternatives. Sigma 10-20mm , Tokina 12-24mm and Tamron 11-19mm. Out of all that, Sigma seems to have the widest focal length, on par with Canon. And it only retails at US$450-500. I was unsure about the Sigma quality but I found this amazing photographer from Flickr who uses the Sigma and producing breath-taking photos. So when i found someone selling one at Trademe (NZ eBay equiv), I bought it.

After I took this photo as a test and posted in office Photo mailing list, a few people asked me how it compare with Canon. So I decided to borrow Pete's Canon and did a few shots with it. Unfortunately, the weather is really bad that day and it start to drizzle, so I only manged to take a few shots. Here is the results.
Here is the results of the test. I took the same office building with my 30D with AV mode on my tripod and just swap the lens.
Two interesting thing is that Canon may be 0.5mm wider or Sigma is a bit short. And my 30D keep metering the scene more brighter with Sigma. (like 1/3-2/3 stop).

Both shot at f4 ( I shot canon in f4 for its favor, not wide-open)
Click on the image to see it bigger.

I can clearly see canon has more vignetting even though its not wide open.

Now at f8 for both.
Click on the image to see it bigger.

Now time to compare sharpness. 100% crops are here.

I can say Sigma is sharper in both corner and center, even wide open at f4. Look at the top 100% crop of the building . Even Canon is stopped down a little to f4, it cant match Sigma's sharpness. The rest are pretty much the same results.
In fact, I shot a few in between f-stops for both lens and it shows Sigma get really sharp by just stopping to f5 and it also clean up the vignetting a lot.

Canon suffer from strong vignetting till f8 but it can be corrected in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Conclusion, I am very pleased with my Sigma and its a fine lens. Its cheaper , sharper , lighter and smaller , comes with petal shape Lens hood and a nice pouch. I cant ask for more. But I am sure Pete wont be so happy to read this post. Hehe.

Cheers.

The EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 II aka Kit Lens Part 2

Most of the photographers and viewers are intrigued by the close-up nature of macro photography.. But the problem is that macro lens are usually expensive.
So here I am gonna talk about the macro capability of the Kit lens.
Right out of the box, the Kit lens can focus down to 0.9 feet at 55mm. Thats pretty close and already giving a good magnification. I then use cheap +2 and +4 close-up filters in front and this is what I get.

Normal Size ( the whole pot is like 6")


Kit Lens and +2,+4 filters


I am not sure what kind of magnification ratio I am getting but I can say its pretty good. Only downside is you loose the infinity focusing ability. But for me, its a small price to pay. For a cheap Kit Lens + Cheap close-up filters, what can I complain?
Lets compare Kit lens with real macro lens Canon EF 100mm f2.8 Macro USM.

EOS 400D , Kit Lens + filters













EOS 5D, EF 100mm f2.8 macro (my friend Brad's gear)












They both are shot at the same lighting condition. I cant tell them apart easily. But I can say that EF 100mm f2.8 is better in sharpness and color.
Well it's more than 5x the price of the Kit lens and I am happy with my Kit Lens results.

here is the real close-up of the strawberries with my Kit Lens.


So, for a poor photographer like me, Kit lens and close-up filters will get you into the world of macro photography without having to rob a bank. :)
To get the most sharpness and DOF, set your aperture to f8 or higher. f11 + recommended.
And with the proper use of strobes, you can get amazing macro results from the Kit Lens.

Note: You can click on the pictures for larger views .. Cheers..

(PS. This is the close-up filters I was talking about. Mine is a cheapo Marumi brand. Cost less than NZ$70 and can be easily found on eBay and such)

The EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 II aka Kit Lens

Today I am really bored. The reason, I sold my 400D body to replaced with EOS 30D. Well it's only arriving next week. I know what I've said earlier about the 30D and 5D but I got a really good price to upgrade. I was about to buy BG-E3 grip for my Canon for $200 but for just another $250, I could get EOS 30D and then I decided to get it.
So, it's back to those boring and lazy weekends I always had in Wellington. Just laid back and listening music.
Ok ok, enough of my boring weekend life here..
But here's my thought on the kit lens I always thought of it as a POS.
Even after many shots with my trusty EF 50mm f1.8 and newer EF50mm f1.4, I always had to use my Kit lens for wide angle shots and lately, Macro shots (combined with cheap NZD60 +2,+4 close-up filters).
It usually gave me uninspiring soft and dark images but when it's used properly, it has plenty of potential for a cheapie lens.
To prove that, both of my photos that got into Flickr explore are shot with this cheapie lens.

It's pretty sharp and constrasty as long as you shoot above f8 and with plenty of light or with strobes. Not bad for a sub $100 lens. I also starting to enjoy it's light weight so that I can carry anywhere in my back-pack and I dont even have to worry too much about spoiling it.

For this reasons, I'll hold back my priority to replace it with a fast f2.8 standard zoom lens. Contenders are either Sigma 24-70 or Tamron 17-50 f2.8 or similar. But I will focus on getting my strobe setup more complete and portable.

Probably getting a super-clamp and a tripod and also umbrella and light-stand soon.
The good lighting is better than good glass in all situation. And lighting is generally cheaper to get. With ST-E2 and 2 or more of 430ex / 580ex (with the help of super-clamps) will give me total portability and flexibility on my strobe setup.

Just my lazy weekend thoughts.. :)

Note: All prices I mentioned are in NZ$.

Canon Vs Nikon

I know I know.. I am not asking for a flame war here .. Just that I am sharing some of my thoughts over this Canon vs Nikon issue.

It started this way, as you may aware I bought my first DSLR, Canon EOS 400D (Rebel XTi) a month ago. And been shooting lots and lots.
But I quickly grown over it. My main gripe are the tiny grip , cheap plastic construction, no dedicated bracket button and slow fps. To make it worse, I just found out most Canon bodies wont do wireless flash where as Nikon is doing it (D80, D200 etc) out of the box.

So I was just thinking of my future upgrade.
Seems like I don't have much choice. In Canon side, I can either go 30D or 5D. I like 5D so much for its full frame sensor alone but the price is a little out of reach for me. 30D is an old camera. Its just 20D with some face lift. Same sensor and features except bigger LCD etc. It doesn't even have some features of my 400D eg. 10MP sensor, anti-dust etc. And also there are many rumors of 40D coming out soon. So it may not be the right time to get 30D.

That's when I start to look into Nikon side. I was a Nikon SLR user before. I used to have F50, F60, F70, F80 and tried F90x a few times. I sold them all back in 2000 to get my first digital camera Canon G2. Anyway, on Nikon side, there's D80 and D200. D80 is pretty much in the same league as my 400D albeit a little better. But D200 seems to have all the cool stuffs I want. The weather seals, more dedicated buttons, more rugged body, better ergonomics, faster FPS (though same as 30D), wireless flash control etc.

But after digging deeper and based on my own experiences with both sides, here's what I concluded.

Bodies
Nikon surely seems to build better bodies. Even my flatmate's Nikon D50 is better built than my 400D. And D200 surely beat 30D in that area.

Controls
Nikon also have more dedicated buttons than Canon. eg. Bracketing, WB , Flash mode etc.

Metering and Flash
This is in Nikon's court. 3D matrix metering, matrix fill-flash and built-in wireless flash commander.

Lens
I think this is where it hit me on Canon side. I am not talking about the optical quality here though. I am sure both side makes awesome glasses. But even as far as I remember in 35mm days, I am always disappointed by how slow the AF on Nikon compare to sleek USM lenses of Canon. But now Nikon has a few choices of AF-S lens to compete. The problem is they are much higher price than normal Nikkor lens. For canon, most of the lens are USM and its pretty good advantage. eg. EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens, EF 100mm f2.8 macro and EF 85mm f1.8 lens are within my reach (less than $500) yet offers USM. For Nikon, most of the early prime lens not AF-S.

Sensor and Image Quality
I think this one goes out to Canon. It's pretty known fact that CMOS sensors on Canon produce less noise hence better low-light shooting. I've been shooting ISO 800 and 1600 without much hesitation. But those images I can get from Nikon seems to have higher noise above ISO 400. Not sure about the in-camera processing engines but Canon market them as DIGIC II and they seems to offer better constrast and saturation to my eyes. And only Canon offer full-frame sensors now. This is also favorable to me cos it allow even better noise levels and shallow DOF for pretty portraits. It also allow to use more wide angle lenses.

Verdict
So what's the verdict? Depends on the user I guess. Both have different pros and cons. For me, I think I am gonna have to wait for the new 30D replacement body. Or save the $$ and get EOS 5D later. I just wish that Canon would try to build better body in lower end camera (weather seals), more dedicated buttons and ergonomics. They can build very rugged body wit full weather seals in EOS 1D series and it's just marketing decision for them to make it to lower end camera like 5D. With pressure from cameras like Pentax K10D and Nikon 200D, I think the new Canon model will have better ergonomics and built.

Well. This is it. My humble opinions on Canon vs Nikon. So what do you think? Feel free to comment.

EF 50mm f1.4

Woohoo .. I got my new toy today.. Its Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Lens for my camera EOS 400D.
I am very happy with the lens . Fast and silent. And much better built than my EF 50mm f1.8 II.



Adam was just putting on the party 3D glasses in the office .. I snapped this as I called his name and he just turned around. I would have missed focus with the f1.8 lens cos its pretty slow to focus.
f1.4 is much more expensive but I believe its a better investment and a great lens.
Now I am gonna have to sell my beloved f1.8 lens cause I cant keep both lens. I have to make some $ back and get a 430ex flash.
This is my new interest. Creative flash photography..
The desire to shoot with flash is so strong that I test this shot with on camera flash. I used my Kit lens EF-S 18-55mm due to its short minimum focusing distant.



More photos to come with the new lens..
Watch this space.