Canon 7D, EOS Flashes, Lenses, Canon, Canon 60D, Nikon

The Canon 6D Revolution

This weekend, I met with “Jimbo.” Jimbo is a geek, always the latest… Jimbo just bought, a week ago, a brand new Canon 6D. He explained how switching from his Canon 7D to his new 6D changed his outlook on photography. Going back to a full frame is so fantastic, the bokeh, the high ISO and the low noise… Everything worked except that he had to get rid of his 17-55 f/2.8, which is an APS-C lens.

How can we be so stupid to use APS-C cameras… BTW, I use APS-C, I love it and I must be stupid! Anybody with a “real brain” must immediately switch to a full frame camera. And to show me, he took a photo and instead of “chimping” on the LCD at the back of his Canon 6D, he pulled his iPad from his bag and showed me the photo on the iPad.

Now, it's my turn to be blown away and not because of the low noise, the high ISO or the bokeh but by just what he didn't do. He did nothing and “by magic” the image appeared on the iPad.

2013 and Your Copyrights

2013 is only 2½ weeks away, if we make it pass the Mayan end of the world on 21-Dec-2012 aka 21/12/12 or 12/12/21. As a photographers, I have a list to prepare for the new 2013 year. One of the item on my list is to update my copyrights. My problems is that I need to change the copyright ©2012 to ©2013 in too many places:

  • My website in the footers
  • My cameras
  • My various software
  • My contracts

What used to take 15 minutes now is almost a full hour.

1.

Holding a Nikon D600

Older man with Nikon D600 This man was all bend when he was walking and shuffling his feet as he walked in front of me. Then he bright the camera to his eyes, he straightened up (mostly) started walking (not shuffling) like he lost 10 years just by bringing the camera to his eyes.This is not a good way to hold the lens. He is holding it sideways instead of supporting it from underneath.He has a brand new D600 with what I think is the new Nikon 24-85mm lens.reifel-20121028-6187.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Holding a Nikon D600   click on image for gallery

This gentleman is trying is his brand, brand new Nikon D600. It's Nikon's latest full frame camera with their new 24-85mm lens. Before placing the camera up to his eyes, he was walking like an “old man.” This gentleman was making tiny steps. He wasn't walking, he was shuffling his feet like if he was wearing a pair old slippers. He lifted the camera to his eyes and suddenly he started walking, almost like he suddenly was 20 years younger.

Fill-in Flash and the Shutter Speed

Canon, like all other camera manufacturers, has a flash mode to balance the flash with the ambient light, aka the fill-in flash. You need to have the flash in eTTL and the camera in Av mode. When using the flash, the aperture controls the power of the flash and the shutter speed controls the ambient light.

What is a Professional Camera?

I was showing some photos and I got the usual “compliment”

You must have a good camera.

What made this compliment different is that the person kept on with:

It must be a professional camera.

The standard answer is “it's not the camera, it's the photographer that makes the photographs”, but we all know that it's not true even among photographers.

Canon 7D: AF Tracking response

I like to procrastinate, but I hide my procrastination by calling it research. So I can waste my time researching on the web instead of doing the things I know I should be doing but… Sometimes, I find nuggets of information like today's when sometimes the Canon 7D has problems following the subject in the frame, but this only happens in Zone-AF or in the 19-points AF.

Canon: Setting Flash Exposure Compensation

In the Canon system, you can set the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) either on the back of the Speedlite flash or in the camera menu system. And they can be active at the same time.

And that's where the problems start. To avoid confusion, you should use one or the other place to set the flash exposure compensation not both. Why not both? Because the effect depends on the order that the flash exposure compensation was set.

  • If the flash exposure compensation is first set on the flash, then you can't set it in the camera.
  • If the flash exposure compensation is first set on the camera, and then you also set it on the flash, the flash setting will override the flash exposure compensation set on the camera.

2012 - Nikon's Imaging Sales are Up

Tis the season for financial results. All companies traded on “real” stock markets must publish their financial results and they also must provide guidance. Guidance means what their outlook is. Will it be better? Will it get worst? And by how much. If they get caught lying or the outlook does not materialize just like naughty boys they get penalized by penalties, by jail or by the stock price going down.

Canon reported sales down for the third quarter of 2012. But Canon is mostly a business office company and cameras/imaging representing only a third of the business.

Nikon just reported their third quarter 2012 financial results and Nikon is doing very well. Nikon is divided into 3 companies:

Why Are My Colors Flat?

Why are my colors flat when they looked so good on the review LCD of the camera? The photos looked fantastic for about 5 seconds in Lightroom, then they became flat.

It's complicated because they are so many variables:

The Color Spaces

There are 3 main color spaces for us photographers:

  1. sRGB, the smallest color space. This is the basic color space in photography. And, it's not fully supported by the vast majority of the screens. Even the New iPads with the Retina Display do not support the full sRGB color space (color saturation doesn't make color space).
  2. Adobe RGB(1998), a color space introduced in 1998 by Adobe for desktop publishing to cover all the colors possibles on CMYK printers.
  3. ProPhoto RGB, a color space developed by Kodak. It is currently the widest color space in use for photography. It was developed for the photo uses. All “serious” photo editors do their edits/calculations in the ProPhoto RGB color space, then they display/output in the appropriate color space (screen/printer/file).

2012 - Canon's Imaging Sales are Down 7%

As all companies listed on the stock market, companies have to release their financial statements every 3 month and what's the outlook. Canon did that on 24-Oct-2012. Here are some extracts that think are “important” about Canon's imaging unit. Canon's imaging sales are down 7.3% for the last 3 month ended on 30-Sep-2012 but imaging sales are still up 6% for the 9 month ended on 30-Sep-2012.

  • Despite efforts to achieve sales growth with the competitively priced EOS Digital Rebel series along with the EOS 5D Mark III and EOS 60D advanced-amateur models, sales volumes of interchangeable-lens digital cameras decreased from the year-ago period due to a delayed new-product launch.
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