Canon

Canon Cameras

1Dx vs D4: The Silly Season

Now that Canon has started shipping the new Canon 1Dx, we start to have the silly “mine’s better than yours.” Some “big name” (fill in the blanks) evaluated which camera is better by testing them at ISO insane. Those are high ISO that I have never used, ISO so high that almost nobody uses. It's like evaluating cars but only when the engine is revving at the red line…

Nikon D4 Canon 1Dx

Canon 7D: Shutter Count vs Battery Count

“Jimbo”, a friend of mine just bought an almost new Canon 7D for $1,275 which is $300 less than the full list price in Canada and $120 less than the “regular” street price. The camera had only 481 clicks. At least that's what the sales guy told Jimbo, his real name is Richard but everybody calls him “Jimbo.” Then Jimbo came to see me and asked me what I thought about it. The camera did look used, not too bad, but definitely a lot more than the 481 exposures claimed. He bought it from a local dealer that showed him the number of exposure:

Battery Menu

Battery Menu

Micro Focus Adjustment Revisited

I was in the Eastern Arctic. It's a very harsh and rough environment. It's cold, it's windy, it's dry, it's windy, it's dusty, (did I say that it's very windy with a very cold wind from the North Atlantic?), very wide temperature difference... There is a reason why professional bodies are so much more expensive than "regular" cameras. The sealing, the weather proofing is very expensive with Canon and Nikon cameras.

Canon 7D: The Perfect Focus

I took about 70 photos and in spite of the very difficult conditions all of them are in "perfect" focus.

Eepeebee carving a drum dancer

Eepeebee carving a drum dancer, Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

First some technical information:

  1. I asked for Eepeebee's permission, which he gave me.
  2. We are in the middle of June in the Eastern Arctic and it's cold, around 3°C or 36°F.
  3. It's very dusty, sand...

Canon: Bracketing / HDR

I'm not a fan of the HDR look (High Dynamic Range). HDR converts the 3, 5 7 or 9 images into one 32 bit data file that eventually gets translated into a 16 bit image. There is currently no output device, screen or printer, that supports 32 bit.

I use bracketing a lot, but not for HDR. I use the bracketing for "fusing" the images into a photograph. Fusing does not involve the 32 bit "thing." It just finds the best pixels from the stack and uses that pixel.

Dalbergia Wood + Fine Objects http://www.dalbergia-nigra.com/Federico Méndez-Castro of Dalbergia Wood + Fine Objects makes wood sculptures and wood furniture. He's located on Granville Island in Vancouver, BC, where he moved his studio. The studio is on Railspur Alley. It's named Railspur because the lane used to be a small branch line.Here's his studio.All of his

Dalbergia Wood Workshop   click on image for gallery

This is the "fusion look", my "trademark look." There is no PhotoShop involved in this photograph. Look at the details, especially the shadows under the work bench.

Canon Bracketing Rules

Burst Rate vs Frames per Second

Many people confuse Burst Rate with Frames per Second (fps) speeds:

  • Burst Rate: How many of photographs you can take in a continuous/single burst without shutting down.
  • Frames per second: The speed at which you can take consecutive shots.

The burst rate is related to how much internal memory the camera has. The higher the RAM, the higher the burst rate, but eventually the camera needs to store the images from the internal memory onto the memory card.

Canon: How Old is Your Canon Lens?

In 1986, with the design of the EOS System (Electro-Optical System, EOS started to ship in 1987), Canon started added a date code to their lenses.

Many of the new Canon lenses do not have a date code.

A large number of the Canon lenses have a date code in the form of "UX0311". Often it's on the lens mount.

The first letter, "U", indicates that the lens was made in Utsunomiya factory.

U = Utsunomiya, Japan
F = Fukushima, Japan
O = Oita, Japan

Canon: Accurate Zone AF

Waiting for something to happen He is waiting for the nesting Sandhill Crane to switch.The cranes take turn sitting on the eggs, so they can go and eat...reifel-20120428-6247.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Videographer Waiting for Something to Happen   click on image for gallery

As you can see, I was able to get the face in focus through the reeds across the pond. Here's is the crop.

Canon: Cancelling the AE Lock

There are two ways of locking the exposure settings:

  1. Do nothing, it's already done for you if:

    • You are using Evaluative and
    • You are using One-Shot AF

    Whenever you are pressing the shutter half-way in evaluation and one-shot modes, all Canon dSLRs (to date) do an AE Lock. You can see it in action by moving the camera around and you will see that the exposure settings will not change.

Loud, Proud with a BigMa

Loud, Proud and Bigma Canon Ti2 Rebel with Bigma handheld. The Bigma is a Sigma 50-500mm lens. He is hand holding it at the 300mm setting. His shutter speed should at least 1/500s or everything will be very fuzzy.reifel-20120421-6170.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Loud, Proud and a BigMa   click on image for gallery

This guy must be a Kiss fan, he is wearing their hoodie. You can get your own Kiss hoodie from LiveNation's website (the official agent) for $39.95 + bazillions for the shipping and handling.

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