Canon

Canon Cameras

Canon: 7D: Flash Exposure Lock

Canon 580 EX II flash/speedlight

Canon has this wonderful thing for flash, it's the E-TTL II system. With E-TTL II, you can control the exposure and the flash exposure separately. Basically, it sends a pre-flash to read the exposure across the 63 metering zones for what's dark (interpreted as background) and what's bright (interpreted as foreground). The problem is that I was looking to set the exposure and to lock that flash exposure for the rest of the photos.

The problem is where is the Flash Exposure Lock (FE Lock) button? I can't see it on the flash. I can't see it in the Canon 7D's menu. And of course, I didn't have any of the manuals with me.

Canon 7D: AE Lock

There are 2 uses for the Auto-Exposure AE lock:

  1. When you want to have the area of focus to be different from the area metered for the exposure.

Canon: The new 5DMk3

Canon 5DMk3 with 24-105L f/4 lens

2-Mar-2012 came and Canon revealed their latest camera, the 5DMk3, the successor to the 5DMk2. Today's the 5th of March, very few people have actually touched it, but like everybody else that has seen the web photos. This is not a review but I will give my opinion on what I consider important…

Is My Flash Strong Enough?

Do you remember when you were in high school? When I was in high school, we had to study physics. We had to study light, waves… For the people that either didn't have to study physics or have forgotten it:

The light coming from a flash bounces like billiard balls. This means that light that bounces against a reflecting surface will bounce back with the same angle, i.e.

I Really Like This Older Lady Photographer

I really like this older lady photographer. She is Japanese. She uses a Canon 400D, it's a 10 megapixels Rebel XTi if I'm not mistaken, with a Canon 100-400mm f/4-5.6 L lens. I like her because she is fearless. She must be in late 60s, early 70s. She came all the way to Canada from Japan as part of some tour.

I really like this older lady photographer I really like this older lady photographer. She is Japanese. She uses a Canon 400D, that's a 10 megapixels Rebel XTi if I'm not mistaken, with a Canon 100-400mm f/4-5.6 L lens. I like her because she is fearless. She must be in late 60s, early 70s. She came all the way to Canada from Japan as part of some tour.Notice her left arm, she supports the 100-400mm lens and carries a fully loaded hand bag at the same time.I'm sure that I won't like her photos. I will even like a lot less the tall girl's photos. One does and held and the other one has a great tripod fully extended.The old lady is around 5ft to 5ft1 (around 1½ meter) and the younger girl is around 5ft6, 5ft7 (around 1.7m.) Take a look at my perspective. Take a look at their perspective. I'm on one knee. My right knee is on the ground and my left knee half bent. Rocks, gravel… My secret, I wear a carpenter kneepad on my right knee. I bought it for less than half price at Home Depot. Somebody stole the other kneepad and they were left with half of the set.Sometimes, it's OK to take photos from higher up if you are going after some special effect. Most of the times it doesn't work, they look squashed.BTW, take a look at the photo tour leader in the background, just to her right, sitting on the bench. Boredom… reifel-20120211-2606.jpg — ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

I really like this older lady photographer   click on image for gallery

Look at her left arm, she supports the 100-400mm lens and carries a fully loaded handbag at the same time.

Canon: Battery Life

Canon created the LP-E6 battery for the Canon 5DMk2. It's an expensive battery, $100+ in Canada. Canon said that it's expensive because it has its own CPU. Many people have speculated that it's a strategy to "kill" the "generic" batteries. Actually it's not just the CPU but also the significant higher capacity. The benefit of the LP-E6 is the much longer battery life. In the "good old" days, it was very common for a battery to last between 300 to 500 photos.

Canon claims that the LP-E6 last approximately 1,000 photos at 23°C/73°F without the popup flash and 900 photos with a 50% popup flash use.

Here's a poor photo of the battery info on my Canon 7D. It had to be, I was in the field, and I had to use somebody's else point and shoot. My other camera had a long tele without any close focus. But it's good enough to see the battery status:

Canon: Camera Error Codes

Before we go into the error codes with the Canon Cameras, you need to realize that all the new digital cameras from the cheapest point and shoot to the most expensive Hasselblad are not cameras but computers with a lens at the front, a screen at the back and various buttons instead of a keyboard. They all have a CPU, a screen, memory and a drive (usually some flash) to store the photos.

Canon like most camera manufacturers have not been very helpful in figuring out what are the problems with the cameras. Here's the list of what I figured out:

Nikon D800: Thanks but No Thanks

Canon 7D

Now that Nikon has finally announced the D800 and the D800E at around $3,000 and $3,400. The biggest, the meanest camera at 36 megapixels, but great looks. This is a full-frame FX camera. The megapixels are the numbers of a medium format camera: Mamiya starts at 22 megapixels for $11,000, Hasselblad and Phase One both starts at 31 megapixels and at $14,000 each.

We don't know if the trinity, that's the 12-24 f/2.8, the 24-70 f/2.8 and the 70-200 f/2.8, will be able to resolve the full 36 megapixels. Let's hope so and that will be great news.

The Secrets of Huge and Sharp Prints

I just printed this photo 20" by 30" or 50 centimeters by 76 centimeters.

Pouch, the cat Wile E under his favorite tripod/platformpouch-20080810-0104.jpg syv ritch ©2008 foto-biz.com: http://http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

You can't see it as a print, you can only view from the web. But... It looks great on the wall. Viewed even close, there's no pixilation, no visible noise with a naked eye even at 5 inch from the print. All the hairs and whiskers are sharp.

The Secrets of Straight On Flash

One of the most popular photography website is the http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ from David Hobby. I'm not in the same league and I don't even pretend. But I use flashes regularly. I specialize in simple setups. The problem with most of the photos sites where they give you the lighting diagram, they tell you how they did it but not why they chose this or that solution.

Jasper is not a happy camper. Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape and go back home he would. Treats and weird/special noises didn't help to get his interest.

Jasper clearly doesn't want to be here. If he could escape to go back home he would. Treats and weird, special noises didn't help to get his interest.charlie-20120126-2457.jpg ” ©2012 Syv Ritch -- foto-biz.com: http://www.foto-biz.com/usageterms

Jasper is not a happy camper   click on image for gallery

First look at eyes, "evil" glowing eyes, good definition and not hard shadows. Here's the technical data:

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