Canon

Canon Cameras

183 Megapixels Photo

This is a humongous, ginormous, image: 183 megapixels. As you can see from the Lightroom screen capture, it is: 37,717 pixels wide by 5,110 pixels high, that's 192,733,870 pixels.

I did this image on a Canon 7D. It's a composite of 42 photos. It was part of a serie of photos that range from 35 megapixels to this one at 183 megapixels.

183 Megapixels photoThis is a humongous, ginormous, image: 183 megapixels. As you can see from the Lightroom screen capture, it is: 37,717 pixels wide by 5,110 pixels high, that's 192,733,870 pixels.I did this image on a Canon 7D. It's a composite of 42 photos. I'm not that interested in a Nikon D800, a D900, a D4, or a whatever the name will be and their rumored 36 megapixels sensor. Where are the lenses for such a sensor? At 18 megapixels per photo, it took me 2½ hours to compile the image on an iCore 7 8Gb RAM. I have so much detail that I can read the labels in the background.I can't put it on my website, I tried and it brought the web server to a crawl. I can't upload it to Smugmug. It's too big. Luckily this image is for printing. I haven't yet discussed it with the printer. I'll do that on Friday.I was able to import it in Lightroom but now Lightroom is extremely slow. The raw image is 1.6 gigabytes, that's a lot of disk IO for the preview. Looks like after the printing, I will have to delete the image from the catalog and recreate it as a JPEG with a 40% to 50% quality to make it manageable.

Canon: Pressing the Shutter and Evaluative Metering

Everybody knows, by now, that there are two steps to the shutter button:

  1. Pressing the shutter half-way activates the auto-focus, if the focus is still associated to the shutter button, and sets the automatic exposure combination in Av, Tv, or P mode.
  2. Pressing completely the shutter takes the photo.

What most people do not realize is that when you are in Evaluative Metering and Single Shot AF mode, pressing the shutter half way locks the exposure for 4 seconds.

Digital Photography - A Basic Manual

This is an interesting book from Henry Horenstein. It's unusual. It's a book about the basics, like f/stops… as a technical introduction to photography. It's not like the “… for dummies”. This reminds me of a text book, it's structured, just like a course. It's not just for dSLRs but most of the book also applies to point and shoot cameras.

I like the “plain” English. The photos are excellent and are appropriate to the topic that they illustrate.

Why Do They Do That?

I've never understood why people carry a lens hood mounted on their lens reversed like this woman? What's the point? The lens hood does 2 things:1. The lens hood protects the lens for accidental touching and from many accidents.2. The lens hood job is to minimize flare by stopping the bright rays of light from entering the lens from the side. It was essential in the old days of the SLRs before they invented lens coatings. The lens hood was mostly used in teles. I use mine on everything, be it wide angle, normal lenses and teles. But it's mostly to protect the lens since I do not use filters.

Notice that her lens hood is reversed   click on image for gallery

I've never understood why people carry a lens hood mounted on their lens reversed like this woman. What's the point? The lens hood does 2 things:

Canon's Image Stabilization In Action

Canon optical image stabilization in action

Canon Optical Image Stabilization In Action

This photo has zero, no processing, this is a straight screen capture. You can see Canon's optical image stabilization in action. As you can see from the box, both photos were taken at 1/50sec on a 70-200L f/4 IS at 187mm.

Canon: My Crystal Ball

People have been asking me lately:

  • What about the new Canon 1Dx?
  • When is the 5DMk3 coming?
  • What about the 7DMk2?
  • …

So I took my crystal ball out from storage, removed some of the dust and polished it. Here's Canon's future:

2011 Resetting The Clock to Standard Time

Today is Sunday 6-Nov-2011. In Canada and the US, the first weekend after Halloween is when we go back to the “standard time.” All my computers, cell phones and telephones changed the time by themselves. My home appliances and my car do not reset the time by themselves, I had to change them manually.

But this blog is not about cars or phones… This blog is about photography. There's no camera, that I know of, that changes the clock back and forth automatically for the daylight saving time and the standard time.

Why is it important to have the clock properly set on your camera?

Flash & Lens Coverage

The Canon 580 and 430 series flashes have a zoom head. Both flashes have the coverage of lenses from 24mm to 105mm. The flash talks to the camera and ask for the lens setting and will adjust accordingly, through the fancy of the electronics … Canon calls it the E-TTL II.

What about for a Canon 7D, the T3i, the 1DMk4, the… the crop/APS-C or APS-H sensor cameras? The flash knows the camera and the flash understands the lens/sensor settings. The flash will adjust the flash coverage automatically, only if you are in the E-TTL mode.

Canon: Inconsistent Exposure, Why?

These 2 photos are 2 photos of flying Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill Cranes are big and heavy birds. They fly slowly. I took these 2 photos less than ½ sec apart. Take a look at the skies. Zero processing, just the defaults applied. So it should be the same. Noooo. Why? Because of the “big because”

These 2 photos are 2 photos of flying Sandhill Cranes. Sandhill Cranes are big and heavy birds. They fly slowly. I took these 2 photos less than ½ sec apart. Take a look at the skies. Zero processing, just the defaults applied. So it should be the same. Noooo. Why? Because of the

The Canon 1Dx -- the Bird Photography Point of View

This weekend, I spoke with 6 birding guys, yes there are all guys. They all have big, monster L lenses. 4 have a 500L f/4 lens, 1 has a 600L f/4 lens and 1 has an 800L f/5.6 lens (and a 500mm f/4 in the trunk of his car.) The latest buzz about the Canon 1Sx is that you won't be able to use the autofocus past f/5.6.

Their cameras are not too shabby either: 1 uses a Canon 5DMk2, 1 uses a Canon 1DsMk3, the last 4 use the Canon 7D. The 7D photographers have migrated from the Canon 1DsMk3! That was for the improved focus for BIF (birds in flight) and for the 1.6x crop factor.

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