I use a Canon 40D. I am really pleased with it and if I never had another camera I could continue to make great images with it, but I am a photographer, and it’s not in our nature not to want a better camera, especially at a time like the present when every new generation adds so much. It’s not just gimmicks either, basic image quality and resolution, not to mention noise performance are all improving rapidly. I have had the 40D for over a year and during that time I have learned what I think I want in a camera:
Full frame or 1.3x frame like the 1DMk3
A normal size, not built in sidegrip like the Canon 1D’s (Too big and heavy)
Good noise performance at 1600 ISO or beyond
Fast autofocus, with good frame coverage, like the Nikon D700 or Canon 1Ds Mk3
Reasonable frame rate, although I almost never use the 6+ fps the 40D can give. 3 or 4 would do.
Live view, for macro
A good screen for reviewing fine focus
In body Image Stabilisation. (For my prime lenses)
So what’s my problem? The only upgrade path Canon has given me is the new 50D. This is essentially my 40D on steroids. It has 15 megapixels as opposed to my 40D’s 10 megapixels. They claim to have redesigned the sensor to improve noise, but the serious reviews like DP review’s say that the sensor is overpopulated with pixels. The result is no noise improvement in the face of Nikon’s D300 which is a great camera, and beating the 50D in the reviews. They are £900 and £850 respectively, so direct competitors. If I was starting again, I would buy the Nikon; its better in lots of ways, the trouble is amateurs like me can’t suddenly change our cameras since we have a collection of lenses worth more than the camera. The Nikon has much better noise performance, but why? I think the sensor on the Canon is slightly smaller (APS - C 22.2 x 14.8mm) than the Nikon DX sensor (23.6 x 15.7). Sensibly the Nikon has pushed resolution to 12 or so megapixels, Canon went for 15 megapixels in a smaller sensor. You don’t need to be a former Physics teacher (which I am) to know this is madness without some secret technology breakthrough. The future may well be black silicon, but for the moment both companies are using similar technology and Canon therefore seem to have allowed the marketing people to go for the headline pixel count, on a smaller sensor.
I admit there is much to like about the 50D. There is the high res screen, the compensation for front or back-focusing lenses, the resolution in good light, but serious commentators are saying, it doesn’t amount to significantly better picture quality than I have at present.
So my next choice from Canon, the recently released 5D Mk2. This ticks most of my boxes, although we will have to see the reviews over the next few weeks as it is newly released. It is full frame, with 21 megapixels, and I think I would really like one, but its £2000. Hopefully the much larger sensor can support the greater pixel density and result in a better noise performance at 1600 ISO than I have at present. So to update my image quality significantly, I need to go from my current £600 ish camera, to a £2000 camera. What are you playing at Canon? Nikon could do me a better camera at £900, and their full frame, 12 odd megapixel dream D700, which lets you photograph miners at work by the sparks of their pickaxes costs £1600. Get your act together Canon, this is an all or nothing upgrade path! Right now if you are buying into a new DSLR, I’d say, buy a Nikon.
Why do I care? I’ve just sold my second 40D, bought to see me through a repair under guarantee, and I’m feeling ready to divert the funds into an upgrade. If I had a Nikon, I could afford it, with Canon, I can’t.
ISO 800, f5.6, 1/10th (78mm)
Note: (Zoomed out 5.6 may have been my largest available stop!)
I thought I would post an old portrait from my summer holiday this year. I considered this as a possible favourite portrait for yesterday’s blog entry, but wasn’t sure that it was my actual favourite, but it’s one of my favourites. It certainly reminds me that good portraits as in all types of photography are made by great light.
I had my Canon 40D with me, but only my Sigma 18-200 “walkabout” lens as we were on a walking holiday in the Swiss Alps. This isn’t a perfect portrait lens, but when the light is great, you go for it. This was in an alpine hut at about 3000m with only small windows letting in bright evening light. One window was behind Jackie and the other at a larger distance was on her right. The window behind was backlighting her and bathing her hair, while the more distant one was filling shadows and possibly very slightly “rimlighting” and creating lovely definition to Jackie’s face. As soon as I saw the light I asked if it was OK to photograph her, picked up my everpresent 40D, set to ISO 800 and asked her to stay still as the image stabilisation on the Sigma lens could only cope with the slow shutter if she was like a statue. How I wish I’d had my Canon 50mm f1.4 with me, but really the point is that the light makes this regardless of the lens. Doesn’t she look great?
To satisfy the curious among you, here is the hut:
And a view out of one of it’s windows perhaps giving an idea of the dark/light contrast within:
I have been thinking about a question asked by Scott Bourne on the “This Week In Photography” blog recently. Scott asked us to reflect on the simple question, what was your best photograph last year? I think its a really helpful question since we spend so much time putting folders full of images on our drives that we may let them pass by in a blur. When I process a folder I whittle it down to my few favourites and I’m really unlikely to look at the rest of them again. Some I print as gifts for others, and my favourites I tend to store as a backup, full resolution on my Flickr account; some I intend to, but forget to get round to doing so.
Among this mass of photographs, which I think are my best work from last year, must be one or two that I think would represent the very best of what I have tried to do. Scott Bourne has challenged us/me to choose the one that I feel represents my best work. Why is it so hard to select your one favourite, I have tried but failed. My compromise has been to choose my favourite portrait, Landscape, Animal and Flower since these are probably my favourite categories.
Now come on, think back yourself, what is your favourite picture, or at least your favourites in different categories? Perhaps identifying these will help us to set a target or a benchmark for next year.
Portrait:
Landscape:
Animal:
Flower:
Perhaps next week I’ll look back and decide that I have got this hopelessly wrong, but I hope I’ve learned something from the exercise of analysing what I like? I’m going to print these and hang them somewhere, why not do the same to remind yourself of this year’s standard.
This is the view of the mountainous end of Mull from the coast opposite the Isle of Ulva.
As you know, I’m still evaluating my new LX3 and I’m finding it a rollercoaster experience. I’m generally very pleased with it, but every so often I remember that it has a tiny sensor compared to my Canon 40D and that no small sensor camera using current technology can deliver what a DSLR user expects in noise terms. This image was taken in low near-sunset light at ISO 200, I thought it looked a bit grainy and so I looked at 100%, result, noise and plenty of it. I increased exposure here by about 30% so I was emphasising noise, but even at that, I will be keeping a close eye on this, I hadn’t expected much at ISO 200. I’ll keep you posted. (This was from the RAW file!).
On a positive note, the handling of the “toys’r'us” controls hasn’t got in the way at all despite my earlier reservations; I still don’t think they compare to the Canon G7/9/10 controls, but they are quick enough in use. I like the camera a lot.
A simple close portrait of Catherine in the cold air above Dervaig with the LX3. I used the onboard pop-up flash as fill-in to see how useful it would be for basic portraits. I’m surprised by the usability of the results, not top class interesting light, but OK as fill. The real light was coming from Catherine’s right and there was a lot of shadow/darkness on the left hand side of her face. It has put nice little catchlights in her eyes as well.
100 ISO, f5.6 and 1/160th.
All the new year revellers in Tobermory gather around the clock tower at the harbour to bring in the bells. I didn’t want to carry my serious camera or a tripod as it would have limited my ability to carry champagne! The trusty little LX3 was therefore stuffed in a pocket. I used the LX3’s “fireworks” mode which is unusual for me as I never bother with the automatic modes but I am still playing with the camera and was curious about what it can do. One excellent feature is that it lets you save in RAW format even when you are in “scene” modes; usually cameras make you default to jpegs when you are in the automated modes, so this is another grown up and sensible feature.
Anyway, I wish you all the best for 2009 from Tobermory
January 1st, 2009 in
Panasonic LX3 |
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Yesterday I took this image of these sad old fishing boats on the outskirts of Salen on the Isle of Mull. I have often passed them and wanted to photograph them, but the light has never been nice or I haven’t had the time. The light yesterday was OK, but not wonderful, and I had the time. Oddly I left my SLR in the car and took the little LX3 with me and tried a few compositions in RAW format. For those of you interested in the “Panny’s” performance, I spent 5 minutes in Lightroom using the graduated filter to lighten the foreground and darken the skies as well as pushing the colour saturation of the foreground greens and the blue in the skies. All in all I tweaked the exposure to a ridiculous extent and I’m happy to report that the LX3 raw files have a lot of latitude. I’m very impressed and I certainly think a landscape photographer wanting to travel light could take the LX3 and a portable tripod like a Gorillapod or similar, and produce great results. The original picture was at ISO 80, so in summary, keep the ISO low and you’ll have immense latitude in post processing.
I have to retract what I said in my first impressions posting about the RAW files not being worth the bother for most people; frankly they are worth the bother, they are an excellent way to control your image making.
My dear friend Alison allowed me to do a portrait while staying on Mull. This is my first portrait since finishing my 100-portraits project and it felt great to be doing people pictures again. Alison’s expression is wonderfully enigmatic…
Today while walking with friends near Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, I took this picture of the Tobermory Lighthouse. It was interesting as sunset was approaching and the light would only strike the lighthouse directly in the morning. Behind me there were steep hills that ensured the lighthouse had no exciting light. This was made even more difficult as the light was hitting the distant Ardnamurchan peninsula and emphasising the contrast between the foreground and the background. I still liked the angle on the lighthouse and the background was nice so I fell back on the last refuge of a photographic scoundrel - HDR!
For those who care, High Dynamic Rnge photography lets you combine more than one picture with an exposure taken for the foreground to add life and light to it as well as exposures for the background to optimise the sky. My favourite software to do this is “Photomatix” although I believe Photoship does it as well. Anyway, the result is a nice and even lighting, even if it is an artificial look. Still, “needs must when the devil vomits in your kettle.”
From a Mull tourism site: The lighthouse, Rubha nan Gall (the gaelic for Stranger’s Point), was built in 1857 by the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson and became automated in 1960. It flashes every three seconds, can be seen for 15 miles and marks the end of the Sound of Mull.
And here is a view the honest way of the entrance to Tobermory bay. Again the light was coming the wrong way to give a warm winter sunset, it was slightly in shadow, so I put on my trusty 70-300 IS f4-5.6 and picked out a detail of the island at the entrance to Tobermory Bay. A friend let me use his shoulder to help with the slow speed as I wasn’t keen to go over ISO 400. I know, I should have had a tripod with me, Canon’s Image Stabilisation is impressive though! (Colour slightly warmed in Lightroom.)
ISO 400, 135mm, f6.3, 1/15th sec handheld.
I was travelling today and so didn’t really get a chance to take pictures and wasn’t too worried about it. A friend was cooking for us tonight though, and when she placed the freshly cut peppers under the filament spotlights, I leapt for my LX3 like a colour obsessive. ActuallyI am a colour obsessive!
LX3 on Macro and wide. Iso 400, f2, 1/30th of a second. I checked the white balance using lightroom’s dropper tool on the white surface and it was perfect, my Canon 40D usually needs tweaking on auto white balance. Score for the LX3!
