bob_krueger

FWIW, I just checked Canon's support page for the ES-E1 software at http://www.usa.canon.com/html/cameras_slr/1v_update.html. This page was last updated in October of 2002, and it still says the same thing about Macinosh support for this software...OS 8.6 - 9.04.

 

I guess their software folks have been busy developing the new DPP raw conversion for the 1DMkII.

Is the ES-E1 software now compatible with Mac OS X? Last I knew, Canon would commit only to compatibility with 9.0.4, which is only a half-dozen or so operating system versions old.

Bob Atkins said "You're wrong."

 

Actually, Bob, although I have the ultimate respect for you and your work, I'll venture to guess that I have more experience shooting motorsports than you do, and in my opinion, you're the one who's wrong. IS is very useful when panning horizontally in mode 2 to keep the car sharp while deliberately using slow shutter speeds to introduce a sense of motion into the frame by blurring the wheels and background. On the other hand, when the cars are moving toward you or diagonally across the frame, my experience is that IS is considerably less effective. Motion blur is less important in these circumstances and faster shutter speeds work better than slow ones with IS.

 

This is only my opinion and experience, of course, but at least it's empirically based.

The IS is most useful (in mode 2) for panning shots, when you are trying to get the car sharp at relatively slow shutter speeds to show wheel and background blur to give the picture a sense of motion. Being able to slow the shutter speed up to three stops beyond the "sunny 16" focal length reciprocal can be very helpful in getting more "keepers" that convey this sense of motion.

 

Shooting fast shutter speeds of racing vehicles to freeze the motion doesn't work as well as it does for other sports because freezing the action of cars racing results in a picture that is too static.

I shoot mostly vintage car racing and I use an EOS 1v with a 70-200 f2.8L IS most of the time. Sometimes I use a 1.4X TC with that lens, and sometimes, if there is enough light to keep me off wide open, I'll use my 100-400 IS. If it's cloudy and I have to open the 100-400 to f5.6 at 400mm, that lens goes a bit soft, but I find the 70-200 adequate most of the time, either with or without the TC. The 100-400 spends a lot of time in the bag since I got the 70-200.

 

The advantages of the 1v are that it's weather-protected, sturdy as a rock, and has both fast and accurate auto-focus (I shoot mostly in AI Servo mode), which is pretty much what you want for motorsports. One DISadvantage of my setup is that it's a heavy as a load of bricks. I did two 10-hour days back to back with that thing around my neck with the stock neckstrap and immediately went right out and bought an OpTech Pro strap.

 

The other disadvantage, of course, is that 1-series Canons and fast L zooms are expensive, and I don't know if you want to spend that kind of money at this point in your daughter's career. But if you do, the advantages of the quality at that level are worth it. You don't HAVE to go that route, of course. I shot with an A2e and consumer zooms before I got the 1v, and those shots got published as well. I get a better ratio of "keepers" and more flexibility with the new stuff, however.

 

I'm waiting to see what the new Canon dSLR introduction we're all expecting at next month's PMA brings. Everyone seems to be expecting a 1D replacement, and if that's what happens and the specs are right, that's where I'll be going for motorsports (I'll keep the 1v for landscapes). The 1D is (was?) built on the same body as the 1v, uses the same AE and AF systems, and is very fast at 8 fps with a 21-shot buffer. With three or four 1 gig CF cards, you can make it through a weekend with this camera without downloading to a computer. This, in my opinion, is the perfect digital camera body for motorsports. Disadvantages? Again, weight and expense. The 1d was down to about $2800 street price before it disappeared off everbody's shelves, and the rumored new one's speculated price is somewhere in the $3000 to $4000 range.

 

Motorsports shooters have an advantage over the landscape guys in that many, if not most, of them are shooting on assignment. Since the magazine editors have to secure credentials for you unless you have a track "hard card," you already have the job, so to speak, before you arrive to shoot the event. This means that the editor doesn't have to lay your slides out on a light table and compare them with those from someone else to pick what he wants to use. He already knows he's using your stuff, so he can see the images on a CD as well as he could on a light table. Some editors still prefer slides, but most of them will take digital submissions, and some actually prefer digital. In one case, when I submit to Vintage Motorsport's Web site, I *have to* submit digital. Sending digital files instead of slides also gives me more control over things like color balance, sharpening, and cropping; plus, I'm not stuck without my original images for months. If I don't shoot digital, I have to scan the film before I send it if I want access to the image while the slide is out, which can be pretty tedious if you have a lot of slides to scan. Even the famous guys like Paul-Henri Cahier, who shoots a lot of the Formula 1 images you see in the racing magazines, is shooting 100% digital these days (with a Canon EOS 1D and 1Ds bodies).

 

So, again, if you want to spend the money, you can't go wrong with Canon's 1-series cameras. Even if you don't want to spend that much on a body, I'd recommend you take a look at the 70-200 f2.8L IS lens. It hurt me to pay for it, but that's the lens I depend on the most, and you can use it on any EOS body.

The Fred Miranda plug-in is Stair Interpolation Pro. It will automate the upward interpolation steps and offer two levels of sharpening as well as part of the process. The PC version can be found at http://www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/SIpro and the Mac version is at http://www.fredmiranda.com/shopping/SImpro. It's twenty bucks and you just drag the plug-in into the "automate" part of your plug-ins folder.

 

Fred has another one called Web Presenter Pro that takes files the other direction for JPEG presentation on a Web site. His plug-ins are now 16-bit comaptible for CS and are a cheap and easy way to get the job done with a minimum amount of time and labor spent.

I don't know where the best place is to get ACR 1.0 now that CS is out, but the plug-in was $99. The upgrade from PS7 to CS is $169.99 list price, and available for less at discount sources. The II version of ACR that is part of the CS upgrade is reported by most to be better than the stand-alone 1.0 version, and the cost delta is at most 70 bucks. If it were me, I'd upgrade and get the II version and all the 16-bit editing features of CS, but then it ISN'T me.

OK, first to "Z" and then to Andy.

 

Command-F pulls up Sherlock in OS 9.1 on my G4. Also, I did

my first find for "colorsync" as you told me and it found no "plist"

files. It was a second search for "plist" that found the Acrobat

files.

 

Thanks, Andy, for reminding me that the "color" tab in the

monitors control panel can be used to select a profile from the

entire list. I used to use that tab for calibrating the monitor

visually before I got my Eye One, but once I started using

hardware-based profiles that were automatically planted in

ColorSync, I had forgotten that you can also use the color tab to

select a profile from the list. I did that tonight, verified that

ColorSync was displaying the correct profile, and restarted the

computer. The correct "new" profile remained the selected one in

ColorSync upon restart, so THANKS! Now the only question is

why ColorSync didn't select it upon my exiting the profiling

software as it should have in the first place. Perhaps I'll never

know the answer to that one, just like I'll probably never know

what made this box suddenly "go evil" on me in the first place.

I did a Sherlock search for "plist" and came up with nothing associated with ColorSync. I did come up with two files associated with Adobe Acrobat 5.0. Since I don't like Acrobat 5 much anyway (sometimes doesn't take print settings well, while 4 does just fine), I trashed them. :-)

 

No change; I still see only the September 2003 Eye One profile and "generic RGB" as the only choices available in the display section of ColorSync. So although the new profile is in the ColorSync profiles folder where it belongs, it was neither used by ColorSync automatically nor available for manual choosing now. Is this normal once the monitor has been profiled with a hardware device or should I see the entire list of available profiles as I do in the other ColorSync sections (input and output) of the control panel?

 

During the course of this extended crash recovery exercise I've been in, I have replaced not only the system and finder preferences, but also the rest of the entire system folder from my off-site backup, which was created before the crash. I have also rebuilt the desktop a number of times. Maybe I need to commit to a clean re-installation of the system, since something seems to still be actively corrupting preference files, despite the fact that Apples hardware test says all is fine and both Norton Disk Doctor and Disk First Aid report no problems. Maybe that's just my imagination and they were corrupted by the crash at a level that wasn't noticeable and just got worse over time. Beats me; it's been a long month-and-a-half. The weird thing is that, for the most part, the computer is working fine..until the next weird thing crops up. The current weird thing is ColorSync's failure to recognize or list my latest monitor profile.

 

The one thing I *won't* do again is zap the P-RAM. Doing that, when things started getting really squirrely after the crash, *really* messed up the monitor situation. The primary 19" monitor couldn't be set to anything other than 640 X 480, the monitors control panel was identifying monitors 1 and 2 backwards, and no profile of any kind was recognized on the primary. It was that mess that caused me to resort to re-installing the entire system folder from backup in an effort to get as close to pre-crash ground zero as possible without having to reformat the whole drive and start all over again.

 

Too bad I'm not rich. I'd just toss this G4, get a new G5, and load Photoshop CS, a new second video card, etc. directly on it. Now THAT'S the way to start all over again. There but for bucks...

I'm using a 733 mHz Macintosh G4 and OS 9.1 (hoping to upgrade to

9.2.2 and OS X if I ever get everything straightened out again) with

a 19" LaCie Electron Blue as my primary monitor. About a month-and-a-

half ago I had a BIG crash (actually a freeze) that has caused a need

to reload the entire system folder from backup and a one-by-one

reloading of extensions from the OS 9.1 ALL set, where the computer

worked fine, to the larger set I must have to run my peripherals,

both to get the computer working again (it's my business machine) as

well as troubleshoot to find the cause of the problem. Although the

computer is 99% functional again, after a LOT of disassembly and

reassembly of both software and hardware, I'm not sure I'm ever going

to find the root cause of the original crash. The computer's problem

symptoms have been very erratic and difficult to troubleshoot. This

was not a simple extension conflict or an easy to find hardware

problem. It was something far more strange than that.

 

Anyway, today I decided to suck it up and re-profile the monitor

using my Gretag-Macbeth Eye One. The last time I tried to do that

after the crash, it wouldn't allow me to set the gamma. That choice

was greyed out. Since then, I have done the system reload and a lot

more, and the computer is trouble-free most of the time, so I re-

istalled the Eye One software and tried again. Everything went

swimmingly, including the setting of the gamma; the calibration

completed normally, and the software said the new profile would be

set as the default. Great!

 

Then I opened the ColorSync control panel to verify the correct

profile, and it's still using the one I did three months ago! I

checked the ColorSync profiles folder and, sure enough, the new one

is in there. ColorSync just isn't selecting it for use. Not only

that, but it won't let me manually select anything else other

than "Generic RGB." That and the old LaCie profile are all that

appear on the pop-up list of monitor profiles.

 

Can anyone give me a hint about what I might try next? I suspect that

something in ColorSync is corrupt, as corrupt preference files have

been a problem with other software several times since the crash. I

dumped the ColorSync cache and preference files, restarted the

computer, and re-opened the ColorSync control panel to see if that

made it work properly, but all was still the same. Should I perhaps

just trash everything associated with ColorSync and reload the

ColorSync software in its entirety from the system disk?

When I bought my EOS 1v HS last year, Canon was advertising a $150 rebate for it (as opposed to $100 for the 1V without the battery pack). I got a notice from the rebate center after many weeks that my $100 rebate had been processed and would be mailed soon. I called them and, after about ten minutes of hierarchical menues, finally got to a human being who didn't seem to have the slightest idea what he was doing or what my specific complaint was. After explaining several times in detail what my problem was, he asked me to fax him a copy of my original (B&H) sales slip, Canon's rebate ad, and several other things, which I did. I even included a link to the Canon rebate offer in my cover letter so he could read it in its original form for himself. He said someone would call me within 48 hours. Nothing further ever happened, so I got fed up and called Canon itself and asked to talk to a manager. This gentleman explained to me that the rebate center is a third-party company that Canon hired to administer their rebates. After I told him my story, he also asked me to fax him a few things, which I did. In about a week, I got a check for the remaining $50 directly from Canon.

 

The moral of this story? If you have a problem with your rebate and the rebate center can't figure out what you think they should be doing, call Canon. If it's still the same company handling their rebates, based on my experience, you'll be doing Canon a favor by helping them decide to can them.

<<According to Canon's download site they list an OS X driver for the FS4000 (bottom of this page)>>

 

Thanks, everyone, especially Carl and Helen, for pointing the way to the OS X driver for the FS4000US at Canon's Web site. Although the driver sounds a lot like a beta, based on the cautions in the read me file, and they will only say officially that it's good through Jaguar's 10.2.X versions, based on Helen's input that she is successfully using the OS X version with Panther, I feel better about downloading it. I wouldn't normally sign up to do free beta testing for Canon with my computer. After all, THEY'RE the ones with the skyscraper, not me. Since I understand that OS X doesn't have "extensions" in the sense that prior systems do, I guess the new FilmGet file is all I need. There are two driver extensions to run the scanner, as well as the FilmGet plug-in, with the OS 9 version.

 

Canon seems to often list the compatability of its software products for Macs very conservatively. When I first got my EOS 1v, I called them to ask about the compatability of the Mac version of their ES-E1 Link software with OS 9.1, since the Web site listed it as being compatible only up to v. 9.0.4 when 9.2.2 and 10 had been out for some time. They would not commit to compatibility with later versions of 9, so I never bought the software. I couldn't see paying $169 for a pig in a poke as regards compatability with 9.1 or 9.2.2. Realistically, how many Mac users can there be out there who are sitting at 9.0.4? On the other hand, here I sit at 9.1, having not updated to even 9.2.2 yet, so maybe there are others out there at 8.6 or 9.0.4, but I would think that there are a lot more Mac users at later system versions. So I still think Canon should get on the stick and update their Mac software offerings if they want my money. There is a lot more even split between platforms in the photography world than there is in the business world, so I don't see the excuse for not supporting Mac users when one of your main product lines is photographic equipment.

 

Anyway, my thanks to everyone for their answers. I feel a bit better about moving to OS X so that I can update to Photoshop CS now. I plan to continue to shoot film (as well as digital) and will need to scan it for a long time to come.

Well, I've been putting it off, but I guess it's time for me to ask

this question. I plan to upgrade shortly to Photoshop CS, which, as I

understand it, requires Macintosh OS X. I am currently running a G4

in Mac OS 9.1, primarily because my film scanner, a Canon FS4000US,

uses scanning software (FilmGet) that is available for OS9 only

(also, the driver for my Epson 2200 is better in the 9 version than

the 10). I believe the driver extensions for this scanner are OS 9

only as well.

 

I know that I can use VueScan, which I have and is OS X compatible,

but there are situations when I prefer to use FilmGet. When FilmGet

is used, the scan is imported directly into Photoshop through the

TWAIN driver. This begs the question whether it is possible to use

FilmGet and the FS4000US, which are OS 9 only, with Photoshop CS,

which is OS X only.

 

Now, I just read another message in this forum where the author

claims that his FS4000US will not work at all in classic mode under

OS 10.3 (Panther). Since that is the current operating system

version, it is naturally where I would want to go if I bother to

upgrade to OS X at all. The newer Macs (newer than mine, I know, but

I will want to upgrade the hardware as well in the near future) will

not boot into 9, so classic mode is the only choice for OS 9 stuff

with them.

 

Is this an unsolvable dilemma that will require that I get another

film scanner if I move to Macintosh OS 10.3? Seems like a high price

to pay. Or is there something I'm missing about how all this works?

If not, it would seem to be downright irresponsible of Canon to allow

OS X drivers for their only film scanner to go unwritten this long

after the release of the OS X operating system.

 

Anyway, can any of you Mac users out there answer this question?

Well, two out of three ain't bad, so if you guys are willing to risk the loss of your custom functions, why shouldn't I gut it out too, right?

 

So I'll take out the batteries and then put them back in a month or so and let you all know who was right. It isn't exactly like having to reset all of the preferences in a computer system from scratch or something anyway, and there's less risk in losing the CFs than having the batteries leak in the unit, however unlikely that may be.

 

Thanks for the help.

I have a 550EX flash unit that I rarely use, since the main thing I

shoot is motorsports. Although I use lithium AA batteries in it, it

would probably still be best if I removed them until I need to use

the flash. I have two custom functions set...second curtain sync.

and disabling of the modeling flash. I have checked the manual

and I can't find anything that answers my question, which is...

 

Are the custom functions persistent or volatile? When battery

power is removed from the flash, will they reset to their default

values?

"IS is only useful to stop camera shake so that you can avoid the use of a tripod for scenics and portraits."

 

IS is also useful for things like motorsports. When I shoot races, I usually want to use small-grain film no faster than ISO 100, and freezing everything in the frame is not the goal. I'm most often at the long end of the 70-200 zoom range and I want to pan the shot at 1/60th, or maybe even 1/30th, of a second to get the car sharp with lots of motion blur in the wheels and the background to give the photo a dynamic sense of motion. Using mode 2 IS gives me far more "keepers" than if I were forced to shoot without it. When a car is moving toward me on a diagonal rather than moving horizontally across the field, however, I don't need as slow a shutter speed (can't see much of the wheels anyway) and I usually turn the IS off to avoid the possibility of confusing it with a diagonal pan.

Thank you, Ric. To be honest, I had never noticed the Photo.net

FAQ link at the bottom of the page.

How'd you do that?

There is a very detailed technical explanation by Canon engineer Chuck Westfall of how Canon's AI Servo focus mode works at...

 

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3956D5C4%2EB35FE0F1%40nospam.net

 

It was written at a time when the EOS 1, not the 1v, was the top-of-the-line Canon film camera, but it is still relevant for current cameras, since according to Mr. Westfall the basic design principles have not changed.

 

By the way, as regards making a clickable link of a URL, no matter how many returns I use before and after the link I don't seem to be able to do it, so I obviously don't know what the hell I'm doing in that regard. If I select HTML instead of plain text, the paragraph breaks go away. Beats me; sorry you have to cut and paste the link.

"The camera was set to AI servo and the focus point selection to automatic...Every time I pressed the shutter, the correct focus point lighted up."

 

Hmmm, that's weird. The 1N's software must be different from later Canons. With both my current 1v and the A2e before it, in that mode the focus points don't light. With the central focus point selected in AI servo mode on those cameras, that point DOES light, but when the focus points are set to automatic selection, nothing lights.

"As a disclaimer to this post, I doubt that I'd ever get the Capture

One software - Pro is just too expensive and the 20 image batch

limit of the LE version is a deal breaker. Breezebrowser and

CFVU seem nearly identical in speed and output quality, so I

can't see a reason to spend $45 on duplicating what I already

have with the Canon software. So am I missing something?"

 

Check out this article for a detailed (with example pictures)

comparison of Canon's RAW converter, Camera Raw, and

Capture One.

 

http://www.lashier.com/home.cfm?dir_cat=20503&gal_col=2

 

It'll make you start to see why Capture One is so expensive.

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I think I'll just go with B&H's imported Sensia. I don't care about 20 cents a roll, but I do care about three times the price for USA film when it's consumer film in the first place. USA Sensia is more than Velvia or Provia - I guess because I have to pay for all those cardboard boxes. Besides, I bought all of my most recent round of hardware from B&H with absolutely no problems.

 

Thanks again.

Yes, Fuji is imported by definition, but at least according to the B&H information page on imported versus USA film, the issue is not so much the country of origin as control of the importing process, or "knowing where it's been" and how it was treated while traveling. In their words...

 

"Agfa, Fuji, and Ilford film are made outside the USA. While we offer many of these in "grey or direct import" and "USA" the primary difference is not where the film came from, but who brought the film into this country."

 

The bottom line, for me at least, is that if a number of you and my friend are all using imported Fuji from Tri-State with no problems, I guess I don't have a problem with doing the same. Thanks for the input.

I am about to make a bulk (well, 20 to 25 rolls) purchase of some 36-

exposure rolls of Fuji Sensia 100 film to shoot an upcoming vintage

race here in San Diego. Tri-State Camera has this film for $2.49 a

roll. At B&H, it's $2.69 a roll for the imported version and $6.50 a

roll for USA - a very large and meaningful price difference when one

is buying a lot of rolls. Based on the B&H price, I assume (but don't

know) that what Tri-State is selling is imported as well.

 

I have a friend who has been photographing, writing, and editing in

the motorsports world for 40 years and he buys his Sensia in 50-roll

lots from Tri-State all the time and has had no problems. Obviously,

I am tempted to do the same.

 

Exactly what are the risks of buying imported v. USA film when it's a

non-professional film in the first place? After all, this is

motorsports we're talking about, not fashion.

Douglas,

 

Since you are using a Mac and IT8 targets to profile a Canon FS4000US, perhaps you can answer a question or two for me.

 

I have just ordered both the Velvia and Provia/Astia/Sensia slide targets from Wolf Faust and plan to use them to calibrate my FS4000 scanner using VueScan. When I get the reference files, where do I put them so that VueScan can access them...in the VueScan directory? I believe you have to rename the refernce file something that VueScan specifies as the name (I forget what that is and I'm at work, so I can't look). That's fine, I guess, even though it means that the reference files for multiple films must all be named the same thing. Then I will use the reference file and VueScan to create a profile for my scanner that will be named, I believe, scanner.icc. Where does VueScan put the resulting scanner profile...in the Colorsync profiles folder? That's where it seems it should go.

 

If it doesn't put it there, should I make a copy of it and put that in the Colorsync profiles folder so that I can specify that as my input profile, instead of the default file that came with the scanner, when I'm using the film scanner?

 

I guess that each time I change from Sensia to Velvia I need to re-profile the scanner with the other target, which will create a different profile with the same name as the older one. Do you just overwrite the old one? That means a new profile every time you change films. I guess that's OK, since I suppose the response of the scanner drifts just like a monitor does over time, but its too bad you can't maintain multiple profiles for multiple films if those are really required. That also means, however, renaming the reference file for the new film type with the required input name again, which will overwrite the older reference file for the other film. Do you keep originals of these refernce files somewhere in another folder for repeated use as you change films?

 

This is all getting very confusing to me. I wish the damn scanner just produced accurate colors in the first place, but neither FilmGet nor VueScan seem to provide that without extra tweaking. If I can get the colors into Photoshop accurately by profiling the scanner, that's what I'd like to do, but exactly how to use the reference files and output profiles in conjunction with the IT8 slides and VueScan isn't really given much space in the VueScan users manual.