bryanche

Set Custom Function 4 to setting 1.

I own the Canon 28 f/1.8, as well as the 17-40 f/4L and the 28-70 f/2.8L (which also cover 28mm). I use it quite often on a 10D and find it useful as a normal-view, low-light prime lens. See my post in the thread, <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006w1W">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006w1W</a> for more info.

I have the Canon 28 f/1.8 and am pretty pleased with it. I have only used it on my 10D, however, so I can't speak for its performance on cameras with larger sensor sizes or on film bodies. I can say, though, that, out of my entire lens collection, I often carry only this lens with me and am able to take pictures that I would not have gotten with a slower lens like a 24 2.8. In the end, that was why I purchased this lens--it is a great, carry-anywhere, shoot-anywhere tool.

 

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<img height=600 width=400 hspace=5 vspace=10 src="image?bboard_upload_id=15943084">

<br>Canon EF 28 1.8 on Canon 10D. 1/30th second, f/1.8, ISO 400

I have the Canon 28 1.8 and use it on my 10D as a normal lens. I also have the 50 1.4, which I use as my normal lens on film bodies. I have been fairly happy with the 28. It's about the same size as the 50 1.4, and it takes good pictures. I find that I can consistently get sharp pictures on the 10D at 1/30th second and f/1.8 and often use the lens indoors (or even outdoors in dim light) without flash.

 

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If you want to do available-light shooting indoors, you will probably need a faster lens than something like a 28 2.8. I'll often shoot at f/1.8 and ISO 400 or 800 indoors. You could raise the ISO on a 10D to 1600 or higher with a slower lens, but I would rather avoid doing so due to increased noise.

 

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The 50 is a sharper lens, but the 28 is acceptably sharp, and I am satisfied with its performance--even wide open in low light. DOF is much deeper on the 28 than on the 50. So, even at f/1.8, you won't get nearly as much background blur with the 28 as with the 50 (which I like for available light shooting). The DOF is deep enough, though, so that you have to focus carefully, or else your subject may not appear sharp. And, with the 10D's reduced viewfinder, focusing precisely is more difficult than with a 50 on a film body.

 

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Overall, the 28 1.8 has been a great replacement for the 50 1.4 on my 10D. I love its small size and fast performance. I keep it on my 10D for available-light shooting and as a small, carry-everywhere lens for when I don't want to lug all my heavy zooms and flash. Don't let all the people who have never used this lens sway you--the Canon 28 1.8 can deliver excellent pictures. If you're used to shooting with a 50 1.4 on a film body, you'll be quite comfortable using the 28 1.8 on a 10D.<div></div>

Or, if you scan all your pictures like you did with this one, you can digitally edit your pictures to remove the yellow cast. I did an auto-level and then applied a blue cooling filter in Photoshop to your picture. Here is the result.<div></div>

If you're going to get Photoshop CS anyway, you might as well use that and try out the demo of C1 to compare for yourself. As for me, I now use Photoshop CS--I like processing my images from beginning to end at once in Photoshop, and ACR gives great results.

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<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006Rjk">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006Rjk</a>

I just saw that Thomas Knoll (author of ACR) posted that ACR 2 can recover 1 extra stop above ACR 1 and other raw converters: scroll down the thread at <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=182842&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1">http://www.robgalbraith.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=182842&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1</a>

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That agrees with the extra detail I'm seeing here.

I did try negative exposure. I think both RAW files are at -1. But, with C1, I tried bringing it all the way down just to see what I could get in the sky, and it wasn't nearly as much as with ACR.

Raw file processed with Adobe Camera Raw in Photoshop CS.<div></div>

Raw file processed with Capture One DSLR<div></div>

Here is the straight JPEG.<div></div>

I just started playing with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) 2 in Photoshop CS,

and I've found that it is able to bring out details in highlights much

better than Capture One DSLR. Here are some downsized, cropped

samples: The first one is from a straight JPEG from a Canon 10D. The

second is from a Canon 10D RAW file processed with Capture One DSLR.

The third is the same RAW file processed with ACR. The ACR picture

could probably have used some different settings or additional editing

to look a bit more natural in the sky (I'm still learning how to use

it). But, I thought the detail that ACR brought out was pretty

impressive.

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The pictures aren't really artistic or pleasing--I just took them out

my window because I wanted to see how the raw software did at bringing

out highlights in the sky. From these pictures, it seems that

shooting RAW definitely yields a big advantage in preserving

highlights--particularly with ACR.

This information is for an older body (Elan 2), but I have found that much of it is still relevant to the 10D: <a href="http://bobatkins.photo.net/info/faq30/flashfaq.htm">http://bobatkins.photo.net/info/faq30/flashfaq.htm</a>. I have had consistently good results with my 10D and 550EX (as I did before with an Elan 2e and the 550EX) using the guidelines in this article.

Take a look at my two pictures posted in this thread: <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006F4M">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=006F4M</a>. Shooting RAW gave me much more detail in the highlights--information that was lost when I shot JPEG even though I metered the two pictures identically. Shooting this picture in RAW, then, effectively increased my dynamic range. You can take the JPEG and try to adjust it with curves, but you won't find any more detail in the clouds or the window reflections. That information is gone.

For shooting landscapes, I would definitely get the 17-40. I have the 17-40L and also the older 28-70L. But, when I go hiking, I often just bring the 17-40. It is a <i>much</i> lighter lens, and I appreciate being able to go wide. Optically, the 17-40 is fantastic.

 

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Between 40-70, you can always get a 50 1.4.

I don't think write write acceleration works with your camera, although the card will still offer you faster performance. See <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425">http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6425</a> for more details.

Here is the JPEG generated from the RAW file.<div></div>

Shooting RAW files can often give you better images in the end--particularly if you want to do any kind of editing on the images. As you mentioned, shooting RAW allows you to manually set the gray balance and correct exposure. But, doing this kind of image manipulation on RAW files also lets you pull out more dynamic range from your camera.

 

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I'll post below a couple of pictures: one is a downsampled crop of a JPEG straight from a 10D; the other is a downsampled crop of a JPEG generated from a RAW file using Capture One (see <a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/c1-le.shtml">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/c1-le.shtml</a> for a review of Capture One LE). If you compare the skies, you'll see that the image from the RAW file shows much more detail than the JPEG straight from the 10D. This detail is lost in the JPEG and cannot be recovered.

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Shooting RAW also allows you to export your files as 16-bit tiffs rather than as 8-bit JPEGs. This is useful if you want to do any kind of specialized image adjusting in Photoshop. But, even if you don't use Photoshop and just go straight from RAW to JPEG, your images will generally look better.<div></div>

Just as a follow-up: I found <a href="http://www.photo.net/adorama-pro-lab/">Adorama's print service</a> to be just what I wanted: <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005ryX">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=005ryX</a>

My computer was running Windows XP Pro when I had the USB issues. And, yes, I think Colorvision should have built their products to work with AMD processors (I have no problems with any other USB devices). But, USB cards are cheap, and the Sypder product works well.

The USB ports built into most motherboards that use AMD processors don't work with the Spyder. I have one and and couldn't get it working on my Athlon XP box. I called Colorvision's tech support about this, and they told me to get a separate USB card for the Spyder because "the AMD USB ports have a timing bug" (their explanation). I bought a USB 2.0 card with an NEC chipset, and that solved my problems with the Spyder.

The FS4000 doesn't support USB2, so having USB2 on the computer won't help the scanning speed. If you monitor your CPU usage during scanning and see it going to 100%, then your PC is likely the bottleneck.

My FS4000 takes about 2-3 minutes for a 4000 dpi scan with FARE when using SCSI. Before, with USB, my scans took about 10 minutes with the same settings. I do all my scanning with FilmGet.

 

How fast is your computer? How much RAM do you have? It's possible your system is bottlenecking in your PC--especially if you use FARE, which is CPU-intensive.

I switched from USB to SCSI. The FS4000 is significantly faster with SCSI. Whereas a 4000 dpi scan with FARE took around 10 minutes with USB, it now takes around 2-3 minutes with SCSI.

I am looking for a digital lab/print-service that uses color

management. I have a callibrated and profiled setup for scanning and

viewing images on my computer. So, I would like the lab to which I

send my images to have some sort of output profile that I can download

to my PC. Thus, I could adjust an image on my computer

according to the lab's output profile, upload the image, and receive

back prints that match what I see on my screen.

 

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I know that high-end labs like <a

href="http://nancyscans.com">nancyscans</a> offer services like this.

But, their prices are quite high, and they don't offer smaller print

sizes like 4x6".

 

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Also, as far as I can tell, sites like <a

href="http://ofoto.com">Ofoto</a> or <a

href="http://shutterfly.com">Shutterfly</a> don't offer

profiles for downloading.

 

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Is there a print-service that offers profiled output and is not nearly

as expensive as something like nancyscans? I would think that paying

perhaps double the price of Ofoto would be reasonable for this

type of service (e.g. $8 for an 8x10). I don't need a technician to

actively engage my images in making my prints. And, the one-time cost

of purchasing the lab's profiling equipment would be amortized over

all of the

prints the lab makes. So, there shouldn't be much additional cost to

run a

lab with this type of service than an Ofoto or Shutterfly.