jonas_gustavsson

Hello Mark,

<p>

Yes, it was announced a few weeks ago. For more info, you may want to check out e. g. the <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos1dsmarkiii/">Preview at DPreview</a>. Happy shopping!<p>

You may also want to check out William Castleman's review (to be updated) <a href="http://www.wlcastleman.com/equip/reviews/40D/">here</a>. In a comparison to 20D and XTi, he finds a surprisingly large difference in sharpness with XTi and 40D providing much higher sharpness after identical post-processing treatment. Now we are just waiting for somebody to to make a comparison of high-ISO noise after sharpening has been applied to correct for the resolution difference. Maybe all hope is not lost? :-)

I have a Sigma 70-210 APO. It works with D60, but not with 10D, so I presume it would not work with more modern bodies either. I don't think Sigma will rechip these any more, but also think that at one point it was possible to upgrade them for 10D compatibility.

It may also be possible to infer something from the <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/public_files/Canon_EOS-1D_Mark_III_White_Paper.pdf">1D Mark III White Paper</a> about sRAW - particularily from the table on p. 30. Interestingly, the approx file size for sRaw is 7.6 MB vs. 13 MB for Raw dispite only storing a quarter of the number of pixels. (I don't get how 10.1 MP x 14-bit workes out to just 13 MB, but that is another story - lossless compression?) This must suggest that some "improved interpolation" is done to derive unknown color information compared to what is done at full resolution. Since each 2x2 sensor block conatins 1R, 2G and 1B-filtered sensor, though not exactly in the same location, interpolation may be unnecessary. I'm not sure how you can do binning on a Bayer sensor - binning the colors one by one may mean even more loss in resolution.<P>

Here is a discussion from dpreview where the potential binning in the 1DIII is discussed. Apparently the Bayer filter could cause some problems. There were no clear answers then, but that was in February...

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<a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1000&message=22161540&changemode=1">DPReview 1DIII binning</A>

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Personally, I think it is very pessimistic to think that we would be at a level where 2x2 binning would essentially not result in a lack of information - we don't have 1x1 um sensors and ISO 12800 yet. Maybe in a compact camera close to you soon? :-) Hence - sRaw only makes sense for people with large quantity/quality requirement ratio.<p>

Well, if it uses 2x2 binning rather than just discarding 3/4 of the sensor data, this could be the answer to the prayers of people who like to complain about how megapixels are for amateurs with some kind of self-confidence issues and real photographers just want more DR and S/N...

The Fotomagazin article where the lack of IR suppression in certain cameras can be found in issue 2, 2007, p 40-42. The primary testobject is Leica M8, but Nikon D70 is also shown to have large enough IR sensitivity to give false colors sometimes. They suggest other Nikon models also suffer from this and suggest that one cure could be to add an extra IR blocking filter such as Heliopan 8125 or B+W 486. The color shifts they show are quite significant, even for non-black textiles.

The German photomagazine Fotomagazin presented a test a few issues ago that discussed the large differences between digital cameras in their IR sensitivity and how many seemingly black objects turned quite red with some cameras. The only thing I remember about this is that the Nikon was significantly more sensitive to IR than the Canon tested. I couldn't find anything online on this test, but you may be more successful: www.fotomagazin.de

Just another confirmation based on my own experiences with a 70-210 mm/2.8 APO, 82 mm filter: Works well (slow AF) on D60, not on 10D.

One awkward way around this for stationary subjects is to use the FEL. Just press the FEL button to fire the preflash and then wait long enough for the flashes to recharge before pushing the trigger. Just don't wait so long that the camera forgets about the FEL... A cheap old non-ETTL flash on the hotshoe will be more practical.

I'm not sure about your specific camera, but for my D60, it seems 633 nm light would give maybe 10% in G of what it gives in R if the plot on p 5 in <a href="http://amper.ped.muni.cz/noc/english/canc_rhythm/g_camer.pdf">this paper</a> is accurate. Perhaps Canon's choice would indicate that 633 nm is not perceived by the human eye as "pure red"? Anyway, this would suggest that if your camera does not have a tricolor histogram, you may want to see if it shows R+G+B, only G or some other combination and keep an eye on that to determine if you have R saturation, using data on the relative sensitivity of the three channels. <p>

I would think that the maximum frame rate for a dSLR is due to the rate at which data can be transferred from the chip to the memory card. You can get scientific cameras with frame rates of 1000 fps or more, but then they are in the five digits. A cheaper but trickier alternative for elongated subjects such as arrows may be to keep your dSLR shutter open and use a rotating mirror to project the image onto different parts of the sensor over a few ms - this doesn't take very high rpm. Then you just need a high-speed lightsource - potentially a battery of standard electronic flashguns used at a fraction of full power and trigged with small time spacings could be used. As others have pointed out, there is a difficult trade-off between sufficient light and acceptable blur in your case. Getting the trigging to work without expensive equipment may also be a little tricky. Fun challenge though - good luck!

Hello Slip,

 

Sigma makes the 80-400 mm lens with Optical Stabilizer - it is maybe in a slightly lower leage then the 100-400 mm IS, at least optically "from what I hear". I think they also released a second OS lens recently. I sure wish they would get into this market in a big way to put some price pressure on Canon.

Well, there is the <a href="http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon400D/page4ca.shtml">Camera Labs</a> 'real life' comparison to the 350XT, which seems to suggest pretty similar performance, but as I understand it, the 20D/30D still has a <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos350d/page19.asp">slight edge</a> in high ISO noise performance. Let's hope some Canon engineer is busy figuring out how to improve 40D further without resorting to image intensifiers of liquid nitrogen cooling. :-)<p>

Regarding smearing, I doubt that it really results in a complete loss of information, but rather in some kind of degradation. If an image is softened using gaussian blur (lowering noise RMS), unsharp mask can - to some extent - be used to recover the original sharpness. Since whenever working with a DSLR image - particularly RAW - some sharpening seems necessary, it would be very interesting to see what the output would look like from a noise perspective once the same perceived sharpness has been recovered.<p>

Compariung different resolution cameras, the inherent benefit of having more pixels to start with, allowing some averaging to bring 10 to 8 MP may also be interesting to consider to see if the 2 MP extra are pretty much "empty" or not. <p>

I agree that the patches paint a rosier picture for Canon than the graphs. It would be neat to see some tests where the potential excessive smearing of post-processing has been corrected for, though. Maybe some form of deconvolution applied to "re-sharpen" an in-focus edge in a shot could be used for this.

 

Personally, I think it is sad that the Sony does not fare better - I want this to be a tough competetive field rather than a duopoly.

Finally, fellow pixelpeepers, dpreview has posted some data on the 400D noise

levels as part of a comparison with Nikon D80 in a recent review: <a

href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond80/page18.asp">400d et al

noise</a> (also data on other comparison pages)<p>

 

Still waiting for the real stuff, of course, but maybe this is an indication

that the noise doesn't quite render the increase 8->10MP useless, but that we

are very much approaching the limit of what is possible. Since I'm used to

ISO800 noise on a D60, I still think they should have treated us to a hardware

3200 level on the 400d for emergencies.<p>

That sounds like a great deal to me. I have used a D60 for a couple of years and it is a fine camera. Shortcomings compared to the modern Canon offerings include high ISO noise (400 barely acceptable, 800 and 1000 only for emergencies), slow and unreliable AF, small display and generally pretty slow respone. The image quality at 100 or 200 is spectacular even compared to a modern digicam in this price range. One added benefit of a D60 is that it is compatible with some older Sigma glass which modern Canons are not - you can get yourself a nice deal on e g a 70-210/2.8 APO like I did...

Add one more to the list of people eager to see a dpreview Full Review of this camera. So far the only (why?) review I have seen is from cameralabs <a href="http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Canon400D/page4c.shtml">here</a>. It seems their conclusion was "a little more, but not too bad", though they used less than ideal lenses and made less extensive testing that dpreview would. <p>

Thank you for all the helpful suggestions and information! <p>

I will try to get hold of Lefkowiz' book and see if I can understand the theory behind macro photography. It does seem like large working distance combined with larger-than-life magnification come at hefty costs in convenience as well as in price. Thanks also for the Edmund Optics suggestion - I'm a frequent customer there, but had not seen their video lenses before. <p>

One challenge of my application - which is capturing a 6x6 FOV in a 532 nm laser-illuminated flame (~10 ns duration) is that the facility is surrounded by a blast shield, making it difficult to get close with the cameras, in particular since there is also the need for beamsplitters and vapor cells in front of the camera lenses. Another problem is that the predicted light level is very low, making a large aperture desirable. Looking at the macro DOF, there is definitely a limit to how large of an aperture I can use, though. I think I will look into miniaturizing my optics and try to get most of them (not the cameras) inside the blast shield. <p>

Thanks again, everybody!

Hi! I have an application where I need to achieve about 2x lifesize

magnification but where the front of the lens must be at least 45 cm (1.5ft)

away from the subject. I understand that I can achieve this with a tele lens,

say 300 mm, and a lot of bellow extension, but would like to find a way to

avoid or minimize the light loss (due to excessive image circle?) this creates.

Is there a way? I'm using MF Nikon F gear, chromatic aberrations are no

problem, the sensor size is roughly 12x12 mm and the budget (incl lens) is

~$2k.

I believe this is known as the "blinking eye E-TTL" or beettl syndrome in photonotes. I have never seen it myself, but I prefer manual flash and maybe my subjects are not so nervous around me.<p>

<a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/">NK Guy's excellent EOS Flash notes</a><p>

I'm not familiar with these two cameras, but if it is a matter of pinning down when Canon changed the electronics to make the lens incompatible, I can say that my lens works on a Canon D60, but not on a 10D.

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00EUm7&tag=">Recent discussion</a><p>

I would go with the 10D if I were you, solely based on the greatly improved autofocus. I came in from an Elan IIe and it is hard to get used to the hunting in low light of the D60. The other big reason to get the 10D, I think, is the significantly lower noise levels at high ISO. I went with the D60 just because I had some older Sigma lenses that didn't like the 10D. Nicer cameras both of them, but I would say that 10D is easily $300 nicer for somebody in your situation, particularly considering that you may get a portion of that difference back when reselling down the line. Have fun with your dSLR!

Thanks for your suggestions, John and Bill! I will definitely get a better thermometer, some fresh film and check how my bleach is doing. Thanks a lot!