mike_smith2

Work through this methodically

 

A - are you vastly underexposing your images, ie possibly in manual mode, high shutter speed and narrow aperture setting - say 1/1000 at F22.... or perhaps the metering system is playing up and using similar settings - put camera in AV mode, 100ASA and set aperture to F16 the shutter speed on a sunny day should be 1/125 second and slower if overcast or much slower if shooting indoors

 

B - Take lens off and set camera to manual and a very low shutter speed, 1/15 or 1/8th second then watch what happens inside the camera when you take a picture

 

(i) Is the mirror swinging out of the way or stationary

 

(ii) set to 1 second exposure - Are the shutter blades moving

 

If no physical obstruction in front of the sensor and taking correct exposure pictures, then it may be sensor or otehr electrical problems.

 

Mike

Gerry

 

Thanks

 

One more query - am I also right in thinking the higher end Olympus E flash gun has high speed flash sync capability like the Canon 550/580EX

Am I right in thinking that the olympus cord and canon off shoe cords

have similar pin/cabling, ie Canon Off shoe cord 2 can be used as an

alternative?

 

I ask as I am considering dabbling with an E-500, MF 300 F2.8 lens

and converters to make a lightweight travel alternative to my usual

canon kit. - the idea of a ligtweight 1200mm F5.6 nature photography

rig is rather intriguing........ I am presently working out the

budget to set up a useable nature kit with my current better beamer

fill flash.

 

Mike Smith

 

UK

I was referring to the "sunset" element of the query and graduated ND filters, not full ND filters/Polarisers. As someone else pointed out a standard polariser acts as a perfectly good 2 stop ND filter and is certainly better than a Cokin series Grey "ND" filter which will colour shift

If using a DSLR, ND grads are not really needed either, use a digital blending technique from 2 images exposed to retain highlight and shadow detail - search on Digital ND or Contrast masking techniques - this gives a much better result as there is no hard/soft line to line up, especially on complex horizon subjects where you would get some additonal darkening of dark elements caught in the graduation zone.

 

Mike

The Zeiss 21mm is the king of wide angles and is currently rare as hens teeth and more expensive than moon dust, expect to pay 2 - 3 times the old new list price - production is now discontinued which is fuelling the high second hand price.

 

Alternatives to consider are the Oly OM Mount Zuiko 21mm F3.5 or rarer F2 lens with floating rear element so has better close focus handling. Not quite as god as the Zeiss 21 but certainly a lot better than the Canon 20mm - don't be put of by the toy like size of the Zuikos, they perform extremely well when stopped down from F5.6. You also need a decent adapter (ie not a chinese Ebay aluminium jobby)to get the best out of them/true infinity focus

 

Have a look at this website for some exotic testing done on 1dsII and 5D FF DSLRs

 

http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/

 

Mike Smith

 

UK

see attached chart in this link

 

http://web.mac.com/tinyproductions/iWeb/Main/Leica%20List.html

 

Mike Smith

 

UK

If using F22 and manual focussing on front object still doesn't give you sufficient depth of field consider merging 2 shots together, using a tripod so image doesn't move focus on front object, take shot, focus on second object take shot. When processing images in photoshop import second image into a new layer and using a large soft brush erase the blurred foerground to reveal the first image underneath

 

Mike

Paul

 

I would reshoot your tests before taking the camera back, this time shoot a sheet of white A4 at F22 defocussed and don't compensate to get a white exposure to get an even neutral gray backdrop then check for dust spots.

 

F22 and defocussing are key steps - it's not clear from your post if you are shooting your tests with the clouds in focus or not.

 

Mike Smith

 

London

Peace of mind and abity to achieve infinity focus - cameraquest are known to work, Ebay cheapies are usually a few '00"s too thick and prevent infinity focus wide open

 

In theory the two lenses you have should clear the mirror swing but there is build quality variance in the 5D

 

Mike Smith

 

London

Kathy

 

RAW files have no sharpening at all, in addition the image quality is degraded slightly by an anti -alias filter in front of the sensor that reduces moire patterning. Your digicam would have had quite aggressive sharpening as default and no anti alias filter in front of the sensor so straight out of the camera the images will look completely different.

 

If shooting RAW, Canon have a recommended initial/first pass sharpen procedure to overcome the AA filter softening as follows -

 

(i) In you RAW converter software turn off all sharpening when producing the TIFF

 

(ii) in Photoshop do a first pass unsharp filter with settings of 300%, 0.3 radius, 0 threshold

 

Opinions are mixed as to whether you should reduce any noise before or after this sharpen step, either way this default first "pass setting" is a good starting point to refine the image.

 

Mike

Digitising film slides -

 

Pre digital days when copying slides we used slide copiers that

mounted on the front of the film camera body, the ones with the white

diffuser plate etc.

 

Next evolutionary trend was the dedicated digital scanner to digitise

slide images for the web and printing.

 

Now we have full frame high resolution DSLRs, - Canon 5D and 1DsII.

Has anyone tried using the old film slide copiers out there to

digitise film slides? - Generating an even quality light should be

achievable with the film light box

 

If so is the output of using a FF DSLR body shooting in RAW and an

old fashioned film slide copier now capable of generating the same

quality image as using a dedicated film scanner (obviously no digital

ICE etc), but is the reproduction and DMAX similar using a DSLR

compared to a modern scanner?

 

Mike Smith

 

London

As we move over to the pure digital process at Club

meetings/presentations, can anyone confirm what is the best colour

mode to use for images destined for digital projection - RGB or sRGB?

 

Mike Smith

 

London

Q1 - Yes

 

Q2 - No......

 

My experience of this from my Pentax SLR days is that it is not worthwhile trying to use a standard SLR or DSLR - the conversion mount that replaces the eyepiece brings effective equivelent telephoto lens focul length down to 800mm or 1100 mm or so (16 - 22 x mag) with a fixed aperture of F11 or worse so it is difficult to focus. Balance of rig is difficult with weight of camera body slung at the back of telescope, (telescope tripod mount is optomised for no additional weight out back) main problem tho' is vibration blurring from the SLR/DSLR mirror slap. - you need a really hefty tripod not the standard "birders" telescope tripod to tame the vibrations

 

Digiscoping with the small digicams on the other hand is better, you retain the scopes eyepiece so get bigger magnicifations and the cameras used (generally Nikon Coolpix type - you need a front filter thread mounting) have no mirror mechanism so no mirror slap induced vibrations. - focussing is equaly difficult tho'

 

Mike

If you only need shift rather than tilt the Olympus OM Zuiko 35PC lens is a little cracker and still relatively cheap (in Europe) - provided you don't get a well used one and it still retains friction in the shift movement (there is no lockdown mechanism) - it shifts in both planes.

 

Use the Cameraquest OM : EOS adapter or other quality adapter not a cheap Chinese Ebay adapter.

 

Alternatively the C/Y mount Zeiss Distagon 35PC is truly spectacular, but it is much sought after and so much more expensive, again you need a quality adapter to mount on EOS bodies.

 

Mike Smith

 

London

1348 is only Ok when used with top 1 of the 3 legs extented, even then you are pushing your luck. 5 series G Mountaineer is the standard recommendation for these lenses.

 

Choice of head is more critical, both lenses need gimbal head support, the full Wimberly or new Kirk Cobra with bottom mounting clamps are safest for mount/dismount, ie try to avoid side mounting jaw gimbals due to physical weight of the lenses will try to pull the lens out of jaw clamp, if any slack in the rig it can end in tears.

 

Mike Smith

Mark Welsh has done a lot of alternative lens testing as well, eg look at his Zeiss 21 vs Canon 17-40 on this site

 

http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/best19_21.html

 

Also have a look at his tests with the the Nikkor 17-35 AF-S lens if you want a top notch zoom - it is trashing some of the recognised prime lenses as well!

 

Mike

The Olympus OM Zuiko 18mm F3.5 has slightly better edge performance compared to the Zeiss 18mm F4 but is slighly softer at the centre.

 

Also consider the 2 Olympus OM Zuiko 21mm lenses - the F2 is mid to high priced and fairly scarce the F3.5 a hidden gem -with negligeable distortion, now getting expensive in USA but still cheap in Europe. When stopped down to F8 you will not notice much difference between the two.

 

Mike Smith

 

London

a cover for the 100-400 lens is difficult as the length varies with zoom so the camo neoprene covers do not work.

 

An alternative is to use leaf camo Gortex waterproof jacket/leggings (cheap kiddie size perhaps) cut up and held in place with elastic or tape, this gives the flexibility for the change in length. If you need additional cushioning camping foam sleeping mats are an ideal substitute - I use cheap ones for additional lens bag cushioning

 

Mike Smith

Agencies tend to work on effective TIFF size in 8 Bit RGB, not raw pixel size (ie your4 MP comparison)

 

As a rough and ready guide most UK agencies are looking for (minimum) 40MB RGB 8 Bit files - which is about the output of the 16MP 1DsII unrezzed.

 

Mike Smith

London

I tested the Macro agaisnt a Zeiss 1.7 Distagon and Zuiko 1.8 & 1.4 lenses last year but not against the 1.4 Canon

 

The macro was sharp wide open right thro' to fully stopped down. Shortcomings are that it is a slow and noisy focussing lens and is relatively flat in contrast and coloration.

 

It performed really well against the Distagon for sharpness but not for the contrast or coloration;

 

http://www.bramblingphotos.com/lens%20tests/50mm_c_comparison.htm

 

http://www.bramblingphotos.com/lens%20tests/50mm_cr_comparison.htm

 

Mike Smith

Can't directly answer about the Canon ballhead, but Markins ballheads are frequently reconmmended as cheaper equivelents to the ASB1

 

www.markins.com

 

Mike

As you have a 20D, the choice is one of convenience of functions rather than image quality, both lenses will perform pretty well equally on a 1.6 crop sensor camera. Most users with a 20D have positive views of the lens.

 

If you had a full frame DSLR ie 5D or 1Ds then there are people reporting issues of vignetting and edge softness of the 24-105 at the wide end.

 

Mike

So you now have 3 options

 

Zeiss lenses in Contax/Yashica, Nikon, M42 - You can get EOS converters for all 3 mount types. People have been experimenting with C/Y and the older M42 mount Pentax/Practica Jena Zeiss lenses for some time in addition to the wide angle Olympus Zuiko and Leica R.

 

Same problems will still exist for the newly released models ie manual focussing and stop down metering which is not everyones cup of tea, you need split screen or fresnel prism viewfinder conversions with a magnifier of some sort to be able to achieve critical focus required by the modern DSLR and the resolutions achievable.

 

Canon 5D owners need to be aware of the mirror swing clearance issues with several of the older Zeiss and Leica R lenses

 

Mike Smith

On a purely local perspective, ie within 30 minute drive of Reading;

 

Waterfalls are few and far between, BUT there is an excellent man made waterfall at the southern outlet of the lake at Virginia Water just east of Ascot (1/4 west of the main carpark off the A30)use B&W techniques, crop tight and slow shutter speeds and you can get some stunning shots. The park itself has picturesque views across the lake, if it is a cold foggy morning it is a very atmospheric place.

 

Otherwise 1/2 an hour north from Reading around Nettlebed are excellent beech woodlands on rolling hills, a multitude of footpaths criss cross from Nettlebed/Bix towards Maidensgrove, get the local OS map and explore, the BBOWT reserve at Warburg (Bix Bottom track) is a good starting point. If you are into nature photography the area has Red Kite in abundance, plus common woodland bird photography from the two hides on the reserve. The Warburg Reserve is a showpiece reserve and a must for spring/summer exploration.

 

With some imagination, the right light and conditions the Kennet Avon canal, west of Theale or Burghfield holds quite a few photographic oportunities, the present cold frost mornings should give atmosheric misty shots.

 

If you are after snow on hills and mountains then you need to consider the Brecon Beacons or around Builth Wells/Elan Valley in South Wales, but that is a 3 - 4 hour drive depending on traffic conditions and which bit you are trying to get to.

 

Mike Smith

Pangbourne