Ugh, one of those crazy weeks when I'm always up at least until 1 am and up 7.30 and still looks like I'm short of time. First half of the week was full of work, sports and photos (had to finish up with wedding shoot from 1.5 weeks ago), second half is full of work, work and testing two photo printers - Canon Pixma iP5000 and just announced HP Photosmart 8250. Making A4 borderless prints at home is something of a novelty to me. Both have some problems with Mac (Canon's software just won't install and HP has failed to provide me with drivers and software for Mac and I cannot find it on their webpage) but I could just put it down to my own stupidity and in HP's case to the very recent announcement of this printer.
So hopefully reviewes of those two photoprinters next week and I truly hope to finish the Wedding Series as well.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Minolta Maxxum / Dynax 7 Digital revisited
I initially tested and reviewed Konica Minolta Maxxum / Dynax 7 Digital (D7D from here on) in November 2004 and rather liked the camera (disclaimer: I've been shooting with Minolta cameras for 5 years now). In May 2005 I finally plunged into digital and bought D7D for myself. I briefly played with the idea of switching to Canon but fortunately Minolta brought prices down in time. Since may my D7D has seen extensive use both indoors and outdoors, during the day and night. I've shot over 3500 frames, used the camera 6+ hours straight, used it for shooting sports, landscapes, a wedding (just yesterday), streetphotography etc.
First of all, D7D has a great body. Especially if you love analog controls and lots of buttons. I most certainly do. The body is adaption from Dynax 7 analog body which I previously used so the switch was pretty easy. Actually some things have improved - toggle button between AF and MF under your thumb is better placed, metering mode dial and focusing mode dial have firmer step so I don't switch them accidenally any more. I'm not sure about the placement of depth of field preview button which I was used to pressing with the small finger on my right hand, now it has to be pressed with small finger of left hand and is really not in the best position when you're using slightly longer lens.
One thing regarding the body that I'm not very happy with is the fact that grip has lost some of it's depth. The grip itself actually feels just as big in the hand but with D7D my fingertips are pressed agains the body. I just shot for 6 hours straight yesterday and today I'd rather not take the camera into my hand as my fingertips are aching. And my fingers aren't that long, they're actually more on the short side for my height.
Second, I absolutely love that you can set 3 custom programs or group of settings and then switch between them by simply turing big dial on the top. I've set one for maximum quality, second for slightly lower quality and third for high-iso handheld shooting. It's really easy to change a setting and save it. I can see how this feature will help me in future assignments where I can set one setting for no-flash maximum quality shooting, second for shooting with flash and third for shooting with wireless flash for example (switching between normal flash and wireless flash is a drag, more on that later).
Thirdly, ISO 800 and 1600 is actually usable. I don't hesitate switching to 800 if necessary or to 1600, especially if I think I can convert these pictures to black and white later. High iso does tend to soften the image somewhat and there's still noise present but it's rather filmlike I would say.
D7D was lacking in the speed department when it came out, or that's what I read from forums as everybody seemed to need 8 frames per second, 40 frame buffer camera. Ok, really the problem was write times and with the firmware update this has improved dramatically. With my shooting style (rather trying to press the shutter in the right time than having it pressed down all the time) I have never had to wait for the camera to clear the image buffer. But it probably is a little slow for Olympic style sports photography.
One thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact that even though D7D has orientation detection it does not automatically turn images shot in portrait. Don't know if it's just a stupid mistake or would that put too much stress on processor and would slow the camera down but it would be a great timesaver in post-production phase.
D7D is more prone to exposure errors that it's analog predecessor. It's more easily fooled by bright light sources or really dark areas. Sometimes it underexposes for no apparent reasons. I don't like chimping (as checking every image after you've shot it is aparently called) so sometimes I miss these errors. Certainly not a huge problem and nothing that would make me hate the camera but there's definetly room for improvement in the future.
Because I don't do really specific and scientific testing on speed, write times, color accuracy etc I'll just say that D7D feels slightly worse in autofocus that did D7 analog. I'm using the same lenses in pretty much the same situations and I don't get so good feeling. I use only central focusing point as I've never liked camera trying to guess where to focus, I think they're doing a bad job out of it and I'm not talking only about Minolta here. In my initial review I actually said that focusing in the dark was better with digital body and Sigma 70-300 lens, now I think the opposite is true. Minolta really shouldn't have dumped the low light red assist light that allowed literally focusing in pitch black.
Word of warning - don't trust the screen in bright sunlight. In fact, don't trust the screen in any other light. It's good for checking framing and overall quality + use histogram for exposure check but never delete a frame beacause it feels too bright or dark on LCD. That is not to say that the screen is bad, it's just not telling the whole story.
Histogram sometimes starts to warn a bit too early. So there might still be some detail in either highlights or shadows and that's all you need but histogram is already blinking and that might give the idea you have to reshoot and adjust slightly. That is something I've just now getting used to and am beginning to trust my instincts more.
Battery lifetime. I cannot really say how many frames or how much long it will last. I wish it could do more but you can check over at dpreview.com yourself if it's doing average milage or above/below that. Certainly worth getting a second battery (I purchased one by Power2000, half the price of original, same or similar performance) and if you're really in saving mode then switching off autofocus, LCD information and AntiShake. And use review sparingly.
You might have noticed that I've said nothing about AntiShake so far :) AntiShake is imagestabilizer that is built into camera body and helps to reduce softness from shaking hands, resulting in sharper pictures and allowing to shoot handheld in darker conditions than with normal camera/lens. Once again I've done no measurements but I know that I can shoot without tripod in very dark conditions and it suits my shooting style perfectly. Just last week Konica Minolta announced their new DSLR, Maxxum / Dynax 5 Digital and I'm glad that they've put AntiShake in this camera as well. It's really a great technology.
Oh, promised to write about wireless flash as well. Minolta has a really cool solution where you pair your flash with you camera and can then use flash wirelessly off-camera. It's controled with short flash bursts from D7D own pop-up flash and you can even pair 2 flashguns with one camera. Both camera manual and flash own manual are not the best and probably tell you just the basics but I really like it and plan to get my own flash soon. Enough of borrowing stuff. Downside is the complicated switching between normal flash and wireless flash. When you take flashgun off your camera you have to press a button on it and go to camera menu to switch flash mode from say "fill-in" to "wireless". Hard to do it when all you want to do is grab the flash into your left hand and fire off a quick frame. Custom program are something that could really help here.
That's a wrap then. Just some things that have stuck out while using this truly excellent camera.
First of all, D7D has a great body. Especially if you love analog controls and lots of buttons. I most certainly do. The body is adaption from Dynax 7 analog body which I previously used so the switch was pretty easy. Actually some things have improved - toggle button between AF and MF under your thumb is better placed, metering mode dial and focusing mode dial have firmer step so I don't switch them accidenally any more. I'm not sure about the placement of depth of field preview button which I was used to pressing with the small finger on my right hand, now it has to be pressed with small finger of left hand and is really not in the best position when you're using slightly longer lens.
One thing regarding the body that I'm not very happy with is the fact that grip has lost some of it's depth. The grip itself actually feels just as big in the hand but with D7D my fingertips are pressed agains the body. I just shot for 6 hours straight yesterday and today I'd rather not take the camera into my hand as my fingertips are aching. And my fingers aren't that long, they're actually more on the short side for my height.
Second, I absolutely love that you can set 3 custom programs or group of settings and then switch between them by simply turing big dial on the top. I've set one for maximum quality, second for slightly lower quality and third for high-iso handheld shooting. It's really easy to change a setting and save it. I can see how this feature will help me in future assignments where I can set one setting for no-flash maximum quality shooting, second for shooting with flash and third for shooting with wireless flash for example (switching between normal flash and wireless flash is a drag, more on that later).
Thirdly, ISO 800 and 1600 is actually usable. I don't hesitate switching to 800 if necessary or to 1600, especially if I think I can convert these pictures to black and white later. High iso does tend to soften the image somewhat and there's still noise present but it's rather filmlike I would say.
D7D was lacking in the speed department when it came out, or that's what I read from forums as everybody seemed to need 8 frames per second, 40 frame buffer camera. Ok, really the problem was write times and with the firmware update this has improved dramatically. With my shooting style (rather trying to press the shutter in the right time than having it pressed down all the time) I have never had to wait for the camera to clear the image buffer. But it probably is a little slow for Olympic style sports photography.
One thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact that even though D7D has orientation detection it does not automatically turn images shot in portrait. Don't know if it's just a stupid mistake or would that put too much stress on processor and would slow the camera down but it would be a great timesaver in post-production phase.
D7D is more prone to exposure errors that it's analog predecessor. It's more easily fooled by bright light sources or really dark areas. Sometimes it underexposes for no apparent reasons. I don't like chimping (as checking every image after you've shot it is aparently called) so sometimes I miss these errors. Certainly not a huge problem and nothing that would make me hate the camera but there's definetly room for improvement in the future.
Because I don't do really specific and scientific testing on speed, write times, color accuracy etc I'll just say that D7D feels slightly worse in autofocus that did D7 analog. I'm using the same lenses in pretty much the same situations and I don't get so good feeling. I use only central focusing point as I've never liked camera trying to guess where to focus, I think they're doing a bad job out of it and I'm not talking only about Minolta here. In my initial review I actually said that focusing in the dark was better with digital body and Sigma 70-300 lens, now I think the opposite is true. Minolta really shouldn't have dumped the low light red assist light that allowed literally focusing in pitch black.
Word of warning - don't trust the screen in bright sunlight. In fact, don't trust the screen in any other light. It's good for checking framing and overall quality + use histogram for exposure check but never delete a frame beacause it feels too bright or dark on LCD. That is not to say that the screen is bad, it's just not telling the whole story.
Histogram sometimes starts to warn a bit too early. So there might still be some detail in either highlights or shadows and that's all you need but histogram is already blinking and that might give the idea you have to reshoot and adjust slightly. That is something I've just now getting used to and am beginning to trust my instincts more.
Battery lifetime. I cannot really say how many frames or how much long it will last. I wish it could do more but you can check over at dpreview.com yourself if it's doing average milage or above/below that. Certainly worth getting a second battery (I purchased one by Power2000, half the price of original, same or similar performance) and if you're really in saving mode then switching off autofocus, LCD information and AntiShake. And use review sparingly.
You might have noticed that I've said nothing about AntiShake so far :) AntiShake is imagestabilizer that is built into camera body and helps to reduce softness from shaking hands, resulting in sharper pictures and allowing to shoot handheld in darker conditions than with normal camera/lens. Once again I've done no measurements but I know that I can shoot without tripod in very dark conditions and it suits my shooting style perfectly. Just last week Konica Minolta announced their new DSLR, Maxxum / Dynax 5 Digital and I'm glad that they've put AntiShake in this camera as well. It's really a great technology.
Oh, promised to write about wireless flash as well. Minolta has a really cool solution where you pair your flash with you camera and can then use flash wirelessly off-camera. It's controled with short flash bursts from D7D own pop-up flash and you can even pair 2 flashguns with one camera. Both camera manual and flash own manual are not the best and probably tell you just the basics but I really like it and plan to get my own flash soon. Enough of borrowing stuff. Downside is the complicated switching between normal flash and wireless flash. When you take flashgun off your camera you have to press a button on it and go to camera menu to switch flash mode from say "fill-in" to "wireless". Hard to do it when all you want to do is grab the flash into your left hand and fire off a quick frame. Custom program are something that could really help here.
That's a wrap then. Just some things that have stuck out while using this truly excellent camera.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Packaging that can kill you
For some time now I've been wondering about packaging of certain goods. It appears that either manufacturers are trying to gear up for nuclear war or trying to make consumers cut their fingers and/or wrists while trying to open packages. Specifically I'm having ultrastrong plastic packages in mind. I've mainly stumbled upon them when purchasing memory cards but similar packaging is used for batteries/chargers, power adaptors etc. They are impossible to open up with your bare hands, at least I'm too weak to tear them open or force the bindings to give way. So I have to resort to sharp objects like scissors or knives and even then it's a chore. Cutting up one side is not enough but when cutting other sides you're threatened by really sharp plastic edges that are the result of cutting the first side.
I understand the need for good, durable packaging as it's the only thing protecting a memory card or battery charger for example, from being damaged before it reaches it's target audience. However, someone really should have invented a safe, strong and easy to open solution by now. What century is it?
Just bought my second SanDisk Ultra II 1GB Compact Flash memory card. Really pleased with my first one, fast and reliable and got a good price as well. Can strongly recommend if you're on budget that does not allow to get the fastest cards on the market (Lexar Pro range and SanDisk Extreme range for example).
I understand the need for good, durable packaging as it's the only thing protecting a memory card or battery charger for example, from being damaged before it reaches it's target audience. However, someone really should have invented a safe, strong and easy to open solution by now. What century is it?
Just bought my second SanDisk Ultra II 1GB Compact Flash memory card. Really pleased with my first one, fast and reliable and got a good price as well. Can strongly recommend if you're on budget that does not allow to get the fastest cards on the market (Lexar Pro range and SanDisk Extreme range for example).
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Friday, June 17, 2005
Bunch of camera reviews coming up
Gearing up for new digicam reviews. I write pretty regularily to a local digital lifestyle magazine called [Digi] and we're going to do a bigger test for compact digicams. Something from Canon, Pentax, Sony, Casio etc. I'm usually not very fond of testing these small digicams but it's good to put them through the paces every now and then to see what are the new features, how big steps manufacturers have made in picture quality, speed etc. Later it is much easier to answere the eternal question: "So, which camera should I buy, which one is the best?" Hopefully have time to bring the reviews here as well.
More interestingly Pentax new budget priced *isd DL should be coming up soon. It has one big draw-back that I've noticed so far - it has only Auto ISO setting but let's not jump into conlusions here :)
More interestingly Pentax new budget priced *isd DL should be coming up soon. It has one big draw-back that I've noticed so far - it has only Auto ISO setting but let's not jump into conlusions here :)
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Off topic: Valuable reading for online wisdom
Estonia is not a country with very much enterpreneurship on the web. Very few success stories (Skype is not really Estonian idea even though all engineering is done in Tallinn, Estonia) and most of them local as stuff is made in Estonian, rather than English. It has also to do with our Soviet path that did not really care or nurture enterpreneurship or taking risks. Almost 15 years of independence and laws have not done a great job at injecting start-up attitude into people. If you do something as a legal person and fail you are responsible for all the risks and pay with your own property/money etc. Setting up a company is not really expensive but enough so to be a hurdle for students and young people just off university. Hmm... forgot myself into the intro part :)
Web is/has huge potential. You just need a computer and internet connection and you could do stuff. Found excellent blog by Marshall Brain writing about how to earn money on the web and using the web. You might also want to read his "How to make a million dollars".
We'll return to our usual photographic content shortly :)
Web is/has huge potential. You just need a computer and internet connection and you could do stuff. Found excellent blog by Marshall Brain writing about how to earn money on the web and using the web. You might also want to read his "How to make a million dollars".
We'll return to our usual photographic content shortly :)
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Silent sleepers
It's always the photos that you just snapped quickly and then forgot about, that provide the most satisfaction. Maybe it's because you don't worry about them so much, don't check the aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, framing and so on. You just notice something interesting, point your camera at it, fire the shutter and move on.
This "snail" was shot in Budapest, Hungary last summer when I was visiting my girlfriend. She studied in Central European University that has absolutely fascinating old building there. From outside it looks like 4 (if my memory is correct) story old building, inside it's half old, half modern and has 10 floors altogether. So for big part you have these renovated floors and rooms, and then you step into a narrow coridor that ends in 50 cm wide swirling and supersteep stariway.
This is exactly where I took the photo. We had just reached the ground floor through this staircase when I took last look back and up and saw "the snail". I hurriedly snapped one photo barely making sure that shutter speed was fast enough to get at least some sharpness and then run after the others. Aperture was probably F1.4, shutter speed around 1/30-1/50 and metering was left to the camera.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Understanding DNG
I bet many of you have had questions about RAW format, why it's good, why there are so many different versions, why they are not compatible etc. Well, Adobe came out with free standard called DNG to create some sort of order in the chaotic world of different RAW formats. It's open architecture and documentation should help make sure that you can open your digital "negatives" in the future. Photoshopnews.com has tackled DNG and written very extensively about DNG format and how to use it in your workflow.
Link: DNG Workflow, Part I
Link: DNG Workflow, Part II
To understand the benefits of a DNG workflow, you must first understand how to use it. In its simplest form, you take proprietary raw files and use the DNG Converter to convert them into DNG. The application itself is very simple. It can live anywhere, in your applications folder or even just sitting on your desktop-that’s where I tend to keep it.
Link: DNG Workflow, Part I
Link: DNG Workflow, Part II
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Canon Rebel XT / EOS 350D review
Market segment for entry-level well priced digital SLRs has really heated up recently. And "entry-level" doesn't mean "bad" or "lacking on features and performance". Pentax, Olympus, Nikon and Canon all had good contenders there. Then Canon went ahead and threw their new 8 megapixel Rebel XT /EOS 350D (as it's called in Europe) into the playground. This camera shares many features with it's more potent older brother Canon 20D while being really small and light and comes with a sub $1000 pricetag (body and kit-lens).
First impression
I should be used to really small and light SLRs in this price-range but Rebel XT / 350D (link to Amazon.com) still managed to surprise me. Female snappers will be especially pleased but for my average sized hands the body felt even too small. Grip is actually held only by two fingers as index finger is on shutter release and small finger has nothing to hold on to. Lightweight body is of course bonus whenever you have to lug it around over your shoulder.
Turn-on time and waking from stand-by is almost nonexistant, clearly something inherited from Canon EOS 20D. Battery life is also impressive - I didn't manage to get it empty after 4 days of shooting even though I used LCD a lot.
Body and usability
Working area of right-hand thumb is really busy with buttons - exposure lock, focus point selection, exposure compensation, shooting mode selection (single frame, continuous, timer) and LCD light button all sit there. In addition to that you have navigation buttons which turn into ISO, focusing mode selection, exposure mode selection and white balance selection buttons during taking the picture.
All this button frenzhy going on I found myself occasionally unintentionally pressing (or they got pushed when putting into my camerabag or taking out) shooting mode button and turning dioptric correction wheel next to viewfinder. It truns way too easily.
On the back there are actually two screens (already familiar from Rebel /EOS 300D) - above 1.8 inch color-LCD there's black-and-white information screen that shows most important shooting information in nice large font. It doesn't really work for candid shooting from the "hip" as you're requred to turn your camera to check aperture and shutter speed.
Tripodmount and lensmount are both made of steel which is a bonus. Then again - I've never heard of anyone breaking their plastic mount...
Focusing
From all cameras that I've tested in this price/feature range Rebel XT / 350D is hands down winner in focusing speed. Nothing more to say here really - focusing is really fast and focus lock very firm, no hunting around.
One strange thing I found though - when shooting in dimmer situations then on aperture mode camera focuses fine. If I switched it to night portrait mode then flash pops up (as expected) and camera does a strobe flash for focusing aid. In the end it takes much more time and I have always found strobe flash very akward solution.
Shooting speeds
Shutter speeds range from 1/4000 to 30 seconds + bulb. Maximum shooting speed is 3 frames per second and maximum 14 frames in one burst in JPG format or 5 frames in RAW+JPG format. After that camera slows down to clear buffer but continues as soon as there enough free space. Strangely enough I never managed to hit the roof when shooting JPG. It just kept on snapping and snapping. I was using the fastest CF card by Lexar but it's really strange. In a good way.
Color display and viewfinder
Color display is probably the biggest let down in 350D. Even with cloudy weather it is too dark and on sunny days completely useless. Turing up the brightness helps only very little - truly weak performance from Canon.
As all cheaper digital SLRs 350D has somewhat small and dim viewfinder but not horribly so and it's possible to focus manually in darker conditions as well.
Picture quality
In my Canon EOS 20D review I complained about really crappy kit-lens. Apparently Canon has some quality control issues here as the same kit-lens on my test 350D was considerably better. No rainbows around bright light sources and overall better image quality. Manual focus ring was still moving enough to make manual focusing a pain.
Picture quality wise 350D is no worse than it's older brother 20D. They both use same DIGIC II imaging processor which keeps noise well under control even at ISO 800 and only on ISO 1600 it becomes really visible on computer screen.
White balance is good in normal situations but similarily to 20D turns out too reddish photos that are taken indoors. You can avoid this problem by shooting RAW+JPG at the same time and do some post processing later in your computer.
Software
I've never really written about software that comes with digital cameras before as I've never used it before. I just copy images to my computer and use iView Media Pro for managing and Photoshop for editing. But as I didn't have new Photoshop CS2 I couldn't convert RAW images with it. So I was forced to try out Canon own software. Oh boy. Canon might be on eof the best camera companies out there but it certainly turns out crappy software. Slow and really unusable. It took me several minutes to find out how to do raw-conversion.
I'd seriously think about giving a try to free converter from www.pixmantec.com.
What's in the CON list?
I already mentioned the too dark display. If you have large hands it could be too small a camera for you (vertical grip might help here). Another, perhaps minor but nevertheless, minus is the fact that if you open CF card door while pictures are being written from camera memory to the card this is cancelled and you will lose unwritten images. I imagine it would be really easy fix to show a warning on display not to take out the card and keep writing data.
Conclusion
A week with new 8 megapixel Canon Rebel XT / EOS 350D convinced me that it's really a tremendous camera for beginner and as a spare body for professional shooter alike. Handling, responsiveness, shooting speed and picture quality - this camera offers some serious competition to larger, heavier and more expensive cameras.
First impression
I should be used to really small and light SLRs in this price-range but Rebel XT / 350D (link to Amazon.com) still managed to surprise me. Female snappers will be especially pleased but for my average sized hands the body felt even too small. Grip is actually held only by two fingers as index finger is on shutter release and small finger has nothing to hold on to. Lightweight body is of course bonus whenever you have to lug it around over your shoulder.
Turn-on time and waking from stand-by is almost nonexistant, clearly something inherited from Canon EOS 20D. Battery life is also impressive - I didn't manage to get it empty after 4 days of shooting even though I used LCD a lot.
Body and usability
Working area of right-hand thumb is really busy with buttons - exposure lock, focus point selection, exposure compensation, shooting mode selection (single frame, continuous, timer) and LCD light button all sit there. In addition to that you have navigation buttons which turn into ISO, focusing mode selection, exposure mode selection and white balance selection buttons during taking the picture.
All this button frenzhy going on I found myself occasionally unintentionally pressing (or they got pushed when putting into my camerabag or taking out) shooting mode button and turning dioptric correction wheel next to viewfinder. It truns way too easily.
On the back there are actually two screens (already familiar from Rebel /EOS 300D) - above 1.8 inch color-LCD there's black-and-white information screen that shows most important shooting information in nice large font. It doesn't really work for candid shooting from the "hip" as you're requred to turn your camera to check aperture and shutter speed.
Tripodmount and lensmount are both made of steel which is a bonus. Then again - I've never heard of anyone breaking their plastic mount...
Focusing
From all cameras that I've tested in this price/feature range Rebel XT / 350D is hands down winner in focusing speed. Nothing more to say here really - focusing is really fast and focus lock very firm, no hunting around.
One strange thing I found though - when shooting in dimmer situations then on aperture mode camera focuses fine. If I switched it to night portrait mode then flash pops up (as expected) and camera does a strobe flash for focusing aid. In the end it takes much more time and I have always found strobe flash very akward solution.
Shooting speeds
Shutter speeds range from 1/4000 to 30 seconds + bulb. Maximum shooting speed is 3 frames per second and maximum 14 frames in one burst in JPG format or 5 frames in RAW+JPG format. After that camera slows down to clear buffer but continues as soon as there enough free space. Strangely enough I never managed to hit the roof when shooting JPG. It just kept on snapping and snapping. I was using the fastest CF card by Lexar but it's really strange. In a good way.
Color display and viewfinder
Color display is probably the biggest let down in 350D. Even with cloudy weather it is too dark and on sunny days completely useless. Turing up the brightness helps only very little - truly weak performance from Canon.
As all cheaper digital SLRs 350D has somewhat small and dim viewfinder but not horribly so and it's possible to focus manually in darker conditions as well.
Picture quality
In my Canon EOS 20D review I complained about really crappy kit-lens. Apparently Canon has some quality control issues here as the same kit-lens on my test 350D was considerably better. No rainbows around bright light sources and overall better image quality. Manual focus ring was still moving enough to make manual focusing a pain.
Picture quality wise 350D is no worse than it's older brother 20D. They both use same DIGIC II imaging processor which keeps noise well under control even at ISO 800 and only on ISO 1600 it becomes really visible on computer screen.
White balance is good in normal situations but similarily to 20D turns out too reddish photos that are taken indoors. You can avoid this problem by shooting RAW+JPG at the same time and do some post processing later in your computer.
Software
I've never really written about software that comes with digital cameras before as I've never used it before. I just copy images to my computer and use iView Media Pro for managing and Photoshop for editing. But as I didn't have new Photoshop CS2 I couldn't convert RAW images with it. So I was forced to try out Canon own software. Oh boy. Canon might be on eof the best camera companies out there but it certainly turns out crappy software. Slow and really unusable. It took me several minutes to find out how to do raw-conversion.
I'd seriously think about giving a try to free converter from www.pixmantec.com.
What's in the CON list?
I already mentioned the too dark display. If you have large hands it could be too small a camera for you (vertical grip might help here). Another, perhaps minor but nevertheless, minus is the fact that if you open CF card door while pictures are being written from camera memory to the card this is cancelled and you will lose unwritten images. I imagine it would be really easy fix to show a warning on display not to take out the card and keep writing data.
Conclusion
A week with new 8 megapixel Canon Rebel XT / EOS 350D convinced me that it's really a tremendous camera for beginner and as a spare body for professional shooter alike. Handling, responsiveness, shooting speed and picture quality - this camera offers some serious competition to larger, heavier and more expensive cameras.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Half-way there
Confession: I started this blog only for one reason - to test Google Adsense. My main weblog and also my main photographic site are both in Estonian (Estonia is a small country in Eastern Europe, population 1.4m) and adsense does not support that language. To tell the truth, there aren't that many Estonian companies either who use AdWords.
So I though I'd just start writing about my photos in English, and translate some camera reviews along the way. I do them for free, out of my free time, don't get paid by camera companies or local resellers. I use Minolta gear myself but consider myself pretty objective so putting my findings out to a wider public shouldn't hurt anybody. And seeing from the response that has been pretty much the story.
On times I've had the urge to write about other stuff, mainly technology or communications related as I work on these fields myself and they interest me, but haven't done it. I know I don't post often enough to really develop loyal readership but there seem to be enough so I'll keep it alive here :) Hopefully more pics will follow as soon as I get color calibration sorted out on my laptop.
So I though I'd just start writing about my photos in English, and translate some camera reviews along the way. I do them for free, out of my free time, don't get paid by camera companies or local resellers. I use Minolta gear myself but consider myself pretty objective so putting my findings out to a wider public shouldn't hurt anybody. And seeing from the response that has been pretty much the story.
On times I've had the urge to write about other stuff, mainly technology or communications related as I work on these fields myself and they interest me, but haven't done it. I know I don't post often enough to really develop loyal readership but there seem to be enough so I'll keep it alive here :) Hopefully more pics will follow as soon as I get color calibration sorted out on my laptop.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Open letter to Konica Minolta
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to add my name to the list of photographers from around the world that are requesting that your company, as well as the other major digital camera makers, adopt a policy of open documentation of RAW formats, past, present and future.
I am also requesting that your company adopt a universal RAW format. The DNG format has been put forward as such a possible standard, but we are willing to accept any truly open standard as the industry may agree upon.
I support the position on this taken by the OpenRAW Working Group.
Please add my voice to those that are against proprietary and encrypted RAW file formats. I urge you to act swiftly to support your customers so as to ensure our continued loyalty to your company's brands and products.
Sincerely,
Siim Teller
Proud owner of Dynax 7 Digital
I am writing to add my name to the list of photographers from around the world that are requesting that your company, as well as the other major digital camera makers, adopt a policy of open documentation of RAW formats, past, present and future.
I am also requesting that your company adopt a universal RAW format. The DNG format has been put forward as such a possible standard, but we are willing to accept any truly open standard as the industry may agree upon.
I support the position on this taken by the OpenRAW Working Group.
Please add my voice to those that are against proprietary and encrypted RAW file formats. I urge you to act swiftly to support your customers so as to ensure our continued loyalty to your company's brands and products.
Sincerely,
Siim Teller
Proud owner of Dynax 7 Digital
Stadionok station in Budapest
There's no subway in Tallinn so they are fascinating places to me whenever I visit a bigger metropolis. I was in Budapest last summer and even though we lived quite in the center we still took metro every now and then. I don't even remember why it was so empty, probably just a lucky change or late in the night. These red stools just begged to be photographed. I dialed my 50mm lens to F1.4 (ISO 100 film) to get decently sharp results as light levels were really low. It's not tack sharp but this is one occasion when image itself justifies (to me at least) some softness :)
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Somewhat slow period
Haven't been snapping a lot lately. Haven't been tinkering with Photoshop either to show off work I consider my best. Only thing I've been doing a lot is scanning. I have now over 1100 frames scanned, perhaps 15 times as much to do but it's a slow process. 2 rolls of film per evening is the limit and it means that I don't do anything else with my computer. So reading books and cooking is in, blogging, messing with photos and surfing is out.
On the bright side - just got news that my Konica Minolta Dynax 7 Digital (Maxxum 7 Digital for those in the US) has reached my local shop so my switch from analog to digital is coming along nicely.
On the bright side - just got news that my Konica Minolta Dynax 7 Digital (Maxxum 7 Digital for those in the US) has reached my local shop so my switch from analog to digital is coming along nicely.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Show only 1% of your photos
"When you have hundreds of pictures where you used to have one, people are less likely to ever go back to look at any of them," said Nancy Van House, a professor in the school of information management and systems at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the social use of photography. "A lot of people are getting to the point in their digital photography now where it's becoming a problem."
Nice article on CNET about slow drowning in digital pictures. Edit, edit the hell out of your pictures. Leave only the very best. No, 100 out of 1000 is not the very best. National Geographic photographers shoot thousands of images per assignment and still only 4-5 end up in the magazine. The very best. And they sure do impress the viewer and stick out. So delete crat, file away stuff that has meaning to you and only show your very best to friends and family.
Three girls on a ladder
My younger sister studies dancing and they just recently launched their own dancing act called Tee Kuubis (tee/tea/road in a cube?) with a big performance on the seaside on top of a large building. It moved from one end to the other and culminated with 3 dancers in buttfreezing water, helicopter liftoff (no, they didn't rent it, it was just there) and sunset. Very nice concept as following dancers around this huge area made public more part of the whole thing.
My sister had asked me to take some photos so I chased them and shot 3 rolls I think. Here's one of the best pictures I really like. Shot on Fuji Superia 400 (I think) and scanned with Minolta Dimage IV. Levels, colors and sharpness tuned for final output.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Off to London
Heading to London for a couple of days. Mainly work but hopefully find some hours to walk around this big city and do some happy snapping. Somehow I've only shot Kodak T-Max P3200 and one roll of Kodak EliteChrome I accidentally found for 2 pounds (expired of course). And I plan to get my galleries updated on my Estonian homepage (see my photo page) so perhaps at some stage link to London gallery. If you're still shooting film then I can heartily recommend this ultraspeed black-and-white T-Max. You can practically do handheld shooting during the night, it has very interesting and notable grain which I adore. My brother put one roll through his camera recently and got very different results back from his lab. Oh, it's requires hand developing (not C41 process) so your local lab might not offer the service and you actually have to get your own hands wet :)
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Canon EOS 20D review
Canon EOS 20D has been on the market for quite some time and I finally got to try it out some weeks ago. It's a great improvement over already good EOS 10D. Canon has listened to photographers critique and improved startup times, framerate and buffersize and also pumped up the quality, especially on higer ISOs. For owners of 10D it's surely a tough decision - should they update or not.
Compared to 10D new 20D is slightly smaller and with more rounded corners and also lighter. On the backpanel there's new navigation jog-dial which allows focus point selection or moving around the image in review mode. Other improvements are new 8 megapixel sensor, faster DIGIC II processor, 5 frames per second shooting speed and twice as large image buffer. This allows to take 23 highest quality JPGs in sequence. Huge improvement is almost zero lag on camera turn on or when waking camera from standby. With 10D it took something like 2.5 seconds, easily costing you missed shots.
I happily left usermanual in camerabox. If you've had any contact with Canon cameras (or with any modern SLR) you'll get the functions of buttons easily. The only thing I checked from usermanual was the logic of exposure compensation. You have to switch the ON/OFF switch to third option and then dial in exposure compesation using the large wheel under your thumb. But. There's a but. When you go to menu and exit by pressing menu button again then you have to tap shutter release to activate large wheel. I didn't get used to it.
Otherwise body of 20D is very comfortable to hold - big enough and weighs enough, all the buttons are in the right place so there's no need to feel around while shooting. Body material feels good and it sits firmly in your hands. Only nag I have is about top LCD display light switch that was too far for reaching with my index finger. Apparently you're only supposed to use it when your camera is secured on a tripod.
Menus we're clear and I rather like the one long meny and color-coded approach Canon has taken in its pro cameras. Custom Functions could actually have longer texts explaining their functions.
I mainly shot in RAW+JPG mode which records both RAW digital "negative" and ready-to-be-used JPG image. I could fit around 80 of those on 1GB memory card. As already said, 20D can take 23 JPGs in a row (5fps) and 6 RAW images in sequence. Very solid performance.
ISO 100 is perfeclty noise free. If you're really peeping your pixels then noise starts to ever so slightly show at ISO 400 but it will be invisible with A4 print. ISO 800 is very usable and even ISO 1600. As a reminder - noise is much more visible on computer screen and less so on prints, especially if you keep them small. Noisewise 20D is very big improvement over its predecessor 10D.
There are couple of downsides. ISO is not immediately visible and you have to push a button to see it. Small annoyance. Turning on mirror lock is major annoyance as you have to press buttons and surf the menu.
It's been said that viewfinder of EOS 20D is actually smaller and dimmer than that of 10D but I had no problems with it. It's no competitor to film SLRs because viewfinder is so much smaller but as far as half-frame DSLR go, it's very good.
Oy, there's one "ugly" bit as well
Canon kit-lens that I got with the body was really horrible. Manual focus ring was loose effectively making manual focusing at night a pain in the ass. It also draw nice rainbows around every lightsource like streetlamps, candles, moon etc. Smaller apertures only made the rainbow sharper. I haven't seen so bad kit-lens from any other manufacturer out there. Simple - don't buy EOS 20D with kit-lens, save the money and get better glass instead.
Focusing is fast, a bit slower in dimmer situations but I didn't really experience any hunting for focus. Of course usual difficult subjects as reflective smooth surfaces that lack necessary contrasty bits for the focus to work on.
I was not so overwhelmed that I had to install Canon software as my Mac would not recognise 20D with out it. Several people have pointed out that I was probably using wrong protocol for camera-computer interaction but I did actually try to read manual on this and thought I was using the right mode. So I used EOS Viewer Utility to copy images to my harddrive and even tryied RAW conversion with it but after 2 minutes decided that Photoshop Camera Raw plugin works much faster. In addition Viewer Utility takes up very much screen space and has trouble fitting into 1024x768 resolution screen.
Thumbs up to software called Photostich that comes bundled with the camera. It helps to stich together pieces of panorama is really easy to use and if the shots are taken well then gives very nice results.
Small bit of information to those who care about how much noise their camera makes - 20D is noisier than Nikon D70
for example. In shooting situations that require discreetness 20D is not very good solution.
Bla-bla-bla, what's your conclusion?
Canon EOS 20D is excellent camera with well balanced usability, picture quality and speed. I can heartily recommend it to everyone. Just remember to get some good lens to get the maximum quality out of it. If you're not willing to spend extra then rather check out Canon Rebel XT / 350D and spend money that is left over from body on quality glass. It will make much more importance in your pictures than the body. And 350D is equally capable camera but more on it a bit later.
Compared to 10D new 20D is slightly smaller and with more rounded corners and also lighter. On the backpanel there's new navigation jog-dial which allows focus point selection or moving around the image in review mode. Other improvements are new 8 megapixel sensor, faster DIGIC II processor, 5 frames per second shooting speed and twice as large image buffer. This allows to take 23 highest quality JPGs in sequence. Huge improvement is almost zero lag on camera turn on or when waking camera from standby. With 10D it took something like 2.5 seconds, easily costing you missed shots.
I happily left usermanual in camerabox. If you've had any contact with Canon cameras (or with any modern SLR) you'll get the functions of buttons easily. The only thing I checked from usermanual was the logic of exposure compensation. You have to switch the ON/OFF switch to third option and then dial in exposure compesation using the large wheel under your thumb. But. There's a but. When you go to menu and exit by pressing menu button again then you have to tap shutter release to activate large wheel. I didn't get used to it.
Otherwise body of 20D is very comfortable to hold - big enough and weighs enough, all the buttons are in the right place so there's no need to feel around while shooting. Body material feels good and it sits firmly in your hands. Only nag I have is about top LCD display light switch that was too far for reaching with my index finger. Apparently you're only supposed to use it when your camera is secured on a tripod.
Menus we're clear and I rather like the one long meny and color-coded approach Canon has taken in its pro cameras. Custom Functions could actually have longer texts explaining their functions.
I mainly shot in RAW+JPG mode which records both RAW digital "negative" and ready-to-be-used JPG image. I could fit around 80 of those on 1GB memory card. As already said, 20D can take 23 JPGs in a row (5fps) and 6 RAW images in sequence. Very solid performance.
ISO 100 is perfeclty noise free. If you're really peeping your pixels then noise starts to ever so slightly show at ISO 400 but it will be invisible with A4 print. ISO 800 is very usable and even ISO 1600. As a reminder - noise is much more visible on computer screen and less so on prints, especially if you keep them small. Noisewise 20D is very big improvement over its predecessor 10D.
There are couple of downsides. ISO is not immediately visible and you have to push a button to see it. Small annoyance. Turning on mirror lock is major annoyance as you have to press buttons and surf the menu.
It's been said that viewfinder of EOS 20D is actually smaller and dimmer than that of 10D but I had no problems with it. It's no competitor to film SLRs because viewfinder is so much smaller but as far as half-frame DSLR go, it's very good.
Oy, there's one "ugly" bit as well
Canon kit-lens that I got with the body was really horrible. Manual focus ring was loose effectively making manual focusing at night a pain in the ass. It also draw nice rainbows around every lightsource like streetlamps, candles, moon etc. Smaller apertures only made the rainbow sharper. I haven't seen so bad kit-lens from any other manufacturer out there. Simple - don't buy EOS 20D with kit-lens, save the money and get better glass instead.
Focusing is fast, a bit slower in dimmer situations but I didn't really experience any hunting for focus. Of course usual difficult subjects as reflective smooth surfaces that lack necessary contrasty bits for the focus to work on.
I was not so overwhelmed that I had to install Canon software as my Mac would not recognise 20D with out it. Several people have pointed out that I was probably using wrong protocol for camera-computer interaction but I did actually try to read manual on this and thought I was using the right mode. So I used EOS Viewer Utility to copy images to my harddrive and even tryied RAW conversion with it but after 2 minutes decided that Photoshop Camera Raw plugin works much faster. In addition Viewer Utility takes up very much screen space and has trouble fitting into 1024x768 resolution screen.
Thumbs up to software called Photostich that comes bundled with the camera. It helps to stich together pieces of panorama is really easy to use and if the shots are taken well then gives very nice results.
Small bit of information to those who care about how much noise their camera makes - 20D is noisier than Nikon D70
for example. In shooting situations that require discreetness 20D is not very good solution.Bla-bla-bla, what's your conclusion?
Canon EOS 20D is excellent camera with well balanced usability, picture quality and speed. I can heartily recommend it to everyone. Just remember to get some good lens to get the maximum quality out of it. If you're not willing to spend extra then rather check out Canon Rebel XT / 350D
and spend money that is left over from body on quality glass. It will make much more importance in your pictures than the body. And 350D is equally capable camera but more on it a bit later.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Time to get organised
I've been shooting pictures for 4 years. Perhaps something around 150 rolls of film in this time + hundreds (if not thousands) with digital cameras that I've tested. Out of 36 frames I usually get 2-3 that I really like. I have some of my fotos digitised either scanned myself from prints or later having lab do the scanning for slides. But it's all a big mess. All my negatives are piled together in a bix box, most of them unmarked and only some of them digitised in good enough quality. My CD-s are also in a big pile and finding that one shot is a pain.
Every time I read a photo magasine I want to go out and just shoot the hell out of some cool subject. And yet somhow I never get there. I take my camera to my usual routes and get somewhat predictable results. I don't do any projects even though I want to.
So today I decided to actually draw up a roadmap as inspiration from my "official" job. I set down rough guides when I'll go fully digitised, when I'll have my negatives sorted out and organised, what projects I'll definetly do and by what date and when I'll do my first exhibition. Yes, exhibition. And have enough stockworthy photos to suplement myself with some income. At the same time I want to keep writing about photography in English and in Estonian because I like it, it helps others and occasionally earns me some pocketmoney if something gets published in local paper or magasine.
Getting where I want to be unfortunately requires some investments but I've always tried to keep an attitude that money is one resource that is not depleted. I've already taken the first steps - recently bought film scanner so I'm getting digital copies of all my best shots. It will take some time but eventually I have everything in the computer. I'm buying digital camera probably next month and external harddrive later in the summer (managing CD-s is hell). I don't want everything to bog down to gadgets and money so getting myself out and about is just as big part.
Am I going full time photographer? I don't think so. I just feel that I could get more out of the whole thing. And yes, I like ordnung.
Every time I read a photo magasine I want to go out and just shoot the hell out of some cool subject. And yet somhow I never get there. I take my camera to my usual routes and get somewhat predictable results. I don't do any projects even though I want to.
So today I decided to actually draw up a roadmap as inspiration from my "official" job. I set down rough guides when I'll go fully digitised, when I'll have my negatives sorted out and organised, what projects I'll definetly do and by what date and when I'll do my first exhibition. Yes, exhibition. And have enough stockworthy photos to suplement myself with some income. At the same time I want to keep writing about photography in English and in Estonian because I like it, it helps others and occasionally earns me some pocketmoney if something gets published in local paper or magasine.
Getting where I want to be unfortunately requires some investments but I've always tried to keep an attitude that money is one resource that is not depleted. I've already taken the first steps - recently bought film scanner so I'm getting digital copies of all my best shots. It will take some time but eventually I have everything in the computer. I'm buying digital camera probably next month and external harddrive later in the summer (managing CD-s is hell). I don't want everything to bog down to gadgets and money so getting myself out and about is just as big part.
Am I going full time photographer? I don't think so. I just feel that I could get more out of the whole thing. And yes, I like ordnung.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Are you serious?
You're a business and getting online presence. Of course you need some snappy pictures to make your web look more alive. And these pictures should be of businesspeople doing business, right? So you designer (or son or whoever does your webpage) heads over to their favourite stockphoto website and gets those really professional looking photos. What the heck, they get three of them just to make the visual side stronger. And the result is something like this: http://www.hipub.net/. No, I don't know the site, just stumbled upon it. And those tacky pictures from 90something just blinded me. Please don't do that on your webpage, it looks so out of date and noone will want to do business with you. Need a bit more refresh looking photos that say "business"? Check those (yeah, I have my pics up there as well, but none on business), prices start at $1 a pop.
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