Posts
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Images From Turner Valley
This was with the 300 mm. lens, two images blended, though in hind sight I really needed 3 to get the nearest part of the fibreglas in focus.
This was shot with the 75 or maybe the 35 and below is a 100% clip from somewhere in the middle. I'd love to see a six foot print of this image.
Shot with the 120, aiming upwards, perspective corrected in Photoshop, Command A to select all, Command T to transform, and Command Drag to stretch the corners to correct perspective and trim exactly to requirements.
Another Day With The Pentax 645Z
I photographed about four hours and by the end the camera battery was indicating low but not out - still functioning fine. I had used live view for all the images, and many were 30 second exposures inside one of the Turner Valley Gas Plant buildings, all the windows boarded up, light supplied by one large door in a very large building. I used the 25, 35, 75, 120 and 300 mm. lenses.
To my surprise, the images from the 300 look great - very sharp. This might have to do with the 30 second exposure eliminating shake, also no wind indoors. Outdoor images were inconsistent, some sharp, other very definitely showing movement. I know that when I was using both Canon and Nikon, 2 seconds wasn't enough to settle movement after pressing the shutter and I'm looking forward to getting an infrared remote for the camera. Clearly more testing is required, but it's nice to know the lens itself is fine.
The camera worked perfectly, with no quirks that I could discover. I'm still learning how far to the right I can push exposure. At the moment I'm being pretty careful not to go well into blown highlights just in case, and knowing I can dig into the shadows without problem.
My impression is that while resolution may not be that much higher than the D800e, it's easier to get high resolution - the Nikon could do it, but not consistently, even in similar conditions, and frankly that's a huge advantage for me.
When checking sharpness of an image already made, you can scoot around the magnified image quite quickly. When doing so in live view before the shot, it's fairly slow - not an issue for the kind of work I do.
Focus blending is working well, using Helicon Focus, and I made my first images today that will need to be stitched - which is perhaps a bit silly but the lens nicely fit the vertical part of the subject and it just seemed natural to then swing the camera.
I did wonder how badly I'd miss my zooms, after all my 70-200 has always been my favourite lens, both in Canon and Nikon. To be honest, I didn't even give it a thought till now, after the fact. Sure I did more lens changes as I set up scenes - but that's at least as much lack of familiarity with the angle of view of the specific Pentax lenses and already is improving.
I worry that the battery compartment lock seems flimsy - a thin tab that has to be lifted up, turned 90 degrees and then pulled to open the door. It would be very awkward in gloves. I'm going to be careful with this.
I have to be a bit more careful clamping the camera to the tripod head The small square Really Right Stuff plates are great for not getting in the way, adding bulk or weight to the camera, but as the camera is much larger than the plate, I seem to be spending more time checking to be sure the plate is really seated in the clamp before letting go - but this is mostly to do with the size of the camera blocking the view of the clamping, not the smallness of the plates and I wouldn't want larger plates. It's even worse when I use Arca Swiss style plates on a view camera. For that size, I actually prefer the safer and much larger plates from Manfrotto, but I wouldn't want to put two of those on the Pentax.
One thing that has to be considered with Pentax is the size of the company and the rate of development, though if you think of how long people have been waiting for a new 100-400 Canon zoom, or a 400 5.6 with IS, maybe I shouldn't worry too much. I do have the sense though that the camera and lenses have to work for me now, not from some future possible development. For my style of photography, the Pentax and its current equipment are perfect and I have no sense that I'm limited waiting for further developments. This won't be true for others, who might need leaf shutter lenses, or tilt shift. As to this latter, correcting perspective in Photoshop is so easy that shifting isn't really needed (and with the high pixel count, using shifting to stitch more pixels isn't important, and tilting has largely been replaced with focus blend, which is, after all, a lot more flexible being able to cope with 3D subjects, not just flat planes.
What if the company itself disappeared? People used Contax medium format for at least 10 years after the company went bye-bye, so again I don't see this as a huge issue and the fact that Ricoh can release such a great camera at this time speaks well of the company. The 645D was successful despite its limitations, the 645Z could be huge for the company.
To my surprise, the images from the 300 look great - very sharp. This might have to do with the 30 second exposure eliminating shake, also no wind indoors. Outdoor images were inconsistent, some sharp, other very definitely showing movement. I know that when I was using both Canon and Nikon, 2 seconds wasn't enough to settle movement after pressing the shutter and I'm looking forward to getting an infrared remote for the camera. Clearly more testing is required, but it's nice to know the lens itself is fine.
The camera worked perfectly, with no quirks that I could discover. I'm still learning how far to the right I can push exposure. At the moment I'm being pretty careful not to go well into blown highlights just in case, and knowing I can dig into the shadows without problem.
My impression is that while resolution may not be that much higher than the D800e, it's easier to get high resolution - the Nikon could do it, but not consistently, even in similar conditions, and frankly that's a huge advantage for me.
When checking sharpness of an image already made, you can scoot around the magnified image quite quickly. When doing so in live view before the shot, it's fairly slow - not an issue for the kind of work I do.
Focus blending is working well, using Helicon Focus, and I made my first images today that will need to be stitched - which is perhaps a bit silly but the lens nicely fit the vertical part of the subject and it just seemed natural to then swing the camera.
I did wonder how badly I'd miss my zooms, after all my 70-200 has always been my favourite lens, both in Canon and Nikon. To be honest, I didn't even give it a thought till now, after the fact. Sure I did more lens changes as I set up scenes - but that's at least as much lack of familiarity with the angle of view of the specific Pentax lenses and already is improving.
I worry that the battery compartment lock seems flimsy - a thin tab that has to be lifted up, turned 90 degrees and then pulled to open the door. It would be very awkward in gloves. I'm going to be careful with this.
I have to be a bit more careful clamping the camera to the tripod head The small square Really Right Stuff plates are great for not getting in the way, adding bulk or weight to the camera, but as the camera is much larger than the plate, I seem to be spending more time checking to be sure the plate is really seated in the clamp before letting go - but this is mostly to do with the size of the camera blocking the view of the clamping, not the smallness of the plates and I wouldn't want larger plates. It's even worse when I use Arca Swiss style plates on a view camera. For that size, I actually prefer the safer and much larger plates from Manfrotto, but I wouldn't want to put two of those on the Pentax.
One thing that has to be considered with Pentax is the size of the company and the rate of development, though if you think of how long people have been waiting for a new 100-400 Canon zoom, or a 400 5.6 with IS, maybe I shouldn't worry too much. I do have the sense though that the camera and lenses have to work for me now, not from some future possible development. For my style of photography, the Pentax and its current equipment are perfect and I have no sense that I'm limited waiting for further developments. This won't be true for others, who might need leaf shutter lenses, or tilt shift. As to this latter, correcting perspective in Photoshop is so easy that shifting isn't really needed (and with the high pixel count, using shifting to stitch more pixels isn't important, and tilting has largely been replaced with focus blend, which is, after all, a lot more flexible being able to cope with 3D subjects, not just flat planes.
What if the company itself disappeared? People used Contax medium format for at least 10 years after the company went bye-bye, so again I don't see this as a huge issue and the fact that Ricoh can release such a great camera at this time speaks well of the company. The 645D was successful despite its limitations, the 645Z could be huge for the company.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Pentax 645Z After 3 Days
Perhaps the thing I like most about the Pentax is the compete lack of surprises - everything works logically. I have the open aperture live view focusing that I used to have on the Canon and really really missed on both the Nikon D800e and Sony A7r. You may thing this is a small thing, but if every single exposure you have to change the aperture to wide open, focus, then stop down again, it really is a pain - and if you forget to stop down again - disaster. And if you are in manual exposure - forget it because the screen gets too bright and you have to change the exposure too - so nice to be back the right way. And I always have the option to preview stopped down but if you aren`t using especially fast lenses, focus shift is not a big issue.
Turns out I like the weight and size of the body - it just feels so solid, and I don`t have the sense with long lenses that they need separate support - which makes changing lenses that much easier.
I find I don`t really need the 150 mm. lens - too close to my 120 to be worth the trouble, and I`m replacing the old 200 with the better 200 FA so I`ll likely carry the 25, 35, 75, 120, 200 and ?300.
I need to do more testing on the 300 both to see if shutter shake is an issue (I don't think so) and resolution - it's sharp in the centre, not sure about the corners yet.
I really like that the tilting lcd screen moves away from the body when you look down on it, not partially hidden by the viewfinder, especially if looking at it from an odd angle, like the camera aiming downwards but higher than I am.
I like that the lenses and lens caps screw on the right way unlike Nikon. The viewfinder is great and with glasses easy to use including the data display. It's easy to both use and see exposure compensation, and focus comfirmation works great, with the focus point glowing red in the viewfinder, unlike Nikon that had that little green circle at the bottom of the screen.
ISO has a dedicated button so really easy to use.
These may seem little things but they sure do make shooting more pleasurable and working the camera less distracting.
Turns out I like the weight and size of the body - it just feels so solid, and I don`t have the sense with long lenses that they need separate support - which makes changing lenses that much easier.
I find I don`t really need the 150 mm. lens - too close to my 120 to be worth the trouble, and I`m replacing the old 200 with the better 200 FA so I`ll likely carry the 25, 35, 75, 120, 200 and ?300.
I need to do more testing on the 300 both to see if shutter shake is an issue (I don't think so) and resolution - it's sharp in the centre, not sure about the corners yet.
I really like that the tilting lcd screen moves away from the body when you look down on it, not partially hidden by the viewfinder, especially if looking at it from an odd angle, like the camera aiming downwards but higher than I am.
I like that the lenses and lens caps screw on the right way unlike Nikon. The viewfinder is great and with glasses easy to use including the data display. It's easy to both use and see exposure compensation, and focus comfirmation works great, with the focus point glowing red in the viewfinder, unlike Nikon that had that little green circle at the bottom of the screen.
ISO has a dedicated button so really easy to use.
These may seem little things but they sure do make shooting more pleasurable and working the camera less distracting.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
35 mm. A Lens On Pentax 645Z
Jura Canyon
A focus blend with the Pentax 645Z. One minor inconvenience of using the old A lenses is they don't transmit the focal length to the body. I can't remember whether this was the 75 or 120 lens.
you can click on this section to see resolution at 100%
Lenses On The 645Z
Just back from a quick series of infinity landscape test shots, somewhat into the sun (lens shaded by hand), f 11 because that's what I shoot 90% of my landscapes and industrials at.
Conclusions
25 mm. edges ok but corners are a bit soft - useable but frustrating for the cost of the lens - exactly as Lloyd Chambers reported. Mind you my Zeiss 15 wasn't perfect, but this is worse - useable, probably ok in most prints, and better for the auto correction in Lightroom, but not ideal.
35 mm. - sharp corner to corner - nothing to criticize.
75 mm. - sharp corner to corner
120 mm. - tack sharp - the best I have, and contrasty, which the other sharp lenses aren't
150 mm. - sharp
200 mm. this is the old version, one lens element less - and sharp only in the centre - not even edges (which is fine, it didn't fit in my bag).
300 mm. - sharp , though a bit low in contrast. Can't comment on corners as lack of depth of field prevented checking, even at 300 yards.
I don't have the 55 or 90 - can't see paying for the 90 when the 120 is so good, and do I really need something between 35 and 75 - so far my experience says no.
Conclusions
25 mm. edges ok but corners are a bit soft - useable but frustrating for the cost of the lens - exactly as Lloyd Chambers reported. Mind you my Zeiss 15 wasn't perfect, but this is worse - useable, probably ok in most prints, and better for the auto correction in Lightroom, but not ideal.
35 mm. - sharp corner to corner - nothing to criticize.
75 mm. - sharp corner to corner
120 mm. - tack sharp - the best I have, and contrasty, which the other sharp lenses aren't
150 mm. - sharp
200 mm. this is the old version, one lens element less - and sharp only in the centre - not even edges (which is fine, it didn't fit in my bag).
300 mm. - sharp , though a bit low in contrast. Can't comment on corners as lack of depth of field prevented checking, even at 300 yards.
I don't have the 55 or 90 - can't see paying for the 90 when the 120 is so good, and do I really need something between 35 and 75 - so far my experience says no.
Miquelon
From entertainment the locals put on for us when we visited the island of Miquelon (French colony). Shot with the Sony A6000, hand held, IS, 16-70 Zeiss, 1 second exposure.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Jura Canyon With The Pentax 645z
The camera worked well today, posing no difficulties at all. I used the 25, 35, 75 and 120 lenses, all to good effect.
The last image is a focus blend and as so often happens when blending moving water, odd contour lines form in the water and I decided to take advantage of them, and even accentuate them a tad - looking almost like a palette knife painting.
The first image is a severe crop, some 16 mp of the original 51 - and holds up very well.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Pentax 645Z
I put in a request for a Pentax 645Z about a month ago, after a number of others had done so, and was very surprised to come home from work yesterday to find a phone message that my camera had come in. This morning I happily picked up the camera and 25 mm. lens. I already had 35, 75, 120, 150, 200, and 300 mm. lenses, all but the 300 manual focus. I already knew the 120 was extremely sharp.
Some have worried that the camera isn't sufficiently better than the Nikon D800e (and soon to be released 810) to be worth the limitation in lenses, the weight and the bulk.
I have to say, I used my old camera bag that is a bit smaller than the heavy one I lugged my Nikon around in, and managed to fit into the bag, the camera and a lens mounted (even the 300), separate storage for the 300, 150, 120, 75 and 35. I had doubts about the older version 200 so didn't worry too much With a bit of fiddling, I even found room for the rather large 25 mm. lens. The weight is a little more than the previous Canon equipment it used to hold, but not by a lot and certainly not a concern. So, no more space, not sig. heavier - already a good start.
It was easy to set up the camera for raw DNG, no jpeg, two cards, one then the other, iso 100 (a dedicated iso button), and quickly found the button to change to 2 second self timer, mirror up at the beginning).
I had purchased RRS plates for bottom and side and used my RRS 34 tripod with BH55 lever release head.
The camera feels great in hand and the controls are very straight forward. I once pressed the iso button instead of the exposure compensation button, but quickly found my error and that was it for problems working the camera.
Format is the second last menu list in the last category, part way down - too bad there doesn't seem to be a my my menu like Canon uses, but knowing where to find it it doesn't take long to get there.
I took a few snaps hand held but once I was in the building I wanted to photograph, I relied entirely on live view.
I discovered that while a tilting and swinging lcd screen would have been nice, the tilt only lcd still helps in vertical pictures where the camera is aimed up or down - you just have to accept that you are looking at it at an odd angle. I didn't find it especially difficult to aim the camera viewing this way and it was much better than trying to crouch down and tilt my head up painfully to look at a fixed screen.
I found the magnify for focus button is the ok button and works great for focusing accurately. I did wish that one could see where the magnified image was going to be like the Sony A7r does, and I also wished that I could scroll around the screen a lot faster than the camera does to get to corners for a focus check, but this is nit picking. Other than that, there was nothing I found difficult. Live view is with the lens wide open, same as Canon and opposite to Nikon and Sony - a system I much prefer. Focusing with the lens stopped down to f11 or f16 is a nightmare even though with live view it's bright - just too much depth of field.
The lcd screen was a little dark in the bright sunny afternoon so I cranked it up to max and lost no quality and gained much brightness and it was thereafter decent in full sun - all I could ask of it.
The viewfinder is a delight and focus confirmation works well even with the manual lenses, and the 300 autofocuses even in my house tonight - no complaints there.
The 300 does not have a lens collar but with the size of the camera and width of the lens mount, and the light weight of the 300 5.6 lens, I didn't feel this was needed or even desirable.
So, what about image quality? Well, it's early days. It's at least as good as the Nikon was and a lot less frustrating to use. Love that 120 Macro. the 25 held up well if not perfectly (my Zeiss 15 didn't either). The files stand a lot of manipulation without breaking up.
I feel really good about this purchase, certainly better than I did with either the Nikon or Sony. I now realize that the Sony electronic viewfinder is largely for hand holding, that I rarely do, and so is surplus to requirements.
On the way home from my shoot, I stopped to photograph some horses standing in a field, using the 300, iso 400, hand held and of course no IS. The camera and lens performed just fine.
I will do more formal testing in the coming days and post examples, but there is enough on the net already for that to be of less than critical importance. I would like though, to establish just what I can expect from each of the lenses.
Some have worried that the camera isn't sufficiently better than the Nikon D800e (and soon to be released 810) to be worth the limitation in lenses, the weight and the bulk.
I have to say, I used my old camera bag that is a bit smaller than the heavy one I lugged my Nikon around in, and managed to fit into the bag, the camera and a lens mounted (even the 300), separate storage for the 300, 150, 120, 75 and 35. I had doubts about the older version 200 so didn't worry too much With a bit of fiddling, I even found room for the rather large 25 mm. lens. The weight is a little more than the previous Canon equipment it used to hold, but not by a lot and certainly not a concern. So, no more space, not sig. heavier - already a good start.
It was easy to set up the camera for raw DNG, no jpeg, two cards, one then the other, iso 100 (a dedicated iso button), and quickly found the button to change to 2 second self timer, mirror up at the beginning).
I had purchased RRS plates for bottom and side and used my RRS 34 tripod with BH55 lever release head.
The camera feels great in hand and the controls are very straight forward. I once pressed the iso button instead of the exposure compensation button, but quickly found my error and that was it for problems working the camera.
Format is the second last menu list in the last category, part way down - too bad there doesn't seem to be a my my menu like Canon uses, but knowing where to find it it doesn't take long to get there.
I took a few snaps hand held but once I was in the building I wanted to photograph, I relied entirely on live view.
I discovered that while a tilting and swinging lcd screen would have been nice, the tilt only lcd still helps in vertical pictures where the camera is aimed up or down - you just have to accept that you are looking at it at an odd angle. I didn't find it especially difficult to aim the camera viewing this way and it was much better than trying to crouch down and tilt my head up painfully to look at a fixed screen.
I found the magnify for focus button is the ok button and works great for focusing accurately. I did wish that one could see where the magnified image was going to be like the Sony A7r does, and I also wished that I could scroll around the screen a lot faster than the camera does to get to corners for a focus check, but this is nit picking. Other than that, there was nothing I found difficult. Live view is with the lens wide open, same as Canon and opposite to Nikon and Sony - a system I much prefer. Focusing with the lens stopped down to f11 or f16 is a nightmare even though with live view it's bright - just too much depth of field.
The lcd screen was a little dark in the bright sunny afternoon so I cranked it up to max and lost no quality and gained much brightness and it was thereafter decent in full sun - all I could ask of it.
The viewfinder is a delight and focus confirmation works well even with the manual lenses, and the 300 autofocuses even in my house tonight - no complaints there.
The 300 does not have a lens collar but with the size of the camera and width of the lens mount, and the light weight of the 300 5.6 lens, I didn't feel this was needed or even desirable.
So, what about image quality? Well, it's early days. It's at least as good as the Nikon was and a lot less frustrating to use. Love that 120 Macro. the 25 held up well if not perfectly (my Zeiss 15 didn't either). The files stand a lot of manipulation without breaking up.
I feel really good about this purchase, certainly better than I did with either the Nikon or Sony. I now realize that the Sony electronic viewfinder is largely for hand holding, that I rarely do, and so is surplus to requirements.
On the way home from my shoot, I stopped to photograph some horses standing in a field, using the 300, iso 400, hand held and of course no IS. The camera and lens performed just fine.
I will do more formal testing in the coming days and post examples, but there is enough on the net already for that to be of less than critical importance. I would like though, to establish just what I can expect from each of the lenses.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Atlas Coal Tipple
Nipped down to Drumheller yesterday, with plans to shoot the badlands but decided first to visit Atlas Coal Tipple, and ended up spending the rest of the day there. My Metabones Canon adapter failed (couldn't communicate or set the f stop). This was more than a little frustrating as it eliminated 3 of my 5 lenses, including my favourite 70-200, and close focusing (my extension tubes are Canon). This had been on the camera in Newfoundland when the previous A7r came off the tripod and fell six feet onto rocks.
The adapter looks fine but works only intermittently. I had fortunately decided at the last minute to take my A6000 kit with me and so used that for the rest of the day including these two images, both shot with the very small 55-210.
I occurs to me that I could have used it on the A7r but with the rear baffle still in place it only ups the pixels from aps-c size 15 mp to about 20 of the full 36 and you lose the quick focusing of the A6000 and 24 mp within the aps-c size, oh yeah, and IS too, though that didn't matter using the tripod.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
A7r For Professional Use - Not Quite
I've had a chance to use the A7r more extensively and in a variety of situations. There are many things I like about it - the EVF, and tilting LCD (though why camera manufacturers continue to think that we don't shoot vertically is really mind boggling.
Some things I don't like about it and here's a partial list.
1) taking 3 seconds to turn on - just not professional
2) often, one is unable to magnify shot images - the same happens with the A6000 - clearly a software bug - fortunately not affecting the final image.
3) the shutter button isn't definite enough - not like ones on Canon cameras for example, where there is a definite tactile difference between half press and full - here it's a guessing game.
4) even breathing on the shutter button will cancel magnify view, making manual focus a pain, and sometimes I'd swear I didn't do anything to cause it to drop out.
5) formatting cards is buried in menus and can't be put in "mymenu" like on a Canon camera, or done by double button pushing as per Nikon D800e (I actually prefer the Canon My Menu system - less scary, more definite than the Nikon way and oddly, faster too.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are far more things to like than not - for example, using tilt lenses is a breeze with focus peaking.
I didn't find camera shutter shake to be a huge flaw - but I was using the battery grip. Likewise battery life was not a problem since the battery grip holds to batteries, but otherwise, you'd likely find yourself changing batteries at critical moments just a few times too often for comfort. I did find the shutter noise to be an issue during my recent trip to Newfoundland.
In hindsight I should have used my Nikon equipment for the trip, selling it after if I still wanted a change. I'd thought the light weight and small size of the A7r would be ideal - but too often it wasn't the right camera - for people, in the helicopter, for quick grab shots, and for small size (after all with the Canon 70-200 plus adapter plus L bracket on the adapter, this is not small kit).
Now that I'm back home and not photographing whales and birds and musicians, it may well prove itself close to ideal, or close enough.
Some things I don't like about it and here's a partial list.
1) taking 3 seconds to turn on - just not professional
2) often, one is unable to magnify shot images - the same happens with the A6000 - clearly a software bug - fortunately not affecting the final image.
3) the shutter button isn't definite enough - not like ones on Canon cameras for example, where there is a definite tactile difference between half press and full - here it's a guessing game.
4) even breathing on the shutter button will cancel magnify view, making manual focus a pain, and sometimes I'd swear I didn't do anything to cause it to drop out.
5) formatting cards is buried in menus and can't be put in "mymenu" like on a Canon camera, or done by double button pushing as per Nikon D800e (I actually prefer the Canon My Menu system - less scary, more definite than the Nikon way and oddly, faster too.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are far more things to like than not - for example, using tilt lenses is a breeze with focus peaking.
I didn't find camera shutter shake to be a huge flaw - but I was using the battery grip. Likewise battery life was not a problem since the battery grip holds to batteries, but otherwise, you'd likely find yourself changing batteries at critical moments just a few times too often for comfort. I did find the shutter noise to be an issue during my recent trip to Newfoundland.
In hindsight I should have used my Nikon equipment for the trip, selling it after if I still wanted a change. I'd thought the light weight and small size of the A7r would be ideal - but too often it wasn't the right camera - for people, in the helicopter, for quick grab shots, and for small size (after all with the Canon 70-200 plus adapter plus L bracket on the adapter, this is not small kit).
Now that I'm back home and not photographing whales and birds and musicians, it may well prove itself close to ideal, or close enough.
Newfoundland Three
These images are from the old bunkers at Cape Spear, Newfoundland, about 25 minutes from St. John's. We had visited two weeks earlier and even in that short time, new graffiti had been added, complicating the photographing. Both images were made with the 24 ts-e lens mounted on the A7r.
Even with careful viewfinder framing, I still needed to do some small Edit/Free Transform to get perspective correct for the print. This isn't a fault of the equipment, rather that tilt as little as one quarter of a degree is noticeable on a print, and not in a viewfinder of lcd, and not measurable with current leveling aids in digital cameras. I could have made colours and contrast pop in both images, but prefer the more pastel look shown here.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Newfoundland Two
The first image is a recreation of the Viking houses at L'anse Aux Meadows. The second is an old fence on Fogo Island, the third a beach artifact at Woody Point, next to Gros Morne. The first was made with the A6000 and 55-210, the second with the A7r and 24 ts-e Canon lens shifted left and right and stitched, the third with the A6000 again, this time with the 10-18 IS hand held at 1/8 second.
The fourth image is the A7r on Fogo Island, 24 mm. ts-e, tilted for nice fore to aft focus, but I forgot to check depth of field left to right and the right edge raised rocks are out of the plane of focus.
Newfoundland One
We are just back from two weeks in and around Newfoundland. The first image is as our cruise ship Sea Adventurer (passengers 118) left St. Johns. This is the area referred to as "The Battery". The ship was late in leaving, held up by customs having arrived from winter duty in Antarctic.
The second image is from L'anse Aux Meadows - the Viking settlement at the northern tip of Newfoundland. Keep in mind that pack ice in the background was solid, the wind was howling and the temperature hovering around freezing point - sure can see why they left after 10 years but still some 500 years before Columbus. We learned they may have headed south to modern New Brunswick.
The third image is of Snorri - a repilca Viking boat, named for the son of Eric The Red, who settled in Newfoundland, after being kicked out of both Iceland and then Greenland for multiple murders. Charming but tough bugger! In 2000 the boat was sailed from Greenland to Newfoundland to commemorate the 1000'th ann. of the original trip.
All three images were made with my new A6000 - I'd fallen in love with the viewfinder - so much better than the Nex-7, and at low ISO, smoother more detailed images. With my 10-18, 16-70 and 55-210 kit, it made a small portable package for travelling and ended up being used a lot more than my A7r. I was very pleased with the A6000. No, it doesn't focus as well as a good dSLR, but decent, definitely.
I didn't have my tripod for the interior shots of Snorri but simply held the camera against a post as best I could, and with the amazing image stabilization of the 10-18, was able to make the shot.
I never would have guessed that IS would matter in such an ettreme wide angle, but repeatedly on this trip it proved helpful.
On Newfoundland itself, it was wonderful and we can't wait to return. Wild, friendly, beautiful. The ads for Newfoundland are all true.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Zoo With 400 f 5.6 and Canon 70D
Well, lots been happening. I'm going on a cruise soon and birds are going to be significant, puffins, also whales - so I checked out the birding videos and websites and the consistent recommendation was a Canon crop sensor camera (usually the 7D) and the Canon 400 5.6 L lens, particularly for birds in flight - the point being that your shutter speed has to be high anyway.
I have now made the bold (? foolish) move to sell all my Nikon gear, for a variety of reasons I can go into but largely because of having the Sony A7r - but it did leave this one hole.
Here's from this morning's trip to the Calgary Zoo.
I have now made the bold (? foolish) move to sell all my Nikon gear, for a variety of reasons I can go into but largely because of having the Sony A7r - but it did leave this one hole.
Here's from this morning's trip to the Calgary Zoo.
I actually want to go back and reshoot the owls with my A7r , 400 mm. not cropped, and with tripod so I can reduce the ISO. That said, ISO 6400 isn't bad on the 70D. "Grain" on a 13X19 print is visible in the eyes and beaks, but probably less than Tri-X in the old days - we live in wonderful times.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Spoon
Happened to notice the tarnish on this tea spoon, so parked it in the cupboard for later. I photographed it with the A7r, 90 mm. tse, tilted and with a 30 mm. extension tube. The whole thing vibrated in the wind, and I was pushing it with the 2 second self timer to settle that quickly and not be influenced by shutter shake but it seemed to work out fine - only the centre is in focus. I shot two images at different exposures and blended them manually to avoid the washout of highlights at the base of the spoon.
The background was blurred with a gaussian blur on a separate layer, then masked back, then I did the same again, only using lighten so only the lighter pixels would smear, and masked much of that from the centre of the image.
Monday, April 14, 2014
A7r Photographing People
I had an interesting opportunity on the weekend at the local model train show (where we help kids build cardboard train stations as well as give lectures on basic model railroading). There's lots of opportunity to photograph the fellows helping cute kids construct the stations. On Saturday I brought the A7r, 55 FE 1.8, and the 70-200 Canon L IS. Interestingly the latter worked better than the former, using manual focus to get eyelashes sharp. With the wider angle of the 55 and very poor autofocus. I hadn`t expected greatness, but considering the indoor soccer centre was decently bright, was more than disappointed with the number of failures (about 3/4 of the images).
So the next day I came with my Nikon D800E and 70-200 f4 lens and autofocused without problem and nailed the eyelashes 3/4 of the time which I thought very reasonable. When it came time to actually edit the images, though, shooting at ISO 6400 (ok, maybe it was darker than I realized but kids move fast) and wide open or at most f5.6, image quality definitely suffered. There isn't a fix for this currently - just a fact of life. The problem was less one of ISO than depth of field.
Now, the real reason for this 'test' was to see how the A7r would handle indoors photographing artists and musicians (part of our holiday) and the bad news is, NOT WELL.
The A7r would be absolutely fine for formal portraits, less fine for casual people pictures and hopeless for photographing indoor soccer (or equivalent).
Interestingly, I also had a particular model mine I wanted to photograph on Sunday so brought my tripod for the D800e - and after a couple of weeks with the A7r, what a pain using the D800. The viewfinder was dim. I switched to live view and had to put up with the terrible image on the lcd, swimming aaround, even after I turned of IS, and of approximately 200K visual information, vs. the 2.4 meg of information in the Sony Viewfinder.
I'm going to love the A7r for my landscape and industrial work.
I'm going to be interested to see how the A6000 does when it gets properly tested as using the same lenses and at 24 MP, it might be all I really need for the weekend's work in which case I can get rid of the Nikon.
My casual impression (looking at images on screen at 100%) is that shutter shake on the A7r with the battery grip is not a significant issue, and the bulk of the battery grip still makes the camera smaller and lighter than the D800e without battery grip.
Once again I have to say I was impressed with the 10-18 on the A7r - would I recommend someone deliberately run out and buy one for the A7r - NO, but if you have one already, for sure - and I'm not going to carry a separate ultrawide.
So the next day I came with my Nikon D800E and 70-200 f4 lens and autofocused without problem and nailed the eyelashes 3/4 of the time which I thought very reasonable. When it came time to actually edit the images, though, shooting at ISO 6400 (ok, maybe it was darker than I realized but kids move fast) and wide open or at most f5.6, image quality definitely suffered. There isn't a fix for this currently - just a fact of life. The problem was less one of ISO than depth of field.
Now, the real reason for this 'test' was to see how the A7r would handle indoors photographing artists and musicians (part of our holiday) and the bad news is, NOT WELL.
The A7r would be absolutely fine for formal portraits, less fine for casual people pictures and hopeless for photographing indoor soccer (or equivalent).
Interestingly, I also had a particular model mine I wanted to photograph on Sunday so brought my tripod for the D800e - and after a couple of weeks with the A7r, what a pain using the D800. The viewfinder was dim. I switched to live view and had to put up with the terrible image on the lcd, swimming aaround, even after I turned of IS, and of approximately 200K visual information, vs. the 2.4 meg of information in the Sony Viewfinder.
I'm going to love the A7r for my landscape and industrial work.
I'm going to be interested to see how the A6000 does when it gets properly tested as using the same lenses and at 24 MP, it might be all I really need for the weekend's work in which case I can get rid of the Nikon.
My casual impression (looking at images on screen at 100%) is that shutter shake on the A7r with the battery grip is not a significant issue, and the bulk of the battery grip still makes the camera smaller and lighter than the D800e without battery grip.
Once again I have to say I was impressed with the 10-18 on the A7r - would I recommend someone deliberately run out and buy one for the A7r - NO, but if you have one already, for sure - and I'm not going to carry a separate ultrawide.
Friday, April 11, 2014
A7r and 10-18
There's lots of talk on the net about the 10-18 covering all of the full frame sensor of the A7r - with examples showing distortion and poor resolution at the corners. I went out to the garden yesterday and made an image, at 16 mm., no vignetting but definite blurring along the far sides. I did some checking and cropping and bottom line is if one trims the image to square, resolution is superb to the corners, this on a 24 inch square print.inspected from 8 inches away.
My intention to carry a large and heavy ultrawide is definitely on hold for now. Too bad the A7r can't be cropped in camera to square - now that's a firmware update I'd pay for, and maybe 4X5 ratio with this lens.
The widest view combined with a reasonable number of pixels is a 2:3 crop of 22 megapixels at 12 mm.
Given the small size and extremely light weight of the 10-18 - it will make an ideal travel lens for me this summer when I go to Newfoundland.
The Canon 70-200 L IS lens works great on magnified manual focus, and the IS is great - very sharp pictures at 1/60 and 200 mm. - perhaps that battery grip is helping shutter shake as much as some people say - anyway - works for me.
I have the 55 FE 1.8 native lens, and now just need something between a cropped 12 which is probably about 15 mm. equivalent, and the 55.
The sensible thing is probably the native 35 f2.8 since I don't need another fast lens, and perhaps a 24. I might lug the 24 Tse, but it's quite a weight on the A7r.
Anyway, in the mean time I will have no hesitation to use the 10-18 on serious landscape work.
My intention to carry a large and heavy ultrawide is definitely on hold for now. Too bad the A7r can't be cropped in camera to square - now that's a firmware update I'd pay for, and maybe 4X5 ratio with this lens.
The widest view combined with a reasonable number of pixels is a 2:3 crop of 22 megapixels at 12 mm.
Given the small size and extremely light weight of the 10-18 - it will make an ideal travel lens for me this summer when I go to Newfoundland.
The Canon 70-200 L IS lens works great on magnified manual focus, and the IS is great - very sharp pictures at 1/60 and 200 mm. - perhaps that battery grip is helping shutter shake as much as some people say - anyway - works for me.
I have the 55 FE 1.8 native lens, and now just need something between a cropped 12 which is probably about 15 mm. equivalent, and the 55.
The sensible thing is probably the native 35 f2.8 since I don't need another fast lens, and perhaps a 24. I might lug the 24 Tse, but it's quite a weight on the A7r.
Anyway, in the mean time I will have no hesitation to use the 10-18 on serious landscape work.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
Power Pole
After considerable debate and a lot more research, I decided to purchase the Sony A7r and 55 mm. lens and battery grip. I didn't yet have an L plate (or any plate) for the camera but I rested it on top of the tripod and held it lightly in place while making this image. I was inside the pole that was lying on the ground waiting for installation. The light at the other end is in fact simply reflection from the end I'd crawled into. I could walk stooped over it was so big.
I'll be commenting on the A7r experience in the next few weeks as I get used to it - things like how big a deal is shutter shake, does the battery grip solve that problem, what about the compressed raw files and how does the camera handle. Is autofocus fast enough, and for what, and what about other lenses on the camera?
I have a metabones Canon adapter for my Nex so will be using the few Canon lenses I hung onto - my 24tse, 90 tse and 70-200 f4 L IS.
I then have to make the decision on what to do with the Nikon equipment, some of which at least will need to be sold to pay off the A7r.
Impressions so far:
1) the camera is a delight to use.
2) I wish the image magnify button was somewhere not next to my eye and glasses.
3) images at 100% look crunchy - def. very artificial compared to the images with the D800e.
4) Live view is infinitely better than on the Nikon, probably the single biggest reason for going ahead with the purchase.
Stay tuned for more objective assessments.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Pathway Ice
Walked past this as I was looking for a train photo, but while waiting for the train, started to look around and found this rather inconspicuous scene. Shot with Nex-7 and 55-210 hand held.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Sunday, March 09, 2014
High Key Images And Snow and Ice In Particular
Mike wrote:
I really enjoy your high key B+W images, but have had no luck at creating my own. Would you be willing to share your technique or direct me to other resources where I can learn how??
I do have some techniques to increase the chance of good high key images, which often involve pictures of ice and snow.
Here's the steps I take:
1) Use the highlight control to increase detail in the white and light areas by moving it to the left in Lightroom or Camera Raw
without the highlight slider moved to the left.
and here we have Enhancer applied then toned down to 72% of effect - just because I usually find the full effect a bit too much, and with any further editing the risk is to look cartoonish.
And we have the above after turning off the threshold. Now we have the brightness we want, though the detail and tonality of the ice is a little lacking. I now use a Curves Adjustment layer, a sagging curve with the biggest change in the highlights to increase the contrast in the highlights further. I did this locally first, then decided I hadn't done enough and created a second sagging curve of the same shape, but applied globally and then used the opacity slider for the layer to adjust to taste and we have:
You might be tempted to think that all we've done is to go back to the step before I added the threshold layer, but not quite - there is a lot more detail and texture in the ice now - but I do agree, it's back to being too dark.
So, one more step. I flatten the image and duplicate it in a second image layer (you drag the image from the image layer down to the second icon from the right (the create new layer icon) and voila, two image layers - one I can mess with all I want, because I've a virgin copy underneeth.
So, what am I going to do with this extra image layer - I'm going to use the dodge highlights tool (Dodge tool, with Highlights selected in the submenu above the image window, and set to 5% opacity). With this, I'm going to bring back the glow to the highlights, and yes, I'm going to use that threshold layer again (I have it as an action - threshold at 250, opacity on the layer to 85%).
Again I'm turning on the Threshold layer to make sure I didn't drive large areas to pure white, while turning it off to check for overall tonality. Once you have a few small areas that barely get to 250, it's pretty easy to adjust the rest of the image to match.
At this point, it's worth taking a break and coming back the next day, as it's easy to carry this too far. Notice I did a bit of dodge highlights on the rock and it looks as if a little stray sunlight made it in, the rocks are now significantly more three dimensional. Think of dodge highlights as liquid sunshine, to be applied to taste. The dodging brush is applied quite uneavenly.
this rather bizarre image is the result of the dodging highlights, then applying difference blend mode to the dodged layer relative to the virgin layer below, and the result lightened a bit so you could see it better. This is just to show you the parts of the image that were dodged - black indicates no dodging was done. Note the different intensities of dodging, and also where I dodged, following the flow or edges or highlights of the ice, while leaving the recessed parts of the ice alone - further enhancing the three dimensional effect. Again you can see the rather intense amount of dodging done to the background rock to get the sunlight effect. Sometimes dodging the rock can result in splotchy lighter areas so I now tone that back (by masking out the dodged layer in those splotchy areas, and I have the final result for tonight. I took about an hour to make all these adjustments as well as write the article as well as save the various generations. Normally I'd spend twice that long just doing the editing - but as you can see, even rushed and a bit carelessly, the result is still effective.
As usual, don't forget to click on the blog images to see them larger so you can get a better idea of texture. This technique can be taken way too far, and I have learned over time not to get too carried away (most of the time) and still sometimes have to start over.
So Mike, are you sorry you asked? What do people think - too far, over the top, or worth while?
I really enjoy your high key B+W images, but have had no luck at creating my own. Would you be willing to share your technique or direct me to other resources where I can learn how??
I do have some techniques to increase the chance of good high key images, which often involve pictures of ice and snow.
Here's the steps I take:
1) Use the highlight control to increase detail in the white and light areas by moving it to the left in Lightroom or Camera Raw
and with the highlight slider moved left, and the shadows slider moved a little right.
The next step is to do normal editing on the image, adjusting tones as needed. In this particular case, there isn't anything I want to do to the image before applying Akvis Enhancer that opens shadows and increases separation in the highlights. The Clarity slider dose the same thing though more to midtones than either highlights or shadows, so most often if I think I'm going to need Akvis Enhancer, I will not use any clarity at all.
and here we have Enhancer applied then toned down to 72% of effect - just because I usually find the full effect a bit too much, and with any further editing the risk is to look cartoonish.
The next step is to make sure that the image pushes the boundaries of white. I do this by adding a threshold layer, set to 250. What this does is to turn to black all pixels darker than 250 on the 0-255 scale, while leaving the rest as is.
In order to see the underlying image - and know where to work - I then turn down the opacity of this threshold layer so the image is peeking through, and we have:
there are literally only a few pixels out of the entire image that even approach pure white - definitely going to produce a muddy image when printed, even though because of the brightness, it looks fine on screen.
The next step is to add a layer under the Threshold Layer, a Curves Adjustment Layer, in which I move the top right point in the curve to the left (ie. producing a steeper straight line). This has the effect of driving light pixels closer to white, and I don't mind going a bit past that point because I'll mask this layer after. How far to the left? To taste, experience, and not driving most of the ice over the top. Say, about this much:
The next step is to add a white mask to this Curves Adjustment Layer so I can reduce the intensity of the layer as and where I want. I then paint into the white mask with black, opacity somewhere between 10-30% opacity on the 'black paint'. To know how to do this, I use a combination of with the Threshold layer and without, so I can see how effectively I control those over the top whites (with the Threshold layer visible) and how realistic the tonalities are (with the Threshold Layer invisible (uncheck the box to the left of the layer).
So, one more step. I flatten the image and duplicate it in a second image layer (you drag the image from the image layer down to the second icon from the right (the create new layer icon) and voila, two image layers - one I can mess with all I want, because I've a virgin copy underneeth.
So, what am I going to do with this extra image layer - I'm going to use the dodge highlights tool (Dodge tool, with Highlights selected in the submenu above the image window, and set to 5% opacity). With this, I'm going to bring back the glow to the highlights, and yes, I'm going to use that threshold layer again (I have it as an action - threshold at 250, opacity on the layer to 85%).
Again I'm turning on the Threshold layer to make sure I didn't drive large areas to pure white, while turning it off to check for overall tonality. Once you have a few small areas that barely get to 250, it's pretty easy to adjust the rest of the image to match.
At this point, it's worth taking a break and coming back the next day, as it's easy to carry this too far. Notice I did a bit of dodge highlights on the rock and it looks as if a little stray sunlight made it in, the rocks are now significantly more three dimensional. Think of dodge highlights as liquid sunshine, to be applied to taste. The dodging brush is applied quite uneavenly.
As usual, don't forget to click on the blog images to see them larger so you can get a better idea of texture. This technique can be taken way too far, and I have learned over time not to get too carried away (most of the time) and still sometimes have to start over.
So Mike, are you sorry you asked? What do people think - too far, over the top, or worth while?
Seebe Dam
Eric suggested an excursion, and he, Erna, Ken and I headed out to the Seebe dam, or to be more accurate, to below the dam. I'd not been there despite driving past it many times. It was extremely windy and tripods blew over and I did most of the day hand holding my Nex-7 and whatever lens. In this case, the 55-210, f11, and a 5 image stitch.
Friday, March 07, 2014
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