"Earth From The Air" in Melbourne · Sep 18, 09:24 PM by Simon Mackie
A while ago, I posted about one of my favorite photographers, Yann Arthus-Bertrand. His travelling open air exhibition of stunning aerial photography that highlights many of the environmental challenges that we face on Earth is in Melbourne at the moment (at Federation Square, by the river). If you’re nearby, it is well worth checking out – it’s free.
Update: Image stabilization on Pentax K100D · Sep 18, 08:49 PM by Simon Mackie
In an earlier post I quoted a Canon whitepaper which explained that in-body image stabilization systems aren’t as effective as those used in the lens, especially at longer focal length lenses. Mike Vinton has emailed me to let me know that the image stabilization system on his Pentax K100D “works great” with with focal lengths up to 800mm, so maybe it is possible for in-body stabilization to work at longer focal lengths. I must confess I have not had a chance to play with the K100D yet, so I’d be very happy to hear your experiences with this issue. If you have a DSLR with in-body image stabilization, is it effective at longer focal lengths?
Top tip: buy a second battery (and keep it charged!) · Sep 11, 10:16 PM by Simon Mackie
Modern digital SLRs are great, but one disadvantage is that you are totally reliant on the battery – on older manual film SLRs even if the battery failed and the meter wasn’t working, you could still take pictures by using the sunny-16 rule, making a best guess for the exposure, and bracketing. However, on a DSLR, if the battery goes,you’re stuck with no ability to take pictures at all. Avoid what happened to me at the weekend – buy a second battery, keep it charged, and keep it in your camera bag at all times. Otherwise, you’re guaranteed that the battery will fail just when that perfect photo appears.
Canon 400D/Rebel XTi hands-on preview at DPreview · Sep 6, 10:33 PM by Simon Mackie
Phil Askey over at DPreview has an indepth preview of the new Canon Rebel XTi (in the US)/Kiss X (Japan)/400D (rest of the world). Looking through this, it really isn’t that much different to the 350D, but the new features are certainly quite nice. It looks like the custom functions will be the same, which means that my article explaining all of the custom functions of the 350D should also apply to the 400D.
CAPTCHA spam filtering on comments · Sep 6, 09:46 PM by Simon Mackie
Unfortunately, evil spammers have been deluging this site with comment spam, so I’ve been forced to add CAPTCHA spam filtering – I know it can be annoying and is also quite inaccessible, but the amount of spam comments I’m having to moderate is getting silly.
Red Rule · Aug 31, 09:25 PM by Simon Mackie
You might have seen in my previous post, Photography project ideas: pick out a single color and shoot it in which I explained my current project is to try to primarily shoot photographs witha single “theme” color, red.
To get an idea of the amazing range of images you can shoot while picking a single accent color (and the range of colors that constitute “red”), check out the Flickr group, Red Rule. Inspirational stuff!
Pentax K100D review · Aug 30, 10:22 PM by Simon Mackie
One camera that uses in-body stabilization is the new Pentax K100D. I have a bit of a soft spot for this camera because I own a lovely old Pentax K1000 film SLR. I haven’t seen one in the flesh yet, but there’s a great review here including a lot of sample shots. One of the fantastic features of this (very cheap) camera is that it’s compatible with the whole range of Pentax legacy lenses – so K and KA mount, and M42 screwmount lenses with an adaptor). Given the sheer number of great lenses available to buy secondhand or if you just have a collection of old Pentax glass, it might be worth checking this budget camera out.
Why Canon (and Nikon) use in-lens stabilization · Aug 30, 10:01 PM by Simon Mackie
From a Canon white paper on the new 400D:
Some of Canon’s competitors have chosen to use in-body image stabilization. The technique involves moving the image sensor in a controlled fashion, based on signals from movement detecting sensors in the camera body. The obvious advantage of this system is that users have some sort of stabilization available with almost any lens they connect to the body. Short focal length lenses require smaller sensor deflections; 24 or 28 mm lenses might need only 1 mm or so. Longer lenses necessitate much greater movement; 300 mm lenses would have to move the sensor about 5.5 mm (nearly 1/4”) to achieve the correction Canon gets with its IS system at the same focal length. This degree of sensor movement is beyond the range of current technology. Short and “normal” focal length lenses need stabilization much less often than long lenses, so the lenses that need the most help get the least. Further, in cameras with smaller than full-frame, 35 mm film size sensors, equivalent focal lengths become longer, by a factor of 1.5 or 1.6, exacerbating the problem by making all lenses longer.
To be honest, I always thought the reason why Canon and Nikon chose not to have image stabilization (IS on Canon lenses, VR on Nikon) in their camera bodies was for reasons of profit – each image stabilized lens is much more expensive than than its standard counterpart. However, it seems this is not the case – the image stabilization system in in a camera body (such as that used on the old Konica Minolta and now Sony Alpha DSLRs) cannot deal with the amount of stabilization needed at long focal lengths, and is therefore less effective than that used in-lens. This makes sense – if you’ve used a long lens with image stabilization, you can hear and feel the system working a lot harder than on a shorter lens. So, if you’re likely to be shooting with long lenses and need image stabilization, Canon and Nikon are still the brands to stick with.
Canon's new EOS 400D / Rebel XTi · Aug 27, 07:59 PM by Simon Mackie
Canon have just announced the followup to the hugely popular 350D/Rebel XT, the 400D. Boasting a boosted pixel count (10 megapixels) and better focusing, it also claims a sensor cleaning system (presumably similar to that found on Olympus digital SLRs) that should reduce problems caused with dust on the filter. Acording to Canon, the new anti-dust mecahnism works in three ways:
1. Reduce
Internal camera mechanisms are designed to minimise dust generation. The body cap is redesigned to prevent dust generation through wear on the cap itself.
2. Repel
Anti-static technologies are applied to the low-pass filter covering the front of the sensor so as not to attract dust.
3. Remove
A Self-Cleaning Sensor Unit uses hi-frequency vibrations to shake dust from the low pass filter for a period of approximately one second after each start up. For instant shooting after power up, this feature is disabled immediately the shutter release is depressed.
It will be interesting to see whether it is effective.
While these incremental improvements won’t be enough to persuade many people (including me!) to upgrade it should help keep Canon ahead in the hugely competitive budget DSLR market. With the announcement of the new model, prices of the existing model are likely to tumble – it’s still a great little camera, so look out for bargains!
Photography project ideas: pick out a single color and shoot it · Aug 21, 08:57 PM by Simon Mackie
If you’re stuck for a bit of creative inspiration, try limiting yourself. Pick a color and only shoot photos that feature that color strongly. My color for the next couple of weeks is going to be red, and so I’ll mainly look to shoot images that predominantly feature red. Here’s my starter image, and I’ll be assembling a set of photos at the end.
By limiting myself like this, I’ll force myself to look for images that I might not have seen before, and hopefully the assembled set of photos will look pretty good, with a wide variety of red tones.