Tag Archives: canon

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM

I’ve had the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM for years, it is one of the sharpest lenses out there, and it shoots 1:1 macro. I shoot commercial product photography professionally, so the 100/2.8 macro was the lens with which I made probably more than 80% of my income from photography. I however only used that lens for work, but almost never for personal work. I shot a couple of macro shots to test out the lens when I first got it, it was a fine lens but the aperture was not round enough, so the out of focus area was too harsh for my liking. It worked fine for product closeups, but for anything else the harsh bokeh really bothered me, so the lens never left my studio since I got it.

Canon introduced an L version of this lens, it does 1:1 macro, but has the new IS system that provides up to 5 stops of stabilization, the aperture is also near-round, so it yeilds similar soft and dreamy bokeh like my other lenses. I looked on eBay and was surprised to find out that I could easily sell my 100/2.8 with the hood for around $500, so that means it will only costs about $500 to upgrade, which I think is well worth it. The improvements will make me want to take the lens out of the studio and have fun with it. Amazon has this lens for about $1k, which is an amazing deal IMO. I brought it to the SF botanical garden for a test drive, it performed as expected: much smoother transition between in and out of focus areas, way smoother bokeh, the MTF graphs comparison shows that it is even sharper, but pretty much the whole graph is under the Nyquist frequency of the 5D Mark II so I don’t think anyone can really tell the difference. It is tack sharp for sure though. I accidentally shut off the IS so I didn’t get to test it much, I was able to take test portraits without camera shake at around 1/15 the night before, at 1:1 it will have to give a few more stops to be safe.

Some shots from the botanical garden:

f/4, 1/1000s

f/3.5, 1/1250s

f/3.2, 1/640s

This lens is pretty inexpensive for what it offers, other than the crazy MPE, which is very specialized and it’s pretty much a microscope, the 100L is the best macro lens for Canon right now. The AF is very fast, f/2.8 at 100mm is pretty bright, and it is tack sharp at wide open. The lens also makes a really good portrait lens, not quite as insane as the 85L, but it is half the price and it does 1:1 macro. I would definitely recommend getting this over the non-L version of the 100/2.8 macro. The non-L version is $599 and the hood is about $40, so the 100L is only about $360 more, but you get round-aperture, amazing IS, weather seal, an amazing lens hood (best Canon lens hood I’ve seen), as well as a lens bag! Definitely worth the extra $360 IMO. If you have a full frame body and are ready to buy your first L lens, I’d say forget the 24-70L, get the 100L, it is a much cooler lens to have.

You can pick one up at Amazon, btw, the price on Amazon has been fluctuating between $1060 to $1005, if the current price is too high, you should be able to wait a couple of days for it to drop back down to about $1005:

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM

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85/1.2L II vs 24-70/2.8L

The top reasons I chose Canon was because of insane L primes, out of all the lenses out there, the one I’d always wanted was the 85L, as it is arguably the best lens for portraits. The price of this lens has gone up over the years, especially after Canon introduced the Mark II version. Recently the price went down a little bit, so I picked it up soon as that happened. After shooting with it for a few weeks, all I can say is that I should’ve bought this lens long time ago.

The lens however is not for everyone, it is expensive, heavy, large, AF is relatively slow if you’re used to other fast L primes and zooms. The minimum focusing distance is 0.95 meter, which is probably farther than what you’re used to. It is also a very difficult lens to use if you don’t have strict shooting discipline. Shooting anywhere close to wide open requires expert focusing techniques, especially if you have a camera with AF-points pattern that doesn’t make sense for portraits; focus-and-recompose is not an option when operating with an inch of depth of field. But if you know what you’re dealing with, this is one amazing lens. Some images I shot with the 85L:

f/1.8 1/2000s with B+W ND4 filter

f/1.4 1/100s

f/1.2 1/500s

5D Mark II, 85/1.2L II, f/1.2, 1/50s, ISO 6400

f/1.6

f/1.8 1/3200s, B+W ND4 filter

f/1.4 1/800s, B+W ND4 filter

Before I got in the world of L primes I thought a fullframe body with a 24-70/2.8L is a really good setup for serious photographers. But after shooting with L primes, I can say that the 24-70 is not even close to the sharpness, contrast, and quality (especially bokeh softness) of the 50L and 85L. Now, for the serious photographers, I think the perfect Canon starter “kit” is the 50/1.2L with a full frame body. With foot works, it is pretty much a 24-70, only much faster and better image quality. I am seriously considering selling my 24-70L for a 35L now. I do like the 24mm end though, but the 24L is not nearly as good as the 35L. If I didn’t have the 85L I would get the 50L for sure, but they’re a bit too close and expensive to own both. I also upgraded my 100/2.8 Macro USM to the new L version with IS, will talk about that in my next post.

btw, the 85L is very cheap right now, lowest price in the past few years:

Panasonic LX3: also returned

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I returned the Canon G11 and got the Panasonic LX3. Quick thoughts on the LX3:

very small for a highend P&S
AF, shutter, and operation lags were better, but still not as quick as my Fuji f50fd
as expected, the lens on the LX3 was even better than that of the G11, and it’s also very fast, f/2 to f/2.8 in the whole range
wideangle is amazing, optical zoom is not quite long enough, but that’s not a huge problem for me, I’d rather have a fixed lens.

After about 300 frames, and a few 720p videos, I liked it, but not enough to keep it, so back Amazon it went.

Some LX3 snaps:

you can find all my LX3 snaps here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lx3&w=68826320%40N00

The images are still very P&S like, it’s very hard to have any background separation on the camera, so I decided to return it and spend the money to upgrade my Canon 100/2.8 macro USM to the new 100L IS version. (samples from that lens in a later post). The Leica X1 samples I’ve seen have also been very disappointing, at this point I’ve given up on getting a small digital for now. I looked at the GF1 and it’s nice, but the lenses are terrible, the bokeh is so harsh that it reminds me of cheap Canon lenses.

If you still wanna pick up the LX3 or the GF1, you can get them here: 😉

Canon PowerShot G11 initial impressions

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I was pretty excited when Canon announced the

Canon PowerShot G11. My SLR rig is too large, and I want a decent walk-around camera. The G11, from the specs, seems to fit the criterias for a DMD (decisive moment digital). You can tell the lens on the G11 is incredible from the samples at the Canon Japan site. The decreased pixel count is great as that means lower (better) pixel density – 23MP/cm² – which should translate to better noise performance in high ISO settings. Noise control is very important to me, especially with a P&S. Built-in flash almost never yield decent shots, it is best to turn flash off when shooting indoor. In fact, I only use it for fill flash, and to get catch lights in the eyes, not as a primary light source. I was really anxious to pick up a G11, I checked Amazon daily for weeks. When I learned that Best Buy had them in stock, I immediately went to check it out. I played with their demo unit in store, it was fairly obvious that the noise performance wasn’t great from playback shots on the LCD. The next day I found a 10% coupon, that made Best Buy’s price comparable to ordering online. Knowing that American Express would refund my restocking fee if I want to return it, I went back and picked one up. I’ve had the G11 for 5 days, shot around 500 frames. I am not 100% happy satisfied with it, and I haven’t decided if I’m keeping it. Some quick thoughts on this camera:

Pros

Great lens, the lens is one of the best I’ve seen in a P&S, and I would say it’s better than crappy “kit lens” that come with most entry-level D-SLRs. The G11 is actually very sharp at wide open aperture
Wide angle, pretty useful when shooting in tight spaces. It also shoots great WA macro shots, something you really need a P&S for
It shoots RAW, this gives me more flexibility in post-processing
Hotshoe for flash! I can mount a Canon Speedlite on it and the camera does accurate E-TTL flash metering. It works very well with bounced flash as well. The hotshot also allows syncing to strobes in studio with PocketWizards and other remote triggering devices. The following shot was done with a bounced 580EX II:

G11, ISO 100, 6.1mm, f/2.8, 1/60s

G11 + 580EX II

side profile of camera with 580EX II attached

Manual controls, this is pretty important to me, the G11, like most highend P&S, allows full manual controls of aperture, shutter speed, and focus
Image Stabilization works well
Swivel screen is nice, not because I like to take pictures of myself, but because I can flip it around to protect the screen

Control knobs for ISO settings, EV compensation, and shooting modes. They allow quick adjustments without having to go through the menu, they also feel really solid

Noise control in JPEGs is decent (more on this later)
Metering is very accurate, and it even has a spotmeter
Great battery life, after a few days of decent use the battery is still full

Cons

NOISE!! Anything above ISO 800 is unusable IMO, especially in RAW. This is very disappointing, I expected much better noise control from this sensor – maybe my expectation is unrealistic. JPEGs are clearner because the camera has hardware noise reduction, so I shoot RAW+JPEG
Weight! Very solid construction, but heavy for a P&S, it is also large enough that it won’t fit in jeans pockets (unless you want sick stretch and fades)
Price. MSRP is $500, and street prices are higher than the Panasonic LX3 right now, for a bit more I could get the DLUX4, both of these got a even better lens!
The viewfinder is absolutely useless, I don’t even see AF points or even just a bracket in there
Slow AF, maybe it’s fast for a P&S, but AF and response time is not even close to what I’m used to, and not much faster than the SD series P&S
Variable aperture, I hate zoom lenses with variable aperture
It would be nice to have a front adjustment ring around the lens like the S90, that would be useful for manual focusing
AF assist light, it is on by default, and is very annoying
Video capability is a joke, for $500, it really should do HD videos

Some test shots with the G11

G11, 6.1mm, f/8, 1/200s, ISO 80

G11, 12mm, f/8, 1/125s, ISO 125

G11, 6.1mm, f/2.8, ISO 80

G11, 30.5mm, f/4.5, 1/100s, ISO 800

G11, 6.1mm, f/3.2, 1/60s, ISO 640

By the way,

Amazon now has it in stock:

Does your 5d Mark II overexpose when you’re not shooting full manual? Check your focusing screen setting.

5D Mark II

8 Replies

Those who follow my Twitter and Flickr photostream probably already know that I got a new camera – the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (Amazon link, B&H link). Before last Friday I had been shooting with a 20D, my first dSLR. I’ve had the 20D pretty much since it was released, and I was really happy with it. I never felt the need to upgrade to a newer 1.6 crop factor bodies, I really wanted to go full frame so I had been waiting for the 5D2 probably for more than 2 years. When Amazon got it in stock I JUMPED on it.

My 2 main lenses work a lot better at full frame, the 70-200/2.8L becomes a lot more useful without the crop factor, now I actually shoot in my studio with it pretty often. The 24-70/2.8L becomes a wide angle lens at the short end. The color rendition of the sensor is amazing, Adobe camera profiles in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom 2 further bring out the colors in the images. I’ve also started to work in the ProPhoto RGB space for even larger gamut.

Noise performance in high ISO is impressive, with ISO expansion turned on it goes from ISO 50 to ISO 25600. I shot in a pitch dark lounge in ISO 12800 and the results look fine after a little bit of NR and B&W conversion in post-processing. I would say, loosely, the ISO 12800 is the ISO 3200 on my 20D.

Pretty much everything works better on the 5D2, going from the 20D is quite an upgrade for me. One thing I would really like to have is a better AF points pattern, but I guess Canon only put that on the 1D and 1Ds series bodies. The 9-point AF pattern on the 5D doesn’t really make much sense to me, especially if you’re shooting portraits and working with relatively shallow depth of field. I always avoid the “focus-and-recompose” technique, as that easily put things out of focus, it’s simple geometry. The camera has enough resolution to crop, but I generally avoid cropping whenever I can. The AF-on button is very useful, I set it up to do AF-stop, so I can use the shutter half-pressed to focus, and then I can press and hold the AF-On button to prevent the camera from focusing again. The 20D didn’t have such feature so I had to move the switch on the lens to MF.

The video capability of the camera is interesting, I am slowly learning how to use Final Cut Pro to edit and process videos. Shooting videos also require manual focus tracking, which is not something I used to do.

I’ve had the camera for 5 days and I’ve done a couple of casual shoots with it already, I’m at over 1200 frames. I’m doing 3 days of catalog shoots next week with it. I also picked up an extra AlienBees B400 and an octobox from Craigslist. I’ll probably have a lot more to write about the camera a week later. Here are some selected shots I’ve done with it so far…

Quick test shot after I unpacked the camera, lit by available light from ceiling only, ISO 1600, with 24-70/2.8L:

That night Sherry modeled for me in my studio to test it out, I shot this with a single AlienBees B800 with a softbox on her right, with a silver reflector from her top left for fill and hair, 70-200/2.8L:

Drinks at Wish last Saturday night, ISO 12800, NR’ed and duotone conversion in post-processing, image looks pretty clean, the place was almost pitch dark:

Did a shoot with Kourtney for her website last Sunday, this was lit by a 580 EX II on the side triggered by PocketWizards:

Sherry got me an RS-4 R-Strap, and it got here yesterday, so this afternoon I went for a photowalk to test out the strap, I attached it to the D-Ring of my Manfrotto QR plate, which was screwed into the tripod ring of my 70-200/2.8L, after 4 hours of walking my shoulder felt just fine, but then I am pretty used to carrying heavy photography setup. Some images from the photowalk:

I also shot some video footage and attempted to put it together in Final Cut Pro:

Canon 5D Mark II noise performance at different ISOs

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Found this photoset by ttstam from the Flickr 5D Mark II – group. The noise control at high ISOs on the 5D Mark II looks impressive from these images. You really have to go to Flickr and look at the full resolution versions to see the noise performance. He also included reference shots with the 5D and 40D. (not the exact same shots though and they’ve been post-processed and HDR’ed)

Here is the shot at ISO 3200:

ISO 6400, slightly noisy:

ISO 12800:

ISO 25600, it starts to get noisy even in the downsampled version:

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Hands-on Preview at dpreview

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frontview.jpg (JPEG Image, 1280x964 pixels) - Scaled (70%)

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5DM2 is finally here, the price is right, it’s not perfect but it’s close. I think I’m gonna get one.

21 megapixel CMOS sensor (very similar to the sensor in the EOS-1Ds Mark III)

Sensor dust reduction by vibration of filter

ISO 100 – 6400 calibrated range, ISO 50 – 25600 expansion (1Ds Mark III & 5D max ISO 3200)

Auto ISO (100 – 3200) in all modes except manual

3.9 frames per second continuous shooting

DIGIC 4 processor, new menus / interface as per the EOS 50D

Image processing features:

Highlight tone priority

Auto lighting optimizer (4 levels)

High ISO noise reduction (4 levels)

Lens peripheral illumination correction (vignetting correction)

RAW and SRAW1 (10 MP) / SRAW2 (5 MP)

RAW / JPEG selection made separately

Permanent display of ISO on both top plate and viewfinder displays

AF microadjustment (up to 20 lenses individually)

Three custom modes on command dial, Creative Auto mode

Image copyright metadata support

98% coverage viewfinder (0.71x magnification)

3.0" 920,000 dot LCD monitor with ‘Clear View’ cover / coatings, 170° viewing angle

Automatic LCD brightness adjustment (ambient light sensor)

Live view with three mode auto-focus (including face detection)

No mirror-flip for exposures in Live View if contrast detect AF selected

Movie recording in live view (1080p H.264 up to 12 minutes, VGA H.264 up to 24 mins per clip)

Two mode silent shooting (in live view)

New jump options in play mode

HDMI and standard composite (AV) video out

Full audio support: built-in mic and speaker, mic-in socket, audio-out over AV (although not HDMI)

IrPort (supports IR remote shutter release using optional RC1 / RC5 controllers)

UDMA CompactFlash support

New 1800 mAh battery with improved battery information / logging

New optional WFT-E4 WiFi / LAN / USB vertical grip

Water resistance: 10 mm rain in 3 minutes
[From Canon EOS 5D Mark II Hands-on Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review]

Looks the 5D replacement will finally be here soon…

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Even if it drops I’m most likely not gonna buy it any time soon. But I sure hope this thing is gonna beat the competition. That D700 is just really too damn good.

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Tag Archives: canon

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM

Panasonic LX3: also returned

Canon PowerShot G11 initial impressions

Pros

Cons

Some test shots with the G11

Does your 5d Mark II overexpose when you’re not shooting full manual? Check your focusing screen setting.

5D Mark II

Canon 5D Mark II noise performance at different ISOs

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Hands-on Preview at dpreview

Looks the 5D replacement will finally be here soon…