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This EpisodeNikon G1X competitor? Nikon drops XQD cards from the D4 packaging D800 wins the Camera Grand Prix 2012 Award Canon wins lens of the year for the 8-15/4L Rumours about the EOS 650D/T4i Canon 200/2 800/5.6 make noises on 5D Mk III Joe McNally and David Hobby suggest grids for hot shoe flash Sony announces the NEX-F3 and new E mount 18-200/3.5-6.3 Fuji announces WCL-X100 WA adapter REVIEW : Honl Flash modifiers
This episode, we touch on updated rumours on the D600, look at Nikon's financials and the DP Review in-depth on the D800. Then we chat about a new RC of Adobe Camera Raw and touch on Adobe's subscription service. Then we spend the bulk of the podcast on the Leica announcements on May 10th including the V-Lux 40, the X2 and the M-Monochrom. We close with film news from Canon.
This Episode we discuss the rumoured Sony NEX-F3, look at the Nikon D800/e D4 Lockup Fix, an Ikelite Housing for the D800/D800e, some released Nikon Lens Patents, a Nikon Battery Recall, check out News from Adobe, the Trigger Trap Remote, some new Travel Backpacks from Think Tank, Canon Lens Patents and potential Canon mirrorless specs. We have news for the 5d Mk III, the DP review on the OM-D, our first look at the Tamron 24-70/2.8VC, updates from Fuji and the release of the new Mamiya Lead Credo digital backs
Regular readers know that I am a very strong advocate of your work remaining yours. I've been fairly critical of web services that through their End User License Agreement require you to give all your rights away to your own property. While I know that there are workarounds for some photo sharing sites (use only small low quality thumbnails), in general I only recommend sites that protect your intellectual property and most times there is a fee involved. Recently the folks at Google opened a new service called Google Drive. Ostensibly it looks like it competes with Dropbox and to a lesser extent with Microsoft's SkyDrive. I am not snubbing SkyDrive, it's only that Dropbox is the 800 pound gorilla at the moment. I like Dropbox. One of the many reasons I like Dropbox is that their EULA specifies that what is mine is mine and that I can have everything on their myriad servers encrypted. I pay for the privilege of lots of reliable cloud storage.
Google Drive provides an initial 5GB of storage for free. A decent offer to be sure but if you care about your intellectual property, don't just click through the "by clicking here you agree to the license agreement that is really long and hard to read and located at this other place..." because when you click ok, you grant Google irrevocable rights forever to anything you put on Google Drive. That might be just fine with you, particularly if you buy into the argument that Google has a zillion customers and won't have the time to look at and redistribute your stuff. If it's not fine with you and you still want to use Google Drive for something then DON'T put your photos or videos or screenplays or anything you want to remain private up there.
The latin phrase Caveat Emptor has existed for centuries for very good reason. And as Robert Heinlein said very clearly over 50 years ago, TANSTAFFL.
(There ain't no such thing as a free lunch)
I definitely credit Google for making the service available and also for having an understandable if a bit lengthy EULA. They are far from the worst offenders and consistently let you know up front their intent. I have read an article that says they do this in their EULAs because people can email things from their account and since there is no way to know how many hops an attachment will take and where it will be stored en route, they have to do this. That email and attachments are stored (and are retrievable at any time) in myriad waypoints is factually correct, but the EULA makes no explicit commentary on this point, and is much wider ranging. Google has a business to run and are very clear that they could use anything you put on their services to foster that business. You do have freedom of choice. To say as the other writer did that the EULA exists to handle the risks created by unencrypted email is akin to using a 10 gauge shotgun to hunt sparrows. It's a spurious argument. Google is a business and provides services that someone has to pay for. If you aren't paying for them, someone else is.
If you don't like this reality, don't participate. That's your choice.
I've been getting a lot more engaged in night photography and I learned a method for getting better images from Scott Martin and Dr. Russell Brown at Photoshop World in March. The process is called Stacking and while you can do this with special software, Russell has released a Photoshop script called Stack-A-Matic that easily combines your images into a single image. The key to successful stacking is an intervalometer. For most night shots I had been using the Canon RS-80N3 remote cord. It's basically an electro-mechanical release allowing you to release the shutter without touching the camera and to hold the shutter open in Bulb mode by using of a sliding lock. It's simple and it works and sells for about $105 although ymmv.
I could use this release for stacking but it depends on me to be accurate in my exposure timing and in my sequence timing. What Scott and Russell advocate is a sequence of shots of fixed exposure duration separated by one second intervals in order to ensure that star trails are gapless. This isn't HDR, it's lots of short exposures that are stacked to get amazing levels of detail, very low noise and a cumulative very long exposure. Doing things this way means you can get star trails without blowing out the foreground or having your sky look like a pointillist painting because of all the digital noise.
I looked first at Canon's timer remote, the TC-80N3. It looks like the RS-80N3, except that it has a digital timer in it. Since these timers are pretty common these days, I was shocked when I saw that it sells for about $275. Really!? And you are still tied to your camera by a 2 1/2 foot cable.
That wasn't going to work as I also wanted to be able to do some light painting and that means getting away from the camera while the sequence is shooting. This led me to the Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Timer Remote.
Long name for a very simple tool. The kit consists of a transmitter, a receiver and a couple of cables to connect to different Canon models. The transmitter can work just like the TC-80N3 via cable but the kit really shines when you carry the transmitter and set the receiver at the camera connected via cable to the remote port. The wireless is via radio, not infrared and there are multiple channels available to avoid interference.
You can trigger single sot, burst mode, delayed firing and hold the shutter open in bulb mode simply. In bulb mode, the transmitter even includes a timer so you aren't looking at a watch or counting seconds.
The kit really shines for interval sequences. After reading the documentation (which is easy to understand), I programmed 10 second exposures, 1 second apart with 30 repeats as a test. It took less than a minute to program, pressed the start button and walked away. Just over 330 seconds later, I had 30 images, all exposed as selected.
Then it's simple enough to use Dr. Brown's Stack-A-Matic to combine all the images together in Photoshop. You can get Stack-A-Matic here from The Russell Brown Show web property.
Summary
The Hahnel Giga T Pro II Wireless Timer Remote retails for about $130. I'd suggest it over the alternatives I did test and choose not to write about. The kit is available for Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Sony cameras. Hahnel lists a Panasonic model but it looked to be a special order.
This episode we look at the new D3200 and 28/1.8 from Nikon, consider DxOMarks rating of the D800 sensor, touch on Luminous Landscape's comparison of the D800 and D800e, quick look the 5D Mk III, check out 645 Pro for iPhone, consider more rumours and share vendor updates
In this episode we cover news from Canon and Nikon, talk about a Leica sensor shortage, check out Lensbaby for mirrorless, empathize with Instagram fans, look at a cool Kickstarter project and have a short review on BlackRapid camera straps.
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This Episode
Canon News Nikon News Fuji News Fuji X Pro 1 Review by Steve Huff Photo Changes to Flickr Tamron News Night Photography with Starwalk
This is a video of a presentation and demonstration I built to deliver at a meeting of the Newmarket Camera Club.
The cool folks at MacPhun have a very cool offer running until April 9, 2012. Basically buy their iPhone app called FX Photo Studio on the iTunes store for 99 cents and you will receive a link to get the Macintosh app FX Photo Studio Pro which sells for $40 for FREE!
Here's the link from MacPhun...
Here is the deal. If you have FX Photo Studio for iPhone (currently $0,99), you get FX Photo Studio PRO for free (App Store price $40). Details can be found on our Facebook page, this Appadvice post or get in touch with questions.
MacPhun does a number of great Mac and iPhone apps. I've talked about Snapheal on the podcast and have recommended Color Splash Studio in the past. FX Photo Studio Pro makes the application of rich photo treatments easy as point and click but also provides a very high level of control.
With the current deal, it's a no-brainer - so spend the buck and get a lot more.
Thanks to Alex at MacPhun for the link and his support.
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This episode we look at news from Nikon, Canon and Leica, review Photoshop World, talk about new software from Adobe and discuss firmware updates
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites.
Olympus OM-D EM-5 Zeiss 15mm Nikon 1 Lens Patent Camera Raw Update from Apple DSLR Guru Special Offer Lightroom 4 Bundles Nikon D4 Special Gift Bye bye D3X M10 in May? Pixma Pro 1 Reviewed at dpreview.com Sony SLT-A57 New sensor for Fuji X10 X-S1 Tilt and Shift on the D800 REVIEW : Air Parrot
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites.
Review coming on Fuji X-Pro 1 Amazon US updates Nikon availability New Filmpack from DXO Gone - D700s in Canada Not the iPad 3 DP Review Mobile Site ACR 6.7 RC 5D Mk III availability Lightroom 4 released New courses from Kelby Training Canon Lens Patent released D4 Field Imptessions REVIEW : Really Right Stuff BH-55
Adobe made Lightroom 4 available for purchase today and being the devoted Lightroom sort, I bought my upgrade and downloaded the new software. Installation was as simple as one would expect and following a very rapid catalog update, especially considering the thousands of images in my primary catalog, I was off to the races.
I opened my latest collection, a series of images I shot as tests when I was teaching for Bryan Weiss' Daytripper Photo business at his recent portrait event. I didn't get to shoot a lot since I wanted to ensure that the students were getting the time, but I had grabbed a few with the Hasselblad H4D-40 of our professional model and the short notice stand-in of my daughter Dagny when our second model pulled a no show.
The Hassy makes really good images as one would expect and one of the very nice things about Lightroom is that it has the lens information already encoded for selecting when choosing the lens profiles. The new version also brings process version 2012, which even with the very crisp studio lighting I employed (my wonderful Bowens Gemini 1000 Pros) I would say that the new process version is nicer.
I did no real editing in Lightroom other than to apply a custom white balance that I created using the Colorchecker Passport plugin from a shot with model Shannon holding the Passport.
I then took the photograph into On One Software's Photo Suite 6 as I had not given it a solid press since installing it. The new suite loads automatically into its Layers 2 component. I moved right into Perfect Portrait and sharpened and brightened the eyes, added some saturation to the mouth and cleaned up a few blemishes using the skin tune functions. Very fast and very controllable.
I then clicked into the Blur service (aka Focal Point 2) and using their "bug" set up a nice darkening vignette and applied a bit of blur to the area outside her face. Again, very controllable although I felt the default setting was a tad aggressive. The bug allows you to control the blur and non-blur mask areas very quickly. Once done, I applied the changes I had made and the photo returned to Lightroom as a PSD, ready for re-editing if needed.
I was very happy with the image so I wanted to make a print. What paper should I use? I decided to try some 13x19 from an Inkpress Paper Sampler and so printed the photo twice, once on the Warm Tone Rag 300, a really nice two sided all cotton rag and the second time on Inkpress' respected Glossy Canvas. I used Lightroom to select the ICC and opted for standard print sharpening and matte and glossy paper respectively. I typically use the Perceptual resolution setting and it worked well in this printing exercise.
My printer is the Epson Stylus Pro 4900. It's a monster but I love the output quality and its incredible speed and paper handling capability. The drivers were gacked (a known issue with the Apple drivers for OS X 10.7) so I had to install the Epson drivers directly which gave me some oddities in the print dialog box. I like using ICC profiles for the paper but had to choose ICC profiles for the 7900/9900 as profiles for the 4900 did not exist and past experience trying other profiles on other Inkpress papers has been less than stellar. I do wish Inkpress would provide more profiles specifically for my printer.
Despite a misstep on my part loading the canvas at first, the prints came out beautiful right away and are only improving as I let them set before mounting. One of the other things I really like about the 4900 is that while a complete refill is a mortgage payment, each of the cartridges holds 200ml of their Ultrachrome pigment inks, instead of the ludicrous 13ml found in most photo printer cartridges. Folks do ask me what printer to buy and while I favour Epson, I always suggest to anyone vaguely serious to get up model to one that uses reasonably sized ink cartridges. Epson used to have a really bad rep for clogged print heads that rendered the whole device a paperweight but their new teflon coated nozzles don't have this problem.
I'll be heading out tonight for mattes and frames. A really great exercise today.
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This Episode The long awaited Canon 5d Mark III Canon 600 EX RT Canon WFT-E7A Canon GP-E2 Canon 1D X availability Nikon D700 Price Drop Adobe Photoshop Touch Awesome Camera Software Updates REVIEW : Think Tank Retrospective 5
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This Episode
Canon News and Rumours Nikon Noise Management Flickr Redesign DxO Optics Pro Update Sigma 180/2.8 OIS Macro Lexar 1000x CF and 600x SDHC Cards Pocket Wizard Plus III Fuji X10 Firmware Update Results Introduction to Rangefinders and the Leica M9
I hate to think that I had been procrastinating editing some videos I shot for some friends, because I really had not been, although the work required a task that really bugs me. Despite my DSLR cameras being great for recording HD video, their audio capabilities are well, open for improvement. So I do what lots of videographers do. I let the camera mic run and also use external mics with an outboard audio recorder. My rig is very simple. Basically I use Sennheiser wireless lavaliers into a Zoom H4N field recorder and save the files as WAV format. This gives me very high quality audio that I can lay into my non-linear editor as an extra track beside the video with embedded audio from the DSLR. The Canon DSLRs also record audio through either the built-in mic or a frame mounted shotgun. I had tried the Beachtek box and while it works, I've had issues, and even though the Rode Videomic is very good, it's one mic and doesn't give nice stereo separation when shooting a two person standup.
I am using Final Cut Pro X which was recently updated by Apple to 10.0.3. This brought support for XML controls and that enabled the use of a tool I had looked at once in the days when I used Final Cut Studio. The tool is called PluralEyes and comes from Singular Software. You can download a trial of the product here. If you want a non-integrated audio track tool, they also do a tool called DualEyes.
FCP X purports to be able to sync multiple audio tracks together. It can. Mostly. With multiple retakes and inconsistent start times between audio and video, I have found that it works ok, but not perfect and not necessarily consistent. PluralEyes is a special purpose tool, that carries a price tag of $149 USD. So it's not like the free that's built in to FCP X. You should expect something really great for that kind of money, and my experience today says you get it.
I had eight separate videos to edit, each with multiple takes and audio files. So long as I kept them straight, PluralEyes did the job quickly and effectively. While it is a standalone app, it integrates very nicely into your FCP X workflow.
Here's the workflow I used today.
That's it. It's like working with a professional video / audio track from pro gear. PluralEyes saves a lot of time and makes life much easier. I have not discovered a down side, other than the license cost of the software, but for the hours it saved me, it's worth it. You can try the software for free before you buy which is very good of the manufacturer.
PluralEyes is available to work with Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony VEGAS and Edius. The 30 Day trial is not impaired in any way that I discovered.
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This Episode
Nikon News
Olympus News
Canon News
Photo News
DP Review of the Lumix GX-1
New Samsung SD Cards
Part One - Leica M9 Review
I am very pleased to announce that Rogers TV has completed the shooting of the first six episodes of Daytripper TV that will begin airing on Rogers Cable 10 Television the week of February 27th. The schedule is as follows; Tuesday 7pm - first airing of the week then the same show will air again: Wednesday 11am Thursday 7am Thursday 2pm Saturday 2pm Sunday 8pm
After the first six episodes air, they will enter rotation for another six weeks, by when we will have shot the next six episodes. I am very grateful to my co-host Bryan Weiss for his hard work and to the amazing team at Rogers TV who made this happen.
The Photo Video Guy Podcast is created for photographic and videographic enthusiasts featuring news, reviews, tips and tricks and is the audio companion to thephotovideoguy.ca and thephotovideoguy.com web sites. This Episode
News from Nikon Leica Financials Kodak Update Fuji News Canon News Olympus DSLR Facebook Lightbox REVIEW : Lastolite Ezybox
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