Q & A : Clarity on Printer and Paper Profiling

To submit your question to The Photo Video Guy Q&A just send me an email at ross@thephotovideoguy.ca Just when I think that there may go a week without a question, I am saved by good folks with excellent questions.  This one comes from Denis.

"I hope all is well and you have the time to answer a question that has come up. I watched Scott's "Grid show #113 about printing your own work. They talk about calibrating your monitor and printer with the Color Munki. If you have set up that calibration of both does that interfere with the paper profile that you down load from the paper manufactures? I have been told you need to bring your paper that you want to print on to calibrate the printer. That would mean you would have to do that to each paper you will be using.

I would like to know if that calibration over rides the paper profile. Do you have to use samples of each paper to calibrate. I have been seeing on thing and told another. I am going to allowed access to a color munki so I can calibrate both. I would like to know how this works and separate the myth form the legend  ! ! ! !"

The Scott that Denis refers to is of course, Scott Kelby, most celebrated (deservedly) of web / new media photographic instructors.  I've written and reviewed on the subject of display profiling on multiple occasions with the fundamental answer, if you edit your own work, you MUST calibrate your display.  Denis' question goes to the next level, taking that calibration to the printer.

I believe in printing your images.  There is nothing like a print in hand.  Folks wanting to make their own great prints, know that there are many choices in printers, inks, and papers to use to product final artwork.  Any paper manufacturer that is actually serious about quality printing produces ICC profiles for their papers.  Let's start there.

An ICC profile characterizes the colour space, or input device, or output device according to standards set by the ICC (International Color Consortium).  It's basically a set of rules that say to achieve this colour space, make the following adjustments to the default settings.  ICC paper profiles provide definition on how to get accurate colour representation on a particular printer, with a particular paper with a certain ink set.  That does mean what it sounds like.  For example, I use an Epson 4900 printer.  So only ICC profiles for that printer are useful to me.  If I use Red River Paper's superb Polar Metallic paper, the ICC profile is for that paper, on that printer and assumes I am using the factory ink.  Since serious printers use pigment based inks over the less accurate dye based inks, this becomes even more important because variance in pigments is reduced and archival life is substantially longer.  With rare exceptions, a print made using the manufacturer's ICC profile for the specific paper on the specific printer will do a really fine job, presuming of course that the edits were made on a computer with a calibrated display.

But there are exceptions.  Perhaps you are experimenting with different surface types.  Perhaps the paper manufacturer whose products you use doesn't have a profile for your specific printer.  Perhaps you have tried the manufacturer's ICC profile and it just doesn't look right.  This is when you need to create a custom paper profile for your workspace.  This is more work than you might think but is as accurate as you can get.

The XRite Color Munki Photo does both displays and printers.  Many calibration tools only do displays.  I have personally paid for and used a number of tools for calibration and ONLY recommend products from the Color Munki line.  Other products have produced poor results and display considerable inconsistency.

With the Color Munki photo, you print a test print directly from the software.  It creates a series of patches printed using your printer on the paper you are using.  You then use the Color Munki Photo to scan the patches.  It then does some significant math and you then print a second different test print.  You then scan its patches and the software generates a new ICC profile that is unique to your setup, your printer, your inks, your paper.  At this point, you no longer use the manufacturer's ICC profile, you replace it with your own.

In order to get a good custom profile, you must wait the required drying times specified, as ink setup takes different amounts of time depending on the paper type, and whether it has OBAs or is resin coated (RC paper).  This makes constructing a custom profile a time consuming business.  Once you've built one custom profile, you might want to build one for every paper type you use.  And that's how it works.  The ICC profile you create is only valid for the one type of paper.  You'll use ink and at minimum two 8x10 sheets and about 40 minutes for every profile you create.  In theory you should be good from then on, but professional printers recommend redoing this every time you have a major ink change, and for each new lot of paper.

I recommend keeping a binder of all patch pages and the documentation from the manufacturer on best printer setups.  I annotate the documents to what works for me.  I print exclusively from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.  The current release offers print proof and final printer brightness and contrast controls.  When I find a setting that works for my printer and a particular paper type, I document that for next time.  I also create specific printer setups in the Print Management function on my Macintosh so the next time I am going to print on Breathing Color Crystalline Satin Canvas roll paper, a single click sets the proper platen height, dpi and other settings.  You can probably do this on Windows too.  I have no idea how and no interest in figuring that out though.

I have printed on papers from Canon, Epson, Hahnemuhle, Canson Infinity, Red River, Moab, IT Supplies, Inkpress and Kodak.  Some are great, some are truly awful, and what works best for me may not be what works best for you.

On the subject of printers, I have printed on Xerox, HP, Canon, Fuji and Epson.  For home based printing, start and stop at Epson.  HP and Xerox do great office printers.  They are not photo printer manufacturers.  Fuji is production level, not for the home or even small business.  Canon should be great and maybe the recent Pro-1 is better, but having owned the 9000 Mk I, the 9000 Mk II and the 9500 Mk II, unless you plan on printing only on Canon branded paper, bypassing ICC altogether and printing from Canon's DPP software only, do not spend one thin dime here.  It's a great system if you stay completely in family. Otherwise it's a nightmare in excessive red.  Canon reps have acknowledged this and their response is use only Canon paper.  Screw that.  I do know that one of my inspirations in printing, Mr. Martin Bailey of Tokyo, uses Canon large format IPP printers and is very happy.  I believe though that Mr. Bailey builds custom ICC profiles for everything.

To learn more about making great prints yourself I recommend a couple of resources.  First is Martin Bailey's Making the Print eBook available at Craft and Vision here.  It's wonderful and will set you back all of $5!  For more depth and detail, the "bible" on the subject is Jeff Schewe's book The Digital Print available below through Amazon (and please buy through the link to help support The Photo Video Guy).

Thanks to Denis for the question and don't hesitate to be the next question answered here on The Photo Video Guy.

Canon Moves the C100 Ahead

We've recently seen the release of the Canon 70D DSLR with Canon's new Dual-Pixel AF that dramatically improves the experience of autofocus while capturing video.  What some people don't know is that only the C100 in Canon's Cinema line does autofocus, the higher end C300 and C500 do not. Today, Canon announced that a service upgrade to the C100 will be available in February 2014.  Owners will send their camera to a Canon Service Center and for $500, the sensor will be replaced with the new Dual-Pixel AF sensor.

Continuous AF is supported with Canon lenses and this upgrade will effectively double the AF performance in the C100.

It's a very nice announcement to see.  A C100 sells new for about $5,700 body only.   The upgrade brings a great camera to the latest in autofocus technology for less than 10% of the purchase prices and prolongs the useful life of the investment already made.  Kudos to Canon for not only supporting new customers but also for providing investment protection to existing customers.  I hope we see similar service centre upgrades from Canon on other products.

Kudos to Google Nik Support - specifically Andre

I confess that when Google acquired Nik Software, I was concerned it was the beginning of the end for some great tools.  The first surprise came when Google bundled all the disparate offerings together into a single package that cost about 25% of what the individual products had sold for.  Yes, I was saddened that I had been a loyal customer and paid more than 4x what a new client could pay, but that's how the ball bounces sometimes.  I also received an email from Google saying my investment was protected and I would get all the updates without charge.  Cool!

Then, blackness.

I use a variety of plugins and add-ons.  All have regular updates and fixes.  Nik had as well but once Google took over, I saw nothing at all.  I didn't think about it because the stuff that was installed was working.  Then this past weekend, I learned about a new plugin called Analog.  It's another film look plugin and I already have several and don't use them so not really a big deal to me.  But I became a bit annoyed that I hadn't been getting any updates so went the the Nik Google page and filled out the contact form, actually anticipating no reply due to past experience with Google support.

I stand happily corrected!   This morning I received an email from Andre in Google / Nik support apologizing that I had not received the first update back in March that made updates automatic, along with some potential ideas on why I had not.  He also provided me the direct link to my own licensed downloads that will autoupdate.  Various software companies approach support differently.  All use forums where users help each other.  Some charge per incident, some could not care less.  I can now put Google / Nik in the same category as I place DxO.  Excellent personal response in a very timely manner.

It would be easy for an organization the size of Google to ignore customers.  I much prefer working on Macintosh platforms, but if you aren't paying for AppleCare, you're pretty much out of luck.  Apple could learn about support from Google in this case.  Kudos to Andre specifically.  One person changed my mind about Google Nik.  One person is all it takes.

Q & A : The Lowdown on RAW vs JPEG

I cannot recall the number of times a photographer has asked me to explain the whole RAW vs JPEG thing.  Since I started this Q&A offering, it's come in a couple of times, and the latest comes from Joss.  Here's the email, although I don't know Joss' gender, the message is pretty darn clear. "Hi.  I heard about this question service and want to ask a question that i can't get a straight answer to.  My camera is a Nikon D7100.  I just got it.  I bought it to replace my D5000.  I always used to to take pictures using the settings that came in the camera.  I bought the new camera online and went into a couple of stores to ask questions about it.  I want to learn more about taking pictures and the store people gave me different information.  One man said I should use JPEG.  A lady in a different store said to use RAW.  Neither one could tell me why.  I feel like people tell me things without knowing why.  Can you help me?"

In fairness, I edited the email a bit to remove some duplication, because Joss got some really crappy guidance, and more than once.

Let's start at the beginning.  When a sensor captures an image, it doesn't care about the image.  It doesn't even "know" it's an image.  What it sees is an electrical representation of a luminance value.  The three colour Bayer array used in most sensors assigns the luminance value to one of RGB for each photo site on the sensor.  Complex algorithms assign the colour levels based on the luminance values the photo sites collect.  The data stream of the file is what we call the RAW data.  Each manufacturer writes the data in their own format.  In most cases, the formats are proprietary, but some manufacturers choose the open standard DNG format.  The format is not that important so long as software can decode it.  Each camera adds a unique set of information to the file, and that's why a RAW file from the D5000 doesn't look like a RAW file from the D7100.  So even from one manufacturer, you still need a RAW decoder for each camera type.  Apple and Adobe produce new decoders pretty quickly.  That's why older software might not be able to decode RAW files from newer cameras.

JPEG is a standard format designed specifically to convert RAW data streams into a generic format that is widely understood without specific decoders for each camera model.  I order to do this, a number of algorithms get used in the conversion.  They turn the data stream into an image.  Colours are adjusted, contrast is altered, sharpening is applied amongst other image alterations.  In order to simplify file movement, compression algorithms are used to reduce the file size to make transmission easier.  The JPEG compression model is known as a "lossy compression".  In a lossy compression, when duplicate data values are found, the duplicates either get pointers applied to other image points, and adjacent duplicates have some number of them deleted entirely.  In the case of the general JPEG model, the quality setting has control over how much gets tossed and the related file size reduction.

For example, a quality setting of 100% still uses a compression ratio of 2.6:1  That's about 38% of the original file size.  This makes it easier to email the file around because it is smaller,  Unfortunately the file is also missing a lot of data.  That looks like about a 60% loss of data.  A quality setting of 50 means a loss of over 90% of the actual data.  The default quality settings are typically 75-80, loss of around 70% of data.   Simply put, there is no way any JPEG can ever offer the level of data that RAW can.

There's a popular misconception that the only difference between RAW and JPEG is that you cannot adjust the white balance after the fact in JPEG.  This is complete crap.  Software may not offer the same settings for RAW or JPEG, but both are adjustable.  Since there is so much less data in JPEG, the results after shifting the colour balance tend to look like crap pretty quickly but this doesn't mean that it's not doable.

There's another issue with JPEG that is not well known.  Every time you open and change a JPEG, it gets the compression algorithm applied again.  That means that every open / save event results in further degradation.  By the way, if your first save is at 70% and the second is at 90% doesn't restore the loss from the first save.  It's multiplcative.  That means worse.

RAW is lossless.  If you edit a processed RAW file, and you don't want to lose quality, you need to save in another lossless format such as TIFF.  JPEG is great for sharing on the web but it should be the LAST step and only saved in that format ONCE.

RAW does require processing to convert the data stream to an image.  That doesn't mean you need to do significant editing.  Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Lightroom both offer presets to apply the JPEG camera "looks" without the JPEG loss.

None of use will always get every element of the image right in the camera every time.  RAW gives you all the data, all the time.  There's really no reason to do otherwise.

I hope that this helps Joss and everyone else who is confused.  I have heard of some folks saying that they can explain the differences without getting technical.  Since the entire process is completely technical this sounds spurious to me.  The net is shoot RAW.  You're always ahead of the game.

Episode 79 - The Photo Video Guy Podcast

Nikon DF prue photography November 5.  Nikon testing OX X 10.9 software compatibility.Nikon 18-140 is a good performer according to DP Review.  Canon releases Q3 results, profits and net sales up Y/Y.  Imaging expectations reduced due to drop in P/S sales.  Canon updates the firmware on the 5D Mk III.  Will there be an M2 on Nov 10th?  Next generation 1D in late 2014?  More rumours on 7D Mk II.  Canon 55-250 STM better choice than EF-S 55-250.  Lumia goes RAW on 1020.  DxO Optics Pro 9 released.  Aperture 3.5 has Smugmug support and icloud photo sharing.

Q&A : Getting Started with Studio Lights - LED or Flash

Kaley writes... "I love taking pictures and I'm good with animals so I thought I would start taking pictures of pets for people, so they could have nice pictures on their computers or even get prints made.  My camera has a popup flash but it always gives red eyes and the pictures don't look nice.  I saw on YouTube that professionals use studio lights.  I didn't get what the guy was saying and I don't have a lot of money to spend because I am starting out.  The guy at "local store" told me to get a flash setup, but by the time he was done it was like a thousand dollars and really heavy.  I left and went back a couple of days later and a different person told me just to use LED video lights because they won't scare the pets.  That made sense but when he showed me some, the shadows were really deep and I don't think the pictures would look good.  They were really expensive too.  I want to see if I can make money at this, not spend a lot of money.  What do you think?"

This is a really good question that Kaley is asking, and very timely because continuous lighting has come a very long way.

To start, we are really talking about the difference between flash and continuous light.  Flash brings lots of power and you can add modifiers pretty easily to soften the light.  While a flash meter is ideal, with digital you can bang away for a few shots until you get the exposure you like.  Continuous light has less power, usually a lot less power, but has the wonderful advantage that you can see what the light looks like right through the viewfinder or on the LCD and your reflected light meter in your camera is going to get the exposure pretty close to ideal without any guesswork.

I want to stick to low cost options since that is a key deliverable for Kaley.  Pets can be, and often are, startled by the big pop of a flash unit.  Cats in particular have very sensitive eyes, and since most cats keep people around as a source for food only, they are just like super models and tend to disappear when annoyed.  Dogs are better with flash in general, and that's about where my experience photographing pets ends.

In the flash world, you need a couple of hot shoe flash units of decent but not blinding power, a couple of modifiers, stands and clamps.  If your camera can control the external flashes using the popup (many Nikons support the Creative Lighting System and many Canons support Canon's flash control system) then you can control the two flashes from the camera and use the vendor's TTL for through the lens flash metering.  Consumer level DSLRs and many Compact System Cameras cannot do this, so then you need to experiment with the flashes on manual and using slaves and triggers to get the flashes to fire.  If this sounds complicated, it actually is until you've practiced a bit.

For Kaley's purpose and in many cases for people as well, I am really liking using continuous lighting systems.  They're easy to set up and the entry kits come very complete.  Something like the Erin Manning kit sold widely has two softboxes, two stands, two lamp holders and two big 5500K daylight compact fluorescents.  They run cool and last a really long time.  Setting up is no harder than flash but you get to good exposures very quickly if you are not a flash expert.  No worries about sync speeds and cabling and radio triggers and...ok I'm getting a headache.  Westcott just released the Skylite which is a continuous LED light that takes Bowens modifiers and is pretty soft out of the box.  It has power control and is really nice but it's price is about four times what it should be.  For pets and a couple of people, the Erin Manning kit is ideal.  The only downside is that despite being like 500w lamps in brightness, the bulbs don't put out anywhere near the power that a big flash will.  Move the lights in as close as you can without being in frame and use a mid ISO like ISO 400.  This will give you enough depth of field and decent shutter speeds.  Today's continuous lights do not get very hot and they last a long time.  You can get started for around $400 for a kit such as I describe.

It is possible to use the sort of multi-LED portable video lights that are on the market but they tend to be small and don't have diffusers so the light tends to be harsh.  Some people put a plain white shower curtain in front of them to soften and spread the light.  It works surprisingly well, but the shower curtain can be awkward.  Direct video lights are not that good for portraits and may annoy animals.

Kaley did not mention it but she will need some kind of a background for the shots.  There are all kinds of background stand kits you can get that work well.  Animals are one of those situations where you will need the background to flow from behind onto the floor.  There are painted and dyed muslins that you can get pretty cheap, but the dyes tend to run and the material is a wrinkle fest.  Paper rolls tend to work better, since you can just tear off anything that gets wrecked.  And it will get wrecked.  Covered in hair, scratches, "accidents", paper is cheap.  Go with a neutral background so as not to take attention away from the subject and fill the frame.  Savage has recently released some very neat "floor" backgrounds that could work since the pet tends to be lying or sitting down on something.  Cats may sit on stools, dogs may not.

That's about it.  If you are looking for quick and relatively inexpensive, it's pretty hard to beat simple continuous lighting systems.  Thanks for reading.

Send your questions in via email.

Q&A : Neutral Density Filters

Did something happen to create a rush on ND filters?  As I was preparing this post, I got a couple of other questions on the same topic.  So for the three folks who wrote in, I am going to summarize your questions and try to answer them in a single post.

1. Why would I need to add a filter to my lens, can't I do this when editing my pictures?
2. Why would I want a filter to make my pictures blurry?  I thought it was going to make the shutter open longer, but the sales guy said it would make the water blurry.
3. I have seen lots of fall pictures with leaves and rivers and rocks and the water looks really smooth and like it's moving but everything else is sharp.  How do I do this?

Well I'd be happy to believe that folks could get good advice in any photo retailer, but I know better.  Let's start with what a Neutral Density (ND) filter is.

A neutral density filter, and I will refer to them as ND filters henceforth, is a filter that reduces the amount of light passing through the lens to the sensor.  Neutral means that there is no colour shift or colour filtration being applied.  ND filters come as either full, meaning the same level of light reduction is applied across the entire filter or as graduated filters that have a range from no filtration to the full effect over some span.  I won't spend time on graduates here, the conversation will stick to full coverage NDs.

Some vendors calibrate their ND filters in stops, for example, 1 stop or 3 stop filters.  Others refer to them as nn x where the nn is a number.  This is perhaps photographically correct but is user unfriendly.  So here's the simple math.  For every 0.3x of filtration that's one stop.  So a 0.6x ND filter cuts the light by two stops.  Now you can be immune to bafflegab.

ND filters are created a couple of ways.  In a popular method, the glass that the filter is cut from has a dye injected while molten.  In another case, a foil overlay is applied to the filter glass.  In the case of Tiffen filters, a Wratten optical gel is sandwiched between two pieces of optical glass to form a laminate.  Because the colour controls in Wratten filters are long proven, and because Tiffen uses proper optical glass, they can be a very cost effective route for ND filters.  Avoid the foil overlay type.  You'll know because they will be very cheap.  Spray painting a UV filter with grey transparent paint gives about the same effect and the same lack of quality.  If you go for the dyed glass model, have your check book ready because then you want top line glass to ensure consistency of the dye base.  This means either Schott or Schneider glass such as the filters from Heliopan or B+W.  For your own sake, stick with one of the three named vendors.

There is a special class of ND filters called Variable Neutral Density filters.  Variables are not made the same way.  They are two polarizing type filters, one mounted in a fixed ring and one in a rotating ring.  As you rotate the front filter, the twin polarizing filters act to cut or pass light.  Variables are incredibly handy because they typically cut light across a range of up to 6 stops, often from two stops to eight stops.  Variables are very demanding optical units.  The Heliopan units are the best out there, although I have used the Tiffen ones extensively and can recommend the Singh-Ray units as well.  B+W also do variables but they are harder to find it seems.

More troubling are the stunning array of craptastic variables that cost less than the price of a single decent polarizer.  These filters have no coatings and because the polarizing film being used is of such poor quality, they produce horrible amounts of moire (an optical interference pattern, click here for a full definition) and also apply a colour cast, usually akin to rotted meat green.  Don't waste your hard earned money on this junk.

So to the questions...

You cannot slow down the shutter speed to create motion effects after the shot is made, claims by post-processing software vendors notwithstanding.  In fact other than a UV and a Polarizer, an ND set or ND Variable is the only filter you need in your kit.  Be aware that if you use a strong ND filter, your autofocus system will throw its virtual hands in the air, so you are in manual focus mode pretty quickly.  Some people like variables because they can use AF with a low setting, lock the focus and then dial up the light cut.

ND filters do not make pictures blurry.  That's the job of the photographer.  However, strong NDs may cut the light so much that to use one without a tripod will result in blur.  Typically we use ND filters to allow for slower shutter speeds in bright light so we can capture the sense of motion, such as in a waterfall or fast moving river.  BTW, if you normally live in AUTO-ISO mode, this is when you want to stop that.  To get slower shutter speeds you want lower ISOs, so pick a low ISO and then determine how much ND cut you want.  You can also use ND filters to allow for shallow depth of field in bright light.  For example, at ISO 100 in bright sun, your shutter speed would be 1/125 at f/16.  If you wanted to shoot at f/1.4 you would need to move your shutter speed to 1/16000 of a second.  Oops, not going to happen.  Add a three stop ND and now your shutter speed only has to move to 1/2000.

If you are shooting video, which typically uses a higher base ISO, ND filters can help you significantly to get good exposures on really bright days or to allow for wider apertures where you want to control depth of focus.  All professional and some consumer grade video cameras incorporate ND filters.  Digital ND is the cheap solution, the higher end kit moves a physical filter in front of the sensor for better image quality.

To get that beautiful creamy water, you need long shutter speeds, and you won't get 30s exposures in daylight.  Adding a 6 stop ND to a less that stops down to f/32 in our above example would get you to a two second exposure even in bright sun, and if the water is moving quickly enough you will have nice motion effect.  If the day is overcast, you could get to 15 seconds.  Nice and creamy.

If you want to really stop the light for really long shutter speeds in bright light, there is an answer from the Lee Filter company.  Lee is best known for superlative gel filters, but they do a line of rigid ND filters that are excellent.  The Big Stopper cuts a full 10 stops of light.  It slides into a lens mounted filter holder because a) your camera cannot focus when it's in place and b) you can't see anything through the viewfinder when it's in place.  It's whole job is long shutter speeds.  It's not an inexpensive option but it works brilliantly and is available to fit most all lenses, including those with big curved front elements like Nikon's brilliant 14-24/2.8.

If you take your photography seriously, at some point you will realize that you need an ND filter.  Or two.  Or a variable.  Also remember that in the absence of directional light, your polarizer is also an effective 2 stop ND, so you are probably already on your way.

Finally some sales people advocate stacking ND filters to cut more light.  Don't.  This is last resort, really.  If you find yourself wanting ND filters, you want them to cut light so go big, 3 stops at the minimum.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

The Photo Video Guy Podcast - Episode 78

Leica releases firmware upgrades for the S, S2 and M.  Nikon releases the D5300.  The D610 us spot free (so far).  Nikon sues Sakar for patent infringement.  Nikon releases the 58/1.4G lens for full frames.  Sigma announces the 24-105/4 ART.  Sony releases the RX-10, the A7 and the A7R and announces new FE lens lineup.  Fuji release the X-E2 and XQ1 and shows some love for the older X100 with new firmware.  Panasonic releases the palm sized Lumix GM-1 MILC and 12-32mm lens.

Recommended : The Grid October 17, 2013

I'm all over the place regarding The Grid.  Sometimes an episode is just fawning dreck, sometimes they just destroy aspiring photographers, and then there are the other times, in fairness - the majority, where they just hit it out of the park. If you've stopped doing HDR because seeing HDRs often makes your eyes hurt, tune in to Episode 117.  The segment on How Not to Hate HDR is extremely well done and worth watching.  Like many people, I have sinned in HDR and produced some truly nauseating offences, including halos, black clouds, HDR where it shouldn't be, HDRs in the worst kind of light and other crap.  I don't publish them, because they suck.  But there are photographers who think HDR is the cure for a lousy image.  The list of things not to do, or to do only when you are absolutely sure is very helpful.  They also show some decent HDRs from RC Concepcion that show how you can sometimes break the rules and get a nice image.  HDR processing is highly subjective, but in this case, I have to say that the list presented is an excellent set of guidelines to leverage.

The first part of the episode deals with the recent plagiarism scandal regarding Jasmine Starr and others.  Scott's presentation is balanced and reasonable and worth a listen.  Because a photographer screws up (and the people involved, screwed up big) does not immediately mean that the individual is a failure as a photographer, or is an evil entity.  They were stupid.  Evisceration is a bit over the top.

Watch the grid on the web at http://kelbytv.com/thegrid/

First Look - Panasonic Lumix GX-7

The GX-7 is the latest in the Lumix family of M4/3 interchangeable lens mirror less cameras, or as I prefer to refer to them, "cameras".  Seriously, we can stop the whole mirror less vs DSLR crap ok?

Quickly, it is a 16MP micro four thirds architecture using the standard M43 mount for lenses.  The LCD is 3" and has 1040K dots for great viewing.  Of course it does video, I'm pretty sure that if you buy a hamster today it does 1080p video.  The camera is WiFi capable and also supports NFC with capable devices.  The body comes in either black or silver.  Panasonic makes a big deal of the Venus processing engine that has superior noise management for improved low light shots.  In my own AUTO ISO test, ISO floats to 3200 still produced really nice images.

The GX-7 is like many other cameras of the type.  It's compact, takes great lenses and is really targeted at the more serious photographer.  That's not to say you cannot shoot the camera in P all the time, but you don't have to.  Moreover the choices are not cluttered with a bunch of "picture styles".   Relax there are photo styles, but not in the way.  I shot the camera predominantly in Aperture preferred, using AUTO ISO as well as specific settings for ISO.  I used a number of different lenses on the camera including the Olympus 17/2.8, the Sigma 30/2.8, the Sigma 60/2.8, the Olympus 9-18 and the Olympus 14-150/4.5-5.6.  I had some extra time at the store where I work part time so did my first look there.

The camera uses SD cards and is powered by a Lithium ion battery.  While there were Lumix lenses in the store, I just don't care for the Lumix power zoom or the 14-42.

In addition to a very bright and sharp rear LCD that tilts up and down, there is an EVF to the left rear that also tilts.  The EVF has a diopter adjustment hidden on the bottom to adjust for your own eyesight.  The EVF display is awesome with 2764K dot equivalency.  It's bright and easy on the eyes, plus the eye detection system works fast and accurately.

Light in the store was, well it was crappy, so the available shutter speeds even at high ISO were relatively slow.  I was very impressed by the in body stabilization because I typically cannot handhold a 300mm equivalent at 1/60s.  Images on the screen were sharp and easy to check.  Uploaded to Lightroom 5.2 the RAWs were read without problem and all the EXIF data came across.  There are no lens profile corrections at this moment for the combinations I used, but in general the lenses I tried were very good.  Colour balance was excellent even when switching lens brands.  Autofocus is super fast.  I was using my store test card, a 4GB Transcend piece of crap, and writing speed for RAW+JPEG was pretty slow.  I do not blame the camera, I blame the junk card.  When I get a long form test unit, I will use a proper card.

There is a built in transformer like articulating flash, but what is better and far more useful is the fully functional hot shoe.  You can use Lumix TTL flashes of course, but I would be more inclined to use a Pocket Wizard to fire real strobes.  The camera's small size makes it very fast to shoot.

The downside for me is that I have larger hands and while the body is very positively grippable, I found I was hitting the buttons and rocker with the base of my thumb when using the camera one handed.  The LCD is a touch screen and because I shoot left eyed, I not only got nose prints on the LCD, I also managed to activate the touch screen.  Not optimal.  Since this was a first look, I did not read the documentation to see if the sensitivity is adjustable.

I love the image quality, think that the camera is extremely usable and the EVF is brilliant.  I look forward to a longer term test but as it sits, after 20 minutes, I put the camera away and won't miss it.  The right side strap lug could not be in a worse place.  It interferes with the grip, it presses into your hand, and it makes using the camera awkward.  Seriously if this were my camera, I would find a way to remove the lug entirely and use a Black Rapid or Cotton Carrier strap screwed into the tripod socket.  It's such a good little camera that the discomfort of the stupid lug annoys me even to write about it.

If you have smaller hands, or less meaty hands and want a really superlative small, fast camera that has access to the pantheon of M4/3 lenses, take a look at the Lumix GX-7.  I think you'll be impressed.

The sample images contained here are the original RAW files, imported to Lightroom and exported as 80% JPEGs, 72 DPI, sharpened for screen.  No colour, WB or any other processing was done.  You can see that the camera produces really nice images, no muss, no fuss.

Full specifications courtesy Panasonic

DMC-GX7

TYPE	Type				Digital Single Lens Mirrorless camera
	Recording Media				SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card, SDXC Memory Card (Compatible with UHS-I standard SDHC / SDXC Memory Cards)
	Image Sensor Size				17.3 x 13.0 mm (in 4:3 aspect ratio)
	Lens Mount				Micro Four Thirds mount
IMAGE SENSOR	Type				Live MOS Sensor
	Total Pixels				16.84 Megapixels
	Camera Effective Pixels				16.00 Megapixels
	Color Filter				Primary color filter
	Dust Reduction System				Supersonic wave filter
IMAGE STABILIZATION SYSTEM	Image Stabilization System				Image Sensor Shift Type
RECORDING SYSTEM	Recording File Format				Still Image: JPEG (DCF, Exif 2.3), RAW MPO (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard) Motion Image: AVCHD (Audio format: Dolby Digital 2ch) / MP4 (Audio format AAC 2ch)
	Aspect Ratio				4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1
	Image Quality				RAW, RAW+Fine, RAW+Standard, Fine, Standard MPO+Fine, MPO+Standard (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard)
	Color Space				sRGB, Adobe RGB
	File Size (Pixels)	Still Image			[4:3] 4,592 x 3,448 (L), 3,232 x 2,424 (M), 2,272 x 1,704 (S), 1,824 x 1,368 (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard) [3:2] 4,592 x 3,064 (L), 3,232 x 2,160 (M), 2,272 x 1,520 (S), 1,824 x 1,216 (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard) [16:9] 4,592 x 2,584 (L), 3,232 x 1,824(M), 1,920 x 1,080 (S), 1,824 x 1,024 (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard) [1:1] 3,424 x 3,424 (L), 2,416 x 2,416 (M), 1,712 x 1,712 (S), 1,712 x 1,712 (When attaching 3D lens in Micro Four Thirds System standard)
		Motion Image*	MP4	NTSC Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 60fps (sensor output is 60p, 28Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 30fps (sensor output is 30p, 20Mbps) [HD] 1,280 x 720, 30fps (sensor output is 30p, 10Mbps) [VGA] 640 x 480, 30fps (sensor output is 30p, 4Mbps)
				PAL Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 50fps (sensor output is 50p, 28Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 25fps (sensor output is 25p, 20Mbps) [HD] 1,280 x 720, 25fps (sensor output is 25p, 10Mbps) [VGA] 640 x 480, 25fps (sensor output is 25p, 4Mbps)
			AVCHD Progressive	NTSC Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 60fps (sensor output is 60p, 28 Mbps)
				PAL Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 50fps (sensor output is 50p, 28 Mbps)
			AVCHD	NTSC Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 60i (sensor output is 60p, 17Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 60i (sensor output is 30p, 24Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 24p (sensor output is 24p, 24Mbps) [HD] 1,280 x 720, 60p (sensor output is 60p, 17Mbps)
				PAL Area	[Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 50i (sensor output is 50p, 17Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 50i (sensor output is 25p, 24Mbps) [Full HD] 1,920 x 1,080, 24p (sensor output is 24p, 24Mbps) [HD] 1,280 x 720, 50p (sensor output is 50p, 17Mbps)
	Continuous Recordable Time (Motion Image)*				AVCHD: Approx. 140 min with H-FS1442A / Approx. 130 min with H-H020A
	Actual Recordable Time (Motion Image)*				AVCHD: Approx. 70 min with H-FS1442A / Approx. 65 min with H-H020A
	Flicker Reduction				[1/50] [1/60] [1/100] [1/120] / OFF
Wi-Fi FUNCTION	Wi-Fi				IEEE 802.11b/g/n, 2412 MHz - 2462 MHz (11 ch), Wi-Fi / WPA / WPA2, Infrastructure mode
	NFC				ISO/IEC 18092, NFC-F (Passive Mode)
VIEWFINDER	Type				LCD Live View Finder (2,764,800 dots equivalent)
	Tilting				Yes
	Field of View				Approx. 100%
	Magnification				Approx. 1.39x / 0.7x (35 mm camera equivalent) with 50 mm lens at infinity; -1.0 m-1
	Eye Point				Approx. 17.5 mm from eyepiece lens
	Diopter Adjustment				-4.0 - +3.0 (dpt)
	Eye Sensor				Yes
	Eye Sensor Adjustment				High / Low
FOCUS	Type				Contrast AF system
	Focus Mode				AFS (Single) / AFF (Flexible) / AFC (Continuous) / MF
	AF Mode				Face detection / AF Tracking / 23-area-focusing / 1-area-focusing / Pinpoint
	AF Detective Range				EV -4 - 18 (ISO100 equivalent)
	AF Assist Lamp				YES
	AF Lock				Set the Fn button in custom menu to AF lock
	Others				Quick AF, Continuous AF (during motion image recording), AF+MF, Eye Sensor AF, Touch AF/AE Function, Touch Pad AF, Touch shutter, MF Assist, Touch MF Assist, One Shot AF
EXPOSURE CONTROL	Light Metering System				1,728-zone multi-pattern sensing system
	Light Metering Mode				Multiple / Center Weighted / Spot
	Metering Range				EV 0 - 18 (F2.0 lens, ISO100 equivalent)
	Exposure Mode				Program AE / Aperture Priority AE / Shutter Priority AE / Manual
	ISO Sensitivity (Standard Output Sensitivity)				Auto / Intelligent ISO / 125 (Extended) / 200 / 400 / 800 / 1600 / 3200 / 6400 / 12800 / 25600 (Changeable to 1/3 EV step)
	Exposure Compensation				1/3 EV Step, ±5 EV
	AE Lock				Set the Fn button in custom menu to AE lock
	AE Bracket				3, 5, 7 frames, in 1/3, 2/3 or 1 EV Step, ±3 EV
WHITE BALANCE	White Balance				Auto / Daylight / Cloudy / Shade / Incandescent / Flash / White Set 1, 2 / Color temperature setting
	White Balance Adjustment				Blue/amber bias, Magenta/green bias
	Color Temperature Setting				2,500 K - 10,000 K in 100 K
	White Balance Bracket				3 exposures in blue/amber axis or in magenta/green axis
SHUTTER	Type				Focal-plane shutter
	Shutter Speed				Still Images: Bulb (Max. 120 seconds), 1/8,000 - 60 Motion Images: 1/16,000 - 1/25 (NTSC area / PAL area)
	Self Timer				10 sec, 3 images / 2 sec / 10 sec
SCENE GUIDE	Still Image				Clear Portrait / Silky Skin / Backlit Softness / Clear in Backlight / Relaxing Tone / Sweet Child's Face / Distinct Scenery / Bright Blue Sky / Romantic Sunset Glow / Vivid Sunset Glow / Glistening Water / Clear Nightscape / Cool Night Sky / Warm Glowing Nightscape / Artistic Nightscape / Glittering Illuminations / Clear Night Portrait / Soft Image of a Flower / Appetizing Food / Cute Dessert / Freeze Animal Motion / Clear Sports Shot / Monochrome / Panorama
	Motion Image				Clear Portrait / Silky Skin / Backlit Softness / Clear in Backlight / Relaxing Tone / Sweet Child's Face / Distinct Scenery / Bright Blue Sky / Romantic Sunset Glow / Vivid Sunset Glow / Clear Nightscape / Cool Night Sky / Warm Glowing Nightscape / Artistic Nightscape / Clear Night Portrait / Appetizing Food / Cute Dessert / Freeze Animal Motion / Clear Sports Shot / Monochrome
BURST SHOOTING	Burst Speed				Mechanical shutter: H: 5.0 frames/sec (with AFS), 4.3 frames/sec (with AFC, In 1-area-focusing AF mode), M: 4.0 frames/sec (with Live View), L: 2.0 frames/sec (with Live View) Electronic shutter: SH: 40.0 frames/sec, H: 10.0 frames/sec, M: 4.0 frames/sec (with Live View), L: 2.0 frames/sec (with Live View)
	Number of Recordable Images				9 images (when there are RAW files with the particular speed) Unlimited consecutive shooting (when there are no RAW files) (depending on aspect ratio, memory card size, picture size, and the setting for the quality)
BUILT-IN-FLASH	Type				TTL Built-in-Flash, GN7.0 equivalent (ISO200 · m), GN5.0 equivalent (ISO100 · m), Built-in Pop-up
	Flash Mode				Auto, Auto / Red-eye Reduction, Forced On, Forced On / Red-eye Reduction, Slow Sync., Slow Sync. / Red-eye Reduction, Forced Off
	Synchronization Speed				Less than 1/320 second (Built-in Flash) Less than 1/250 second (External Flash)
	Flash Synchronization				1st Curtain Sync., 2nd Curtain Sync.
MONITOR	Type				Tilt static LCD with touch monitor
	Monitor Size				3.0 inch (7.5 cm) / 3:2 Aspect / Wide-viewing angle
	Pixels				Approx. 1,040K dots
	Field of View				Approx. 100%
	Monitor Adjustment				Brightness, Contrast and Saturation, Red tint, Blue tint
LIVE VIEW	Digital Zoom				2x, 4x
	Extra Tele Conversion				Still Image: Max. 2x (Aspect ratio sets at 4:3. Not effective with L size recording. Magnification ratio depends on the recording pixels and aspect ratio.) Motion Image: 2.4x (FHD/60p, FHD/60i, FHD/30p, FHD/24p in NTSC area / FHD/50p, FHD/50i, FHD/25p, FHD/24p in PAL area), 3.6x (HD/60p, HD/30p in NTSC area / HD/50p, HD/25p in PAL area), 4.8x (VGA/30p in NTSC area / VGA/25p in PAL area)
	Other Functions				Guide Lines (3 patterns) Real-time Histogram
LEVEL GAUGE					Yes
DIRECTION DETECTION FUNCTION					Yes
FUNCTION BUTTON	Fn1, Fn2, Fn3, Fn4, Fn5, Fn6, Fn7, Fn8, Fn9				Wi-Fi / Q.MENU / LVF/Monitor Switch / AF/AE LOCK / AF-ON / One Push AE / Touch AE / Preview / Level Gauge / Focus Area Set / Zoom Control / Photo Style / Aspect Ratio / Picture Size / Quality / Metering Mode / Highlight Shadow / i. Dynamic / i. Resolution / HDR / Electronic Shutter / Flash Mode / Ex. Tele Conv. / Digital Zoom / Stabilizer / Motion Pic. Set / Picture Mode / Silent Mode / AFS/AFF/AFC / Peaking / Histogram / Guide Line / Rec Area / Step Zoom / Zoom Speed / Sensitivity / White Balance / AF Mode / Drive Mode / Restore to Default
CREATIVE CONTROL	Still Image				Expressive / Retro / Old Days / High Key / Low Key / Sepia / Monochrome / Dynamic Monochrome / Rough Monochrome / Silky Monochrome / Impressive Art / High Dynamic / Cross Process / Toy Effect / Toy Pop / Bleach Bypass / Miniature Effect / Soft Focus / Fantasy / Star Filter / One Point Color / Sunshine
	Motion Image				Expressive / Retro / Old Days / High Key / Low Key / Sepia / Monochrome / Dynamic Monochrome / Impressive Art / High Dynamic / Cross Process / Toy Effect / Toy Pop / Bleach Bypass / Miniature Effect / Fantasy / One Point Color
CREATIVE VIDEO MODE	Exposure Mode				Program AE / Aperture-Priority / Sutter-Priority / Manual Exposure
PHOTO STYLE	Still Image and Motion Image				Standard / Vivid / Natural / Monochrome / Scenery / Portrait / Custom
PLAYBACK	Playback Mode				Normal playback, 30-thumbnail display, 12-thumbnail display, Calendar display, Zoomed playback (Max. 16x), Slideshow (duration & effect is selectable), Playback Mode (Normal / Picture / Video / 3D Play / Category / Favorite), Location Logging, Clear Retouch, Title Edit, Text Stamp, Video Divide, Time Lapse Video, Stop Motion Video, Resize, Cropping, Rotate, Favorite, Print Set, Protect, Face Recognition Edit
IMAGE PROTECTION / ERASE	Protection				Single / Multi, Cancel
	Erase				Single / Multi / All / Except Favorite
PRINT	Direct Print				PictBridge compatible
INTERFACE	USB				USB 2.0 High Speed Multi
	HDMI				mini HDMI TypeC / VIERA Link Video: Auto / 1080p / 1080i / 720p / 480p (576p in PAL system) Audio: Stereo
	Audio Video Output				Monaural Type, NTSC / PAL, NTSC only for North America * Check the website of the Panasonic sales company in your country or region for details on the products that are available in your market.
	Remote Input				φ2.5mm for remote
	Microphone				Stereo
	Speaker				Monaural
LANGUAGE	OSD Language				English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, Thai, Korean, Turkish, Portuguese, Arabic, Persian, Japanese, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Vietnamese * Check the website of Panasonic sales company in your country / region or ask customer support for details of the OSD language available on the products sold in your country / region.
POWER	Battery				Li-ion Battery Pack (7.2V, 1,025mAh) (Included) Battery Charger
	Battery Life (CIPA Standard)**				Approx. 350 images with H-FS1442A Approx. 320 images with H-H020A
DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT	Dimensions (W x H x D)				122.60 x 70.7 x 54.6 mm / 4.83 x 2.78 x 2.15 inch
	Weight				Approx. 402 g / 0.89 lb (SD card, Battery, Body) Approx. 360 g / 0.79 lb (Body only) Approx. 489 g / 1.08 lb (SD card, Battery, H-H020A lens included) Approx. 512 g / 1.13 oz (SD card, Battery, H-FS1442A lens included)
OPERATING ENVIRONMENT	Operating Temperature				0 °C to 40 °C (32 °F to 104 °F)
	Operating Humidity				10%RH to 80%RH

The Photo Video Guy Podcast - Episode 77

Awesome food photographer Nicole Young is on The Grid this week on Kelby TV.  Zeiss releases manual focus 55/1.4 OTUS for only $4,000.  Ricoh releases Pentax K3 and weather sealed 55-300/4.5-5.8.  D610 is out and looks like a D600 with minor tweaks.  D5300 won't arrive until January.  Canon patents 35/1.4 L II.  Canon releases alert on LP-E6 battery issues.  Sigma to release a 24-105/4 full frame lens

ACDSEE Pro Mac 3 - Why would you bother?

I recently installed the 30 day trial of this software to try to help a friend out who was struggling with it. After the usual click forty thousand times to install routine, the product said it installed properly.  Like most programs that start out on the Windoze platform it wants to be the default application for everything, a very customer hostile move.  I declined since it was a) a trial and b) I am very happy with the tools I use that work properly.

I launched the application and navigated to a folder where photos are stored in their original form.  It looked like I would need to Import images (hate this), but when I clicked the Image button that was not an option.  Why show me a button I cannot use?

Not one single image could be opened in either View or Develop mode.  The application claimed that they were all locked or in a format that the application could not read.  And even though I cleared the checkbox to have ACDSEE Pro be the default for all images, it still set itself as such.  F*CKING PIECE OF CRAP.

I checked the help and it said this error could occur with RAW files if they were already open with another application.  Nope.  Wouldn't open JPEGs either.  Hell it wouldn't open file types it arbitrarily decided it should be the master of.  Otherwise Help was helpless.  I opened a ticket with support and the first email invited me to update my ticket.

Fired up Appzapper and completely removed this junk from my Mac.  To help my friend, I will tell him to get rid of this program and use a processing application that is a) Mac intelligent and b) not crap.

So if you are thinking about trying less expensive processing applications on your Mac, run do not walk past ACDSEE Pro 3.  I understand that the Windows version is very good.  I don't run Windows.  The Mac version is lousy.  Don't waste your time or money.

Q & A : Confused about what the 50mm lens is for

John wants to know what the 50mm lens is for.  A great question, and prompted by a ton of bafflegab as you'll see. "Hi.  My camera, a Nikon D3100 came with a 18-55 zoom lens.  My girlfriend and I were told by the salesman that this was a good all around lens, even though it was a kit lens.  He couldn't or wouldn't explain what that meant.  Then we started to see some advertising from Canon on a "portrait" lens and thought maybe we should get one since we take pictures of each other mostly.  We went back to the store, a big Canadian photo chain, and asked about this portrait lens.  The same salesman told us that a 50mm lens was essential to our success and that we should have one.  He pushed a Sigma 50mm lens at us, but the price was too high, nearly as much as our camera, so we bought a Nikon 50mm lens.  We had to bring it back because it would not autofocus on our D3100.  A different salesman said we bought the wrong lens, like it was our fault and then spent almost an hour talking about his photography and what he does.  We got a refund and then bought the right lens online because we figured these people weren't helping.

Sorry for the long email complaining, but we have the 50mm and cannot tell why we bought it.  Pictures look like the pictures from the 18-55 when we set it at 55.  When we ask other photographers we meet, they cannot seem to tell us why we need it either.  We feel like we were lied to.  What is this lens good for?  It is a Nikon AF-S 50MM F1.8 G lens.  Thanks, John."

Well hi John and let me say how sorry I am to hear you got such a runaround.  I work part time in a camera store (the same chain you mentioned, whose name I removed from your email) and I am really sorry to hear about your negative experience.  I know exactly why the Sigma was pushed at you, or can guess pretty well.  The Sigma is a great lens, well built and very sharp, but would be expensive compared to your D3100 kit.  There are often salesperson incentives called spiffs, basically cash, to encourage certain behaviours, and some salespeople will hurl their integrity into the breeze for $5.  Plainly you met one.

Your camera uses what the industry refers to as a crop sensor.  All that means is that the sensor is smaller than the original 35mm film negative size on which most SLR cameras were based.  Because the industry is often confused itself, this means that the 50mm lens that is optically designed to create an image big enough to cover the 24mm x 36mm of the original negative size, when you use a smaller sensor, you see less of the image circle. Does this hurt?  Not at all but it creates the illusion that the lens produces more magnification than it really does.  Why would you care?  You probably don't need to.  Short answer is that the 50mm lens has the look of a 75mm lens on film when used with a crop sensor.

Hence the first effort of mcmarketing.  Back in the days of film, "portrait lenses" were typically between focal lengths of 85mm and 105mm.  Even this is a silly argument because a good photographer can make a portrait with just about any focal length.  This focal length produces shallower depth of field, and a very nice and very subtle level of perspective compression that makes faces more pleasing.  This is completely subjective of course.

Canon decided to play a bit loose with terminology and refer to the 50mm as a portrait lens.  Which it can be, when used well, but they did this because on their crop sensor cameras, it looked like an 80mm would on film which is sort of close to 85mm and then the mcmarketing took over.

The lens you own has a very wide maximum aperture relative to your zoom lens capability. When shot wide open, at f/1.8 it produces very shallow depth of field, meaning not much of the picture is in focus, usually the area between the tip of the nose and the front of the ear on a filled frame shot.  The background is blurred creating nice separation, and this allows the marketing people to drag a mispronunciation of the Japanese word Bokeh into the fray.  Bokeh refers to the look of the out of focus area and is even more marketing abused than calling the 50mm a portrait lens.

The wide aperture of your lens will also pass more light wide open and may allow you to capture images at lower ISOs or without flash, a limitation of the relative optical slowness of the 18-55 lens.

BTW a kit lens means that the lens comes in a kit with the camera.  People who don't know what they are talking about often say that these lenses are poor quality.  Optically they are very good, however to keep manufacturing costs down, the use of metal in the lens body is minimized in favour of high density plastics.  For the most part this works very well but the lenses won't take the same amount of abuse as a "pro" lens costing 10x as much.  It is true that low cost lenses, kit or otherwise, may exhibit more distortions than a pro level lens, but if you are sharing your photos online or on your smartphone, you'll never see these distortions.  They only become obvious in large prints made from RAW and then edited images.

So don't worry about what you have.  You are absolutely right that the 50mm lens produces images that look like what you get from your 18-55 at 55mm.  In fact if you shoot with the 50mm lens at an aperture of f5.6 or smaller, they are going to be pretty much identical.  The advantages your 50mm bring you are as mentioned relevant in low light and wide aperture scenarios only.  Back in the days of film, it was said that a 50mm had the "look" of the human eye.  This is mostly true from a relative magnification perspective.  On a crop sensor camera it doesn't, but I don't think that this matters.  Make pictures that make you happy, using whatever tool you like.  The 50mm is a very good, optically fast lightweight lens.  It doesn't have the focal length flexibility of the zoom but will produce lovely images if you do your job.  Also film was one ISO only for the entire roll.  Today you can manipulate the ISO for every image and with good sensors, low light is less a problem than it used to be.

You have a good camera with good glass.  Go make images and have fun.  Feel free to write again if you have more questions or need information on other lens options.  Always remember that if you are in a store of any kind and you start to feel your personal BS detector begin to ping, you are probably right.

Later,  Ross

The Photo Video Guy Podcast - Episode 76

Nikon announces the D610 which is a D600 in a new logo.  Nikon updates Capture NX to 2.4.4 and files a patent for an interchangeable sensor.  Canon to release a new 18-300 EF-S and 50/1.4 EF.  Adobe Creative Cloud databased breached, 2.9M accounts stolen.  Adobe releases Photoshop Elements 12.  DxO releases Viewpoint 2.0.  Google+ gets better RAW to JPEG conversion.

Q&A : Why don't my images look the way they did on the camera screen?

There's no podcast this week, mostly because there was no news of interest this week.  There was however, the second question in the Q&A offering so here we go. Marco writes:

"I look at the back of the camera when I take a picture and it looks good.  But when I get it into my computer, the colors are flat and the picture looks a bit out of focus.  When I got the camera this didn't happen."

A bit of correspondence with Marco revealed the following:

"When I got my camera, I used it in fully automatic or Program mode most of the time.  I took a class through xxx (store name removed) and the teacher told us that for the best quality to shoot in raw.  I still don't really know why but I did it and I am not happy with the pictures.  Why does raw not make better pictures like we were told?"

This is a common problem suffered by photographers who switch to capturing in RAW without having the full story told to them.  I am constantly encouraging my own students to shoot in RAW, but I also try to make sure I explain the why.  So let's start there.

The out of the box setting for most all digital cameras, and certainly all point and shoot variants is to capture in JPEG.  JPEG exists for a reason, although the initial reason is less valid today.  JPEG is a compressed file format and back when digital storage media was exorbitantly expensive, the smaller files could help people save money on cards.  JPEG compression is destructive.  This means that it throws data away that is non-recoverable by a factor of at least 33%.   If all you will ever do is look at images on the screen of your smartphone, you won't care and JPEG is probably all you will ever need.

But if you want to make photographs and not just take pictures, you might not want to throw all that detail and information away.  Cameras are built and designed for immediate gratification.  Thus, the rear display screen shows only JPEGs.  Actually all the information on the screen, including the histogram if you look at it, is based on a JPEG.  These JPEGs have colour corrections, exposure adjustments, tints and sharpening applied before you see the image at all.  When you look at the camera display, you are seeing a processed image.

RAW on the other hand is completely unprocessed.  Technically it's not even a picture until the data is passed through the RAW codec on your computer.  There are no adjustments, no corrections, no sharpening, no nothing applied.  It's the uncooked image.  JPEG processing, better known as "camera styles" cooks the data to a predefined state.  As a photography educator I sometimes forget that frustration happens when a student captures in RAW but has the camera style set to Vivid.  The image on the rear display is sharp and punchy, but the RAW file has none of that processing done to it.

For those who are shooting in RAW, set your camera picture style to neutral.  This will still display a JPEG on the rear display but it will be as lightly "cooked" as the vendor allows.  There is still processing happening that you cannot see documentation for, but remember that manufacturer goal of immediate gratification.  Now when you import your RAW image into your editor, because now your image MUST be edited (you have a blob of uncooked dough) you can start by setting the manufacturer's picture style for the scene.  I teach Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW and do not know, or care to know every editor out there, but I can assure you that both Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW have options to use the manufacturer's picture style.  Or more correctly, a non-JPEG iteration of the style that has some default processing steps.  You may be perfectly happy with one of these settings or you can use it as a place to start for your own customization.  Either way, you are farther edit than simply shooting JPEG because you have not thrown away irretrievable data by going JPEG in camera.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.  The first is an unprocessed RAW file converted directly to JPEG for display on the web.  The only thing done to it is to embed a Digimarc copyright protection.  It is what came out of the camera.  It does not look like what I saw on the back of the camera.  It seems softer and the colours are flat.

It's not pleasing in any way.  The next image is the SAME file that has been processed.  Starting point was to select the Camera Landscape picture style in Lightroom and then work from there.  I added Highlight and Shadow recover, added Contrast and Clarity, applied Sharpening, Lens Corrections and a tiny little bit of vignette.

It's a better image.  While not everyone would like the image and some might consider it a discard, you can clearly see the difference that processing makes.  That's the difference between taking and making.  If you just want nice pics for Facebook and Email, shooting in JPEG and using Camera Styles could be the right answer for you.  However if you want to truly "make" photographs, you agree to undertake work in the digital darkroom.  Thanks to Marco for his question.

Q&A - Why is the exposure "off" with my TTL flash

I've received my first couple of questions for Q&A.  I want to thank both writers and will address questions in a timely fashion.  I will also keep writer's contact information and full names confidential.  So here's the first one. "Hi.

I have a Canon Rebel model T2i.  The built in flash makes bad pictures so the guy at the store said to get a bounce flash with TTL.  I bought a Canon 430EX II.  When I use the flash sometimes the pictures are good, but sometimes they are too bright.  I have attached two examples.  Is my camera not working with the flash?  The sales guy said TTL gave perfect pictures.

Jacqueline."

Well thanks for writing in Jacqueline.  I appreciate you attaching the pictures for me to look at.  I think I can answer your question.

The sales person was correct in recommending a TTL flash as they do make flash very simple.  In the kit you bought you get what Canon calls eTTL.  It's the same idea.

When you take a picture without flash, the camera sets the exposure based on the light reflected from the subject.  When you use any kind of TTL flash, the camera sets the exposure based on the amount of flash reflected from the subject.  It does this by controlling how long the flash lasts, what we call duration.

In both your example pictures, you are correct that they are too bright.  I assume you are shooting in JPEG because that is what you sent me.  Nothing wrong with that, but correct me if I am wrong.  If you look around your subject's in both pictures, the background is pretty far away.  In the picture of the older couple with the cake, it looks like you shot it in a hall or hotel ballroom, a place with very high ceilings and walls some distance away.

The camera and flash combination are looking at the reflected light from the entire scene as the light hits the sensor.  Because your subjects in both cases take up only part of the total image, the camera is adjusting exposure (flash duration in this case) to try to achieve balanced lighting across the entire image.  Since the walls are so far away compared to the couple, the camera and flash are working hard trying to light the back wall and overpowering the couple with the cake.

This doesn't mean that there is a problem with the camera or the flash.  Actually things are working as they should.  There are a couple of ways you can make this a more successful photograph.  Easiest is to fill the frame with the couple, tightening your composition to exclude more of the background.   Because they are standing up, you could have shot this as a vertical image and thereby tightened things easily.  By excluding more of the background, the meter won't see as much of it and won't work so hard to light it.  The other way is a bit more work but is a very useful skill to develop.

Your camera has exposure compensation, so you can tell the camera to add or take away exposure depending on the subject and the creative effect desired.  Similarly you can compensate for flash exposure with flash exposure compensation.  I've attached a link to a Canon site you can review but here is the quick steps to this.  I thank Canon for making this available.

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EOS Rebel T2i, T3i, T3 

1. Press the [Q] button on the back of the camera. The Quick Control screen will appear.

2. Use the [Cross key] buttons to navigate to and highlight the feature you want to change.

3. Once the setting is highlighted, use the [Main dial] (immediately behind the shutter button) to change the setting. There is no need to press the [Set] button afterwards to “lock in” the setting. If you do press the [Set] button, the camera will display a contextual submenu that shows the full range of available options. Use either the [Main dial] or the [◄►] buttons to highlight and select a setting on the submenu.

When using the EOS Rebel T2i, T3i, or T3, the Quick Control Menu is the only way to access Flash Exposure Compensation directly, without going deep into the camera setting menus.

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Now how do you know which way to dial your compensation?  If the background is a lot darker than your main subject such as when it is farther away for the flash to light, dial in negative compensation.  Start at -1 and adjust to taste.  If the background is close and very white, the camera is going to try to make that white average to grey so add some flash exposure.  Start at +1 and adjust to taste.  Flash exposure compensation is not some black art, but experimentation is going to be involved as is practice.  Repetition is the mother of skill so the more you experiment and try things, the better you'll get .  TTL flash is a really great system and most of the time it's really good, but even when it isn't right the first time, it gives you a really good place to start.  One other tip.  Since you spent money on a flash that has a tilting head, try adding a reflector to it and point the head straight up and not directly at your subjects.  The Rogue Flashbender system is really good and is not specific to a particular flash.  Because the Flashbender is a much larger element than the flash tube, you will get light that is a bit softer and not so many harsh shadows.  If you are home or in a place with "normal" ceiling height, just point the flash head at the white ceiling.  TTL will do a good job in general of giving you really good exposure and the bounced light will be much more pleasing than the head-on flash.

I hope you found this tip helpful.  Here's the link to the Canon document.

The Photo Video Guy Podcast - Episode 75

Leica confirms flare in 50/2 ASPH.  Fuji unveils X-A1.  Adobe releases ACR 8.2 and Lightroom 5.2   Nikon announces AW-1 and two lenses to use underwater.  D600 and D5100 move off Nikon MAP list.  Canon updates firmware for the EOS-1Dc.  Is an EOS-M2 coming?  Sigma releases new firmware for the 35/1.4 and 17-70/2.8-4 but it might be a trap.

Announcing ThePhotoVideoGuy Q&A

I'm now ready to initiate a new offering for readers and listeners called somewhat unimaginatively, ThePhotoVideoGuy Q&A.  I've been a photographer for quite some time and find myself asked questions about "how to do" pretty frequently.  So if you have a question send an email to qanda@thephotovideoguy.ca.  I will answer your questions on the site and perhaps on the podcast. There is no cost for this offering.

The Photo Video Guy Podcast - Episode 74

Apple announces new iPhone camera, Phil Schiller disses serious photographers everywhere.  New Apple RAW decoders.  Leica introduces the C aka the Lumix LF-1.  Canon announces changes to CPS for 2014.  Canon intros new large format printers and Premium Pigment inks.  DP Review covers the OM-D E-M1.  Olympus releases 12-40/2.8 ED pro lens.  Sandisk offers 256GB CF card.

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