Since I had my Leica M9 (object of an up coming detailed post) I must admit that I have “stepped” away a bit from the SLR world. The feeling of shooting with Leica gears can only be understood when you actually shoot with Leica. It the sort of things that are hard to explain but very easy to understand once you are “confronted” to it.

But let’s get back to our topic of today’s post.
This is no scientific reviews and we are mainly focusing on the use of the Canon EF 100 Macro USM and the 100L Macro IS USM for HANDHELD video.

The camera used for this out of the box, literally, I just got home with this lens (Canon EF 100L Macro IS USM), is the Canon 5D Mark II in Av mode with an aperture set to f/3.2 and ISO set on AUTO. You will notice that he ISO will go up sometimes up to 3200.

The lighting is not what I’d call the most sexiest lighting because it is just a pain energy saver bulb with a disgusting colour temperature. The WB on the Canon 5D Mark II is set to AWB.

Shamelessly, the photos below of the gears are taken with an iPhone 4 under the same yucky lighting conditions.

With all the gears that I use, I can here some people yelling for scandal but with so much excitement, I didn’t want to waste time setting up a proper studio setting and to be honest, this is not about how the gear look like (you’ll find tons of them on the net) but how they perform in a “real” shooting situation, with mix and yucky lights.

Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM vs Canon EF 100 f/2.8L Macro IS USM

Canon 5D Mark II with the Varavon viewfinder, Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM and Canon EF 100 f/2.8L Macro IS USM

Canon 5D Mark II with the Varavon viewfinder, Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM and Canon EF 100 f/2.8L Macro IS USM

At first, being a tech and new toys freak, I’d say that newer is better and when I saw the first images of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, I suddenly felt that my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM had some problems.

I have never been a big fan of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM design, especially the top of the lens, but being the only 100 Canon macro lens at the time, it’s not like I had the choice and picked the “wrong” one.

So, I was willing to have the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM as a second macro lens and was trying to find a good reason to get it. I didn’t find any because I don’t use the macro lens that much, especially at this focal length.

Only recently, from a short chat on a social network that I found out that the new Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM had something that I didn’t know about (I said that I stepped away from SLR since the Leica M9 remember?) and that was the “Hybrid” IS on the new macro lens.

After a few searches online I had to find out by myself: I rang my local dealer and luckily he had a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM in stock and that I could borrow.

This is one of the big benefit from buying local. You may pay for a bit extra but you are close to the people, real people, and you will have the service and support that you will not have when dealing with a website.

I’d like to thank Greg from Ted’s Camera in Canberra for this. You needs gears? Talk to Greg at Ted’s Camera Store in Canberra.

Now, obviously, I started playing around with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM on the Canon 5D Mark II. I also use a Varazon viewfinder on the Canon 5D Mark II for focusing and for composition.

…

I was a bit skeptical about the “Hybrid” IS and was pleasantly surprise to hear that the IS is automatically activated when you go live view with the camera. The IS noise is at very low level and changes following the steadiness of the camera. The IS noise gets louder, but very reasonable, when I tried to shake the camera a bit.

That being said, I would suspect that using the combination of the lens, the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, and live view would drain your battery a bit quicker and more importantly what would be the life expectancy of the IS inside the lens if you decide that this lens is your main lens for HD video? Remember that when shooting for photos (do we still shoot photos with cameras?) IS will be active during (auto)focusing and IS would remain active for a short time (less than a second) after capture, when the shutter release is fully pushed. Let me  know if you have any idea on this.

Look and feel, as mentioned, for me “newer is better” and the design of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM is really more sexy than the non L version.

Manual focusing with this lens is more pleasant, for me, than with the non L version. Looking through the Varazon viewfinder, in live view mode, it was a wow at first view as the view is really steady.

I moved the camera from left to right and up and down and can clearly see that the IS is its job briliantly.

I shot a short clip with manual focus and a bit of panning to see if vertical movement are compensated. It is.

The focusing ring is a pleasure to use and the lens is very well balanced in hand.

As expected and with no surprise, when switching the lens with the Canon EF 100 f/2.8 Macro USM, at same settings, I saw almost the same thing in term of movement due to camera shake for the first few seconds. The view through the LCD screen in live view starts jiggling with my hand shake and my breathing.  The absence of IS in the early version is very perceptible at this focal length. Of course camera shake will amplify with the distance to subject.

The Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM would be undeniably a better lens for macro photography handheld with its 4 stop image stabilisation. In video mode, it will help you achieve better results hand-holding. I will be heading out tomorrow for more testing with photo and video samples.

In the mean time, no images from taken with these lenses yet, because I only want to check the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM in HANDHELD video.

Check out the video below. Could you say which video is using which lens?

The second video is shot exclusively with the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM with IS ON and OFF. I noticed during this short test that if you tilt the camera down, the IS noise is more perceptible than if the lens is held horizontally.

The newly release Apple pro image management software, Aperture 3.0, has a long list of bugs that would get fixed with the update.

Check this link for the list of bugs addressed.

Apple announces the new Aperture 3 as a powerful yet easy-to-use tool to take your image editing to the next level.

It is said to be the most powerful DAM (Digital Asset Management) for your image libraries and it’s even “pro performance with iPhoto simplicity.” Learn more

There are things that when you see them, you want them.

Aside from digital cameras, I’m really in love with electronics and gadjets that get me hooked.

Check out the video of the newly announced Apple iPad here: http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video

Image courtesy of Apple

As mentioned in my previous post, there is nothing worst than watching the battery charging after all the wait.

Yes, the new Canon 1D Mark IV has finnaly arrived at my local dealer (thanks Greg) and I am sitting here waiting for the battery to charge.

It is sure very exciting to shake this camera and I couldn’t resist to squeeze a few snaps to have a personal feel about its high iSO capability.

There is nothing sexy and scientific, yet, in this sequence of quick snaps but I can already tell that his is a hell of a camera.

For these snaps I used my Canon EF 85f1.2 L II at an aperture of f/1.8. Why did I use f/1.8 ? There is no particular reason for it and I just wanted to have something very shallow and allowing a high shutter speed to avoid camera shake. All images hand held and captured seconds from each others.

You can download the full size images clicking on the thumbs. Please allow sometimes as there are big files.

Some basic infos about the images:

Shot in RAW and AWB. Converted with Canon DPP without adding any ingrdien (no sharpen, contrast, color correction, saturation … or what soever)

EXIF has been added onto the images and images resized in CS4 again with NO additional ingredient.

All settings by default.

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 400. Click on image for full size (4.6 MB)

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 800. Click on image for full size (5 MB)

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 1600. Click on image for full size (5.6 MB)

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 3200. Click on image for full size (6.4 MB)

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 6400. Click on image for full size (6.5 MB)

Canon 1D Mark IV & ISO 12800. Click on image for full size (7.2 MB)

]]> http://www.photoerrant.com/canon-1d-mark-iv-quick-iso-snaps/feed/ 0 http://www.photoerrant.com/canon-1d-mark-iv-is-finally-here/ http://www.photoerrant.com/canon-1d-mark-iv-is-finally-here/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:16:39 +0000 Thierry http://www.photoerrant.com/?p=956

Just a teaser for the time to charge the battery and I will rock this awesome camera upside down.

I have planned a few shoots including HD video and low light setups with this baby.

Stay tuned. Images and sound are coming.

Image with iPhone

Image by iPhone

Picasa uses a database to store meta data. This database is created under the system drive, usually C:, and there is no option for you to move it to another location.

After using Picasa for sometime you’ll find that your C: drive mysteriously fills up and you system backup takes longer and requires more space.

The solution is to move the database from its original location to another drive, location, to free up space for the system drive.

It’s possible to do it with a Microsoft tool called Junction.

Download Junction utility at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx) and unzip it.

Close Picasa if it’s open and running.

Copy Google data (under c:\Documents & Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application data\Google to another folder on (or other drive)

Delete data under initial Google folder.

Open a cmd session, go to where junction.exe is located and type:

junction -s <source dir on C:> <destination dir on D: or else>

Note: -s recurses folders

Start Picasa to check if everything is ok.

It works fine for me. I was able to free up 6 GB on my C: drive!

My configuration  is Picasa 3 and Windows Vista 64 bits.

Adobe released the latest version of Camera Raw, availabel for download from the links below.

The new Camera Raw is compatible with new D-SLRs such as the Canon 7D, the Nikon D3s and the not-released-yet Canon 1D Mark IV:

• Camera Raw 5.6 for Mac
• Camera Raw 5.6 for Windows
• Photoshop Lightroom 2.6 for Mac
• Photoshop Lightroom 2.6 for Windows
• DNG Converter 5.6 for Mac
• DNG Converter 5.6 for Windows

Get your software updated for Xmas.

The list of newly supported cameras:

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV
Canon EOS 7D
Canon PowerShot G11
Canon PowerShot S90
Leaf Aptus II 5
Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
Nikon D3s
Olympus E-P2
Pentax K-x
Panasonic FZ38
Sigma DP1s
Sony A500
Sony A550
Sony A850

Image courtesy of Rob Galbraith (www.robgalbraith.com)

In a previous post, I wrote about the opening of Paul C. Buff representant in Australia as main distributor of AlienBees products.

I have been a long time interested in the divers lighting solutions offered by the Bees but being in Australia, The Bees have the “bad” idea to be 110 V only.

Now that they are available in Australia, they then come in 220v.

As a Nomad Photographer, I’ve been looking for a mobile solution and the Vagabond IIs are the best and affordable solution that I have been waiting for. The only problem being it’s a converter with an output of 110V only.

Good things come to those who wait: C Buff just announced the new product: The Einstein.

The Einstein comes with an automatic power adjustment to accept voltage from 90v all the wait up to 240V. This means I can use the Vagabond II (which strangely comes with a 240v charger) to power the Einstein on location but also in studio with an outlet of 220V.

Check out the AlienBees store in Australia and put yourself in the line.

Rob Galbraith just release a very interesting article on the Bees with some of the light modifiers that are available at the Paul C.Buff stores: http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10046-10396

If you use Namecheap to register domain names, you might be interested in using this coupon to pay $8.81 per year instead of $9.69.

Namecheap coupon for November 2009 is AUTUMNLEAVES.

I’ve just used it to register a .com and it worked fine.