Tag: Canon

Tuesday Trivia Tickle…

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Well, the Monday Minutiae did not happen as I had hoped (my pillow convinced me to deal with it instead…), so I guess Tuesday will get a temporary trivia tickle (I can’t help it – alliteration is my ”thing”.) Did you know that Canon currently has 64 lenses on their website for purchase as of 12-17-07. Here’s the breakdown:

  • Number of lenses w/IS: 17

  • Number of lenses w/USM: 46

  • Number of lenses at 2.8 or higher: 32

  • Number of dedicated macro: 5

  • Number of non EF-mount types: 4

  • Number of L Lenses: 25

  • Third Generation lenses: 3

  • Second Generation lenses: 9

  • First Generation lenses: 52

  • Digitally Optimized lenses: 2

  • Fisheye lenses: 1

  • Fixed Focal length lenses: 34

I put together a full spreadsheet of all these lenses including their body mount type, focal lengths, aperture size/range, glass quality, IS presence, generation, designation and USM presence. It’s a pretty handy reference, and if anyone wants a copy, feel free email me to request one. I’ll probably post it for download later this evening, so if you can wait until then, stop back to the blog after 4pm (Eastern time) to see if it’s available yet. Tonight I should have the weekly video tutorial finished so don’t forget to mark your calendars tomorrow to stop back and check out the latest. This weeks subject is “Applying an antique effect to photos”, specifically designed for those using Photoshop CS2. Watch the show to see where you can view the same methods for other software platforms! Until tonight then, happy shooting (and surfing)!

The spreadsheet file has been uploaded and can now be downloaded from here: Canon Lens Availability & Features

Alternatively, you can view a PDF version of it here:

Canon Lens Availability & Features

Canon News and Reviews (with a few rebates)

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As an admitted Canonite, I’ve not done much in the way of noting new products Canon has released since the 40D and 1D Mark II have been released. Despite the absence, there has been quite a bit of activity from Canon, including some new point-and-shoot reviews, paper releases, and, (wait for it) the announcement of their fall discounts. In the interests of full disclosure, here is a rundown of some of the latest news from Canon’a Press releases and other sources (in no particular order):

Polished Rag and a Coated Bond Paper are released at the NYC PhotoExpo

Two new “L” lenses expected at PhotoExpo Show: 200mm f2.0 IS and 800mm f5.6 IS

Free Paper Profiles for Canon imagePROGRAF Printers release

New Selphy ES2 Compact Photo Printer

Canon SD870 IS Review

and, of course, Canon’s Fall 2007 Rebates:

85 1.2 II – $125
16-35 2.8 II – $100
70-200 F/4 IS – $75
17-40 f/4 – $50
70-200 2.8 IS – $125
50 1.2 – $100
EF-S 17-55 IS – $70
70-200 f/4 – $40
100-400 f/4.5-5.6 – $100
24-70 2.8 – $80
EF-S 10-22 – $50
85 1.8 – $25
50 1.4 $20
60f/2.8 macro – $30
580 EX II Speedlite – $50

The good news?  They’re all instant from authorized resellers….

The bad news?  No bodies are included this year…

A link to the PDF files is here

Weekend Wrap-up

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Quite a few newsworthy things happened between Friday and today.  The legendary Scott Kelby gives us his top ten (actually 11) blogs to visit – among them those of fellow gurus, Matt Kloskowski and  Dave Cross.  Others that made the list include Moose Peterson, John Nack, and David Ziser.  While it’s always fun to see what others, the best part is that he invites others to post their favorites in his comments section.  Given the visibility of Scot’s blog on the internet, many are obviously taking obvious advantage of the opportunity to shamelessly plug their own sites.  So…it’s become quite an extensive list of blogs, and CB shall take advantage of the opportunity itself here before the day is over.   I’d highly recommend stopping over to see what fun stuff is there for useful info.

In other news, there’s a great tip on Strobist for implementing a ring light in a pinch.

Since this is the Canon Blogger, I should probably give a nod to DPReview on their informative analysis of two new Canon printers, the Selphy ES2 and the ES20 with pretty fair results.  May be worth checking out depending on your printing needs.  Canon’s press release on the products are also available in their newsroom here:  Canon Newsroom

Finally, for the 3 or 4 people that read this besides myself, the weekend trip to Baltimore was a lot of fun.  It was good to see the family, and I got a few neat shots from Camden Yards where the New York Yankees squeaked out a win over Baltimore.

No news for Monday

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Well, that may not be entirely true, as Tips from The Top Floor has a few updates both in audio and video format, so stop over there for some weekyl news and info about Chris’ trip to the great ole U.S. of A. He’s going from CO on to California, and then some other place before finishing up in St. Lucie FL, so if you get a chance between now and Oct. 18th to listen/view – you may wanna do so as now I am even thinking of making my way down there for a few days.

Please also say a prayer for Scott Sherman and Michael Stein from The Digital Photography Show. Before this week I did not know that their affiliation began because both their children are affected by Cerebral Palsy.   Scott’s had to have a surgical procedure this last week, and yet he still managed to find some time to produce the show. Suffice to saw, I would have been long gone and Canon Blogger would not have even been on my radar – so thanks to Scott and Michael and my prayers go out to both of you as you walk this noble path – esp. to Scott given the recency of its impact on his life personally.

Finally, Strobist had a couple cool posts recently, first one about Flickr where you can see your “ranking” on there – serious submitters only though as if it’s less than that, you probably won’t show up many times. Another cool post is about using small off-camera lights to help illuminate landscapes. A neat example is there too, so go check that out.

Finally, another podcast is ready for viewing! I did run out of time for production tonight though, so will have to wait until tomorrow to finish it, but promise a rather lengthy one (about 30 minutes) is forthcoming and discusses quite a few details about working in Camera Raw for your post processing. Stay tuned and it should be online in less than 24 hours! Until tomorrow then…Happy Shooting!

Closing out the week with a new tutorial!

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That’s right, I’ve finally got enough of an act together to record a new tutorial. It’s another Photoshop tip, and this week is kind of a tangential feature of Photoshop, in that it’s not one you would typically use Photoshop to produce as Adobe has other products that perform this function better. There are also other applications on the market that do this equally well, and probably with equal if not better results, but if you don’t have them, PS is a neat alternative, especially for preserving things like drop-shadows and text style treatments like gradients and other stuff commonly associated with Photoshop. In any case, the tutorial is linked at the end of this post. You can download for iTunes from the link as well.

In other news, I also was able to successfully arise early enough to catch a sunrise shoot at Isle of Palms today. I had my trusty Canon XT with me, and I found myself enjoying swapping between the 18-55 kit lens, a Sigma macro lens, and my Canon 70-200 4.0 L The colors were okay, but nothing really spectacular to write home about thus far in my review of the shots. I’ll hopefully have a few to share tomorrow, but in the meantime, enjoy the video podcast. Until next time, Happy Shooting and enjoy the weekend!

Creating PDF files in Photoshop

Software updates for Canon 40D vis a vis Adobe

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Adobe has released raw converter updates for both Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom to incorporate more bodies and their algorithms, the 40D being one of the most noticeable (for me) among them.  For anyone using these software programs, the downloads are available at the Adobe website:

Photoshop:

Windows Download

Mac Download

Lightroom:

Windows Download

Mac Download 

Helpful note:  Owners of CS2 and earlier PS versions should not attempt to update with this raw converter – it’s meant for CS3 users only…

Top Five Reasons I am getting the Canon 40D

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It wouldn’t be a year in photography without at least one of the Big Boys of photography world (those boys being Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Pentax) announcing some new piece of equipment that sets everyone off, racing to give their money away so they can have the “latest and greatest” that money can buy. As a technology buff, I am particularly susceptible to this tendency, so I always have to take a step back and look at my current setup, as well as the rest of the options available before I can pull the trigger (or trip the shutter, since we’re using “photo speak” right now).

So…I set out to look at the major features in the EOS line since that’s where my lenses are. Within my price range (under $1500) are the XTi, 30D, and 40D. I also included the 20D in my comparison because even though it’s been discontinued, it still is available through online auctions and various community forums for sale, and the spec sheet is readily available online (I used the specs from B&H). Given the number of options, even within the Canon line, I had to set some minimum. So, I told myself that in order to make it worth the expense, I would need to see at least 5 major features/reasons in order to justify the purchase. I defined a “major” feature/reason as something that either represented more than a 15% increase in numerical value, or a feature that was completely lacking in my current setup.

With my benchmarks set, and my expectations in place, I put together the following chart for the consumer/entry pro level EOS bodies that Canon offers:

chart

The benchmarks indicated the following results:
• XTi – 2 features/reasons: Discarded
• 20D – 3 features/reasons: Discarded
• 30D – 5 features/reasons: Candidate
• 40D – 8 features/reasons: Candidate

With two pretty clear favorites, I looked at the differences between the two, and the 40D does seem to have enough of a distinction (3 features) from the 30D to justify the increased expense (Mega Pixels, screen size, and Frames/sec). What also tipped the scales for me in my decision was that since I don’t buy new bodies as regularly as some, as there have been 3 new releases since my last purchase. That being the case, I will probably be better served by getting the newest one so that it can last as long as my XT has (3 years).

For those with other Canon bodies, a similar system could be used to determine whether an upgrade is justified, depending on what you are looking for. For those with Nikon bodies looking to upgrade, the decision-making process should likely be weighed within your own DSLR system, but the principles used above could be applied equally there as well. As for Olympus, Pentax, and Sony – what are you guys smiling at? (Something tells me they will be following the lead of Canon and Nikon but at lower price points down the road…)

Size doesn’t always matter…

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As I bide my time for the Canon EOS 40D to come to a B&H store near me (online), I have been slowly find flaws with my current body – the Canon EOS 350D (a.k.a. the XT).  When invited to a high school football game last night, one of my Canon camera buddies lent me a second body so I could have a wide angle and a zoom at the ready for changing situations without having to swap out lenses on a single body.  As it turned out, I pretty much stayed on the zoom the entire night, but that’s not the interesting part.

What was interesting was the performance results.  The body I was lent was the EOS 10D, which has much more of a heft to it.  Since it was incompatible with the EF-S lenses, I had to put the kit 18-55 on my XT, and my 70-200 (f4.0) went on the 10D.  After adding a 550EX flash, the setup was quite heavy.

For the first half I noticed that the buffer in the 10D took about the same time to fill up as the XT, which seemed odd, as I knew that the 10D had a smaller pixel count (6.3 versus 8.1)  and both are rated at about 3.0 fps.  What amazed me though, was the write speed once the buffer was filled.  The 10D took as many as 30 seconds to write all images to the card, where if I was on the XT, I would have been shooting again in 10 seconds.  By the second half I had switched back to the baby XT (size wise)  for its superior Megapixel count and write speeds.  Turns out, the size doesn’t always matter…

Canon’s Competition…

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Although this is primarily a venue for discussing Canon gear, since it is also about photography news, in the interests of full disclosure, it only seems fair to at least acknowledge the competition.  Apparently, Nikon has responded to the Canon release with their own new DSLR cameras.  Whereas Canon has the 1Ds Mark III and the 40D, the Nikon has announced the release of their competitive bodies, the D3 and the D300.  The Online Photographer and DPReview have reviews and information on the new product lines.  For those interested in more info, each venue is hyperlinked for your convenience.

From a personal perspective on the matter – it seems more and more the two largest market share holders are losing something of their signature and recognition by having the confluence of naming conventions.  While I understand that the “D” is for digital, and there is no getting around the English language in that regard, one can easily see how the average consumer could become very confused very quickly.  Sure, one has the “d” before the numbering system, and the other has the “d” after, but when both vendors have a “40” series, the possibilities for confusion between a 40D and a D40 seem just obvious to me.

While I realize it’s an exercise in futility as both product lines were established well before my entry into the field, and will likely continue long after my ashes are scattered – I can’t help but wonder how much easier it would be to identify Canon and Nikon brands with a naming convention along the lines of CD and ND respectively.  Of course some might confuse this with the abbreviations for the Congo Democratic Republic and New Delhi or something like that – the odds are minimal at best.  Okay, that’s enough for my Thursday rant. Now for the Thursday apologies:  Due entirely to laziness factors that were totally within my control, the previously promised podcast that looks at the Canon EOS 40D was not recorded for release yesterday as my initial post had suggested.  Boy, I’m off to a great start here, eh?  Okay, well, that’s the joy of being a one-man operation (again):  no one to blame but yourself.  I accept full responsibility and will forewarn any of the probably three or four people that have discovered the blog thus far that I have several previously scheduled obligations today, tomorrow, and Saturday that will require my presence, so it looks like the promised podcast will not be delivered until Sunday.  So…look for the podcast on your feeds Sunday night, and download to your music player for Monday morning enjoyment… I will likely stop in with random bits of news between now and Sunday, but that’s the latest on the elusive podcast front. 

The First “Official” Post – 40D and 1DsMark III

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As my first “official” post, I should probably give a nod to the recent release of the latest EOS gear from Canon.  This was a much anticipated release of the new EOS 40D and 1Ds Mark III bodies.  The hype that led to these news releases was palpable.  Various photo communities and technical repositories have been monitoring sites like Amazon and Canon 24/7 for the last few months in hopes of being “the first” to uncover the release of any good information on new product lines.  Just a brief look at some of the more popular venues like Photo.net, P.O.T.N, Fred Miranda, and DPReview, as well as the authors own regional site, SC Photogs show at least some curiosity, if not an almost perpetual buzz of thread postings on the anticipated release date.  Subjects have ranged from specs we want to see, speculation over what will be included in the gear, who the gear is marketed for, what the fallout will be on the rest of the market, and what Nikon will do in response.  Heck, there was even one report that came from someone with a cell phone shot of an in-store best Buy screen showing the ship date, and estimated retail pricing.  All in all, there was a lot of speculation leading up to this release.  Now that the news is there, we can expect to see them in online stores within a month.  Brick-and-mortar stores may take a while longer as pre-ordered online sales will likely drain initial stock quickly.  

While each of these camera bodies and the added features they will offer is quite exciting in its own right, largely due to the feature enhancements in both grades, extensive coverage of both would bore some, lose others, and just make for a really long post.  So, in the interests of brevity, I will take a more direct look at the one that I will likely be throwing my wallet at (unless of course Canon happens to be viewing this blog and would like to send me an advance model for testing and review, I would be happy to accept the responsibility of testing this equipment in “real world” situations for them.  (Canon, are you listening? 🙂 ). 

So, look for the first podcast later this afternoon or tomorrow morning , where I pour over all the nitty gritty details of one of the latest gear releases from Canon…the EOS 40D! 

Until then, I leave you with a few bits and pieces of general photography news and links to check out during the day (as if you don’t have enough from the inline references above!):

  • Photoshop TV has released its latest weekly episode for viewing on their website.   

  • The Digital Photography Show has their latest podcast up for listening, as well as a post about the 40D too.

  • The Strobist is a great blog/resource for those interested in lighting gear and techniques.  Great stuff here!

Until I post again (likely this afternoon)…happy shooting!