Hardware Review: The 70-200L f4.0

May 18, 2009 Jason7 Comments

In keeping with the last few weeks of hardware reviews, I am taking a look in my own bag one more time to bring you this weeks’ hardware review: the 70-200mm L lens from Canon. Canon has several variants on this lens, with different minimal apertures both with and without Image Stabilization (IS). So, in the interests of full disclosure, this is a non-IS lens, and the aperture range is the standard one, 4.0 to 5.6. So, with that distinction being made, we’re off and running:

Canons 70-200mm f4.0 lens — Canon's 70-200mm f4.0 lens

The “L” distinction is one that bears discussion right off – Canon only gives this out to lenses that it deems have superior optics – which means a wider range for it’s sweet spot, tack sharp focus, and better sealing against the elements. This naturally means that this lens will, by definition and categorization, be sharper than a comparable “non-L” lens. However, for this particular range of zoom, Canon doesn’t make a non-L lens, so one would have to make a comparison with a 3rd party brand such as Sigma or Tamron. Even there though, comparisons are tricky primarily because vendors are moving toward faster glass (in the 2.8 category) and IS features.

In that regard, the 70-200 f4.0 really is in a class by itself. As a result of its unique status in the field of available lenses, comparisons are rather arbitrary as no other lens out there has the same specs. Rather than making those comparisons though, I’ll just say that this lens does deliver superior performance for its’ category.

So, how is this a review? Well, it’s not just a question of performance, it’s also a question of price. Anything can be stellar, but whether it’s worth the price is another story. I know of luxury cars that exceed 6 figures for their cost, however, most cannot justify the expense, either because of their financial situation or the expected need. So, how does the 70-200 fit when it comes to cost? Pretty well actually.

The cost for this lens at B&H Photo is $600 right now (technically $599.95) after a $50 rebate. Considering the next step up is twice the price for either an f2.8 or an IS lens, this is actually a steal! I was able to find mine second hand from a fellow photographer when I lived in SC, so got it for considerably less. Included in my package was a lens hood, and a collar for mounting to a tripod (which I definitely would recommend given the weight). The previous owner was also nice enough to leave the Tiffen filter on it that provided protection for the lens. All told, the lens and accessories would run around $700 for the lens, lens hood, UV filter, and tripod collar.

When looking at comparable other lenses from Canon, this is where you really see the bang for the buck. Take a look at the most recent prices from B&H for similar lenses:

70-200L f2.8 = $1250
70-200L f2.8 IS = $1600
70-200L f4.0 IS = $1025

So, you can save at least $425 if IS isn’t important to you, or $650 for the next fastest version of this lens

At a smidge over 1.5 lbs, the weight does balance the mid-grade SLR’s quite nicely, although on the Rebel line I recall it being a tad heavy. As a general rule of thumb, with larger and heavier lenses, you’ll want to carry this by the lens itself rather than the camera as you don’t want to put undue tension on the mount.

Overall though, for the price and range, I would highly recommend this lens. It’s tack sharp at both 70 and at 200 with a sweet spot ranging from f5.6 to f16. Kind of hard to say no to that kind of quality when it’s offered at such an affordable price. Here’s some sample shots to show what I’m talking about:

Here’s a sample from 70mm at f9.0

And the same scene from 200mm at the same aperture:

Then, just to give you an idea of the sharpness, here’s some shots at f4.0 (a little noiser because I was at ISO 3200)…first the 70mm shot:

And now at 200mm:

And the 200mm shot:

Okay, so that’s about it for the day. Hope you found it useful and informative (as always). Don’t forget the Lightroom Contest going on over at the Flickr Thread – only about 12 more days left and still not a lot of entries. Great chance to win a free copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (retails for $300)! If you have ideas, suggestions, comments, feedback or other insights on future gear you’d like reviewed, feel free to share those in the comments below or with me via email.

One last little nugget to share today…Scott Kelby announced his 2nd Annual Photowalk early this morning, so be sure to register in your city. I’m already registered in the Denver group and that’s rolling early (7:45ish am) in the Lodo area. More details to come on route, eating place, etc. , but mark your calendars now for July 18th! Here’s the link for more info if you’re not in Denver: Worldwide Photowalk Have a great day, Happy Shooting, and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Extra Innings with the Sandman

May 14, 2009 Jason1 Comment

pillow

Yep, that was me last night and much earlier than usual. So, instead of the typical pithy witty, jovial, humorous, enjoyable, and informational material that you are used to seeing – let’s take a day off and call this a “No blog post” day. Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Shooting tethered with Canon gear

May 12, 2009 Jason8 Comments

I’ve not seen much coverage of how to shoot tethered using the Canon proprietary software, so for today’s post, I thought it might be useful to offer the Canon perspective here (since the blog bears the moniker of my camera vendor of choice). For those who are Nikon shooters, I would highly recommend reading the post Scott Kelby did a while back that shows how to shoot tethered into Lightroom. While he walks you through the Lightroom element, he then discusses the Nikon approach… the counterpoint here is to take a look at the Canon approach.

To start off – a little explanation of what tethered shooting is would be helpful. Tethered shooting means you have your camera connected to your computer or laptop (usually a laptop for portability purposes). This allows you to shoot straight into the computer with direct saves. There are a couple advantages to tethered shooting. First off, you don’t need any media cards, because the camera is transferring straight to the computer. Second, regardless of what size LCD you have on the back of your sensor, nothing will compare with a 15″ or 17″ monitor. You can see greater detail, see a broader tonal range, and get a much better handle on the finder points of composition when it comes to things like posing, lighting, and minimizing distractions that you could likely miss when using a 3″ LCD of your camera.

Okay, so now that we know when and why you would shoot tethered, and given an appropriate nod to Scott Kelby for his coverage of the Nikon version, here is a Canon-centric approach to tethered shooting. Since the Lightroom component is already pretty well covered, I will just be limiting the discussion to showcasing the settings, screens and considerations to take into account when configuring the EOS Capture Utility.

When you first start the EOS Capture Utility, you get a rather unassuming window that doesn’t look like much:

It’s pretty straightforward – the top button would be used to download images if you are importing from all your images off a CF card. The second button would enable you to select which images to import off a CF card. More relative to this content is the Camera Settings/Remote Shooting button and the Monitor Folder button. I’ll get to those in a minute. Lastly, it’s helpful to draw your attention to the Preferences button on the lower right – this is the one I’d like to take a closer look at now.

When you click on the Preferences button the window will change:

eos2

From here, you now have access to all the details of how you want to configure your tethered shooting options, starting out with the basic settings (see the drop down menu in the upper left). This first setting tells the EOS Utility what screen you want to show when you first start the software. This really is a matter of personal preference, but I would recommend the main window so that if you want to change your preferences, you can do so easily and quickly – often with software preference settings will require you to restart the program, so if that must happen, it’s always best to do that at start-up.

Moving right along, let’s take a look at the other preferences settings:

eos3

The Destination Folder Preferences

This should be pretty self-explanatory, but in the interests of covering each aspect, this is where you can specify what folder you want to save your images to on connecting your Canon camera to your computer. For the purposes of this demonstration, I created a folder called EOS Capture and put it on my desktop to use as the destination folder. To point the EOS Utility to your destination folder of choice, simply click the browse button, as shown:

destination2

Note that the EOS Utility does a nice little thing here – it creates a subfolder by date so helps to keep your images organized whether you are downloading images, doing remote shooting (tethered shooting), or set a monitored folder for some third party application (like Lightroom). If you are going to be doig remote shooting, here is where you would likely select the remote shooting option so that when the camera gets connected, that specific task will create a subfolder and get you ready that much quicker. Here, since I don’t have the full hardware connection, I am just going to leave it on the default setting and select the folder I created on my desktop:

destination

File Name Preferences

If you want to change your image names from the default of _IMG_1234.jpg to another more descriptive naming convention (say JamesSmith.jpg this would be the place to do it. The options are shown below:

filename1

If you choose to modify your images, you can elect from many options, including the option to customize for your needs – just click the drop down menu to select your options. By default it’s set to Do Not Modify so I’l just leave that here to show your options for filename formats:

filename2

The next option here in your filename conventions is where you can define custom naming conventions, either by subject name (JamesSmith), event (SmithWeddding), or whatever convention works for you:

filename3

Feel free to customize these as you prefer for your own shooting conditions and, well….preferences! Moving right along now…

Download Images Preferences

Here is where you tell the EOS Utility what to do with images as they are generated. It’s pretty straightforward… the options are:

Remote Shooting Preferences

The remote shooting preferences here are also pretty straightforward: Do you want to save your images to a card or not? Do you want the software to rotate your images if needed to show the right orientation? Depending on your preferences, check or uncheck these boxes:

remote

Linked Software Preferences

Last but not least, do you want to use another piece of the Canon Software family of products to work on your tethered images , whether it be Digital Photo Profesional (aka DPP) or ImageBrowser:

eossoftware1

Since my work flow incorporates the Adobe product line (Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.), I would suggest choosing “None” here, but again, that’s why these are called preferences.

Once these Preferences are set, go ahead and return to the main window, then click the Monitor Folder option, because there is two last items that merit discussion here:

The Monitoring Folder

monitor_folder

Note that the folder has been specified for me, but Canon has generously recommended that I take advantage of a specific Canon hardware connector to connect the camera and computer – the WFT-E1 Wireless Transmitter. These are available from most camera retailers and e-tailers, but I like B&H so that is the one linked (and the price is fairly reasonable at $999.99, so if you get one, let me borrow it to review here on the blog! 🙂 ). Basically what this allows you to do is shoot “tethered” to the computer, but without the tether…pretty cool stuff!

The Software Version

I created this post using the older version of the EOS Capture Utility, primarily because I had not used it since I owned my XT. As with any software though, as camera bodies are added to the vendor family of products, the software must update too. On capturing all the images for this post, I did not think the software would be what updated, only the camera drivers. Clearly, that was not the case as the software itself has undergone a colorful transformation since then, and is now at its most recent update as of just last month at 2.6.1 You can download it and update via the 40D web page here (where I got mine just earlier). The upshot though, and why I am keeping the original screen shots, is because functionally nothing has changed – there are just more camera drivers added to the library. To get your own drivers for other Canon cameras to use with the EOS capture, go to the main page here and select your camera…

Finally, I wanted to share a very short video from what the new interface looks like and how to use it when shooting in “tethered” mode:

So, there you have it! My down-n-dirty summary of the Canon EOS Capture Utility – with photos, text, and video! A virtual cornucopia of media to look at the feature set. Enjoy the material! I’d love to hear your thoughts, hear your feedback and get suggestions (other than checking the software for updates before I write the post! 😀 ) on future material that may be useful. Don’t forget too – that contest to win a copy of Adobe Lightroom (which you can use to edit shots taken in tethered mode!) is going on through the end of May, so don’t delay – get those contributions in today! One shot could be worth a free copy of Adobe Lightroom! That’s it for today – have a great one, Happy Shooting, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the latest in photography composition.

News and Nuggets

May 7, 2009 JasonLeave a comment

Hey all, just a couple notes and bits of maintenance for everyone this Thursday. The first ever contest for the Learning Digital Photography podcast is now underway, so be sure to post your images in the thread over at Flickr in order to participate.Some lucky listener will win a copy of Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom 2.0. You do have to have a Flickr account to post images there, but registration is free (and if you have a Yahoo account, you already can get into Flickr). A couple links to make note of:

In some other maintenance notes, the podcast has gotten a few more reviews at iTunes and Diggs over at Personal Life Media – thanks to those that have shared their thoughts and feedback, your support means a lot and every little bit helps. Here’s the links for those that would like to add to the support:

Review on iTunes
Digg the Podcast at Personal Life Media

Last but not least, it became official the other day that I will be in attendance at the Lightroom workshop here in Denver coming up on May 20th Being led by none other than Scott Kelby, of NAPP fame, I’ll be getting even more up to speed on how to use Lightroom as the primary means for my photography work flow. I’ll likely have a few posts worth of material to share with the readership shortly thereafter. (Who knows – I might be able to snag a pic or two out of it too!

So, that’s it for today – sorry for the lateness of the post. Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Win a copy of Adobe Lightroom 2.0!

May 5, 2009 Jason6 Comments

box_lightroom2_150x150

Just last week, I had the distinct honor of interviewing Tom Hogarty, Senior Product Manager for Adobe Lightroom. Needless to say, I postponed the podcast for a few more days so I could include the interview. He really gave a good breakdown of the function of Lightroom, what to expect from it, how to incorporate it into your work flow, and what (in general) we can likely expect to see in the future of image processing development. We spent a good deal of time going over the nuts and bolts, so under the general heading of Software discussions today, I’d like to introduce you to Adobe’s Lightroom.

Lightroom is a very different way of handling your images. Rather than taking a single image at a time through something like Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom allows you to not only address single image edits, but also manage an entire library of images. The key here is management, because that’s what Lightroom really does – it takes the idea of asset management and incorporates it into a program so that you don’t even have to think about it! Rather than belabour the point here though, it would probably be best to encourage everyone to just download the podcast and give it a listen. Not only do we discuss Lightroom, but we also take a lot of listener questions, both specific to Lightroom and general photography questions too – and, oh yeah, a contest!

That’s right – Adobe was kind enough to donate a copy of Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 to some lucky listener. At an estimated retail value of almost $300 ($299), this is by and large, the best contest I’ve could ever come up with! It’s very exciting! I’d love to share the details here, but if I did that, you wouldn’t listen to the podcast. So… want to know the details? Listen to the podcast! In the meantime, here’s the show notes on the things we discussed and where to get the latest and greatest info on the product:

Be sure to stop over at Twitter and start following these folks, because they are the ones who you can really learn a lot from! Then don’t forget to listen to the podcast for your chance to win a copy of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0! Happy Shooting and good luck one and all!

Oh yeah, here’s the teaser link for the contest: Learning Digital Photography Flickr Group

Where oh Where can You Go? (GPS Units)

May 4, 2009 Jason3 Comments

Many of us as photographers are also gadget hounds, and the ability to accessorize our cameras with the latest and greatest gadgets and doohickeys is both a boon and a curse. It’s a boon because we have so many options available to us, and it is a curse for the same reason – because we have so many options available to us. A perfect example of this is the development of GPS attachments.

GPS (Global positioning system) units allow us to add the longitudinal and latitudinal information to the meta data of our digital images. This can help us locate the picture on a map, find the location later, and adds another type of data that we can filter for when managing our images. As the technology has advanced, the price has come down to the point where the ability to incorporate such an accessory is much more feasible.

Here are some of the more popular GPS units on the market these days. While I have not tested these, coming from the article Jack neubart wrote in the May issue of Shutterbug, I would suspect that these are some of the more well-known devices available:

Amod AGL3080
DeLorme Earthmae GPS PN-40
Eye-Fi Explore
ATP GPS Photofinder
GiSTEQ Phototracker CD111
Jobo Photo GPS
QStars BT-Q1000X
Sony GPS CS1KA
Super Trackstick
Wolverine GEO-35

I was able to get some pretty detailed reviews on each of these devices, along with their respective software components by performing a simple Google search of the device name, and rather than regurgitate all that information here, suggest that those who are interested in learning more detailed information do the same.

Special thanks for the collection of all this data to Jack Neubart over at Shutterbug magazine for his very informative article and summary on all of these devices. If you’d be interested in the summary, be sure to pick up a copy or subscribe to the magazine today – it’s one of the better resources on the internet! Happy Shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the Software Review – very exciting one too, so be sure to add CB to your feeds!

Nine is better than none…

April 22, 2009 Jason2 Comments

I had been working on a list of some of the more popular listener/reader questions and some answers to share for the podcast this week. Since it is late getting out (notice the lack of a post at all yesterday), I thought it might be helpful to share an abbreviated list of some of the Q&A here…

1. What color space should I shoot in with my camera, Adobe RGB or sRGB?

A. Neither, shoot in Raw! Since defining a color space is only applicable if you are shooting in jpg rather than raw, if you shoot in raw, color space won’t matter. However, if you absolutely must shoot in jpg (or if you prefer to due to massive amounts of images for easier mass processing), use the widest possible gamut when you start for maximum flexibility. In this case, that means Adobe RGB. If your camera offers the Pro Photo color space, that is even wider so choose that if available. However, the best answer is to shoot in raw, and then specify your color space during post production.

2. What is the difference between full frame sensors and cropped sensors?

A: Full frame are built to mirror the traditional size of 35mm film, so the mirror is 24x36mm

3. What does “Bulb” mode mean on your camera dial?

A: The term “bulb” is a carryover from days of film when flashbulbs would have to be triggered manually after the shutter was opened but before it was closed. The process was to open the shutter, fire the flash, then close the shutter. Since advances in technology now allow us to fire flashes automatically as the shutter is also tripped, we no longer need to manually actuate the shutter in order to allow a flash to fire. However, we still may want to manually control how long the shutter stays open, so that feature persists.

4. What’s the difference between Lightroom and Photoshop?

A: I get this question a lot. At a fundamental level, Photoshop could be considered a pixel-based image editor where you have the ability to alter or edit the actual pixels of the image. Lightroom, on the other hand, is a vector-based editor where the information does not alter or edit the actual pixels. Lightroom would be considered more of a photo management software tool. While the latest developments have incorporated more features of photo editing in addition to the management tools, at its basic level, Lightroom is still a vector-based program, where changes are not made to the actual image, but to how vector based criteria are applied to the image.

5. What’s the difference between metadata and exif data?

A: Not much. When we talk about one set of data in this capacity the two terms are often used interchangeably. However, if you want to get technical, exif data refers to information about the shot such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO settings, camera body, etc. while meta data is more about other information like photographer name, location of photo, image editor used, tags that are applied for searchability, copyright information and other information that can be inserted into the tag fields for images.

6. What is geo-tagging?

A: Geo-tagging refers to adding the geographic location information to your photos, usually as a set of meta data tags. This practice has become more commonplace as GPS (global positioning system) units have come down in price and both hardware and software have seen developments where the information can be applied to images either directly in camera (from a GPs unit that is attached to the camera), or where it can be added afterward via special software programs.

7. What is sync-speed?

A: Sync speed refers to the fast shutter speed you can set your camera to and not get the typical black bars from the shutter closing before the flash is finished firing. Typically the sync speed is 1/250^th of a second, but with the development of high-speed sync, this traditional rule of thumb will likely become rapidly obsolete.

8. What color space should I save to?

A: Another very common question – and the answer does depend on how you will be outputting your images. Because most web browsers are not color-space aware, they will default to the web norm of sRGB as it has the narrowest color space. So, if your output is to the web, sRGB is your best bet. If you are outputting to a printed version though, Adobe RGB is the best option. More and more though, as printers are able to print to wider gamuts, Pro Photo is becoming more feasible as well. However you plan to output your images though, it’s always best to work in a color-calibrated environment, so make sure you calibrate your monitors and printer profiles for consistency!

9. Which is better, APS-C, CMOS or full-frame sensors?

A: None of these sensor types are inherently better than any other – but they serve different purposes. The full frame sensor is the digital equivalent of a single frame of 35mm film (although technically it is just a smidge smaller). An APS-C sensor is often referred to as a crop-sensor and generally has a crop factor ratio of either 1.5 or 1.6 depending on the vendor. APS-C stands for Advanced Photo System, type C and is just one of several different ways of building crop factor sensors. Other ways include the CMOS sensor and the CCD sensors (which mean Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor and Charge Coupled Device, respectively). The differences here are more in the manufacturing process, and really are technical considerations that most photographers shouldn’t even worry about. The only difference that 99% of photographers need to concern themselves with is whether they want to shoot full frame (where one substantial benefit is that due to the lack of a crop factor on their lenses, so wide angle lenses are really that wide) or on a cropped sensor (where one benefit is that zooms have an effectively longer zoom). Analyzing past this level is really something beyond the scope of most photography. With the differences explained you can hopefully see that one is not inherently better or worse than another – just that there are pros and cons for each, and those must be weighed against your needs.

If anyone has any questions that are not covered here, feel free to email or comment. Thanks for all your continued support. As always, happy shooting and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!

Experimenting with Photomatix and HDR

April 20, 2009 Jason7 Comments

For a while now I’ve been meaning to devote some time to experimenting with HDR – specifically comparing Photomatix and Photoshop in their production of HDR photographs. The industry preference toward the former is there for a very good reason. Photomatix produces much better results. Just look at this final shot (be sure to click the image for a larger view – the blog restrictions on size really don’t do it justice):

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I did do some additional post processing work even after the HDR processing to get the above results. But Photomatix was superior for a number of reasons. For starters – Photomatix gives you options in what type of output you want. Here are the two results, side-by-side, that I got from Photomatix:

sidebyside

The first was the result of processing from the Tone Compressor tab and the latter of Details Enhancer tab processing. As you can see, the first produced a smoother sky, but left the foreground a little flat, while the latter had more texture and, well… dynamic range to it. So, I decided to go with the latter in my post processing. The Photoshop alternative, however, produced something even less desirable than either of the above. Take a look:

ps_hdr

Not only are the luminosity levels less interesting, but there’s literally no tone curve application. No color, no tone curve mapping, and decidedly no interest when you consider the options from Photomatix. I am in the process of putting together a tutorial of how I got the final result, so be on the lookout for that in the next few days. In the meantime though, I’d like to take a moment to say “Thanks” to fellow NAPP member, Elizabeth Gast (a.k.a. Firgs,) for the kind thoughts she has over on her blog – Design by Firgs – where she talks up a shot I took a while ago that is premiering on hew new series “Accidentally Awesome” today, so be sure to stop over there and give her a shout-out! Until tomorrow – Happy Shooting!

No Trumpts, No Fanfare, Nada

April 15, 2009 Jason2 Comments

As I was sorting through the CB archives for some content to update for todays post, it dawned on me that I blew right past post #400 without even a mention of thanks to anyone. So, at post #411 (see, I really blew right past it), let me take a moment to give some belated thanks to the listening and reading audience for the past two plus years…

Your comments, feedback, emails, insights and thoughtful notes over this time have been very helpful and motivating in keeping the ball rolling, often through some rather tedious times. I’ve had people share efforts to increase visibility through iTunes reviews, Digg promos, generous donations for offsetting bandwidth, Tweets and Re-tweets, pretty much the whole schmear! It truly is humbling to see the amount of support I have received in this continuing journey, and today I would just like to say:

THANKS!

Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!