Sunday, September 25, 2016

Canon 5D Mk IV field trip


Images In Light: Latest Work &emdash; Little Tahoma
Canon 5D Mk IV, EF 70-200 f/4 L IS, f/7.1, 135mm, 1/5 sec 

So far so good with the 5D Mk IV, finally got to take it out for a shoot, even though the conditions weren't ideal, I made the trip down to Mt Rainier. Though the Mountain wasn't in full view I was treated to some nice views of Little Tahoma, clouds swirled around its peak and I tried out the built in intervoltometer, its nice to have that feature built in now, instead of having to dig in to my bag for my remote. The 30 mp is ideal for the extra room to crop and the dynamic range is really exceptional. It renders black and white very nicely, less artifacts in the sky when you push the blue channel. Clouds are rendered especially well with the new sensor, a great subject to test a camera on.


Images In Light: Seattlescapes &emdash;

Canon 5D Mk IV, EF 70-200 f/4 L IS, f/11, 121mm, 1/80 sec

The shot from Kerry park is one of my favorite places to shoot a cityscape and an excellent place to test a camera, I know it so well I can easily judge a cameras IQ when shooting here. Colors are the same Canon colors I've come to love. The detail in these images is quit amazing.

Lightroom 6.7 was released last week which supports the 5D Mk IV, quick work by Adobe. File sizes are quite large and it does take a bit more time to download from my CF card. However that's not a big issue compared to the whole process.

For both of these images I used Live View with the touch screen controle. Live view is something Canon is very good with and implementing the touch screen feature makes it almost seamless. Metering is as usual, excellent, especially with live view.

Shadow noise is what every one wants to know about, so far I'm very pleased, no more color noise or banding in shadows, noise that does appear after pushing shadows is very fine grained and un-obtrusive. Canon  has done a great job on this new sensor and I'm very pleased with the results so far. Further review of the 5D Mk IV will be upcoming. Stay tuned.

Ross

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Sony A99 II

SLR Lounge hands on here

Sony keeps pushing the technological boundaries in the camera world and the A99 II is next. Will they be able to maintain two lines of full frame cameras? only if they both sell well, that would be my only fear with this system. The camera looks very nice, well specked and will make Sony fans very happy. They are leading the technology race, which is great for all of us, it pushes the other camera makers to make improvements. I don't know what we'd do without the likes of Sony and Fuji, my money is on Fuji though, I prefer their lens line up and ergonomics, something Sony is still lacking.

Key Specs:
  • 42.4 mp full frame Exmor R CMOS Sensor
  • 79 hybrid cross AF points
  • 12 fps
  • 4D Focus
  • 5 axis stabilization 



DPReview here

Ross

Images In Light

Monday, September 19, 2016

Fuji Medium Format GFX 50S





Hotshoe view finder

With Grip


Today Fuji announce the development of their medium format entry, the GFX 50S a 51.4mp, 43.8mm x 32.8mm. Compared to the 36 x 24 of a full frame 35mm camera.

Along with the camera they are dropping 3 lenses: The GF 63mm F2.8 R WR, the GF32-64mm F4R LM WR and the GF 120mm F4 Macro. And later in 2017 the GF23mm F4 R LM WR, the GF110mm F2  and the GF45mm F2.8 R WR.

 GF32-64 f/4R LM WR

Fuji has been in medium format for decades, but this will be their first digital body, they built film bodies and design and build digital lenses for Hasselblad, this is what they are good at and this is what a lot of high end photographers have been waiting for, its rumored to come in well under $10000, thats a lot, but, its a lot less than Phase One and Hasselblad sell for and less the the Pentax 645Z.

Fuji says its an all new sensor, but I think that means its a modified Sony sensor as in the Pentax 645z and the Hasselblad X1D, we'll see soon enough, but it will still be six months until this camera reaches anyone.  And no it's not XTrans, its a standard Bayer sensor.

All of a sudden medium format looks competitive and very interesting. Stay tuned, I will be following this one closely.

Fuji site here 

Fuji interview with DPReview here

DPReview hands on here

More Fuji news here

Images In Light

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Canon EOS M5 announced



 Canon announce the EOS M5, their next iteration of the M series.

Key Specs:
  • 24MP  Sensor
  • 2.36M-dot OLED EVF
  • 1.62M-dot tilting touchscreen
  • Electronic video stabilization combines with in-lens IS to give 5-axis IS
  • 7 fps
  • Wi-Fi with always-connected Bluetooth
  • ISO 100-25600
Big issue for me here is the lack of fast native lenses, if Canon would add those I would get this in a second, it will be a great camera for enthusiasts, I'm sure the images will be great. I can only assume Canon is waiting for the market.

I can't help but be disappointed with this announcement because of the lack of good native lenses, even a third party lens would be helpful here. 

This is where Fuji took the chance and designed a fast Lens lineup and great full featured cameras to go along with them, my money will be invested in an XT-2 and a few of their fast lenses. 



DPReview here

Ross

Images In Light

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Fall color this year

 Find out where and when to photograph fall color in your part of the country at Smokymountain.com
They have put together a very interesting interactive map for the whole of the US.

Ross

Images In Light

Saturday, September 3, 2016

Recent Black and White Conversions


Images In Light: Latest Work &emdash; Old Man of Storr (BW)

The Old Man of Storr
converted with Capture One Pro

Images In Light: Latest Work &emdash; Horse Tail Falls

Horse Tail Falls, Yosemite National Park
converted with Lightroom

Images In Light: Latest Work &emdash; Rocks

 The Alabama Hills, Eastern Sierra
converted with Lightroom

I am currently trying to asses Capture One Pro to determine if it can replace Lightroom 6, pretty soon Lightroom will be a cloud based subscription model only and I don't want to go that route. I don't want another monthly bill and then end up with nothing to show for it if I stop. Thats where the difference is with Lightroom CC. So far I am liking what I see with Capture one Pro. It may even work better in some ways, I need a little more time with it to see if it would really work with my post flow.

Ross