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Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Crikey, that’s a bit of a mouth full of blog title. Read on, the post is not as onerous as the title!
A fantastic, good fun and great looking wedding party, Kaikoura scenery and a Ford Thunderbird, now just how good can it get. Cars are a cool wedding accessory, especially when they have some attitude. Classic and red always works and I’m lucky to get more than my share of kick ass wedding cars at wedding days. This weekend was the usual weekend treat. The wedding party were great fun, there were a few of them though and I had to do a quick head count each time before setting into a group shoot! The great thing about a large wedding party is that there is always someone coming up with an inspirational crazy fun idea for us to photograph and the ideas kept on coming this weekend and we soon ran out of time.
Canon 7D review update.
My Canon 7D has had a good shake down now, shot many thousands of images, been used every day since I took delivery and displaced the 1 series Canons that I have in my arsenal. My faithful 1DsII has come back from the Canon hospital with a brand new shutter, I’ve used it for one job but it’s big and heavy, the AF isn’t as snappy as the 7D. There always seems to be dust on the sensor no matter how often I get it cleaned and although the files are always crisp and clean and colour accurate, for the work I do the 7D files are perfect and I’m going to have this damned thing worn out in no time at all.
With my style of photography I choose to shoot in manual mode all the time which means I cannot comment on the metering capabilities of the 7D.
I’ve shot several hundred portrait shots with studio light in jpeg and found the histogram to be accurate for good file results.
I’ve used the 7D for weddings since I got it and I’m loving it.
Why I like the 7D for wedding photography.
Mostly for the reasons I outlined in the first review, but to reiterate:
Ergonomics and handling, including the weight compared to a 1 series Canon.
Big, bright viewfinder.
Snappy AF, works great in low light and with a Speed light is brilliant.
Performance (shoot rate)
Canon 7D workflow
There still seems to be some hiccups with the 7D workflow.
The Canon supplied software is not really an option for a professional workflow, although it produces quite nice files it is too clunky and slow for high volume use.
My 7D workflow at the moment goes like this;
Photo Mechanic for ingestion, selection, file naming, IPTC and Ex if meta-data.
RAW Developer for processing of RAW files to JPG usable files.
Adobe LightRoom for fast cropping, applying effects and cataloguing files.
Photoshop for any major editing or effects.
I convert all files to jpg with an sRGB profile straight from the RAW file unless it is some super duper image that I want to do a heap of work to. It is pointless to clutter your system with huge tiff files with Adobe RGB files when 99% of the worlds printers do a perfect job of printing with an sRGB profile and a jpg file with a compression of around 10.
In conclusion
Isn’t it so cool to every day be able to use the most amazing, cutting edge technology that mankind has devised! When I look back 10 short years to using film cameras compared to the most incredible technology and image quality we now have available I have to think that everything is just so perfect and how can we ever complain about the shortcomings of the amazing equipment we have.
And now – what you’ve been waiting for, the good looking people!
Thanks Guys for sharing your day with me and for all the laughs and great times.
And the links you need -
Carrie’s amazing flowers
Juanita’s stylish Pottery and Accommodation
Donegal wedding venue
The man with the Thunderbird
If you need or want a Canon 7D
Need Kick Ass wedding photography – Oops you’re already there!
Posted in Photography, Wedding | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
I took delivery of a 7D early last week, the timing was perfect as my 1DsMKII went off to the Canon workshops for it’s second shutter replacement, the current one lasting not very long! That’s another story and we won’t even go there at the moment.
I had a keen interest in the 7D as soon as I heard the rumours of it’s upcoming release, seems Canon had decided to up the ante on their prosumer range of gear and the features list seemed worth having a look at. I put my order in with the good folk at Photo & Video and got a pleasant surprise when they rang me in the first week of October to say the shipment had arrived.
The obligatory glance through the manual while having my 3rd flat white on the morning the camera was dropped off by the courier, then I plugged on a lens and set it to work. Well, not really work, a couple of days of sorting it out which could have been one day if I had read the manual properly in the first place.
There’s a lot of new and useful technology in the 7D and you need to read the book to make the best of it.
A week has now gone by since it arrived and I’ve now had a chance to test the 7D in the rigours of a wedding day. I did all the shooting for the day with the 7D except for the ceremony when I had two camera/lens combinations on the go.
So.. what’s to like with the 7D.
Handling/ergonomics
Out of the box the 7D feels nice. It almost feels like a 1 series build with a solid feel and nice grippy textured rubber in all the right places. The finger and thumb positioning is perfect for my (average size) hands, all the buttons are well placed and after one week I can operate the camera easily without second guessing any of the controls.
After a few years of using 1 series canons I am well used to the bulk of a battery booster and like the balance and handling they give to the camera, I have my order in for a booster for the 7D.
Viewfinder/focus
The first time you look through the viewfinder on the 7D you hardly know where to look, it’s big, bright and beautiful. Can be set to display a grid and electronic level, perfect for folk like myself who don’t know straight from crooked.
The Auto focus is impressive with 19 points and selectable focus zones. Very fast and seems accurate.
Shooting speed
The 7d is a race horse with a shoot speed of 8 frames per second and a burst buffer of 126 jpgs or 15 RAW images. That’s faster than I’m going to need for most of my photography but very useful for when I get out for a bird or wildlife shoot.
Wireless flash control
I’m loving this and used it several times on jobs in the last week. Speedlights can be run wirelessly from the camera. Just set the Speedlights to slave mode and go wild either in ETTL or Manual with ratios and all settings done remotely from the camera. Set your flash to 1/2 power manual and it magically is set and fires as commanded. I’ve used it for interior real estate shoots and it works great, seems to be reliable indoors where there are plenty of places for the infared to bounce and trigger the flash but haven’t tested it outdoors yet.
ISO
ISO 12800! Don’t know how useful that can be but I’ve made a 1/2 second exposure at f4.0 of my back lawn in the pitch dark and can see my kids’s pet rabbits in their cage. There is a fair bit of noise happening but it is still an image. Using the camera at ISO 1600 seems to make very usable and not over noisy files.
Any problems?
Nothing major. I shot a set of images with 70 – 200 2.8 lens wide open and none of them were focused. They looked fine on the 7D LCD but they were trash when I ingested them. Of course they happened to be the first images I looked at and I had a major flip out when it crossed my mind I had shot a whole day of unfocused images. I did a focus test on the 70 -200 and it was miles out for some reason. They were the only images I shot with the lens full open all day luckily, a reminder to test gear before setting into a job. Did an AF micro adjustment on the lens and it is focusing sweet. Tested my other lenses and they were all good.
I’ve always been a bit suspect about Hi resolution APS-C sensor cameras after using 1 series Canons with their huge sensors, big pixels and low noise. The 7D files do have a different look than I am used to with a little more noise, not unpleasant it’s almost like a film grain. The next project is to sort out a RAW processing workflow that makes things look nice. Lightroom or ACR are working in beta but the results did not seem too impressive. I guess shooting JPG would solve a lot of problems but I always end up going back to RAW because I enjoy it.
RAW developer turned out to be the trick. It’s a good grunty RAW processor made by a proactive developer who already has it tweaked for 7D files.
And the verdict…
Liking it! It handles nice, the performance is good, image quality is looking good – I’m looking forward to a long and productive summer with this peice of gear.
And there’s the video to check out yet!
Gallery of good looking people – images made with Canon 7D
And a couple of useful links;
Photo & Video – Kick Ass camera suppliers
Check focus on your DSLR
Seriously serious RAW processor
Posted in Equipment, Wedding | 2 Comments »
Monday, August 10th, 2009
With the release of OS Version 3.0 the iPod Touch and iPhone now have a ton of useful apps. An iPod is almost an essential tool for contacts, calendars, to do lists, time logging, the odd game and music too!
There are some great photography specific apps also and I noticed a new release called iDataBack a few days ago and thought it worth a look. The idea is you use this app to record your data when you’re shooting with your film camera. I enjoy shooting a bit of film, it’s like my day-off photography – a little bit of indulgence. Sometimes I’ll revisit something I saw and re shoot it with film and other times I’ll head off on a film shoot expedition. Doesn’t matter what film, I’m not fussy about what goes in the camera and it can be slide or print, pro or chemist shop, the camera doesn’t seem to mind either.
Film shoot fun
iDataBack is like carrying your notebook with you but with the convenience of being quick and accurate to log your shoot data. My first impression was there in no instructions, I soon realised it’s so simple you don’t need any.
First you make an entry for your new film.
For each frame add your exposure data and add a remark if you desire.
Input of settings is quick and easy.
When your film is full, email the data to yourself.
All seems good, so how did it work on the job?
First I will say this app is a great idea and has a ton of potential for people like myself who don’t mind phaffing around with gadgets and find pushing buttons quicker than pencil and paper. It is also far quicker and more accurate than writing. Film shooting is a lot more methodical for me now than it was pre digital, every shot is planned and carefully captured and if I’m not using iDataback I’m going to be writing capture info in a notebook anyway. But, it feels like version 1.0 software and I really hope the developer intends to carry on with the job to make it a great bit of software.
So what’s good about iDataBack.
Great idea!
Quick data input.
Auto date stamp at entry time.
Auto frame count.
It’s a dairy of your film shoots.
Entry field for remarks about capture.
Easy export for data use or print. Input data into scanned files or print and store with negs.
..And why iDataBack falls short of the job.
Instructions, or at least an introduction or developer name. Maybe even a splash screen at startup.
Need preferences to set input to full, 1/2 or 1/3 stop settings on Aperture and Shutter.
Could have a lens info data field.
Input settings should default to last used setting instead of 1/60 and F/4 each time or have a preference for default.
Export data should be be more IPTC friendly. Maybe choice of export format would be useful.
Seems to be a bug in remarks input where it is stuck on numeric keyboard sometimes.
Remarks don’t get included in email export of data.
So the conclusion is.
It annoys me when developers have good ideas like this but release their goods half cocked. This software has great potential for folk who love to shoot film and like to integrate some data into the analogue workflow for later file handling.
I only hope the software writer doesn’t think he’s done with his great idea. I’ll use it because I think it is very useful even as is, if it can be developed as suggested it will be super duper!
UPDATE!
iDataBack has had a major rework, all the features I dreamed would be great are now implemented and it is one very useful app for film shooters. Nice work.
I will write an updated review soon as I get some time.
Posted in Equipment | 2 Comments »
