Memories are important

One of the things that's keeps me taking photos of people is the thought that one day that memory will be important.

I've had two occasions in the last week that have reminded me of this.

1. My youngest daughter turned 18 so it fell to me to put together a slideshow of her first 18 years for use at her party. As I am putting this together I'm reminded of the many occasions where I didn't take pictures and could have.

2. One of my very good mates died last week, the funeral was yesterday. Cancer took him far too early. As far a funerals go this was one of the most uplifting I have been to. During his last months we spent a bit of time together and because of our mutual interest in photography we often had our cameras. I regret not taking more photos of him. It's not a very blokey thing to do - taking pictures of your mates. But from this vantage point that was a short sighted perspective - He was much loved and will be missed. Photos are helpful in revitalising memories and grieving well for those who have passed.

So don't be shy - take your camera, use it and store up memories of your loved ones.

I also gained a new appreciation for the face recognition features of Aperture. It was useful to be able to quickly find photos for use in celebrating his life.

There's a good article on this topic on DPS today.

Composition - Use your eyes there is always a photo to take.

Yesterday I needed to get the car washed - It was the first sunny day we had had for what felt like a month and the car needed it.

So with a long queue at the car wash and 40mins to kill I dropped the car off. Fortunately I had the 1D-X and our new Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L IS Mk II clipped in.

The car wash is at the end of a light industrial area that is uninteresting and bordering on neglect but I have learned that there is a photo in every location. Just open your eyes and use your imagination.

I thought I'd walk over the the railway line to get some passing trains, graffiti and whatever else I came across.

Now don't get me wrong - I took about 80 shots and only kept 18 so there was plenty experimentation.

But this shot is my favorite:

Yes there has been a little post processing:

Dropping saturation and reducing exposure on the left side as well as sharpening the prickles and the flower. Extra blur around flower.

But the composition is straight off the camera.

Here are few of the other keepers.

1D-X AF Tracking - Model Plane photography

A mate of mine asked me to go with him to take some pics of a model plane in flight he was doing a review of.

So grabbed the 1D-X and set off in his car. He is a professional photographer so I asked him what setup he would use for this.

400 ISO Shutter Priority set to 1/500th Evaluative Metering. The 1/500th speed was to stop the plane but still showing some motion in the propeller.

Sun was low in the sky so the plan was for some low passes with the sun behind us.

The Model is a BF109 whatever that is. Look it up.

I set the AF to AI Servo.

The 1D-X was attached to a Canon 100-400m L IS F4-5.6. It was the first time out with this combination and I immediately noticed the loss of the 1.6 crop factor from the 7D.

Also set the camera for high speed burst and we are ready to roll.

The thing with Model Plane photography is to try and photograph the model in life like situations. These models are "scale" so you are trying to simulate some realism in the shoot.

Not that easy when these things are buzzing around so fast.

The verdict? The AI Servo on the 1D-X works very well. Its fair to say that this job wasn't an extreme test for the AI Servo mode I shot over 200 frames and most of them were acceptable. With 55 of them printable.

Here's a few of the best.

1D-X Firmware Upgrade 1.0.6. Installed

Canon issued a firmware upgrade for the 1D-X on August 28, 2012.

http://www.canon.com.au/Support-Services/Support-News/Firmware-Updates/EOS-1DX-Firmware-Update

The upgrade fixes:

1. A bug that stopped some micro adjustments being saved.
2. Some back focusing issues when used with some lenses.
3. The Error 80 Issue.
4. A problem with the dual CF cards when one is pulled out and reinserted.
5. A bug where micro adjustments are not recorded properly in the EXIF data.
6. or adds a feature that displays a "O" or "X" to indicate a file transfer working using WiFi FTP.

No problems upgrading. Need to check any improvement with the focusing.

Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS L v 70-200mm f2.8 IS II L + 2x Extender III

Just picked up a new Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS L II Lens and was keen to try it out with the Canon EF 2x Extender III.

First things first.

1. It fits. Some have suggested the extender doesn't fit this lens. It does.
2. The AF works fine on the 1D-X body. Unlike using the extender with the 100-400mm L Lens the AF works fine on the 70-200 its quick and sharp. I tried it on the 7D and can confirm the AF is a lot slower - It does a lot more hunting for focus.

So what about image quality?

Here's the 100-400 at 400mm ISO 800 and 1/6 sec f5.6

Here's the 70-200 at 200x2 = 400mm ISO 800 and 1/5 sec f5.6 (The extender reduces the aperture by 2 stops)

Hard to pick the difference.

Here are 2 shots on a tripod at 100% crop this time shooting at ISO 100 1/250 with a speedlite.

The 100-400

The 70-200 with 2x Extender

The 70-200mm with extender doesn't look as sharp as the 100-400mm? But wait.

You will notice the images cover the same area of the map yet one is smaller than the other. The camera body sits closer to the subject when the 100-400mm is being used on the tripod because the tripod foot on the lens sits closer to the body of the camera. The 2x Extender has the effect of putting a spacer between the back of the lens and the camera - pushing the body back. This wouldn't have been the case if I had fixed the tripod plate to the body rather than the lens foot.

So lets do that again. This time the Body is fixed to the Tripod.

100-400mm

 70-200mm + 2x Extender

Can't split them?

Here's a 200% crop side by side. the 100-400mm is on the left. The 70-200mm + 2x Extender is on the right.

So the 70-200mm with 2x Extender on the 1D-X could replace the 100-400mm at full zoom. The downside with that setup is that 250mm the 100-400 is at f5.0 where as at 125mm 2x = 250mm the 70-200mm with 2x Extender will be at f5.6 - Admittedly not a big sacrifice if you can't afford the 2 lenses.

I will be keeping my 100-400mm for now. With the 2x Extender on that I get a 200-800mm Lens and on the 7D (Although I have to use Manual Focus or Live View AF) I get a whopping 1280mm. Even at f11 this is a very credible and affordable Super Telephoto option.

1D-X Low light high ISO Performance

My daughter had the annual "Battle Of The Bands" school house competition today. The venue was a local church.

There was no natural light and the stage background was a black curtain.

Being a school event I had been to before I knew there could be no wandering around with the camera. So I would confined to the back of the auditorium with my trusty Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L Series lens. Not the fastest lens in my kit but I was going to need the reach.

Last time I shot this with my 7D at ISO 6400. At that time the lighting was brighter and the stage had a white background.

I got there on time and found a slightly elevated seat in the back. A few test shot showed me there was no way I could get the shutter fast enough at 6400 so I bumped the 1D-X up to ISO 10,000. The IS on the 100-400mm lets me get away with a slightly slower shutter than might otherwise be possible with handheld shots. So I switched to TV (Shutter Speed Priority) set the shutter to 1/320 and shot off over 200 frames.

Most shots were under exposed but I was happy with that look.

The low light performance of this camera is awesome. I used no extra noise reduction in PP (Post Processing) and only a few tweaks. What you see in the photo and link below is close to straight off the camera.

All shot at 10,000 ISO, 1/320 Full Zoom (400mm) [Edit: The shot below was taken at 260mm] so f5.6 in very low light.

Here's the best shot. And the link below is to the best 4 pics of the day.



Link Here

New Domain - vitamirus.me

I've continued the journey increasing my brand today by registering a domain in the vitamirus name so I've setup this to go straight to to my smugmug homepage.

Its a nice feature of smugmug that they allow you to use your own domain.

so try www.vitamirus.me

And thanks to Crazy Domains for a very efficient registration service.