Category Archives: Photography

Auto-focusing a Canon EF 135mm f/2L with the Sigma MC-21 on a Panasonic S5 II

When I searched myself before getting the Sigma MC-21 EF adapter I didn’t find much information on using this particular combination, so I thought I’d report my findings. This is not a scientific test, just my impressions after using it for a while, and comparing it subjectively to a 5D mark IV. I’ve also tried it out on the original S5.

In short – it works fairly well in photo mode on the S5 II, but not as quickly as a 5D, and you should use continuous AF mode to avoid contrast-detect AF. It is basically unusable on the original S5 and thus the S1, S1H and all micro four thirds models older than the G9 mark II.

For video I wouldn’t consider it usable outside of a controlled environment – it’s too noisy and slow, and I couldn’t get it to work as well as it does in photo mode with continuous AF (C-AF).

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A Note on Ultrawide Micro Four Thirds lenses

When digital APS-C cameras started appearing on the market in the early 2000s, conventional wisdom was that you needed film (or full frame) for wide angle work. In that environment this made sense – almost all lenses were made for full frame, which meant a crop factor when put on an APS-C body. Thus to get the widest possible image from a lens, you needed a full frame sensor.

This changed when the Canon 10-22mm and other wide lenses with an APS-C-sized image circle were released, as these are much wider without being ridiculously large. So if you still think full frame is better for wide angle, please think again. Other than the natural resolution and high-ISO advantages of the sensor, there is nothing inherently superior about full-frame cameras for wide-angle work, and wide-angle DSLR lenses in particular have a substantial disadvantage to mirrorless when it comes to size.

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Canon EOS – From 40D to 70D

It was time to upgrade. The 40D has been a trooper, but it hasn’t seen much use recently. Whether it’s the inconvenience of its compact flash memory cards, or just sheer size and weight, I have seldom felt the need to travel with it.

The 40D was released 8 years ago in 2007, which is a very long time in technology. I bought mine at the start of 2009, just after the release of the 50D, which carried a 30% price premium over the older model. I’ve never regretted my decision to go with the 40D, and I’ve had over 30,000 shutter actuations out of it, most of those with my favourite lens – a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM. Now days, you can get a much cheaper 10-18mm lens which is slower (f/4.5-5.6), but has a STM motor and image stabilisation, making it much better for video. If you don’t already have an ultra-wide angle lens, seriously, get this one.

In the past year though, I’ve probably shot less than 100 frames with the 40D, favouring a much smaller Panasonic GX1 with a Samyang 7.5mm fish-eye and the excellent 20mm f/1.7 pancake. These lenses are as sharp as they are useful, but when using the little GX1 I don’t really feel like I’m “doing photography”. The experience is that of using a point & shoot, but the pictures I can take with it are almost as good as the 40D (better in low light with the f/1.7 pancake actually). Lugging the SLR doesn’t really make sense.

Looking through some of my old photos recently made me realise how much I miss the Canon 10-22mm lens. The fish-eye is fun, and even has a wider field of view, but images from rectilinear lenses afford more creative flexibility in my opinion; the fish-eye look is distinctive, and not one you really want to characterise all your images. Continue reading

Christchurch

Nostalgia is a wonderful experience. Visiting an old city, seeing old friends, visiting old bars, shops, and reliving the moments is an experience to be treasured. With Christchurch, we have been deprived.

I visited a full 3 years after the most devastating quake (February 22nd, 2011). In that time, much of the rubble has been cleared, and the city is starting to rebuild. But it was shocking just how much of the condemned old city remains, so long after the event.

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Homecoming

One thousand three hundred and thirty days.

That’s how long I’d been away from New Zealand, and how long since I’d seen my family in person.  But really, it didn’t feel that long.  Regular Skype contact and Facebook updates mean that keeping in touch with friends and family on the opposite side of the world is easier than it used to be.

Still, it’s a long time between drinks, and it’s surprising what’s changed.

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The GX1 is a veritable bargain

Just picked one of these up at the airport on the way through. They have been going for around £350 for the GX1 body and 14-42mm Vario lens, or £330 with the standard 14-42mm lens. Originally an £800 kit, the discount is because Panasonic is clearing inventory to make way for the GX7, which looks amazing by the way. Far from 2.5x the price amazing however.

GX1

The Sony RX100 and Fuji X100S were also on my radar. The RX100 is a great camera and much more compact than the GX1, but it has a much smaller sensor and is still twice the price at around £600. The only snag is that I’m going to have to spend another £200 on a prime to exceed the low-light performance of the RX100, but the result is a more capable kit, and it’s still £100 cheaper!

I also made the mistake of handling the Fuji X100S. It was a mistake because it almost cost me £900, but I quickly realised this and put it down before I could get more attached! That is one sexy piece of kit, and is in a different league IQ and interface wise. I would LOVE one, but at nearly £1000 (!), it’s hard to justify with the GX1 being such a bargain.

The GX1 won’t replace my SLR (no affordable wide angle lens), or my old Canon S90 (not quite pocketable). But it is much much less of a burden to carry than an SLR, will go many places the SLR wouldn’t. I shall be putting it to good use while in Amsterdam!

5 tips on travelling with a wide-angle lens

Three years ago, on a bit of a whim, I bought a Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens. The action was probably symptomatic of Gear Acquisition Syndrome, but I’ve fortunately managed to keep it under control since – I’m still using the same set of lenses I bought around that time!
Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

It was a pricey item, and to this day I don’t really know what possessed me to spend such a sum on a piece of glass that I didn’t really know how to use. What’s more, I wasn’t sure I’d use it regularly. But all the pictures in this article were taken with it, and these days it hardly leaves the camera.

Others have asked me about wide angle photography, and I’ve even loaned my 10-22 out a couple of times, so I thought it was about time I put down some words about traveling with a wide angle lens.

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Photo workflow script

After trying several photo management tools I’ve concluded that the best way to manage a photo library is the simplest – copy the files yourself and name the directory.

I also often shoot in RAW+JPG mode on my camera and like to keep the files separate to make viewing saner, so under each event directory I will have a RAW and JPG directory as well.

After downloading, the first step is always to delete the photos that didn’t come out. With both raw and jpeg files to delete this process is a bit of a pain, especially when they’re in separate directories, so I wrote a script that deletes the raw file when the jpg is missing. That way I can simply browse through the JPG directory with Eye of Gnome, delete the photos I don’t want, and the script handles cleanup of the RAW directory.

https://github.com/al4/scripts/blob/master/bash/rawdel.sh

The code is below but you should use the github link above in case it gets improved at some point in the future.

[shell]
#!/bin/bash

# rawdel.sh, a photo workflow script to delete raw files when the jpg has been removed
# By Alex Forbes
#
# I frequently shoot in RAW+JPG mode and when downloading from the camera I like to separate
# the raw and jpg files into separate directories. I then go through the jpg directory and
# delete the rejects. It is a pain to have to manually delete the corresponding raw files as
# well, so I wrote a script to do it for me.
#
# It simply removes RAW files from a directory when the corresponding JPG file has been removed.

# Set these
rawextn=”CR2″ # raw file extension (Canon is CR2)
rawdir=”./RAW” # directory where raw files reside
jpgdir=”./JPG” # directory where jpg files reside
# rawdir and jpgdir can be the same

# Working variables, leave as-is
list=”” # list of files that have been deleted
rawlist=”” # the list of raw files that we will delete
filecount=”” # number of files we will delete

# Operate on each raw file
for f in $(ls -1 $rawdir/*.$rawextn); do
# Corresponding JPG file is:
jpgfile=$(basename $f | sed “s/\.$rawextn$/.JPG/”)

# If this JPG file doesn’t exist
if [ ! -f $jpgdir/$jpgfile ]; then
# Add to our list of files that have been deleted
list=$(echo -e “${jpgfile} ${list}”)
fi
done

# Convert jpg filenames back to corresponding raw filenames
rawlist=$(echo ${list} | sed ‘s/\.JPG$/.CR2/g’)
filecount=$(echo -e ${rawlist}| awk ‘END{print NF}’)

if [ $filecount == 0 ]; then
echo “No files to delete”
exit 0
fi

echo -e “About to remove $filecount files:\n${rawlist}”
read -p “Continue? [Y/N] ” prompt

if [[ $prompt = “Y” || $prompt = “y” ]]; then
# Delete all files in the list
for f in ${rawlist}; do
rm -v $rawdir/$f
done
exit 0
else
echo -e “\nAborted.”
exit 1
fi
[/shell]

If you’re after a new camera …

… the Panasonic GF1 is quite a bargain at the moment at $990 NZD for the 14-45mm kit. In the UK it is just £329 (with £50 cashback), which at the current exchange rate is even cheaper.

The G1’s successor (G2) was recently released, which adds movie mode, a touch screen and a few minor improvements. When it comes to taking photos though, the two are almost indistinguishable.

The G2 however has an inferior kit lens (14-42mm, the better old one is 14-45mm), and costs $500 NZD more than the G1, which now costs about the same as the new “budget” model, the G10.

The G10 does have a basic movie mode, but loses the high resolution viewfinder and articulated screen. It too has the inferior 14-42mm lens, which in my view makes the G1 the better buy unless you absolutely must have movie mode. But if movie mode is important you really want a GH1 or G2 anyway (possibly GF1).

dpreview.com’s review of the G2 should tell you all you need to know. :)

Me though, I’ll be sticking with my 40D and Canon lens collection, plus the S90 for situations where a big camera is inconvenient (the S90 is by far the best compact I’ve ever used). I think the GF1 is the really interesting model in the Panasonic range as it realises the potential of the micro four thirds system – a big sensor in a small package. The problem however, is that a MFT (micro four thirds) camera can’t replace a compact because they’re all still too big to fit in a trouser pocket with a standard zoom.

I really don’t want to own 3 expensive cameras comprising two unique lens and accessory systems, so therefore a MFT camera would have to replace the DSLR. And the MFT system to date can not match the dynamic range and lens selection of the Canon EOS line. So for now I’ll stick with 40D + S90, with my most likely upgrade path to be a 5D MKII and/or 600D when the 40D starts to show its age (which it certainly isn’t yet).

The S90 may have cost a lot, at the time it was almost twice as much as a perfectly good compact like the Fuji F200EXR. But you’ll notice that its price hasn’t dropped at all since its introduction which to me indicates that demand is still high, and I think it was worth every penny.

So to put things in perspective, the S90 costs more than the G1 in the UK after the rebate, and if you don’t mind the larger size of the G1 it’s not difficult to see which is the better value!

Holiday Snaps

The holidays are over, I’m back to work but clearly the news reporters aren’t as stuff and the TV news are full of garbage. At least there’s photo processing to keep me occupied!

Through experimentation I’ve been learning a few tricks on processing raw photos with Canon’s Digital Photo professional – I won’t make the same mistake of promising an article on using it but it’s in the back of my mind…

Anyway here are a few photographic highlights:

Anchor

Foxdown Dusk

Wellington Waterfront