So we started preparing for the photoshoot with very little time available, talking about the location, wardrobe, makeup, etc. I gave my ideas and told the client what I needed and they basically took care of it. I love working with such clients. The photoshoot took place at Zanderij I, which is some sort of outdoor recreational resort here in Suriname. We decided that we had to arrive there very early in the morning to be able to work with the early morning light. Sadly, this meant that I had to get up at 3am in the morning to get prepared, something that I really hate doing. Somehow I actually managed to wake up at that time. Not only that, I seemed to have managed to step out of bed too, which, quite frankly, is incredible.

We arrived at the location around 7am. I had the opportunity to work with Euvie Karijoredjo again, who did the makeup, hair and styling. Euvie did a wonderful job once again, and having someone like her on the team really makes a difference. While she was busy preparing the model, I went for a stroll in the area to find some nice locations for making pictures. The view was incredible when we first arrived. The early morning sunlight and the fog created a very nice mood in the forest. I don’t have pictures of when we first arrived, but I do have some taken a bit later. Here are some snaps of the location:

Notice the fog in the air top left

If this was the view outside of my house, I'd probably enjoy waking up early

Tell me you don't feel like walking down this path?

Euvie very busy with the model

Dressing the nymph

For this shoot I used a Canon EOS 40D body (the only good DSLR Canon makes at the moment – 50D has too much noise and banding, 5D2 can’t autofocus reliably, 1D3 has various issues) with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens (which is outstanding). I also used a couple of Canon 580 EX II flashes with Canon’s wireless flash functionality using one 580 EX II on the 40D as the master. The wireless flash functionality worked surprisingly well outdoors, but I had to maintain line of sight between the master and the slaves all the time which is a bit limiting at times. Here are some test shots I took to test the lighting where you can see the position of the flashes during certain shots:

A test shot where you can see the positioning of the lighting

Another test shot with slightly different positions for the lights

"Don't mind the lights, I'm just testing something..."

Time flew during the photoshoot. We started working at around 8am and when I asked later what time it was, it was already 12 ‘o clock. We took a short break and wrapped up at around 1:30pm. I believe I took close to 1000 pictures. Not all are usable ofcourse since there was a lot of experimenting during the photoshoot and many things we tried didn’t work out as well as we thought it would. But we got what we went for and the client is very satisfied, fortunately. Here are some of the results:

Um..yeah.. the butterfly was really there... (click for larger view)

Rainforest Nymph (click for larger view)

Taking a bath (click for larger view)

And a final note: The model was incredible. Very pleasant to work with, and she was constantly posing from 7am to 12pm apparently without getting tired.

Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

And here are some more from my previous photoshoot:

Click for larger image.

Click for larger image.

Backgrounds were all added in post production. These are the results of simpel test photoshoots where neither I nor the model prepare for the shoot in advance. We don’t even have a makeup artist for the shoot, the models do their own makeup. For me it’s more about practice and getting to know the models before a more serious photoshoot, and if I get lucky more material for my portfolio.

No we can't

A while ago I wrote a post titled “Barack Obama: More of the same,” and in that post I basically described how Barack Obama was not going to bring any kind of change compared to what the former President Bush was already doing. At least, no positive change.

There’s a new documentary out by Alex Jones titled “The Obama Deception” (Download here) which I saw recently. If you haven’t yet seen it, take the time to watch it. In that documentary you’ll see what I described in my previous post about Obama, plus you’ll see how Obama is basically deceiving people on a large scale, and that in fact, nothing is changing at all and it’s just business as usual. You’ll see evidence of him lying, and doing the exact opposite of what he promised to do before he was elected. It’s just like I said before:

Don’t mind what he has been saying during his campaign. Talk is cheap. To win the election, it’s neccessary to give people hope and to tell them what they want to hear. His actual actions in the coming years are going to show you where he really stands. Obama wouldn’t even be a candidate and have so much support from corporations and especially the corporate media if they didn’t know beforehand that he would be protecting and supporting their interests, just like Bush has been doing the last 8 years. Interests of a small but powerful group of people. Remember, today the mere fact that a person is allowed to be running for president in the USA and has the approval of the corporate media and widely backed by corporations, means that he’s one of them. This has been the giveaway of the whole plot but few noticed.

And now, just a few months after his election, it is already very clear who’s interests Obama is looking after. After watching the documentary, leave a comment and let me know if you still have hope,  if you still think that “yes, we can,” and if you still think that “change has come to America.”

The Bride

I’ve recently had the opportunity to photograph my first wedding, and I have to say right from the start that it was a very nice experience. I’ve covered various events before in the past, so I have experience with event photography, but I have been wanting to do a wedding for a while now. Being the official photographer on a wedding brings a lot of responsibility along with it. For one thing, you are tasked with capturing the important moments during the wedding, a very important event for the couple involved, and providing them with pictures that will enable them to relive the day for years to come. You’ll have to deliver images that will tell the story of their wedding day to their kids, grandkids and other family members as best as possible. If you mess up, in the worst case, they have nothing.

And I have to admit that these ideas did make me nervous before and during the wedding, but I think that in the end it was a successful first wedding. I certainly am satisfied with the feedback I’ve received so far from people, including the couple and their family. It was a very nice experience, I’ve learned a lot, and it is very hard work, not only during the actual wedding but more so during the post processing of the images after the wedding. When you go through this, you start to understand why wedding photographers charge so much for their work.

The Groom

Apart from the fact that this was my first time covering a wedding, the wedding itself was also special because it was the wedding of a cousin of mine, Vashist Sewgobind. I’ve known Vashist since early childhood, and we’ve essentially grown up together, sharing the same friends, going to the same schools, sitting in the same classes etc. During this time Vashist was actually more a friend to me than a cousin. And they say that as you grow up, your surroundings play an important role in shaping you into the person that you become. This is very true if I look at the influence Vashist had on my life. The three things that I do today for a living, namely Software Engineering, Design and Photography, are all things that I got involved with because of Vashist. It was Vashist who one day took me to a computer training center years ago, where he was working part-time, and got me interested in the personal computer and software development. I didn’t feel like going that day and wasn’t very interested, but he insisted I go with him and after a tour where he took the time to patiently explain things to me, got me hooked for life. Now I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would look like today had I not gone with him that day.

It was Vashist who got me interested in graphics design and computer generated animations when he again took the time to show me the possibilities on the personal computer. And finally, I only got interested in photography, after Vashist was emailing me pictures that he was taking with his new digital camera and showing me some clever tricks that he was performing on them using Photoshop.

So when he approached me a few months ago to cover his wedding, one of the most important moments in his life, there was only one answer I could give him.

The wedding was a traditional Hindu wedding, and one thing you’ll notice is that it was very colorful. The equipment I used mostly are two Canon EOS 40D bodies with the EF 85mm f/1.2 L USM lens, the EF 24mm f/1.4 L USM lens and the EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens. All very light sensitive lenses and I mainly used available light during photography, which is the way I prefer to shoot. Walking around constantly with two 40D bodies and heavy lenses attached around my neck wasn’t easy on my back. In total I captured about 1700 images, of which only about 850 made it through the editing process. My friend Jimmy accompanied me on this first wedding with his own camera, as a backup to make sure that if I messed up, the damage could be kept to a minimum.

Below is a gallery with sample pictures from the wedding (Adobe Flash Player required).

So I invited my friend over for a test photoshoot. She’s not really a model, and she has no ambitions in that area (or so she says) and just decided to do it for fun. Overall I think the results were quite good, even though it was a test photoshoot and very little preparations went ahead of it. I usually do these tests with a model to get to know each other before actual work, and to explore the good angles to capture the model as best as possible.

She was very generous with her time, and brought over a lot of stuff to experiment with, and I am very grateful to have had this opportunity. She even did her own makeup . One thing that most people notice immediately, apart from her eyes, is that she has very beautiful hands and natural nails.

Below are a few pictures from the session.

Putting on makeup before the photoshoot

Sample Picture

This is one of my favorites

Here I turned on my.. uh.. smoke machine

Sample Picture

No comment

For the photo geeks and others who are interested, the equipment I used are the Canon EOS 40D body with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens. The resulting images were very sharp, and I am very satisfied with the quality given the technical limitations of the equipment (mostly the 40D in this case). Below are 100% crops of some of the images above to give you an idea, all with very little sharpening.

100% Crop

100% Crop

100% Crop

It isn’t surprising that Canon wanted to take the blog offline given the subjects that are often being discussed on the blog, namely the many issues with Canon’s recent products which I have also written about here. Their latest 21MP camera, the EOS 5D Mark II, got equiped with an AF system that seems to be seriously underperforming among other problems. Judging from the comments on the Fake Chuck blog, it’s everyone’s hope that Canon starts to acknowledge the problems and starts to deliver some quality products in the future.

After having written two posts about why the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is barely worth it (see the last one here), I have to take it a step up now and go ahead and say that the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is absolutely NOT worth it. Save your money for something better. Go get a Nikon D700 or something.

Seriously, do the research before you spend close to $3000 on a camera body that is seriously underperforming and has a lot of issues. You can start by reading this post of mine, which I have updated today as well. I am including the update to that post below. When you spend $3000 on a camera body, especially in the time we live in right now, quite frankly you should NOT have to worry about it working well or not while using it. We live in a time when $900 cameras can focus without issues, so why should you spend $3000 on a  camera that has focus issues? Yes, FOCUS issues. One of the most critical functionalities in any camera, and it’s not working properly.

Here’s the update (read the full post and any links in it completely before you buy, you have been warned!):

Update 02/09/2009: In the mean time some more examples have been posted of the 5D Mark II focus issues. The fashion shooter I mentioned above, who had trouble getting his 5D Mark II to focus properly got another 5D Mark II body, and apparently he had the same issues with that one. Now he has decided to NOT use the 5D Mark II AT ALL. Here’s what he had to say:

There are a few issues with this camera which I can not live with. The AF is still pretty bad on this, my second 5D2 body in anything but the brightest of light. (the first one was returned with abysmal focusing and weird image quality issues.)
People right and left are reporting failures in damp conditions/light rain. There were a bunch of 5D2 failures on Michael Reichmann’s Antarctic trip.

…

I cringe every time I remember this scenario: I was shooting advertising with the 5D2 with models, hair, makeup, stylists, etc waiting on me. As I was shooting tethered, the art director was standing next to me looking at the monitor and saying “they are soft!”, and I was there thinking, yeah, I can see that, but I don’t know what the f*ck to do about it. This is after hours or working with the AF microadjustments, etc., etc.

I cringe when I think about something like that happening to me as well.

And that’s not all. Another photographer compared the old 5D to the new 5D Mark II, doing some tests with both cameras in the same conditions, and noticed that the 5D Mark II did not focus consistently, and that shots from the 5D Mark II were in fact slightly out of focus often:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the 5Deux has A.D.D. Sometimes it focuses very well. Other times, it’s slightly disappointing compared to results from the old 5D. I know the 5Deux can focus well, because I’ve got proof, it just doesn’t focus well ALL of the time, which is annoying.

…

I’ve seen other photographers say that they’ve had similar results, so I guess this is pretty common among 5Deux owners.

…

In conclusion, the 5Deux did not walk away with a clear decisive victory because of the focus issue.

So again, I have to ask, what the FUCK is the use of 21 megapixels when you can’t focus properly?!?! Take a good look at the sample pictures posted in the above mentioned review, and notice how the 5D Mark II images are out of focus compared to the old 5D. All the extra resolution you expect from the 5D Mark II can’t be achieved because of the very poor autofocus system.

And here’s what PDN had to say about the 5D Mark II autofocus capabilities in their review:

A bigger issue is the annoyingly slow speed of the 5D Mark II’s autofocusing in low contrast, low light situations. These are the sorts of situations where the 5D II should really shine especially since the High ISO/low light capabilities of its 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor are so impressive.

Though we didn’t experience problems with the focus while shooting inside the dimly lit subway station and in Grand Central Terminal, when I later went to photograph the park at night, I found that the 5D II would often hunt for focus, racking in and out until it would finally lock in. On occasion, the camera couldn’t find focus at all.

The problem really lies with Canon’s resistance to updating the 5D II to a new autofocus system. The camera uses the same 9-point selectable AF with 6 assist points around the center as its predecessor, a system which clearly is getting a little long in the tooth. While Canon’s resistance might be understandable—after it upgraded its Mark III series pro cameras to a new 19-point/16-assist point autofocus system it faced many complaints from photographers about autofocus misfires—it still doesn’t solve the problem of putting a creaky old autofocus system in a brand new camera.

Yep, I saw this coming way in advance.

Update 04/18/2009: Some more people talking about the issues with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Photographer Zack Arias said the following:

• The AF system sucks in low light situations. Every Nikon I have ever owned from the D100 to the D3 can lock focus faster and more accurately than the 5d does in low light levels.
• Nikon still pwns Canon at ISO 3200 and up.
• It’s slow as Christmas compared to the shooting speed and buffer of the D3.
• The ergonomics. The 5d feels like a brick in my hands even with the grip. The D3 feels like a glove.

He later also says:

I will tell you this though… when it comes time to shoot the reception tomorrow night I bet you the 5d goes back in the bag because the auto focus is useless in low light. You’d think they could do something about that. The D3 can focus in just about any dark environment I find myself in. The 5d requires you to be standing on the surface of the sun to have enough light to focus. Ok, maybe not right on the surface but pretty close. The AF system on the Canon can not even be compared to the Nikon. In this area Canon sucks and Nikon rocks. The rest seems to be up for debate.

Photographer Lloyd Chambers had the following to say:

This latest AF issue follows on the heels of a Live View exposure problem with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think it’s fair so say that with 3 professional camera models with issues, this firmly establishes Canon as having a track record of not testing products adequately. And at the cost of customer time, hassle, and perhaps money.

I couldn’t agree more. I have written a couple of posts about Canon quality control problems. Just search my blog for them.

One of the things that I like about HDR images is that you can get a LOT more detail in the skies. Sometimes even details that you don’t notice while you’re at the scene. Because of the detailed skies, the images look a lot more dramatic especially when using very wide angles.

HDR Panoramic view of the Presidential Palace in Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger view)

HDR Panoramic view of the Ministry of Finance building in Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger view)

HDR Panoramic view of colonial buildings at Waterkant, Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger view)

HDR Panoramic view of the Central Bank in Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger view)

HDR Panoramic view of the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Finance building in Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger image)

HDR Panoramic view of the Suriname river from Waterkant, Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger image)

HDR Panoramic view of Paramaribo and the Suriname river (click for larger view)

HDR Panoramic view of Paramaribo and the Suriname River (click for larger image)

HDR Panoramic view of the Ministry of Finance building in Paramaribo, Suriname (click for larger view)

 And here are some shots of Jimmy in action:

Jimmy taking pictures at the Wijdenbosch bridge, looking very relaxed

HDR image of Jimmy taking pictures

The next time Jimmy is going to walk a little bit into the river with his tripod to get the really good shots.

And below is an image of me taken by Jimmy.

Me taking pictures

Yes, that’s an Alienware cap.

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine Cover for Jan/June 2009 Edition

The January/June 2009 edition of United Business & Lifestyle magazine is out in Suriname and the Netherlands, and for the second time my photography work is featured on the cover. I wrote about the previous time here.

The picture that was used this time is one from a shoot I did all the way back in August 2007 for Tropical Gem Tours. I had written about that shoot here. To me it’s great that after all this time the image still has enough potential to be selected for the cover of a magazine. And I think the client also appreciates the value they get out of my work even after one and a half year. The whole picture can be seen in my photography portfolio.

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine

In this same edition of United, there’s also an ad for Nado Computers featuring another picture of mine. You can see it in the image above on the right. This picture was taken in 2008 during sky diving practice by a group of Dutch sky divers who were visiting Suriname. A better version of this ad can be seen in my design portfolio.

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine

And finally there’s also an ad for the Vasilda construction company featuring a couple of my pictures. You can see that ad in the picture above on the right.

Original post:

Some of you might remember that I got banned a while ago from the DPReview forums because of discussing Canon quality control issues. I wrote about that here. The Digital Picture launched their forums today and as a frequent visitor, I registered and posted a link to my blog post titled “Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!“, requesting feedback from people. I was already getting some responses when a few hours later I get an email from the webmaster, Bryan Carnathan, that he deleted my post:

Your post was deleted by Bryan Carnathan.

Subject: Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!

Reason: Karel,

I welcome you to the community, but would rather you not bring your anti-canon posts here.

Regards,

Bryan

Thank you,
Photography Community team

So it looks like only pro-Canon posts are allowed there. This is plain censorship, and nothing more. If there is one thing I don’t like on the Internet, and anywhere else for that matter, it’s censorship. If you take a look at the comments at the bottom of my “Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!” blogpost, you’ll see that I allow everyone to post their opinions on my site. Whether they agree with me or not, some of the comments are very harsh sometimes. But even that is tolerated. So I have to wonder why these websites, like DPReview and The Digital Picture feel the need to censor my opinion on Canon. Perhaps the reasons are what I discussed in a previous post about the DPReview case.

Canon has really lost it. It wasn’t so long that I wrote why they have lost it, and it seems that they continue to take hit after hit, not only from the competition, but from their own mistakes as well. It’s one thing to be given a hard time by the competition, but it’s completely different to be screwing up your own products. It appears that Canon simply do not learn from their mistakes.

Take the EOS 50D for example. From the moment they announced that camera, I could immediately see that it would not be succesful. I wrote a lot about it, and you can read the older articles and judge for yourself. How could I have seen all of that coming, and Canon not see it? I would assume Canon’s marketing department knows a lot more about the DSLR market than I do. So howcome I was able to see that the 50D was a mediocre product at best and would barely sell, and they didn’t? Just check out what Canon Rumors had to say about the 50D recently:

The disappointing thing for Canon? The 50D hasn’t been very well received. It’s not moving the units Canon wants. This could partially be because of the economy, but as we’ve seen from the 5D2, people are willing to spend. The xxD line reached its peak with the release of the 20D. It was basically the first truly affordable prosumer camera. Then came the 30D, which was lamented pretty hard for its very conservative improvements over the 20D. The 40D saw a bit of a comeback in the line, the camera was a bargain when it launched and is a super bargain today. I can’t with any honesty recommend the 50D over the 40D based on their current pricing.

Nobody wants the 50D because it’s a worthless upgrade compared to the 40D and too expensive for what you get (although the price has dropped from an absurd $1400 to around $1050 now). It has nothing to do with the economy. Like Fake Chuck Westfall said, Canon simply does not have the products right now to excite users into buying:

I’m not going to deny that the global economic crisis is going to influence our business at Canon, but at a time when we really need to have exceptionally good products to drive sales, we’re here releasing a load of crap on the market. We’re in a period right now when people are going to think twice as much, if not more, before they decide to spend their money. You’re going to have to really have a good product on your hands if you expect people to lay down the cash in this economic situation. And it looks like the market just doesn’t think we have those products at this time. And this is going to hurt us more than the economic crisis itself.

The 50D even has worse image quality compared to the 40D! No wonder the 40D is selling a lot better right now. As an alternative, the Nikon D300 offers A LOT more and it is no surprise that a lot of people are buying the D300 instead, and that Nikon has been taking over the market as a result. The D300 is a more modern camera body, offering a wealth of features that photographers expect today. You’d think that Canon would have noticed and respond with the 50D, but none of that happened.

And then, the 5D Mark II. From the moment it was announced, I immediately pointed out its weaknesses. Now after the fact, it will make me look like some kind of prophet, but the fact is, you don’t have to be a prophet to see these things. Even some basic knowledge about photography and the DSLR market today would have allowed anyone to see that the 5D Mark II would have a hard time competing with other brands. The question is, again, how could Canon think that they would even stand a chance with such a product, at that price, compared to the competition? Reviews of the 5D Mark II are starting to get published, and the same weaknesses I pointed out months ago now, are being discovered by others. For example, check this review by Pop Photo:

The partial metering mode uses the center 8 percent of the viewfinder, and the spot, 3.5 percent, which is larger than the Nikon’s impressive 1.5 percent.

The 5D-era AF, however, is no longer competitive with the blazing speeds we see in most DSLRs these days. At the brightest light level in our tests, the 5D Mark II focused in 0.51 sec, while the Nikon D700 zipped along at 0.35 sec, and the Sony A900 roared to the head of the pack with 0.29 sec.

In low light, the Canon is downright sluggish, and in extremely low light (EV -1 and -2), it’s inconsistent and sometimes fails to focus. But Canon rates the AF system to be effective down to only EV -0.5, about the same as a very poorly lit living room. This limits the utility of the high ISOs. Granted, you can focus manually, but in such low light, that’s no mean feat.

Oddly, some older and newer Canon models have faster AF systems. Just as Nikon trickled down the D3’s AF to the D700, we think Canon should have done this with the 1Ds Mark III and 5D Mark II.

Even with regards to image quality, it appears the 5D Mark II isn’t the best. The Sony A900 beats the 5D Mark II with regards to resolving power, and the Nikon D700 beats the 5D Mark II with regards to low noise performance. In addition, similar to the 50D, Canon has been overhyping the low noise performance of the 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark II noise performance seems to be about the same as the original 5D or worse in some cases when comparing RAW images. The JPEG images from the 5D Mark II are being processed with noise reduction inside the camera and look less noisy, but similar to the 50D, these images look less detailed and blurry too because of the noise reduction.

5D Mark II Noise Reduction causing a blurry and less detailed image. Images taken from the review at The Digital Picture.

In a review on The Digital Picture, you can clearly see the difference when comparing sample images from the 5D Mark II with and without in camera noise reduction. The pictures with in camera noise reduction look blurry and less detailed. And it appears that even as low as ISO 100, the camera still applies a bit of noise reduction, which can’t be turned off apparently (*) (I have yet to confirm this). This is what happens ofcourse, when you try to cram megapixels onto a small sensor instead of giving priority to image quality. Most people would have preferred the same 12MP sensor from the original 5D, with the improvements from the new 21MP sensor (gapless microlenses, etc.), resulting in MUCH better image quality and high ISO performance. But apparently Canon is completely out of touch with the market (no surprise here).

A review at the Online Photographer points out the following:

And here’s where we come to the Canon 5D Mark II. No, the Canon does not have the A900’s ungodly resolving power; but it comes reasonably close. And no, sorry, no matter what you’ve heard here, there, and everywhere, the Canon does not match the Nikon’s (D700) high-ISO performance.

…

I have to admit I have some mild reservations about the 5D Mark II’s image quality. It’s very good, no question: Canon has hit the “what consumers want” targets on the nose: More Megapixels! Less Noise! (Great Taste, Less Filling). But there’s at least a partial price to pay for all that tasty goodness. It shows up in the form of what I’d group under the heading “artifacts.”

…

Then there’s the quality of the Canon’s noise. It’s a bit tilted towards the chroma type, and it has a weird, blotchy character. (I don’t read the forums—is the consensus that Canon is applying noise reduction to the raw file?)

…

Then there’s an entirely new artifact that, as far as I know, is unique to the 5D Mark II: sometimes you’ll see black fringing next to blown highlights, but only on the right-hand side. Weird. This shows up fairly often in the shooting I’ve been doing at night that includes Christmas lights.

…

Finally, there’s highlight clipping. This is probably my most serious reservation about the Canon because it really does affect the look of pictures. Here I have to go back to the Sony A900, which is particularly good in this respect.

With regards to the black fringing in images from the 5D Mark II, there currently is an even bigger problem refered to as the black dot issue.

5D Mark II Black Dots Issue

The black dots can appear next to highlights in images taken with a 5D Mark II, and even in videos recorded with it, which can result in a post processing nightmare. Just check out this post at Fake Chuck Westfall for more details and sample images. And as if all of this isn’t enough, the 5D Mark II also suffers from banding issues that look ugly in pictures that are affected by this problem.

5D Mark II Banding Issue

Again, check out this post at Fake Chuck Westfall for details and samples. These are very serious image quality problems, and Canon has announced that they are looking into it and are going to try and fix these issues, but there’s no word on when this will happen and what the fixes will be. Hopefully people won’t have to send their cameras back to Canon like happened during the recent 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco. You would think that Canon would have learned from all the quality control issues they have had the last few years with camera bodies and lenses. But that sure didn’t happen.

And the 5D Mark II would already have a hard time competing with the D700 and A900 if it worked well because of all its shortcomings, but these issues make it a lot worse. So it’s no surprise that there have been reports everywhere of people cancelling their 5D Mark II pre-orders and of demand slowing down:

Hi, I’m currently in Hong Kong and there seems to be quite an abundance of 5Dmk2 in the shops – especially the kit with the 24-105 lens.
It seems with the economic uncertainty, coupled with the blackdot scare, a lot of people have dropped their names from the waiting list. Prices however are still high and most of the reputable stores like Man Shing, Wing Shing and Citi are charging around $20800 HKD ($2683 USD) for the body only and $28000 HDK ($3612 USD) for the kit.

Unfortunately, the same faith of the 50D awaits the 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark II is too little too late. The price of the 5D Mark II will go down as early as next month if Canon wants to be able to continue selling. With the competition offering better options, even at lower prices (the D700), the 5D Mark II can’t possibly sell for $2700 very long. Right now Canon is probably trying to get the money from early buyers, who by the way are discovering they spent their money on a product that has issues. And just think about it, the 5D Mark II is a body similar to the 50D. About the only thing that is different, is that the 5D Mark II has a fullframe sensor inside and has video capabilities. Essentially, compared to the 50D, Canon expects users to pay $1600 more for a fullframe 21MP sensor (5D Mark II price of $2700 minus 50D price of $1100). And the 50D even has a better AF system! I don’t think the $1600 price for the sensor and video capability alone is justified. The 5D Mark II should cost around $1800, especially taking into account that the Nikon D700 currently sells for $2400 and is a fully featured pro body with a 51 point AF system that completely blows away anything Canon has to offer, even in their expensive 1D series bodies. At $1800, I think the price of the 5D Mark II would have been competitive. But not at $2700, so expect the price to significantly drop in the coming months.

Right now the Nikon D700 and the Sony A900 are making short work of the 5D Mark II. The Nikon D700 is currently the world’s best DSLR body on the market, and it even costs cheaper than a 5D Mark II (current price: D700 $2400, 5D Mark II $2700). I expect the D700 to remain the best DSLR on the market for well until early 2010, or when Nikon releases the D700x (or D800). Canon simply won’t be able to respond until October 2009, and even then, we’ll have to see what they come up with. What is certain is that the 5D Mark II will have a short life, as short as one year, and certainly not the 3 years that the 5D had.

(*) What I mean by this, is that even if you turn off the noise reduction on the camera completely, the camera still applies a bit of noise reduction even at lower ISO values which you can’t turn off. I have yet to confirm if this is really the case.

Update 12/28/2008: In a previous post, I had already discussed the poor AF system of the 5D Mark II. In that post, I had warned about its performance, about it being slow and not very accurate. At the end of that post, I discussed how it seemed like even a wedding pro had difficulty getting his POSED shots in focus. And recently, a fashion photographer got a chance to experience first hand just how bad the AF system of the 5D Mark II really is. Check out the post on his website. Here’s a quote:

So this week I got a change to use the 5D2 for a real shoot, using daylight which is my favorite way to shoot. Unfortunately, for full body shots, I got many frames where the model is out of focus. I counted 50% of the shots out-of-focus using the outer AF points and my 85 1.2 on a tripod! A few were due to movement of the model, but mostly just due to misfocus with the outer AF points which were positioned over her face. Fortunately I noticed this fairly early on and switched to the center AF point, which worked fine.

A week prior I found that these outer AF points work like a charm with the 85 1.2 lens in fairly bright light outdoors, but they apparently are not stellar performers when it’s dim. This is very disappointing in a $3000 camera. You will definitely do better with the 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 if you are shooting dim available light as I often do.  However if you are in a situation where you can use the center point 100% of the time the 5D2 AF should work fine.

I saw these issues coming way in advance. Right now forums around the Internet all have similar stories from users who are complaining about the autofocus system of the 5D Mark II. The Pop Photo review which I mentioned above warned about these issues too.

Also, I’m not the only one who thinks Canon is in trouble. Check out this post.

With regards to the color blotches problem which I mentioned in some comments below, check this post on DPReview. Happens even as low as ISO 100.

Update 12/30/2008: The Online Photographer made the 5D Mark II their camera of the year. And that, my friends,  is the joke of the year. Keep in mind that the same people at the Online Photographer were mentioning all the image quality problems with the 5D Mark II. I quoted them above. At PDN, they seem to understand better what a camera of the year is (the Nikon D700).

Some of you might remember that I got banned a while ago from the DPReview forums because of discussing Canon quality control issues. I wrote about that here. The Digital Picture launched their forums today and as a frequent visitor, I registered and posted a link to this post on my blog, requesting feedback from people. I was already getting some responses when a few hours later I get an email from the webmaster, Bryan Carnathan, that he deleted my post:

Your post was deleted by Bryan Carnathan.

Subject: Canon EOS 5D Mark II: Barely worth it!

Reason: Karel,

I welcome you to the community, but would rather you not bring your anti-canon posts here.

Regards,

Bryan

Thank you,
Photography Community team

So it looks like only pro-canon posts are allowed there. This is plain censorship, and nothing more. If there is one thing I don’t like on the Internet, and anywhere else for that matter, it’s censorship. If you take a look at the comments below, you’ll see that I allow everyone to post their opinions on my site. Whether they agree with me or not, some of the comments are very harsh sometimes. But even that is tolerated. So I have to wonder why these websites, like DPReview and The Digital Picture feel the need to censor my opinion on Canon. Perhaps the reasons are what I discussed in a previous post about the DPReview case.

Update 01/02/2009: After exchanging some emails with Bryan Carnathan, I was able to explain to him the purpose of my “anti-Canon” posts and he has agreed to restore my original post back on the forum. Basically I told him I am a Canon user and that the purpose of all this is not just to bash Canon, but to make it absolutely clear we’re not very satisfied with how things are going right now and to stimulate Canon to improve in the future. If that happens, it will benefit all of us. It is important to be critical of Canon, otherwise those of us who have invested in Canon gear will be forced to look for alternatives in the future.

Update 01/03/2009: I mentioned already that Canon has been overhyping the high ISO and low noise capability of the 5D Mark II, just like they did with the 50D. And already people are beginning to discover this around the Internet. When comparing RAW files of the 5D Mark II with the older 5D and cameras like the 40D, there’s little improvement with regards to noise. In fact, the 5D Mark II images even contain a good amount of noise as low as ISO 100!!! This can be seen especially in the darker parts of images and out of focus areas (bokeh). I mentioned a while ago in the comments below that I could have seen this in the noise review at Luminous Landscapes. There you can clearly see the noise in the ISO 100 shots of the 5D Mark II. Image quality has sunken to a new low with this. Check this thread on DPReview, here are some quotes:

Despite the hype about the 5DII, it looks like it’s only marginally better, if at all, than the Canon 450D. I did a test against my 40D and it was at most 2/3 of a stop better than my 40D at high ISO, and the 40D is very similar to the 450D

…

I agree—I’m absolutely in love with the 5D2, but I have to say that it’s low-light performance isn’t mind-blowingly great.

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I hope I’m not insane.

cropped this picture, no resize and max quality in DPP

2 problems with it.

1. The dittering in the background. I like taking pictures with blurry background. ISO 100 gives me nice blur… ISO 400 and up.. gives me dithering…. It reminds me of those 8 bit GIF’s from the old days

2. Sharpness no more. My F2.8 lens usually manages to make the subject I take pictures of stand out from the background.. but here is is just flat…. I always get this when I shoot high ISO… ISO 100.. sharp, almost 3D look alike… high ISO.. just a pixel blur.

I certainly don’t need to zoom the picture in anyway to see this “issues”

I don’t deny that in good sun light and you want to shoot 1/4000 of a second.. High ISO is good. But in poor sunlight and 1/40 second.. high ISO doesn’t work for me quality vise.

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Sorry I meant noiseless ISO 400 5D2 shot, but now that I think about it, even ISO 100 shots seem to have shadow noise in the shots I’ve seen for the 5D2

…

Is there grain? Yes, of course. But .. so? DPP does a really nice job of removing enough chroma noise so that the image looks good (I rarely go over 10 in the chroma reduction level, more like 5-10).

I don’t see why some people are so afraid of some grain, I personally find it kind of pleasing to look at. (Ed: Yeah, tell that to the stock agencies).

…

ISO 100 shadows are the 5D2’s weak spot. Canon took no care to avoid banding in this camera, especially vertical banding, which is the predominant banding at ISO 100.

Please  note that when comparing it’s important that you compare RAW images. The 5D Mark II JPEG images look cleaner and contain less noise, but that’s because they are being processed in the camera with noise reduction. But as a result of this, these images also look blurry and less detailed, as I discussed above with sample images from The Digital Picture. That’s unacceptable.

Update 01/07/2009: I came across another review of the 5D Mark II. Here are some quotes:

Sample images have shown that the DIGIC IV is doing some skillful noise reduction in-camera. JPEG shooters should seriously rejoice. The RAW files may be somewhat of a disappointment to concert photographers as Canon’s Chuck Westfall was reported to say that the RAW performance of the 5DmarkII sensor as being similar to that of the 1DSmarkIII, which is only spec’d to ISO1600.

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Honestly, the focusing specs of the 5D Mark II are the most personally disappointing part of the camera. With only 9 selectable AF points clustered at the center of the viewfinder, the photographer is forced to focus and recompose the image more often than not.

While not horrible on its own, focus and recompose is horrible for tracking a moving subject while maintaining a specific composition. I know a lot of concert photographers who make due with Canon’s 9 point system, but coming from the 1D Mark III, which has 19 selectable points, I have little interest in anything less.

Furthermore, I believe only the center point of the 9 AF sensors present on the 5D Mark II is cross-type and sensitive to f/2.8. This is particularly important to concert photographers who are regularly forced to shoot at f/2.8 or faster. Without getting into the details, the outer 8 AF points on the 5DmkII are several stops less accurate under normal concert conditions than the center point.

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My biggest fear is that Canon has put too much energy into the megapixel race and very little energy into improving other features of the camera that really affect the feature set and user experience.

…

I personally had a lot of hopes for this camera as a smaller FF backup to my 1D Mark III. The specifications of this camera were a significant factor in my recent decision to switch to Nikon.

Especially pay attention to the last sentence above. “Switch to Nikon.” Unfortunately, many are doing so right now, and many are looking to make the switch soon because of the disappointing products from Canon lately.

Update 02/09/2009: In the mean time some more examples have been posted of the 5D Mark II focus issues. The fashion shooter I mentioned above, who had trouble getting his 5D Mark II to focus properly got another 5D Mark II body, and apparently he had the same issues with that one. Now he has decided to NOT use the 5D Mark II AT ALL. Here’s what he had to say:

There are a few issues with this camera which I can not live with. The AF is still pretty bad on this, my second 5D2 body in anything but the brightest of light. (the first one was returned with abysmal focusing and weird image quality issues.)
People right and left are reporting failures in damp conditions/light rain. There were a bunch of 5D2 failures on Michael Reichmann’s Antarctic trip.

…

I cringe every time I remember this scenario: I was shooting advertising with the 5D2 with models, hair, makeup, stylists, etc waiting on me. As I was shooting tethered, the art director was standing next to me looking at the monitor and saying “they are soft!”, and I was there thinking, yeah, I can see that, but I don’t know what the f*ck to do about it. This is after hours or working with the AF microadjustments, etc., etc.

I cringe when I think about something like that happening to me as well.

And that’s not all. Another photographer compared the old 5D to the new 5D Mark II, doing some tests with both camera’s in the same conditions, and noticed that the 5D Mark II did not focus consistently, and that shots from the 5D Mark II were in fact slightly out of focus often:

I’ve come to the conclusion that the 5Deux has A.D.D. Sometimes it focuses very well. Other times, it’s slightly disappointing compared to results from the old 5D. I know the 5Deux can focus well, because I’ve got proof, it just doesn’t focus well ALL of the time, which is annoying.

…

I’ve seen other photographers say that they’ve had similar results, so I guess this is pretty common among 5Deux owners.

…

In conclusion, the 5Deux did not walk away with a clear decisive victory because of the focus issue.

So again, I have to ask, what the FUCK is the use of 21 megapixels when you can’t focus properly?!?! Take a good look at the sample pictures posted in the above mentioned review, and notice how the 5D Mark II images are out of focus compared to the old 5D. All the extra resolution you expect from the 5D Mark II can’t be achieved because of the very poor autofocus system.

And here’s what PDN had to say about the 5D Mark II autofocus capabilities in their review:

A bigger issue is the annoyingly slow speed of the 5D Mark II’s autofocusing in low contrast, low light situations. These are the sorts of situations where the 5D II should really shine especially since the High ISO/low light capabilities of its 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor are so impressive.

Though we didn’t experience problems with the focus while shooting inside the dimly lit subway station and in Grand Central Terminal, when I later went to photograph the park at night, I found that the 5D II would often hunt for focus, racking in and out until it would finally lock in. On occasion, the camera couldn’t find focus at all.

The problem really lies with Canon’s resistance to updating the 5D II to a new autofocus system. The camera uses the same 9-point selectable AF with 6 assist points around the center as its predecessor, a system which clearly is getting a little long in the tooth. While Canon’s resistance might be understandable—after it upgraded its Mark III series pro cameras to a new 19-point/16-assist point autofocus system it faced many complaints from photographers about autofocus misfires—it still doesn’t solve the problem of putting a creaky old autofocus system in a brand new camera.

Yep, I saw this coming way in advance.

Update 04/18/2009: Some more people talking about the issues with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Photographer Zack Arias said the following:

• The AF system sucks in low light situations. Every Nikon I have ever owned from the D100 to the D3 can lock focus faster and more accurately than the 5d does in low light levels.
• Nikon still pwns Canon at ISO 3200 and up.
• It’s slow as Christmas compared to the shooting speed and buffer of the D3.
• The ergonomics. The 5d feels like a brick in my hands even with the grip. The D3 feels like a glove.

He later also says:

I will tell you this though… when it comes time to shoot the reception tomorrow night I bet you the 5d goes back in the bag because the auto focus is useless in low light. You’d think they could do something about that. The D3 can focus in just about any dark environment I find myself in. The 5d requires you to be standing on the surface of the sun to have enough light to focus. Ok, maybe not right on the surface but pretty close. The AF system on the Canon can not even be compared to the Nikon. In this area Canon sucks and Nikon rocks. The rest seems to be up for debate.

Photographer Lloyd Chambers had the following to say:

This latest AF issue follows on the heels of a Live View exposure problem with the Canon 5D Mark II. I think it’s fair so say that with 3 professional camera models with issues, this firmly establishes Canon as having a track record of not testing products adequately. And at the cost of customer time, hassle, and perhaps money.

I couldn’t agree more. I have written a couple of posts about Canon quality control problems. Just search my blog for them.

Nikon has announced that it is now the UK’s leading manufacturer of DSLRs.

Speaking at the UK launch of the company’s flagship D3X camera, the company boasted of a prosperous year, which has seen Nikon’s DSLR sales growth expand by 333 per cent, compared 2004/05 figures.

The official announcement is that Nikon is “number one for share by volume in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan.”

The impressive figure of 333 per cent is mainly due to Nikon in recent years getting aggressive in the DSLR market, making sure that everyone from first-time DSLR buyers to high-end professionals have the option to buy a Nikon-branded camera. This includes the recently announced D3X.

Nikon beating Canon

The fight in the DSLR market between Canon and Nikon has always been a close one, with last year’s figures suggesting that Canon won the camera war by just one per cent – taking a 41 per cent market share to Nikon’s 40 per cent.

Predicted DSLR sales for Nikon for this year are around 3.3 million. Compare this to just 2 million in 2004, and the company’s fortunes are definitely going in the right direction.

This came as no surprise to anyone who has been following what’s been going on with Canon and Nikon the last few months. Certainly if you’ve been reading my blog, this was something that you could have expected. I wrote about Canon’s DSLR division being in trouble a few months ago. It’s only the logical outcome.

Canon has been having a lot of issues lately, most of them the result of bad upper management. Here’s a listing of the stuff I wrote about:

• Bad and lying management at Canon.
• Bad quality control resulting in many defective products. (Part 1, Part 2)
• Bad products and mediocre product releases (EF 50mm f/1.2 | EOS 50D Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 | 5D Mark II).

With regards to the mediocre product releases, the G10 also got a bad review on DPReview recently mostly because of the bad image quality. It seems the G10 suffers from the same problem the EOS 50D has: Too many megapixels on a small sensor. Canon just can’t seem to understand that they can’t keep putting more pixels onto small sensors. Canon’s latest high-end cameras all had issues or have all been mediocre releases. The 1D Mark III has focus issues, the 50D has bad image quality and is a worthless upgrade compared to the 40D and both have a AI-Servo focusing mode that doesn’t work well, the G10 has worse image quality compared to the G9, the 5D Mark II got equipped with a 3 year old autofocus system and a slow shutter mechanism etc. etc.

Meanwhile, Nikon has been consistently coming with some very solid product releases, from the D90, D300, D700 and D3 to recently the D3x. So it’s absolutely no surprise that they now managed to get to the top of the DSLR market. They’ve been doing quite well and Canon has been screwing up.

And you’d think that by now, they would have gotten a clue at Canon. But apparently that’s not the case.

After Mr. Maeda blatantly lying about the autofocus system of the 5D Mark II, we now have Chuck Westfall trying to fool users into thinking the EOS 50D has better image quality compared to the EOS 40D. First, here’s part of an answer from Westfall to a question from a user:

Thanks for your message. I agree with you that the improvement of image quality is a top priority for any new EOS Digital SLR. My statement of an approximate 1 to 1.5 stop improvement in noise levels for EOS 50D vs. 40D was made on the basis of the default settings for image quality with both cameras, in other words Large/Fine JPEGs. As I stated in my answer to question 70 above:

“At default camera settings for in-camera JPEGs, and assuming equalized output sizes in order to gain the benefit of the EOS 50D’s increased resolution, there is approximately a 1 stop improvement in noise reduction for the 50D compared to the 40D. Run the comparisons and see for yourself. For RAW images, the difference in image quality between the two cameras is almost entirely dependent on the user’s choice of processing techniques.”

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To summarize, the EOS 50D’s improvement in image quality compared to the EOS 40D at ISO 3200 is clear and demonstrable at each camera’s default settings for in-camera JPEGs when output size is equalized. That was the basis of my original statement when the 50D was announced, and I believe the results speak for themselves.

Westfall ofcourse doesn’t tell people that the 50D applies a lot of noise reduction to JPEG images. This makes the JPEG images from the 50D appear to have less noise compared to the 40D, but because of the heavy noise reduction, the 50D JPEG images also look washed out and less detailed compared to the 40D images. Many reviews on the Internet, including the one from DPreview have mentioned this. The 50D has a higher resolution, and you’d expect more detail in images from the 50D, but you actually get less detail, with images from the 40D looking sharper. What Westfall is doing here is very misleading.

In addition, Westfall knows that when RAW images are compared from the 50D and 40D, it will be very clear that the 50D images have a lot more noise in them. So he mentions: “For RAW images, the difference in image quality between the two cameras is almost entirely dependent on the user’s choice of processing techniques.” What he is essentially saying here is that it is up to the user to apply enough noise reduction to RAW images to make them look good enough. In other words, you can make the 50D images look like the 40D images with regards to noise, if you just process the 50D images enough. But ofcourse, this is bullshit, because one shouldn’t have to process images to make them look comparable to eachother. If the 50D had image quality as good as the 40D, then the RAW images would look about the same without ANY kind of processing required. Very misleading statements from Westfall.

Westfall also mentions that when image quality is concerned, we have to resize the 50D images which are larger, to the size of the 40D images for a fair comparison. This, again, is bullshit. Why should we make the 50D images smaller to be able to get the quality of the 40D images???? The whole fucking point of getting a 50D is because of the increased 15MP resolution, right? So why do you expect people to resize the images to something smaller, in order to get acceptable image quality? Why did you increase the resolution to 15MP on the 50D then? People can then just get a 40D instead since the extra resolution of the 50D is pointless if you have to make the images smaller to get better quality. Westfall and the rest of Canon’s management seem to think they’re talking to idiots. This is nothing more than a serious insult to our intelligence.

And then we have Canon President, Mr. Uchida, who was recently interviewed by Reuters, mentioning that the global digital camera market might shrink in 2009. Uchida was probably saying this because the knows that Canon is currently not doing very well and likely won’t be doing very well in 2009 as well. But this is not because of the economic crisis alone, but more because of all the issues I mentioned above. Canon simply does not have the products right now to excite people into buying. All of their latest products are mediocre and/or have issues. Just look at the price of the 50D. In just a month, the price went from $1400 to $1099 now and continues to drop. This is a clear indication that sales aren’t going well. But that’s no surprise, and I predicted from the moment the 50D was launched that it wouldn’t sell well and to expect major price drops. I did the same for the 5D Mark II.

Nikon certainly doesn’t seem to be having problems selling their products, even reporting a 333% increase in sales! Uchida is just trying to fool everyone into thinking that the bad results at Canon are due to the economic crisis. I hope Canon shareholders will be smart enough to see what’s really going on. The entire upper management at Canon should be fired for their incompetence.

Finally, you might also like to read Fake Chuck Westfall’s take on these issues here and here.

Barack Obama, The New Bush. Sich Heil.

Looks like it’s official now, Barack Obama is going to be the next President Bush. I watched some of the election coverage, and it’s simply amazing how many people still don’t seem to get it, thinking Obama is going to be bringing any kind of positive change for them.  It’s amazing how many people still don’t realize that today, it doesn’t matter which ones of the candidates win in the USA, because both parties are controlled by the exact same people in the background.

Do you think George Bush was really taking the decisions for the last 8 years? If you think so, you have a lot of research ahead of you. George Bush has been nothing more than a puppet. The real decisions are being made by powerful people who remain in the background, to forward their own agenda. An agenda that is in their own interests, not yours. Some call them the hidden government or the secret government, the illuminati, some call them the military industrial complex, and many other names, but they’re the same people behind Bush, the same people behind the attacks on 9/11 and the same people behind the Kennedy assassination.

Now Obama is their new puppet, and he’ll be continuing everything Bush has been doing. Don’t mind what he has been saying during his campaign. Talk is cheap. To win the election, it’s neccessary to give people hope and to tell them what they want to hear. His actual actions in the coming years are going to show you where he really stands. Obama wouldn’t even be a candidate and have so much support from corporations and especially the corporate media if they didn’t know beforehand that he would be protecting and supporting their interests, just like Bush has been doing the last 8 years. Interests of a small but powerful group of people. Remember, today the mere fact that a person is allowed to be running for president in the USA and has the approval of the corporate media and widely backed by corporations, means that he’s one of them. This has been the giveaway of the whole plot but few noticed.

Keep in mind that one of Obama’s advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. If you don’t know who Zbigniew Brzezinski is, Google him and prepare to be terrified of what you find. In his book “The Grand Chessboard”, he stated what the Neocons who were behind the Bush regime said in their PNAC document well in advance: “We need a Pearl Harbour event to unify the people behind the war for global Imperial conquest.” Take note of the fact that Brzezinski said this in 1997, about 3 years before the Neocons came up with their PNAC document. As we know, that new Pearl Harbour came on 9/11 and was an inside job, likely planned and executed by those same people backing the Neocons, if not the Neocons themselves. Now, those same people are advising and backing Obama. Also note that Brzezinski together with David Rockefeller founded the Trilateral Commission which was behind the Bush administration.

Here’s more for you:

Obama will be controlled by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Trilateralists, in other words Obama will be controlled by David Rockefeller and the Council on Foreign Relations. More policies directed by the World Bank, a Trilateral project, as the last six out of seven World Bank presidents have been pulled from the Trilateral Commission, including the neocon Paul Wolfowitz. Actually, when it comes to globalism and imposing a slave and control grid on the whole world, there is little difference between neocons and neolibs. Neocons are obsessed with killing Arabs and Muslims, whereas the neolibs prefer to work behind the scenes with their color revolutions.

Trilats also control the Federal Reserve. Arthur Burns, Paul Volker, and Alan Greenspan all hailed from the Trilateral Commission, although the current chairman, Ben Bernanke, does not. Of course, it does not matter, as the chairman takes his marching orders from the Rockefeller clan.

As should be expected, there is a bit of crossover in the support for Obama. For instance, Joseph Nye, vice chairman of the Trilateral Commission, supports Obama. Nye is also a Bilderberger and a member of the CFR. Nye, along with Robert Keohane, developed theories on neoliberalism, theories now in play starving and immiserating millions around the world.

In fact, Obama has gathered under his tent — that is to say, the tent erected for him — a regular melange of globalists and one-worlders. “The Obama campaign has thus far been shown to represent: the Ford Foundation, the Trilateral Commission, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger Group, Skull and Bones, the RAND Corporation, the Soros foundations, the Rockefeller family, and the Friedmanite Chicago School of economic genocide,” writes Webster Tarpley. “Obama is the Manchurian candidate groomed and indoctrinated by these financier-controlled groupings. As president, Obama would impose a regime of crushing economic austerity and a new set of foreign wars far worse than what has been seen under Bush.”

In other words, more of the same, but according to Tarpley worse. And that’s why it is disgusting to see corporate media whores such as Tim Russert and Keith Olbermann declare Obama the de facto winner. Russert and Olbermann are onboard with the Trilateral Commission, CFR, Skull & Bones, the Bilderbergs, the Rockefeller eugenicists, the Ford Foundation, and their perpetual war, depopulation, and climate change agenda.

But then, if they were otherwise, you wouldn’t see them on television.

Pay special attention to what Webster Tarpley says about Obama. He knows what he is talking about. Also read this interview with Tarpley about Obama.

Did you also know that Obama and Hillary attended this year’s Bilderberg meeting together? If you don’t know what the Bilderberg group is, Google them. You’ll find out that they are a secret group of powerful people around the world who meet with eachother each year in secret, behind closed doors, to discuss the real agenda they have for the world. The agenda you don’t hear about, but see implemented around you every day. Why would Obama meet with them? Not only that, why would someone from the Bilderberg group be selecting Obama’s running mate?

It has been announced that Bilderberg luminary and top corporate elitist James A. Johnson will select Democratic candidate Barack Obama’s running mate for the 2008 election and in turn potentially act as kingmaker for America’s future President.

Johnson also selected John Kerry’s running mate John Edwards in 2004 after Edwards had impressed Bilderberg elitists Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller with a speech he gave at the globalist confab in Italy that year.

The news further puts to rest any delusions that Bilderberg is a mere talking shop where no decisions are made. In reality, the group is shaping some of the primary developments in the domestic and geopolitical arena today, particularly in the context of oil prices which continue to accelerate towards Bilderberg’s target of $200 dollars a barrel.

It also ridicules once again any notion that an Obama presidency would bring “change” to the status quo of America being ruled by an unelected corporate and military-industrial complex elite.

Pay special attention to the last part of the quote. Is it beginning to make sense now?

But there’s more, my dear reader.

Why are these people also suggesting, way in advance, that Obama will be facing foreign policy problems? Do they know something we don’t know? Have they got something planned for us that we don’t know about? Like they had 9/11 planned up to at least a year before it happened? Check this out:

Trilateral Commission co-founder and top Obama advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told CNN yesterday that Barack Obama would be faced with “imminent problems” in the context of foreign policy once he takes office, echoing prophetic warnings made recently by Joe Biden, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright.

…

Brzezinski’s warning that Obama will face immediate problems in the form of a foreign policy crisis echoes similar sentiments expressed by Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, who last month told an audience in Seattle “We’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Biden was vehement in his proclamation, stating that it was a “guarantee” and a “promise” that Obama would face an international crisis and that “tough” and “unpopular” decisions would have to be made to combat it.

Colin Powell made similar statements when he endorsed Obama on Meet the Press, saying “There’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.”

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright also told CNN’s John Roberts, “It’s just a statement of fact…something unexpected, you always have to be prepared for that.”

So the same guy, who said “America needed a new Pearl Harbor event to unify the people behind the war for global Imperial conquest” (and which came on 9/11) is now saying that Obama is going to be facing imminent foreign policy problems. Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, who was chosen by the Bilderberg Group’s James A. Johnson, seems to be absolutely certain that this crisis will happen, saying it’s “a guarantee and promise” and that it will be a generated crisis. How can he be so sure?? And then Colin Powell even mentions the specific dates! How can Powell mention specific dates, and then go on to say “that we don’t even know about”?? It seems to me that if you can mention specific dates, you sure know about the crisis! And Madeline Albright further assures you of it by saying it’s a statement of fact. How on earth can these people know about a crisis and be so sure about it and specific? Please also remember that Madeline Albright said that 567.000 children dying in Iraq because of US sanctions was worth it:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

–60 Minutes (5/12/96)

Then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It’s also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks (e.g., Alexander Cockburn, New York Press, 9/26/01).

Here’s more:

Joe Biden’s “guarantee” that an “international crisis” will unfold shortly after President Obama takes office conjures up several different possibilities, but it seems the likely outcome will revolve around an announcement that Iran has developed a nuclear bomb, prompting a potential military attack.

“It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” Biden told an audience in Seattle this past weekend.

“Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

The assured tone with which Biden delivered his forecast was staggeringly convincing, and left the observer in no doubt that there will be a major world crisis shortly after Obama takes office. “Mark my words, mark my words,” Biden stressed, adding that “tough” and “unpopular” foreign policy decisions will have to be made.

“I promise you it will occur,” Biden added, “As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it is going to happen.”

Biden’s use of the word “generated” is even more startling. One of the dictionary definitions we find for the word “generated” is “to bring into existence; cause to be; produce,” which begs the question, will this be another staged and manufactured crisis like the 9/11 attacks, which occurred less than 8 months after Bush took office?

Now, with all of this information, when you see the people backing Obama and the people who Obama has been with ever since his career (Brzezinski was his mentor), when you see the people who decide for Obama and go so far as to select his running mate (the vice president), and when you see what they are “predicting” for us, do you have any hope for change now?

With regards to Brzezinski, read an article by Michael Ruppert here with some good insights. And on this link you can find some quotes from Brzezinski:

“Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” (p. 211)

The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values (like liberty and democracy). Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.
- Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, 1970

“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.”
- Between Two Ages : America’s Role in the Technetronic Era – 1970

Reading those quotes from 1970, it becomes clear that these people have been planning the global police state for many years now, and in 1970 already knew what today’s technology would enable them to do. How was this possible?

And finally, you might want to read this article titled: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss. This part is very interesting:

The election of a new president should not be a mindless act of idolatry and fanfare, it should be a solemn commitment to find a leader who will follow the Constitution.

But Barack Obama will ride into office with a gigantic approval rating to rival that of Bush after 9/11, along with a complete power monopoly over the executive, the legislative, the judicial as well as widespread media support.

This makes Obama more dangerous than Bush and certainly a damn site more dangerous than a McCain administration, because his policies for at least a year or two will enjoy universal acclaim and voices of dissent will be drowned out by a wave of droning acquiescence.

Obama has all the political capital he needs to implement the terrifying policies that he has already announced and beef the architecture of the police state crafted by Bush.

It looks like with Obama, those in control have the perfect puppet through which to get their policies accepted by people. And before the people realize what’s going on, it will be already too late. This is the same situation that allowed the Patriot Act to get passed after 9/11, when Bush had so much support.

So again, do you still have any hope for change?

Unfortunately when we arrived this time, the sun was already down behind the big clouds on the horizon. But that didn’t stop me from taking whatever pictures I could anyway. The following series of pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 40D camera, with either a EF 24mm f/1.4 L lens or a EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS lens attached.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

Small panorama taken with the 70-200mm, consisting of 3 images. This telephoto lens compresses the bridge and makes it look shorter and larger.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge with Paramaribo in the background (click for larger image)

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge with Paramaribo in the background (click for larger image)

Paramaribo from the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge

Pictures of me taken by my friend Jimmy. As you can see, I was shooting without a tripod thanks to the light sensitive EF 24mm f/1.4 L lens.

The following pictures were taken in March 2008 with a Canon EOS 40D camera and the EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset (click for larger image)

The J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

View of Paramaribo from the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset (click for larger image)

My friend Jimmy taking a picture with his Nikon D200

Next time we’ll try to convince a beautiful model to go with us on the bridge for more interesting pictures since Jimmy and I are a bit tired of posing for eachother.

Since my first and second posts, some time has gone by, and now there are more reviews available of the Canon EOS 50D. Needless to say, these reviews all show exactly what I have been saying ever since my first post about this camera.

First, check this review by Camera Labs. Especially check their verdict:

But Canon’s bold claims of matching the noise levels of the earlier EOS 40D were confirmed in our High ISO tests. From 100 to 1600 ISO, the EOS 50D’s output really is very similar to that from the EOS 40D when viewed at 100% on a pixel level. At 3200 ISO, the 50D applies greater noise reduction, but tone it down a notch and again it looks similar to the 40D. Admittedly the 50D’s 6400 and 12800 ISO modes are a step too far,

…

The addition of contrast-based autofocus in Live View was inevitable, but it’s relatively slow and best-used for static subjects and a tripod-based camera. This effectively renders the new face detection mode redundant, as while subjects are recognised instantly, it’s several seconds before the camera locks focus on them – by which time they’ll inevitably have moved.

…

Some early adopters have also reported a higher than average occurrence of Error-99 lens communication issues with the 50D. We tested our 50D with a variety of lenses and only experienced the Error-99 with a well-worn press sample of the EF-S 17-85mm IS, and then only at certain focal lengths. When we switched to a newer private sample of this lens, we had no issues. This is something we will monitor though and report back with any updates.

…

So the EOS 50D essentially takes the 40D body and adds 5 extra Megapixels, a VGA screen, HDMI output, four times the sensitivity and a number of processing and interface enhancements. If you value these improvements, then it’s worth spending the extra or for existing owners to upgrade, but remember the body, viewfinder and AF are the same, so if you want a tough and quick semi-pro DSLR at a bargain price, the 40D remains a superb choice.

…

By sharing a number of core specs with the 40D though, the 50D remains behind certain key aspects of the D300. Nikon’s body boasts a viewfinder with 100% coverage to the 50D’s 95% and an AF system with a whopping 51-points to the 50D’s nine; Canon also continues to look old fashioned by forcing you to buy and fit an optional focusing screen to see a grid in the viewfinder, while Nikon offers on-demand LCD markings which can simply be switched on and off. The D300 additionally offers more professional features like 9-frame bracketing, a built-in intervalometer and a shutter block rated for 50% more shots (150k compared to 100k on the 50D).

Like I said from the very beginning, the image quality of the 50D is comparable and often worse compared to that of the 40D. Canon’s claims that the 50D offered a stop to a stop and a half better noise performance compared to the 40D were quite frankly very misleading. In addition, the 9 point autofocus is prehistoric by today’s standards and is absolutely worthless in AI Servo mode. Just like Camera Labs says, a lot of technology in these Canon cameras are very old fashioned, and one has to wonder when Canon is finally going to update them. In the same way, they also released a 5D Mark II camera, which contains the exact same old AF system as the 3 year old 5D camera. In 3 years, how can it be that Canon was unable to include a much better AF system in the 5D Mark II, when Nikon has a camera on the market for a year now at a much lower price level containing a 51-point AF system?

But let’s get on with another 50D review, namely the one from DPreview. When you read that review, you’re going to see that the 50D offers more noise, less detail (despite the resolution increase to 15MP!!), and less dynamic range compared to the 40D. If you look at the noise in RAW images from the 50D and 40D, you can clearly see the 50D images have a lot more noise and look worse compared to the 40D:

Despite the fact that the 50D is the newer camera it shows visibly more chroma and luminance noise than the 40D. Considering the 50D’s much more tightly packed sensor (4.5 MP/cm² vs 3.1 MP/cm² on the 40D) this comes hardly as a surprise. It would have been unreasonable to expect Canon’s engineers to overcome the laws of physics.

At Hi1 and Hi2 (ISO 6400 and 12800 respectively) the 50D produces significant amounts of noise. Both settings should be striclty reserved for emergency use. If you compare these crops to the ‘NR OFF JPG’ crops from above it also becomes clear how much noise reduction the 50D’s JPG engine still applies even with noise reduction set to ‘Off’.

So much for ISO 6400 and 12800 on the 50D. Canon could have left these ISO modes out of the camera. As it is now, they are only included for marketing reasons and to fool people. These modes are unusable. And pay special attention to the comments about noise reduction. The EOS 50D applies a lot of noise reduction to JPEG images, also removing detail in the process. This no doubt causes the 50D images to look less detailed compared to images from the 40D.

If you look at the RAW image quality comparison, you can clearly see that the 40D images have more detail compared to the 50D:

Switching to our benchmark RAW converter, Adobe Camera RAW equalizes image processing between the two cameras and allows us to get a much better idea of the level of detail actually captured. As you can see both cameras images look crisper and exhibit better detail but the 40D stills beats the newer model in terms of per pixel detail. Despite of a 22% increase in vertical and horizontal resolution the extra detail captured by the 50D is marginal. Unsurprisingly color and contrast are near identical though.

And from here, when comparing the 50D to the Nikon D300:

Both cameras gain from the use of ACR with images looking considerably sharper and better detailed than their JPEG equivalents but the improvement is more significant on the Nikon which now has a pretty obvious per pixel detail advantage over the 50D. Having said that color response is very similar indeed and you would need to be outputting at a very large size for the differences to be noticeable.

And from DPReview’s conclusion:

We’re by no means saying the 50Ds image quality is bad but it’s simply not significantly better than the ten megapixel 40D. In some areas such as dynamic range and high ISO performance it’s actually worse and that simply makes you wonder if the EOS 50D could have been an (even) better camera if its sensor had a slightly more moderate resolution.

The EOS 50D has to stand its ground in a highly competitive bracket of the DSLR market. It is currently almost $500 more expensive than the 40D, almost $500 more expensive than the Nikon D90 and for an extra $100 you can bag yourself a Nikon D300. Looking at the specification differences between the EOS 40D and our test candidate it appears you pay quite a premium for the 50D’s extra megapixels and as we’ve found out during this review you don’t get an awful lot of extra image quality for your money. The Canon EOS 50D still earns itself our highest reward but considering its price point and our slight concerns about its pixel-packed sensor, it only does so by a whisker.

The 50D offers worse noise performance, worse dynamic range and less detailed images compared to the EOS 40D and compared to the Nikon D300. I said before since my first post about the 50D, that the Nikon D300 was a much better alternative, and as you can see, this is really the case. The Nikon D300 even offers a lot more advanced features and right now is only $100 more expensive compared to the 50D.

Live View on the 50D also is a complete joke. A little more useful compared to the 40D, but contrast detect AF is painfully slow and you can’t even focus where you want on the screen. The Sony DSC-R1 released in 2005, had much faster contrast detect AF and had the option of moving the focus point on the screen to wherever you want and focus at that location. Today, Canon wants to sell us a slow and limited Live View feature that looks prehistoric compared to 3 year old cameras that are now discontinued. What a shame.

The EOS 40D currently gives you the best value for your money. Expect the price of the 50D to fall like a brick in the next few months. I hope Canon will do much better with the 60D next year.

Last Monday I went out with some friends to the celebration of the 155th Anniversary of Chinese Immigration in Suriname and I took some pictures at the event, which I am posting below. All of these pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 40D with either the EF 135mm f/2 L lens or the EF 50mm f/1.2 L lens. I didn’t bring any wide angle lenses with me so there are no wide shots. I didn’t feel like carrying more lenses, and didn’t plan on changing them too often either. I just brought the 135mm and 50mm lenses and forced myself to be creative with those options.

An indian at a Chinese celebration? You bet!

 

A Chinese Performer

 

This was taken on special request

 

A friend who was undoubtedly happy to see me

 

This person was probably taking a picture of me

 

Photographer Moeridjan in the crowd taking a Hail Mary Shot with his Nikon D300

 

That's me in the reflection in the lower right corner with the yellow shirt

 

Old guy watching the show, not looking very entertained

 

President Venetiaan of Suriname in the crowd

 

Chinese performers doing the Dragon Dance

 

Closeup of the dragon

 

Preperations are underway for the fireworks

 

Fireworks have started

 

Fireballs go up into the sky

 

Fireworks in the sky

 

More fireballs go up into the sky

 

Taken from under the trees

 

Fireworks

 

Fireworks

 

Air filled with smoke

 

Recording the fireworks above

 

The final 2 seconds

 

Red paper from the fireworks on the street

My Little Friend

Today is my 30th birthday, and the beginning of the new phase in my life. I didn’t plan on these changes myself, but it is a nice coincidence how things fall into place these days. Often people say things like “everything happens for a reason,” “nothing happens before its time,” and “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” And I don’t really believe in those things, but I can certainly understand why people do.

Three years ago, when I turned 27, I wrote a post titled “There is no happiness in life.” And I read it again today, and I still think the same way. That’s why this day is a very normal day for me, I woke up and did the exact same things I usually do on Saturdays. And I have absolutely nothing planned, except for being by myself and review my life as it has progressed so far, something I always find interesting to do.

One thing I have seen so far, is that it is important to rely on my intuition. In those cases where I had neglected to listen to it, things clearly didn’t go very well. Intuition is basically your uplink to what David Icke calls “The Matrix” in his book “Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion.” If you haven’t yet read that book, you should get it ASAP. David Icke comes closest to explaining life than anyone has ever done before in my opinion. When Albert Einstein said “The only real valuable thing is intuition,” he knew exactly what he was talking about. Christopher Reeve provided an even better explanation when he said: “I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us… if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.”

The key thing is that you have to be able to indeed shut out all the noise and clutter from your life and learn to listen to what that voice is saying. And it is not always easy to do this. You can’t let opinions of others or your own desires get in the way. You have to objectively listen. And when I say you have to listen to a voice in your head, I’m not saying you have to be crazy. The “voice inside you” is just another name for what others call “intuition” or your “gut feeling” etc. It is that something inside you that tells you what to do and provides guidance. You don’t know where it comes from, you don’t know why it makes you think certain things, you can’t explain it, but you just know. From Wikipedia:

Intuition is apparent ability to acquire knowledge without a clear inference or the use of reason. It is “the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process.” Intuition provides us with beliefs which we cannot necessarily justify.

You can’t justify it or reason about it, because it’s basically knowledge planted inside your head. And when others ask you why you think so, and to explain yourself, you usually can’t. Those beliefs come from somewhere else. David Icke explains in his book where they come from.

During most of my life I have relied on intuition, and it has served me well 100% of the time. And in those cases where I chose to ignore my intuition, things went bad. But even when things went bad, my intuition was still there providing guidance on how to get out of a bad situation.

So when Einstein said “The only real valuable thing is intuition,” he absolutely knew what he was talking about. And my guess is, he relied on his intuition most of the time and learned of its value from experience.

The Jump

In the picture above you can see two skydivers jumping out of a CASA 212 airplane at high altitude about to freefall down to earth at high speed. This is roughly what Canon’s Director and Chief Executive of Image Communication Products Operations, Masaya Maeda, did recently in an interview with DPreview. The only difference is that Mr. Maeda forgot his parachute inside the airplane.

I read the interview and immediately understood why Canon has failed to deliver with their latest products. I have recently written about the EOS 50D and EOS 5D Mark II and a load of other problems with Canon’s DSLR division. And it appears we now have a reasonably certain cause of all these problems. And it is a problem Nikon is certainly familiar with, namely, bad and clueless management. A few years ago, Nikon had to change their management to get the company on track again, and the company has since improved bringing some absolutely killer products on the market starting in 2007. And now, it appears that Canon suffers from a similar problem.

If you read the interview, you can see for yourself how clueless the management at Canon is right now. And to be honest, the interview wasn’t even a good one since it was filled with softball questions. For example, there were surprisingly no questions about the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco. And still, Mr. Maeda managed to screw it up.

One of the most obvious cases of cluelessness or blatant lying can be seen in this part of the interview:

One of the most common complaints we’ve seen about the 5D Mark II is that it still has the same AF system as the original 5D. Why is this?

“Firstly the market’s evaluation of the 5D’s AF system has been very positive; there have been no complaints from users, with everyone saying it’s very good. Given that, to a certain extent, we think we shouldn’t change it. And also there’s some limitation with size; the AF sensor in the 50D is very big; the one in the 5D is much smaller. If we wanted to have all cross-sensors in the 5D Mark II, it would mean we might have to sacrifice the compactness of the body. It’s all a question of balance of features and benefits.”

This answer is simply a serious insult to our intelligence. Nothing more. It looks like Canon, in all its arrogance, thinks its users are so stupid they can tell them anything they want to. First take note of the fact that the DPReview question started by telling Mr. Maeda that “one of the most common complaints we’ve seen about the 5D Mark II is that it still has the same AF system as the original 5D.” If the 5D Mark II AF system was so good, as Mr. Maeda wants us to believe, then why would people be complaining about it not being improved in the 5D Mark II? This doesn’t make sense, ofcourse, but Mr. Maeda seems to be lacking the intelligence to understand this.

Maybe Mr. Maeda would care to explain to us how it is that the EOS 50D, which is roughly the same size as the EOS 5D Mark II, is still able to hold the “very big” AF sensor which can’t fit in the 5D Mark II. Maybe Mr. Maeda would care to explain to us, how it is that Nikon was able to include a 51-point AF sensor in the D700 an D300 cameras, which are roughly the same size as the EOS 5D Mark II. Maybe Mr. Maeda would care to explain to us, how much more room Canon would need to put an AF sensor like the one in the 50D in the 5D Mark II. 2cm? 3cm? Would it have hurt to make the 5D Mark II body 2cm wider to house a better AF sensor? Perhaps Mr. Maeda would also like to explain how it is that he heard no complaints from users, when the Internet is literally filled with complaints about the old 5D autofocus inaccuracy, especially of the outer focus points. The level of cluelessness and arrogance here reaches astounding levels.

Allow me to help Mr. Maeda with some examples of people “not complaining” about the “very good” autofocus in the 5D. All he has to do is merely check the reaction to the interview in this thread on DPReview:

So there you have it. They gave us a lame AF sensor to keep the size down. I wonder how Nikon managed to get a 51-point, 15 cross-type AF sensor into the D700…

—

It’s a lie, of course. The true reason is to be searched in marketing strategies.

—

He showed so much skill in dancing around the questions posed to him. “No complaints” about the AF in the 5D? No room in the body of a 5D mkII, which is larger than the 50D, for the 50D’s AF sensor? His answers on the G10’s subsequent sensor development path took a limberness that is unexpected, even in an executive of his position. Sheesh.

—

They certainly did not ask me. One shot AF is fine as long as you do not try to use one of the outer AF points with fast primes.

—

You know, if Mr Masaya Maeda would just give me an honest answer and say “we had to cripple the 5D a little to protect the 1Ds market” then I would stop complaining and probably just go buy either a 5D MkII or 1Ds MkIII. But it is all these lies and deception that is what makes me want to sell all my Canon stuff and switch.

—

only makes sense when the consumer has no where else to go. With the Nikon d700, there is a viable route. So instead of keeping Canon users in the family, they will lose them to the d700 because not everyone who wants pro AF wants a brick of a camera.

—

I want the camera for IQ with stills, good AF, durability, ….. I don’t want to waste my time with OOF or lose irreplacable shots. While price tends to seperate the camera’s user groups, their are plenty of ‘amatuers’ using some very fine equipment, taking outstsnding photos, and conversly some ‘pros’ using 40D’s and 20D’s (I personally know them). The point… a lot of pros use the 5D. Don’t scrimp on AF. While I don’t necessarily expect 1D AF, I DO EXPECT better than a xxD series, especially when the new 5D is released after the 50D!

—

I shot 5D’s for 2 seasons – beautiful files, fine body, lousy AF. Lived with it because there was no alternative for the money. That’s not the case anymore and therein lies the source of the complaints you here. The 5D has 3 things that cost me shots:

1) Poor AF off-centre
2) Shutter lag
3) Mirror-blackout
Over at DWF those are repeated time and time again and have been for a long time now. Chuck Westfall is a member, so we have access to a senior Canon source and Canon are well aware of the complaints.

The three issue appear to remain so with the MkII.

—

I vote with my wallet. I have two 1D series cameras, got rid of my 5D and went with a D700 because of the AF issue.

—

well, now you know why Canon stumbles Always suspected it was top management, now we know for sure.

—

The response speaks for itself: Canon are either clueless or disingenuous.

I hope Mr. Maeda reads all of these posts and can get in touch with reality soon. What is going to make all of this even worse, is when Canon will be releasing the 5D Mark III in the future, or a similar sized body, with a much better AF sensor, something that is bound to happen. In hindsight, Mr. Maeda’s answer is going to look even more ridiculous.

At this point you may also be interested to read my previous post on the 5D Mark II autofocus shortcomings. There certainly are people at Canon who have a clue, and let’s hope that they will be able to get a hold on things soon. It looks like the 5D Mark II is not going to be able to go up against the Nikon D700, especially not if Nikon drop their prices once general availability of the 5D Mark II becomes a fact. Sit back and watch it happen.

Update 10/05/2008: Also check this comment. And if you happen to have Mr. Maeda’s email address, send it to me so I can get in touch with him personally.

IMPORTANT Update 12/22/2008: Read my latest post on the 5D Mark II, especially before you buy!

Childhood Innocence

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if people remained children forever. Would all the issues around the world still exist? Would people still be fighting all the wars? I have a hard time imagining all of that happening if everyone still looked and behaved so cute and innocent like the baby girl in the picture above.

The picture was taken with a Canon EOS 40D with the EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens.

Dreams of the Past, Dreams of the Future

Today I’ve launched a new design for my blog which was long overdue. The new design matches better with my main website at www.kareldonk.com, which was launched in december last year. It took a while before I finally got some time to redo the design for my blog since I have been so busy with so many things, work and personal life. But things have changed, and it’s a nice coincidence that with the changes in my life, I can now also launch the new design.

I’m quite satisfied with it as it is now, though I might make some minor changes in the coming days. It certainly looks much cleaner and simpler than the previous 3 year old design in my opinion.

And as for the picture above, dreams come and go. With changes in life, dreams you may have had can move to the past to make place for new dreams for the future.

With regards to the 15 megapixel sensor, Canon still doesn’t seem to understand what photographers want now. Nobody wants a high resolution sensor that can’t deliver clean images at low ISO values, and especially higher values. Nikon demonstrated that they understood this when they released cameras with only 12 megapixel sensors that are capable of delivering great image quality at higher ISO values. But not Canon. Instead of releasing an improved 10 megapixel sensor with a much improved high ISO performance, they went ahead and released a 15 megapixel sensor with no visible improvement with regards to noise, compared to the 40D. It might even be worse than the 40D. If you look at this sample image in this gallery, the noise in the out of focus areas seems comparable to the 40D at ISO 400. So apart from the higher pixelcount, there’s no gain in image quality. It’s just more pixels containing crap. A useless upgrade.

And this is exactly how it turned out to be. Just check this post on DPReview:

On the not so bright side: Judged by the out of camera raw images, I can’t see any improvement with regards to noise at pixel level (at some point I even felt the 50d was slightly more noisy han the 40d). The ISO3200 images are not usable, banding is disappointingly an issue here too.

And this one taken from here. There are samples posted from both the 40D and 50D. There is absolutely no visible difference in noise, even though Canon USA’s Chuck Westfall said that the 50D would have a 1 stop to 1.5 stop advantage over the 40D. If you looked at the samples Canon posted on their own website and you are familiar with the 40D image quality, you would have seen yourself that that’s bullshit. Now others are confirming this as well.

It is totally not worth it to upgrade to the 50D if you have a 40D or even a 30D. Nikon’s D90, which is also about $400 cheaper, would be a better alternative. Or the D300. Canon has really disappointed with this one. Even the autofocus in the 50D is the same as the 40D, and we all know that the 40D AI Servo performance is absolutely crap.

Hopefully, Canon will improve significantly when they release the 60D next year. And with the recent release of the new 5D Mark II, Canon has demonstrated that they’ve totally lost it this year.

Update 9/27/2008: Here is another post on DPReview mentioning how the 50D noise is worse in certain cases or at the very best as bad as the 40D:

From the early tests it looks like the 50d is a little bit worse than the 40d when it comes to noise, as could be expected with the extra MP. Granted, the out-of-camera-jpgs are a bit smoother, but that’s because of the more aggressive noise-reduction, which ofcourse removes some more detail as well.

So – It’s as one might have guessed – Extra cool features, better LCD and so on, a pile of Megapixels, et voilá – the new camera model.

I’m starting to get a bit grumpy about this development. I want low noise far far more than I want more resolution. And I know I’m not the only one.

Hopefully Canon will listen when they work on the 60D. From what I’ve seen they’re losing customers now at a fast pace.

Update 9/28/2008: Here’s another post where you can see samples taken with the 50D, and see some user comments. Canon had better pay attention. Here’s from one of the posts:

FWIW I’m starting to get really discouraged. Early on, when only 50D in-camera JPEGs were shown worldwide and then compared to “my” JPEGs straight out of “my” 40D I was a believer in Canon’s claim of a 1.5 stop improvement in noise; now, if the converted RAW files are gong to look like what I’ve seen so far … well, I beginning to feel like the victim of a REALLY BIG lie on Canon’s part.

And from another in that thread:

I’ve had that feeling since early on..They did a fair job with noise considering the MP increase but I see little if any decrease compared to the 40D..Not a put down,just physics…I’m going back to keeping my 40D and getting an “old” new 5D like I had before..The 50D will be a good cam,I can’t justify it for my needs however,Bob

And more:

I too am getting pretty discouraged. I had hoped the 50D would be a long crop high ISO companion to my 1D Mark IIN. I am seeing no way forward now. I would like a second body I could shoot higher ISO with. I don’t trust I will get a good 1D Mark III, the 5D Mark II is too slow and probably just as dubious in noise (we’ll see), and the 50D doesn’t appear to be great shakes on high ISO now. My 1D Mark IIN does better at ISO 1600 than these albeit at lower resolution.

Sigh. I may turn to the dark side even if it costs me my long (500mm) lens. I’ll just shoot something else other than wildlife (thanks Canon).

Even more:

Seriously i don’t think 50D (from what ive seen so far) will be a justified upgrade IQ wise. Surely i love the AF Micro-adjustment and the high res LCD but it’s not enough for an upgrade IMHO. Mpix wise i couldn’t care less as i firmly believe the sweetspot for many of us are around 10-12 mpix.

I’m getting a bit fed up with the small incremental upgrades in the XXD series they are giving us. The impression i get from Canon regarding their XXD series upgrades is that if you think of the body in a shape of a pyramid, then they decide to release it every time with the top chopped off. As if they always try to hold back on the icing. This was the right time for Canon to put the 50D just a little closer to their 1 series. Instead it looks like they try to milk us yet again for a minor upgrade. If the step 30D to 40D was minor i honestly think this step is even smaller.

And lots more:

Somewhere along the way, Canon got lost in its technology lead and has never recovered to date: poor focusing, poor features implementation (e.g., limited bracketing, limited auto ISO functionality, lacks wireless flash support, limited spot metering functionality), poor flash reliability and now bad high ISO performance.

And here’s a post talking about the poor AI Servo focus performance of the 50D. It seems that the Nikon D300 is MUCH better:

Without any TC, the 300 F4 had a hard time locking on to the birds at the Raptor Arena area because there are so many leaves, people etc.. I think bird against the sky its very good. Its a hard place to focus. However under the same situation the D300 AF works!

However in contrast my D300 can track on coming birds the 50D, so far
it has failed to do that under the same conditions.

—

So at the same place under the same conditions.. here are the D300 – with a OLD LOUSY SLOW screw drive AF 80-400 hand held.

The 50 D AF completely gave up .. So its the Same old Software as the 40D-

Ofcourse, we already knew the 50D AI Servo focus mode would suck, since it is identical to the 40D, and we knew the 40D sucked in that regard. Just check out my previous post on this topic.

IMPORTANT Update 12/22/2008: Read the third part of this post here. Read my latest post on the 5D Mark II, especially before you buy!

One of the biggest problems with this camera is its old and outdated autofocus system. It appears Canon just took the 3 year old autofocus system from the old 5D, made some minor changes and put it into the 5D Mark II. The autofocus system has 9 autofocus points, of which ONLY ONE (the center one) is a crosstype point, sensitive at f/2.8. The other 8 surrounding points are less sensitive, being only horizontal-line sensitive at f/5.6.

This is a huge problem for event photographers and journalists who are looking to use this camera, but even studio photographers who want to use autofocus. In low light situations, it’s going to be a real problem using the 8 outer autofocus points to focus on a subject. Many people have complained in the past about the slow autofocus using the outer points on the old 5D, and you would have expected that Canon would have listened and made improvements.

Apparently Canon hasn’t the slightest clue as to what’s going on in the real world. What’s even more puzzling, is that the EOS 40D and 50D have a similar autofocus system with 9 points, where ALL 9 points are crosstype. Why didn’t Canon at least include the autofocus system from the 50D in the 5D Mark II? The least they could have done was make all 9 points crosstype. It is very disappointing for a lot of people and is a serious handicap for what would otherwise have been an excellent product.

Apart from that, the autofocus points are too concentrated towards the center of the frame. Again, this is evidence of the fact that the people in charge at Canon know absolutely zero about what photographers want and need. With the current layout, Canon seems to expect all photographers to take pictures with the subject in the center of the frame, at least, when using autofocus. What happened to the rule of thirds, Canon? Have you heard of it??

Here’s the layout of the autofocus points on the 5D Mark II as it is now:

Here’s the Rule of Thirds grid on the viewfinder, notice how all autofocus points are concentrated in the middle:

Here is how the autofocus points should have been spaced out:

And here the above picture again but with the Rule of Thirds grid on it. Notice how the autofocus points cover the intersections and every area nicely:

I can’t believe that nobody at Canon thought of this, and that nobody at Canon has gotten any feedback on this way in advance to be able to incorporate it in the 5D Mark II. Are they even making cameras for photographers at Canon these days? Instead of including a useful autofocus system so people can actually use the camera to take good pictures that are in focus, they have instead concentrated on putting HD video recording functionality in the 5D Mark II, a feature that has absolutely nothing to do with helping people to take better pictures. Don’t get me wrong, the video recording feature is a nice feature to have, but I would expect the priorities to have been totally different. Get the core photography features in order first, and then add the extra features like video recording later. And you simply cannot cut back on a core feature like autofocus as badly as Canon seems to have done here.

What makes me really angry, is when I read the following on the Canon website about the 5D Mark II autofocus system:

Three AF modes let you choose the right focus strategy depending on your shooting requirements, and a manual AF point selection mode allows you to activate each of the nine autofocus points manually — a nice touch when your subject is off-center.

I’ve just shown that virtually all autofocus points are concentrated in the center when you use the rule of thirds. I guess they should also have stated how far off-center.

You might say that the fact that the autofocus points are concentrated in the center is not such a big deal since you can use the center autofocus point and then crop later for a good composition, but what is the use of having 21 megapixels on the camera, when you are forced to crop out a large portion of it to have a good composition?? Why have the loss of resolution due to cropping? It would have been totally unnecessary to significantly crop for composition if Canon had allowed you to be able to have a better composition using autofocus points at the time of taking the picture.

You might also say that you could use the center autofocus point to focus, and then recompose the shot. This might work if you are using a small aperture, but if you want to shoot at large apertures, especially when using fast lenses in low light, focus and recompose is not an option due to the extremely shallow dept of field. Recomposing after focusing will give you a soft or out of focus image and that’s not acceptable. In addition, when you have a slow autofocus system like the old 5D, and the 5D Mark II probably as well, focusing and then recomposing gives you an even bigger chance of out of focus images.

So now you have a high resolution sensor, 21 megapixels, but guess what? You can’t easily take pictures that are in focus, eliminating the entire point of having that much resolution available! So now you have a sensor that is extremely capable for low light, high ISO photography, but guess what, you can’t quickly and accurately focus in low light conditions. But hey, you can shoot HD quality video!

I wonder who the people are that decide on the functionality combinations going into a camera at Canon. Seriously, I want to know. Because without a doubt they have to be some of the most stupid people on this planet. Even Fake Chuck Westfall looks smarter compared to them.

In the 3 years that have gone by since the release of the first 5D camera, has Canon not been capable of making a better autofocus system? Why did they include the same old autofocus system in the 5D Mark II?

Here’s an interesting article about the problems at Canon, where it seems that at least now people inside the company are waking up:

Canon engineers are being held back from developing new sensor technology by marketing departments in a “race for megapixels”, claims an employee of the Japanese photography company.

The employee told Tech Digest that Canon have the technology to “blow the competition away” in terms of image sensors, but are instead being asked to focus on headline figures like the number of megapixels a camera has. When asked for his opinion on the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which we covered this morning, the employee said:

“I am hugely disappointed because once again Canon engineers are dictated by their marketing department and had to keep up with the megapixel race. They have the technology to blow the competition away by adapting the new 50D sensor tech in a full frame format and just easing off a little on the megapixels. Although no formal testing has been done on the new model yet, judging by the spec and technology used, it just seems to be as good or as bad as the competition – not beating them by a mile (which we used to).”

Hey guys, apart from megapixels and sensor quality, how about also looking at other features like a good autofocus system, good weathersealing like the D700, a better viewfinder and mirror/shutter mechanism and higher framerate etc. etc. Things that actually matter to taking a good picture. Not video recording and other crap like that.

As of right now, the Nikon D700 is still overall the best camera to own. The 5D Mark II is only useful as a studio/landscape camera and only if you need 21 megapixels.

I don’t think Canon will be able to afford to leave the 5D Mark II on the market for another 3 years. I think they will have to update it as early as next year, or perhaps introduce a new model, maybe a 3D, that will be better than the 5D Mark II. Expect the price of both the 5D Mark II and 50D to significantly drop early next year when the (hopefully) fixed 1D succesor will be announced.

Canon better hope that the release of these cameras will be flawless. The products are already mediocre at best, and any quality control issues are going to significantly hurt them this time.

And finally, if they get really serious at improving autofocus at Canon, the configuration of autofocus points in the picture below would be very welcome (all crosstype sensitive). Ofcourse, Nikon and Sony are also welcome to do this:

Update: It looks like even a wedding pro had trouble getting the focus right using the 5D Mark II. After all the complaints about the soft images he posted on his site, here is the update that he had to make to his post:

Update: Please remember these shots were taken with a beta release camera on launch day.  I took them on-the-fly whilst demonstrating the camera to press and distributors so yes the focus might be slightly out on one or two.  I’m happy with the look of these images which are consistent with my style.  I am not looking for absolute sharpness and so applied no additional sharpening to the images in production.  Please accept these images for what they are which is a demonstration of the new camera’s amazing high ISO performance and don’t try to read too much into pixel-level sharpness.  We all want to see what the camera can do with our normal RAW-based workflow but that will have to wait.

Hilarious! You’re not looking for absolute sharpness?? We shouldn’t read too much into pixel-level sharpness? What??? Why do we have 21 megapixels then???? Aren’t you a pro? According to Dirck in the comments below, you should be able to manually focus precisely! Now more than half of your pics are soft. What would you do if this was a paid shoot? Take special note of the fact that the images that look soft and out of focus, are especially those where the subject is off-center. Also read this thread on DPReview. Now, if a pro photographer can’t seem to get his focus right with the 5D Mark II with POSED shots, then how do you think you’ll focus when you’re doing event photography, sports, documentary or other types of action shots?

IMPORTANT Update 12/22/2008: Read my latest post on the 5D Mark II, especially before you buy!

Update 12/28/2008: Apart from the wedding pro which I mentioned above, recently a fashion photographer got a chance to experience first hand just how bad the AF system of the 5D Mark II really is. Check out the post on his website. Here’s a quote:

So this week I got a change to use the 5D2 for a real shoot, using daylight which is my favorite way to shoot. Unfortunately, for full body shots, I got many frames where the model is out of focus. I counted 50% of the shots out-of-focus using the outer AF points and my 85 1.2 on a tripod! A few were due to movement of the model, but mostly just due to misfocus with the outer AF points which were positioned over her face. Fortunately I noticed this fairly early on and switched to the center AF point, which worked fine.

A week prior I found that these outer AF points work like a charm with the 85 1.2 lens in fairly bright light outdoors, but they apparently are not stellar performers when it’s dim. This is very disappointing in a $3000 camera. You will definitely do better with the 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 if you are shooting dim available light as I often do.  However if you are in a situation where you can use the center point 100% of the time the 5D2 AF should work fine.

I saw these issues coming way in advance.

Update 01/07/2009: I came across another review of the 5D Mark II. Here are some quotes:

Sample images have shown that the DIGIC IV is doing some skillful noise reduction in-camera. JPEG shooters should seriously rejoice. The RAW files may be somewhat of a disappointment to concert photographers as Canon’s Chuck Westfall was reported to say that the RAW performance of the 5DmarkII sensor as being similar to that of the 1DSmarkIII, which is only spec’d to ISO1600.

…

Honestly, the focusing specs of the 5D Mark II are the most personally disappointing part of the camera. With only 9 selectable AF points clustered at the center of the viewfinder, the photographer is forced to focus and recompose the image more often than not.

While not horrible on its own, focus and recompose is horrible for tracking a moving subject while maintaining a specific composition. I know a lot of concert photographers who make due with Canon’s 9 point system, but coming from the 1D Mark III, which has 19 selectable points, I have little interest in anything less.

Furthermore, I believe only the center point of the 9 AF sensors present on the 5D Mark II is cross-type and sensitive to f/2.8. This is particularly important to concert photographers who are regularly forced to shoot at f/2.8 or faster. Without getting into the details, the outer 8 AF points on the 5DmkII are several stops less accurate under normal concert conditions than the center point.

…

My biggest fear is that Canon has put too much energy into the megapixel race and very little energy into improving other features of the camera that really affect the feature set and user experience.

…

I personally had a lot of hopes for this camera as a smaller FF backup to my 1D Mark III. The specifications of this camera were a significant factor in my recent decision to switch to Nikon.

Especially pay attention to the last sentence above. “Switch to Nikon.” Unfortunately, many are doing so right now, and many are looking to make the switch soon because of the disappointing products from Canon lately.

This latest book appears to be an updated version of one of his earlier books titled “The New Pearl Harbor.” Here’s some more information on it:

“Citizens in many countries are waging a war on the cover-up of the basis for the so-called war on terror—this basis being the official interpretation of the 9/11 attacks. Along with the Internet, which has equipped both public figures and ordinary citizens to wage this war on the cover-up, David Ray Griffin has revealed dozens of omissions, distortions, and contradictions in the official story in a way that provides undeniable evidence of its falsity. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited presents a powerful exposé of the false narrative that has been driving the mainstream political agenda since 9/11. It is now up to politicians and journalists around the world to expose this truth to our peoples.”—Yukihisa Fujita, member of the House of Councilors, the Diet of Japan

“With this work, Dr. Griffin cements his place as the preeminent spokesperson for the growing number of people who demand answers to an expanding list of questions about 9/11. . . . Even those members of the 9/11 Truth Movement who have immersed themselves thoroughly in the subject will find new information here, presented in the precise and very readable style Dr. Griffin has brought to each of his books. . . . Absent a revival of investigative journalism—a dim prospect at best, in view of the media ownership concentration—books like this one, arming the informed citizen with solid information and providing a basis for demanding direct action, appear to be our best hope.”—Shelton F. Lankford, Lt. Col. US Marine Corps (Ret.)

“In The New Pearl Harbor, Dr. Griffin raised serious questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center—the part of the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 with which I have been especially concerned. Now, in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, he continues to pierce the heart of the official story with his signature penetrating research, this time sharpened with arguments provided by physical scientists, architects, and engineers. He definitely delivers the technical goods. Message to authors of the NIST Report: The charade is over!”—Richard Gage, member of American Institute of Architects, founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

PUBLISHER’S BOOK DESCRIPTION
In 2004, David Ray Griffin published The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Translated into several languages, it helped spark a worldwide movement demanding “9/11 truth.” Even as it became increasingly outdated, it continued to be widely cited as the best introduction to the issues.

Griffin has now written The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, which provides a chapter-by-chapter updating of the information provided in that earlier book. It shows that the case against the official account constructed by independent researchers—who now include architects, engineers, physicists, pilots, politicians, and former military officers—is far stronger than it was in 2004, leaving no doubt that 9/11 was a false-flag operation, designed to give the Bush-Cheney administration a pretext to attack oil-rich Muslim nations.

Taken together, these two books provide everything one needs to make an informed decision about 9/11—whether one is a journalist, a political leader, a religious leader, or an ordinary citizen concerned about truth, democracy, and the rule of law.

MORE ENDORSEMENTS
“David Ray Griffin stands at the center of one of the most impressive citizen research projects in history. In this superb new volume, he  draws together a great quantity of recent evidence and demonstrates
beyond question the fraudulent nature of the official account of 9/11.”—Dr. Graeme MacQueen, Founder of McMaster University’s Center for Peace Studies

“Nowhere is it clearer that truth is now considered quaint, obsolete here in Washington, than in the disingenuous non-answers to questions about the cavernous holes in the official version of 9/11—-and the flippant attempts to marginalize intrepid souls like David Ray Griffin, branded “blasphemous” by the likes of Tucker Carlson. Facing straight into this rancid wind, Griffin now provides a definitive account that updates and integrates his earlier findings. Will Congress ever authorize an honest investigation of the seminal event of our time?”—Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and presidential briefer

“President Bush and Vice President Cheney have many questions to answer in light of this book. This time they should have to testify separately and under oath. Unlike their testimony at the 9/11 Commission, behind closed doors, this should be open testimony.”—Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, 1999-2003

“This latest book by David Ray Griffin is scholarly research at its best. Meticulous empirical investigation and painstaking analysis are combined to refute the official 9/11 narrative. Every event surrounding the tragic events of September 11, 2001, is subjected to close scrutiny, ultimately with a view to revealing the lies and upholding the truth. In this fascinating and skillfully researched exposé, Griffin demonstrates unequivocally that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.”—Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics and author of America’s War on Terrorism

If you’re new to this whole 9/11 Truth business, check out this previous post of mine. 9/11 was an inside job. Even the FBI admits that they have no evidence that Bin Laden did it. The twin towers and Building 7 were brought down by a controlled demolition. Everyone has been lied to. Why doesn’t Obama talk about this?

Griffin’s latest book can be ordered on Amazon.

But I still find myself using it quite often because of the results I can get using it. The way I try to work around the focus inconsistency, is autofocusing two or three times on the subject before I take the picture. This doesn’t guarantee a sharp in focus image all the time, but I can live with it so far.

Below are some images I took using a Canon EOS 40D body with the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens. The images are of a very special model, namely my daughter Sarah. What I love about this lens is the nice bokeh and dept of field effects that you can get with it.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/500s, ISO 400
Sarah, about 5 minutes after she was born.

50mm, f1.2, 1/250s, ISO 100
Sarah, six months later.

50mm, f1.2, 1/160s, ISO 400
This is how she looks when she just woke up. When I turn around I see her staring quietly at me like this, rolling over the pillows, trying to get to me.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
Here Sarah was explaining to me why she likes chocolate chip ice cream.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
I love this lens.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Playing with curtains on my bed.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Did I mention that I love this lens?

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
“You’re taking pictures of me *again* ??”.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 400
Walking outside playing with plants.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/50s, ISO 100
Sooooo cute.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/60s, ISO 100
This is how she looks when she’s just rolled around on my bed a few times pulling the sheets and throwing her toys around.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/100s, ISO 100

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 100

50mm, f1.2, 1/200s, ISO 100
Doesn’t she look so cute and innocent here?

I have about 20GB of pictures of Sarah right now, and she’s only 7 months old. Ofcourse, I’m nowhere to be found on most of those pictures. The only place where I see myself in the pictures is in the reflection in Sarah’s eyes.

These pictures were all taken with available light only (so no flash), giving the pictures a more natural look. Once you start doing available light photography, you won’t go back to using a flash easily. This lens is very good for photography using available light only. Along with this lens, you should also check out the Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L, EF 35mm f1.4 L, EF 85mm f1.2 L and EF 135mm f2 L lenses. Expensive, but worth it.

Why?

Well, for starters, this is a very half-assed (technical term) attempt by Canon to try to compete with the Nikon D300. If I look at the specifications of the 50D, I can’t help but think that some Canon engineers sat down one afternoon, took the 40D, slapped in a new sensor, put in a new processor, tweaked the firmware to enable some features (which they deliberately disabled for the 40D, like autofocus microadjust), put in the higher resolution LCD which they meant to release with the 40D, but didn’t to save a couple of bucks, called it a day, packed and went to a Karaoke bar to have some fun.

Compared to the 40D, the 50D is not worth the extra money Canon wants to charge us. It is essentially just a 40D with minor worthless upgrades. It is not worth the upgrade for 40D users, and it is no match for the Nikon D300.

A while ago, I wrote the following:

And after the release of the Nikon D3/300 and recently D700, I have it on good authority that the entire DSLR division at Canon was taken to their equivalent of DEFCON 1. Various Canon managers and engineers were hand delivered messages by actual ninja’s, threatening with “serious consequences” if things don’t get better in the near future. So I have to say, I’m very interested to see what Canon releases later this year.

Canon’s prosumer DSLR bodies have been on an 18 month refresh cycle. The 50D has been introduced only about 12 months after the 40D, so about 6 months too early. The reason for this is easy to guess. Canon couldn’t just leave the 40D on the market while it is taking a serious beating from the Nikon D300, and now even the Nikon D90. They probably thought that releasing a refreshed 40D, the 50D, would be better compared to doing nothing. And from their perspective, this could be true on various levels, but even the 50D is no match for the Nikon D300, and not even for the Nikon D90, which can only be viewed as a tragedy for Canon. The only people who are now likely to consider the 50D are people who are in the market for a significant upgrade (so no 40D users) and those who are looking to buy their first DSLR. And in both cases, Nikon has the better alternatives (D300 and D90).

I predict that the price of the 50D is going to drop very fast after its availability in October especially when Nikon will lower the price of the D300 soon. I also predict that Canon will release the real successor for the 40D, the EOS 60D in the second half of 2009 finally containing some significant technological improvements. As a result of the DEFCON 1 declaration at Canon’s DSLR division, the refresh cycle for the 1D series camera’s has also been shortened from 3 years, and new 1D models are going to appear in 2009 instead of 2010 and likely very early in 2009.

It is hilarious that Canon left the outdated 9 point autofocus system of the 40D in the 50D and still mentions how great they think it is. Here’s what Canon wants you to believe:

Configured in a diamond-shaped array for superior vertical and horizontal coverage, nine cross-type autofocus (AF) points — eight with f/5.6 sensitivity and one in the center with f/2.8 sensitivity — provide highly precise focus even when shooting fast moving subjects.

Ofcourse, we know better now. This is the same autofocus system the 40D has, and it’s been proven to be crap especially for shooting fast moving subjects. What is even more hilarious, is that they even include a picture in the samples on the official website, that is very soft, likely due to the subject not being completely in focus. Talk about precise focus.

With regards to the 15 megapixel sensor, Canon still doesn’t seem to understand what photographers want now. Nobody wants a high resolution sensor that can’t deliver clean images at low ISO values, and especially higher values. Nikon demonstrated that they understood this when they released cameras with only 12 megapixel sensors that are capable of delivering great image quality at higher ISO values. But not Canon. Instead of releasing an improved 10 megapixel sensor with a much improved high ISO performance, they went ahead and released a 15 megapixel sensor with no visible improvement with regards to noise, compared to the 40D. It might even be worse than the 40D. If you look at this sample image in this gallery, the noise in the out of focus areas seems comparable to the 40D at ISO 400. So apart from the higher pixelcount, there’s no gain in image quality. It’s just more pixels containing crap. A useless upgrade.

Canon finally included contrast detect auto focus in their Live View implementation on the 50D as well, something that should have been present from the beginning in the 40D. The Live View implementation in the 40D was essentially useless, and I got the feeling that Canon just wanted to include it for marketing at the time. It’s just like Nikon including HD video recording capability in the recently introduced D90 camera, when they don’t also include the ability to autofocus while recording HD movie. Can you imagine that? Seriously, just stop and think about it. So here you have a D90, you can record high resolution HD video on it, but you are stuck having to focus manually while recording. Answer this: What is the use of recording HD quality video, when you will get soft focused video most of the time due to having to focus manually while recording?? So now you have HD video, but it’s reduced to 320×240 sized video because you can’t focus manually that fast. Thanks, Nikon, but no thanks. I keep wondering what the deal is with these companies, releasing half-assed implementations of functionality in products. Why can’t they take the time and release functionality that is complete? We don’t actually need a new camera every year you know? Take the time and work on a good product, for fuck’s sake! Even my cheap cellphone can autofocus while recording video at crappy resolutions.

Anyway, Canon’s one and only hope this year remains with the successor to the EOS 5D which will be announced this month, and which, according to various sources, is going to be equipped with a 21 megapixel sensor. It remains to be seen what the quality of images taken with this sensor is going to be and if it will be an improvement over the 5D. If this body doesn’t have some advanced features like full weather sealing and a pro autofocus system, it’s not going to do very well compared to the Nikon D700. Especially if it’s going to deliver 21 megapixels of noise. In addition, Nikon might one-up them again, like they did by releasing the D90 after the 50D, and lower the price for the D700 and D3 when they introduce the D3x.

And, finally, even if the new 5D is theoretically good, it could still be plagued by the bad quality control at Canon. Let’s see what happens.

Update: Check out the second part of this post here.

Before I go on to explain what it is, let me tell you that there is absolutely nothing like this out there. My theory will put even Atkins Diet and all the other money making, consumption promoting schemes to shame. We live in a world today where consumption, and even more consumption, is being promoted everywhere (for more background on this, watch the first part of a BBC documentary titled “The Century of the Self“). This, as a lot of things that we view as being normal in society today, is by design. It didn’t happen by itself, but it’s being done by a small group who ultimately benefits. People are being manipulated into consumption to make them feel good about themselves. And the more they consume, the more money others make. I’m not going to go into details about this here, just check out the documentary.

The result is that everyone wants more, newer, bigger and “Super Sized!”. If you look at restaurants in the USA, such as the Mc Donalds and Burger Kings, the amount of food that they sell to a single person is unbelievable. Just check out a documentary called “Super Size Me.” And then ask yourself, does a single person really need THAT much food for a single meal? And then, people ask themselves how it is that there’s so much obesity and ask themselves what is causing that problem. Money is being spent on research to find answers to such questions, when it’s fairly obvious what the answers are. You don’t have to be a scientist for this.

And so this brings me to my theory, which if you ask me, is truly groundbreaking and radical in the time we live in today, because with the mindset that most people have today, I think very few would get such an idea. This is the ultimate way to lose weight and to very easily maintain the right weight. Forget everything you’ve learned from other weight loss programs – it’s all bullshit. So what, exactly, is this great theory of mine, you impatiently ask? Here’s what you need to do:

Eat when you’re hungry.

What? That’s it?

That’s it.

Simple, isn’t it? No complex theories about carbs, no complex lists of food and calorie amounts to maintain, no extra work. Simply eating when you’re hungry.

Can you still remember the feeling you get when you’re really hungry? A light pain in your stomach? Well when you feel that, that’s your body telling you that it’s time to eat. If you don’t have that feeling, then you shouldn’t eat because it’s highly likely that most of what you eat then will be too much for your body to process. You should only eat when you feel hungry, and even then, eat only enough to stop you feeling hungry. So no large meals, just what your body needs to keep you going, until you feel hungry again.

Like me, you’ve probably been brought up with the bullshit theories of eating at least 3 times a day, having breakfast at a fixed time in the morning, lunch at noon, etc. It has been taught to you ever since you were a child, and it has become a habit. Now, if you skip lunch you feel like you’re not taking care of yourself, even though you may not feel hungry at all, because you’ve been taught that it’s not healthy. Ofcourse it’s not healthy if you don’t eat when you don’t need it, not for you, but for the corporations who need you to eat/consume so they make even more money. Just look at Atkin’s Diet. Ofcourse everyone loves it, because it promotes eating all you can eat while still losing weight. And that’s exactly what people with their current mindset of consuming like.

Well, it’s crap. All of it. Just forget about it and simply eat when you’re hungry, or in other words, eat when you need it. If you don’t feel that pain in your stomach, you’re not hungry, even though you feel that you could really go for a Big Mac now after seeing that commercial.

And while this is a simple natural concept, I guarantee you that it won’t be easy to follow it. Why not? Because society, right now, and perhaps for centuries now, is designed to encourage you not to follow it.

In the picture above you can see a car belonging to a Korean photographer, with banners attached containing a message about Canon’s EOS 1D Mark III camera. The text on those banners translates to: “Camera that is a piece of trash – Canon EOS 1D Mark 3.” Apparently, the problems with this camera drove the photographer so insane, he printed these banners and put them on his car to let the world know about it. Full picture and article can be found here. I can’t help but think that this guy spent his savings on this camera only to find out what a bad investment it turned out to be. Even the $8000 EOS 1Ds Mark III camera suffers from the same issues the 1D Mark III has. Imagine spending $8000 on that camera, and finding out you can’t use it for serious work.

And yet, this is the situation many photographers around the world have found themselves in, thanks to Canon. If you are new to this, I have written about all the quality control issues at Canon a few times already, just start looking here. Not only Canon camera bodies have problems, but even their lenses often contain issues right out of the box.

So after the release of the Nikon D3 and more recently D700, it’s no surprise that photographers everywhere seem to be switching to these camera’s. And it shows at major events. It showed at the Tour de France, and right now at the Olympics:

Photographer Michael Reichmann has made similar comments here:

In addition to being a fun perspective on a group of pros at work it’s also a sign of the times to note the number of Nikons (black) vs. the number of Canons (white) in the shot. For the past 10 years or so at almost any major sporting event the number of white lenses would almost always outnumber the number of black lenses by a huge margin. So much so that Canon has run magazine ads showing this disparity.

But that was then, and this is 2008. At this year’s Olympics the number of Nikons in use by pros seems to equal if not surpass the number of Canons. A definite sign of the times.

Photographer John Harrington comments on this here:

This year’s Olympics should well be the turning point where the sidelines of sporting events are – to pay homage to AC/DC – Back in Black. Nikon’s flagship D3 – even with a smaller chip than it’s competition the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III (and even it’s predecessor the 1Ds Mark II) has painted the sidelines at the Olympics (and so too, the news event press pens in DC) more and more black. (Click the photo to see it larger). This is substantially due to Nikon’s high ISO – insane at 25,600 ISO, and amazingly useful at 3200 and 6400 ISO without having to even think about it much. To add to this huge lead, consider Canon’s faltering with the autofocus mis-steps as highlighted by Rob Galbraith (repeatedly).

In a few days, I’m headed overseas on assignment for two weeks, and I’ll be working in mostly low-light museums and other national treasures in several countries. Even though I own an EOS 1Ds Mark III, and Mark II, instead, I am choosing to take my D3, and a D700 as well. It really was a no-brainer given the multiple times I won’t be allowed to use flash – but still am required by my client to make images during the trip. My Canons will sit in the equipment cabinet back in the office.

And as Harrington notes, Rob Galbraight recently released his final comments on the EOS 1D/Ds Mark III camera’s, and it doesn’t look good for Canon. Galbraith even mentions the EOS 40D:

While we haven’t written about the 40D’s autofocus performance before, we have done assignments with it and included the camera in various tests, starting at about the time it shipped in September 2007. Since then we’ve shot with four bodies, two focus-calibrated and two that came directly from the store shelf. Using focus-calibrated lenses with these bodies, the result has been the same: the 40D has real difficulties accurately picking up the focus on a moving subject and then tracking it from there.

…

A midrange digital SLR with a midrange price tag probably can’t be expected to offer the same autofocus performance as the company’s best. Even taking that into account, though, the 40D doesn’t fare well. It’s not that it can’t do the job at the level of a more expensive camera, it’s that it can’t do the job really at all.

And I have to agree, since I have experienced these issues first hand myself. For example, Galbraight wrote about the 1D Mark III:

Just enough testing was done to reveal a few things. Whereas the older firmware can introduce a change in focus distance with each One Shot activation, even if the AF point is aimed at the same subject at the same distance each time, the newer firmware seems to give more repeatable and accurate focus results under the same conditions. But if the test is done slightly differently – setting the focus to some other distance, then focusing one time on the subject using One Shot, autofocus variability seems about the same as before: there’s too much.

This same problem also exists with 40D cameras and it is very annoying because it’s unpredictable, and using it on assignments can give you (slightly) out of focus images where you don’t expect it.

Meanwhile, Canon remains quiet about all these issues that users are experiencing. Many people continue to invest large sums of money everyday in Canon DSLR bodies and lenses, only to find out they don’t work correctly out of the box.

Resale value of these items is also dropping fast right now, as Nikon has much better alternatives. I’m surprised a new defective 1D Mark III body still costs around $4000, when you can get a much better Nikon D700 with grip for about $3200. Canon must be smoking something very strong to think informed photographers are going to continue to buy the 1D Mark III at that price. But I think this reveals Canon’s strategy. And that’s a strategy of keeping quiet about the issues and not giving these problems a lot of publicity so they can continue to sell this crap to uninformed people as much as possible.

It remains to be seen what Canon will come up with later this year. They have been known to intentionally cripple products for “marketing” reasons (just look at the 40D and 5D). With Nikon now on the market with a D700 that can do almost everything the high end D3 can do, it seems Canon will have no choice but to release something at least as powerful. And if they can’t or won’t, they’re going to be in deep shit. Moreover, even if they do manage to release something better spec wise, if they can’t somehow improve the terrible quality control they currently have, they’ll continue to lose marketshare to Nikon. Because it doesn’t matter if you are the resolution leader with a 1Ds Mark III, when it can’t focus properly out of the box.