Picture of a deep part of the universe, taken by NASA.

The picture of the universe above shows us what is typical of such pictures: Little bits of light surrounded by a vast ocean of darkness. This picture tells us a lot more about the universe, about nature and about life in general, than most people will realize. One of the most important things to take away from this picture is that the universe is a LOT more about darkness than it is about light.

I wrote before about the fact that we’re living in a world of pain. Every day I look around me and I see lots of suffering and lots of pain. Sure, there are positive things happening here and there, but all of that is surrounded by and drowned in all the pain and suffering. It seems that anything positive doesn’t last for very long, and in fact, like I also wrote before, there can never really be lasting happiness in life. And if you look at the picture of the universe above, that is exactly what it is showing us. Small specks of light surrounded by an ocean of darkness. Small positive experiences surrounded by an ocean of negativity. Little bits of happiness surrounded by an ocean of pain and suffering. The little bits of happiness are like a small drop of water on a hot plate; in the end it really has no effect. This picture tells us what life in this universe is all about.

The universe is more about darkness than it is about light. It’s more about the dark experiences than it is about the pleasant experiences. It is more about the negative than it is about the positive. At its core, life is all about darkness, about pain and suffering, from the moment you’re born all the way up to the moment you die. You cry yourself into the world, you enter a constant struggle to stay alive in an environment filled with hostility and in the end you grow old and die anyway. In between you might experience moments of what most people refer to as “happiness,” but it will always be against the underlying purpose of constant struggle, pain and suffering. Again, a small drop of water on a hot plate. If there really is such a thing as a hell, the universe could certainly be classified as some kind of hell. It could be worse, but it’s pretty bad already as it is.

I’m not a religious person and I don’t think much of religion, but it’s interesting to note that even the bible mentions that in the beginning there was first total darkness until god created light. Darkness must have been the very first thing god created, for obvious reasons. And as you can see in the picture above, the light he supposedly created in the universe is almost nothing compared to the darkness that exists. In fact, all the light seems overwhelmed by darkness. It really doesn’t stand a chance. Stars come and go in this universe, but the darkness will always be there. Happy moments may enter your life to stay for a short period, but the only thing that always stays, whether you like to admit it or not, is the underlying purpose of pain and suffering.

And that sums up my experience with life nicely.

Picture taken for Uniqa Marketing Campaign

When you have to do an outdoor photoshoot during that time of the year when you can’t really rely on the weather to be good all the time it takes more time to prepare for and plan the photoshoot. And if your client has a deadline for delivery of the pictures that’s just a few days away, then you can probably imagine that it can get really stressful. Such was the case with a photoshoot I had to do last April for Uniqa, one of the three telecom service providers in Suriname.

I am happy to say that I did manage to deliver the pictures on time in the end but it wasn’t easy. I can still remember not being able to sleep the night before the photoshoot because it was raining outside and I was worried that it would keep raining until the morning which would ruin our chances of shooting outdoors. I had checked the weather forecasts and had chosen a day when the weather would be the nicest according to the forecast information, but as it turned out, you can’t always rely on weather forecasts, especially not when you’re planning a few days ahead.

Picture taken for Uniqa Marketing Campaign

So I had a plan B ready right from the start. I picked a location for the photoshoot where we’d be able to shoot indoors as an alternative in case we just couldn’t work outside. Cancelling the photoshoot because of bad weather could not be an option since everything was planned for that day and at least one of the models would only be available for that day and rescheduling would have been an issue. This photoshoot was done at Hotel Torarica. They have some really nice outdoor settings with lots of nature that can be used as a backdrop, and this was one of the requirements the client had. In addition they also had some nice indoor locations for us to fall back on in case of bad weather.

Fortunately the weather wasn’t very bad when we actually had to work outside. There was some very light rain in between longer dry periods and we were able to do the outdoor shoots we had planned. The sky was constantly grey so that wasn’t very nice, but on the other hand the sunlight was very soft which as far as I’m concerned is a big plus. All I had to do was to try not to include the sky in the frame when possible.

Picture taken for Uniqa Marketing Campaign

I teamed up again with Euvie Karijoredjo for the makeup and hair, and Taciana Soerodimedjo for wardrobe advice and styling. The model casting was done by the client in advance, and I have to say that the models were really wonderful and easy to work with. The only exception of course was the little boy. Working with children isn’t very easy as they tend to have very short attention spans and get impatient quickly. In this particular case though I think the cute little guy did pretty well and I was fortunate to have his attention for a good while before he started complaining about being tired.

I’m sad to say that I don’t have any behind the scenes pictures to share this time. Normally I take the time to take a couple of quick behind the scenes snaps when I’m working, but in this case I was constantly worrying about the weather among other things and totally forgot about it. It didn’t even cross my mind to ask my assistant to take a couple of snaps.

Picture taken for Uniqa Marketing Campaign

For those of you who’re interesting in the gear I used: I used two Canon EOS 40D bodies with the Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L and EF 85mm f/1.2 L lenses. I am in love with the Canon L primes; the results you can get are simply amazing.  For the lighting I used a couple of Canon 580 EX II Speedlights with some light modifiers such as umbrellas and reflectors. The speedlights were all triggered wirelessly. I tried to blend the additional lighting in with the available soft sunlight as much as possible as I was going for a more natural look in the photos instead of a stylized look where the use of strobes is obvious.

The above pictures are currently being used in various places such as in TV commercials and on billboards throughout Suriname. I’ve included a few pictures of billboards below.

Uniqa Billboard

Uniqa Billboard

Uniqa Billboard

United Magazine June 2010 Edition

About two months ago I was hired again by Global Publishing to shoot pictures for a feature article in the upcoming edition of United magazine. Global Publishing is the publisher of United magazine.

The article is about three succesfull business women and the editor of the magazine, Edward Lee, was looking for some nice looking portraits of these women to go along with it. He also needed a group shot that could be used to open the article with. In the end the editor was so happy with the results that one of the pictures, the group shot, also ended up being used on the cover of the magazine. So this is my 3rd time on the cover of United Magazine. You can read here on my blog about the first and second times too.

The photoshoot took place at Leader’s Group Conference Room. During the photoshoot I had about 15 minutes per person, and 15 minutes for the group shot. I tried to get as many possible poses and settings with each one of them in the time I had. I also got to know the women a little during the photoshoot and tried to get a feel for their personalities, and in the end I chose a picture for each one of them that I think matched the most with their personalities. And from the feedback I got so far I think the pictures really do go along well with their personalities.

You can see the images that were used below:

United Magazine Group Shot

Portrait of Angela Yang for United Magazine

Portrait of Matchameryll Felter for United Magazine

Portrait of Rishma Ratan for United Magazine

For those of you who are interested in the gear used, I used two Canon EOS 40D bodies with the EF 35mm f/1.4 L and EF 85mm f/1.2 L II lenses from Canon. For the lighting I used a couple of Canon 580 EX II speedlights, sometimes with umbrella’s and mixed with the available light.

In addition to the images above, my images are also featured in ads from two other clients of mine who advertised in United. Below are those two ads:

Double page Ad for Nado Computers in United using one of my images of the Independence Square in Paramaribo, Suriname. One of the cool things about this image is that you can see the clouds forming a hand in the upper left corner. This was really there when the picture was taken and was not digitally added.

Ad for Tropical Gem Tours in United using an image of mine

The picture used in the ad for Tropical Gem Tours above was taken a while ago and if you’re interested you can read about it and see some more images taken during that photoshoot here.

From Troy:

Being a Canon user makes me feel cheated. The autofocus is terrible, owning a $3000 camera and having so many shots out of focus is unacceptable. Shooting landscapes is most of the time fine (even there AF hunts at times) but anything moving and easy to lose over 75% of your shots. Slow frame rate and many out of focus shots, bad news. I have tried every AF combination and get the same results. I have some great photos but have lost too many. I hate to switch but selling my Canon gear and moving to Nikon. I would love to stay with Canon but AF issues are too much, and they don’t seem wanting to fix it anytime soon.

From Mark H:

Hi Karel,

I haven’t read all the responses but I can’t believe some of the assessments of the camera based on limited shooting situations. I’m a wedding photographer, shoot 2000-3000 images per wedding in all kinds of lighting and all situations, and yes, low light shooting with the MK2 sucks compared to even prosumer cameras like the 40D. IMO it’s the outer autofocus points….focus dead-on with the center point (to hell with the rule of thirds or any sort of off center composition) and you’ll do ok in low light (in most situations), but try “getting ready” shots with a window behind the bride’s head (bright backlight), or low light church shots and good luck getting 30% of them in focus with the off-center focus points. I shoot a lot wide open at 1.4, so I know when it’s on and when it’s off. It’ll focus fine in bright light (so it’s not needing microadjustments or a lens problem), it’ll focus fine with off center points in bright light most of the time, but go indoors and be careful. Get trigger happy if you want some images to choose from. I love the resolution, love most of everything about the camera, can live with the speed of the autofocus, but a “low-light” camera that only has 1 “usable” autofocus point in low light is kinda disappointing.

And there’s a lot more where those came from.

If you’ve read my previous posts about the 5D Mark II, you know that the issues these users are describing are exactly the issues I mentioned in my posts. From the moment the 5D Mark II was announced I saw based on the specifications alone that Canon had seriously crippled the camera with an old autofocus system that wouldn’t be able to let people really take advantage of the other features the camera had to offer. Many users who’ve bought the camera for professional use have had no choice but to sell it again and move to something that worked much better and offered A LOT more, such as the Nikon D700. Here are just two cases:

Case 1: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

Canon was good to me, especially back in the day when I rocked a cropped sensor and a 35mm lens for 90% of my shoots. It was simple, reliable and dependable.  Then I got a 5d.  The 5d offered great high ISO features, a full frame, a nice big LCD and the worst focusing system money could buy.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I am a hard-core stickler for sharp images; “A little soft,” or “a little back-focused” is not ok by me.  It’s tack sharp or it get’s the hose. So, as you can imagine, the 5d became quite a handicap for me.  But, nonetheless, I figured out that if I only shot on One Shot and kept my aperture up, I could make in-focus photos.

Despite my near-constant frustration with Canon, I held out for the mythical 5d Mark II – a camera that promised even better ISO, an even bigger sensor, an even fancier LCD and (you guessed it), the same crappy focusing system. At that point, Canon had me by the you-know-whats (I don’t actually have you-know-whats… it’s a euphemism, silly) – I had *thousands* invested in lenses (see below). So I shot my 5d Mark II for the entire 2009 wedding season…. on One-Shot…. using a high aperture… constantly cussing under my breath.

Case 2: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

So, my 5DII came back from Canon’s repair center AGAIN on Tuesday. I took it out for a 45 minute stroll and took pictures of cats, leaves, berries, trees, the water.. etc. I used both the center focal point and the outer focal points. I spent the entire 45 minutes cursing after each shot as it became more and more apparent that it was just the same (if not worse) as it had been when I sent it in.

…

So, I sniffled a little, I paced back and forth, I thought. Then I typed up all the Canon gear I own on a forum and titled it ‘For sale’. I sniffled some more and grit my teeth and clicked the ‘post’ button. There. I said it. It’s for sale. I’ve been a Canon girl for eight years. I busted my ass to buy that 5D, and I love it. If I could afford to keep it and the 50mm lens that’s been with me for four years, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I’m done. I’m switching to Nikon.

In both these cases the users were let down by the bad autofocus performance of the 5D Mark II and had no choice but to switch to the Nikon D700. Even the image quality offered by the 5D Mark II isn’t what you would expect from a $2700 camera with noise and banding issues even at the low ISO settings.

The reason why the 5D Mark II still appears to be selling well is because of the HD video features that are also built into the camera. But as a tool for photography, the 5D Mark II has some serious issues and shortcomings that I hope will be addressed sufficiently by Canon in the next version.

Screenshot of the Grumman Ag-Cat G-164A in Microsoft Flight Simulator X

I’ve been searching for a nice version of the Grumman Ag-Cat aircraft for Microsoft Flight Simulator for a very very very long time. There’s a post here on my blog where I first mentioned it back in January 2006, and another one where I mentioned it again in 2007. And even before that, I was searching for this aircraft for older versions of Flight Simulator. But every time I would search on the Internet, I would end up disappointed because of not finding anything, or, because of finding something that tried to resemble an Ag-Cat but wasn’t quite finished.

By the end of 2009 I thought of searching for the aircraft again on various websites related to Flight Simulator, and you’ll never be able to imagine how excited I got when I found a very nicely done model by Marcel du Plessis from South Africa. The original version that I found was done for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, but I was using what is now the latest version, Flight Simulator X. So I downloaded the aircraft and installed it and was happy to see that most of it worked quite well in the newer version of Flight Simulator even though it was designed for the older version. There were however quite a few things that didn’t function correctly. I sent an email to Marcel asking about his plans for an update for Flight Simulator X, and he basically said that he had no plans to update the aircraft. So I asked if I could have the source files so I could try to update it myself, but unfortunately due to bad experiences in the past he didn’t feel like giving me those files. However, he did give me permission to modify the aircraft as much as I could, and fix it as much as possible with just the files I already had.

So I went ahead and tried to fix as much of the issues as possible. Below is a list of things I had to fix:

• Entries in the aircraft configuration files, coordinates and other data.
• The spray effects needed tweaking to work correctly.
• The panel configuration had to change due to missing gauges. All gauges have been replaced except for the stall light warning which won’t work on Flight Simulator X.
• The Boom Pressure gauge needed tweaking to work in Flight Simulator X.

In addition to this, I’ve also created new sounds for the model that sound more realistic. I used the sounds from the Goose G21A aircraft from Flight Simulator X and modified and remixed them for the Ag-Cat. The new sounds come very very close to what an actual Ag-Cat sounds like!

I’ve also added 5 new repaints for the aircraft, two of them are new and one is a modified version of the original texture by Marcel du Plessis. The repaints and registrations on the aircrafts are from actual aircrafts here in Suriname. You can see the repaints in the pictures below:

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Some of the things I could not fix (because I did not have the source files):

• I could not add new functionality to the aircraft for Flight Simulator X, such as the aircraft casting shadows on itself, etc.
• The glass on the cockpit has a minor rendering issue: dynamic scenery (houses, trees etc.) isn’t visible through it when viewed from the outside.

Download

To download the aircraft simply click on the following link: AgCat.zip. Please note that this file has been updated on July 14th, 2010. In case you downloaded it prior to this date, download it again. Two additional repaints (the green ones seen above) were added.

Installation

After downloading the zip file, extract all files into the main Flight Simulator X folder. If you use Winzip or a similar program and choose to extract the files with the directory structure, then all files will be placed in the right folders. After doing this, you can start Flight Simulator X and you should be able to see the 3 versions of the Ag-Cat when selecting an aircraft. Don’t forget to read the original Ag-Cat Quick Guide PDF document for instructions on how to operate the aircraft, how to activate the spray system and how to make the pilot visible among other things.

If you like the aircraft, please take the time to send an email to Marcel du Plessis and thank him for his incredible work in making such a detailed model for the Ag-Cat. Maybe if he gets enough comments he’ll be motivated to do an update . Also don’t forget to leave a comment below and let me know any feedback you may have.

Screenshots

Below are some more screenshots of the Ag-Cat in Flight Simulator X.

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Canon EOS 1D Mark IV

With the release of the EOS 1D Mark IV, Canon has once again demonstrated that they don’t fully understand what photographers are really looking for these days. Somehow Canon can’t seem to let go of the megapixel race and seems to think that what we’re all really looking for is more megapixels on our cameras and even larger images, even if that has to happen at the expense of image quality. This while a constantly growing number of photographers worldwide, who’re using Canon equipment daily, are complaining and asking for less megapixels and a full-frame sports / journalistic camera. Nikon clearly appears to understand this with the release of the Nikon D3s.

Once the king of image quality, for the last 3 years Canon seems to have lost touch with the market. As far as image quality is concerned it started going downhill with the EOS 50D, which came with a sensor that produced more noise and banding than anything else. Then came the EOS 5D Mark II, which also suffers from noise and banding issues even at ISO 100. Other image quality issues on the 5D Mark II such as the black dot problem were ‘fixed’ in a firmware update. Then came the EOS 7D which produces images that contain more noise compared to a 2 year older camera, namely the EOS 40D, while it also appears to suffer too much from diffraction issues when using high f-stops due to the high pixel density on the sensor. The same can be said about the Rebel line of cameras and for example the G10. The G10 got equipped with a 15MP sensor that, similar to the EOS 50D, produced more noise than anything else. It was so bad Canon went back and released a newer model, the G11, which has a smaller 10MP sensor capable of delivering much better image quality.

In the case of the 1D Mark IV (1D4 in short), the image quality is comparable to that of the 2 year old 40D. This is not surprising considering that the pixel density on the sensors in both cameras is 5.7µm. So the noise levels are practically the same. However the sensor in the 1D4 benefits from advances in sensor development in recent years and, among other things, does not suffer from the banding issues that can sometimes be seen on images taken with a 40D at high ISO values. Some reviewers, such as Lloyd Chambers, have argued that the 1D4 produces the best image quality to date compared to previous Canon camera models, and I agree with this. But this isn’t such an achievement when you consider that the last 3 (semi) professional DSLR models released by Canon all suffer(ed) from various image quality issues. It’s like a kid in school who has been receiving D’s constantly and gets praise when he finally receives a B.

Because when you look at it, Canon has given us image quality that, currently, isn’t worth much more than a B. The A goes to Nikon for their image quality on the D3s. If you look at reviews of the 1D4 around the Internet, you’ll find reviewers (who by the way are all Canon users) who are wishing Canon had given us the image quality produced by the D3s. One example is this review done by a Danish photographer, here’s what he had to say (translated from Danish):

It would have been better if Canon had made the files smaller and improved high ISO as such 12,800 were usable.

In another 1D4 review, the reviewer looks at the noise in files produced by the 1D4, and says that it almost looks “D3s like,” but not quite:

As stated previously, regardless of ISO (even 102,500!) there is no banding (even when heavily processed), and the pleasantness of the grain is particularly distinguishable from 12,800 ISO and higher as compared to all other cameras tested. One might say, the grain is almost… “Nikon D3s like” (…gasp! I know!)

If Canon had kept the 1D4 at 10MP or 12MP at most, the 1D4′s image quality could have matched the D3s. But as it is right now, the D3s is the clear winner. Juza Nature Photography has done an excellent comparison of image quality between the 1D4 and the Nikon D3s. You can clearly see there just how good the Nikon D3s actually is. It is really quite unbelievable. I’ve written about such image quality before in my EOS 7D review, and I’ve said there that I am quite sure that Canon today is capable of delivering this kind of image quality, but simply refuses to do so, choosing to compete with megapixels instead. And the old stupid argument about the resolution advantage even though there’s more noise clearly doesn’t apply here. Yes the 1D4 (16MP) has more resolution compared to the D3s (12MP), but clearly the resolution advantage doesn’t matter when you view the images from these two cameras side by side, and in fact, the 1D4 images become so noisy at higher ISO values that you’d have to use noise reduction software on them which will also remove detail from your images. So in the end, you’re actually better off using the D3s.

1D Mark IV and D3s Image Quality

The image crops above are much smaller crops taken from the review by Juza Nature Photography. Head over to their review to see the larger crops and be able to judge things like detail and see the quality at other ISO values. In the small crops above, it’s clear that the D3s beats the 1D4 when it comes to image quality. Even at ISO 100 the 1D4 shows some color noise while the D3s image looks as smooth as you can ever expect to get an image from a DSLR. The colors also look a lot better on the D3s. The D3s is so good that the ISO 1600 image on the D3s comes close to the ISO 100 image on the 1D4!!! Who the fuck would care about more noisy megapixels if you can get smooth and creamy looking images like this?? And if you look at ISO 102400, the 1D4 simply produces unusable garbage. I’ve said it many times before, but apparently Canon thinks we’re all stupid. They did it before when they said they couldn’t include better autofocus technology in the 5D Mark II because the body was too small. Including ISO 102400 the way it is on the 1D4 quite frankly is an insult to our intelligence. In the same way, Canon could have included ISO values up to 819200 and have that on the box as a feature. The images would be absolute crap, but hey, you can make them! Looking at the ISO 102400 sample from the 1D4, I can’t help but think that what happened is that Canon saw after the D3s announcement that the D3s was capable of taking images at ISO 102400, and at the last minute they added that feature on the 1D4 as the H3 setting just so the 1D4 and the D3s features would look more comparable on paper and the D3s wouldn’t have the edge. Stupid marketing at its best. This might also explain why Canon ordered everyone to take down their sample images taken with the 1D4 shortly after they announced the 1D4, because they probably weren’t quite finished with tweaking the higher ISO output.

The good news is that so far Canon appears to have addressed the autofocus shortcomings from the 1D Mark III, and all reviews I’ve seen up till now are very very positive about the autofocus capabilities of the 1D4. Photographer Brad Mangin wrote about his experiences with the 1D4 autofocus system and was quite pleased. Photographer Justin Gryba while also quite pleased with the tracking capabilities of the 1D4 autofocus system discovered some inconsistencies and bad performance in low light conditions. Apparently Canon crippled the Spot AF feature on the 1D4 when compared to the EOS 7D. On the 1D4 the Spot AF feature can only be used with the very expensive long lenses with an AF Stop button, while on the 7D you can configure the camera to use Spot AF with all lenses. Because of this, the accuracy of the AF system on the 1D4 in low light is not as good as it could be, and as Justin shows in his review, is even worse than the 5D Mark II. This is a serious issue if you expect to use the 1D4 for events in low light conditions, such as weddings, where you simply can’t use lenses with an AF Stop button. For the details on this head on over to Justin’s website to read his review. Fortunately Canon should be able to address this issue with a firmware update. The functionality we want is already included on the 7D, it’s just a matter of enabling it on the 1D4. After reading Justin’s review, please contact your local Canon representative to request this feature to be added. This is a very important find by Justin and he deserves the credit. Let’s hope Canon listens.

The 1D4 will be a good camera overall for Canon users. After the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco, Canon users worldwide were desperate for a working professional DSLR and the 1D4 will be able to keep them reasonably satisfied for a while. It won’t help Canon to win back those users who have already switched to Nikon, because Nikon has the better bodies right now and they’re working hard on the lenses. It probably also won’t convince many users to stay with Canon who have already decided to switch to Nikon. But it will convince many Canon users who already have a lot invested in Canon to stick with Canon gear for the coming 3 years. It’s the easier path to take. But deep down inside, at any event, they’ll all know that the Nikon photographers with the big black lenses and a D3s logo on their bodies will have the edge.

The future currently doesn’t look very good for Canon. They appear to be struggling to keep up with Nikon, and mostly because of their own shortsightedness and stupidity because they have the potential to blow Nikon away. But because of their fooling around they are giving Nikon a lot of room to catch up. Nikon has already surpassed Canon when DSLR bodies are concerned, and they are now working hard to close the gap with their lenses. They’ve released an updated 70-200mm f/2.8 lens that appears to match the new Canon version and just yesterday, Nikon announced the long anticipated 24mm f/1.4 professional lens along with a new 16-35 f/4 lens (read more here). According to recent information, they also have their new professional 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 primes in the works (patents have been filed) and these should be released soon. In 2011 Nikon will probably not only have closed the gaps in their lens lineup, but will also have the better quality optics. Add this to the already better Nikon DSLR bodies and flash system, and you can start to see that the future doesn’t look very good for Canon. For the short term, the release of an updated D700 body with the sensor from the D3s will be like a knife through Canon’s heart. They know it’s coming, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

As a Canon user, I hope I won’t have to make the difficult decision of having to switch to Nikon in 2011. The only thing keeping me back right now is the huge investment I currently have in Canon gear. Otherwise, I’d have been a Nikon user already.

Update February 11, 2010: Rob Galbraith has just published his findings on the autofocus system of the 1D Mark IV, and it doesn’t look very good. As you may know, Galbraith, a sports photographer from Canada, was the first who pointed out that the 1D Mark III had autofocus issues back in 2007. He has now done some tests with both the 1D Mark IV and the 1D Mark III, and also tested the D3s along with the 1D Mark IV, and although it does appear that the 1D Mark IV is an improvement compared to the older model (which isn’t saying much because the 1D3 had tons of issues), it still has some issues making the autofocus system from the D3s a better choice. Here’s some of what he had to say:

Add it all up and the conclusion is inescapable: the EOS-1D Mark IV has an AF system that is capable of greatness but is also so bewilderingly variable that there’s no way to trust it, especially for outdoor sports. Indoors, EOS-1D Mark IV autofocus performance has been less variable, but our results from speedskating and basketball are simply not up to par. If this is the best the company could muster, after the autofocus debacle of the EOS-1D Mark III, then it’s official: Canon has lost their autofocus mojo.

…

To sum up, our experience with the D3S’ AF system is that it’s trustworthy and dependable enough for us to be confident using it for peak action sports. Not perfect: it needs to be a bit faster off the line, in addition to the other quibbles we’ve mentioned. But it does work as needed most of the time, which is in stark contrast to the experience of the EOS-1D Mark IV in the last month.

Go over to read his full analysis and to check out the tons of sample pictures.

So I guess this makes things a lot worse for Canon than I initially thought and explained above. The 1D4 appears to be an improvement compared to the 1D3, but will it be enough to keep Canon users happy and loyal to the brand? We know that when the image quality is concerned, the Nikon D3s is the clear winner. And now it looks like even for the autofocus performance, you’re better off using a Nikon D3s. It really is quite a sad situation, and as Galbraith briefly shows in his article, the competition using Nikon gear is going to have a real advantage over you if you’re using Canon gear.

Update February 12, 2010: Photographer Lloyd Chambers posted some remarks about the D3s image quality and it’s worth taking a look. Here’s some of what he had to say:

The Nikon D3s handles ISO 3200 superbly. The flag shot at right was also pushed by 2/3 stop = ISO 5000 equivalent. Yet the noise is minimal, and the color true. I also shot at ISO 12800, and I’ll be pitiqualated if I wasn’t even more impressed than I expected. The Nikon D3s is truly a breakthrough camera.

The Nikon D3s is a low light dream camera. Couple that with some good low light lenses and you’re in low light photography heaven! As I mentioned before, Nikon is currently working hard to update their lenses for low light photography (this means lenses with small aperture values). They’ve already announced the 24mm f/1.4 and they’ll be releasing their new 35mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.4 lenses in the future. The fact that these lenses were not yet available is what made a lot of Canon users hesitate to switch to Nikon. Canon users have long enjoyed the ability to use the 24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 50mm f/1.2, 85mm f/1.2 and 135mm f/2 lenses. The results you can get using those lenses are simply amazing. But now that Nikon will also have them very soon, especially in combination with an excellent body as the D3s, I think many will make the switch as soon as they can afford to.

But we should not be surprised as it is starting to look like the whole thing is as much an embarrassment to the US government as it is to Google. Suggestions are that the same software Google uses to snoop on customers for US law enforcement might have provided Chinese hackers with their attack vector.

…

…the trend toward building surveillance capability into telecommunications architecture amounts to a breach-by-design and is a serious security risk.

…

With the automated process in place all the Chinese would have had to do was hack into it and all the information they wanted would have been available to them.

If this is true, it is running counter to the official story that claims Chinese dissidents were tricked with a bogus Trojan. It highlights the weaknesses in Google’s cloud computing plans and how the US government’s obsession to snoop on its citizens actually puts them at risk.

Fortunately for both Google and the US government, they can sidetrack the problem with a bit of spin that paints them as ‘fighting for freedom’ against the Chinese government’s attempts to clamp down on free speech.

China has been successfully squeezing Internet companies for years and neither Google nor the US government had complained much.

Yet when the future of cloud based computing is threatened then Google apparently feels it is a good idea to threaten to pull out of China.

The US government too has an interest in Google’s cloud based initiative succeeding. Instead of having to get court orders to snoop at many ISPs it will only have to deal with one company, with which it could develop a very cosy relationship over time.

However if Google’s snooping software did provide the Chinese attack vector, then it could make people less happy with both the government and cloud based computing.

So the White House now enters the spin war on Google’s side.

…

Google is onto a PR winner here. With even Reporters Without Borders hailing Google’s move, no one is taking any time to wonder how Chinese hackers were able to get into its cloud.

When Google decided it was the right thing to do to assist the Chinese government with censoring information on the Internet back in 2006, I wrote a post where I discussed the hypocrisy of the situation. In that post I wrote the following:

Similarly, Google thinks, and/or would like us to think, that they are helping the Chinese people by at least trying to provide them with the information they are allowed to view, instead of denying them access to all information, but in the process, they are willingly helping the Chinese government with committing a crime against their people. They are actually helping the government there to restrict freedom of speech and to deny the people there their basic rights.

So much for “Don’t be evil.” Google PR are making all kinds of sharp turns right now trying to explain their way out of this and making them look good, but it won’t work.

And it will only go downhill from here. Once they start doing business there and start to rely on it, the Chinese government will have more power over them and will get them to agree to even more things. Like I said before, corporations are only interested in protecting their interests, and you’d be surprised at the things they can be willing to do in order to protect themselves. In the world we live in, everything seems to be about interests and protecting them. That always seems to have the highest priority instead of moral principles and ethics. Just look at Microsoft. They are willing to fight the EU, South Korea and the US government to be able to release certain software with Windows, but gladly comply to the Chinese government’s request to censor information! Isn’t that just lovely?

It is important to remember the reasons why Google went to do business in China in the first place and why they decided to help the Chinese government with censorship back then. Because this will allow you to see through their current PR-spin bullshit about “fighting for freedom.” This isn’t about freedom, it is about protecting Google’s own (business) interests. It is about hiding the fact that they have holes built into their software that allow people, such as the Criminals in Action (CIA), NSA and other parts of the US government to snoop on people. Before this happened, Google was perfectly happy with helping the Chinese government with censorship. Now all of a sudden they feel the need to “fight for freedom.”

Also take note of the fact that money from the CIA was used to finance Google in the beginning. Google is very much in bed with the US government when it comes to cloud computing, and this is one of the reasons why cloud computing is a bad idea. If you’re new to this, take the time to read the links in this post, and if nothing else, at least read the following to understand just how far this goes: Google “in bed” with CIA.

This is what Google is trying to hide right now. It is important that we not make this easy for them to do.

Distant destinations

So we’ve entered a new year and undoubtedly most people are going to be posting their new year’s resolutions all over the Internet in the next couple of days. I too have been thinking about my life as it has progressed so far, mostly looking at what I’ve been doing wrong and what I’ve been doing right, what worked and what didn’t. I’ve also been looking at some of the posts I’ve written in the past here on my blog, and it occurred to me that I already have a pretty good formula for my approach to life in the new year and I think far beyond. I’m going to list those posts below, but for a detailed explanation click through to read every one of them to get the complete picture. You really have to read the details in order to really understand where I’m coming from.

1. Have absolutely nothing to lose in life.  If you have nothing to lose, you can only win. Stand for what you believe, have principles in life, value your integrity, make your own choices, be free and have some backbone. Make sure you have nothing to lose, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to really have all of those things. Read the details.
2. Listen to the voice inside your head. Our intuition is always there to provide guidance. Learn to isolate it from all the clutter and noise in life and then always listen to it. Read the details.
3. Learn from everyone. You can learn important and valuable things from almost anyone as long as you keep an open mind. The sooner you realize this, and really understand what this means, the sooner you’ll be able to benefit from it. Read the details.
4. Learn how to deal with being wrong. Constantly challenge yourself and/or allow yourself to be challenged by others to find out if you’re on the right track. If not, admit to it as soon as possible and change directions. It will only help you improve and grow much faster. Read the details.
5. See life for what it is. At its core life is a very painful and negative experience. The sooner you realize this, the better you’ll be able to deal with it. Understand what “happiness” is and reset your expectations accordingly. Read the details.
6. Focus on the negative things in life. Don’t fool yourself. Know what’s missing, what could be better and what’s wrong, and focus on those things! It will only make you a better person. Read the details.
7. Understand the world we live in. The world we live in is fundamentally flawed and evil and if you want to be a part of it, it will force you to support that. However indirectly it may be, while you may know it or not. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you’ll be able to deal with it. Read the details.
8. Be prepared to go crazy, but in reverse. You’re going to find out that things are not as they seem, not as you’ve been taught, and not as people want you to believe. In fact, quite often in life the “truth” is a lie and “lies” are true. Read the details.
9. Understand love and relationships.  If you look around you, it should be more than clear that what we’ve been taught about love, and the rules we’ve been told to live by only serve to frustrate our lives, hurt our relationships and make things more difficult for us. Find out what works: Read the details.
10. Watch your weight! I see people everywhere struggling to maintain a healthy weight. The solution is simple: Just follow Donk’s Diet. Read the details.

These are some of the concepts that have so far served me well in life. Upon looking back at the issues I’ve had in my life so far, I’ve noticed that most issues only started and/or got worse when I chose to neglect what I’ve just listed above. Perhaps this information might be useful to you as well in the new year, and hopefully beyond.

Beauty & Home Systems Inc. Headquarters (click for larger image)

I’ve recently had the opportunity to photograph the buildings and offices of Beauty & Home Systems Inc. (BHS). BHS is the distributor of As Seen on TV products and the consultant of AVON products in Suriname. They currently have a number of outlets in Suriname and an office in Guyana. However the pictures I’ve included below are all taken at their main office in Suriname. The buildings and the offices were all decorated for Christmas.

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Nothing has changed.

After posting my article about the EOS 7D, I notified people of the post and one of those people was Philip Askey, the guy who started dpreview before Amazon bought them some time ago. Shortly after sending my email to Askey, he replied demanding that I take down the sample images from dpreview which I included in my post about the 7D. You can see the email conversation that followed below:

From: Philip Askey
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 7:47 PM
To: Karel Donk

Please remove the copyright image quality crops from your blog post, you did not seek permission to reproduce these.

—-

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:55 PM
To: ‘Philip Askey’

Hi Philip,

Thank you for reading. I was hoping you guys would mention how the noise in 7D images was still worse compared to the 40D, like you did when you reviewed the 50D.

Also I use some of the crops to discuss the result of your published reviews and show how from your own reviews and samples, the 7D performs worse than the 40D, while also mentioning how you guys failed to mention in your own review that the 7D performs worse at low ISO compared to the D300s, as you can clearly see.
My use falls under fair use and that’s why i did not ask permission. But let me know if you think otherwise.

Regards,

—-

From: Philip Askey
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 8:59 PM
To: Karel Donk

Karel,

You clearly have an axe to grind against Canon and I’m not hear to have a conversation, we would compare the 7D to the 40D if it were the clear predecessor.

Your use of our numerous images does not fall under fair use.  Please remove all these images immediately.

—-

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 9:03 PM
To: ‘Philip Askey’

Philip,

Can you explain to me why you think this is not fair use?

Thanks,

After my last email to Askey above, I didn’t hear from him again. However, after this email exchange I started contacting a few people to ask them for their opinion about my use of the images in my post. I was sure my use of the images fell under “fair use” but I still wanted to hear the opinion of others just to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t infringing on dpreview’s rights. As a photographer myself, I too would love to be able to protect my work, so I take such matters very serious. One of the people I contacted was Dan Heller, well known in the photography business community online, he has written about many similar topics in the past. We started a very insightful email discussion on the subject, and Dan basically confirmed my “fair use” argument.

In case you’re not familiar with “fair use” of content, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has the following to say about it:

The public’s right to make fair use of copyrighted works is a long-established and integral part of US copyright law. Courts have used fair use as the means of balancing the competing principles underlying copyright law since 1841. Fair use also reconciles a tension that would otherwise exist between copyright law and the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression. The Supreme Court has described fair use as “the guarantee of breathing space for new expression within the confines of Copyright law”.

3. How Do You Know If It’s Fair Use?
There are no clear-cut rules for deciding what’s fair use and there are no “automatic” classes of fair uses. Fair use is decided by a judge, on a case by case basis, after balancing the four factors listed in section 107 of the Copyright statute. The factors to be considered include:

a. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes — Courts are more likely to find fair use where the use is for noncommercial purposes.
b. The nature of the copyrighted work — A particular use is more likely to be fair where the copied work is factual rather than creative.
c. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole — A court will balance this factor toward a finding of fair use where the amount taken is small or insignificant in proportion to the overall work.
d. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — If the court finds the newly created work is not a substitute product for the copyrighted work, it will be more likely to weigh this factor in favor of fair use.

4. What’s been recognized as fair use?
Courts have previously found that a use was fair where the use of the copyrighted work was socially beneficial. In particular, U.S. courts have recognized the following fair uses: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, research and parodies.

Based on the criteria in point 3 above, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my use of some of dpreview’s images as I did in my post about the EOS 7D. Especially considering the fact that I was mainly criticizing dpreview’s review of the 7D (they worded the review in such a way to make the 7D look positive at times) and using their own data to show what I feel that they failed to mention about the  7D (that it offers worse image quality compared to the Nikon D300s from ISO 100 – 1600 and worse compared to the EOS 40D at all ISOs).

But the next day, after I sent my last reply to Askey, I get the following email from a lawyer at Amazon:

From: Radliff, Lynn
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 8:36 PM
To: Karel Donk
Cc: Sheehan, Kathryn
Subject: Cease & Desist

Dear Karel Donk:

I am Associate General Counsel for Litigation and Regulatory Matters for Amazon.com, which owns dpreview.com.  It has recently come to our attention that you are using dpreview.com’s copyrighted material in your blog posts, specifically http://www.kareldonk.com/karel/2009/11/08/canon-eos-7d-review-noisier-than-40d/, in connection with Karel Donk In My Opinion.  Your use of this content is unauthorized by dpreview.com and infringes dpreview.com’s intellectual property rights. The purpose of this e-mail is to demand that you immediately cease using or otherwise infringing dpreview.com’s copyrighted content and related rights.  dpreview.com would prefer to resolve this matter amicably with your cooperation. However, dpreview.com needs your written assurance that you are willing to immediately cease and desist from any and all use of dpreview.com’s intellectual property, including any images and content from the dpreview.com web site.
We look forward to hearing from you, and ask for your written response by Friday, November 13, 2009 to indicate your position on this matter. If we do not hear from you by this date, we will take those further steps that we believe are necessary to protect our rights.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Kathryn Sheehan

As you can see, they wanted me to assure ”that you are willing to immediately cease and desist from any and all use of dpreview.com’s intellectual property, including any images and content from the dpreview.com web site.” This would mean that I could not even quote some of their review text so that I could comment on it or criticize it. And of course this would severely limit me in exercising my right to free speech, so I couldn’t possibly agree with this. In addition, there was nothing wrong with my use of the dpreview images in the first place. So I replied as follows:

From: Karel Donk
Sent: Monday, November 09, 2009 9:03 PM
To: ‘Radliff, Lynn’
Subject: RE: Cease & Desist

Hi Kathryn,

In my blog post, which you mention in your email, I am discussing, among other things, the review done by DPReview of the EOS 7D. I quote part of their findings from the review, and offer my own comments and criticism on their review. I have included browser screenshots of their review images (not the original images) from the review which were relevant to my comments, to support my comments and criticism to show that THEIR OWN images show things that I feel they failed to mention in their review.

I believe that this is “fair use” of the material. I would not be able to discuss their review and make my points if I could not quote some of their text and show SCREENSHOTS of SOME of their images, and my comments and criticism would not be possible.

If you think this is not fair use, please let me know and also let me know why you think it is not, so I can consider taking the images down if I see that I am in fact infringing on dpreview.com’s rights.

Regards,

I have yet to receive a response from them on my last email above. Dan Heller later told me that he thought I used way too many words in my reply, and that an email asking the following would have been enough:

Explain to me why you feel my use of the images doesn’t meet the four criteria established by the courts in fair use assessments.

And I couldn’t agree more. Short, powerful and to the point.

I thought this information might be useful to many people out there, as the use of copyrighted images on blogs is an often discussed topic on the Internet, and I think it’s going to be discussed a lot more often in the future as more people discover the Internet and start blogging. Certain use of copyrighted images on your blog is certainly permitted as long as you keep the “fair use” guidelines in mind. But I’ll leave it to experts like Dan Heller to talk about this subject more in-dept.

Update January 23, 2010:

There’s a nice article at Black Star Rising about understanding fair use. Check it out.

Canon EOS 7D

Shortly after the announcement of the EOS 7D camera by Canon, I wrote a post here on my blog where I mentioned that the 7D looked like a very promising camera. Before I continue with my review of the 7D, let me take a moment to discuss some of the things I said in that previous post.

I mentioned right from the start that the noise in 7D images was a concern for me, this is what I wrote:

The only thing that I’m not so sure about right now is the image quality. Canon has included a new 18MP sensor in the 7D which, from the sample images I have seen so far, appears to deliver much better image quality compared to the EOS 50D even while having a higher pixel count, and comes close to the EOS 5D Mark II. I could see no pattern noise and banding issues so far, like I mentioned before, and this is a very good thing. However, looking at RAW files, I still think that the images produced by the 7D contain a little too much noise, even at lower ISO values, and the images at high ISO contain way too much noise. JPEG images coming out of the camera look better because of the noise reduction being done inside the camera, at the expense of lost detail, but RAW images look terrible so far.

As you will soon see, this is exactly the case. Another thing I mentioned was the following:

Looking at Canon’s recent DSLR releases and all the quality control issues they’ve had, it would be wise to wait at least 4 months after general availability before you actually buy a 7D, just to make sure that there aren’t any issues with it. You really do not want to spend money to become Canon’s beta tester. Wait for the reviews, read the experiences from those who were brave enough to buy one early and then decide.

And many of the people that couldn’t wait to buy the 7D are now experiencing exactly what I meant when I warned not to become Canon’s beta tester. Canon has so far had to release TWO firmware updates for the 7D in the very short time period of just one month that the 7D has been available. The first update (version 1.0.9) was to correct autofocus problems in Live View mode, and the second update (version 1.1.0) which was released a few days ago, was to correct a ghosting problem in images (Fake Chuck Westfall has more on this here). In addition to this, many people are experiencing autofocus problems with their 7D cameras. It appears that Canon’s quality control is still pretty bad and at this point in time, one has to wonder if it will ever get better. If you want some examples of people experiencing these autofocus issues on the EOS 7D, check out the following links:

1. Discussion at DPReview Forum

Unfortunately it looks like I’ve got a 7D that has the much-talked about Autofocus problem. I came back from the cottage last week with about 5 good images out of 600, all of the others were just blurry enough at 50% to make the image unusable, but still look fine when fit to the LCD. There was little consistency between back and front focusing, or the amount of error: AF is all over the place.

2. 7D Autofocus Problem Test with sample images

I ran series of pictures tonight on my camera in 19 point AF, zone AF, and spot AF. I’ll summarize the data and include all the photo’s below. I also took some with my Sony F800, it’s a bit above the point and shoot, but not a DSLR.

…

Most of the badly out of focus results ended up front focusing on the near floor which is supposedly out of the AF range. 19 point and zone auto focus seemed to almost be working randomly.

3. More 7D Autofocus Issues

The first day shooting was dismal and the light not the best so I didn’t pay much attention to the results. However, most images were soft. I was shooting on Sydney Harbour so conditions were not ideal in the late afternoon. I can tell you that distant foliage looked like an impressionist painting. I was very disappointed because I often shoot landscapes. The Jacaranda blossoms are out now in Sydney and I really love capturing the colours. Not sharp and not quite an accurate colour compared to the 5DII which is quite close to being right. I used my 200 f/2.8 lens which I knew was sharp on the 5DII but this was soft on the 7D for some reason.

The next day was bright and sunny so I returned with tripod and 500mm lens. I also tried a 70-200 f/4is lens but nothing was sharp. I used the 500 with the 1.4 extender to capture people on top of the Harbour Bridge and did the same with my 5DII as a comparison. I have shot climbers heaps of times so used a cable release as well. Most of the results were soft. Earlier in the day I used the 24-105 with the 7D and the results were good. The distant shots were a bit soft but maybe it was my fault. When I got home and examined my tele photos I found that the mode dial must have been shifted because my telephoto shots were all at 1/125 sec. That setting made the apertures over f/20 so I blamed that for the unsatisfactory shots. For some reason the letters on signs weren’t captured properly and were somewhat faded or invisible compared to the 5DII.

Day three found me setting up my tripod again and having another go with the 500 plus 1.4 extender. I took a couple photos with the 500 by itself and the two were sharp. When I added the extender none of the shots were sharp. Letters on signs were smeared. I tried several subjects at different distances but all were quite soft. Some looked fine at 25% but none at 100%. I then took a dozen photos with the 70-200 f4 and expected good results. It was sunny and bright but all were soft.

…

There was a lot of noise in many of my photos so I don’t think I will venture to buy another camera with a 1.6 crop factor. The 5DII in my opinion is a professional quality camera compared to the 7D. I certainly don’t want a camera that can’t focus or that has issues. Let us hope Canon sorts these problems out.

These are just 3 examples, but reading those threads and doing a simple search will reveal many more people experiencing the same issues. I see more people complaining about this almost daily. There are also people who are satisfied with the 7D autofocus system, so at this point it looks like these autofocus issues could be related to a quality control problem at Canon and are not a defect / shortcoming of the autofocus system itself (like was the case with the 1D Mark III and 5D Mark II). At least I hope so for those of you who bought the camera. So should you choose to buy this camera, be prepared to give it a lot of testing as soon as you get it to make sure your copy does not suffer from these issues. I’ve also seen reports from people who have sent their bad focusing 7D cameras to Canon for repairs and received it back working much better. Certain stores don’t even question you when you return the 7D mentioning bad autofocus, leading me to believe that most of them are aware of these issues.

These issues with the 7D add to what is already becoming a long list of quality control problems that Canon has had with recent DSLRs and lenses. If you want some more background information on Canon quality control problems, check the following links:

• Canon Quality Control Sucks Part 1 and Part 2
• Canon has Lost It
• Issues with 5D Mark II Autofocus
• EF 50mm f/1.2 L lens backfocus issues
• Interview with Fake Chuck Westfall at Black Star Rising
• Fake Chuck post discussing some Canon issues

Not too long ago, photographer Lloyd Chambers wrote about his experiences with the autofocus of the Canon EOS 1D Mark III and said the following:

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.

And you can now add the EOS 7D to that list of Canon professional camera models with issues.

All of this is rather disappointing because like I said in my first post about the 7D, the 7D looked like a very exciting camera. Canon added a lot of exciting new features to it that were long overdue:

The 7D seems to be Canon’s answer to the Nikon D300s, and it looks like it will give the D300s some good competition. There’s a lot that I like about the EOS 7D, such as the new 19 point AF system, 8 fps shooting speed, the new metering system, the intelligent viewfinder with 100% field of view, 1.0 magnification, and overlaid LCD display. Also the fact that you can now finally use the built-in flash to trigger external Canon flashes wirelessly (without an ST-E2).

Those are, in my opinion, the most important features that were added tot he 7D compared to other camera models like the 50D. And those features alone would make the 7D a perfect upgrade for users of the EOS 40D, 50D, 500D and lower camera models.

However, like I mentioned before, there’s the problem that the noise in images taken with the 7D is still too much. The 7D is supposed to be a better performer in low light situations, but as it appears this is not the case. It certainly is an improvement compared to the 50D (which was absolute crap as far as image quality is concerned), but it performs worse than the Nikon D300s at lower ISO values, and worse than even the old EOS 40D. But don’t take my word for it, let’s look at some sample images below. I took those sample images from some reviews over at DPReview. I did ask Canon for a sample 7D body so I could do my own tests, but never got a response back from them. The images below are taken from the following review pages at DPReview: EOS 7D review, EOS 40D review, EOS 50D review, Nikon D300 review. So if you don’t believe what you see in the images below, feel free to go take a look at them at the source.

One thing I have to mention about the review of the 7D at DPReview, is that it seems to me like the reviewers at DPReview tried to remain positive about the 7D and ignored some of its issues. For one thing, they don’t test autofocus on cameras, and in the case of the 7D, they clearly fail to mention that the noise in the 7D images is worse than the noise in images taken with a 40D and even with the Nikon D300s. Here’s an example:

Again, the graphs below confirm what we can see in the sample crops. The 50D produces more chroma noise than the EOS 7D at higher ISOs. The Pentax K-7 is still slightly worse than the Nikon and EOS 7D at very high ISOs but the gap is smaller in RAW. At high ISOs the the 7D and its closest rival, the Nikon D300S, are more or less level in terms of chroma noise.

While discussing the test results, the commentary is worded in such a way that it makes the 7D look positive every time. When reading this, most readers would think the 7D is the best. What they failed to mention in this particular case, is that by looking at the graph and sample images, it is very clear that the 7D performs worse than the D300s at lower ISOs. I’m including some of their own test images together below and you can clearly see this in those images. This means that the 7D is even worse than the 40D, since the 40D is better than the D300 with regards to noise performance. And comparing the 7D with the 50D is like comparing a healthy human being with a disabled person, to be honest.

Let’s look at some of DPReview’s own sample images and see if the 7D is as good as they claim:

Here you can see that at ISO 100, the 40D clearly has less noise, even while noise reduction on the 40D was OFF (!!!) and it was ON on the 7D!! Just check the amount of noise in the 7D RAW file at ISO 100. When has it become acceptable to have this much noise present at ISO 100? I placed the red circles around some dust or marks, I discuss this further below.

As you can see, even at ISO 100, the 2 year old 40D beats the 7D with regards to noise performance. In fact, the 7D doesn’t beat the 40D even with noise reduction on! At higher ISO values, the problem only gets worse. Let’s look at another sample image. I labeled the images below from 1 to 4, 1 being the best and 4 being the worst, as far as noise performance is concerned to make it easier to compare.

Here you can see JPEG comparisons between the 40D and 7D. As you can clearly see, the noise in the 7D images with noise reduction turned ON (!!!) is still much worse than the noise in 40D images with noise reduction turned OFF. So think of how much worse the 7D images would look, compared to the 40D, if the 7D images also had noise reduction turned off!

And now, let us look at the noise performance in RAW images:

Click on the image to view the bigger version. In this RAW comparison, you can clearly see that the noise in 7D images is worse than the D300s at ISO 1600 and lower. DPReview did not mention this in their review where they discussed these same images. The 7D is much worse than the 40D. Only the 50D is worse than the 7D, but the 50D really is a piece of shit camera to begin with.

As you can see, one can come to “slightly different” conclusions by viewing the exact same test images that DPReview used in their reviews.

Image test results over at CameraLabs also support my conclusions above about the DPReview 7D review. Just look at the image comparisons at these links: RAW Comparison, JPEG Comparison. Notice how the 7D images look so much noisier compared to the D300s images.

This proves that my initial fears about noise in 7D images were certainly grounded. I’ve said it before, but Canon really doesn’t seem to care about what photographers are really asking for. With the 7D they did take care of a lot of things, but image quality is very important. We do NOT want more noise in larger images! This is not an improvement. Now the 2 year old 40D costing round $800 delivers better image quality than the ‘state of the art’ 7D which costs $1700. Does this make sense to you? Not to me!

Canon should have equipped the 7D with a 10MP or 12MP sensor featuring the same improvements in sensor design in the 7D. That would have guaranteed better image quality compared to the 40D. Yes, the 18MP 7D images have more resolution compared to the 10MP 40D images, but really, this is not of much use when the images are also noisier, and especially not at high ISO. It just gives photographers a lot more work to clean up noise in post production. In addition, more dynamic range and other benefits would also have been welcome on the smaller improved sensor.

Since noise in images can be seen more clearly in the out of focus areas, it really makes images that should have nice bokeh effects look uglier. Instead of images with nice creamy looking out of focus backgrounds, you get images with out of focus backgrounds that have kind of a rough and grainy feel to them, even at ISO 100. This can often be cleaned up in post production, but depending on the images, this can add a significant amount of extra time to your workflow. This is why I also always wondered why reviews everywhere on the Internet feature noise tests with images that are in focus. The best way to test the noise performance of a camera, is to take out of focus shots so you can see the noise much better. Take the sample images from DPReview above, for example. The noise test on the gray background should have been done by focusing on a large gray area, and putting the lens totally out of focus. That way you don’t get the dust, patterns and other texture of the background together with the noise – something you can often see in the DPreview noise test images (check the red circles in the test images above). You could even confuse the texture on the background as being noise if you don’t look carefully.

If you’re wondering why Canon isn’t giving us what we want, check out this article:

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).”

The employee was keen to point out though that he wasn’t wholly disappointed by the new model though:

“The image quality on the 5d1 was so good that it’s still as good as the new NikonD700 even though the Nikon is 3 years younger. I was hoping (…) for two new cameras. One would be a ‘reheated’ 5D1 with a same megapixel count but a slight redesign in sensor combined with new processor and all the gadgets like micro autofocus adjustments, vignetting control, dust reduction, better weather seals and an upgrade to the autofocus.”
“The other one would be a ‘revolution’ 5d, with a completely new sensor design (so it can actually take a lot more megapixels), dual processor for faster frames per second and the gadgets above with a ‘near’ professional grade autofocus for the sake of protecting the 1D series and model segregation”.
“To be honest I was hoping for a bigger upgrade, but they can’t please everyone with one model. (…) On the whole though, I think Canon have done pretty well in fending off competition on all sides – providing a viable upgrade to the 5d1 and worthy competition (on spec at least) to the competitors”
It’s true that megapixels are often used as a benchmark to compare cameras on, but until the media change their reporting style, the pressure from the marketing department will remain on the engineers.

As we know today, the 5D Mark II also suffers from a lot of noise and banding in images even at lower ISO values, as low as ISO 100. This is just unacceptable. It is very sad to see that Canon, while they clearly have the technology to deliver better image quality, choose to compete in the megapixel race instead and are delivering bad image quality. This while Nikon has just released their new D3s camera with an improved sensor that is “just” 12MP, and fullframe at that, capable of delivering results at extremely high ISO values. Nikon clearly appears to understand much better what photographers really need. Meanwhile Canon is giving us 18MP on a 1.6x crop sensor with a lot of noise at ISO 100, and a 21MP fullframe sensor with noise and banding at ISO 100.

When will we see an EOS 3D camera, with same or better specs than the 7D and a 12MP fullframe sensor using the latest sensor technology, that is capable of delivering smooth, creamy looking images not only at low ISO but even at the higher ISO settings? There’s a reason why people loved the image quality from the old 5D so much. Just realize that today Canon has the technology to improve on that, but simply refuses to.

So to conclude, as far as the 7D is concerned, I’m afraid I can’t really recommend it. It is certainly not a waste of money, like was the case with the 50D and 5D Mark II, as it does offer some nice upgrades compared to previous models. But if you require good image quality, then it is not the best choice. Clearly the Nikon D300s and certainly the Nikon D700 offer more here. If you are a 40D user, you don’t have to upgrade. If you are a 50D user, I feel very sorry for you and upgrading to the 7D is a good option, but downgrading to the 40D is perhaps better and more affordable. If you are a 5D Mark II user, I would consider upgrading, yes upgrading,  to the 7D because images that are in focus most of the time win over images with a little more noise in them. Personally I will NOT be buying the 7D as long as the 40D remains available. I will be looking at the 1D Mark IV, hopefully Canon won’t screw up with that model.

Update November 11, 2009:

It is also important to take note of the fact that Canon themselves do seem to know about the benefits of lower megapixel sensors to achieve lower noise and as a result cleaner looking images. When Canon introduced the G11 compact camera, it featured a 10MP sensor, which was actually a step backwards compared to the older G10 camera, which had a 15MP sensor. Why would Canon introduce a newer G11 model which has less megapixels compared to the G10? Here is what Canon themselves say:

The PowerShot G11 employs a newly-developed, 10.0 Megapixel High Sensitivity System by combining a powerful CCD sensor and Canon’s DIGIC 4 Image Processor. Thanks to this technological advancement, the G11 is dramatically more sensitive than cameras with identical megapixel counts, and delivers spectacular images with minimal noise.

If you go over to that page, you will even see the following comparison made by Canon themselves:

Here Canon themselves show us the benefits of a lower megapixel high sensitivity sensor - cleaner looking images. And yet, they release an EOS 50D camera which had TONS more noise compared to an older model, the 40D. Now they release the EOS 7D, which still features more noise compared to the two year old 40D model. Does this make sense to you?

Now ask yourself, why would Canon equip the G11 with a better sensor with LESS megapixels, that produces better looking images compared to the G10, and still release the EOS 7D, which is supposed to be more advanced than the 40D, with image quality that is clearly featuring more noise compared to the 2 year older 40D? Shouldn’t we expect newer camera models to feature less noise in images?

Update November 12, 2009:

Another review of the 7D has been published showing, and you’re not going to want to believe this, that the 7D performs worse than the entry level Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi). Here’s what they had to say:

Again to our eye the 7D files look soft and mushy compared to the snap in the other two files. Of course we expected the flagship Mark III to outperform the mid-priced 7D but we did not expect the entry level Rebel to better the 7D especially when the Rebel’s 12MP files were interpolated to 18MP!

Go over to their site and check the sample images for yourself. Remember that the 450D is now also almost 2 years old.

Update December 2nd, 2009:

A photographer ‘upgraded’ from the 40D to the 7D recently and wasn’t so happy about it:

After a week of playing with my 7D, I noticed the images on my 7D felt a bit soft, especially when comparing it to my 40D.  Went online and found some reviews concluding the same thing:

…

Doing my own quick tests, I came to similar conclusions.  Using DPP, the 7D produces images that are softer than my 40D at low ISO.  I even think the 40D produces less noise at low ISO. 

You have been warned.

Update December 13, 2009:

DXOMark have posted their test data for the 7D and you can actually compare the 7D, the 40D and the D300s side by side on their website if you follow this link. The DXOMark test data basically confirms my findings above about the noise in 7D images being worse than the 40D, and that the 40D offers much better image quality compared to the 7D.

In the graph above you can see that the 7D scores less than the 40D and D300s with regards to noise in images, meaning the 7D has more noise in images compared to the other two cameras. Like I also said, the 40D performs slightly better than the D300s with regards to noise.

Not only does the 40D outperform the 7D with regards to noise in images, but according to DXOMark, the 40D also outperforms the 7D with regards to Tonal Range and Color Sensitivity. This means that the overall image quality is much better on the 40D if the two cameras are compared. Click here to see for yourself on DXOMark.

Imagine what would have happened if Canon had instead improved the sensor in the 40D with the technology used in the 7D. Instead of being behind Nikon, as they are right now, they would have been far ahead.

Sharda Johnn (Click for larger image)

Back in August 2009 I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot with Sharda Johnn, arguably one of the most talented Surinamese models at the moment. You can find her on Model Mayhem in case you’re interested in working with her, she should be available for international work. Sharda is a very pleasant person and it was really wonderful to work with her. She’s also wonderfully expressive and poses came naturally. I didn’t have a lot of directing to do during the photo shoot, which is always a big plus as far as I am concerned.

Click for larger image

Sharda is currently studying in China, but she was in Suriname for a brief period when I got in touch with her. Due to her very busy schedule and the fact that she’d be leaving again in just a few days we did not have a lot of time to do anything too fancy. So I decided to just do a shoot in a studio setting against what became known as The Yellow Wall (TM).

Click for larger image

The thing I like about Sharda is that apart from her talent, she has a very unique look. If you look at her exotic looking facial features, especially the shape of her eyes are very nice, with a nice nose and lips to complement them. In addition she has a very slim body shape, without being skinny. It all adds up to a very distinct looking appearance, something that could be used with great success in certain type of marketing campaigns. With her hair loose, she looks even more exotic. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture her that way.

Sharda Johnn

Sharda Johnn

Below are some more images taken during this photoshoot. You’ll notice that I was constantly changing the lighting setup and experimenting with different modifiers.

Sharda Johnn

Sharda Johnn

Sharda Johnn

Sharda Johnn

Sharda Johnn

In the very short time we had, I also tried some artistic type of shots, like the one below. Not entirely happy with that shot for a couple of reasons, but it is still one of my personal favorites.

Legs

If you’re interested to see more of Sharda’s work, visit her page on Model Mayhem.

Also worth mentioning is that I used this opportunity to test my copy of the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM lens, and let me just say: Believe the hype. This lens is among the top Canon L primes.

Canon USA has asked photographer Vincent Laforet to take down his video titled ‘Nocturne‘ based on orders coming from their headquarters at Canon Inc. in Japan. Laforet used Canon’s recently announced 1D Mark IV camera body to shoot the video. The video did an excellent job showing the technical capabilities of the 1D4 in low light situations, so I was surprised to find out that Canon would want to take it down.

And when I found out about what the reasons were, I wasn’t surprised at all. I’ve written numerous posts here on this blog about various issues at Canon and especially their arrogant attitude towards customers. This time Canon Inc. is taking it a step further by bullying one of their own subsidiaries. Photographer John Harrington has some of the details on his blog:

Instead of Canon Inc saying “hey, good job Canon USA for making Canon look good”, Canon Inc is mired in the antiquated notion of that by Canon USA doing so good, Canon Japan looks bad because either that don’t have the talent to make the same type of content, or people in Japan are now looking bad because it looks like they’re not doing their job.

Fake Chuck Westfall has also written about this on his blog, and there’s an interesting update in one of the comments in that post:

@Brad, I have it under good authority that Fake Chuck Westfall’s blog is spot on, and this is held up by internal politics and a power struggle between Canon USA and Canon Japan…and the video’s being pulled has nothing to do with the quality of video from the camera or the content of the video. Japan is embarrassed that Canon USA has shown them up once again (after the same thing happened with Reverie), and bruised egos are causing orders to be handed to Canon USA preventing this video from being distributed.

Northlight Images is now reporting that sample images taken with the 1D4 are also being pulled from the web:

It seems that Canon have taken exception to unauthorised sample images – all the ones we found have been pulled from sites.

It becomes really easy to understand all the issues Canon has had in recent years when you see things like this happening. Like Fake Chuck said on his blog, having clueless, conservative and arrogant management running the company will cause issues. And this seems like a worldwide problem for Canon.

Just recently I was talking to a friend of mine, a professional photographer from the Netherlands, and he mentioned how difficult it was dealing with Canon Netherlands, and how in comparison, things were so much easier with Nikon even though he is currently primarily using Canon equipment. Just look at what another photographer from the Netherlands, who was having issues with the EOS 7D, recently had to say about Canon on his blog:

My good friend and journalist Bill Hewlett contacted Canon (Netherlands) on friday on my behalf. Their exotic response: “we are not in the position to comment on this”. Huh?! Are we politicians here?! I am a customer with a problem!

I think Canon has to change it’s attitude (at least Canon Netherlands) and come up with a solution QUICK.

This arrogant attitude of not caring about customers is very familiar to me, as I have been dealing with it for a long time now too. I’ve written about it numerous times here on my blog, just check out my Canon posts in the archives. It’s a worldwide issue with Canon. These days I don’t even get any replies when I send email to Canon USA or Canon Europe. Noud van den Boer from Canon Netherlands even deletes my emails without reading them as a standard procedure (I know because I’m tracking it). At least I know Canon USA’s Chuck Westfall reads my emails, but after seeing what kind of issues they’re dealing with at Canon USA, I’m getting a different perspective on why he may not be able to comment on certain things. Take the issues with the EF 50mm f/1.2L lens for example, of which Canon, up to this day, has failed to comment on (Fake Chuck has more on this here).

I recommend reading at least the first part of this interview with Fake Chuck Westfall, as it highlights some of the important issues with Canon.

Loreena McKennitt

More than 10 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to music by Loreena McKennitt (Wikipedia). I instantly fell in love with her music. The very first song by her that I heard back then was titled “The Mummer’s Dance” and to this day it is still one of my favorites. She has a very beautiful voice, and her music has a Celtic and Middle Eastern/Arabic feel to it, able to carry you away to another world in seconds.

Listening to her music is one thing, actually seeing her and her crew perform is even more amazing. I recently saw her recorded performance at the Alhambra (Spain) in 2006, which you can order here on Amazon on DVD, and it was an absolute joy watching it. Seeing all those musicians perform with so much joy using so many exotic instruments, and watching Loreena sing is just incredible. I can only imagine what it would be like to actually sit there in the audience watching it live.

If you want to see some clips of that performance, here are some of the songs on YouTube: All Souls Night, The Mummer’s Dance, The Bonny Swans.

I highly recommend Loreena McKennitt’s Nights from the Alhambra DVD.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. This is simply a MUST READ for anyone thinking about entering the photography business, anyone already in the photography business and amateurs who are looking to make money off of their photography work. Harrington shares a lot of great insights on many different aspects of being a professional photographer and running a healthy business using real world examples. Even if you’re just an amateur photographer, sometimes making a little money selling an image license here and there, there’s a lot to learn from this book (for example, how to value your work and the thinking behind it, what mistakes not to make when licensing your work etc.).

Harrington also has a ton of great articles on his blog related to the subject. When I first found his blog some time ago, I read through the entire blog within a day. It’s really worth checking out, especially the archives.

Pamela Mangroelal, Miss India Suriname 2008

I’ve updated my photography and design portfolio yesterday, feel free to take a look. The image above was taken during the photoshoot I did with Pamela Mangroelal for United Magazine.

I noticed that the most recent posts here on my blog are almost all related to photography. Some new visitors of my blog think that this is a photography blog because of this, but it’s not. This is just my personal blog where I write about anything I am interested in. So don’t be surprised when you find many posts on other subjects appearing here in the future. Just take a look at my blog archives if you’re still not convinced.

Canon EOS 7D

Canon has announced the EOS 7D DSLR last week and so far it is looking very promising. It includes some new features and upgrades that have been long overdue. You may already know that I have been very critical of Canon in the last 2 years when it comes to their DSLRs and lenses. I have written numerous posts about apparent quality control issues at Canon (just search for them on my blog), and I have written some very negative posts about the EOS 50D (here) and EOS 5D Mark II (here) cameras. In the case of the EOS 50D, from the day of its announcement, I could see that it would not be a very successful camera, and it turns out that this is now exactly the case because of all the issues I pointed out right from the start. In the case of the EOS 5D Mark II, from the day of its announcement, I could see that it would be severely handicapped by the very old autofocus system Canon included with it. And if you just look at the comments at my post here, or search the Internet for 5D Mark II autofocus issues, you will find that I was again right. If you read the posts about the 5D Mark II here on my blog, you’ll find that there are even more issues with it, such as noise and banding even at low ISO values resulting in poor image quality.

If you look at my first post about the 50D, you’ll see the following:

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 looks like the upgrade to the 40D hasn’t come in the form of the 60D, but instead as the EOS 7D, right on time in the second half of 2009 indeed containing some very significant improvements. There will still be a 60D coming, and it will be close to the 7D with regards to features. And by the way, the next 1D is getting close to being announced.

With the EOS 7D, it seems that Canon has finally listened to what photographers have been saying, looked at what they needed, and designed a camera with the right combination of features. Canon appears to be back in the game, and any future DSLR announcements are going to be very exciting. It is a pity that it has taken them so long to deliver what we needed. The EOS 50D should have been what the 7D is today. It was about time Canon got up from their lazy asses and actually delivered something new and exciting. Many people who bought the EOS 5D Mark II are now very disappointed, some even mad, because the EOS 7D is in almost all aspects way more advanced than the EOS 5D Mark II, while costing an incredible $1000 less. Think about that for a moment.

I said that the EOS 5D Mark II was not worth its price when it was announced, and what we’re seeing today is just more proof of that. The only thing the EOS 5D Mark II has that could be seen as being better than the 7D is its full frame 21MP sensor. If you don’t need full frame, the 7D has an arguably better and more advanced sensor. From the sample images I’ve seen so far, the 7D images don’t suffer from the pattern noise and banding that can often be found in the images taken with a 50D or a 5D Mark II. Taking into account that the 7D costs $1700, and that it has features that are way more advanced compared to the same features on the 5D Mark II, the 5D Mark II should realistically cost around $1800 right now. People have paid way too much for way too little. The 5D Mark II costing $2700 should have been a 7D body with the 21MP full frame sensor in it. Having seen the 7D, I’m hopeful that in the near future the 5D Mark III will contain at least all the features of the 7D with a fullframe sensor in it.

The 7D seems to be Canon’s answer to the Nikon D300s, and it looks like it will give the D300s some good competition. There’s a lot that I like about the EOS 7D, such as the new 19 point AF system, 8 fps shooting speed, the new metering system, the intelligent viewfinder with 100% field of view, 1.0 magnification, and overlaid LCD display. Also the fact that you can now finally use the built-in flash to trigger external Canon flashes wirelessly (without an ST-E2).

The only thing that I’m not so sure about right now is the image quality. Canon has included a new 18MP sensor in the 7D which, from the sample images I have seen so far, appears to deliver much better image quality compared to the EOS 50D even while having a higher pixel count, and comes close to the EOS 5D Mark II. I could see no pattern noise and banding issues so far, like I mentioned before, and this is a very good thing. However, looking at RAW files, I still think that the images produced by the 7D contain a little too much noise, even at lower ISO values, and the images at high ISO contain way too much noise. JPEG images coming out of the camera look better because of the noise reduction being done inside the camera, at the expense of lost detail, but RAW images look terrible so far. An example can be seen on Rob Galbraith’s website:

Noise in 7D image at ISO 3200

You can see white specs in darker parts of the image, and this can be very difficult to clean up in post production. Apparently Canon is advertising the 3200 and 6400 ISO values on the 7D as usable, so I have to wonder if this is the image quality that Canon considers to be acceptable. It seems Canon and many other DSLR manufacturers still don’t get what photographers are really asking for. We do not want more megapixels containing even more noise. Most photographers would prefer a 10 or 12MP sensor that could deliver virtually clean ISO 800, instead of a 18MP sensor that delivers a lot of noise at ISO 800 and makes ISO 3200 barely usable.

At this point however I haven’t seen enough good sample images to really say if this is going to be an issue on the 7D, so we’ll have to wait for the reviews and experiences from people who have used the camera. But right now, the 7D does look like a camera that I will want to buy at least two of in the very near future. Looking at Canon’s recent DSLR releases and all the quality control issues they’ve had, it would be wise to wait at least 4 months after general availability before you actually buy a 7D, just to make sure that there aren’t any issues with it. You really do not want to spend money to become Canon’s beta tester. Wait for the reviews, read the experiences from those who were brave enough to buy one early and then decide.

I’ll try to get a loaner 7D body from Canon to do some of my own tests and will be updating my blog in the mean time as more information becomes available and to let you know if I’ll be ordering the 7D. By the way, Canon also announced 3 new lenses together with the 7D, and I can tell you that I’m going to buy the new EF 100mm f/2.8 L Macro IS lens as soon as it becomes available.

Update November 8th, 2009: I have posted my review of the 7D. Check it out.

Pamela Mangroelal, Miss India Suriname 2008

I was contacted by Edward Lee, editor of United Magazine, a few months ago to do some pictures for a feature he was planning for the August 2009 edition of the magazine (which should be out in Suriname and The Netherlands within days). There would be an interview with Pamela Mangroelal, who was crowned Miss India Suriname 2008 last year, and he wanted some exciting visuals to go with it. Being the creative person he is, he already had a concept in mind. Since Pamela is an avid chess player he thought it would be nice to do something involving chess. The details of what exactly we would do were left to me.

I spent quite some time thinking about it in the following weeks. I knew that I wanted to do something challenging for me, but it had to stay within the amount of time I had allocated for this project. I started looking for chess sets with interesting looking chess pieces that I could use in pictures with Pamela. I quickly decided that I wanted to use glass chess pieces, but it was difficult to find glass chess sets with chess pieces that looked sophisticated enough and didn’t cost a fortune. At the same time, I started experimenting in 3D Studio Max to see if I would be able to create the chess pieces in 3D and combine them with the pictures I would take of Pamela later in post production. As I was experimenting I soon decided that I would just do the chess pieces in 3D, not only because they would look much more detailed, but also because it would give me a lot of flexibility in terms of what I could do with them later when combining them with pictures.

The next step was deciding which pictures I wanted to deliver to United. I came up with 3 pictures. First, I wanted to feature Pamela with a normal size glass chess set, kind of a portrait to open the feature with in the magazine. Then, I wanted to do a picture where she’d be standing on a really big chess board, with chess pieces as big as her. The idea here would be to replace the white queen with Pamela. And finally, I wanted to do an image that would feature Pamela with the chess pieces on a really grand scale. I was thinking along the lines of scenes from Lord of the Rings, putting her in charge of incredibly large chess pieces on a large battlefield. I had some other ideas in mind too, which I would use as a backup plan just in case something went wrong with the others, but I won’t discuss them here.

Once I was sure which results I wanted in the end, I started building the scenes in 3D Studio Max and doing some tests to a point where I was sure that I would be capable of executing what I had planned. Time was running out so I met with Pamela and discussed the plans I had for the pictures with her and did an initial test photoshoot. The purpose of the test photoshoot was to get to know her a little better and get a feel for working with eachother before the actual photoshoot, and also to get some material I could use to see if I would be able to pull off what I had in mind. By using these initial pictures with various poses, I could narrow down which poses and angles would work better and then really focus on those during the real photoshoot.

With the deadline fast approaching I made final preparations for the photoshoot, got the material I needed (background, a real glass floor to get realistic reflections etc.) and discussed with Pamela what kind of clothes I wanted her to wear during the photoshoot. We weren’t able to find exactly what I was looking for but I decided to work with what we had. I teamed up again with Euvie Karijoredjo for the makeup, hair and styling. It is really wonderful to work with people who know exactly what you want before you explain it to them by just looking at a concept image, and Euvie and I seem to have that kind of an understanding.

I have to admit that I was a little nervous on the day of the photoshoot. Everything was planned, I was confident I thought of everything and would be able to pull off what I had in mind, but you’re never sure until you have the final results in front of you. Below are some pictures of the setting as it was during the photoshoot:

The setup

As you can see the setup was fairly simple. White background with extra reflective glass on the floor. I used the glass to get the most realistic and accurate reflection on the floor so I could use that in post production for the reflection on the glass chess board etc. (instead of just vertically mirroring the model and fading it to make a reflection, which doesn’t look good). I used two Canon 580 EX II flashes as the light sources triggered wirelessly by a ST-E2 mounted on the camera. Works really well in-doors but probably not so reliable out-doors. During this photoshoot I used a Canon EOS 40D body with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens. Both excellent performers.

Euvie doing the makeup, while looking like a model herself

Hair...

"Wait, wait! Need to fix this before you start."

Edward dropped by at the beginning of the photoshoot for a short while, probably to make sure I was treating the ladies well. I don’t know why I didn’t think of taking some pictures of Edward, otherwise I would have posted one here. Sometimes I take things too serious and forget to have fun.

The photoshoot went well, it lasted for about 5 hours with some breaks in between. I had just about enough time to get what I want, it’s amazing how time flies during photoshoots. After the photoshoot I had to start looking at all the images and select which ones I’d use for the final pictures. For two of the final pictures, I ended up combining 2 to 3 pictures of Pamela just so I could have her pose and expression just right. Then I brought the pictures into 3D Studio Max scenes to combine them with the rest of the digital images.

Your move... (Click on the image for larger view)

Above you can see the first image created for a 2 page spread. The article text is supposed to go on the right side. If you look at the larger version you can see the amount of detail that you can get from a 3D rendering program such as 3D Studio Max. Even the tiniest reflections are rendered accurately in the glass chess pieces.

3D scene setup in 3D Studio Max (click for larger view)

In the screenshot above you can see how the scene for this picture was set up. Rendering this scene with acceptable quality and resolution took almost 24 hours on my computer. So you can imagine the amount of time that went into creating the final image when you have to do test renders, tweaking and additional post production after rendering.

The Queen (Click on the image for larger view)

In the second image above the idea was to have Pamela pose as the white queen. Originally I wanted to put her on a big chess board but during test renders the black and white squares and reflections were a bit too distracting for what I was aiming for and gave the whole a chaotic look. At least in my opinion. So I decided to just replace it with a glass floor giving the whole a much simpler and elegant look. Again the image here is for a 2 page spread, and the text is supposed to go on the left side.

3D scene setup in 3D Studio Max (click for larger view)

The screenshot above shows the scene setup in 3D Studio Max.

The Battlefield (Click on the image for larger view)

And then the final image, visually the most exciting one of all 3 images in my opinion. The idea here was to have Pamela control the white chess pieces on a large battlefield. For the background I chose to use a panoramic picture of Paramaribo (the capital of Suriname) taken just after sunset from the J. A. Wijdenbosch bridge which I had taken a few months ago along with many other shots. The dramatic looking clouds were really as they appear in the picture that day and were not digitally created. By using Paramaribo as the background and setting for this image I thought United’s audience would be able to identify more with the image. Pamela is standing on the top of a Knight, which is standing in the water in the Suriname river. Looking at this picture, I imagine the camera flying in from behind slowly coming closer to Pamela, with her hair moving in the wind – that would make a very dramatic looking scene in any film.

3D scene setup in 3D Studio Max (click for larger view)

The scene setup in 3D Studio Max can be seen in the above image. I think it’s obvious that most of my time went into creating this picture. I tried to get the lighting as realistic as possible and the reflections as accurate as possible.

Looking back I’m fairly satisfied with the end results, and I’m hoping everyone else will be too. Given more time, resources and much better equipment I’m sure I would have been able to create better looking images. Often it’s not easy to explain to clients why you need so much time to do something that may seem so simple to them. For these images alone I spent quite some time during the creative process just thinking about ideas, making concepts, and trying different compositions etc. before starting with actual production. And often clients also don’t realize the investments you have to make in the right tools among other things to be able to do the job, all of this resulting in higher costs for the end results.

With these kinds of posts on my blog I’m trying to give people a glimpse into the process that goes behind this kind of work. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Be sure to get the latest United and check out the interview with Pamela.

Update September 21, 2009: The pictures have been printed a little too dark in the magazine unfortunately. You will see that especially ‘The Queen” is too dark when compared with the version here on my website. This was caused totally out of my control due to a colormanagement issue at the press.

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.

Update 04/08/2010: Many users who’ve bought the camera for professional use have had no choice but to sell it again and move to something that worked much better and offered A LOT more, such as the Nikon D700. Here are just two cases:

Case 1: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

Canon was good to me, especially back in the day when I rocked a cropped sensor and a 35mm lens for 90% of my shoots. It was simple, reliable and dependable.  Then I got a 5d.  The 5d offered great high ISO features, a full frame, a nice big LCD and the worst focusing system money could buy.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I am a hard-core stickler for sharp images; “A little soft,” or “a little back-focused” is not ok by me.  It’s tack sharp or it get’s the hose. So, as you can imagine, the 5d became quite a handicap for me.  But, nonetheless, I figured out that if I only shot on One Shot and kept my aperture up, I could make in-focus photos.

Despite my near-constant frustration with Canon, I held out for the mythical 5d Mark II – a camera that promised even better ISO, an even bigger sensor, an even fancier LCD and (you guessed it), the same crappy focusing system. At that point, Canon had me by the you-know-whats (I don’t actually have you-know-whats… it’s a euphemism, silly) – I had *thousands* invested in lenses (see below). So I shot my 5d Mark II for the entire 2009 wedding season…. on One-Shot…. using a high aperture… constantly cussing under my breath.

Case 2: Sold Canon gear and switched to Nikon:

So, my 5DII came back from Canon’s repair center AGAIN on Tuesday. I took it out for a 45 minute stroll and took pictures of cats, leaves, berries, trees, the water.. etc. I used both the center focal point and the outer focal points. I spent the entire 45 minutes cursing after each shot as it became more and more apparent that it was just the same (if not worse) as it had been when I sent it in.

…

So, I sniffled a little, I paced back and forth, I thought. Then I typed up all the Canon gear I own on a forum and titled it ‘For sale’. I sniffled some more and grit my teeth and clicked the ‘post’ button. There. I said it. It’s for sale. I’ve been a Canon girl for eight years. I busted my ass to buy that 5D, and I love it. If I could afford to keep it and the 50mm lens that’s been with me for four years, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I’m done. I’m switching to Nikon.

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.

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.”

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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?)

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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.

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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

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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

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.