My recent post about the Canon EOS 7D caused a bit of controversy on the Internet and it is not surprising considering that in that post I’m essentially showing that the EOS 7D, Canon’s supposedly latest and greatest APS-C sensor camera body, is offering worse image quality compared to the two year older model, the EOS 40D. This was my conclusion based on my discussion of dpreview’s review of the EOS 7D and some of their test data.

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’ve recently ordered my copy of John Harrington‘s latest book, Best Business Practices for Photographers. I already own the first edition, and the second edition covers some more topics in addition to the ones in the first edition. Harrington has some more information about the new book on his blog.

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.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to do a photoshoot with a real live Rainforest Nymph for one of my clients. It isn’t very often that you get these kinds of opportunities considering the amount of luck that you must have to actually meet a nymph in person. We were talking about ideas for an ad we were working on for the next edition of Moksi Magazine (a magazine in Suriname) when we started talking about the idea of including a rainforest nymph. With no material available, it meant that we would have to go out and shoot one. The problem was that we had a deadline that was only a week away. And you don’t just go out and find yourself a rainforest nymph and ask to take pictures of her. It doesn’t work like that. They don’t show themselves very often and so it takes time, patience and a lot of luck.

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.