Porch: 1/20s f/8.0 ISO400 10mm 0ev, Canon 30D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm

A week and 2474 photos later, and I have some material to process. One of the lenses I rented was the Canon EF-S 10-22. It's an interesting lens, but takes some getting used to. You've got to have something to fill the expanse of space it can cram onto the sensor.

I used it for 288 of the 2474 photos I took, 146 at 10mm and 59 at 22mm. 196 were less than or equal to 17mm.

I rented from Borrow Lenses, taking advantage of pick up at a San Jose camera store.

Tags: Canon, 30D, Lenses, Photography

4th July Fireworks: 2.5s f/8.0 ISO100 80mm, Canon 30D, Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS

I have a small selection of fireworks photos in my Canon 30D gallery now. My style is to use a long lens and record the detail of the display rather than try to capture the whole thing. I used ISO 100, f/8 for all of them, varying the exposure time according to how much movement I wanted. I used a tripod of course, one of the few occasions that I do, and turned IS and AF off. JPEGging them for upload loses a lot of the detail, and that's unfortunate because they are very sharp.

Tags: Fireworks, Canon, 30D

Canon has announced a firmware update for the 30D, version 1.0.6. No changes to the tethering behavior.

• Allows the latest lens names to be recorded in the Exif information of images taken
• Adds lenses that are compatible with the Digital Photo Professional 3.2 lens aberration correction function

The link above gives more detailed information and provides the binary image suitable for Mac or PC hosts.

Tags: Canon, 30D, Updates, EXIF

If you use one of the popular Canon DSLRs, there's a good chance that there is no tethering for you! There is a tally of which cameras work with the tethering feature and which ones don't at 20SEVEN. Mine, a Canon 30D, does not. It stays busy. It is still possible to use Automator and a hot folder with the Canon software, so all is not lost. Nikon is much better supported than Canon.

The tethering feature is accessed via the File > Tether... menu. From there you can define import settings and start the session.

Tags: Aperture, Tethering, DSLR, Bugs, Automation, Canon, 30D, Nikon

Skates For Rent: 1/8s f/4.0 ISO1600 46mm, Canon 30D, EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8, adjusted

One of the reasons I spent the money on a DSLR was the ability to take good pictures with high ISO. My Canon 30D is a generation behind the state of the art at least, but it's such a huge improvement over my Canon S3 that it is worth it to me. I ran the S3 at ISO 100, or 200 when I needed some more speed. Above 200 the noise was just too bad.

With the 30D I can take pictures at ISO 1600 and get good results. ISO 1600 gives noise, but not horrible noise. The picture of roller skates above was taken in a dimly-lit roller-sking rink, hand-held, at 1/8s. I could dial up an aperture of f/4 to get a reasonable depth of field and still get a good final image. Image stabilization in the EF-S 17-55 lens made it possible of course.

Open Window: 1/20s f/2.8 ISO3200 -1ev173mm, Canon 30D, EF 70-200mm IS L f/2.8

The 30D also has an ISO 3200 setting. It's a cheat though. All it does is multiply the numbers by 2. I get twice the brightness and twice the noise.

I try to use ISO 100 most of the time, but for indoor use will set it to 800. It would be a great help if the camera set the ISO automatically according to my preferences (ie as low as possible), but it does not. One more control to twiddle. The 40D is better at this, I hear, and Nikon has it right.

Tags: Canon, 30D, DSLR

Birthday Cake: 1/800s f/1.8 ISO800 50mm, Canon 30D, EF 50mm f/1.8, cropped, unadjusted

It appears that the retro photo equipment fetish is in full swing. Fraser Speirs is posting about his experiences with the 50mm f1.8, and commenting about John Gruber, Dan Benjamin, James Duncan Davidson, and Bill Bumgarner.

I have this very inexpensive lens on my Canon 30D (1.6 crop factor), it's really an 80mm lens to me.

How do I find it? It's very light, almost non-existent compared to the other monsters I have. I use it when I need to take pictures in little light and have the freedom to move around, like in the birthday cake example above. The only light is from the candles, and I exposed that at 1/800s. I used a high ISO to get a high shutter speed because I wanted to make sure that the blowing out would not be a blur. I was taking pictures before and after in room light and ISO 800 was good for that too.

I can get my 52mm polarizing filter on this lens that I have tried to use on my Canon S3 (it's very hard to use a polarizer on a camera with an electronic viewfinder since I can't really see the effect). I find that darkening the glare with a polarizer does more than that: it increases the the ambient light by compensating with a slower shutter speed. Compare the image below (no polarizer):

Table No Polarizer: 1/50s f/1.8 ISO100 50mm, Canon 30D, EF 50mm f/1.8

With this one with the polarizer fitted and turned to remove the glare:

Table With Polarizer: 1/15s f/1.8 ISO100 50mm, Canon 30D, EF 50mm f/1.8

The table looks entirely different since the shutter is now three times slower.

The depth of field control is something I am still learning. It's much more pronounced on large images because the difference between sharp and fuzzy is more easy to see. Here is a photo taken in a restaurant, focussing on the table by the window:

Noodle House: 1/1600s f/1.8 ISO400 50mm, Canon 30D, EF 50mm f/1.8, adjusted

One catch with the 50mm f/1.8 is that it has no image stabilization like my other lenses. That means I have to take faster exposures than I would normally and/or hold the camera extra steady. This photo was taken in a dim corridor and I was able to get an image without any shake at 1/160s:

Fall Leaves: 1/160s f/1.8 ISO400 50mm, Canon 30D, EF 50mm f/1.8

I can easily see the difference in sharpness between pictures taken at f/1.8 and other apertures, so if I'm thinking about it, I stop it down for the best image. But I'm usually not thinking in terms of sharpness when I take pictures: I'm concerned more with depth of field or removing movement blur. My other lenses are much more costly and very sharp, so I don't marvel at the sharpness of this lens, though I know some people do. There is plenty to learn.

Tags: Canon, Lenses, Photography, Fetishes, Polarizer, 30D, S3

Maple leaf: 1/50s f/5.6 ISO400 195mm, Canon 30D, EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS, adjusted

I rarely have reason to change the contrast of my images, but sometimes it is just what is needed. The image above started life as a much paler version:

It was taken in very diffuse light and the contrast was very low. Rather than increase the saturation as I usually do, I found that increasing the contrast dramatically had the desired effect. A small increase in the exposure was also needed:

The new version has much more depth than the original because there is enough detail to separate the leaf from the background.

Tags: Aperture, Canon, 30D, Contrast, Adjustments, Leaves

Bird Over The Bay:1/800s f/9.0 ISO100 200mm, Canon 30D, EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS, cropped, adjusted

One of the things I'm loving about my DSLR is that I no longer have to deal with the fog of an electronic viewfinder. They should really be called electronic fuzz makers: it's very difficult to know what you are taking a picture of. I've had many a surprise when I've looked at the result in Aperture and seen objects and detail that I had no idea existed at the time.

Now I can track things, see accurate color, be aware of detail, and, most importantly, know when things are in focus. And it makes manual focussing possible. Manual focussing with up and down buttons and an electronic viewfinder is just wretched. In the picture above I could wait until the bird banked in front of the lighter water so that it was recognizable and get the picture I wanted with ease.

Of course with the 30D I don't get a live preview, nor a flip-out screen (like the S3), so that makes it harder to get certain shots. Live preview is one advantage the 40D has over the 30D that would be useful to me.

Tags: DSLR, Viewfinder, Canon, 30D, 40D, S3

Having been playing with getting back-lit photos of ducks, I accidently left the exposure compensation set to -1ev and proceeded to underexpose everything else. However the photos were quite easily adjustable.

Here is the original image of a type of duck I have not seen before (what is it?). I caught it just as it had shaken the drips off its bill, but before they had hit the water. If you view the full-size final image you can see the sprinkle of drops frozen in the air.

After cropping and adjusting the under-exposed original in Aperture I was able to get this much more pleasing result:

1/2000s f/3.5 ISO100 195mm, Canon 30D, EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS, cropped, adjusted

It still looks a little dim, but I prefer it that way, and the sun was fairly low anyway. I was quite surprised that I could under-expose so much and still get a good result. It helps that I was using ISO100. The adjustments looked like this:

I could boost the exposure and the brightness on this image because the highlights were very small. As long as I didn't diminish the color in the drops or lose the feather detail it was OK. I used a little shadow boost as well. In other pictures from the same series I have found that the colors adjustment is very useful: I can desaturate the color of the water to focus the eye on the colors of the ducks.

I am also finding that the 70-200 zoom is not enough for bird pictures: a 1.4x TC is probably on the horizon. One of my reasons for going for the f/2.8 over the f/4.0 version of the lens was so that I still had a decent aperture with a teleconverter.

Tags: Aperture, Underexposure, Adjustments, Canon, 30D

There has been a lot of smoke in the San Francisco Bay Area these past few days from a couple of large forest fires. As a result the sun has been sunset orange hours before it sets, turning to a deep red color as it nears the horizon. The color of the sun in the photo below is straight from the camera:

Smoky sun: 1/800s f/5.6 ISO200 200mm, Canon 30D, EF 70-200 f2.8 L IS, cropped, unadjusted

I took that out of the bathroom window of my house: the only place I could get an unobstructed view through the trees. You can see the haze across the face of the sun. I took it with the camera in manual mode after finding the sun too bright at the metered shutter speed (I think 1/200). I took some more at 1/400 and 1/800 and it was the latter that was the best setting.

Another handy setting I am using at times is Custom Function 4 set to 1. This sets the * (asterisk) button to autofocus and lock and leaves the shutter to set exposure and take the shot. This lets me set focus once -- on the sun in this case -- and then keep taking shots without the focus changing. Since I was in Manual mode, the exposure wasn't changing either.

Tags: Fire, Sunset, Canon, 30D, Custom Functions

Teapot: 1/100s f/11.0 ISO100 48mm, Canon 30D, EF-S 17-55 IS, unadjusted

Now I have shot about 1800 photos with my 30D, I'm starting to learn what settings make sense for the kind of things I do.

I have a custom picture style set up that has Sharpness +2, Contrast 0, Saturation +2, Color tone 0. This leaves me less work to do in Aperture: just a little sharpening is needed and sometimes more saturation. That's one of three. I have another with less Sharpness and another with more Sharpness and more Saturation.

White balance is best either left on auto, or quite often on Shade. Out of the shade that setting gives a nice orangey effect that is good for indoors.

Fill-in flash makes a big difference when it comes to getting rid of harsh dark areas or when extra sharpness is needed and the light is low. The camera is clever enough that if the shutter speed is faster than 1/250 (the fastest sync speed), it will cap the shutter at 1/250 and increase the f number to compensate. That way you get a picture with a deeper DOF than intended rather than no picture at all. Flash recharge takes about 1/4 second, so I can take the next shot almost right away.

Evaluative metering is very good and gets it right almost all of the time, so I leave it on that.

For autofocus I either use One shot mode or AI Servo, the latter for moving objects that I want in a particular part of the frame. I have changed the function of the 8-way control so that I can use that to select the focus point quickly.

Drive stays on 3 per second normally, and ISO at 400, going up or down by a factor of 2 or 4 when needed. I'd prefer just ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 settings, but no: I have to click past all the intermediate ones.

Typically the ON/OFF button stays at ON. I set it to / when I need to be able to change the exposure compensation quickly. Otherwise I avoid that setting because it is easy to change the exposure setting unintentionally.

I normally limit the aperture to f11 or larger to avoid diffraction effects. Slowly I'm getting to learn the depth of field that is available at different focal lengths and f-stops. It didn't matter anywhere near as much with my S3 because the images were not as sharp. Now I have to be very careful of depth of field.

I'm also learning that the EF-S 17-55 IS lens I use a lot of the time has its limits. Close focus at 55mm is not so sharp, while at 17mm it is. So I back off the distance or the zoom when I find myself going there. It is very versatile and stays on the camera most of the time.

Tags: Canon, 30D, S3

DPReview has the specs on the new Canon 40D, the successor to the 30D that I just bought. It looks very good on paper with some solid improvements, but nothing so important that I want to sell the 30D and get one right now. The one thing I really don't need that it has is more pixels: that's more pixels to process and store for every image I take with the thing, a big multiplier of effort.

Tags: Canon, 30D, 40D

Here is a crop (screen capture from Aperture) from an image with a lamp pointing directly at an iPhone. It was shot hand-held at 1/25 at f6.3, ISO 1000 with a Canon 30D and a 17-55 f2.8 IS lens:

I can't see an iPhone -- where is it? It's the big featureless white thing directly below the lamp. It must be an iPhone because it has no buttons. It should have buttons, but again Aperture has washed them out horribly, so there are none to be seen. Now I convert to monochrome using the Monochrome mixer and the image is just the same, not surprisingly:

After much twiddling I get what I am after. It improves the keyboard, the mice, and the curtain too:

Here are my final settings:

Again the technique is pretty much the same as before: Exposure way down, Brightness up, corrections with the Contrast, and Highlights and Shadows for the final touch.

Tags: Aperture, Canon, 30D, Highlights, RAW

I've been playing with all the options on the 30D, and today tried RAW+JPEG to see if it is useful. I didn't like the images it produced, but something interesting did come of it: an exercise in highlight recovery.

The whales were having a tea party on the deck and to record the event I shot one frame of RAW+JPEG. I imported the images and accessed the JPEG sister by control-clicking on an image and selecting New Version from Master JPEG:

Here is a part of the JPEG version:

It's not sharp and I don't like the colors. But I can see detail in the white fin on the left. Now here is the RAW as processed by Aperture:

Sharper and nicer, but the fin is blow out. The blown out pixels are on the right of the histogram:

The JPEG version doesn't have this, so I know it's not inherent in the image:

How do I get the fin back? And why did Aperture do this to me?

First I turn the exposure way down. That brings the highlights back, but it kills the rest of the image. So I move the brightness and saturation up to compensate and then twiddle with the contrast to get a reasonable image with some loss of shadow detail:
Finally I get the shadows back with the Highlights and Shadows control:

And my final result is pretty pleasing:

The bucket is much better and the yellow color can be seen reflecting in other objects. The fin is how I want it, but the rest of the whale is visible too. The histogram looks entirely different now I have finished:

I wonder why this is so hard to do? Did I just use the wrong technique, or is there something missing from Aperture here?

Tags: RAW, Aperture, JPEG, Highlights, Canon, 30D

Adjusting photos from my trip is not what has been occupying my time: I can tweak three or four a minute and have been using the dark of the evenings to plow through them to the point of being about 80% done. What has been occupying my time is the recent arrival of a Canon 30D, two lenses, and the subsequent photographing of practically everything that reflects light.

Why the 30D? It's about to go obsolete isn't it? Yes it is. The 40D is coming and it almost certainly has more than I need. But the 30D is a very good price right now and it's been shown to be a great, dependable camera. I'm putting the majority of my money into lenses, opting for high quality, large aperture, and image stabilization. This new toy means that I am likely to have somewhat less time for blogging for the near future.

I've also been moving my Canon S3 galleries to SmugMug on my pages at http://bagelturf.smugmug.com/. I'll be posting more photos on SmugMug in my Canon 30D gallery as I get some good ones to share.

Tags: Photography, Blogging, Canon, 30D, SmugMug