Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
[UPDATE: Canon has posted Firmware Version 2.0.4, which is intended to address the below-described issues.]
Canon has released a statement on the 5D Mark II Firmware Version 2.0.3 info page describing problems caused for some users by the firmware update. [Read more…]
Canon has provided further details on the new Canon 5D Mark II firmware, which will be available for download later this month. The new firmware version 2.0.3 will enable the Canon 5D Mark II to capture 1080p video at 24fps (actual 23.976fps) and will change the 30fps rate to NTSC standard 29.97fps. The 5D Mark II will also be able to capture 1080p video at the PAL standard of 25fps. Additional tweaks include an histogram display for shooting movies in manual exposure, shutter-priority and aperture-priority, manual control over sound recording levels and a broadcast standard audio sampling frequency.
More details available from Canon’s website.
The Canon EOS MOVIE Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro is a plug-in currently in development that is intended to allow footage from EOS DSLRs to be edited more quickly and easily in Final Cut Pro. The plug-in will be introduced in a free Beta release in March 2010.
Key features of the plug-in includes the enabling of the “log and transfer” of footage from the 5D Mark II, 7D and 1D Mark IV. Moreover, the plug-in converts Canon EOS DSLR footage to Apple’s ProRes 4:2:2 at twice the speed of what you get out of the box with Final Cut Pro. Adding timecode, reel names and metadata to footage will also be a faster and smoother task.
Stay tuned for updates on the availability of the EOS Movie Plugin-E1 for Final Cut Pro.
For those of you interested in a little more pixel peeping with the Sony A850, A900 and Canon 5D Mark II, I’ve added several more samples taken at various noise reduction settings.
I’ve made all of these available in this forum thread, which includes 100% crops and full-res files for download and inspection.
The original ISO comparison, which did not use noise reduction, can be found here.
The Sony A850 is the newest full frame DSLR from Sony. It’s based largely on the Sony A900; however, its a couple of notches below on feature sets. Since the A850 uses the same 24.6-megapixel sensor as found in the A900, we shouldn’t expect any real difference in image quality between the two.
Although, comparing these two cameras to the Canon 5D Mark II, which is the current prosumer state of the art for low-light performance, is another story. You’ll also see some Canon 7D samples at higher ISOs for the sake of comparing a crop-sensor camera to these full framers. To see how the Sony A850 and A900 stack up, read on. [Read more…]
Canon has announced that it is in the process of developing firmware for the 5D Mark II, which will offer 1080p recording at 24 and 25fps. We won’t get full details on the process or other capabilities until 2010; however, the complaint department has probably been a little high since the release of the EOS 7D, so this news may help curb some of the derogatory remarks from 5D Mark II owners.
Canon’s official statement on the firmware development is below. [Read more…]
I have recently began a process of reviewing the Photomatix HDR software. Having never previously used any dedicated HDR software, I was very eager to see the results that Photomatix produced.
After using it a little, I very impressed at how automatically it creates an HDR image out of multiple exposures (although there is still an art to getting the most out of it). You can even export images directly from Lightroom 2 to Photomatix and then automatically re-import them into your Lightroom library. Pretty cool stuff.
Armed with a Canon 5D Mark II, 17-40mm f/4L lens and some inspiration from Michael James’ HDR Real Estate Photography, I set out to find an appropriate indoor setting to give Photomatix a little test drive.
In the set-up below, I shot 3 images at -2EV, 0EV and +2EV from a tripod. The scene was lit by the two lamps you see and a ceiling fixture only. I then combined them in Photomatix via the LR plugin to create an HDR image. I was pleased with the initial results. I thought I had a rather realistic-looking HDR image.
Then, I started thinking… How much can I get out of a single Canon 5D Mark II Raw file by processing in LR alone?
So, I took one of the exposures (I’m not saying which one) and pushed it as far as I could in LR to try to get as close as I could to the Photomatix HDR image.
The results? I was pretty impressed.
One of the following images was processed in LR 2.5 from a single exposure. One was processed from 3 images using Photomatix.
This wasn’t meant to be a scientific test and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m still learning my way around Photomatix. Additionally, some of you LR wizards out there can probably push the software even further. Just some nice weekend fun time with a camera that I wanted to share with all of you.
Can you tell you tell which is which? Insert your answer in the poll at the bottom and/or leave comment with your thoughts.
(I stripped all of the metadata in case you are thinking about taking a peek and I flipped a coin to decide which one to insert first)
Got something to say about these images? How do you process HDR images? What’s your take on HDR imagery as a genre?
Add your further thoughts in the comments below.
UPDATE: You can find the poll results here, along with some commentary on the exposures. Don’t cheat though. Vote first, then check out the results to see if you got it right.
A couple of recent developments in the Canon 7D and 5D Mark II‘s resume make the camera shine a little brighter. As we knew, the potential is huge with this camera and it continues to create a ton of buzz in the filmmaking world.
PBS has a new Frontline documentary shot with a 5D Mark II by Danfung Dennis, while embedded with US Marines in Afghanistan. [Read more…]
Many Canon 5D Mark II owners have struggled to find this battery in stock over the past year. They have been pretty hard to come since the 5D Mark II was released, and they might become scarce again soon since the Canon 7D also uses the LP-E6 battery.
At the time of this post, the Canon LP-E6 battery is in stock at Amazon, B&H and Adorama. Here’s the links to each store’s product page for the LP-E6.
If you’ve been putting off the spare for your 5D Mark II or if you’ve got a 7D on pre-order, it might be a good time to pick up a spare instead of waiting until the 7D’s ship out in force, which should occur over the next few days. Check Canon 7D availability here.
Is this an image of the Canon 7D‘s top? I don’t know, but it looks like a real something…
What’s different from the 5D Mark II?
Other than that, it looks a lot like the current Canon 5D Mark II.
[via DPR forum]