Monthly Archives: December 2008

Equipment, Tests

Using Prints to Test Four Canon DSLRs

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Miles Hecker has posted interesting test results in his Canon EOS big guns image quality shootout:

As some of you know, I am a landscape photographer. I migrated to full frame digital SLR’s from medium format film. I used to shoot 6×4.5, 6×7 and 6×9 film with the end product being prints of 20″x30″ and larger. As such, I chose to investigate only one area of the 5Dmk2 in this exercise, overall image quality or IQ for short. For this test, I decided to construct a still life with a wide range of color, lots of detail and very controlled lighting to obtain what for me are valid results.The test would produce 100% crops for pixel peeping. The final analysis of IQ however would be made using real life obsevers and detailed sections of 16″x24″ and 20″x30″ photographic prints.

What I like about his test methodology is that it eliminates the very difficult issue of normalizing on-screen tests of cameras with different sensor sizes and photosite densities but doing something that I have felt would make the most sense, comparing large prints from the different test cameras. In this case he tested the Canon EOS 1DsM3, 5D2, 5D, and 50D. 

I won’t spoil the fun by telling you the results here, but let’s just say I’m not at all surprised at the results.

Commentary, Equipment, Tests

Testing the Canon 5D II for Noise

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From Night Photography blog by Andy Frazer: More 5D Long Exposure Tests:

Seattle-based night photographer Brian Chapman has posted another set of 5D MkII long exposure tests, this time all taken at night. Although this set was taken at ISO 400, underexposed, and then pushed during RAW conversion, the results are very interesting.

Brian Chapman’s experiments are essentially a night photographer’s torture test – shooting at high ISO, underexposing, compensating in post, adjusting the image, and including areas of uniform color and luminosity. If you aren’t familiar with real life noise issues in digital photography you might think, “Ugh! Noise.” If you have done night photography and made prints for images like those in the test you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s pretty darn impressive!”

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Last Autumn Sunset of 2008 – Point Lobos

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Last Autumn Sunset of 2008 - Point Lobos

Last Autumn Sunset of 2008 – Point Lobos. Point Lobos State Reserve, California. December 20, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Sunset over the Pacific Ocean at Point Lobos State Reserve on the final evening of autumn 2008.

Sometimes, as hard as you may try to resist, you just have to shoot the sunset.

I was at Point Lobos this afternoon since it was a beautiful, clear day – and rain is coming tomorrow. Earlier I had photographed shore birds and then sea lions, along with the usual assortment of rocks and so forth. Within the past year or so the park’s closing time has been extended until a half hour after sunset, so I wandered up the trail along the coast near the south end of the park. I made some photographs of the rocks around bird island and explored a cove or two, and then after the sun set I saw this amazing reflection on the surface of the water to the west.

This photograph is not in the public domain. It may not be used on websites, blogs, or in any other media without explicit advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Storm Cell over the Pacific – Rocks, Surf, and Bluff

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Storm Cell over the Pacific - Rocks, Surf, and Bluff

Storm Cell over the Pacific – Rocks, Surf, and Bluff. Near Davenport, California. December 15, 2008. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Coastal rock formations glisten in the rain as an evening squall approaches a shoreline bluff on the Pacific Coast north of Davenport, California.

A landscape orientation photograph of more or less the same scene I posted earlier this week, though this photograph includes a bit of the distant bluff a bit further south along the coast and the early sunset light is just barely beginning to illuminate the base of the rain cell near the right side of the frame.

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