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› archive for September, 2008

Cream of the Crop

Bokeh Episode IV (A New Hope)

OK, this next bit is lengthy so we’ll split it into two posts. We’re going to talk about crop factor. For those of you who already know what this is, feel free to skip this post and check back the next one when I go into why this matters for bokeh. For the rest of you, read on!

OK, so. Way back in the bad old days of photography people used all sorts of fun and exotic stuff to capture images on. Most of these were big, and I mean really big, and had to be prepared by hand and used chemicals you’re probably not allowed on an airplane with these days. Eventually, these things were replaced by film, which found it’s most popular form by far in the 35mm negative. Then, near the end of film’s rule as king, and right before the dawn of digital, there was a format called APS-C (the history of which I’m not going to get into) which was somewhat smaller than the frame of a 35mm negative. More or less, and for various reasons, this smaller format became popular with DSLRsand we’re only now starting to see a resurgence of 35mm-sized sensors. But, alas, APS-C isn’t the only smaller sensor size, and for a whole slew of reasons you’ll find that pretty much every camera maunfacturer out there uses a different sensor size, most of the time smaller than 35mm.
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Sony Alpha A900

We just got out of a training on the new Sony Alpha A900 camera.  Wow!  This little gem is amazing.  Built like a tank.  24.6MP full frame CMOS.  5 frames/sec burst.  Wow.  Dual flash memory card slots.  It takes regular compact flash cards for storage and memory stick as well.  The steady shot in camera works VERY well.  The lighting was pretty bad in the room we were in and when I shot with it, things were razor sharp.  The A900 weighs in at only 850g.  Not bad for a rugged body like this one.  It’s a winner, folks!

a900
The new flash was also available to play with.  Model HVL-F58AM.  It can pivot 90 degrees left or right on a horizontal axis, keeping the flash head in the optimum position when the camera is rotated from landscape to portrait position. Priced at $499.99

Roberts Imaging should see these close to the end of October at $2999.99.

Also coming soon from Sony, the Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 16-35mm F2.8 ZA SSM priced at $1799.99 available January 2009.  70-400 F4-5.6 G SSM available January 2009 priced at $1499.99.



The Lengths You’ll Go

Bokeh. Yup, it’s time to continue my discussion on that screwy term and talk about what goes into creamy out-of-focus backgrounds. So, before we dive into today’s topic, let’s mention what we’ve learned so far:

1. Bokeh comes from the Japanese, and roughly means to be out of focus. It describes the aesthetic quality of a shot’s out of focus area.
2. It is a complex thing influenced by many variables.
3. One of these variables is aperture, and wide (low number) apertures are better because they have shallower DOF.

So, next up is the variable of focal length. Focal length, you’re likely aware, is how long the lens’ front element is from the sensor and it affects how your camera “sees” the world. The human eye has roughly a 45 degree field of view. A telephoto lens might only have, say, a 25 degree field of view. That means it’s seeing less of a scene than your eyes, but since it’s putting it on the same size sensor your final shot will make it seem like the lens made an area “bigger”. It’s the other way around for wide angles, and they’ll shove much more of a scene than you can see onto that same size sensor, making everything look smaller.

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Sensory Perception

All digital cameras have an image sensor, it is analogous to, if not exactly equivalent to the film in yesteryears camera technologies. It is what turns the focused light into an image you can view and share.  It is probably the most important thing about your camera.  From the beginning of captured light imaging way back in the pre-civil war days, the biggest enemy of photography has been dust and dirt. Retouchers and spotters were specialized technicians in the ongoing war for clean visual representations of our perceived reality. Digital is no different, except there are virtually dozens of cottage industries for image clarity. We sell several brands and I have familiarity with most. I am the ‘Sensor Guy’ here at Roberts Imaging. I clean an average of 3 a day, and I have seen it all; lint, hair, smears, even dust bunnies. Cute as those bunnies are they have no place on a sensor.
Recently I had a customer tell me that one of the brands (Photographic Solutions, the first brand actually) of sensor cleaning solutions was damaging sensors with their product, then another companys solution was also blamed. I found this hard to believe. It turns out that some early Canon Digital SLR cameras, the first 5D’s, did experiance some problems. Canon themselves did a study and determined that it only occured on some 5D cameras as a result of a variance in the coating on the surface image sensor of the EOS 5D.
As the ‘Sensor Guy’ I received a copy of a letter from David Stone, President of Photographic Solutions Inc. regarding this issue. If you have concerns about sensor cleaning please read the letter attached here. But the good news is this, the Photographic Solutions products are safe (when used as directed) for your sensor dust removing needs.

Now for the better news, Photographic Solutions has released pre-moistened travel 25 packs or 4 packs (on the left) shown with the original Swabs and Eclipse and E2 solutions. So if you have any (Canon, Nikon. Sony, Olympus, Pentax. Fuji, Minolta) Digital SLR and you want to clean your own sensor (trust me I’ll understand if you don’t want to come in and see me) more and more sensor cleaning products are hitting the market every day.



Canon iPF5100

Last weekend, George Lepp was in town for a Canon Wide Format Printer training.  It was a great seminar and the folks I spoke to after the event were very impressed.

Canon is really going after the competition.  The prints that are coming out of the Canon iPF5100 that we have on display are amazing!  The ink usage is considerably less than the Epson counterparts.  Between the low printer pricing and ink usage, the Canon printers are tough to beat!  Roberts Imaging carries a wide range of paper for these printers.  We carry Ilford wide format paper, Epson wide format paper, and many other photo paper types.

ipf 5100 printer

The pricing, like I said, is very impressive.  Roberts Imaging has the printer and it’s counterparts priced as follows:

Canon iPF 5100 $1349.00
Canon iPF 6100 $2359.00
Canon iPF 8100 $4189.00
Canon iPF 9100 $10879.00

Canon inks:

130ml $74.00
330ml $164.00

There are great trade in offers going on right now too.  Come to our downtown store to see the iPF5100 on display.  We have some prints from it as well.  Ask for Jeff Moore when you come down or call.  He is our resident expert on the Epson wide format printers and the Canon wide format printers.



So, why don’t you ever open up?

More bokeh!

Ok, as promised, I’m back to continue tackling this bokeh thing.

So, last time we talked briefly about what bokeh is (mostly just a fancy word for talking about the subjective quality of your out of focus areas), and I listed very briefly some things that’ll cause it. So, now it’s time to start getting into what effects it and why, so you can make more informed decisions while out shooting.

OK, last time I used an EOS Rebel for my example, so this time we’ll show you Nikon shooters some love. So, you’re thinking to yourself “yes! I love that creamy, out-of-focus background stuff in shots!” and you pick up your Nikon digital SLR camera. But, now, which of your Nikon lenses do you want to mount to it (or, for you all out there shopping for lenses, what do you buy?)

Click to go to the Wiki article on F-stops, in case you're lost.

Well, I’d start by recommending a lens with the /smallest/ f-number you can get. As you’ll either know or will recall from a former post of mine, smaller f-number means wider aperture. The wider the aperture, the narrower the depth of field (or “DOF,” in other words the part of your image that is sharp and in foucs.) If you’re shooting with a kit lens, you probably have a maximum f range something like 3.5 – 5.6 depending on how far you have the lens zoomed. Neither of those are actually very wide, so they won’t give you as much out of focus area to contribute to your bokeh. F/2.8 or F/2 lenses give much better results, and there are still a few lenses available with values like F/1.8 or F/1.4, which are fabulous.

OK, so, whew, that ran longer than I’d thought it would, and I didn’t get to how focal length matters, so we’ll talk about that early next week. Stay tuned.



B-B-B-B-Bokeh

Bokeh. Sometime when I wasn’t looking this apparently became a big buzzword in the camera community. I mean, sure, I’d heard it and knew what it meant, but hey, I’m just a young photographer, I hadn’t quite realized this term seems to have popped out of nowhere. Until my manager, who’s been working with cameras probably longer than I’ve known they existed, asked me what a client of his meant when he said this shot had “film-like bokeh” and it hit me that maybe it isn’t quite as common a term as I thought.

But, with the rise of full-frame digital cameras, and the continuance of APS-C and 4/3 and digital compacts using all sorts of screwy chip sizes, this is probably an important term to understand (kinda like crop factor, but boy that’s a different argument.)

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My Memory Sticks

Even after 20 years at the store I still find it hard to believe that I’ve been here twenty years. Two decades, 5 summer olympics, 5 presidental terms. That is a long time. I guess that is why they honor that kind of persistence with things like watches at most companies. I got mine, and it is a doozie. I am wearing arm candy (not the kind that gets you into the posh nightclubs, or out of marriages). I was honored by Bruce Pallman and the company he keeps with a very nice Citizen Titanium Eco-Drive alarm/chronograph/perpetual calander number in a royal blue. This arm candy always has the time for me.
The ceremony (pre-opening meeting) was a couple of weeks ago, and got me thinking about time and the industry, and co-workers and waxing poetic about age and technology. Here is some of the things I have found out about life in a camera store. It moves pretty fast even when it is moving slow.
When I started they expanded the payroll to nine employees. I  worked in the relatively new camera department in a store that was 30% jewelry and clocks, 50% catalog showroom (remember those?), 15% cameras, tripods, albums and frames (mostly albums and frames) and 5% video and miscellaneous (anybody need a rotating 8-track tape rack? It holds twenty 8 tracks).  Today we have 30 employees at our main store which is 85% camera and video products, with the balance being jewelry, clocks and that miscellaneous stuff (call and reserve your 8 track rack today they are going fast!).
About two years before I started at Roberts I was selling cameras at a major retailer. That is when I was introduced to the new ‘Auto Focus’ cameras from Minolta. By the time I started here Nikon and Canon both had Auto Focus cameras too. In the time since then film cameras themselves have all but disappeared, digital cameras of all styles makes and sizes have taken over the imagination of the imaging inclined, and technology marches on.
The first point and shoot digital cameras from Olympus, Kodak and Casio were about the size of a brick and sported between 160 x120mb resolution to 320×240 mb pixel resolution (or thumbnail to 1/4 screen size on the computers of that day).  Today you can buy an Olympus Stylus digital, Panasonic Lumix digital, Nikon Coolpix camera or Canon Powershot digital cameras that are about the size of a deck of cards and have 10 or more mega-pixels of imaging resolution (32 to 64 times the resolution of those oldies). The first compact flash memory cards came in 2,  4,  6 and 8 mb sizes, Olympus’ “SmartMedia,” (no longer available) maxed out at 64mb.
Today Sandisk Card come in SD, CF, xD, Memory Stick and many other formats for electronic devices, and go up top 16gb in many of those formats. Kingston and Lexar offer the SD and CF cards too, and all are at fractions of the cost of the first digital memory cards.
On my trip down memory lane I found out something interesting about Roberts itself. Of our 30 person staff here at the main store the average years on the job is 8.3, I think that is amazing. I think that is a staff with experience and answers, if you need them.



New Canon Cameras Announced today!!

It’s that time of year again, folks!  Canon made a Pre-Photokina 2008 announcement.  They introduced the long awaited Canon EOS 5D MK II, a Canon digital SLR camera to replace the Canon 5D body.  It offers 21 MP and 1080p movie mode!  They also announced the Canon 24mm f/1.4 L II USM, another addition to other Canon Lenses that are being redesigned for the new Canon digital SLR cameras.

Canon also announced at least five new Powershot cameras.  The one that stands out is the new Canon Powershot G10, offering 15 MP and a 28mm -140mm lens.

It is getting interesting!  Photokina 2008 should bring a lot of new digital camera accessories to the industry.  Stay tuned!




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