Canon

Beta Canon 1ds mkII Profile for UK Garden Photographers

Part of my clientel are a number of garden photographers and as is known amongst this group that Canon cameras (unlike Nikon) tend to make green garden foliage a little too yellow.

Thankfully Adobe have released ACR 4.5 with better support for external camera profiles. If you have Photoshop CS3 and its fully up to date then download this beta profile I have made and put it in one of the following locations:

On Mac OS X:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/CameraRaw/CameraProfiles

On Windows 2000 / XP:
C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication SupportAdobeCameraRawCameraProfiles

On Windows Vista:
C:ProgramDataAdobeCameraRawCameraProfiles

The profile gives more accurate garden greens for the UK.
Download the profile here

Once the profile is copied, restart Photoshop and open a raw image taken on a mkII. Select the camera icon on the raw converter tab, then from the NAME dropdown select the profile.

Let me have any comments.
Stephen

Capture

 

I recently purchased a 10 megapixel Canon 400D camera for home use. This camera cost less than 1/10th the price of my 11 mp 1Ds body and is just 1/3 the weight of the 1Ds.

I didnt expect too much of it but it has certainly surprised me with its quality, the ease of use and weight means I take it out with me much more often than if I had to lug the 1Ds.

On the way home from the Cromer carnival recently I wanted to capture a shot of the sea and fair in the dim evening light, it meant hand holding at 1600 asa. The resulting image is sharp and detailed. If I had tried to do the same shot with film the quality would have been much worse with a heavy overlay of grain, to acheive the same quality I would have had to use a slow film and tripod with a long exposure, what a pain!

I think digital makes photography fun again.

 

Stephen

Canon 1Ds MkIII (updated)

 

 

Well it had to happen didn’t it?

 

Canon have released details of a new flagship camera that can produce a native file size of 60mb with its 21.1mp sensor. The 1Ds MkIII will be available later this year, (read: early next year).

 

To make your images suitable for submission to Getty from this camera you would have to reduce the image size to conform to the 48-52mb limit. It does however open up the possibility of cropping images slightly and still hitting the required file size.

 

I’m not expecting a 1Ds MkIV anytime soon after as a 21mp sensor means even the expensive L series lenses are not going to give the detail the sensor could capture. There are not many image samples out at the moment , the only one I could find was a studio portrait shot at f1.8 and can be found here:

 

 

The image looks to be a bit noisier than an equivalent medium format shot would be so I think Hasselbad are still safe, though at 1/4 the price of a H3D they will feel the chill from this camera.
It looks like Canon have weakened the AntiAlias filter slightly (notice the moire on the tip of the dress), I wonder if there are no more samples because they show moire and Canon are still working on the camera, there is speculation that the details were released now as a spoiler for the upcomming Nikon D3x….

 

You can read about the MkIII here:

 

 

New firmaware for Canon 5D and 1D Mk2n (not 1Ds Mk2)

Clients with these cameras may wish to download the updates. The updates involve minor fixes as well as improving the brightness of the preview display. You can read more and download the firmware by following these links:

Version 1.0.3 for the Canon 5D
http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/eos5d/eos5d_firmware-e.html

Version 1.0.2 for the Canon 1D Mk2n
http://www.canon.co.jp/Imaging/eos1dm2n/eos1dmk2n_firmware-e.html

Read the instructions for using the updater very carefully, especialy about having a fresh battery or the mains adapter attached, you dont want to have the power on the camera shut down in the course of the update. If you wish I can perform the update whilst next on site.