I've carried the Canon 500mm f4L-IS in preference to the bigger/heavier/more expensive 600mm telephoto for some time. I use it in Central Park and like it in particular for its short minimum focus distance. Now Canon have formally announced the successor to both the 500mm and 600mm supertelephotos:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/1102/11020709canon500mm600mm.asp
and the first thing I noticed is what I suspected might happen - the new 600mm has become as light as the old 500mm and has the same minimum focus distances as the old 500mm. Of course this new 600mm will be very expensive for a while even after it hits the streets, but it is going to be a very attractive lens. In the meanwhile I think I'll try using the 800mm plus extension tubes and see how that goes, although the 800mm will be too large a magnification for some of the bigger species of birds at it's minimum focus distance.
Spec for the old 500mm is here:
http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/ef_lens_lineup/ef_500mm_f_4l_is_usm#Specifications
Showing posts with label Canon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canon. Show all posts
Monday, February 7, 2011
Monday, February 22, 2010
1D Mark IV review
Dpreview.com actually got their act together and reviewed the 1D Mark IV. Dpreview's strong suit is a careful itemization of the features and doing resolution/noise/dynamic range tests. They are largely useless for analysis of how good the autofocus performance is. They didn't manage to review the 1D Mark III, which was somewhat of a stunning omission.
And the conclusions ? The 1D4 is a good camera, images are better than the 1D3, but not quite as much of an improvement as it might have been expected given the increased pixel count. Noise levels at high ISO are pretty good compared to the 1D3. Image resolution is better than the 1D3 but worse than the 5D2. Absolute resolution values from their tests are 2500 lph for the 1D4 and 2700-2800 5D2, 2200 for the 1D3. Sharpened/processed images from RAW appear comparable between the 7D and 1D4, but the latter clearly contain more "pop" in terms of color. There was quite a clear visual difference in sharpness between the 1D3 and 5D2 in both my tests and my general shooting images, but the gap would be very much narrowed with this camera. The Nikon D700 and D3S resolutions are around the same as the 1D3.
Link: dpreview's 1D Mark IV review
and 5d Mark II review for reference.
And the conclusions ? The 1D4 is a good camera, images are better than the 1D3, but not quite as much of an improvement as it might have been expected given the increased pixel count. Noise levels at high ISO are pretty good compared to the 1D3. Image resolution is better than the 1D3 but worse than the 5D2. Absolute resolution values from their tests are 2500 lph for the 1D4 and 2700-2800 5D2, 2200 for the 1D3. Sharpened/processed images from RAW appear comparable between the 7D and 1D4, but the latter clearly contain more "pop" in terms of color. There was quite a clear visual difference in sharpness between the 1D3 and 5D2 in both my tests and my general shooting images, but the gap would be very much narrowed with this camera. The Nikon D700 and D3S resolutions are around the same as the 1D3.
Link: dpreview's 1D Mark IV review
and 5d Mark II review for reference.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Expletive deleted
As a "proud" owner of an EOS-1D Mark III I've had some interesting, amusing and downright farcical moments dealing with the autofocus on that camera. I have said that the 1D3 acquires focus faster than any other Canon, but that it acquires AF on the background faster than any other Canon. My relatively ancient Mark II works better for birds in flight since it makes a stab at tracking a Northern Harrier in flight rather than focusing on the treeline faster than a weasel on crystal meth, which is the strong point of the Mark III.
So I had great hopes for the 1D Mark IV since you couldn't imagine Canon messing it all up again. After all, the IV is their flagship SLR body, their ultimate photojournalist machine, and I was starting to look forward to retiring the Mark III and getting a Mark IV or Mark IVs to replace it with.
Imagine, then, my joy at reading this article:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10048-10484 ;
which suggests that the 1DIV is really just a different breed of cranky to the 1DIII. Somebody just shoot me now. (I actually started checking out Nikon 600mm f4 VRs this afternoon). The 5D2 is sluggish, the 7D is soft, and the 1DIV is cranky. Is there someone in Canon Japan that I should visit to slap some sense into them ?
For what it's worth, I have no doubt that Galbraith's mammoth article reviewing the AF performance on the Mark III:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-8740-9068
was right on the money. Roger knows how to point a camera and engage autofocus - he does it for a living, unlike us dilettantes. The 1D3 certainly has its moments but after being somewhat burned on that SLR I'm rather reluctant to drop $5K on another turkey. (The 1D3 focuses just fine on Wild Turkeys, just so long as they aren't moving that fast).
Looks like I'm using the 5D2 again this spring.
So I had great hopes for the 1D Mark IV since you couldn't imagine Canon messing it all up again. After all, the IV is their flagship SLR body, their ultimate photojournalist machine, and I was starting to look forward to retiring the Mark III and getting a Mark IV or Mark IVs to replace it with.
Imagine, then, my joy at reading this article:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-10048-10484 ;
which suggests that the 1DIV is really just a different breed of cranky to the 1DIII. Somebody just shoot me now. (I actually started checking out Nikon 600mm f4 VRs this afternoon). The 5D2 is sluggish, the 7D is soft, and the 1DIV is cranky. Is there someone in Canon Japan that I should visit to slap some sense into them ?
For what it's worth, I have no doubt that Galbraith's mammoth article reviewing the AF performance on the Mark III:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-8740-9068
was right on the money. Roger knows how to point a camera and engage autofocus - he does it for a living, unlike us dilettantes. The 1D3 certainly has its moments but after being somewhat burned on that SLR I'm rather reluctant to drop $5K on another turkey. (The 1D3 focuses just fine on Wild Turkeys, just so long as they aren't moving that fast).
Looks like I'm using the 5D2 again this spring.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
More megapixel obsessions
Starting this May I largely stopped using the professional level EOS-1D Mark 3 and have subsequently mostly used the EOS-5D Mark 2. The autofocus performance of the latter is quite a lot worse, particularly in flight, but I had found that the images were noticeably sharper in some instances and generally had more "pop". I still use the 1D3 for flight shots.
I process RAW in Lightroom so in principle things will be normalized but there is a real difference in image quality. The 5D2 has many more pixels (21.1 Mpix vs 10.1), and more per square mm since the 1D3 pixel density is equivalent to 10.1*1.3*1.3 = 17.1 Mpix. The factor of 1.3 comes in because the APS-H sensor on the 1D3 is smaller than the full frame 5D2. The 5D2 appears to be sharper even on a per-pixel basis probably because of a weaker aliasing filter.
Enter the newly-announced Canon 7D which is the common APS-C sensor size (1.6x crop factor) and 18 Mpix. Running the numbers the 7D pixel density is equivalent to 17.9*1.6*1.6 = 45.8 Mpix on a full frame size. No, that's not a typo. It has twice the pixel density of the 5D2 and almost 3x that of the 1D3. You can't ignore that.
There will be the usual concerns about noise level at higher ISOs, and how much actual sharpness you can realize off any lens combination. If you shoot the 17-40/4L wide open the actual resolution of the lens is worse than that of the chip. However the supertelephotos that I use have a lot of inherent sharpness. Some of that sharpness is lost when using the 1.4x teleconverter - it's not difficult to see that in test shots but I can also see it in real life photos in the rare situations when I get to take the 1.4x off.
Which brings me to the thing that most excites me about the 7D - thinking about the number of megapixels on the subject using different lens combinations. This is the same thing as considering pixel density, but adding in a factor for focal length conversion. The equation normalized to full frame is pretty simple:
Effective pixels = Mpix * chip-factor * chip-factor * focal-length-factor * focal-length-factor
Chip factors are 1.0 for the 5D2, 1.3 for APS-H like 1D3, 1.6 for APS-C like 7D. Focal length factor is normalized (i.e. 1.0) to a 700mm f5.6 which is what I use with the 500mm/f4L + 1.4x. (Edit: updated for a 16 mpix APS-H EOS-1D Mark IV, aka 1D4).
These are in Mpix on a "subject" of the same nominal size, so bigger = better.
The absolute #s are not relevant because you couldn't image a subject with that many Mpix on it, but the relative numbers hold. I could shoot with the bare 500mm f4 on the 7D and have more pixels on a subject than the same subject with the 500mm+1.4x on the 5D2. Depending on how much these lens combinations outresolve the 7D sensor, and issues with the aliasing filter, the 7D could resolve as much as twice as much detail as the 5D2 for telephoto-type subjects where the subject does not fill the frame. The 5D2 still wins for landscape subjects where the 1.6x crop factor on the 7D kills the widest focal length one can achieve.
Apart from sharpness the wider apertures of bare lenses w/o teleconverters allow lower ISOs or faster shutter speeds to be used in dark conditions. As the analysis indicates it's worth taking a very hard look at this camera for bird subjects because there might be a substantial effective resolution gain. Remains to be proven, however, as many factors can come into play to degrade image quality.
Update: the general vibe on the Dpreview forums is that the 7D has lower image quality than the 5D Mark II - this not really being a surprise since it was packing nearly as many pixels into a far fewer chip. It also has less latitude for overexposure (perhaps as much as a stop). It seems there is still no free lunch for smaller pixels. Since the 1D Mark IV has smaller pixels than the 5D Mark II, it will be interesting to see comparative reviews of the latest 1D series increment.
I process RAW in Lightroom so in principle things will be normalized but there is a real difference in image quality. The 5D2 has many more pixels (21.1 Mpix vs 10.1), and more per square mm since the 1D3 pixel density is equivalent to 10.1*1.3*1.3 = 17.1 Mpix. The factor of 1.3 comes in because the APS-H sensor on the 1D3 is smaller than the full frame 5D2. The 5D2 appears to be sharper even on a per-pixel basis probably because of a weaker aliasing filter.
Enter the newly-announced Canon 7D which is the common APS-C sensor size (1.6x crop factor) and 18 Mpix. Running the numbers the 7D pixel density is equivalent to 17.9*1.6*1.6 = 45.8 Mpix on a full frame size. No, that's not a typo. It has twice the pixel density of the 5D2 and almost 3x that of the 1D3. You can't ignore that.
There will be the usual concerns about noise level at higher ISOs, and how much actual sharpness you can realize off any lens combination. If you shoot the 17-40/4L wide open the actual resolution of the lens is worse than that of the chip. However the supertelephotos that I use have a lot of inherent sharpness. Some of that sharpness is lost when using the 1.4x teleconverter - it's not difficult to see that in test shots but I can also see it in real life photos in the rare situations when I get to take the 1.4x off.
Which brings me to the thing that most excites me about the 7D - thinking about the number of megapixels on the subject using different lens combinations. This is the same thing as considering pixel density, but adding in a factor for focal length conversion. The equation normalized to full frame is pretty simple:
Effective pixels = Mpix * chip-factor * chip-factor * focal-length-factor * focal-length-factor
Chip factors are 1.0 for the 5D2, 1.3 for APS-H like 1D3, 1.6 for APS-C like 7D. Focal length factor is normalized (i.e. 1.0) to a 700mm f5.6 which is what I use with the 500mm/f4L + 1.4x. (Edit: updated for a 16 mpix APS-H EOS-1D Mark IV, aka 1D4).
These are in Mpix on a "subject" of the same nominal size, so bigger = better.
| | 1D3 | 1D4 | 5D2 | 7D |
| 500mm | 8.7 | 13.9 | 10.8 | 23.4 |
| 600mm | 12.6 | 20.2 | 15.5 | 33.6 |
| 500+1.4x | 17.1 | 27.4 | 21.1 | 45.8 |
| 800mm | 22.3 | 35.7 | 27.5 | 59.8 |
| 600+1.4x | 24.6 | 39.4 | 30.3 | 66.0 |
The absolute #s are not relevant because you couldn't image a subject with that many Mpix on it, but the relative numbers hold. I could shoot with the bare 500mm f4 on the 7D and have more pixels on a subject than the same subject with the 500mm+1.4x on the 5D2. Depending on how much these lens combinations outresolve the 7D sensor, and issues with the aliasing filter, the 7D could resolve as much as twice as much detail as the 5D2 for telephoto-type subjects where the subject does not fill the frame. The 5D2 still wins for landscape subjects where the 1.6x crop factor on the 7D kills the widest focal length one can achieve.
Apart from sharpness the wider apertures of bare lenses w/o teleconverters allow lower ISOs or faster shutter speeds to be used in dark conditions. As the analysis indicates it's worth taking a very hard look at this camera for bird subjects because there might be a substantial effective resolution gain. Remains to be proven, however, as many factors can come into play to degrade image quality.
Update: the general vibe on the Dpreview forums is that the 7D has lower image quality than the 5D Mark II - this not really being a surprise since it was packing nearly as many pixels into a far fewer chip. It also has less latitude for overexposure (perhaps as much as a stop). It seems there is still no free lunch for smaller pixels. Since the 1D Mark IV has smaller pixels than the 5D Mark II, it will be interesting to see comparative reviews of the latest 1D series increment.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Canon 800mm f5.6
For a modest $11,599 + tax B+H is willing to sell you a Canon EF 800mm f5.6L IS
Despite the price tag it's quite a tempting lens. For one thing it's also a lot lighter than the 600mm f4L IS lens, while being around the same size (9.9 lbs vs 11.8 lbs), has an intrinsic focal length close to the 600mm + 1.4x teleconverter, and will be shockingly sharp without the converter or be an 1,040mm f8 lens with it.
Downside ? The minimum focus distance is 19.7 ft, so that's an 0.14x magnification at the closest range. The values for the 600mm f4 are 18.2 ft and 0.12x. So while you get a little extra magnification at closest distance you need to step back about a foot and a half. Of course, if you never get to within 20 feet of your subject this point is largely moot and the 800mm looks like an excellent option, modulo the price.
See Canon's own comparison between 500/4, 600/4 and 800/5.6.
Despite the price tag it's quite a tempting lens. For one thing it's also a lot lighter than the 600mm f4L IS lens, while being around the same size (9.9 lbs vs 11.8 lbs), has an intrinsic focal length close to the 600mm + 1.4x teleconverter, and will be shockingly sharp without the converter or be an 1,040mm f8 lens with it.
Downside ? The minimum focus distance is 19.7 ft, so that's an 0.14x magnification at the closest range. The values for the 600mm f4 are 18.2 ft and 0.12x. So while you get a little extra magnification at closest distance you need to step back about a foot and a half. Of course, if you never get to within 20 feet of your subject this point is largely moot and the 800mm looks like an excellent option, modulo the price.
See Canon's own comparison between 500/4, 600/4 and 800/5.6.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
