What is new in the latest Canon cameras?

As you might have come across about the announcement of two new cameras from Canon, this post is about my take on those cameras.

One being named as Canon EOS 5DS and the other being EOS 5DS R – the one big difference between these two cameras is the 5DS R comes with “Low-pass filter effect cancellation” which must be a good news for Professional Landscape photographers. However, I am writing a separate article about the low-pass filter aka Anti-alias filter.

Both the two cameras are full frame sensors and having high resolution of 50.6 megapixels. First time in the line of Canon EOS cameras, to have this high resolution.

• The specification of both the cameras states about the Low-pass filter that “Fixed position in front of the image sensor” and in the feature page of 5DS R clearly states that “LPF (Low-pass filter) effect cancellation takes full advantage of the original resolving power of the 50.6 effective megapixels CMOS sensor, delivering even higher resolution images” Which makes me wonder Canon might have taken the Nikon’s way as Nikon did it in it’s D800 E. If canon have taken a different method to cancel the filter’s effect, we don’t know, will have to wait for the detailed lab review from the reviewers.

• The prices for 5DS mentioned as $3699.00 and for 5DS R as $3899.00 for a 50.6 megapixels camera, I would say decently priced.

• Maximum ISO on both the cameras are 6400 only. Whereas in 5D MKIII one can peak up to ISO 25600. If not all, few will definitely going to turned off by this. The reason behind this is because of bringing in more pixels in the same sensor area. (The pixel unit for 5D MKIII is 6.25μm square and the pixel unit for 5DS is 4.14μm square. The more this no. better spacing,better signal to noise ratio, better image quality, going in depth about this becomes a science class, where I am not that good, I will leave it here itself).

• Shutter speed remain same as in 5D MKIII, max speed is 1/8000. Possibilities are there for the same shutter as in 5D MKIII.

• Built in Intervalometer comes in both the models, which will be lauded by the enthusiasts.

• The 1.3X and 1.6X are the options in processing (in-camera processing). Post capture, the image will be cropped and pushed to the memory cards as the user desires.

• Advanced mirror control mechanism is definitely going to help minimise shakes in low shutter speed.

• The Dual DIGIC 6 processors are definitely expected to handle the massive 5 fps data from the sensor.

• USB 3.0 is as well going to support transferring the images.

• EOS Scene Detection System features a 150,000-pixel RGB+IR Metering Sensor for excellent precision, this is going to help in nailing perfect exposure.

In a nutshell, ISO performance is going to turn off the professionals, especially event photographers. Many would have expected Wi-fi and in-built GPS, which is not been provided in one model even.

Except the above, I think the other specifications calls for a go around though. I would like to take out this machine for a while.

A small announcement to all my readers – I have transferred all my posts from here to my website under a sub-domain blog.navansphotography.com. For sometime I will be continue posting here.

Head to the site and subscribe to my blog by typing your mail id in the right side bottom corner box to receive my posts, product notifications and offers to your inbox straightly. Being our esteemed subscribers, you will be in our priority list to get to know about our upcoming stuffs related to photography – be it an e-book or trip or even photo walk. We assure you that you won’t get more than one mail per week from us at the maximum; that’s our promise. We don’t sell your mail id as we respect you and your privacy as ours. 

It’s really a cool Annual report by WordPress – Year 2014 review.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,800 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Hello Dear Readers,

Have you clicked the above link for the full report? If not please do that and proceed further.

If you are reading this, than I think I have served something helpful to you in my earlier posts -Thanks for hanging around with me. If you havenot been earlier here and you are reading this Welcome aboard. This year will meet you with more posts.

Last year happened to be 20 posts, and 2 blank months – bad isn’t it? Not well planned though. This year will maintain 4 posts per month (minimum one per month and maximum nos. to maintain 54 posts in the year).

My very first post had got the most no. of hits last year. “The busiest day of the year was March 4th with 376 views” It is really awesome, you know.! Your very first post holds the most views. I am glad and the meaning of this blog is started appearing.

Stop – Have I told you what is my next post? “The most powerful toolbar in Lightroom”

Cheers and great Going Navanee – It’s to me this time. 😉

Ebook review – Essential guide to B & W Photography

If you are a person who wants to make wonderful Black and White Photographs and many of your attempts proved to be futile, this book is a must for you. Of course – who does not wish to make great Black and white photographs? This book starts with a clear understanding about Black and White images.

As Scott Kelby once said – “The simplest black and white conversion is to remove saturation and boost contrast”. Yes, he said it is the simplest way. However, not all the conversion is going to be good at its first attempt. You may not aware what is happening to the colours. Possibilities are there you will end up making a dull, normal black and white photograph!

The book’s author David J. Nightingale, an experienced photographer, nailed down all the fundamentals of photography from Tonal ranges to Contrast, RAW files to ETTR, EV to Metering.

After the fundamental sections namely – The Aesthetics of Black & White photography, Equipment and shooting Black & White, David states about the conversion methods, why you should not use the default conversion method given in the software and what it does exactly to your image while converting. The software just takes the brightness level of a given pixel and converts it to a gray scale equivalent. In the next chapter, David explains about few other ways of making black and white photographs in Photoshop Channel mixing, Calculation method and Blending methods. In the end of this section, he talks about different plugins available for Black and white conversion from Silver Efex pro, Topaz and DxO lab in detail from its interface and what one offers. Also the author mentioned his personal favourite methods as well.

In the next section – Adjusting tonal range, Balance and Contrast, he explains about the single most powerful tool in Photoshop “Curves”. Adjusting the tonal range means shifting the original tonal range to what you desire via the curve tool. With the curves tool in place, you can adjust all the tonal ranges to its extreme without losing detail aka clipping. He further explains about the Basic S-curves, the baseline, altering the mid tones and how to do selective adjustments to a particular portion of the image using “Selective adjustments using Curves and Masks”.

Later, he explained about Creative vignettes aka Selective Vignettes – Vignettes been explained in detail here, starting from how it affects the viewer’s perception and the way it leads the eye and ends with how to make specific vignettes according to your photograph.

David made a separate section to cover Black and White Portraiture – Whoa; it is an interesting decision to add one dedicated section for portraiture alone. A section you would most probably love very much, since who does not want to make a striking portrait! David starts with the difference and importance between colour and B & W portraits, what kind of portraits would work with B & W and what won’t?

He clearly classifies the difference between different methods of converting one image into B & W and its drawbacks. For instance, why applying of red filter generically to all images will not work, or with Channel mixer or with Black and White conversion tool for that matter. He also clearly mentioned on how to bring out the details of the face and to brighten the eyes in the portrait. Why eyes are important in a portrait? He mentioned “Not only are the eyes the window to the soul, they can also be key to a successful portrait, but unless they are well lit they can often detract from an otherwise successful image – normally because they appear too dark in relation to the rest of the person’s features.”

The final section – “Monochromatic toning techniques” where David explains about the different methods of adding tone to your B & W images. He starts from the Black and White tool, Hue/Saturation tool, using Photo filters; using Selective colour tool, using Curves tool, and using Gradient Map tool. All of them explained in detail so that you can precisely tone your image as you might have envisaged to either your Whites alone or Blacks alone or to the mid tones alone or to the whole of your image. The important question is why you want to apply a tone to your beautiful striking B & W photograph. It is only to further enhance your image, as the sepia can bring a nostalgic feel about that image, a light blue tone will bring out a warm and industrial feel and so on.

The conclusion part is so striking and interesting that David made all the facts clear, I agree with all of his words. Hope you too will find this e-book helpful, in not only making striking Black and White Photographs, a better photographer as too.

This e-book is filled up all the way with necessary screenshots, interesting tips and tricks in a toned box, which will save you many time and energy. And more importantly this e-book comes with a separate recipe book which explains 10 different type of photographs and how exactly David converted it into a powerful Black and white photograph with all necessary illustrations and screenshots. He added both the original image and the final image after all the processing steps executed.

A word of caution – If you are using Photoshop as your primary editing software, you would love this book, but if you have recently switched to Lightroom as your primary editing software, this book helps you a little. Just thought of reminding you, but nevertheless there are some fundamentals about the filters, plugins, curves which I found very worthy. I hope that you might also feel the same, who knows. Grab one here and don’t forget to comment below how did you feel after reading the book.

Cheers and Happy Photographing.

Loving Landscapes – A review

Are you new to photography? Do you roam around everywhere with your camera equipment to get that one amazing looking landscape photo? Are you disappointed about the fact that your photos aren’t that compelling enough? Well, to begin with, watch this TED talk video by Angela Lee Duckworth. She clearly states the fact that the key to success is not in the IQ or good looks or talents. It is the grit, the perseverance, the passion for long term goals and the willingness to start over again upon a probable failure. Before going ahead, please watch the video.

 A few weeks ago, while browsing through dPS, I bumped into this e-book which was dedicated to Landscape photography. It was quite intriguing to find a book which focussed only on one particular genre. I went on to read the book with a notion that the photographic idea in the book can be applied according to one’s perception on one’s style of photography. The contents page of the book clearly stated that the book is strictly for landscape photography but with a good understanding, one can apply the concepts to other genres of photography.

The book starts with a clear introduction and it speaks about what is covered in the book and what is not too. The entire book is divided into 12 chapters. The first chapter covers the basics of image capturing and attributes which play an important role in getting the right exposure in a given situation and in attaining an optimum sharpness for a decent landscape photograph. It also touches upon the negatives of a higher ISO, White Balance, Histograms and Focusing. The above attributes have been touched upon in a simple way, in a way not to confuse the readers with extremely technical terminologies.

 The second chapter is “Computers and backups” and this chapter deals with techniques that Sarah and Todd follow in their studios and is pretty straight forward. This topic is by far the most discussed on the internet and one of the most important in this era of digital photography. The next chapter talks about the power of RAW and why it is important to shoot in RAW format, every time! I have covered this topic in an earlier blog and you can check that out here!

 The fourth covers File management and using Lightroom to organize images. This chapter is very useful for those who would like to keep tab on their huge collection of images with ease. The uses of key wording are dealt with in detail along with the advanced search techniques in Lightroom which enables searching of images using the multiple filters. This chapter also explains about the collections and smart collections in Library module and how it works to help you finding the image you are looking for.

The sixth and seventh chapters explain about the export option in Lightroom which lets you export your image to different social media platforms like flickr or your own website. This chapters emphasize on the develop module’s functions and on how the sliders can be used to enhance your photograph by adjusting the exposure, opening up the shadows, bringing out the colours, enhancing the colours from the raw data your camera has recorded on field.

In the next chapter Sarah explains her work flow in detail. She starts with explaining the crop tool, goes on to the dust removal, applying sharpness, removing Chromatic aberration and also touches upon the basic panel adjustments. The importance of following the mentioned order during post production is explained clearly in the book. All the necessary tools in the develop module are touched upon in this chapter.

Chapter nine talks about the other tools in develop module. The noise corrections panel, HSL panel, Split toning panel, Effects panel and a few other local correction tools in develop module are explained in detail. The uses of these tools and they can be used to enhance the photograph is explained clearly.

Chapter ten touches upon some camera techniques which can be used in creating some effects, namely Photo impressionism, Camera spin and techniques on how to photograph the Milky Way in detail. The next chapter goes on to explain the use of Photoshop for landscape photography. All the important panels and necessary basic tools are explained clearly. Lightroom and photoshop has been explained in such ways that even a first timer (I mean it) can follow and get the results as in the book. The last chapter talks about the Multi exposure workflow in Photoshop, explaining the tools which are required for taking multi exposure photographs, like star trails, light paintings and HDR.

Overall, the book is neatly presented with appropriate screen shots wherever necessary. The photographs used in the books are available along with the book and lets you try what’s being explained while reading, this makes the book a practical guide. Open the e-book along with Lightroom and Photoshop to make this a worthwhile exercise. If you want to enhance your skills in landscape photography you might have to get this book immediately.

Cheers, Happy Photographing. 🙂