REVIEW : Fujifilm X100T

I am extending thanks to Chris Atkinson of Henry's Newmarket for access to the Fujifilm X100T.  I've been thinking about a carry everywhere all the time rangefinder style camera and had read a number of glowing, positive, over flowingly superlative reviews of the latest Fuji so I wanted to test it out.The camera sells for $1399 as of this writing so this is not a random investment.  It's the third iteration of the X100 family, replacing the prior X100S.  I was not fond of the original X100, glacial AF being a primary complaint, but everything I read said Fuji has knocked it out of the park with this release. I have rangefinders already.  But they aren't the kind of rangefinders I would take everywhere and bash around because of their cost and the reality that they become targets for thieves even when I put gaffer tape over that bright red circular logo.  Moreover, when I shoot the Leicas, I do so with specific intent, and that means I am carrying extra lenses, probably an off camera flash and cable, etc etc etc.  This kind of defeats the purpose of go everywhere anytime photography and while I am not in a position to be robbed of $1400, I have been robbed of gear before and better that than the $10K that go into a Leica body and single lens.

So hence the Fuji.  At first pickup, it is really nice.  It fits my hands well and the buttons are not so small that my clumsy fingers cannot operate them.  The hybrid optical - electronic viewfinder switches easily via a lever on the front and the AF on this release is very fast.  You can also turn off all the bells and whistles making it dead silent, which is precisely what I want in something like this.  For the review I am using the silver version, simply because everything else I shoot is black or dark grey and frankly I am somewhat entranced by the classic look.

The lens, and there is only one, is a 23mm f:/2 which on the APSC sized, but Fuji unique, sensor looks like a 35mm prime on a full frame. This happens to be my favourite go to focal length for walking around so we are off to a good start.  While the lens is not interchangeable, there are screw on adapters for wider (28mm effective focal length) and so-called tele (50mm effective focal length) but I did not test either, because they would complicate the package and defeat the desired use case.

Fuji calls this an ISO-less camera and that implies that the higher the ISO you choose you won't see more noise because their sensor design does not increase the power to the pixels as the ISO is increased.  Standard sensors have their power increased as ISO goes up, and this can result in more noise.  Well, ISO-less or not, and however good the Fuji sensor is, there is more noise at higher ISO.  Fuji offers multiple dynamic range expansion settings, but really what they appear to do is punch the ISO up.  In my own captures in RAW, I could distinguish a significant value of using the functionality.  I think I would normally just shoot RAW at the lowest ISO I could get an manipulate shadows and highlights in post processing.

I think that this is where I will miss the point of the X100T.  It is built primarily to shoot JPEG and to use Fujifilm's excellent film emulations.  Not only have they done a great job emulating their own film stocks, the classic chrome setting really does look and feel like Kodachrome 64, my overall favourite film, and one not usually emulated all that well in my opinion.  Some have said, and I would agree most of the time that the JPEGs out of camera are better than the RAWs without significant processing.  Yes you still have all the losses associated with JPEGs, but let's suppose you really don't want to post process.  If that's so, the Fujifilm X100T is a killer choice.

My samples included are all shot outdoors in varying light or indoors with window light.  There is a built-in flash on the X100T but like any flash on any point and shoot, once you have established it's existence, there is not much more of value to be discussed.  There is a hot shoe for an external Fuji flash.  I did not test any of these, but it strikes me that a large external flash would defeat the simplicity of the camera and make it unbalanced.

I discovered that I really liked the viewfinder.  I cannot shoot without a viewfinder, holding the camera out and staring at an LCD panel feels completely unnatural and quite unstable.  This stopped me from buying the original RX100 that I otherwise thought was the best point and shoot in the marketplace.  The X100T can be set to electronic or optical viewfinder, switchable via a convenient to the finger front lever and can also overlay a digital image on the optical display.  Focus peaking and other digital tools are available to help with manual focus.

The lens has an actual aperture ring.  Unlike the Leicas, the aperture ring is against the body and awkward to manipulate wearing gloves, but I expect one could get used to it.

The camera uses a proprietary filter and hood mount.  I thought that this was customer-unfriendly with the original X100 and still think so.  Customers must buy an adapter to use standard filters.  The camera does not come with a lens hood.  You must purchase the metal hood separately and it resembles the metal hoods found on Leitz and Zeiss M series lenses.  You MUST purchase the hood, the lens flares all too readily.

The rear LCD is quite good, although I always found it to display the captured images far too brightly, even when turned down.  I was quite concerned that the camera was seriously overexposing until I downloaded the first images.  They were fine.  Fortunately I have not developed a serious chimping habit so this is a minor annoyance and could very well have been a missed setting on my part.

Autofocus is quick enough and I did not miss any images waiting for AF.  Focus lock is easy to achieve for recomposition and I found the camera to be very natural to shoot with.  The medium wide focal length offers decent depth of field and the f:/2 maximum aperture can still provide please out of focus highlights.

Where I became more frustrated was in the processing.  Fuji uses a proprietary sensor and it is not my experience that the RAW converters engineered by Adobe completely leverage the power of the sensor.  DXO has a RAW converter but only for the X100, no updates have arrived for the X100S or the X100T and the software does not recognize them as the same cameras.  Too bad, because DXO's RAW converter is typically superb.  When I brought the RAW files into Lightroom it seemed I needed to do a lot more work to them just to get to what the basic JPEGs looked like on the camera display.  I don't mind work, but extra work for basic function is disappointing.  Again it is perfectly conceivable that Fujifilm has not put a ton of work into making better converters available because they think that the cameras will be shot primarily in JPEG.  That would be a loss for owners.

By expanding the images in the gallery, and yes they have been through the digital darkroom because in my normal use cases, I always use the digital darkroom, you can see a nice range of tones, good highlight and shadow recovery capability, excellent range of colour and good white balance fidelity.

In summary

I like the X100T.  I do not like it $1400 worth.  I like it $700 worth.  It is too large to fit in a pocket, but boy that lens and sensor do produce some beautiful quality.  I find the proprietary sensor to be really great, but the lack of a really good RAW converter to be disappointing.  The camera fits my hands well and I can carry it for hours without tiring but I do wish that the aperture ring was furthest from the body like a Leica.  The hybrid viewfinder is just awesome.  The flash is, well it's there.  If the price was aligned to my perception of value I would definitely get it in silver for the retro look, the same reason why if I bought a Nikon Df, I would buy it in silver too.  There is no benefit to silver over black, I just think it fits the product placement better.  So I rate this camera as The Photo Video Guy RECOMMENDED, but your accountable for knowing your own use cases.

VIDEO : Overview of Medium Format Digital Cameras

In this video, I share the differences and similarities between medium format digital cameras and DSLRs using the Hasselblad system as examples. [vimeo clip_id=115485773 width=500 height=375]

Fujifilm releases new firmware for X-T1, X-E2, X-E1, X-Pro1

The folks over at Fujifilm have pushed out new firmware for multiple cameras. The X-T1 gets the most in the way of updates, with the package becoming sparser the older the camera.

For details and to download the X-T1 firmware, click here

For details and to download the X-E2 firmware, click here

For details and to download the X-E1 firmware, click here

For details and to download the X-Pro1 firmware, click here

Always read the documentation before upgrading firmware and be sure that your battery is fully charged before you start.

Nikon Firmware Updates Available for D750, D810

Keeping your camera firmware current is very important.  Nikon recently made two firmware updates available to customers D750 C:1.01 (download)

• When shooting with an optional Speedlight and Auto FP high-speed sync enabled with On selected for ISO sensitivity settings > Auto ISO sensitivity control in the photo shooting menu, images were sometimes over-exposed. This issue has been resolved. (Enabling auto FP high-speed sync: Select 1/200s (Auto FP) or 1/250s (Auto FP) for Custom Setting e1: Flash sync speed)
• When menus were displayed with the camera connected to a 4K-compatible TV via HDMI, display in both the camera monitor and on the TV was not correct. This issue has been resolved.
• Noise that could sometimes be heard when Custom Setting d1: Beep was set to any option other than Off has been reduced.

D810 C:1.02 (download)

• When playback zoom was applied to an image displayed in the camera monitor (image display enlarged) while the memory card access lamp was still lit immediately after capture, the image was not correctly displayed. This issue has been resolved.
• When menus were displayed with the camera connected to a 4K-compatible TV via HDMI, display in both the camera monitor and on the TV was not correct. This issue has been resolved.
• Noise that could sometimes be heard when Custom Setting d1: Beep was set to any option other than Off has been reduced.

Info courtesy Nikon

iTR AF and Auto ISO for Hockey with the Canon 7D Mark II

Another game, another set of experiments with the 7D Mark II.  This time it was the same core kit, 7D Mark II, Sigma 120-300/2.8 and RRS monopod but with very different settings.  I wanted to give Canon's full 65 point tracking autofocus a go and also see what would happen if I let the camera manage the ISO where I set a shutter speed floor and left the lens at f:/2.8.  The results might surprise you.I have four Canon bodies.  An original 7D hacked for video, a 1D Mark IV, a 1Dx and the new 7D Mark II.  I bought the 7Dm2 specifically for sports and wildlife and given that it's winter here in the Great White North, hockey is where the camera is getting its workout. Friday night I went to the Aurora Community Centre aka the ACC (folks in the GTA will get the inside joke) to watch the battle of Yonge Street where the Tigers hosted their local nemesis the Newmarket Hurricanes.  Kim came with and the Canes got a brand new cheering section as a result.

I was quite nervous about trusting AF point selection to the camera.  I had tried this once before and didn't have spectacular results but never on this camera.  So I set the camera to auto select but made the choice to have it start with the centre AF point, the one I usually use all the time.  The first thing you notice is that as soon as you activate the AF, in my case by back button as I have deactivated the AF initiation at the shutter release, you get this jumping bunch of AF points.

As you recompose, they do a decent job of holding focus as the subject moves or you make a viewfinder recomposition.  My usual mode in AI-Servo is to lock focus on the subject and hold the button down and track manually.  The automatic way using iTR AF is certainly quick and less eyestrain than the manual method.  I did find however that shooting in Case 4, if another player crossed in front of the subject I was locked on to, there was at least a 50% chance that the iTR AF would grab onto and follow the new subject.  I considered switching to Case 2 but only after thinking about things after the fact, so that's a future experiment.

I also discovered that the jumping and flickering AF points are a real distraction.  I did not have them set to glow red as is an option and I'm glad I did not because that would have made me nuts.   It seemed the longer I held the AF button down the greater the probability that the iTR AF would wander off.  In high speed play action, I had to learn to release the AF button and relock it quickly if I wanted to hold focus and before I learned this, I missed a number of what would have been great glove saves because they were out of focus.  I don't think I would have had the miss rate if I had been in my usual focus mode.

So I conclude that iTR AF works decently well, but my initial experience is it does not work well enough to depend upon in frantic hockey action in front of the net.  A player on breakaway is tracked very well and so long as nothing distracts the automatic tracking it's pretty good.  I will try the same settings but with iTR AF turned off next time.

Auto ISO is a feature I rarely use.  I am an old film photographer and still equate ISO with noise so I tend to pull the ISO as low as I possiby can, but sometimes doing so results in some motion blur, so I thought I would give it a shot.  Canon's Auto ISO lets you set a range of potential ISOs for Auto to use, I set mine for the range between 100 and 6400.  I also set a floor shutter speed of 1/500 for periods 1 and 3 and 1/250 for the second period, just to see what would happen.

The Aurora Community Centre is fine for viewing and even for video, but for still photography, the lighting leaves a lot to be desired.  The lighting above the north end net is particularly crappy with nearly 1.5 stop drop off.   On a number of occasions I found that the ISO had maxed out and the shutter speed had dropped below the floor in order to get the shot.  It's interesting to note that the defaults will override the lowest shutter speed if the set ISO range tops out.  On the other end of the spectrum though, instead of living at ISO 2500 as I usually have to do at the ACC, in some situations I found that the ISO dropped to ISO 1000 near the south net giving me nice high shutter speeds and crisp images.  There's a benefit to letting the camera handle the ISO but you really need to be cognizant of the range you will allow.  What I did notice is that where in the past I would top out the ISO at 3200 and be a bit grumpy about the noise, the Auto ISO regularly pushed well beyond that and my favourite shot of the night (top of post) is at ISO 4000 and it looks very good.  What I learned is that the noise difference between ISO 3200 and ISO 5000 is marginal so if you have to push it, you can push it relatively hard, and so long as you don't need to crop in at all, and I tend to crop everything a bit, even ISO 6400 is quite acceptable.  I come away from this experience liking the camera more than I had been.

This is the first time that I can recall defaulting writing to the SD card instead of the CF card and I noticed an incongruity in the file naming.  When I use the CF card to save images are saved in sequence when shooting in burst mode.  I had the camera set to low speed burst configured for 6fps for all the games.  This game I was saving to the SD card, also a Sandisk Extreme Pro, this one rated at 90MB/s.  Interestingly the images from bursts are saved in reverse order where the last image is the first saved and has the lower file number. I have never seen this before and it is freaking weird when you are going through your images in the library and the play action appears to be going in reverse.  I'd be curious to learn if anyone else has seen this behaviour.  No images were dropped, nothing was lost, they are just saved in reverse order and only when in burst mode.  I counted the images in each sequence when this happened and the max number of images was five, so no where near the max buffer load of 31 RAW images when using UDMA cards.

Here's a gallery of images from the game with some EXIF info shared so you get a sense of what the camera decisions were.

So the 7D Mark II stays in the shooting stable and as proof of that I have made even more firmware hacks to the original 7D so the likelihood of it coming out of video mode in the future is near zero.  The 7D Mark II with that Sigma 120-300/2.8 APO IS is now the go-to hockey kit.

The other comment I would add is that while my Really Right Stuff monopod does not go as high as the Gitzo it replaced, the leg locks also stay locked instead of loosening off under pressure.   I am also using the Really Right Stuff MH-02 LR monopod head.  Using a monopod without a proper head is way more work than it needs to be.  This head tilts fore and aft and also rotates the mount through 90 degrees so you either mount the camera or a lens plate and have the tilt work in the proper direction.

Busted! Lear Professional USB 3.0 Dual Slot Card Reader

I have used this for a couple of years so probably have gotten my $70 out of it, but since getting Sandisk 120mb/s cards for the 7D Mark II, this reader produces nothing but garbage from these cards.  Checking their site, there is a firmware update from 2012 that adds UDMA7 support which is a great idea.  You install the installer, reboot your machine (STUPID INSTALL TRICK #13) and then run the Firmware update tool. Did I mention that this is a USB 3.0 reader?  Why yes, I did.  The firmware update tool requires a USB 2.0 port to work.  Since my Mac Pro and my Macbook only have USB3 ports, that are actually USB2 backward compatible, this would sound less dumb than it actually is.

It really demands a USB 2 port.  So because I have newer computers, updating the firmware becomes a major hassle.

After checking my available computers, I did find an old POS Windows box with USB 2 ports and was able to get the firmware on the reader updated.  It does now work with the Sandisk UDMA7 cards, although it is slower when reading than the Delkin I bought to replace it.

From a pain in the butt perspective, replacing the Lexar is the easiest route although that is more expensive.  If your time is valuable, you'll burn the cost in futzing around with the Lexar solution, unless you have an older computer with USB2 and you don't mind having to go through a reboot mid stream.

Real World Test : Canon 7D Mark II in crappy arena light

For this story to make sense, I must be clear on something.  I bought the 7D Mark II for two specific use cases, both tending towards longer lenses and both tending towards a preponderance of crappy light.  So you understand, the use cases for the camera are wildlife and sports.  Last night, I along with my good friend Will du Plessis, trundled off to the Aurora Community Centre to photography an OJHL match between the Aurora Tigers and Lindsay Muskies.  We both were shooting the 7D Mark II with the Canon 70-200/2.8L IS II.  To learn how the 7D runs at higher ISOs in horrible lighting, read on...Don't get me wrong.  I love shooting OJHL hockey.  The players really want to be there, work hard and are hoping to get picked for the minors or to head off to University on a hockey scholarship.  The arenas however, leave a lot to be desired from the lighting perspective.  This isn't the Air Canada Centre, the Aurora Community Centre is lit by banks of T8 fluorescent tubes which while white are not particularly bright. I never liked shooting my original 7D beyond 1600 ISO.  After that the noise became annoying and the contrast really started to flatten out.  When I did the test shots with the 7D Mark II, I found that it started to fall off badly after ISO 6400, so I went with the intent to shoot the whole game at ISO 3200.

The camera was set to aperture priority with the lens cranked wide open to f:/2.8.  ISO was set to 3200 and exposure compensation was +1 ⅓ stops.  I hope that this would give me decent enough shutter speeds to freeze action without turning every image into a grainy sack of mush.

Let me say up front that I am not yet acclimated to the 7D Mark II.  Enough has changed to put me behind the curve on it.  Some things are similar to other cameras such as the Case options for AF similar to those in the 1Dx.  When I shoot the 1Dx, I use Case 4 AF and did the same on the 7D Mk II.

My go to kit for hockey up to now has been the 1D Mk IV with a Sigma 120-300/2.8 stabilized lens at ISO 2500.  The Mark IV does a great job and the 1.3 crop gives me up to 390mm effective focal length, that I rarely use.  The 7D Mk II, has a 1.6 crop factor so with the 70-200 that should have ended up about 320mm.  First learning. For a recreational hockey arena where I want tight shots and not to have to crop away dead space more than 30%, 320mm is too short.  So next time out, the Sigma 120-300 is back on point.

The AF in the 7D Mark II is very fast.  It is not fast like the 1Dx but comparable in AF performance to the 1D Mark IV and that's very good indeed.  I was a bit off my game having not shot hockey in a while so I felt out of sync a bit and it showed in the images.  Shots were clean in the viewfinder and accurate on the LCD.

I shot in RAW (as I always do) and using a Sandisk 32GB Extreme card rated at 120 MB/s I never managed to fill the buffer.  I did find that high speed burst at 10fps was overkill and low speed at 3fps was inadequate.  Fortunately the 7D Mark II allows you to set your low speed burst rate.

I tried the anti-flicker setting on the camera.  I honestly cannot tell if it made a difference at all so next time I shoot without it.  I've also programmed the camera for back button focus only because I found that having focus on the shutter button resulted in extra frames because the trigger is a bit light compared to either of the 1D models that I have.

I set the camera to AWB and that worked out pretty darn well and left the Auto Lighting Optimizer turned off.  Never have found a real use for that since I tend to expose to the right most of the time.    Since I shoot RAW I don't worry about the colour space or picture style crap but I do set AdobeRGB and Neutral if only to get the LCD JPEG to look as much like the RAW as possible.

About 700 frames knocked two batteries in the grip down to about 75% so decent enough performance.  Shots on the LCD looked fine but Canon has changed the Info display and it no longer tells me the information I want to see the way I want to see it.  Instead they have replaced it with a scrolled display that shows all the JPEG setting cruft instead of the basic exposure info with a full sized image.  Those Canon folks build a nice camera, but they still do not understand User Interface.

The game was heavily dominated by the Aurora Tigers until the third period so I did not get the variety of images I would have preferred but that happens sometimes.

I pulled the CF card and put it into my card reader to import the images to Lightroom and to my horror, every image looked like it was on an acid trip to LSD World.  Arrrggghhh!  So I tried Photo Mechanic.  Arrrrgggghhh!  Then I decided to stick a fork in my eye and try to get the current Digital Photo Professional from Canon's site since Mac's don't come with DVD drives.  No problem so long as I manually TYPE IN THE THE FRICKING SERIAL NUMBER FOR EVERY DOWNLOAD!  Canon I have two words for you numbnutz and the first word rhymes with truck.  No one would actually steal your crappy software, so pull hard and reverse the cranio-rectal inversion you are suffering from.  Jerks.

Well that didn't work either.  But I knew that the 7D Mark II could save in RAW and to both cards and it worked, so I pulled the card from the Lexar USB 3 Card Reader on Mac Pro the cylinder and went down to the studio to try it in the Lexar Firewire Card Reader on Mac Pro the cheese grater.  Every image is just fine.  Hmmm

Is it the Lexar USB 3 reader?  Is it something in the new Mac Pro?  Is it some ghost in the machine?  I went back upstairs and put the SD card in the reader.  It has some RAW images on it.  They imported fine.  Hmmm I plugged the CF card into the reader again and checked again.  Everything is perfect.  Two hours lost in failed imports and assorted futzing about but it all worked the second time.  I still don't know why but have made a note to myself that unless I am in a rush, to use the cheese grater and push the RAW files right to the NAS and import them from there, rather than off the card reader.  Maybe the card is too fast for the reader on LR import.  Still don't know.

Anyhoo.  Lightroom does actually have a RAW converter for the 7D Mark II.  I am not certain that it is a GOOD RAW converter yet.  As yet, DXO does not have a RAW converter for the 7D, it's due in December.  I have found on other occasions that the DXO RAW converter does a better job than the Adobe one.  I did try Apple's RAW Converter with Aperture and I think it did a better job.  RAW conversion is a big deal to me, and even after post processing, I found the Lightroom files kind of flat, whereas the Aperture versions were better and with a lot less work.

So what about the noise?  Well when I did the studio test using studio heads in big light shapers, the 7D Mark II was excellent to 6400 ISO.  I was less impressed with it in crappy lighting in the arena.  For higher ISOs to look good, you need good light with decent contrast and I just wasn't getting that in the arena.  Noise at 3200 for hockey is about the same as the noise at 6400 with studio lighting.  Still a long way better than the original 7D, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

In fairness, I need to give it another shot.  I may take a trip to the Ray Twinney Centre to shoot a Hurricanes game.  The Hurricanes are my hometown team but the current owners are challenging and I gave up shooting the team about a year ago because for every nag with the Canes, the Tigers arena and people are welcoming.  Sadly the Twinney Centre has better lighting.  I will also turn that flicker thing off and try shooting with the longer glass to eliminate the need for so much dead space cropping.  I was hopeful to avoid the weight of the 120-300/2.8 and it's required monopod but I will give it a shot regardless.

I've attached a few images from the culled stack, none are awesome but they will give you a sense of what you can expect.  All images were processed in Lightroom for a minor exposure bump of +⅓, lifting of the shadows a bit, increased clarity, pushing the black point left and lifting the white point marginally.  Clarity and a bit of vibrance were added.  The image then round-tripped through Nik Sharpener Pro 3 and Nik Dfine 2 noise reduction.

Thanks for reading and until next time, peace.

Ross

QUICK LOOK : Aputure Trigmaster Plus II 2.4G Wireless Flash Triggers

If you are spending money on kit for photography, you know by now that there is a ton of stuff coming out of China to help you do what you want, often at a significantly lower price than you might expect. Sometimes, this stuff is utter junk, but the folks building products under the Aputure brand have been pretty consistent in delivering good value for your money for simple products done well.  That's also true for the Aputure Trigmaster Plus II.Thanks to Chris Atkinson of Henry's Newmarket for making a kit available to test.  The kit has two units, a belt case, batteries (in paired carry sleeves) and sync cables in a single box that sells for $129.99

That's a bit more than the Cactus V5 trigger set that I've written about in the past, but this kit brings so additional value that makes the difference more than worth it.  The cables alone, would cost more than that bought separately, and the packaging even includes the adapters needed to fire off studio heads like a Bowens.  Considering that this kit of two is less than a single Bowens Pulsar receiver, this might be a good deal for some users.

The Plus II name is a nudge to Pocket Wizard because at a glance, the units look like the old Pocket Wizard Plus II triggers.  Like a PW Plus II they stand vertically in your camera's hotshoe and like a PW Plus II these are completely manual triggers, meaning you set your own shutter speed and aperture and control power of your flash head manually.    Unlike the PW Plus II, each unit also has a standard hotshoe to trigger your mounted speedlite.  There is a ¼-20 mount on each unit which also acts as a cold foot.  Each unit requires 2 AA batteries to operate.

Each unit can be set for TX/RX (transmit/receive) or RX (receive only).  The three position power switch offers off, on and Super.  Off and On are obvious, Super is a special mode that is purported to extend the range of the radios to 500m.  I had no ability to test that range but in non-super mode, I can confirm that the units work through multiple walls, multiple floor levels and through metallic lined softboxes without any fail to trigger events.  Super mode supposedly is much harder on batteries.  It may also make your head glow, but as I said, I had no need to try it out at length because normal mode worked great every time.

The units each have a folding antenna and a simple channel selector. They are limited to 7 channels, vs the competitors 16 and 32 but this probably won't be a big deal for most photographers.  Setting the channel is easy.  There is also a Relay mode if you really need to reach far out and need to relay your trigger signal to another receiver.

What is very nice about the system is that like the Cactus V6 transceivers, the Aputure can be set to transmit in up to four separate zones, and you can then configure the receiver to be in the zone you want.  While there is no remote power control as in the Cactus V6, there is value in zone management, and the ability to send signals to only selected zones.  This is very handy when you have multiple flashes and are trying to check the exposure for each zone independently.

Like most of this type of radio flash trigger, the Aputure unit can also be used as a wireless radio trigger for a remote camera, but as usual, you need to order the cable for your camera.

The manual is easy to understand, with plenty of diagrams but if your eyes get challenged by micro-print, a set of magnifier glasses will be handy to have.  That the units are made in China is plain from all the Chinese characters on the box and in the documentation, but in the end the units do what they say that they will do and you can get to work quickly without having to study complex instructions.

I think that the Aputure Trigmaster Plus II kit is a good value for what it does.  Note that there is no TTL support, so flash exposure either becomes a series of experiments or a flash meter will need to enter the picture at some point.  They will get your flash off camera, but all your amazing automation will be gone.  If you're good with going all manual, then this kit is a pretty decent choice.  However, if you want TTL and automatic exposure control and you want radio triggering instead of the somewhat challenging line of sight infrared, get yourself a set of Phottix ODINs, or Hahnel TUFF TTLs or even <chokes> Pocket Wizard TT1/FlexTT5s.

Recommended so long as manual flash management is ok.  Image courtesy of Aputure

QUICK LOOK : Cactus V6 Flash TX/RX - despite all the pins these aren't TTL

I've written before about the very excellent Cactus V5 radio transmitter / receivers for your hotshoe flash.  Great range, simple to use, and pretty much foolproof, so long as you understood power and exposure control were all manual.  Then a seminar attendee was telling me of his challenges with off camera flash and how things would be solved by his new Cactus V6 set because the salesperson told him that they had TTL.  Really?  For about $160 a pair?  I had to check this out.Let's get this cleared up right away.  There is NO TTL in the Cactus V6 units.  What there is, is some tech that profiles TTL flashes so you can control their output power through MANUAL settings from the transmitter.  That is actually quite useful for lighting dorks as as myself, but regular users want wireless flash that works simply and painlessly, and without the line of sight limitations of infrared triggering that is built into most camera / flash systems today. Folks who want this need to move along, because the Cactus V6 systems don't do that.

What they do, is build on the V4 and V5 units to include four zones, with each zone having individual power control from full down to 1/128 power with compatible flash units.  The flash unit list is decent and includes the usual Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Metz, Nissin, Olympus, and Panasonic suspects, along with Cactus brand flash units.  The devices can also "learn" many unprofiled flash systems and operate them as well.

The confusion comes from the hotshoes and the feet of the units.  They have multiple pins, just as you would find on a TTL flash.  In fact the single unit has enough pins that they interface directly with Canon, Nikon and Pentax without having to choose a specific model.

At first glance in fact you would think you could control the flash from the camera menu itself, especially since you are supposed to set the unit configured for Transmit to the TTL setting.  But when you try to access the external flash control menu, it tells you that there is no external flash installed.  Much frustration ensues.

You would also expect that with all those pins, the camera would know that there was some kind of flash signalling device telling the camera about itself and that would give flash ready indicators and maybe even set the proper sync speed.  Yeah you'd expect that, but over 70% of the time, the camera had no idea that the Cactus V6 was in the shoe, in TTL mode, powered up and ready to go.  In fact after futzing around for an hour to try to determine what magic sequence was required for the camera to know that there was a flash trigger present, I just gave up.

When you do get the camera to see the trigger, and understand that you are setting the power output manually across up to four flash zones, the units become reasonably usable.  They have a legible LCD panel, a decent menu system and easy to use zone controls.  I was working in my studio and the zone LEDS were so bright that they looked like red lights.  When I went to a much brighter room, I discovered that the red lights were actually letters, so that is even more useful.

I was very hopeful that the V6 would duplicate the incredible range of the V5 units.  Sadly they resemble the performance of the old V4 units, where while you don't need line of sight, a couple of drywall partitions were enough to stop the radio signal from getting through.  When I put the receiver with flash on it inside a Westcott Apollo Softbox, I had 30% trigger failure, possibly the metallic silvery liner impedes the radio signal.  I've never had that happen with the V5 units, or Canon's radio, or the Profoto radio, or even the ridiculously expensive and requiring of a blood sacrifice cursed Pocket Wizard TT1/FlexTT5 units.

Each unit runs on 2 AA batteries (not included) and comes with a little stand.  The unit can sit in a hotshoe or be mounted to a standard ¼-20 fitting on a light stand or tripod.  There is a very easy to use lever lock to hold the unit in place on the hotshoe, and I credit Cactus.  It's not beautiful but it is so much simpler and more effective than those silly knurled ring systems.  Units are sold individually (about $80) each and come with a quick "lighting options" guide and a tiny manual.  If your eyes are becoming more demanding, you will need magnifiers for the tiny print.

With an accessory cable, you can also use the Cactus V6 units as remote radio triggers for your camera.  So if you happen to need to trigger a remote camera, this could be a useful advantage for you.  My friend Bryan shoots pro wrestling, and it's an advantage to fly a camera above the ring and to be able to fire it from ringside on demand.  You can do this with other trigger systems, including the Cactus V5s just be sure to order the right cable for your camera.

The units have a USB port for firmware updates, but for most every photographer I know this is pointless since it is a Windows only updater.  I do understand that Windows has dominate marketshare overall, but more creatives I know use Macs instead of Windows.  So for me at least, this makes the update functionality completely useless.

Conclusion

While the multiple zones are very handy, and the ability to control output power from the camera across four zones, and potentially multiple TTL flash vendors sounds good, I'm not convinced.  I don't believe that the V6 system solves the flash control problem as well as the more expensive Pocket Wizard system and if you want real flash control from the camera, you are better off with Phottix Odin, Hahnel TUFF TTL or even Yong Nuo radio TTL triggers.  Price point is one thing, usability is another.  Not recommended at this time.

STUDIO TEST : Canon 7D Mark II ISO Performance

Ever since I received my Canon 7D Mark II, I have been itching to see what its real high ISO performance looked like.  I could have tried this with JPEGs but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  Fortunately, the day I write this, Adobe has released Lightroom 5.7 and the latest Camera RAW that directly supports the new RAW format.  Let's see what I learned.Canon's 7D Mark II produces crop sensor delivered images that are approximately 20 megapixels.  Dimensions are 3648 x 5472 pixels per frame.  This is a standard 2:3 aspect ratio, the same as a full frame sensor.  File sizes at ISO 100 were about 21MB each growing to 35.2MB by the time I got to ISO 51200.  This isn't surprising because the greater amount of noise requires more data points so larger files. The Test Shots

I put the Canon 7D Mark II on a Manfrotto 496 ball head mounted to one of their carbon fibre leg sets.  Usually I use Really Right Stuff but sadly the L-Bracket for the 7D Mark II is backordered so far.  I attached a Canon electronic cable release to minimize camera shake even while on the tripod.  I have found microshake even on this tripod at shutter speeds as fast as 1/13 second, so it's a good idea that you always use a release cable when shooting slow speeds even on a tripod.

I used Canon's 85mm f:/1.2L lens for each image.  While the 85/1.2 produces stunning bokeh, the purpose was to test ISO performance so I set a middle aperture of f:/11 for every shot.  Once I had the depth of field I wanted, I set up the lights.  Because I knew I would be running the gamut from slow to fast shutter speeds, well past the camera's native flash sync, and not wanting to get into High Speed Sync complexity I decided on using continuous light, so I set up the Westcott Spiderlite TD-5 with an 18" x 24" softbox slightly up and 45 degrees left of my usual model Sondra.  Distance from the front diffuser to Sondra was about 2 feet.  On Sondra's left and 1 foot away was a Lastolite Trigrip Reflector clamped with a Manfrotto Spring Clamp mounted on a light stand, using the white/silver striped surface.  I didn't want a really punchy reflector, but more snap than plain white.

Once the light and reflector were placed, and Sondra was in position, I took incident light readings with the dome of the Sekonic 478DR placed at Sondra's chin and pointed at the lens.  I was taught this positioning by Frank Doorhof as this measurement will make the cheekbones just a bit brighter because of the relative distance from the source.  Frank was right, and now it's my standard practice when the light is above the subject.

Once I had my meter reading for ISO 100, I made the first exposure.  For each subsequent exposure, I simply doubled the ISO and halved the shutter speed.  I did check each change with the light meter to verify my math was correct.

The results were very good.  The 7D Mark II delivers a significant improvement in image quality at higher ISOs than the original 7D.  Since the camera will be used most aggressively by wildlife and sports photographers who often have to deal with crappy light, this is a real boon.

To be fair, while it is much better than its predecessor, it's not the high ISO performance you will get out of a Canon 1Dx, Nikon D4s or the respected Prince of Darkness, Nikon's Df, a camera I reviewed and continue to say you can shoot all day long at ISO 25600 and get really good images.

But, the 7D Mark II doesn't go near the price territory of those cameras either, and it's not full frame with larger pixels to deal with the lower light levels.

In the gallery attached you can see images where the only things that change are the ISO and the shutter speed.  Since it is all continuous light, there is no quality shift caused by different shutter speeds so you get a fair representation of the ISO performance.  I started at ISO 100 and by doubling the ISO at each frame got to the camera maximum of 51200 in ten frames.

You can click on any image to make it larger, and as you mouse over, a caption will appear to share the relevant EXIF data.  As I shoot OJHL hockey in arenas where the lighting is often questionable, I used to be concerned about pushing the original 7D past ISO 1600.  Based on this initial test, I am quite comfortable that I will be able to shoot at 6400 and get good images.  By reasonable post-processing, I am confident that I can really make the noise irrelevant.  The images posted here have only had two modifications done in post-processing.  They all have a common white balance set custom using a reading off the grey background, and they all have had the Lightroom lens correction for the 85/1.2 applied, not that it does very much at all.  No other tweaks were applied so this really is the RAW output exported as JPEGs 1024px long side at 72dpi for the web.

Conclusions

This is not meant to be a comprehensive review of the 7D Mark II.  It is a fairly comprehensive single light source test of the ISO performance of this body with a decent lens mounted to it and constraints placed on the camera position and the lens aperture.  Reviews of any kind are always subjective, and in my opinion, the photographer who shoots, Canon, and wants a tough high performance DSLR body with a crop sensor, and who also needs really good low light performance will not go wrong with a 7D Mark II.

Next test will be video, and it will be a bit unfair because the comparison will be with my original 7D hopped up with Magic Lantern video firmware.  I will keep you all posted.

The Size of the Light - Thoughts on the Big Octa

When I first started learning about lighting a long time ago, my master (I was an apprentice and he liked being the master) said it very succinctly, "big light up close is good light".  Of course there are  situations where this could be untrue but since I've been tagged as a  lighting geek, I've found that most of the time he was right.  Later, when taking a class with Joe McNally, I asked the dumb ass question, if you could only have one light with one modifier what would it be, he said "big octa"  Then he showed the class why.  This past Sunday, I did a seminar at Henry's Newmarket on getting started with studio flash and I demonstrated a bunch of modifiers.  But due to time and space, I didn't show my favourite.  One of the attendees had heard me speak about the big octa in the past and asked why it is so good.A big diffused source, in close makes for very soft light, but not necessarily flat light that is boring as all get out.  It has dimension and almost a flavour to it.  So the last couple of evenings, I made some space in the studio and erected the Bowens Big Octa.  It's the first really top end soft box I ever bought and while it is large and cumbersome, the light is just magical. Bowen calls this modifier the Octo 150 because it is 150cm across.  Unlike my Elinchrom Deep Octa (called the Deep Throat in Europe, I guess NA is too PC for that) the Octo 150 is a relatively shallow bowl shape as you see in this image.

So that's a five foot in diameter octa box.  It's large and a bit heavy.  You can see the manipulator arm coming out of the back of the mount as well.  This is important because the studio head is mounted inside the Octo 150 and fires backward into the bottom of the bowl. The area around the mount takes a white reflector panel to prevent hot spotting off the internal silver reflector.  This then bounces the light around and out the single front diffuser.  As you see in the image, the white diffuser is a perfect circle, masked away from the octa frame.

Bowen say you can mount any studio strobe in this Octo 150.  Yes, but you need the proper mount adapter for your strobe.  Mine came with, as expected the Bowens S Type mount for the head.  The sample images herein were all shot with a Bowens 500 Pro head with PW Radio Receiver.  The head power was controlled with Bowens IR remote by peeling back the front to make changes.  I kept the modelling lamp off after positioning to keep the heat down.

So why does a big source matter?  There's this thing I hear that light from a big source "wraps around" a subject.  Light doesn't actually bend unless in the presence of a gravity well much bigger than you will find in your studio, but the giant bowl makes for lots of different angles of incidence exiting the front diffuser to give the appearance of "wrap".  All those different angles of incidence also produce a softness you cannot get from a smaller source.

So I asked my regular model Sondra if she would sit for images from the big octa.  As usual, she was completely silent but held the same facial expression for every shot.

Sondra has very dark brunette hair but one of the real benefits of the big octa is that you get wonderful range of colour tones without having to use masks or over expose the shot.  All these are out of camera as RAW tethered into Capture One and exported as 1024px JPEGs at 72dpi for the web.  No other processing was done.   I moved Sondra only marginally and the Octo 150 not at all, primarily myself and the focal length to obtain different looks.  Even in her painted on eyes you can see the lovely round catchlight from the big octa.

The other benefit is the quality of the shadows.  We want shadows because they give dimension, but the enormous size of the source makes the shadows less harsh and there is a much wider tonal range available across the shadow range.  The big source also has a softening effect overall making it ideal for portraits.

You can certainly do full body shots with a big octa, it has the range to give you reach.  This was powered to factor 4, where the Bowens 500 Pro goes from 1 to 7 so this was three full stops under full power and even then I was getting between f/11 and f/13 depending on the position of Sondra.

The camera was of course in manual mode, which is how I always shoot studio strobes except for the my Profoto B1 Airs that do very good TTL.  I used a Sekonic 478DR flash meter with the PW trigger built in to pop the flash and take meter readings.  I know that you can get to a good exposure with no flash meter in a couple of shots with experience, but I like the convenience and speed of the flash meter.  McNally never uses one, but another teacher of mine, Frank Doorhof swears by them.  For big flash I find them handy.

If you shoot portraits against a neutral backdrop with the intent to put your subject on a different backdrop in post processing the incredible softness of the big octa also makes the placement on a variety of different backgrounds more simple because you are fighting to correct heavy shadows or light that is too harsh.  Back in the day when I apprenticed and backgrounds were stripped out of the transparencies so other backgrounds could be placed, the photographers always went with big soft lights, mostly big white umbrellas in those days, to make the lift more simple.

The Octo 150 is Bowens' version.  Every major studio modifier maker has their own big octa.  Elinchrom does a reverse firing one like the Bowens and Profoto also has a giant octa.  No matter what studio head setup you choose, a big octa is going to produce incredible light quality and you will get great return from the investment.

REVIEW : Canon C300 Dual Pixel Auto Focus (DAF) Upgrade

I am not a professional videographer.  On my best days, I might be an amateur, but I do try.  Like many folks making videos, I have struggled with the size of my crew, given that it has a count of one, and since I do reviews and training, I am often the camera operator, the director, the producer and the alleged talent.  So when Canon announced the ability to make my loved C300 do useful and speedy autofocus, I gave it serious consideration. Classic camcorders were said to focus really fast.  Not really, they actually used really tiny sensors so any aperture delivered massive depth of field so the focusing effort was minimal.  Not so professional gear that uses DSLR or CINE lenses.  Professional crews have an operator and a focus puller so precise these lenses can be, particularly when they have very wide F or T stops.

But if you are a one person crew, that becomes challenging, particularly if you are also the talent.  The C300, out of the box would actually do autofocus using a select number of Canon's EF-S STM lenses.  STM lenses are silent during focus which is critical for noise control and most of them are of sufficiently good optical quality to produce decent images.  They aren't L glass or Canon or Zeiss CINE glass by a long shot but can help get the job done.

I had been using the STM 18-135 for the one-ups where I was all the parts of the video.  It worked ok, but as I tend to move while presenting there were times it had to work to keep up.  After seeing a C300 with the DAF upgrade and playing with it at a trade event for 10 minutes or so, I decided to bite the bullet and get my own done.

Canon Canada's Service Centre was excellent.  They were friendly, helpful and fast.  I got my camera back in less than seven days.  Once I got it home I put the 18-135 on it and tried a few takes.

The AF is now much faster, more accurate and more usable in real world production.  It looks to the centre of the viewfinder display and shows a rectangle where the focus function is looking.  You can lock focus to hold it during a move, slide or pan if you need to, just like on a DSLR.  I set mine on continuous AF and then sat down at my little set to record a test shoot of a product review.

Despite the head movement and waving of hands, the camera did a much better job at maintaining focus than in the past, so long as I did my job and stayed in the AF area.  In a previous firmware update, Canon had significantly extended the usable range in low light and coupled with this new AF, the camera is even more flexible than it was out of the box.

You can of course turn AF off whenever you wish to, but when it helps, it really helps to have this level of performance.

All new C300s have the modification done at the factory.  The prices have also come down since I got mine.  Ah well.  Some will say that the Canon CINE line is overpriced for what they deliver, but I bought mine with eyes wide open and following adding the DAF upgrade, I think that I will get even more usable life out of the unit.

The DAF upgrade costs $500 and is available for Canon C100 and C300 CINE cameras.  You must return your camera to Canon for the upgrade.

I recommend it to all C100 and C300 owners.

(image courtesy Canon USA)

REVIEW : Nissan MF18 Ring Flash

Close up and macro work usually also means some form of supplemental light for adequate depth of field and shutter speeds that don't last until the next ice age.  I was kitting up to do a Macro Photography seminar at Henry's Newmarket and asked Store Manager Chris Atkinson if he could bring in some ring flashes for demonstration and potential sale.  I specifically asked about Canon's MT-24EX because I like the idea of positionable heads.  Then I saw the price tag, and that rings to fit my lenses would be special order because they don't come with the unit and I just gave up.  I already knew the MR-14 EX II and it's ok but overpriced.  I own a Sigma EM-140 that is getting long in the tooth and is not exactly intuitive.  Chris surprised me by getting the Nissan MF18 for both Canon and Nikon.First up, these aren't cheap LED rings, they are serious flashes with TTL support in addition to A mode and Manual.  There is also a fine Macro mode where you can dial the power down to 1/1024 output. Unboxing revealed a solid ring connected by heavy coiled cord to the shoe mount controller packed in a padded case.  Pleasantly, rings for most all lenses are included in the box, including 52mm, 58mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm and 77mm.  You can order 49mm, 55mm and 82mm if you need one of them.  Since I use both Canon 100/2.8L and Canon 180/3.5L macro lenses, I was covered without needing to order anything special.

The ring light itself consists of two curved and diffused flash tubes, supplemented by LED modelling lamps.  The ring comes closed as a ring but can be expanded by releasing a switch per side, widening the coverage area.  This could help with vignetting issues but also spreads the light out more.

I was most impressed by the Quick Manual.  It is two pages long and covers everything you need to know in a clearly laid out document.  The Japanese to English translation is good enough.  I was more pleased to find that the unit was actually manufactured in Japan.

The battery door threw me for a second, because it doesn't hinge, it is part of the removable battery tray.  Very elegant design there but watch the icons as the batteries go into the tray all pointing the same way not in the typical four way opposition.  Nissan makes extra trays available which would be very useful for scientific or forensic applications where you may be burning through a full charge in one outing.

The main controller is small and feels robust.  It is plastic but the kind of plastic that feels good, not the kind that feels like it will fall to pieces if you breathe on it wrong.  There is a simple on/off switch, and a four-way rocker switch with a Select button in the middle.  Above this is a bright and easy to read LCD panel.

As good as the quick manual is, you don't need it because the Nissin people have built a stunningly good user interface on this unit.  Canon and Nikon could stand to check these folks out, the UI is that good.

I quickly set the unit to TTL mode and mounted it to my 1Dx with the 100/2.8L lens on it.  Attaching the 67mm ring is fast, although it will not take a lens cap when screwed on.  The flash tube assembly attaches with two spring released clips, similar to the Sigma and Canon alternatives.  Fit is solid but still allows the ring flash  to be easily rotated.

This is very important because once in flash mode, the four way rocker allows you to control flash exposure compensation on one axis and flashtube power ratio (A:B) on the other axis.  Having used other products, I am still amazed at how simple the Nissin folks have made the unit to use.  Being able to ratio the two flash tubes allows for the showing of dimension more than perfectly flat light would.

Power steps in 1/6 EV increments from full to 1/64 power in all modes except Fine Macro which goes all the way down to 1/1024 power.

Exposure compensation is +-3EV in ⅓ EV increments.  As much variability as most anyone will ever need.

You can also set your preferred TTL exposure and keep that if you like something other than 0:0 and for Canon cameras that support it, you can set 2nd curtain sync.  Not even all Canon flashes activate 2nd curtain sync so this is nice to have when you want to blend ambient with flash.  HSS (High Speed Sync) is also supported.

You can even use the MF18 as a Master flash in a Master/Slave relationship and use it to control Slave flashes that support the Canon or Nikon systems using infrared.

I was shooting in landscape mode and flipped the camera up to portrait mode for a shot and when I glanced at the controller LCD panel, the display had detected the change in camera orientation and re-oriented itself, just like your smartphone does.  Hey Canon, your 600EX-RT should do this.  And have as usable a user interface.

The unit is firmware upgradeable and includes a proper X-sync port as well as a connector for an external power source.

How Does It Shoot

With a Guide Number of 16 at ISO100 you aren't going to be lighting a stadium with this thing.  It is nominally more powerful than the OEM base ring lights and perfectly suited to macro and close up.  I did use it in a poorly lit room at about eight feet to see how it would deal with the flame top on a Paul Reed Smith Artist guitar and it did a beautiful job, albeit with a bit of hot spotting because of the small source.  Colour balance was very clean, coming in at 5500K on the colour checker.  The LED modelling lights are not super powerful but do what they are designed to do, specifically providing you a good idea of how the light will be when the flash goes off.

The modelling lights are useful.  Hold Select for 2 seconds and they come on.  They stay on until you trip the shutter, and come back on when the exposure is done.  Hold Select for 2 seconds to turn them off.

I cannot assess battery life as I had the unit for a limited time, but recycles were fast even when I was making the flash work very hard for each shot.  I used Sanyo Eneloop 2550mA AA rechargeables for my testing.  I stick with either these or PowerEX 2700mA rechargeables and recommend against spending your hard earned money on less powerful rechargeables for your flashes.

Conclusion

I had never tried a Nissin product before.  In fact I knew very little about the company except that it existed and that a friend works for the Canadian distributor.   At a retail price of around $450 Canadian, you cannot beat this unit.  I like it better than my long abused Sigma EM-140 and much more than Canon's pricey MR-14EX II.  That it comes with all the mounting rings most users will ever need in the box, that it does TTL and advanced functions with both Nikon and Canon, that the head pops a bit wider, that the power ratio control band is so huge and that the control user interface is so effective makes it a winner.

The unit images are courtesy of Nissin Digital, but the rest of the images are fast grabs using the ring light on the 100/2.8L macro.  The light is nice and has great colour fidelity.  In the beads image, you can see how ratioing the two flash tubes contributes to dimensionality.  I spent next to no time setting up these images as I was rushed (as usual) but you can see great exposure control from the TTL mode (no post processing exposure adjustments were made).

As I said, it's a winner and if macro is something you like and you cannot always shoot in studio refined conditions, a ring light is a huge advantage for maximum depth of field with fast (flash sync) shutter speeds to freeze motion.

In Camera Microfocus Adjustments

Some higher end cameras have the ability to store microfocus adjustment profiles for particular lenses.  I have never really found the need until recently, but when needed it really makes a difference.  If you've ever felt a lens you own, or have rented, is a bit soft, have a lookNot every camera has this, so consult your owner's manual before you read this, decide you want to use it and then discover your camera does not have this capability and then get angry with me for bringing it up. I recently completed a deep dive test on full frame 28-300 lenses for my Canon bodies.  Canon's 28-300 was the winner, but not by a huge margin and as I mentioned about their 16-300 crop sensor lens, the one to really look at is Tamron's NEW 28-300/3.5-6.3 DI II VR lens.  You cannot beat it for Image Quality / Investment ratio.  It's also about ¼ the weight of Canon's cannon.

In the focus target tests, the Canon was marginally sharper and had better contrast, at most focal lengths, but got soft at 300mm.  Now when I say soft, I don't mean blurry, I mean not razor sharp.  So I embarked on a time consuming series of tests using my focus target and using the focus adjustment function in the 1Dx.

The net of the long story is that focus adjustment made enough difference to make the lens completely viable for critical work at 300mm, whereas I would have normally said, it's good, not great, but as it is the kind of lens you would only use when you were only willing to carry a single lens, probably good enough.

After applying the focus adjustments and saving them in the camera body, that lens performed even better in subsequent testing,  Could I see the difference in fall foliage?  No.  Could I see the difference in a hawk's eye?  Yes.  It was just that much sharper.  Now I probably could have corrected this using software in post production, in fact I know I could because I did using Piccure+.  But it's really nice to know I don't have to go that route every time now, because I have the lens dialled in for that body.

Micro focus adjustments are rarely needed on primes or even high quality traditional range zooms, but these all in ones, particularly older all in ones like the Canon 28-300 may benefit from this subtle tuning.  If you have a lens you believe to be soft, and your camera offers micro adjustment give it a try.

Fast redundant storage - the Drobo 4 Bay 3rd Generation

As our photo and video libraries grow we need the ability to grow our storage on the fly while getting improved redundancy.  Sure you can buy standalone drive kits, or build your own, but the folks at Drobo have a better, and now faster and cheaper idea.I have not always loved Drobo.  I had more problems than necessary with quality on my 2nd generation Drobo, and reliable connectivity for the 5 to my old Mac Pro was never really there.  Part of the issue was the lack of a reliable eSATA and USB3 card and driver for the Mac Pro, and part was just crappy support and not so hot firmware for the 5 out of the gate.  By the end of the Mac Pro's life, things were stable on USB3 so when I got the new Mac Pro, the transition was smooth and it works fine today. But I, like all of us, wanted more storage, in this case as a local backup for files already stored on the Drobo 5D (which redeemed Drobo in my mind because it has been flawless).  I am perhaps excessively paranoid about drive failure but since I am, I needed a cheaper alternative to another 5D.  Drobo recently released the 3rd generation 4 bay Drobo.  It is a simple device having only a USB3 connection and a power connection.  It comes empty, so your best bet is to populate it with OEM hard drives.  Based on years of managing failures and for fast local performance I standardized on Western Digital Caviar Black drives in locally connected systems and Western Digital Caviar Red drives in my Network Attached Storage.

The 3rd Gen is easy to setup.  Install at least two and a maximum of four drives.  Load the Drobo Dashboard on your computer, Windows or OS X.  Plug in the drive and power it on.  Launch the Drobo Dashboard application.  It sees the Drobo, let's you name it, and formats the array using their proprietary but proven BeyondRAID technology.

You are up and running.  Now let's suppose you went with 2TB drives and a year from now you are running short on space.  Pull one out and replace it with a larger drive say a 4TB drive.  Do this while the system is running.  Drobo sees the drive go away and continues to work just fine albeit slower because Drobo can survive a full disk crash.  Drobo then sees the new drive and begins to work to expand your available storage all in the background.  In fairness, when I do a disk upgrade I do the upgrade with pairs of drives, but installed one at a time to let Drobo do the storage management properly.

I added the 3rd generation this week and after upgrading to the latest Drobo Dashboard, it saw my drive pack, set it up for the Mac and the Drobo was running away providing storage in less than five minutes.  Unlike standalone disk systems, if a drive ever fails, the Drobo will alert me but it will keep running.  Drobo says the 3rd generation is much faster internally than the 2nd generation.  USB3 is a lot faster than Firewire 800 which is how I ended up connecting my 2nd gen unit so I cannot say how much faster it is, but I will say I do not see any spin up latency on the new unit that I used to see on the 2nd gen unit.

I bought my Drobo3 as I call it at Canada Computers.  The unit was $349.   Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black drives are on sale at $139 each.  If you populate the unit with four drives you end up with about 6TB of storage with full data protection.  Even if you only load two drives, you still get 2TB of fully protected storage.

Sometimes those prebuilt drives you buy at Costco and elsewhere use slower, less reliable drives.  They last in my experience two to two and a half years.  I have never lost a Caviar Black or Caviar Red drive.  The Caviar Green drives are cheaper but I have had 50% failure in two years on those and do not recommend them in a device like a Drobo.  They are also much slower performers lousy for photo and video work.

Is a Drobo right for you?  If you want inexpensive, easy to manage, in box scalable redundant storage, the answer is very likely yes.