CNN Images of the Year
Lots of great (and many sad) images here. I thought it was a great collection, check it out:
CNNs Year in Pictures -2012
view 1 comments
Archive: May 2012
| view all recent posts
Django Unchained
Finally saw this. Something that I dont think a lot of viewer’s get is that QT likes to expose the ugly side of humanity, and that is why his films are so unsettling…its because he is telling us things about human nature that we don’t want to admit are real. I know there is a lot of controversy over the language, gore & themes, but in terms of a classic love/revenge story it was hard not to like Django.
QT’s dialogue is at it’s best & there were phenomenal acting performances by Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo Decaprio and Samuel Jackson. If you are not easily offended by swear words or violence and liked any of Quentin Tarintino’s films, you will want to see it in theaters. If you are, wait till it is edited for Television/Airplanes & you will know why it will become a classic.
Canon 5Diii + Speedlite AF Assist Glitch
This discussion has been going on for a while now on various forums. Multiple Canon 5Diii users are reporting a little bug with the Canon 5Diii when using an AF assist light from either a Canon 580 Ex II or a Canon 600 Ex . For whatever reason, the 5Diii really struggles in low light with the Speedlite Assist beam. The sad reality is in fact not so much that it is the AF beam or something from the Speedlite, the 5Diii struggles to focus in low light. Without the Speedlite, its even slower.
Another important note is how much better the older 5Dii does WITH the AF assist light.
I posted 2 targets, Target 1 at 20 feet (evenly exposed at 1.60, f2.8 ISO 400- I believe close to EV7), Target 2 at 4 feet underexposed 7 Stops on the same settings, and then focused back and forth 30 times with 3 different Canon bodies using a Canon 600 Ex Speedlite AF for focus assist.
Camera/Total Time through 30 focus locks (Target 1 is always faster BTW)
Without Speedlite: (No AF Assist)
5Diii- 92 Seconds
6D – 73 Seconds
5Dii- 126 Seconds
With Speedlite
Canon 5Diii – 70 seconds
Canon 6D – 52 seconds
Canon 5Dii – 45 seconds
1. Im using a 24-70 2.8 L II lens, all shots were taken at 70mm
2. The underexposed Target 2 was 4 feet away, this is where it struggles.
3. Center Focus square
Canon is aware of the glitch and a number of forum readers are anxiously awaiting a reply from them. I would like to do a few more tests on it but I am very pressed for time until the 6D Crash Course is finished.
Canon 5Diii Low Light Focus Glitch
Canon 6D vs Canon 5Diii – Michael’s Notes & Insights
This really deserves a full length video review, but I am so far behind that this will have to suffice for now. This is the most important take home message:
Now that the Canon 6D has pretty much replaced the Canon 5DII as Canon’s entry level Full Frame Camera, I am getting flooded with questions about how the 6D stacks up against it’s bigger brother, the Canon 5Diii .
The short answer on it is this: The Canon 6D is 1/2-1 full stop better in High ISO noise. Much of it depends on the subject matter you are shooting, but the higher the ISO goes, the better the 6D performs, but the tradeoff is sharpness. (6D starts to look softer, but it is more useable).
– We also know that the 6D has built in Wifi and GPS.
– The Canon 6D’s central focusing square is better in very low light, but the 5Diii has multiple focus squares that do well in moderately low light.
– The Canon 6D’s central square also focuses much faster when using a Speedlite AF assist lamp in low light.
Everything else I am seeing, from the other advantages in focusing systems to video quality, true FPS, all the bells and whistles, the 5Diii is a better camera. (The focusing systems are seriously so much better!).
I have been getting a lot of questions about the video quality of the 2 cameras and I can offer this: The 6D’s video is not as good as the 5Diii’s, especially the moire and aliasing are much, much better in the 5Diii. Whatever it is in the 5Diii that really makes it such an awesome video camera is not there in the 6D. Don’t get me wrong, the video in the Canon 6D is very nice and when we start shooting in very low light, the 6D has the edge because of the clean, high ISOs. But having shot thousands of images and hours of videos with the 2 cameras side by side, the 5Diii is the clear winner. However, the 6D makes the perfect sidekick/backup for the 5Diii because of its higher ISO/lowlight focusing abilities. They really compliment each other well.
Another important note is that prices are coming down. While the list price on the 6D is $2100 and the 5D3, should be in the $3300-$3500 range, I am already seeing the 6D available for less than $2000, and in a handful of cases, I am seeing certain retailers sell the 5Diii for as low as $2600 on Ebay. What they are essentially doing is taking a 24-105 kit, removing the lens, selling the body only and recovering the loss on the body by selling the lens separately (which is typically discounted down about $400-500 to sell in the kit).
While an extra $1300 would be a bit of a stretch between the 6d and the 5Diii, $400-$500 is well worth the extra money. Ill have more to come on this soon.
If you are interested in learning how to use either of these cameras without all the first time user hassle, you will want to check out my Canon 5Diii Crash Course Training Tutorial Video Manual or the Canon 6D Crash Course Tutorial Training Video Manual coming out in Jan of 2013.
No Easy Day
As you know there is a movie coming out soon called “Dark Zero Thirty” which is supposedly pretty good, but from what I am reading is grossly inaccurate. On the way home from Las Vegas last month I picked up “No Easy Day” which was written by one of the Seals on the mission that killed Bin Ladin. In that book, the author emphasizes the reason he wrote it was to set the record straight. The State Department and White House even went so far to threaten to sue him for revealing classified information.
It is an easy, engaging, quick read (shouldn’t take more than a day) and I definitely recommend it to all patriots.
