Canon cameras

It would seem that with stiff competition from other camera manufacturers, Canon are releasing new models every five minutes. The new 1D MK IV and the 7D add to the latest selection.

Camera Equipment Prices (14/2/09)

I don't know if anyone else has noticed that within the last couple of weeks, some UK camera equipment retailers have hiked up their prices by considerable amounts. In certain cases by as much as 45%. I fail to see how they can justify such massive increases, even with the pound being weak.

Canon 5D MKII

I have been watching the forums and reading the reviews of the 5D mk II and it comes as no surprise that there are a few problems with it. By all accounts, the images seem to suffer in high contrast areas. Hopefully Canon will release a firmware update and all will be solved. As usual, the users are performing the testing on behalf of Canon.

Canon DSLR

The long awaited replacement for the 5D is almost in the shops and it will be interesting to read the performance reviews and let the early takers iron out any problems before taking the plunge. Although the 5D mkII features a full HD video recording capability, I think the limitations may outweigh the benefits at the moment e.g., no AF etc. I guess it's still in its embryonic stage and no doubt later models will produce a better hybrid.
The concept of combining stills and video together, from a photographer's point of view, is new to me but the possibilities for recording events have just suddenly widened.

Links to articles

A good website for product news and general photography articles is The Luminous Landscape. A recent post on the site provides a link to an in depth article on the theory of digital sensor noise,
Noise, Dynamic Range and Bit Depth in Digital SLRs. Anyone slightly interested in the science behind digital image capture, may find some useful information in the article.

Portable flash

For those of you that are looking for an alternative solution to monobloc heads and the heavy battery packs that are needed for a location shoot, I recommend you take a look at this website Strobist. I often use a Canon multi-head setup where I need a quick and truly portable method of lighting a subject. The limiting factor is obviously the power output but the simplicity and automation is unrivalled when compared with manual mono heads. Try carrying a Bowens GM500 in your pocket!

There are some interesting tips and links to third party developers on the Lightroom News website.

Lightroom 2

I have been using Lightroom v1 since its inception and consider the program to be invaluable for the management and end-to-end processing of mainly RAW files. The versatility of the program has improved with Lightroom v2 and I upgraded when it was launched a few weeks ago. The seamless integration with Photoshop makes it a rather expensive plug-in for Lightroom but nonetheless indispensible due to the limitations of the Lightroom toolset. One thing it does help solve is the file storage problem when compared to using Adobe bridge and CS3 with multiple file types saved for each client. In Lightroom, you simply work on and keep one image or virtual copies and then export the client’s files as and when needed. There is no requirement to archive large TIFF files that have been edited in Photoshop with complex actions as it's all retained within the Lightroom environment.