Archive for December, 2008

I’d been pretty happy with Aperture’s editing tools for B&W pictures lately, but I decided to give Silver Efex Pro plugin a whirl on Aperture.  

Canon 5D Mark II - 35mm f/1.4L - ISO 6400

I’m really digging it.  It lets me try out different simulations of various processing techniques to make your B&W images more film-like.  It even has the option to try out many well known film brands.  The one I’m liking so far is it’s reproduction of the Ilford FP4 Plus 125 film. 

I have 10 days left on the trial before I have to decide if I’m going to spend $299 on it.  Why do I get the feeling I will end up buying it?

I hung out at Spyhouse with my good friend Cuong the other day and we discussed photography gear.

Cuong picked up the burly looking Sony A900 and an amazing set of Carl-Zeiss lens.  I spent the afternoon checking his gear out out while he played around with my new 5D II.  

I also wanted to check out how a movie would look with the crazy-wide 12mm Sigma attached.  See below!

Canon 5D Mark II - 35mm f/1.4L - ISO 200

I’m calling them “snaps” because I don’t really consider them portfolio-worthy.  I’m just starting play around and experiment with the various types of shots I usually take with my camera, and seeing how they turn out on the 5D Mark II.  

The ones from  the other night were all at high ISO.  Now today, with the sun out, I tried out the lower ISO settings where sharpness, detail and tonal depth are maximized.  

One of the more immediate things I noticed about the 5D Mark II photos were that they’re noticeably sharper and more detailed.  I guess that’s a “duh” given the resolution jump from 12.7 megapixels to 21.1 megapixels.  But megapixels are not the entire story.  You can get more details with more megapixels, but cramming more pixels in a sensor also can cause the total image quality to degrade due to signal noise and interference from the increasingly smaller pixel sensor sites next to each other.   So Canon had the difficult task of increasing the megapixel count over the original 5D – all the while keeping in mind that the 5D was highly regarded among shooters for its incredible image quality.  So they had to keep that at least just as good. 

Did they succeed? I don’t know yet.  I need to take more test shots and find out.  I’m sure over the next few months I’ll be able to formulate a feeling once I get more comfortable with shooting this new camera.