The LumoPro LP160 Quad Sync Flash

The LumoPro LP160 flash is the follow up to the widely popular LumoPro LP120 flash and comes from the lovely people over at Midwest Photo Exchange (MPEX for the rest of this article).

But, before we get stuck into the nitty gritty, let’s take a trip down memory lane  – *cue harps and soft blur dissolve*

There was a time when the earth was green, fresh, unpolluted and full of wonder. . .that was a long time ago. But about 2.5 years ago (give or take a few) the Strobist community was in a bit of a bother. The cheap all manual speedlights coming out of Asia, (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc.) started to suffer from some pretty erratic quality issues. Things were all over the shop and not improving. They were burning out quickly, breaking too easily and being just general ‘not good’ flashes. As tensions rose and frustration reached an all time high, MPEX did a very cool thing. They decided they would take it upon themselves to stick it right up those Asian manufacturers and make their own manual speedlight that was as powerful, of better quality and designed by the very people that would use it, Strobists, to solve the problem once and for all. (If you don’t know about the Strobist movement and in particular a very awesome dude by the name of David Hobby (Edit: Wrong last name! Woops!), where have you been? Check out his site, now!) They wanted something done properly, so they did it themselves. . .good thing they did too.

So the LumoPro LP120 was born, featuring no fancy TTL crap, but just pure good old manual switching fun. It had four trigger options, including an optical trigger and answered a lot of peoples prayers. It was packed standard into all the MPEX Strobist kits and for a time the Strobist Earth was as it should be.

Fast forward to the present day *whip pan* and we’re here with the LumoPro’s latest release and what can only be described as the LP120′s steroidal big brother, The LumoPro LP160.

The LP160 In all it's optical slave firing glory! *Cue choir*

I brought three of the LP120′s way back when. They were great little flashes, I still have them now & they’re still going strong after almost 18 solid months of daily (ab)use. The only thing they lacked was power, I wanted more power, i wanted serious power and in looking for that, I had to get a Canon 580EXII.

But then I saw the LumoPro LP160 had come to town with some bold claims. As much power as a Canon 580EXII, improved optical trigger, electronic zoom and flash power control – I have to say I was immediately very interested to see what the LP160 would be like. Would it really be as bright as my Canon 580EXII, surely something that powerful wouldn’t come in at such a low cost. Surely it couldn’t. . .well it did. . .This thing kicks like a mule and holds it’s own against the 580EXII, sure it hasn’t got all the fancy dials, LCD panels, bracketing and crap that the Canon 580EXII has, but that’s not what this flash is about, this is all manual, all good, all the time. . .no mess, no fuss!

I’ve been using it exclusively as a slave to my on camera 580EXII, triggering it using it’s built in optical slave and I want to talk about this first, because I find it one of the best features of the LumoPro LP160. Simply put, the optical slave in the LumoPro LP160 kicks ass. It’s so sensitive I haven’t had to use my radio triggers at all. Which is great, because batteries in those things used to cost me a fortune, and it means I can plonk the LP160 almost anywhere (Within reason…It’s not going to fire 50 metres away in the sun, nor will it fire inside a closed cupboard) and it’ll pop when it see’s my Canon 580EXII flash, even when it’s set on it’s lowest setting. Which means with most setups, I can bounce the 580 on it’s lowest setting so it’s not affecting my exposure at all and run the LumoPro LP160 as the only perceived light source. . .with no triggers. . . .stoked! It also has a new optical slave mode for those TTL fans, that ignores the TTL pre-flash. I could never get my 580EXII and my LP120 to flash at the same time when using the 7D’s inbuilt flash transmitter. The LP120 would fire on the TTL preflash and not affect the exposure. There is no such trouble now.

The power level is not quite as I have read elsewhere. It’s nearly as powerful as the Canon Canon 580EXII, not ‘as’ powerful. I’d say about 1/3-2/3 of a stop under in my very unscientific tests (Check out the comparison shots below), but not so much that you begrudge it. I’m just really happy to have that kind of power and not have to fork out another $600 for a Canon 580EXII. I don’t need all the bells and whistles of that flash, I use it in manual mode mostly anyway, I just need the power it provides. Now that power is available in a cheaper package, happy days!

Now I’ve sung some of it’s praises, it’s time to get real. It’s not all roses, of course there are some things that niggle me. . .the build quality still feels a little on the cheap side, but then again, what do you expect for $160? The LP120′s felt the same way and they’re still trucking for me, so I don’t think it’s going to be detrimental to it’s life expectancy. It’s an all plastic construction, but this time around it does have a metal shoe. One small design oversight is that the flash is so wide at the base, it is hard to get your fingers on the lock wheel to do it up or undo it when it’s on a camera or a stand. Speaking of stands, the LumoPro LP160 comes with a cool little stand so you can sit it on a flat surface and it will stand by itself. I really missed one of these with the LP120′s.

One thing that has taken quite a step backwards, is the battery door. For some reason, the design they had on the LP120, which was similar to the Canon 580EXII, a slide-to-release folding flap, has been replaced by a dinky, slide out tab that’s not physically attached to the flash body. I have a strong feeling this will get lost one day and I don’t really like the design. It’s not so easy to get the tab back on when the batteries have been put in and . . .yeah. . .not ace. . .It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s got be said.

With an increase in power comes in increase in size. The LumoPro LP160 is a bit of a beast. Quite a lot larger than it’s predecessor and the 580EXII. It’s not a huge issue for me, I just wish it was a little more petite. It does look very cool though. . .angular, tough and serious. . .I like my camera equipment to look a bit tough, don’t you?

There is the ability to go to a lower power now, down to 1/64, which is nice and also zoom from 24mm through to 105mm, all controlled by pressing the corresponding button (singluar) on the back of the flash with little LED’s telling you what’s what.

What’s my take on it? I like it. . .alot! I’ve been using it heaps and it’s simplistic operation, fantastic power and super sensitive optical slave make this  very valuable tool. It’s quick to set up, no hassle with radio triggers on the job, which makes life easier. . .that’s what you want. The niggles I have with it are really overshadowed by it’s phenomenal price point. I mean for US$160 how can you go wrong?

For more information and to grab yourself one of theses babies, head on over to MPEX’s web store and go nuts, or just follow this link! I want a LumoPro LP160.

Jonny's life is full of text based awesomeness!

Is it happening? Isn’t it happening? Has something happened? When will we know what happened? Can we donate to make it happen quicker? Will we know after it’s happened or will they tell us while it’s happening?

All tough questions, with one easy answer. Yes! It is happening, work on the Canon 500D Firmware hack is still in progress. . .but sadly, there hasn’t been much progress. . . *Queue sad face*

It was never going to be an easy road for Jonny Petts to crack the 500D open like a ripe walnut, exposing the oh so crunchy inner centre to his machinations. In fact I knew it was a rather ambitious project to be undertaking given Canon’s tightening of all things related to firmware. Considering that Trammell Hudson got his dirty little mits on the Canon 5DMKII and taught an already sexy piece of kit how to pole dance it’s no wonder. Surely Canon want to drip feed us easy to implement features in order to keep the profit centre close to home? Hey, if you were a multinational corporation with a plan, wouldn’t you do the same?! I know I would!

But it’s not all bad news, there are some really positive things that have happened in the last couple of months that may give you cause for hope.

Firstly here’s what Jonny had to say in our last communication. . .

I don’t want any donations for this yet, but the news is that I’m currently a bit stuck with some of the code. But luckily for me my uncle is a programmer for Store counting systems and he uses IDA extensively so he offered to provide assistance with the bits I don’t have a total grasp of. I am not on the level of Magic Lantern and I’m still learning as I’m doing all of this. I am also close to purchasing a Canon 550D so I can compare a lot of the things between them and find out what everything does!!

So as you can see, it’s not full steam ahead without any hiccups, but it was never going to be and the project is still very much alive and kicking. That Jonny is not willing to accept whatever cash people want to throw his way I think is quite decent also. So while there is still determination driving this thing, I think you’d be silly to count it as down and out.

Another very positive fact worth noting, is that the previously unknown to me, Tester 13, who is working on the project too, has well and truly earned his stripes. You may or may not have read about the firmware hack that gave the Panasonic GH1 it’s wings (Greatly increased bitrate amongst other things) and got many a shooter very excited, well, even if you haven’t the work was pretty bloody awesome! Rambo has been raving about it, he’ll pop up around here somewhere singing it’s praises (won’t ya?! ). Well that was the fine work of Tester 13. So there is some very good help on the case with Jonny.

So considering how long it too to see progress with the GH1, perhaps it will just take a little while to see this come to fruition. Don’t lose heart, friends. . .Stay the course. . .We will see in time!

More soon!

Need an iPhone friendly link? Here ya go!

Need an iPad friendly link? Here ya go!

Sometimes the simplest things done for the people you care about mean more than anything else. . .Some friends of mine just brought their gorgeous little girl, Koko, into the world and I thought it might be nice to put together a short little clip for them to keep and put with the rest of the home movies.

It’s nothing amazing from a cinematography point of view, but that’s not really what this was about. . .That’s why I’m not going to crap on about how I shot this, what lenses I used and all the usual stuff.

In fact I debated whether or not to even post this here, but in the end I decided I would just to share this message. If you get the chance go out and shoot something for a friend or a family member, just go out and do it. This is the kind of stuff that people will still be watching and cherishing 50 years from now.

Life. . .it’s a beautiful thing. . .

Enjoy!

The new camera shine has rubbed off the Canon 5DMKII and I’m now quite partial to shooting with both it and the Canon 7D on the same shoot. It’s not always practical, but there has been instances where using the tilt shift and the macro on the 7D, as well as the overcranking capability have really added to a production. Having the two bodies effectively gives each lens another look and use due to the crop factor of the Canon 7D. So very happy on the front, now if they’d just bring out a full frame 7D with all the Canon 5DMKII audio perks, I’d be pumped!

Anyway, enough about that for now, here’s a quick rundown on what’s coming to Highdefedition.com over the next few weeks. . .

The LumoPro LP160 Review
A new all manual speedlight from Midwest Photo Exchange in the good ‘ol US of A.

The good folks at Midwest Photo Exchange (lovingly known as MPEX) were kind enough to supply us with one of these beasty flashes for review. I’ve been using it exclusively as a slave, which fires by way of it’s amazingly sensitive optical trigger every time it see’s another flash, but there are three other methods of triggering it, hotshoe, PC and a mini jack. So far I’ve been really impressed with it’s simplistic operation and considerable power. It produces a flash almost as bright as the Canon 580EX II, it’s just about a fraction of a stop less. It’s a huge improvement over it’s predecessor and once I’ve had a little more time with it, I’ll be putting a story about it here. If you just can’t wait, check out the MPEX web store for yourself, I’d have to say at this stage, for the price, you can’t go wrong.

Sigma 50mm f1.4 EX DG HSM Lens Review
A great inexpensive prime lens for your full frame or crop camera.

I just got my grubby little mits on one of these this week, by way of a not-so-great experience with Australian retailer, Dirt Cheap Camera’s. Negative experience aside, the lens is very nice and a great upgrade from the tried, tested and much loved Canon 50mm f1.8 II that I had. For the price it’s very hard to justify the extra expenditure to go up to the Canon 50mm f1.2L, I should have some nice footage to illustrate that.

Filmtools Car Mount for the 5D & 7D
A 3 suction cup car mount rig – One sucker for the body, 2 suckers for the triangulation kit to stop the shake.

This is not set in stone yet, I am looking seriously at getting hold of one of these, but cannot source one at the moment, due to their being no stock. It’s unfortunate as otherwise I would have had it weeks ago and would have been able to elaborate on it in this very post. I’ll keep you posted as things develop on this front. Make sure you keep an eye on the twitter feed and the Facebook page for the good news.

That’s about it for now guys, I did say it would be a quick one. . .if there’s anything out there you’ve had some fun shooting, throw us a link on Facebook or Twitter and show us what you’ve been up to. . .If you haven’t got anything to show, get out and bloody shoot something!

Until then. . .

Go on! Go full screen and watch it in HD. You won’t!

Need an iPhone friendly link? Here ya go!

Want an iPad friendly link? Here ya go!

Want to see it glorious 1080P? Here ya go!

Shooting with the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM is like delving into another world. A world of tiny things made large, hair thin focal planes and immensely sensitive focus rings. It’s as close to ‘Honey I shrunk the kids!’ as I’ve ever been and funnily enough, every time I focused upon a leaf, blade of grass, flower or a grain of salt, that’s exactly what I thought of. . .but without Rick Moranis. . .he always scared me.

Ok, first up, let it be known that macro shooting is seriously awesome! I’d seen shots from the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM before, wanted that look and knew what I was getting. What I didn’t know, was how much joyous, childlike fun I would have shooting with this lens, peering at things very close up through the live view and then gazing transfixed at them on the iMac. Initially I thought this lens may be very limited in application, but now having seen the results I’m inclined to think otherwise.

But obviously you’ve seen how close in you can get with this thing, as no doubt you’ve watched the video before reading this literary masterpiece. So enough, let’s get to the bigger picture.

What I love about the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM, aside from it’s amazing image quality and ability to focus so close, is it’s focus ring. Being a lover of manual focusing, the nicely damped focus ring is a dream. It feels really great in the hand and the stops, although they are not hard, are sufficient for my style of shooting. I can see how purist “my lens will have hard stops or die” types may frown at it’s easy going ways, but for me, it’s not a huge problem. As well as feeling good, it’s nice and wide since we’re not sharing the barrel with a zoom ring, which means you can get a comfortable grip on it any which way when you’re shooting handheld. Speaking of shooting handheld, as you may or may not know, I’m a pretty big fan of shooting handheld with the IS on. This lens is no exception, I did have quite decent results shooting handheld video and photo’s with the IS on, but it does not feel like as good an implementation as it does on the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM. The IS on that lens seems to perform a lot better, especially when shooting video. It just seems to have more room for movement.

The AF is super fast and super quiet and despite having switches to limit the focal range (and hunting) I didn’t make use of them this weekend. I’ll let you know how they go a little way down the track.

I like that it comes with a soft case to keep the outer plastic shell from scratching too badly and that it also comes with a lens hood. Speaking of the plastic shell though, that’s one thing I don’t like. Although it probably is, The Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM, does not feel like a tough and sturdy lens. Sure it’s nice and weighty in the hand, but the plastic construction of the outer shell does not inspire a lot of confidence. I’m not rough with my gear, but I do like it to have a solid feel to it’s construction, and given the L Series classification, I was surprised to find this. It doesn’t feel like it’s about to fall apart or anything, but it is missing that tank like build quality of the other L series lenses. We’ll see how it holds up over time.

On the camera (I have used it on the Canon 5DMKII and Canon 7D) it feels nice, not too heavy and if I’m to be a complete wanker, looks quite cool with the lens hood on. Of course how it looks doesn’t affect the images, but hey, some people like cars. . .I like camera’s. . .don’t we all? That’s why you’re here! But I digress. What’s it like to shoot with I hear you clamouring, get to the bloody point!

It’s good! Real good! And when shooting video or photo’s, very closely, wide open at f2.8, insanely difficult to manual focus. Now I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but this is seriously a whole new ball game. I pride myself on being able to rack a pretty decent focus when I need to, but this is unbelievable. The focal plane is literally hair thin. At the minimum focus distance, wide open, a grain of salt is deeper than the focal plane. That’s some pretty shallow depth of field. Moving the focus ring a little actually does quite a lot at this stage and even the usually imperceptible swaying of your body can mean the difference between a keeper and a dud. The bokeh it produces is just gorgeous and the out of focus highlights are beautiful perfect circles at f2.8 thanks to the 9 blade aperture diaphragm. For the best result when shooting super close you’re going to have to use a tripod. I found my Glidetrack to be a great help, moving the camera instead of the focus ring. You’ll see examples of that in the video with the shot of the eyes. That’s not a racked shot, that’s a Glidetrack push.

The difference the 1.6x multiplier of the Canon 7D‘s cropped sensor makes to the perceived focal length is quite astounding. Effectively turning the Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM into a 160mm Macro Lens. I didn’t do a full test of this, just putting it on there briefly to see what it looked like in the live view. But at minimum focus distance the difference I saw was significant. The shot of the eye at the beginning of the video. On the Canon 7D, that shot would have been mostly iris, in other words, really bloody close! I’ll do a full test of this in the coming weeks and share the results. I’m looking to seeing what it can do that’s for sure.

The Canon 100mm f2.8L Macro IS USM is super sharp wide open, and obviously it gets a bit better as you stop it down, but I didn’t notice too much of a difference. Even wide open it’s still really impressive to me and I used it like this mostly.

All up, this is a lovely lens. Not only is it a cracking 100mm lens, it’s also got that macro ability which is really something else. Having not shot Macro stuff before, it’s been really interesting, and really refreshing being able to get that up close and personal with any subject and see it like you’ve never seen it before. To be able to pick a subject, no matter how close and not worry about your minimum focus distance, is really refreshing. What I love about shooting is freedom, and despite the limitation of it being a fixed focal length lens, the macro ability more than makes up for it. So get out and give it a go if you have the chance, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Anyway, I reckon that’s about enough out of me for now I’ve only used the lens for about 3 hours or so and will get a bit more up here once I’ve had a couple of weeks of time behind it. Some things you only notice after extended use and I’m interested to see how I can incorporate this lens into my daily shooting and just how many applications I’ll have for that extreme close up. Only time will tell.

Now if you haven’t already, get you butt back up the top of the post and go and watch the test footage as it’s supposed to be watched. . .in 1080P. Nothing else does it justice.

Until then. . .

Need an iPhone friendly link? Here ya go!

Want to see it in Full HD 1080P on SmugMug? Here ya go!

Just so you know! You can watch the above video in 720P HD without leaving the site by making the video full screen and selecting the HD option from the control bar.

Man, this was fun! Fun to shoot and fun to edit! After a month or so of chopping away at commercial gigs, this was just some good ‘ol fashion candy coloured, idealistic fun!

It’s nice to take a step back from everything sometimes and just shoot some stuff that feels good. It’s a good time of year for it too. Around the end of April the temperatures are starting to drop a little, the skies are starting to clear up and with the diminishing rainfall, there is little silt washing down the rivers into the ocean, leaving it crystal clear. It’s this fortuitous combination of meteorological phenomena that makes this time of year such a lovely time to shoot.

All of this footage has been shot over the last 2 or so weeks. A mixture of the Canon 5DMKII and the Canon 7D. Canon 5DMKII for the lower light sunset stuff so I can keep shooting a little later and Canon 7D for the blue sky daytime stuff, basically because I have polarising options on the Canon 7D that I don’t have on the Canon 5DMKII. . .yet.

Did I mention it was fun shooting this?. . .Yes. . .Where were we?

I shot this with a mixture of the usual suspects. . .that being, the increasingly insufficient bag of lenses that I lug around, detailed greatly elsewhere on this blog. Man, I’m hanging to get some new glass for the Canon 5DMKII.

The new Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L didn’t get too much of a run here, with this kind of footage, I really missed the ability to be able to whack a polariser on the front. Likewise being without ND grads really limit this lens as a landscape type of lens for me. If I could filter it, I would be absolutely stoked! I had been using the Tokina 11-16 f2.8 ATX on the Canon 5DMKII. By itself, it works passably from 15-16mm, but with the polariser on you get a bit of hard, unflattering vignetting at the edges. So whenever I needed a wide polarised shot, I turned to the Canon 7D. I could have fixed this with a dedicated Wide Angle lens for the Canon 5DMKII, but this solution will work well for now. I don’t mind running two camera’s and would rather keep doing this so I can invest into other glass first, instead of buying another wide angle.

There are a couple of Canon 5DMKII shots in there with the Sigma 30mm f1.4. I just scaled them up a little to remove the darkest of the vignette, I’m sure you’ll spot it/them in there, it’s quite noticeable. Funny that in that OOF background, there is a ring of slightly more in focus detail inherent in the fringe of the vignette. It’s weird and kind of takes away from the perception of depth. I’m not sure if you can see it here, but it’s there. . .trust me (I mean that in a totally un-facebook, not creepy way, honest!)

The Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L was great for the yachts on the water at Mooloolaba, but I have since taken to leaving it at home more recently. The camera bag was growing in weight and considering I wasn’t using it every time I shot, decided to see how I would go without it, relying only on the Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM. I can say, my back really appreciated not having it in there, but I did miss it a couple of times for sure. Especially when shooting from up high on the cliff in Coolum, it would have come in great handy there. The Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS USM’s bokeh at f2.8 was pleasant though, and it was nice to be limited on focal length for a while. It makes me walk more and in the process, see shots I might not have come across.

The music in this clip, Revtone – Love Movement (Ulrich Schnauss Remix) is off a compilation, Global Underground 030 – Paris – Mixed by Nick Warren, one of my favourite DJ’s. Ulrich Schnauss has a very typical sound, very atmospheric and it was playing in the car while I was cruising around shooting some of this footage up at Coolum. When I heard it, I immediately knew that this would be the soundtrack to this footage. Cruisy, beautiful and not in a hurry to get anywhere. It would allow the shots to just hang there for a couple of seconds extra, allowing the eye to really roam around the image.

Usually I burn shots, 1-2 seconds and out, and I did start doing that at the end because it was too monotonous, but this time I wanted to more reflect the feeling I had when I was shooting it. Which was a whimsical kind of relaxed concentration. . .Very Sunshine Coast!

My own criticisms. . .This clip is about two minutes too long. At 2:30 it would have been a corker. In, out and left me wanting to see more. Trouble is, this one is a bit of a dual purpose clip. I intend to utilise this for other applications and wanted it to be a bit longer than what I usually cut. There are some shots in there that hang a little too long and it loses momentum somewhere in the middle. A little editing of the song might not have gone astray here, but there is only so long I can spend on these things. At the end of the day, this is not a show reel (Which I am working on at the moment) or anything, just a collection of footage shot over the past two or so weeks.

Things to look out for. . .

• Some very nasty aliasing on the sunset shot across the bay from the Canon 5DMKII. One was so bad I couldn’t include it. perhaps I need to wind the sharpness down as detailed in various places around the net.
• Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC HSM Vignetting. What’s your thoughts on that? Fan or hater?
• Glidetrack love. . .and love it is. . .I really do love it. (In an entirely not creepy way. . .)
• The video’s stupid title. . .watch that. . .it was late and I was strapped for ideas. . .I think in German it means “Flying burger sausage”. Perhaps not.
• The second last shot, a little noisy (ok, alot!). . .That was Canon 5DMKII with the Tilt Shift on at 6400 ISO. With some noise removal it might have come good. For me, it’s better having a noisy shot than no shot at all. I’m not going to a 35mm print for theatrical distribution so it’s not going to cause me much trouble.
• The last shot. This was my first attempt at a proper night timelapse of the stars. It’s not an amazingly interesting shot, it was after all my first crack, taken from my front yard and a test more than anything. I just really wanted to use it here, since it was something different. I’ve become quite inspired, as I’m sure many other have, by Tom’s work, over at Timescapes. That guy is seriously one of the most talented out there, more so than any of the other DSLR ‘pioneers’ out there. Check him out, you’ll be glad you did.

Anyway, that’s enough crap from me, it’s late and I’ve proven myself unworthy of continuing to type at this keyboard.

I hope you enjoy the flick, if there’s anything I missed, just flick me a comment!

More soon. . .

More good news for 5DMKII Owners. . .

Those lovely folks over at Canon are at it again with a new firmware upgrade for the Canon 5DMKII.

I got to admit, that whilst it’s not so cool that things like this need to be addressed, it’s almost a given that any product anybody releases these days is going to have at least some problems. Even the most intense testing is bound to overlook issues that consumers will experience due to their sheer volume and impossible to replicate real world usage. Having said that, I’m very glad that these days things can be fixed by something as simple as a firmware update. Features can even be added! I mean put it this way, can you imagine if the Canon 5DMKII was still shackled to 30P and had no manual audio control? That would suck! Massively!

In this release we’re not seeing anything so exciting as the 24/25P additions or manual audio control, but more a couple of fixes for some funny little things the camera does some times. Here’s a direct quote from Canon’s Download page. . .

This firmware update (Version 2.0.7) incorporates the following improvements and fixes.

1. Fixes a phenomenon in which the aperture exhibits abnormal movement when shooting movies in manual exposure mode and Aperture Priority AE (Av mode) using some Canon lenses (such as macro lenses).
2. Fixes a phenomenon in which the exposure level shown in the LCD panel differs from what is shown in the viewfinder when shooting still images in manual exposure mode.
3. Fixes a phenomenon in which the Wireless File Transmitter (WFT-E4 or WFT-E4 II) may not automatically power off when used for FTP transfers.

These phenomenon only occur with the Version 2.0.4 and Version 2.0.3 firmware.

The Version 2.0.7 firmware being released this time is for cameras with firmware up to Version 2.0.4. If the camera’s firmware is already Version 2.0.7, it is not necessary to update the firmware.

So is it anything to sing and dance about? I don’t know. I guess it will be if you have been suffering from the above issues. I have seen the Aperture issue mentioned in point 1 on my own camera, with nearly all of my lenses, so I will be interested in seeing that fixed. If you’ve seen any of the issues above, let us know how the new firmware treats you!

Download it here.

I’ve always regarded tilt shift lenses with a sense of awe. The things they are capable of are quite astounding really and to actually get your head around it is quite difficult at first. But once you’ve got the basics sorted, it quickly becomes apparent just how much you’ve been missing out on by using conventional lenses. The Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L is one of the newest additions to the Canon Tilt Shift line up and this, my friends, is a seriously cool lens!

There are focal planes flying all over the place, perspective correction techniques galore and enough dials, nobs, twists and turns to make you queasy. So when I’d decided that the Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L was for me, I did a lot of reading about the net, trying to prepare myself for what I knew was most likely to be a confusing exerience in the beginning.

To be completely honest, a lot of what I read made zero sense. The perspective correction I understood, but the whole focal plane thing was so confusing to me, it took a good couple of reads for it to sink in. I’d seen all the miniaturised stuff that people had shot around the place, it looked cool but seemed a limited application. I had no idea what the actual uses of the effect could be and when I found out I was quite surprised. I’m not going to regurgitate everything I learnt here, but if you’re keen to take a look at some interesting reading on the effect, check this article out.

But I digress, this isn’t supposed to be a post about the basics of tilt shift photography. . .it’s about the lens. . .so without further adieu. . .

Pulling it out of the included little Canon Duffel bag, the first thing I notice, is that this thing is large and pretty heavy. Taking the lens cap off, the huge exposed convex elements on the front make me think of two things – Uncomfortably large repair bills if I ever ding the front of that lovely L series glass and the disappointing realisation that I won’t be able to put a filter on the front. I love my polarisers for landscape shooting, so this is a bit of a sad moment. Holding it though, it’s evident the build quality is as you would expect for an L lens and when it’s mounted on the front of the Canon 5DMKII it looks like a serious piece of kit, kinda tough. . .I like that!

Now at F4 it’s definitely not the fastest lens on the shelf, as a result of that you’d expect that you’d have to sacrifice that lovely depth of field we’ve come to expect from fast lenses on these large sensors. This is somewhat true, but not entirely true at the same time. The tilting ability does allow you to do some pretty crazy things with depth and where and how it’s displayed. being able to adjust the focal plane, selectively focus on or apply blur wherever you like in the frame is a very cool function. You’ll get more apparent depth of field or boken with this wide angle than with any other, this much is certain. This more than makes up for the slower speed of the lens. The minimum focus distance is also dramatically reduced when utilising the tilt effectively. How close, I’m not exactly sure, I’m not a numbers guy, what I can say is that I was able to achieve focus on something so close that when I actually looked to see how close I was, I was too close for comfort and concerned about damaging the front element. Got to watch that one.

Man this thing is sharp! Like seriously, deliciously sharp. Now I was always a fan of my Tokina 11-16 f2.8 on the Canon 7D, and it also did a passable job on the Canon 5DMKII at 15-16mm despite not having been designed for it, but the Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L eats it alive. Fantastic stuff! I’m not much of a pixel peeper, but even at full 21MP on the Canon 5DMKII viewing images at 100% it’s tack sharp. You do see a little softening and vignetting at full shift towards the edge of the frame, but this is to be expected at such an extreme viewing angle. Even wide open at f4, it’s sharp, but by the time you’re down around 8, it’s really impressive. So for the sharps it’s a massive win!

One thing I found really fantastic was the almost imperceptible barrell distortion. I read a review somewhere before I bought it that said there was slight barrel distortion. If it’s there, I can’t see it. . .Lines seem perfectly straight, it all looks great to me. For a lens largely suited to architectural photography, it would have to keep distortion of any kind to an absolute minimum.

Worth mentioning, is that this lens is manual focus lens. There is no auto focus at all. Now for some people I can see this is going to be a pain in the butt. However, ever since having a dodgy 7D that couldn’t focus to save itself, I manage quite well using the Live View and zooming in to check focus. It’s not difficult and for super sharp shots and video, it’s not a bad practise to get into. The focus ring is nice, smooth and has hard stops.

Now at this stage, I begin to look back over what I’ve written and it sounds like this is a shameless plug for Canon. It’s not. This is my honest opinion of this lens. To me, it really is this good, and for the price it had bloody well better be!

What I found to be a huge creative positive to using this lens was that I was no longer restricted to certain framing conventions and tripod heights in order to avoid any perspective distortion. Now I know this can all be done in post, but I’m an in camera guy. Stretch it in post, or do it optically through L series glass on location with no loss of detail – for me it’s a no brainer. Also, perspective correction with DSLR video and it’s limited resolution is not even an option. So now it’s just a matter of setting up your shot at whatever tripod height you want, get your perspective true and then shift away till your hearts content to re frame your shot without introducing any awkward converging lines.

For a lens to give you so much more creative control and freedom is rare. It has given me so many more options when I shoot, so many creative choices, that it’s really exciting. It gets me really motivated to shoot and go out and see what this lens can do. It can create really nice text book shots but the possibilities for throwing out the rule book completely and creating some really abstract effects make this a really versatile lens.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! The Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L is a great wide angle lens before you touch any of the cool tilt shift functions. When you take into account the possibilities they add, it’s a clear winner in it’s class.

The video below and the images here are just a collection of test shots, all have been shifted, some tilted. I’ll post some more examples sometime soon with more detailed explanations.

Until then. . .:)

It’s not because nothing has been happening either, just that things have incredibly busy. So as I see the schedule for this week looking a little on the quiet side, I have begun thinking about what I need to catch up on over here. There’s a couple of things I want to get stuck into on the site this week. . .

• The Canon TS-E 17mm F/4L – Why have I fallen in love with this Tilt Shift lens. . .
• Mooloolaba Triathlon Video Clip
• A more serious look at the Canon 5DMKII now that I’ve been using it solidly since it came in.
• House – The Season Finale was shot on a 5DMKII. Is it the validation of DSLR Cinematography many advocates hunger for? Is it a sign of the economic times? It’s hard to say. . .
• Macbook Pro Core i7 – First Impressions

That’s a pretty ambitious to do list, if I get through half of it, I’ll be happy! Perhaps the arrival of a new notebook with a battery power duration of over 15 minutes will be more conducive to writing blog posts after hours on the couch. Fingers crossed for that one!

More coming very soon. . .Watch this space!

Jonny's idea of fun!

Jonny Petts. It’s a name violently ricocheting around the inside of quite a few Canon 500D owners heads out there and it’s no wonder either. Jonny, after all, is the man trying to bring manual controls (amongst other things) to the 500D!

In case you didn’t know, Jonny, has taken up the cause of trying to bring some of the functionality from not only the Canon 550D, but also from the Magic Lantern Canon 5DMKII Firmware, to the Canon 500D. The original post can be found here, but if you caught that, read on for the update.

Here’s what Jonny had to say about the progress thus far. . .If you understand all of it, you’re doing much better than me!

So, as you know this isn’t going to be an easy or quick task. It took Trammel Hudson 100′s of hours to make the Magic Lantern 5DMKII Firmware.

Since we last spoke, two other people have joined the team, and having quite a lot of knowledge in this area, taken a lead position.

One of them, Tester 13, said “The Canon 500D dump is easy, as dissectfw decrypts flasher properly for 500d firmware. But the Canon 550D is different here as we either need a dump or clean flasher to figure out encryption tables. Maybe the encryption has totally changed. So it must be statistically checked if we still have XOR. It is hard to improve anything in Canon 500D as it is restricted by used sensor. And disassembling won’t help you here, as you need documentation for many Digic, ADC and other registers. In reality any real progress that we have in ML is related wither to PTP commands (easy to find and understand), screen video memory (same thing), or audio codec (functions could be spotted and used model is known). It is not surprising that the other fields are much harder. ” (Dont know how many of you will understand this, but hay ho!)

So we now have dumps of the Canon 500D and now need the Canon 550D dump. It is proving hard to get, but this is not my field. Tester 13 has tried using Trammel’s firmware unpacker but apparently it “doesn’t work due to different XOR tables. Even with a working unpacker Trammel couldn’t dump the 7D firmware for months.”

So Tester13 is currently the driving force in this operation, whilst I am just looking through the dump of the Canon 500D and gaining knowledge via. forums. I would like to stress I AM NO TRAMMEL HUDSON, I am just someone who is trying to orchestrate the creation of this firmware for the benefit of others.

Thank you,

Jonny

One thing that Jonny did ask me to make known, is that if you think you can contribute to this project and have anything that may be of assistance to him and Tester 13, please make yourself known in the comments so I can pass along your details. A combined effort is much more likely to see this effort succeed, you know, ‘many hands make light work’ and all that stuff.

Stay tuned for more news on Jonny’s progress. . .

More soon. . .