dslr.ws

Canon yesterday released a new firmware update for the Canon 1Ds Mark III (firmware version 1.0.6).

Canon says that it fixes an issue involving a color cast and vertical lines that appeared in images. I hadn’t heard any reports about this, does anyone have more details or sample photos that show this bug?

The firmware update also improves the CF card communications reliability, with some cards.

Both sound good to me, you lucky 1DsMkIII owners should get clicking right about here to get to the Canon firmware download page for the 1Ds Mark III.

Do you know Scott Kelby? He’s the editor and publisher of both Photoshop User Magazine and Layers magazine, and is president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). He recently wrote about his new Nikon D300, and it turns out that he’s kind of totally in love with the camera.

Why?

Well, there’s a long list of reasons in his post, but here they are in a nutshell (a special holiday nut’s shell, if you wish):

• The 51-point AF, which he says is “much better, faster, and more accurate than the D200′s.”
• The Live View. Like me, he dismissed it as something as would never use (ok, I put Live View in the “hardly ever use” category, but still close). He loves the white balance preview that you get, however, where you can scroll through the WB settings and see their effect live on the LCD preview.
• Likes the large shooting setting display on the rear LCD, saying it’s easier to read (especially when the camera’s on a tripod) than the standard top-panel LCD.
• Lower noise: “I have found that to me, the noise level when shooting at 800ISO on a D300 is like shooting at 400 ISO on a D200. That’s an appreciable difference, but I’ve been so spoiled at shooting at 6400 ISO on a D3 (whose noise looks more like the D300 at 800 ISO, to me anyway). So, lower noise for sure, but not D3-ish low noise.” I’m always a fan of low noise at high ISO.
• A few usability praises for the dials, including their flexibility to assign them to do what you want.
• The nice LCD
• Improved auto white balance: “In fact, I think it’s easily the best Auto White Balance I’ve ever used.” That sounds pretty sweet.
• HDMI output, loving the display on a high definition TV. I need someone to buy me an HD TV and a D300 (I’d also accept a Nikon D3) so I can evaluate the HDMI display for myself.

And let’s not forget that biggie, image quality, which — big surprise — Scott also loves:

The color is outstanding (better than any Nikon I’ve ever used, and the color rendering is nearly on par with the D3’s). This camera just produces beautiful images, plain and simple, and if you want really saturated colors, you can pump up the saturation with some amazing results (perfect for the Velvia freak deep inside us all).

He does have a few negative points about the Nikon D300, such as a few rows of information preventing him from seeing the full image on the full screen when reviewing images. It sounds like there’s no LCD display mode that’s just the image with nothing else? That’s kind of surprising. Am I misunderstanding his gripe?

He’d also like a full-screen histogram-only display, and would like still lower noise, although it sounds like he might have been spoiled by too much shooting with the Nikon D3. Who knew that using a D3 too much would be a bad thing?

He thinks the D300′s battery grip is clunkier than the D200′s was, he doesn’t like the Focus Mode selector button (it gets accidentally switched a lot). And to shoot tethered you need to buy Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 at around $160, while Canon shooters get free tethered software. And to top it off, the Nikon software doesn’t work with Mac OS Leopard.

But in the end, he loves it, and it hard-pressed to think of any reasons for him to keep using his Nikon D2X over the D300, and as a result he’s selling the D2X. In short, he really likes the camera.

Be sure to check out Scott’s full post about the camera, as well as all the comments (48 of them so far.)

Lens reviews aren’t as common as actual camera reviews, so I’m always glad to find some. There was a Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS review that I talked about a few weeks ago, and now there’s a new one. This review was posted at the-digital-picture.com.

As expected, the build quality is still pretty cheap and plastic. They point out that the “zoom ring makes a not-loud scratching/brushing noise inside the lens as it is rotated.” Sounds a little scary. I’ve only played with the original EF-S 18-55mm lens once or twice, but I don’t remember a scratching or brushing noise. Of course, I could have just blocked it out as if it was a traumatic event in my life. The upside of a cheap plastic construction is that you have a very lightweight lens, only 7 oz (200g).

Manual focusing is tough, what with the lack of full-time manual focus as on a Canon USM lens, and because, well, the lens just doesn’t sound designed for it:

Manual focusing with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens is difficult at best. With no dedicated focus ring, this lens uses the extending portion of the inner barrel as its manual focus ring (see the thin ribbed ring at the end of the lens?). Since the inner barrel has a lot of play in it, the viewfinder image moves very noticeably during MF unless you use a very light and very precise touch.

On the plus side, they report that the autofocus is pretty good, generally pretty quiet and fast, considering that it’s a non-USM lens. And they point out that it can get away with a lesser AF system since the lens is so slow (f/3.5 to f/5.6); you’re going to get a relatively deep depth of field — when compared to a faster lens, like an f/1.8 — so the auto focus capabilities are less critical.

Also, Canon has improved the bokeh on this IS version of the lens over the old 18-55mm EF-S lens:

A shallow DOF with a blurred foreground/background is more difficult to produce with a slow lens than with a faster lens of the same focal length. The upside is that the 18-55 IS uses a new circular aperture that delivers a good quality OOF (Out of Focus) blur — a bit better than the 18-55 II. OOF points of light remain circles even with a stopped down aperture (where the number of blades and blade shape affect the results the most).

Canon states that the image stabilization in the lens should give you 4 stops of shake correction. The reviewer finds slightly less than that, but still an impressive amount of stabilization:

Canon is claiming 4-stops of camera shake correction. My personal experience shows a solid 3 stops of correction at 18mm and 3 stops or a little better at 55mm. I am basing my numbers on comparison testing using an identical shooting stance and situation (apples-to-apples). I am getting sharp images at or longer than 1/4 sec at 18mm and 1/6 sec at 55mm using a not-especially-stable standing position. Of course, if your subject is moving, you must be able to pan with them or your results will be blurred at these shutter speeds.

Perhaps the best part of the new IS design is that this entire lens costs less than the IS upgrade costs on Canon’s current lenses where this feature is optional (70-200mm L lenses). This is the least expensive Canon EF or EF-S lens ever offered with image stabilization.

How about the optical performance? The review states that it performs very well for the price of the lens, which sounds like a bit of a backhanded compliment to me.

From 18mm through 35mm or so, center sharpness is reasonable wide open and reaches its optimal sharpness at f/5.6. Corners in this focal length range are relatively sharp. Wide open center-of-the-lens performance remains similar throughout the focal length range until the long end where this lens becomes soft. At 55mm, even f/8 is not as sharp as I’d like to see.

Color is good but contrast could be a little better (this is most noticeable when comparing with the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens). CA is somewhat strong toward the corners but flare is very well controlled. Vignetting is not severe, but noticeable on the wide end.

He reports that it’s significantly sharper than the EF-S 18-55mm II non-IS lens, especially wide open in the corners of the frame. At f/8 and higher the difference is smaller, but the IS version still has an advantage.

Of course, then you look at the sample picture comparison between both of the 18-55mm lenses and the Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens, as well as the more expensive Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens, and they just blow away both of the 18-55mm lenses. You can really see the difference between a cheap low-end lens and a much better lens in the comparison (scroll down the review page until you see the picture of the front of the GMC truck, and then look at the different shots available with the different lenses, all taken with a Canon 40D.)

Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that shooting those at 55mm means you are using the weakest focal length of the 18-55mm lens, so performance will be better if you’re not zoomed in that far. There’s another comparison further down the page of a tree and a roof that was shot at 18mm, which still shows a clear advantage to the more expensive lenses. There’s just no free lunch here. Too bad, I really enjoy free lunches, especially when the dessert is a sweet lens.

Anyway, be sure to check out the full review for all the details.

Looks like I’m a few days late on this one. Please accept my most sincere apologizes, as well as this fine assortment of holiday cookies to make up for my tardiness. DPReview posted a review of the new Panasonic DMC-L10 digital SLR on the 14th. They start things off with a good summary of the unique Panasonic L1, which didn’t sell well at all. The L10 is much more traditional in appearance and functions, and I’m sure Panasonic is hoping that traditional will work out better for them.

Based on DPReview’s handy comparison table, it’s interesting to see some of the areas where the L10 turns out to be inferior to the previous L1:

• Less JPEG flexibility (two compression level options instead of three)
• The LEICA D VARIO-ELMAR 14–50mm/ F3.8–5.6/ASPH kit lens isn’t as good as the VARIO-ELMARIT kit lens that the L1 had: it’s 1 to 1.5 stops slower, depending on the focal length
• No depth-of-field preview (I don’t use the DOF preview often on my DSLR, but I still don’t trust cameras that don’t have one; that might just be my own prejudice, though)
• The burst shooting buffer is limited to 3 frames instead of the L1′s 6 frames
• Standard flash instead of the L1′s two-position (straight ahead and bounce) flash

The Mega OIS image stabilization in the kit lens appears to work well, giving about one stop of improvement in Mode 1 and two stops of improvement in Mode 2.

Noise Performance

This is kind of a long section, because noise turns out to be an issue for the L10.

Even at low ISO settings, you still see greater noise on the L10 images than on any of the other cameras that it was compared to, although the reviewer points out that it’s not something you’d normally see unless you’re zoomed in at 100%. It’s important to note that if you ever need to crop an image — which is common — you risk making the noise more visible as you’re essentially enlarging that cropped area.

At higher ISO settings the effects of noise and noise reduction are much more obvious in both Four-Thirds cameras’ results [the L10 and the Olympus E-510], though Panasonic and Olympus have very different approaches to NR; Panasonic is doing a lot less luminance NR (so the image looks slightly grainier) and a lot more chroma NR (giving slightly washed out colors), whereas Olympus appears to be doing quite strong NR on both, resulting in images that just look soft. In this respect Panasonic is doing a better job, though the L10′s new sensor is obviously no less noisy than the E-510′s, and the amount of NR needed — and subsequent loss of detail at higher ISOs — is still on the high side.

Even worse, the review reports that there’s “a lot” of visible noise (both chroma and luminance noise) when shooting in the real world in low light, which is a pretty big deal. DSLRs are supposed to have very little noise, which makes them handy for available light shooting and work where enlargements and detail are important, and it sounds like the Panasonic L10 might have some issues in that area:

The L10′s biggest problem is that it simply can’t compete with the best of its competitors at the highest ISO settings; the EOS 400D manages to retain more detail with less noise, and is able to produce perfectly usable output even at ISO 1600.

I initially read that as a comparison with the Canon 40D, and did a double-take when I realized they were only talking about the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. If the $1300 L10 can’t compete with the $500 Canon 400D in noise performance, that’s kind of a big deal. I guess that with the smaller sensor of a Four-Thirds system camera, that’s something you just have to deal with. The E-510 compensates with pretty aggressive noise reduction, giving you less noise than the L10, but with a much softer image.

Because of this, you can’t completely turn off the noise reduction on the L10. Even at the lowest NR setting, it’s still pretty strong, so you’re going to have to shoot RAW if you want to avoid that.

Other Stuff

And then they go and compare the output from the L10 to a point and shoot digital camera (gasp):

In fact overall impressions of the L10 based on its JPEG output are underwhelming; the in-camera processing simply doesn’t do the sensor (or the excellent kit lens) any justice, producing soft, slightly flat images that lack the biting detail we’ve come to expect from a digital SLR at this level. There’s no getting away from the fact that the default output looks an awful lot like it came from a compact camera (albeit a good compact camera). This is partly to do with the softness and low contrast detail smearing, partly to do with the increased depth of field associated with the Four-Thirds sensor and such a slow lens, and partly because of the slightly narrower than average highlight dynamic range.

However, they claim that shooting RAW and processing the images in Adobe Camera Raw will let you see what the camera is capable of, and they say it can “hold its own against the best SLRs on the market.” They’re less enthusiastic about the kit lens than some of the other L10 reviews I’ve seen that were absolutely gushing. Not that they don’t like it (they call it “very good”), they just aren’t blown away.

There are also some exposure issues, which are lessened with the newest firmware but not eliminated:

Our early real world shooting with the L10 was with an early version of the firmware, and the results were depressing, with serious over exposure issues. Installing the latest firmware (1.0) improved matters greatly, but the L10′s exposure system is still far from perfect, and is easily fooled. We found ourselves regularly having to dial in anything up to -1.7 EV compensation in scenes that cameras with a more sophisticated metering system would take in their stride.

Conclusion

In the end, DPReview comes to the same conclusion as pretty much every other Panasonic L10 review that I’ve read: it’s simply too expensive for what you get.

But the problem facing Panasonic is that the L10 is neither fish nor fowl; it’s too expensive to compete in the growing entry-level 10MP SLR market and nowhere near well-specified enough to play with the big boys in the enthusiast / semi-pro market it’s price pushes it towards.

At the moment it is only available in a kit with the new Leica 14-50mm D Vario Elmar, which though very good, is slower than its predecessor and accounts for a good half the ticket price. For the same money you could get an Olympus E-510 (with its superb in-body stabilization) and two excellent Zuiko lenses and still have $600 to spare. Whilst we try not to let price get in the way of our assessment of cameras too much, there’s simply no getting away from the fact that for what it is the L10 is shockingly over-priced.

Ouch. But completely in line with what other reviews have said. In the end they label the camera “Recommended.”

Be sure to check out the whole review for more details and lots of full resolution sample photos.