Hyperfocal distance + extended exposure

I’ve been hammering the landscape shots and hyperfocal distance focusing of late.
Here is a shot from today, when I enlarge to original size, everything appears to be very sharp.

20 seconds | iso 100 | F8 | 17mm

Check out the hyperfocal distance chapter and the extended exposure chapter if you are interested in this type of photography.

20 seconds | F8 | iso 100 | 17mm

Hyperfocal Distance Chapter

Amazon Black Friday Sale

Amazon sent me an email letting me know they have a black friday sale online this week.

Apparently they will have many items on Friday, so if you dont want to battle people for parking spots – check out amazon.com if you’re lucky your state wont have sales tax and you can clean up on some excellent priced gifts and camera equipment.

Hyperfocal Distance

Since this site is geared more for new SLR users, an important aspect of SLR photography when shooting landscapes is to grasp the “hyperfocal distance” of your lens. 

Hyperfocal distance is a combination of lens aperture, sensor size, and focal length.  These variables combine to calculate what is known as the “hyperfocal distance point” of your lens.  When you focus at the hyperfocal distance point,  everything from 1/2 the distance between you and your focal point, and also from your focus point all the way to infinity will be sharp and within the depth of field. 

In previous guides I mentioned that when you read to use  the narrowest aperture to get the depth of field, that this is a huge mistake and completely wrong.   In fact, the best way to get beautiful landscape shots will be to most likely remain at or below F11 aperture.  What you need to do is calculate your hyperfocal distance point and then focus on that.  Everything will be in focus behind your focal distance point, so you gain landscape sharpness but do not suffer from diffraction issues.   Check out the new hyperfocal distance chapter on the left.

Adobe Camera Raw 5.2 Released

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html

New in ACR 5.2
Output sharpening for print or onscreen output
Powershot G10 Support
5D Mark II  Support

5d II hands on

David from DigitalProTalk was kind enough to post on his blog last week about his experience with the 5d II for a few hours. He has gone on to share some images as well.

His findings:
“So how far could I go with the 5D Mk II? OK, folks – here it is – how about 3 stops higher than 800 ISO!!! Let me re-phrase, as Law and Order Jack McCoy would say, at 6400 ISO, I’d say I see the same noise characteristics as I see currently see on my 40D at 800 ISO”

5d II blog comments

Top 10 XSi / dSLR Tips

1) Shoot in RAW, it lets you change white balance in post processing.
2) You need 1/(focal length x 1.6) minimum shutter speed for no camera shake with a hand held photo. AKA 200mm lens = 1/(200×1.6) = 1/320th of a second shutter in order to get shake free shots.
3) RAW is an option only available in the CREATIVE Zone modes of your XSi.
4) Av (aperture priority) and Tv (shutter priority) will expose for ambient light and use your flash as a filler. P mode will expose to prevent camera shake. Manual mode is the only way to properly use a flash for your main light. Using a flash and 1/180th or 1/200th of a second shutter, in combination with an aperture of around 5.6 will make beautiful portraits.
5) Frames Per Second is crippled when custom function for High Iso noise reduction is enabled, disable this function to unlock 3.5 FPS. JPG has more buffer room, while RAW can only shoot 6 frames before running out of buffer.
6) Having all focus points selected doesn’t focus everything in the scene, it allows the camera to select the subject matter it deems closest to it.
7) Canon Speedlite flashes make accurate low light focusing a snap through their LED focus assist lights.
8 ) You can hook your XSi up to your computer, and using the EOS Utility focus by watching a live feed on your computer screen and control fine focus via clicks of the mouse.
9) An under exposed image, will have more digital noise then a properly exposed image. For this reason, its better to use a higher ISO speed to obtain a proper exposure, then a lower ISO with an under exposure.
10) If all you have is the kit lens, you need the EF 50 F1.8 II lens, what are you waiting for? Start learning to use your dSLR today! This is the starter lens to teach you all about aperture and depth of field. Takes fine sharp portraits.

Canon DPP 3.5.1 Updater Now Available

For all of you Canon DPP users our there, 3.5.1 has now been made available for public download

Canon DPP 3.5.1 Updater is located under the downloads / select OS / and then you will see 3.5.1

Link here

Here are the changes you will get since moving from 3.4 to 3.5.1

1. Changes for Digital Photo Professional 3.5.1
1-1. Supports the EOS 5D Mark II.
1-2. Supports luminance noise reduction for sRAW images taken with the EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 50D
1-3. Now displays movie icons for movie files (.MOV) on the thumbnail list screen.
1-4. Added one lens that is supported by the lens aberration correction function
Supports the EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
1-5. Fixes malfunctions
Fixes a malfunction where the setting of Toning effect (Sepia/Blue/Purple/Green) in the Picture Style setting Monochrome cannot be reflected or changed if Highlight tone priority under the C.Fn II-5 is set to 1: Enable when shooting RAW images with the EOS Kiss X2/EOS DIGITAL REBEL XSi/EOS DIGITAL 450D cameras.

2. Changes for Digital Photo Professional 3.5
2-1. Now supports the EOS 50D and PowerShot G10.
Lens aberration correction and automatic dust removal cannot be performed on images that were taken with the PowerShot G10.
2-2. Equipped with Auto Lighting Optimizer (supported by the EOS 50D and later EOS cameras)
When shooting results are dark or in low contrast, brightness and contrast can be compensated automatically.
It is possible to adjust them with the NR/LENS/ALO tabs on the tool palette.
2-3. The adjustment range of the noise reduction function has been expanded from the conventional 11 levels to 21 levels.
The adjustment range of the noise reduction function has been expanded to 21 levels for both RAW and TIFF/JPEG images. In addition, effects gained at levels 0-10 are the same as those for version 3.4.
2-4. Added Apply camera settings to Default noise reduction level setting.
You can make the setting with Default noise reduction level setting from the Tool Palette tab.
2-5. Displays the AF point that was selected during shooting
It can be set by selecting AF point from the View menu in the quick check window, edit window, and edit image window.
2-6. Added 25 lens supported by the lens aberration correction function
Please check the supported lens in the Help file or in the instruction manual.
2-7. Shooting information for image files that were converted and saved can now be retained.

5d II movie maker interview

Heres a fun little radio interview with Vincent Laforet  the individual who got his hands on the 5d II in September and provided a cool 1080p video of that cameras abilities.

50d Review by the-digital-picture

A friendly site of ours, www.the-digital-picture.com has just posted their 50D review.
This site offers an extensive review of almost every Canon lens and product out there. A priceless resource.

50d Review

430ex II price drop!!

Amazon price drop from $279 to $250 !!! The great thing about this flash over the 430ex is its faster recycle time and the ability to control the flash settings through your XSi flash menu.

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