June, 2010

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Sigma EM-140 DG macro “ring” flash

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

I managed to pick up a second hand Sigma EM-140 DG Ring Flash for Canon EOS this week mainly because it was going relatively cheaply and I needed a TTL macro flash for my Canon kit but didn’t want to pay for the Canon macro flash.

Sigma EM-140 DG macro flash

I already own the Olympus Ring Flash which I love but obviously, it doesn’t work in TTL mode on my Canon 1D Mark III, and it doesn’t attach to lenses via a filter thread thus requiring it to be hand held on lenses for which it was not designed.

Unfortunately, Sigma’s website doesn’t explain the realities with this flash, and worse, does not allow a download of its user manual so you can determine if it will suit your needs or be a lemon.

Let’s look at the Sigma flash, firstly the cons:

  • although it looks like a ring flash, it is NOT really a ring flash but really a twin flash mounted in a flat ring. This is not going to create circular catchlights!
  • for some strange reason, it cannot be triggered in manual mode on a non-Canon camera, even if you try to manually short the hot shoe contacts to check its trigger voltage, it won’t fire – so forget using it on any camera for which it was not designed – a big disappointment!
  • it has “wireless TTL” and can act as a Master flash to trigger another flash – as long as that other flash is a Sigma EF530 – wireless TTL is NOT possible with Canon flashes using this flash as a master flash!

Now the good points:

  • it is relatively cheap (RRP $US480), and light (430g w/o batteries)
  • you can adjust the ratio  between the two flash tubes to give more directional lighting
  • you can use FP flash mode (high speed sync) on E-TTL compatible cameras
  • you can use second shutter curtain sync and FE lock
  • you can use multi-fire mode which allows repeated flashes from 1-199 Hz
  • flash exposure bracketing mode for 3 shots to give total of up to +/- 3 stops in 1/3EV increments
  • it does have a modeling lamp which can be activated via the camera’s preview button
  • it does have a lamp to add more light to the subject to assist composition and focusing
  • it is relatively simple to use as long as you don’t need to do wireless TTL – you will need to bring the instruction book with you!
  • it snaps onto supplied lens filter thread adapters – two of which are supplied (55mm and 58mm), and you can buy other adapters – either 52mm, 62mm, 67mm, 72mm or 77mm which means you can attach this flash to a wide range of lenses.
  • GN 14m (ISO100) is reasonable for a macro flash

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Architecture camera-lens kit for travel to Europe

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

I am off for a conference trip to Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam in October this year, and am deciding on which cameras and lenses to take with me – after all it s a long way from Australia to change my mind.

I am mainly interested in photography of urban architecture, streetscapes, and cultural activities, and if I can get to more rural settings perhaps some nice landscape work.

I will be wanting to travel as LIGHT as I can but still have high image quality and versatility.

A clear IN for the trip are the following:

  • Panasonic GH-1 Micro Four Thirds camera
  • 10x zoom lens (the excellent Lumix 14-140mm) for general purpose use
  • Leica-D 25mm f/1.4 Four Thirds lens with M43 adapter as my main walk around lens and for low light (unfortunately, I do not have the much smaller and lighter Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens)
  • OM 135mm f/2.8 with OM adapter for indoor conference use / videos from the back of the theatre – its a nice combo – just set MF, WB, manual exposure and you are ready to record all that good information you would otherwise forget.
  • small tripod
  • no-name inexpensive backpack

Now what will I do for those tallish buildings in cramped spaces so I don’t have to angle the camera upwards and create convergence distortion?

I thus compared my Canon 1D MIII with the Canon 17mm tilt-shift lens at maximum shift upwards in portrait mode with my GH-1 in 16:9 aspect ratio with Olympus Four Thirds 7-14mm lens – would I miss the tilt shift lens that I love so much?

Interestingly, using both cameras at the same subject distance and parallel to the subject, the 7-14mm lens at 7mm provided almost the same height coverage to the top of the subject, but with much more bottom coverage and a little more width coverage.

Thus, the GH-1 with 7-14mm lens will give me similar angle of view to top of a building but with a lot more crop options – for instance,  I could crop the bottom 1/3rd off to match the the same image crop as the Canon on full shift and end up with an 8mp image vs a 10mp image on the Canon – not a great deal of loss.

The other advantages of the 7-14mm lens is that I can choose 4:3, 3;2 or 16:9 image aspect ratios, use it for video work, or use it on my Olympus E510 and gain autofocus and image stabilisation to allow 1/2sec-1/4sec hand held shots for motion effects.

But the obvious main advantage of the GH-1 with 7-14mm lens is that the combination is 1kg lighter, it is smaller, the battery charger is SO much smaller, and the kit is cheaper to replace in the event of a loss or breakage.

Now, my conclusion may well have been different had I owned a Canon 5D MII full frame high resolution body instead of a 1.3x crop 10mp Canon 1D MIII, although the weight and insurance would still be major issues.

So, that settles it very convincingly, my 2nd camera kit will be the Olympus E510 with 7-14mm lens and 50mm f/2.0 macro – these are what I shot with for the far majority of my photos on my Italy holiday in 2007 with and it was an awesome combination – see here.

That leaves me with one last question, can I afford to take my beloved Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 SWD lens as well for those special shallow DOF, beautiful bokeh shots (although the 25mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/2.0 lens will give some good options for this but without the telephoto reach)?

Note: for an even more compact and lighter, cheaper system, one could use the Panasonic Micro Four Thirds 7-14mm lens instead of the Olympus Four Thirds version but of course, it could not be used on an E510 body – having said that, if  had that lens, I would be wanting to buy an Olympus E-P2 to take instead of the E510!

The acid test is – can I fit the kit with a 1.3kg laptop in the 5kg carry-on cabin baggage limit?

This is the beauty of the Micro Four Thirds System – you get to take more equipment within the weight limit, although my ideal system of currently available gear for travel would be:

  • Panasonic GH-1 with 10x zoom 14-140mm kit lens
  • Olympus E-P2 with EVF and Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 lens
  • Panasonic 7-14mm lens if doing urban work or Olympus 9-18mm lens if doing landscapes
  • perhaps the Olympus 50mm f/2.0 macro for Four Thirds while we wait for Olympus to make a Micro Four Thirds version
  • Cokin ND gradient filter with adapter for the 14-140mm and 9-18mm lens

Such a system gives you high quality photos with focal length range in 35mm terms of 14-280mm as well as low light capabilities of an image stabilised 40mm lens (in 35mm terms) at f/1.7 light capturing capability, plus you get the BEST quality HD video available on dSLR systems courtesy of the new firmware hack for the GH-1.

Some would add the Lumix 45-200mm lens, but personally, I wish they would make a compact, high quality, Micro Four Thirds 200mm f/2.8 lens (preferably image stabilised), or if they must do zoom, then a compact 100-200mm f/2.8-4.0 (please, not another f/5.6 lens!).

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Firmware hack unleashes Panasonic GH-1 video potential apparently giving it the best looking videos of all the dSLRs

Friday, June 11th, 2010

If you are a Panasonic GH-1 user and wanting the highest quality video – you can now have it courtesy of a free firmware hack by tester13 but please, if you use it, make sure you donate some money to him because this firmware hack is said to be truly amazing – yes – even better image quality than the full frame Canon 5D Mark II.

I must admit, I have not installed it myself yet as I mainly shoot at 720p 50fps motion jpeg as it suits my needs and I am happy to wait a little longer for resolution of a couple of the issues outlined below.

AVCHD may be the latest and greatest HD video compression for consumers but it is not easy to work with, and on the GH-1 without the firmware hack moving subjects or panning tends to result in mud artefacts.

The official GH-1 firmware limits HD video to 17Mbps data rate with options of AVCHD 1080i at 50/60fps derived from native 25fps, or 720p at 50/60fps in either AVCHD or MJPEG.

The firmware hack allows an astounding 50Mbps data rate at 1080/30p MJPEG (detailed scenes with sharp lenses and wide depth of field may deliver up to 70Mbps data from the sensor but then tends to crash the system – they are working on how to limit the data rate to 50Mbps), or 32Mbps AVCHD 1080/native 24p (although currently videos shot in this mode crash the camera on attempting to play them back and you may need to remove the battery to reboot the camera – but seems this has been fixed here). Some users are achieving 80Mbps at 720 30p on Class 10 SD cards.

The GH-1 50Mbps video images are cleaner than the Canon 5D Mark II at 35Mbps partly due to the fact the GH-1 bins the pixels to down- res the 12mp sensor whereas the Canon skips lines to down res its 22mp sensor, and partly as the MJPEG gives less compression artefacts than the Canon’s H.264 codec.

Surprisingly, it seems the GH-1 can write data to the SDHC card at over 8MB/sec which is almost double the Canon 5D Mark II’s rate. The other good news is, you only need a Class 6 SDHC card and not the more expensive Class 10 SDHC cards as one would think.

Be warned though, at 50Mbps 1080p MJPEG, you only get about 2 minutes  39sec of recording until the 2Gb file size limit is reached, and you no longer have the option of shooting in smaller file sized official 17Mbps video without re-installing firmware and incrementing the firmware another integer. Furthermore it seems in 720 mode you can now only get 30fps not 50/60fps but they are working on this.

Finally, Remember…version numbers cannot roll back which may have implications for future official firmware releases.

Post-script: it is possible that the latest production of GH-1 cameras which come with v1.3 firmware pre-installed MAY NOT allow updating the camera with the firmware hack – see here. I am sure if this is the case, there will soon be a way around this.

See:

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