Cameracraft magazine – Taking your practical photography further
My first tests with the Canon EOS 500D were posted on dphotoexpert.com, but given the number of search engines now flagging up this site for Canon 500D searches, I’m putting this post here as well.
This is an edited selection, shot in a mixture of 1080 and 720 modes, assembled using iMovie and written as a 720p final project for YouTube. Please feel free to link directly to the YouTube vid or to this page.
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The clip originally shown here has been replaced by an edited selection, shot in a mixture of 1080 and 720 modes, assembled using iMovie and written as a 720p final project for YouTube. Don’t mean to cause confusion, some visitors may have linked to this post already, and I do not want to add another post. Please feel free to link directly to the YouTube vid or to this page.
Canon has announced a consumer level EOS 500D camera, with 1080p resolution video limited to 20 frames per second, and 15.1 megapixels but a maximum shooting rate of 3.4 frames per second:
http://www.dphotoexpert.com/2009/03/25/canon-eos-500d-151-mp-plus-hd-video/
This continues the trend for all new DSLRs to have HD movie shooting in addition to live view modes, something which Sony to date shows no sign of catching up on. However, the obvious compromises present in the 500D would be criticised harshly if they were to have appeared first in a Sony model, so this is good news. Canon has made it acceptable for others to follow with 20fps instead of the required 24fps, and still claim true 1080p video.
– DK
Received from Canon press office today: United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 25 March 2009: Canon announces the new 15.1MP EOS 500D which offers photographers an outstanding combination of features. Following the launch of the first Canon EOS camera to shoot movies – the EOS 5D Mark II in September 2008 – Canon now brings Full High Definition (HD) video capability to consumers in a compact and lightweight DSLR.
Canon has announced a firmware update for the PowerShot SX1 IS – the first Canon digital compact camera to feature Full HD 1080i movie recording and fast 4fps JPEG continuous shooting – that allows users to capture images in RAW format.
Owners will be able to download a free copy of Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software updated to handle the SX1 IS files.
The firmware will be available for download from mid-March. PowerShot SX1 IS owners should check http://web.canon.jp/imaging/BeBit-e.html for information and availability. Digital Photo Professional will be also available to download from the BeBit website.
Canon today announced the launch of two new tilt and shift lenses, the Ultra-Wide angle
TS-E 17mm f/4L and the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II, an upgrade to the popular TS-E 24mm f/3.5L.
United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 02 February, 2009: Canon today announces the launch of the EOS Professional Network (EPN) across the UK & Ireland. The Network will consist of EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists. This may sound similar to Sony’s ACE dealer concept – but read the small print! It includes hire stock. Canon is fighting back seriously.
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United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland, 02 February, 2009: Canon today announces the launch of the EOS Professional Network (EPN) across the UK & Ireland. The Network will consist of EOS Professional Centres and EOS Professional Stockists.
This set of full size shots was taken with the still life left set up, because the Nikon and Canon cameras were not here at the same time. The report originally appeared in December 2008 on photoclubalpha. It compares the A900, 5DMkII and D3X using the converters supplied by the makers – Image Data Converter SR2, Digital Photo Professional, and Capture NX2. Each small image in the article can be clicked to open a Level 10 quality full size JPEG – beware, the largest is over 13MB of data.
Much has been written in the past few days about the Canon 5D MkII’s so-called black dot problem, in which pixels to the right (as viewed) of extreme point source highlights appear as black dots. Canon has been asked for explanations; my feeling is that the explanation is already present in the way that the 5D MkII handles the necessary process of sharpening.
5D MkII files I have shot (around 500, I’m not a prolific shooter, before the test camera went back) display a far more aggressive edge sharpening policy than any other DSLR raw file I’ve seen. Combined with a very steep midtone curve – crushing the shadows a fair bit, but not unkind to highlights – this produces some of the sharpest looking images around ‘out of the box’.
But, if that visual acuity is to exist on moderate contrast contours and transitions (dark/light boundaries – the basis for all sharpening) it may be extreme on boundaries between dark midtone and small blown highlight pixels. The directional quality of the black dot problem points to a sharpening artefact, or more accurately an edge enhancement artefact – not to be confused with post-capture or JPEG process sharpening.
If so a firmware fix is possible. It may, in the process, make the 5D MkII images from raw appear a touch softer than they do right now. These ‘black dots’ are certainly not dead pixels, and don’t have much to do with the actual sensels on the CMOS. They are created after the image is read out from the silicon.
I may be wrong, but that’s my prediction – the black dots will prove to be an artefact created by a aggressive contour sharpening policy.
– DK