Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category
I’ve been toying with “little” cameras recently trying to decide on a system to go with for a general carry-round camera. I took some shots today with the Sony NEX-7, Panasonic GX1 and for comparison, the Canon 5Dmk3.
I’ve had the 5D Mark III for a week today, and one of it’s obvious great features if the ability to practically shoot in the dark. The high ISO performance of the 5D Mark II was amazing, and this camera surpasses that by a good few stops. However, when taking some test shots over the last week, on reviewing I had noticed some strange “banding” on the LCD screen on the back of the camera at moderately high ISO:
I went out for a lunchtime walk today armed with the Canon 1Dmk4 and 5Dmk3, along with the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS. I wanted to do a subjective test on how they were to use, how they felt, and then when I got back a comparison of the percentage shots in focus from both cameras.
On Saturday (2 days ago), I picked up a 5D Mark III from Castle Cameras in Bournemouth. My first entrance to the world of Full Frame digital was when I got my Canon 5D Mark II back in August 2009, and I absolutely love that camera. It’s high ISO performance is superb, I never really had a problem with the AF and if it wasn’t for continued development of FoCal I wouldn’t have got the Mark III. But I did, and having got one pretty early (they’re not supposed to be officially released until this coming Thursday as far as I know), I wanted to share my thoughts.
I recently acquired a 1D Mark IV for development of FoCal, and have been getting used to it as a camera. I do love macro, and up to now I’ve preferred the 7D over the 5Dmk2 as the greater pixel density gives better magnification and although the image quality is not quite up to the 5Dmk2 this crop factor magnification at 1:1 was very useful.
For those that don’t already know, my FoCal software for Automatic AF microadjustment calibration is almost ready for release. The website about the product is here, and you have until Sunday 18th December to join up for one of 50 free FoCal Pro licenses in the final Beta testing program (see here).
Just a quick post to say that the results of the closed beta testing have been good, and FoCal (formally AFMAC) is now very close to release.
There will be a dedicated website when the software is released at http://www.fo-cal.co.uk (and still at http://www.lenscal.co.uk or http://www.reikan.co.uk/focal) but for now those links point to this page.
Thank you to everyone who has donated or expressed an interest in this software – it’s taken a lot more effort than I anticipated. I’ve had a lot of early mornings and late nights working on this!
A new version of the AutoFocus MicroAdjust Calibrator software for the 5Dmk2 and 7D is now available.
During development of my AFMAC software, I occasionally caused an “Err 70″ message to appear on my 7D (it never happened with the 5Dmk2). Switching the camera off and then on again solved the problem, until one time when every time I powered the camera up, it just showed the dreaded error screen.
Yes, I know this isn't the right screen, but it's the best I could find!!
The latest version (0.7.0) of the AutoFocus MicroAdjust Calibrator software for the 5Dmk2 and 7D is now available.
