Photography - Joelypolly

Canon 17-40mm f4L Images & Initial Impressions

2010-01-26T02:21:00.000+11:00

Close ups of the lens

Mounted on the 30D

This is probably one of the most popular lenses in the Canon lineup with its versatile zoom range both on the APS-C/H and full frame cameras. On APS-C it becomes a 27-64 which is a wide to normal lens and on FF it becomes ultra wide for half the price of the 16-35mm 2.8.

The best thing about this lens for me has been the speed at which it acquires focus even in very low light. I took the lens into a cave thinking I would end up having to do manual focus as it was practically pitch black but this lens surprised me by actually focusing. Below are some shots I took in this cave at ISO 3200.

The lens however does have some issues handling flare and in extreme circumstances it does cause loss of contrast. A lens hood is definitely recommended at all times. However, it does produce some lovely images.

Ricoh GXR S10 DW6 Images

2010-01-18T01:59:00.000+11:00

The wide angle adapter for the Ricoh GXR S10 unit

The HA-3 used to attach the wide angle lens to the S10 unit

Some photos from Ricoh GXR S10 with the wide angle converter attached

Photo of mother and child as they were walking across the road

Some old buildings(bits of shanghai's history) pulled down to build another boring high rise

19mm from a camera so small give brilliant results.

Ricoh GXR VF-2 Review after Day 2

2010-01-07T22:32:00.000+11:00

One of the accessories announced with the Ricoh GXR was the VF-2 electronic viewfinder. It is a 920k dot electronic viewfinder similar to the one offered by Olympus for their EP2 m4/3 camera. It even tilts a full 90 degrees just like the Olympus unit.

When fitted to the GXR it prevents it from being put in to most coat pockets and that kinda kills the portability of the GXR.

The VF-2 fits on by sliding into the hot-shoe as well a propitiatory port just below the hot-shoe. It fits quite well with a click at the end when it's locked in place. Overall it feels like a pretty solid piece of plastic that will take a feel bangs here and there. The hinge also feels pretty solid but probably won't take as much abuse. Overall its a pretty well engineered piece of electronics.

Images quality isn't the great when compared to an SLR with an optical viewfinder but as an EFV it is probably one of the better ones I have seen. The size of the viewfinder is quite small probably around the size of an entry level SLR a lot smaller than a mid range or top end SLR.

The above was taken with the iPhone.

Value for money The VF-2 is not cheap at around 250 USD. It does offer those that are coming from an SLR an ability to look through a viewfinder and get the camera up close to their face but the mediocre image size was what kinda reduced my enthusiasm for it. If it were to have a viewfinder image size similar to the 7D I would have no hesitations recommending it but as it is now it's more of a novelty than must have tool.

Pros

0 to 90 degree tilt allow you to take photos from many angles
920k dots, one of the highest on the market today
A source of comfort for SLR users
Feels reasonably solid

Cons

The image size is small
Adds a bit of bulk to the package
Color shifting (common to most EVFs)
Blacks are not really black

Conclusion It is an expensive way to complete your kit but if you like the tilting ability it might be worth it. Personally I would probably get more out of buying a tripod or the Ricoh TTL Flash or wait until it comes down a bit in price.

Ricoh GXR S10 Macro Images

2010-01-07T00:44:00.001+11:00

Took some macro photos today on the S10 and they turned out surprisingly well. With a focus distance of 1cm from 24 to 50mm or so and 3cm at 72mm the resulting images look excellent. The lens does a great job resolving the details.

Notice the ridges are very well defined with excellent detail even at the pixel level. This was taken with a aperture of f4.4 so a lot of the image is slightly out of focus.

Here is one from another angle

If you are interested in the Ricoh you can purchase it from Amazon below (I get some kick back)

Ricoh GXR with S10 24-72mm f2.5-4.4

2010-01-06T01:18:00.003+11:00

Just got my GXR last night, I have to say... it was much smaller than my expectations. Size wise it's slightly smaller than a Canon G11
Here are some photos. I'll probably get around to doing a review in a few days.

RED
>

Green

Yellow

28-300 Canon L with B+W 77mm CPL

2009-11-03T23:32:00.003+11:00

Went to the country side this weekend and took some photos of the sunset.

Taken with 77mm B+W Circular Polarising Filter on the 28~300mm Canon L lens.

Finally found a way around the great firewall of China

2009-10-15T23:41:00.001+11:00

After using Tor, SOCKS proxies and web proxies I have finally found the perfect solution that doesn't cost an arm or leg. Thanks to the guys at yourprivatevpn.com I now have my own VPN connection out of China. The best thing is that it is only ~8AUD a month which is about half to a third of the prices other VPN provides charge.

So check them out if you're in China and require unrestricted web access. Hopefully this will mean a return to more regular posting (doing a review on a few M42 lenses at the moment).

3GS camera review

2009-08-17T22:27:00.000+10:00

This review of the 3GS is primarily looking at the new camera capabilities vs the previous generations.

On paper it is suppose to be a slightly better camera with a bump to 3.2 megapixels and now with auto focus.

The auto focus now brings the camera inline with other smartphone on the market on paper. However, the iPhone actually beats most smartphone on the market due to two simple things that most photographers will enjoy. Selectable AF using the touch screen and metering at the AF point. I'll go into why this is huge step forward below.

Selectable AF is probably a first on any camera phone, basically it allows you to tap anywhere on screen and the camera app will focus on that spot. This is a huge thing as it now allows you to select an object to focus one instead of having the AF guess which object you want to focus or in the case of older iphones no AF at all.
Here is a 3GS vs 3G/1st Gen photo
1st Gen
3GS
Notice how the 3GS version is nice and sharp and the 3G/1st Gen is rather muddy.

Here is another images of selectable AF.

The next big thing is obviously the improved metering. The camera app now meters at the AF point selected instead of full frame evaluative.

Here is a image of the 3GS focused on the keyboard. Notice the keyboard is bright but the screen is overblown just as it should be if I were to spot meter that area.

Here is another image with the screen in focus notice now the keyboard is underexposed.

Examples of when this will be useful is say capturing a sunset behind a person when you want a person's face to be well lit. On the 3G this person will be a dark shadow but on the 3GS they will be correctly exposed. The difference between a great photo and a throw away shot.
Some more sample shots

Testing of Email Publish

2009-06-16T20:23:00.000+10:00

The great firewall of China has blocked access to blogger so I am
testing posting via emails. Hope it works.

Benro Travel Angel Review (C-169M8)

2009-06-16T18:00:00.002+10:00

Recently I bought a travel angel tripod made my Benro. It is very similar to the Traveller tripods by Gitzo partly because it is a clone of the popular Gitzo model.

Here is a image of the Gitzo 1541T and an image of the Benro, as you can see they look very similar. The price difference is pretty big with the Benro (~250USD, ~300AUD and it includes a ball head) one coming in at less than half the price of the Gitzo (~580USD, ~1000AUD no ball head included).

Well lets look at the spec sheets

Gitzo
Load Capacity 17.6 lbs (8kg)
Maximum Height 52.8" (134cm)
Maximum Height w/o Column Extended 44.5" (113cm)
Minimum Height 6.9" (17.5cm) (Gitzo allows the removal of the center column to achieve this)
Folded Length 16.1" (41cm)
Weight 2.1 lbs (970g)

Benro
Load Capacity 17.6 lbs (8kg)
Maximum Height 58.3" (148cm)
Maximum Height w/o Column Extended 48.0" (122cm)
Minimum Height 14" (35cm)
Folded Length 14" (35cm)
Weight 2.2 lbs (997g)

Very similar specs between these 2 rivals with weight, folded length and load capacity being the most important factors that affected most people's buying preferences. The Gitzo can go lower but it is beat by the Benro when it comes to folded lenght and maxiumn height. So what does Gitzo offer that Benro doesn't? Well to start with Gitzo offers 5 year warranty (apparently it use to be lifetime) which is 2 years more than the Benro. Gitzo also has brand recognition that people identify with and well Benro is seen as a knock off brand. But what about the important factor of quality? Do you get what you pay for? Well truth be told Benro is made in China based on technology "copied" (adapted and improved upon) from others. The cost will definately be cheaper than a big brand name like Manfrotto or Gitzo. So in a way you do get what you paid for. For Benro you are paying for just a tripod based on existing technologies, with Gitzo or Manfrotto you are paying for the tripod, extensive marketing, some research and development and some more marketing.

Ok enough about that. So how good is the tripod and ball head(and how do I make this review interesting)? Well to start with the packaging is the similar to the major brand names and it even came with a tripod bag so you can save some money right there. The ball head is reasonable build quality but the tripod itself has excellent build quality. Everything locks into place pefectly with no rotation of the legs when fully extended. And the 8kg load capacity, well I don't have a 8kg load to test and I don't think most people who buy this will ever put 8kgs on. With a Canon 30D and a 28-300mm Canon L it only comes to about 3kg still less than half the supported load capacity it performed perfectly. The ball head had just enough tension that it was pretty easy to move but tight enough that the lens doesn't sag when fully extended. However, there are negative reviews with the ball heads made by Benro. So far no problems but I will be keeping an eye on the ball head since it is the only part of the package that may be weak or prone to breakage.

So hopefully I have convinced you that the Benro is a reasonably good buy. It doesn't come with the brand image of the Gitzo but then it doesn't come with the price either. Gitzo has built a very premium image over the years through innovation and consistent delivery of quality goods (according to some quality has declined). Hopefully Benro can do the same (but cheaper).

UPDATE: A few images of the tripod. Note the ball head is able to keep the camera steady even with the weight off center.

Going hiking :D

2009-05-25T13:26:00.004+10:00

Will be going hiking this week. Taking my 28-300mm L with my 30D and a travel angel tripod for review. Check back here in a week or so for my full review of the Benro travel angel. It will also be a good chance to see how well the 28-300mm works as a travel lens.

It's a 3 day hike so I should get a good feel for how this thing performs on the field. Any questions you want answered post a comment.

Creating a more user friendly interface

2009-05-12T15:44:00.004+10:00

When you hear the word UI what pops into your head? Some buttons or some pretty graphics? For me it is about people's preconceptions on how something should work and creating a way to best match that.

A simple example would be a button. Buttons in most people's minds are meant to be pressed, if you designed a image in the shape of a button you should expect it to be pressed. Same thing applies to hyperlinks, see what I did there? I made you believe that some underlined text with a hand cursor is a hyperlink because this is how we have been conditioned to think online.

Today you see many sites going against theses ingrained ideas to standout or be different however this cause pain to the users as they have to relearn how to use your site. When something is different it doesn't mean it's good just like when something is old it doesn't mean it's bad but then I guess the reverse is true also.

Recently I started using a new browser on Mac OS X called Stainless, it is an excellent piece of software with only one minor UI issue that makes it hard for first time users. Tabs in most applications(firefox, safari, IE to name a few) have a lighter colored active tab with shadowed/shaded ones indicating inactive tabs. However, this is reversed in Stainless which means for the first few hours you will be accidentally closing the wrong tabs as you unlearn your old habits. Expectations are always going to be the biggest hurdles to a changed user interface. As they say old habits die hard.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM Review Sample Images

2009-05-04T15:55:00.002+10:00

Here are some more sample images to go with my review of the Canon 50mm 1.4 USM

Canon 17-85mm f/4-5.6 EF-S USM Review

2009-04-25T12:33:00.009+10:00

Another week another lens review. Having owned and used this lens for around 2 years this will be a very personal review.

This is your "standard" zoom lens for Canon cropped bodies, the 17-85mm translates to 27~136 on standard 35mm full frame. This gives you reasonably wide angle and not too bad telephoto. The aperture goes from 4 at 17mm to 5.6 at 85mm. The price is around 600AUD/450USD. Everything about this lens is "standard" or just very average. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing as this is one of the best standard (read:walk around) lenses for cropped bodies.

The lens is light and quite compact which means you won't be too worried about carrying it around with you all day. It is focuses fast enough to catch most types of action if thats your thing. Nothing about this lens stands out about the crowd but nothing about it is particularly bad.

Now lets talk image quality. Well thats average too... Looking at the photo from 30D it looks great when your zoomed out or printed normal size but at the pixel level it isn't very sharp. If we look at image quality towards the edges well that kinda gets a bit worse but still reasonable if your not pixel peeping. Towards the edge we also run into CA issues especially when using a higher aperture number (ie. anything over 16). Other things to be mindful of is the distortion and vignetting at 17mm.

What about macro work? Well this lens is not to bad for that since it can focus quite close at around 30cm. Flowers and insects won't fill the full frame but you will be able to crop a bit and get a reasonable sized bug. So I guess thats another average point in its favor.

Lets rap up here... This is a lens that I would recommend to anyone just starting out in the digital world and need to have a reasonable lens to try different things. It is and average lens that delivers average results at an average price. In this case being average might not be a bad thing. Oh and the images that you take will be anything you can make of it and some of them will be anything but average.

Pros.

Lightweight and reasonable size
Good range (27~136mm)
IS works well
Good starter lens and walk around lens

Cons.

Contrast isn't quite as good
Plastic body
Image quality could be better

The above image is pixel level look at the quality and you can see it is reasonably sharp. Note: This was center frame so it should be the sharpest it can be.

Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM Review

2009-04-18T16:40:00.006+10:00

This is probably one of the most popular primes ever sold. It is inexpensive, light and quite a sharp when stepped down a little. This lens is also about a quarter the price of the f/1.2.

I have owned a copy of this lens since May of last year and it has opened up a whole new dimension of photography that just wouldn't not have been possible on a standard zoom.

The DoF effect is very very shallow, in fact so shallow that I had trouble at the beginning locking focus on what I wanted. You will be using this lens in Manual focus mode much of the time simply because the AF won't always pick the correct thing to be in focus.

Another benefit is how fast this lens is, I was able to get usable shots at f/1.4 while taking photos during the night safari in Singapore. You are talking about very very low light environments.

Usually it will focus quite fast but there are the occasional issues focusing but it's not very common.

Build quality is good but it's still plastic body with a metal mount.

Pros

Fast 1.4 aperture which means excellent low light performance
Excellent DoF effect
Excellent bokeh when focusing on close objects
Light and inexpensive
Metal Mount

Cons

50mm on a cropped body is... well weird
Shallow DoF means hard to focus at times
Plastic body

Click here to see some sample photos

Getting the most out of your iLiad Reader - Part 2

2009-04-18T15:36:00.005+10:00

This post we will look at installing a modified content lister as well as a full screen PDF reader. Again like the last post all details are from the MobileRead forums.

The default content lister that comes with your iLiad only supports very few items on a single page before requiring you to turn the page for more items. With the modified content lister you can have more items 8, 12 or 20 items listed on a page. This wonderful modification is thanks to Hansel from MobileRead. The version we will be installing is 1.0.5 which is the current latest version.

Download newContentLister
Unzip on to CF or MMC card
Navigation to your media card and select the newLister-1.0.5 folder
Select the install option "Install NewLister"
Select the number of items per page you require
Select the "Reboot" option
Your iLiad should reboot with new settings

Next up we want to install the full screen PDF reader by jharker. This gives you the ability to fullscreen a PDF file and hide the button and things that are down the bottom. There are a number of other PDF reader modifications but we are only interested in this one for this post.

Download the iPDF installer package
Unzip on to CF or MMC card
Navigation to your media card and select the ipdf_installers folder
Select "Install jharker's fullscreen ipdf"
Select "Run me to identify the current ipdf"
If you have installed correctly it should display "This looks like the jharker's fullscreen version"
Shutdown and restart you iLiad

Now that the fullscreen PDF is installed how do we use it? Well it only works for PDF files so remember that. Here are some instructions:

Everything works as they do normally
You would probably want to zoom the page first before engaging fullscreen mode
Pressing and holding the UP arrow (not the squiggly one on the top) will start fullscreen mode.
Short press of the squiggly up arrow on the top of the device will exit fullscreen mode(when in fullscreen mode)
Another press of that arrow will exit the PDF reader

Getting the most out of your iLiad Reader - Part 1

2009-04-17T12:15:00.000+10:00

I have had my iLiad reader for about a year and I want to share some tips for new users to the platform. None of this can be possible without the hard work of many individuals from the MobileRead forums. I am only taking credit for putting everything together for first time users.

Before we start make sure you have the following:

iRex iLiad either editions
A MMC or CF card
A card reader for the card of your choice
Wireless or wired net access setup on your device

First thing you will want to do is to register you device with iRex for shell access. You do this by registering on the iRex developer site.

Register at iRex
Enter your MAC address. This is the code on the back of your iLiad on the sticker, it will look something like 00-16-7C-00-45-22
Click send developer package
Connect to iDS by pushing and holding the connect button (top right button)
Your iLiad will restart when done

The next thing you will want to do is to install FBReader to expand the list of supported document types. This is an integrated version of FBReader created by Adam. B. version 0.8.14

Download FBReader
Unzip into a folder on your MMC or CF card
On you iLiad go to the card and select "Install FBReader"
Restart your device after you see the Title of the item change to "FBReader has been Installed"

Optional step is to install my modified FBReader settings package. This will change the default FBReader font to something much nicer and it also changes the margins so the text isn't pushed all the way to the edges.

Download the settings package
Unzip into a folder on your MMC or CF card
Select "Update FBReader 0.8.14 settings"
No need to restart

More to come in the following weeks

28-300mm f3.5-5.6L Canon IS EF Review - Week 3

2009-04-08T01:20:00.000+10:00

Well here is my second review after owning the lens for 3 full weeks.

This is what the lens looks like fully extended on my Canon 30D

I am really enjoying the benefits of the push/pull design for composing my shots however it is causing a lot more dust to enter the camera as it is not a sealed body. However, I am happy to put up with it because this lens delivers very good results. Dust on the sensor can be cleaned easily by using a lens cleaning pen, sensors are not as fragile as most people think. HINT: To see if you have sensor dust select the highest aperture number i.e. 32 or 40 and take a photo of a white wall or sky and you will see dust as clearly as you need

Overall the contrast of this lens is better than both the 17-85mm Canon EF-S and the Canon 50mm 1.4 wide open. At 300mm sharpness does drop a bit as expected but at f8 they are fine again. The 1.7kg weight of the lens is now becoming normal for me to carry around however the size is still not great if I were on a holiday and wanted to pack light. i.e going snowboarding I would leave this at home and carry a P&S

I have included some shots from the lens below. They have had some adjustments but nothing too major. Click through the images to see other sizes and more photos.

First photoshop after 6 years

2009-03-31T00:38:00.001+11:00

First photoshop after 6 years
Originally uploaded by joelypolly

It has been such a long time since I played with photoshop that I have almost forgotten how it works. Glad the end result isn't too disappointing. Hopefully this can improve in future

28-300mm f3.5-5.6L Canon IS EF Review - Week 1

2009-03-24T02:56:00.000+11:00

I just received my new Canon lens last week and so far it has been great. The contrast of the lens is much better than my old 17-85mm EF-S lens, images have more pop out of the camera and sharpness so far is good. The push pull design does take a little while to get use to but in my opinion it is more user friendly in this type of super zoom lens as it is quite quick to go from 28 to 300. This is especially useful to zoom out to find what you want and then zoom in to get the details you are after. The only compliant with this is that it isn't well dampened on the extreme ends of the zoom i.e. if I push to 300mm it makes a definite clunk as the lens reaches it limit. There really should be an internal rubber stopper or similar to prevent this.

Here is a photo from the lens

Good Points:
Excellent contrast
Sharper than expected
Great range at 11X zoom
Good IS (image stabilization)

Cons:
Heavy... very heavy
Hard to handhold at 300mm
Really stands out so not so great for candid street shots

Group Mentality

2009-03-19T18:46:00.000+11:00

I had this thought when reading the some forums and seeing some hateful comments targeted at a device.

On the most basic level most people have a need to belong to a group or somewhere that they feel they belong. When another group comes along that competes with your group it is often seen as a threat or even when another group is "different". This would lead to hatred with a bit of coaxing from "people of authority" i.e group leaders. This is especially scary because most within the group throw logic and reasoning out the window and simply embrace the dogma of the group.

More often than not those within a group have little to no understanding of the group they are hating. By focusing hate on another group it can strengthen the bonds within the group as people perceive others to have similar points of view. It can also provide a distraction of the current issues within a group by shifting attention away. Anyone trying to bring logic to the discussion is often shouted down as blasphemous or branded as a traitor again reinforcing dogma and excluding logical thought.

To break it down into point form
1) I am part of a group
2) This group has a set of beliefs/rules that I must follow to belong
3) Another group is challenging/threatening or has different points of view compared to my group
4) Therefore they are challenging my group
5) Therefore they are challenging me
6) Therefore they are an enemy
7) Enemies are hated

There could be other steps that are involved but I think I have the main ones down. Broken down it does seem quite childish to think this way but I think when strong emotions and life long dogma are involved it is inevitable that some people with think this way.

eating sex

2009-03-12T23:58:00.001+11:00

eating sex
Originally uploaded by joelypolly

A box of chocolates or rather a box of sex. Either way very tasty

Midway point to Genting

2009-02-22T16:53:00.001+11:00

Midway point to Genting
Originally uploaded by joelypolly

Photos from my trip to Malaysia last year

Vista and beyond programming issues

2009-02-17T12:50:00.000+11:00

One of the first issues the developers will run in to when dealing with Vista is writing files to the file system. What use to work perfectly well in XP may have issues dues to the changes to the permissions of the application in Vista.
One example I recently ran into was write a file into the directory the application was installed in. In this case it was a folder under program files which in Vista has become more restricted. A simple workaround and in this case probably best practice is to use the Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData) in C# or similar in VB etc. This will actually write the file out in the users local application data directory which also means you can have per user preferences easily.

lol cats

2009-01-30T00:33:00.000+11:00

lol cats... gotta love them. Also cats are my favorite animal