Michael Tapes, the entrepreneur who invented the “LensAlign Focus Calibration System” e-mailed me a few weeks back and said that he had a new product coming, but by reading the information I was under a NDA. However, many of the details of the LensAlign MkII, which replaces the LensAlign Lite (I reviewed the LensAlign Pro earlier this fall), are available on Michael’s blog. I just received a prototype yesterday, and will be writing a review of the new product and comparing it to its “bigger brother.” Final production versions will retail for $79.95 and will ship in the United States for $6 as it comes flat/disassembled to fit inside of a Priority Mail envelope. This conceivably means that it can be taken apart easily for travel, something the LensAlign Pro simply cannot do.
Posted on Tuesday, 12 October 2010 @ 12:52pm by David
Calin Ilea diptych - 3 October 2008, just after participating in the Missouri Photo Workshop in St. James, Mo., left, and 1 October 2010, on the second-to-last day of co-coordinating the Missouri Photo Workshop in Macon, Mo., right.
Today, a Romanian Fulbright student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism will defend his project to his committee to earn his M.A. in journalism. When I met Calin Ilea two years, ago, I had no clue our friendship would change the way I approach photography. He’s headed home on Thursday, but I can’t be in Missouri today to celebrate the (likely) completion of his project with him. Are rain checks good in Romania, Calin?
Posted on Wednesday, 22 September 2010 @ 1:45pm by David
Datacolor SpyderChekr
Earlier in the month, Datacolor announced the SpyderLensCal, a product that was a clear imitation of the LensAlign autofocus microadjustment calibration tool from RawWorkflow. Although it would be unfair to dismiss it outright as I’ve not actually worked with one, SpyderLensCal has several shortcomings compared to the LensAlign, including the inability to confirm that it is parallel to the camera.
Now, Datacolor has announced another product that seems to be an homage to a competitor: the SpyderChekr is aimed squarely at X-Rite’s ColorChecker Passport that I reviewed early this year. The gestalt of the two products is the same: a plate of pigmented squares with known color values is embedded into a hinged case to be carried on location and photographed under the lighting conditions for the photo shoot. Then, in RAW conversion either in Adobe Camera RAW or Adobe Lightroom, the photo of the unit is exported to the manufacturer’s software to be profiled. That profile is then applied, at the user’s discretion, to the photos from the shoot.
However, there appears to be a fundamental difference in the way that Datacolor approached the SpyderCheckr compared to the SpyderLensCal: price point. The SpyderLensCal is priced to undercut what has been the only game in town, the LensAlign, and to do so by $20 at an MSRP of $59.00. To get down to that price, Datacolor clearly cut corners. The SpyderCheckr, on the other hand, has been announced at $129.00, a full $30.00 more than the X-Rite product, and actually builds upon the idea of camera calibration by adding some interesting features.
The Datacolor product can be mounted on a tripod, whereas X-Rite’s hinged case was designed to support the color charts, like the fold-out arm in a picture frame. A tripod thread adds versatility. The color charts in Datacolor’s SpyderCheckr can be flipped over to reveal gray-balance targets. That means that one could photograph the necessary color chart for camera calibration and a greay-balance target in the same frame. X-Rite’s passport does include a gray-balance target, but it is mounted opposite the color charts, so they could never be together in the same photograph.
SpyderChekr's reversible (and replaceable) charts | rendering from Datacolor's SpyderCheckr user manual
Furthermore, that Datacolor’s color charts are reversible means that they are also user-replaceable should they begin to fade or become scratched. The Datacolor Web site for the SpyderCheckr suggests that these spare color charts will be available for sale “early in 2011.”
There are some differences between the SpyderChekr and the ColorChecker Passport that do not make one superior to the other, but are of interest just the same. First of all, the Datacolor product is physically larger. In fact, I believe it is close to the size of a traditional Gretag-Macbeth (now X-Rite) color chart. This means that it won’t fit in a camera bag quite as easily. Even when I’m not working on a studio shoot, I always carry the X-Rite product in my bag, because it is small and easy to hand-hold. However, I can’t mount it to a tripod (or light stand), so that may be irrelevant for some. Another difference is that X-Rite’s ColorChecker Passport creates DNG profiles for its camera calibration, whereas Datacolor’s software manipulates the Hue/Saturation/Lightness sliders in Adobe Camera RAW / Adobe Lightroom. I’m inclined to believe that DNG profiles may be a better route, but I’m not a technical expert on this particular part of Camera RAW / Lightroom, so I will just offer that they are different routes to achieve the same objective: more faithful color.
Many of the design and operational differences between the two products are actually outlined in a chart on page six of Datacolor’s SpyderCheckr manual, although you’ll notice a natural bias for their own product!
Finally, if you’d like to watch a video explaining the features and the supporting software for Datacolor’s SpyderChekr, you can watch this PhotokinaTV’s video featuring David Tobie, product technology manager for Datacolor:
Posted on Thursday, 2 September 2010 @ 10:32am by David
Datacolor SpyderLensCal - image from datacolor.com
Have I seen this before?
Yesterday, Datacolor announced a new addition to its “Spyder” line of calibration tools: the Spyder LensCal. In many ways, it’s a spitting image of the LensAlign Pro I briefly reviewed here earlier this summer, and significantly less expensive at a suggested price of $59.00 (the LensAlign Pro sells for $180, while lensAlign Lite goes for $80).
While the design of the two systems is uncannily similar–an autofocus target with a ruler to the right–there is a significant difference between them: I see no way to confirm that the camera and the focus target are perfectly square to one another with the SpyderLensCal. This is a significant advantage for the LensAlign, and in fact begs the question of just how accurate the Datacolor product could be if it is not feasible to make the target and camera square. If they are skewed, so too will the out-of-focus areas, and the reliability of the product comes into question.
Furthermore, the SpyderLensCal offers no advice about the distance that should separate the camera from the target (only that it be “a fixed distance”), nor do they offer any clues about how much depth of field should be expected to be in front or fall behind the “0″ point of the ruler. (While the depth of field for many lenses is pretty much 49% in front of where you focus, and 51% behind it, with extremely wide focal lengths, such as 16mm, the depth-of-field shifts to become 40% in front and 60% behind the point of focus.) I can already envision many of Datacolor’s customers having to rely upon LensAlign’s Web site for their online “Distance Tool.”
Of course, it will be interesting to see how these models really stack up once they can be compared side-by-side. The SpyderLensCal will begin shipping in about three weeks, during Photokina.
Posted on Thursday, 26 August 2010 @ 5:55pm by David
Every two years, camera manufacturers descend upon Cologne, Germany to push their latest wares. In the past week, on the lead-up to the trade show, Nikon, Sony, and Canon (in that order) have unveiled their latest offerings.
The Sony pellicle mirror diverts 30% of the incoming light to a phase-detect autofocus sensor. Image from DPReview.com.
The more interesting announcements, to my mind, include Sony’s decision to revive the Pellicle mirror concept in the form of a “Single Lens Translucent” body that is always in live view, but retains phase-detect autofocus even for video.
Canon has announced a new 60D body that loses many of the features that it’s predecessor, the 50D, had but it gains video and an articulated LCD screen. I can only hope that articulated screens are found on every future body that shoots video…Note also that this camera has another edge over the higher-priced 7D: manual audio control. Canon has yet to release firmware to give the 7D the capability to control the audio level, but this lower-priced model might actually become very attractive to videographers for the articulated screen combined with audio control. That is, if Sony doesn’t steal the show.
However, Canon didn’t end there: the 300mm f/2.8L, 400mm f/2.8L, and 1.4x and 2x teleconverters have all been refreshed with new optical designs. The updated teleconverters have improved electronics that might only affect their performance with the newly-announced telephoto lenses, but the improved optics should benefit all telephoto lenses. So, while I can’t say that any of the super-telephoto lenses are in the cards for me at the moment (the longest lens I have is the 400mm f/4 DO IS, and my sights are set on the 800 f/5.6–some day) the new teleconverters are sure to pique the interest of everyone as they are a frequently-used accessory and are therefore an easy way of improving the image quality of one’s photographs.
Canon 8-15mm f/4L fisheye zoom lens. Image from DPReview.com.
That said, the icing on the cake of the announcements? An 8-15mm fisheye zoom. Sure to be of interest to a lot of people for the creative perspectives offered in such a range. Particularly, owners of reduced frame (APS-C and APS-H) cameras will be interested in this lens for the wider perspective.
Really, the only offering in that mix that doesn’t make sense to me is the 70-300mm f/4-5.6L zoom lens. I know that the 70-300 range is popular, but how this lens fits on the totem pole in relation to the 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 DO IS lens is something of a mystery to me.
I was curious enough about this “L” version of the popular zoom range that I fired off an e-mail to Scott Andrews, the photojournalism representative for Canon in North Carolina, and his estimate is that this lens will have greater contrast and sharpness as compared to the DO lens. It is, however, heavier at 2.3 pounds versus 1.6 pounds, bright white as opposed to matte black, and will be priced some $200 more than its DO sibling. I do wonder if this is Canon’s way of tiding people over while we all wait for an update of the 100-400mm zoom…provided it’s even coming.
Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6L zoom lens. Image from DPReview.com.
One of the curious things that I noticed over the last year and a half at the University of Missouri–at least among the photojournalism students–was a rabid fascination with video from the Canon 5D Mark II. I was one of the first ones in the program to actually buy one (August Kryger beat me by about a week and a half) in December 2009.
Other cameras sprang up that could do video, but people in the program seemed to wear blinders and were obsessed exclusively with 5D II video even though they did not even own a Canon camera or lens.
I say that this is frustrating because I know from first-hand experience that the 5D and the 7D are both very frustrating to use as video cameras, even though the resulting video looks great. But for every second of good footage I’ve recorded, I’ve lost at least a minute of good material because of all of the physical limitations of using a dSLR for video: framing is a bit of a pain, autofocus is slow, setting up the exposure is also slow, daylight makes it hard to see the rear screen, and you can’t hand-hold it to save your life. Despite these flaws, I believe that Canon and Nikon have been overly effective at making people believe that they are the only game in town. Perhaps Olympus is a distant third. This culture of ignorance of anything that is not Nikon or Canon appears to persist among those who should know better.
Posted on Thursday, 17 June 2010 @ 3:07pm by David
Canon 1D Mark II N body and accessories for sale - two chargers, two batteries, original (un-used) strap, and AC power adapter
I tried to sell my 1D II N on eBay the other week as a “buy it now” outright purchase, but there were no takers. It’s now listed as an auction. Happy bidding!
One of the more interesting changes is that Adobe has re-engineered its RAW processing engine to the point that it isn’t exactly backwards compatible. Photos processed in past versions of Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW will be labeled “Process Version 2003″ (the year that Camera RAW became a standard feature in Photoshop). Photos processed in the new version will have “Process Version 2010″ appended to them.
The difference? Supposedly, the noise reduction and sharpening tools have been improved dramatically. The change in the way RAW files are converted to TIFF, JPEG, etc. is supposed to yield a greater quality image as well.
One of the other changes to Lightroom is support for DSLR video files, although my understanding is that the implementation is rudimentary. You cannot play back a video file within Lightroom–it launches your preferred video viewer (Quicktime, Windows Media Play, etc.). What I do not know yet is whether there is at least some ability to put video files inside of Collections to keep them organized. I would certainly hope that this functionality was not overlooked.
I did not participate in the Beta program because I simply didn’t have the time as I was enrolled in classes at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, but now that I am working on my final project I have a more flexible schedule, and am looking forward to the changes in Lightroom.
Lightroom 3.0 is on its way after a long beta-testing period. Ian Lyons has broken down the 
