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March 26, 2008
[ SONY a700 DSLR with 24-70mm f2.8 Zeiss (Sony) lens ]
Price: $2000 body $3200 lens
Outstanding
The low-down: The a700 is a 12 megapixel camera with a CMOS sensor, tested here with an optional 24-70mm Zeiss lens with constant f2.8 maximum aperture. There is in-camera image stabilisation and automatic dust removal. It has eye-proximity start-up – when an eye approaches the viewfinder the camera snaps into auto-focus. A remote shutter release is provided in the kit, which also works as a remote control when the camera is attached to a TV. The ergonomics and construction quality are outstanding and the lens is in a class of its own. The viewfinder is a large, bright prism. And the 7.5cm LCD with 1m pixels is spectacular.
Like: Picture quality is consistently superb. The camera itself is responsive, producing well exposed, high resolution images. The lens focuses quickly and is mechanically superior in every way. The constant maximum aperture of f2.8 is the mark of a high class optic. The 24-70mm range is unusual for a standard zoom and we sometimes wished for a shorter wide end, but overall the modest range makes for a superior lens.
Dislike: The only reservation we have is to do with the price. $2000 for the body is a bargain, several hundred dollars less than its obvious rival, the Nikon D300. But the price of avoiding the indifferent Sony standard lenses in favour of the superb Zeiss/Sony optics is high.
Verdict: We had an important little job to do, for which we would normally use our own camera. It is usually too risky to pick up a new camera for such a project, but the Sony felt so right in the hand and the lens was so seductive that we said: “What the heck!” We were delighted with the consistency of the images and the intuitiveness of the camera controls. Our advice is to buy the body on its own and then pair it with a good lens. The Sony kit, with body and short zoom lens, costs $2150. That is not doing justice to the camera. There is a Zeiss 16-80mm for $1250 – that is the way to go.
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Posted by terry at 11:52 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
March 25, 2008
[ OLYMPUS m1020 compact camera ]
Price: $500
OK when handled with care
The low-down: This is a 10 megapixel camera with a 37-260mm (film equivalent) lens. The attractive case is rugged and overall face area is slightly larger than a credit card. It fits into a pocket. There is no optical viewfinder and the LCD screen, while of excellent resolution, is useless in bright sunlight. There is optical image stabilisation and also ISO boost in Auto mode – so-called “dual image stabilisation”. There are very few manual controls, and what there are are confusing. There is face recognition and three types of automatic and assisted panorama functions. The in-camera panorama creation works by taking three automatic shots which are merged in camera with varying degrees of accuracy. The result is one thin strip of image across a single frame. The camera switches from 10mp to 5mp in some modes and the instruction book doesn’t explain why or when this will happen. It also affects metering, face recognition and auto-focus and is infuriating. Memory is an Olympus xD card.
Like: The camera can, with an ideal setup and in ideal conditions, produce reasonable results. ISO 100 shots are very good. White balance inclines to warm, and saturation is high. Macro and super-macro work well. At a modest focal length resolution is good, but at 260mm image quality drops off.
Dislike: Above ISO 200 the noise in shadows turns into ugly black blotches. This could be a consequence of heavy noise reduction at higher speeds. In Auto/Scene modes the camera sets the ISO, and is generally too high for clean images. The mysterious way in which some manual controls disappear and the resolution changes in certain modes is bewildering.
Verdict: This camera looks the goods, and within limits it will produce results suitable for making small prints. It is point and shoot, and most users will leave the flash enabled, and that works well as fill light. While the ideal compact camera has fewer than 7 million pixels, has no gimmicks, a modest 3X zoom and an optical viewfinder, that won’t look sexy in the ads, so Olympus swims with the competition.
Posted by terry at 01:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
[ THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ... ]
HERE’S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT TO CHEER YOUR DAY. While it is true that most software for digi-snappers costs at least an arm, and sometimes also a leg, it is also true that the single most useful digital imaging application is absolutely free. Not only that, it should be on every photographer’s computer.
The application is question is Irfanview. This is an image viewer with some image editing functions. It can also convert an image from one format to another and can do it in batches. It is lightning fast. Double click on any image associated with Irfanview and it will open in a nonce – unless it is really large, then it will take two nonces.
Irfanview [Win only] is the creation of Bosnian, Irfan Skiljan. It is available in 28 languages, including Esperanto. It will open files that even Adobe Camera RAW can’t handle, such as RAW files from the newest cameras. It will also open mpg and video files, although it is not the best application for that use.
We have Irfanview installed on the Imaging computers and associated with all picture file types. We couldn’t live without it, and we regularly check www.irfanview.com for updates. Even if it cost money we would buy it.
Xnview [Win and Mac] is similar to Irfanview. It has more advanced editing functions but it doesn’t open as quickly. However, if we were to restrict ourselves to one fairly comprehensive picture viewer and editor on a laptop then this is the one we would choose.
Our indispensable audio editing program is Audacity [Win, Mac, Linux]. Combined with the LAME mp3 encoder this setup gives real audio editing power. The graphical interface is intuitive and editing controls are much like word processing – select, copy, cut, paste. We use Audacity to create edited sound tracks for slide shows for display on television. We like to control sound duration rather than let the slideshow creator crash out when the pictures stop.
Nero 8 is a great suite of programs, but it is not free and for simple CD/DVD burning of data it is overkill. AmoK [Win] boasts that: “AmoK CD/DVD Burning does not have a media centre, wave editor or cover designer and cannot create videos. AmoK CD/DVD Burning burns CDs and DVDs and offers all options you need – not more and not less.” And it does it well. It is particularly useful with Windows Vista which has taken the elegant CD/DVD burning function of Windows XP and turned it into a monster that insists on formatting blank discs before it will do anything.
High dynamic range (HDR) photo processing is one of the most discussed concepts in digital photography these days. This is where you recover all the tones in a scene by taking three or more photos at different exposures and then blend and process them either in Photoshop CS3 or in a purpose-built commercial program like Photomatix. If you simply want to get a feel for what all the fuss is about you can try HDR with Picturenaut [Win] This is donation-ware – it is free, but if you like it a donation through PayPal is a way of saying thank you. This program doesn’t know about RAW files but it handles jpegs nicely.
Why are creators so generous? In the words of HDRLabs: “Picturenaut is released as freeware, because we believe in open access and good karma.” Take note, Mr Gates.
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Posted by terry at 01:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 13, 2008
[ REVIEW—NIKON D60 DSLR ]
Price: $1200
Excellent entry DSLR with drawbacks
The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera is Nikon’s cheapest DSLR. As tested it came with the 18-55mm kit lens with vibration reduction. The combination is small and light with good ergonomics. It has two dust removal functions – the traditional filter shake plus the “exclusive airflow control system”, which appears to be a method of directing a current of air across the filter to blow away dust. There is in-camera processing called Active D-lighting which is intended to extend dynamic range. The viewfinder is reasonably large and bright for a mirror system.
Like: This is a responsive camera that is a pleasure to use. The lens, which feels flimsy, is in fact a very good kit lens. Images are sharp and contrast is good. The image stabilisation is effective. Image quality straight from the camera is consistently good. This is one of the best entry level camera/lens combinations that we have tried.
Dislike: As with the D40/D40X, Nikon has chosen not to install a focus drive in the camera body. This means that the range of auto-focus lenses available for the camera is very limited. There is no Nikkor auto-focus prime lens that will work with the D60. And another anomaly – there is no exposure/white balance bracketing in this camera. We assume that this is a no-cost software feature, so Nikon is really squeezing the features out of this camera to distance it from more expensive models. And there is no RAW processing software supplied – that costs extra. All a bit cheap by comparison with the competition.
Verdict: This camera has many of the qualities we expect from Nikon – responsiveness, excellent ergonomics and consistent image processing – in a lightweight body. On its own terms it is a fine camera and no doubt will retail for considerably less than its RRP. For anyone who is content with the kit and has no aspirations to own better lenses and couldn’t care less about exposure bracketing – in other words wants the simplest DSLR – then the D60 is a winner. Compare with the Olympus E-510 before buying.
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Posted by terry at 01:58 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
[ INSPECT A GADGET ]
BUYING A DIGITAL CAMERA opens the door on a whole pleasure dome full of gadgets – some essential to get the best from the camera and some just good old toys. It’s hard to keep up with the flood of new optional extras for the digi snapper, but here is the low-down on a few that we have under review at the moment.
Velbon Ultra Lux-i L tripod ($200) Tri
pod design is all about finding a compromise between rigidity and weight. This unit gives weight priority over rigidity, at least at its full extension. Folded up it measures 39cm and weighs 1320 grams. At its full height it measures 161cm. At its lowest, with its legs splayed, which it does with clever leg-top clips, it is 19cm off the ground with the centre column detached. The legs are tubular and lock in place with a quick twist. The supplied pan and tilt head has three spirit levels to check both horizontal and vertical orientation. The camera – up to 2kg – is attached with a detachable base plate. Rigidity is good up to 115cm, but the final leg extension is too thin and flimsy. A carry bag is included.
Lexar Professiona
l UDMA Dual Slot memory card reader ($67) This USB 2.0 compatible memory card reader will transfer files from either Compact Flash or SD cards. The unit is a lovely piece of industrial design in glossy piano-black plastic. Press the buttons on each side of the base and the top pops up, revealing the card slots. It comes with a USB cable. The box promises “ultimate high speed file transfer”, but this only applies to the UDMA high speed cards. We compared file transfer speeds with a standard CF card reader inbuilt into the computer and found that the time taken to copy files was exactly the same using either device. We compared transfer times from a Lexar UDMA CF card, copying a card full of RAW images, and found that the Lexar took 2 minutes and 5 seconds, compared with 2 minutes 31 from the inbuilt card reader. We didn’t get the “incredibly fast speeds”. Still, it is a neat unit that looks great and does the job, if not quite as spectacularly as we were led to expect.
Kaiser Baas Keyring Photo frame ($30) Now you can carry photos of your children, pets, rhododendrons – who knows? – on your key ring. This 3.75cm LCD device works like larger digital frames. You load pictures into it through a USB connection and it cycles endlessly through the slides. Resolution is low and low contrast pictures work best. Carefully prepared pictures displayed well enough. PhotoViewer software is supplied for resizing and transferring JPG images from the computer. It is possible to crop the images for best fit with a crude but effective
cropping tool. The battery is charged through the USB connection. The design of the key ring is decidedly cheap, although we were sent the white model and we suspect that the black unit might look flasher dangling from the Alfa key.
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Posted by terry at 01:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 07, 2008
[ THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION OF SONY OWNERS ]
We really seem to have touched a raw nerve with the review of the Sony a200 DSLR. Perhaps some clarification is needed.
Note that we criticised the kit lenses, not the camera body. We concluded by suggesting that the a200 is a fine camera let down by its lenses. And at least in Australia the camera comes with those two lenses, whether you want them or not.
In the past we have criticised the quality of the cheap kit lenses sold with the Canon 300/350/400D, but Canon also sell the camera with a better quality lens in what they call the "Enthusiast kit". We have also criticised lenses sold with some Pentax models.
The Sony lenses do have noisy autofocus. Just try the Sony lens alongside the Nikon D60 kit and hear the difference. The longer lens does have a stiff zoom mechanism. It feels cheap, which it is. Sony don't have this problem on their own -- a 70-300mm lens that costs about $100 is bound to be both mechanically and optically inferior to more expensive lenses, so the only question is about the acceptability of the cost/quality compromise.
And the issue of manual focus is simply a fact -- and it is common amongst cheap lenses. If there is no damping friction in the focus ring then it is difficult to focus.
Camera makers are locked in some sort of arms race. More megapixels in compact cameras at the expense of image quality. Longer zoom ranges, again to the detriment of quality. And lower prices, in a Marxist quest for market supremacy. Almost all reviewers harp on the disastrous consequences of too many pixels on tiny sensors. Some of us get steamed up about absurd zoom ranges in cheap, mass produced lenses. It's our hobbyhorse. Every time we persuade a buyer to opt for the dearer lens with the more modest focal length pretensions we feel we have made the world a better place! That is our delusion. We reckon it is, on the whole, less harmful than persuading buyers that they can get a decent 70-300 mm zoom for $100. We paid $2000 for our 70-200 lens which we consider is OK quality, but not great.
You could say that the kit lenses are so cheap that they are irrelevant. Throw them away and invest in better glass. That's much the same as buying a Canon 450D with the enthusiast lens -- you are paying a lot more, getting one less lens, but getting one vastly superior lens for the money. As they say: it's not a deal breaker.
When you hit the sweet spot with one of the Sony lenses [focal length and aperture] the results are good. The problem is one of consistency. If the results were always like this we would be delighted. And that is why we say it's a fundamentally good camera but the lens performance is "haphazard".
[Click on the photo for a larger version. This is the photo straight from the Sony a200 with only resizing in Photoshop]
Incidentally, we have just finished testing the Sony a700 with a 24-70 Carl Zeiss lens. We have nothing but praise for it. It is a magnificent camera/lens combination. You get what you pay for.
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Posted by terry at 12:49 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
March 06, 2008
[REVIEW—SONY a200 DSL with 18-70mm and 75-300mm lenses]
Price: $1400
Not the sharpest camera in the drawer
The low-down: The camera with two lenses is sold as a kit. It has a 10mp sensor with in-body image stabilisation. There is automatic dust removal and the battery has exceptional capacity. The battery meter shows percentage of charge remaining. As part of its Minolta heritage the Sony has an eye proximity switch, seeking focus when an eye approaches the viewfinder. We found this annoying and were pleased that it could be turned off. We can see that some people might find it useful. The viewfinder itself is small and dim. There is no body-top LCD showing camera settings, but as is common with budget DSLRs the information is displayed on the reviewing LCD. There is a lot of plastic in the construction of the camera and lenses.
Like: Auto white balance is good and auto exposure is consistently accurate. Control layout is good. On camera flash is above average. Compact Flash memory cards are used as well as Sony’s Memory Stick.
Dislike: The lenses are disappointing. Focus is slow, noisy and haphazard. Contrast and sharpness are not as good as the competition. The longer lens has a stiff zoom mechanism and manual focus is not practicable on either lens because the control ring has no damping resistance.
Verdict: This camera enters a hotly contested field where Pentax, Nikon, Olympus and Canon are the competitors. Nikon and Olympus provide the best budget optics and set the standard. The excellent Pentax K10D is advertised at $1100 with a modest Sigma lens, a true bargain. To even imagine that you can buy a camera with an acceptable 75-300mm lens for $1400 is delusionary. Sony’s superior 70-200mm G lens costs $3200 on its own. This kit is clearly the brainchild of the marketing department where more is always better. The camera is compatible with Minolta auto-focus lenses which means there is some second-hand glass available. We tried an old Minolta lens with mixed results – sharpness was better but contrast was worse. Unlike Canon, who offer the 400D with a choice of lenses of different qualities and prices, Sony’s approach is to sell the a200 with the lenses in the box. We suspect a good camera compromised by cheap lenses.
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Posted by terry at 12:11 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
[ MORE HANDSOME PRINTS ]
FUSSY PHOTOGRAPHERS, GATHER ROUND. Here is the low-down on making exhibition quality prints on an inkjet printer from digital image files. The unfussy, as we pointed out last week, can get consistent output just by using the automated printing software included with most printers – provided you stick with the manufacturer’s inks and papers. Which you should always do, anyway.
There are some good quality third party papers worth trying. The known brand names – Ilford and Kodak – are trustworthy. And there are some respected names that won’t be so readily recognised. But cheap paper from stationery supply shops, bearing their own brand, won’t do the job.
With inks there is really no choice. For best picture quality and longest print life it is essential to use the printer maker’s own inks.
Derek Mobbs, the man at Epson who knows all about inkjet printing, has produced a number of useful guides to the process that can be downloaded from tech.epson.com.au/downloads It’s a place to start, even if you don’t have an Epson printer.
Derek warns: “Colour management is a complex subject that can take years of study.” Oh dear.
Here is Derek’s method in a nutshell. First, calibrate your monitor. If its colours and tonal range are all over the shop then your chances of making a good print are close to zero. And once having calibrated the monitor do it again once a month for the rest of your life.
There are two ways of calibrating the screen – the subjective squint or the objective hardware method. When Photoshop is installed it puts Adobe Gamma into the system which is an on-screen series of steps that require the user to make some difficult decisions about colour and tone. It’s a bit like using an optometrist’s chart. Hardware calibration, with a device like the Pantone Huey ($79), is a more reliable method.
Then, assuming you are using Photoshop, go to Edit/Colour Settings and make Settings “Europe Prepress 2” and Working Space “Adobe RGB”. If your camera has selectable colour space then set it to Adobe RGB – which is not what most makers recommend.
When you open your image for editing “convert document’s colours to the working space”. (Read Derek’s little manual for Soft Proofing – the best way to preview the print output on screen.)
Now for the printing. Select File/Print (or Print with Preview) and then select File Handling, “Let Photoshop determine colours”. Choose the Printer Profile from a drop down list of profiles identified by printer model number and paper type. This is easy with Epson but harder with Canon because Canon uses mysterious IDs for its paper type. (PR1 = Photo Paper Pro quality level 1; PR2 = Photo Paper Pro quality level 2; SP1 = Photo Paper Plus Glossy and MP1 = Matte Photo Paper quality level 1.)
Rendering Intent can be Perceptual and Black Point Compensation On.
Now get into the printer dialogue and select paper type and size and print quality. Then jump to Advanced (Epson) or Manual/Set (Canon). For Epson select ICM and under ICC/ICM profile check Off (no colour adjustment). For Canon do not enable ICM and make Print Type “None”.
There is a wealth of useful information and advice on colour management and inkjet printing at www.computer-darkroom.com
May your handsome prints live happily ever after.
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