The most recent SLR photo cameras from Sony, the Sony Alpha 33 and Sony Alpha 55 are presenting a striking feature: a semi-transparent mirror replacing the usual reflex mirror that we knew up to now. This looks very nice in the press releases, what does that mean and why use such a technology?
Cross-section view of SLR system:
1 – Front-mount lens (4-element Tessar design)
2 – Reflex mirror at 45-degree angle
3 – Focal plane shutter
4 – Film or sensor
5 – Focusing screen or glass
6 – Condenser lens
7 – Optical glass pentaprism (or pentamirror)
8 – Eyepiece
Let’s start with the organization of the most common Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera, as we generally know it. On the cross-section view here, we can see the light trajectory (in yellow) when the mirror is in lower position to direct light (and the image) toward the viewfinder. At exposure time (when you press the shutter release button), the mirror moves up to let the light go straight to the sensor.
Very efficient, this configuration still has some drawbacks which have long been considered minor, but still very real.
First, during exposure, the viewfinder is totally black. It’s not very long, but the inconvenience is very observable by the user.
The mechanical design needed to move the mirror up and down is complex, fragile, but must operate very quickly to maintain a fast shooting cadence. On pro photo cameras, these mechanisms become complex and expensive to reach high frame rates. The technology progresses fast, but this is only in the most recent years that camera manufacturers have been able to provide more than 3 frames per second on standard cameras. Some pro SLRs (like the Nikon D3, for example) reach 8 fps (but the price falls in the financial investment category!)
In a rather unusual move, Canon has announced a surprising sensor the developed: a 120 Mega-pixel APS-H sensor.
APS-H is the size of the photo sensors used in the EOS 1D series (clearly Pro cameras). And this big sensor has a huge amount of pixels (nearly 7.5 times larger than the company’s highest pixel count commercially available sensor), and is able to do HD video capture on 1/6th of its surface or 9.5 fps continuous shooting.
There is no immediate commercial application to expect from this technology demonstrator, but this is an impressive achievement.
Nota bene: The latest Canon demonstrator of this kind had 50 MP in 2007.
Even if you are not reading French, I highly recommend checking these (most of the posts are made of image comparisons using the yellow buttons to select the software program results you want to see). Even if you are equipped with Pentax, Canon or Nikon gear, the lessons you will draw from this are applicable on all the photo camera brands, concerning strengths and weaknesses of each of these software tools.
To understand the review process and the methodology, I would recommend the reading of (here, all in French):
With the tests, body by body, you will immediately recognize the excellent results of Lightroom 3/Camera Raw 6 (these two Adobe software programs share a single common RAW file management core). Just behind, comes DxO Optics Pro 6 which is a bit more violent (or more accentuation prone) and the (not famous enough) Bibble Pro 5.
From this point, you will always be able to get the best from the photos you were forced into shooting in poor lighting conditions which required big ISO figures.
During the analog years of photography, it was possible to photograph pictures taken in the Infrared part of the light spectrum. Quite often, it led to a images that were simultaneously eerie looking (for the shift in colors) and slightly blurred by a reduced quality/resolution. It was only a matter of buying an IR filter and some IR-sensitive film. Then, you had to experiment.
Today, in the Digital Age of the Pixel, infrared photo became a little more difficult because, while the digital photo sensor is by nature very sensitive to infrared light, this is counteracted by filter removing this sensitivity (most sensors as so sensitive that they would produce bizarre-looking pictures if left untamed). Now, this is even more true for DSLR cameras which are nearly systematically closed to Infrared light (mostly, the only solution is a conversion involving replacing parts in the SLR camera and a lot of trial and error).
However, the images may be worth the effort if you look at some pictures produced by patient photographers.
I had missed it, but you should try and look at this marvelous collection of microscopy pictures found at the Nikon’s annual Small World photomicrography competition in 2009. They honored 20 images of very high-quality. Not something that everyone of us would be able to do, but a very beautiful display: 35 Years of the World’s Best Microscope Photography.
Some really look like art pieces more than mere photographs of nature phenomenons.
1996: Doxorubin in methanol and dimethylbenzenesulfonic acid (80x), Polarized Light. / Lars BechNaarden, The Netherlands. Courtesy of Nikon Small World.
During a group travel, it is very common to consider that the experience can be considered as a reliability test for photographic hardware. This was really the case during my photo safari trip to Botswana in April-May 2010.
The participants were spread on a large spectrum from a pro photographer (Laurent Baheux) equipped with a Nikon D3, some determined amateurs bringing a Canon EOS 5D, a Canon EOS 1D Mk3, a Canon EOS 550D, a Canon EOS 50D, a Konica-Minolta Dynax 7D and a Sony Alpha 700 (so, without any representation for Nikon) and an amateur equipped with a Sony bridge. Furthermore, there was also a Canon G11 high-end point-and-shoot, also often used, but more during the stops at the camp than in the main safari activities.
Chobe, Botswana
The teachings in terms of reliability and usability are always difficult to draw from observations (all the more when there are so few elements for comparison), but they still can be useful. Just look at the list of the relevant “observations”:
From the very first mist in front of the Victoria Falls, the Canon 550D chose to stop down (the analysis proved that it was only a small water infiltration between the camera and its lens – later easily corrected by wiping and drying it). It is true that mist quickly transformed itself into a heavy tropical rain and the photographers did not push it too far. But all the other cameras seem to have accepted much more humidity than whatever was initially specified.
The use of big tele-lenses is a very heavy mechanical stress for the interface between the camera body and the lens. This was proven again by the need to tighten the screws of the lens plate of a Nikon D3 and the base mount of a Minolta 300mm/4 (used on the Sony and Minolta bodies). Not really dramatic, these incidents remind us that you should be prepared for small maintenance operations during a difficult and stressful experience like an intense photo safari (5000 to 15000 shutter activations per photographer).
The environment is harsh in a country where dust is everywhere as it was the case here in Botswana. Not counting the obviously predictable appearance of stains on SLR sensors after swapping lenses or during the mechanical moves of internal lens parts (Photoshop will be called into action to “clean up” the pictures), we could observe an extreme case of total failure: A 100-400mm/5,6 zoom from Canon grinded to a stop in 200mm position probably because of sand or a big lump of dust. This will be back to the repair services of Canon, but with the risk of a cost higher than the residual value of this relatively old zoom lens (the owner seems now convinced that it should be replaced with a 500mm prime, but this is another story altogether).
Unexplained incident in my own photo bag: A Minolta battery appeared to short-circuit (unusable and impossible to charge) and demonstrated again the criticity of having some replacement parts at hand (at least for the small inexpensive parts whose lack could lead the trip to a complete failure). Being equipped with three batteries (unfortunately one of them is already really old and sick) allowed some relief to keep using the Minolta D7D as a second camera body. If I had had only two battery packs it would have become a very unpleasant situation, as I should admit.
You can easily notice in this list that more or less every brand of photographic hardware had to suffer some deterioration. Having only pro equipment did not avoid L.Baheux to do some minor repair work on the field, but it’s true that a pro photographer is often less cautious when using its cameras and lenses (he/she will rely more heavily on its high tolerance for rough handling).
My photos from Botswana are being published all during June 2010 on www.roumazeilles.net and some of them are also sold as cards, posters or large-size prints on my photo gallery and RedBubble (from $3.90).
What is less visible in this list is that some equipment, short of a full failure, had some unpleasant weaknesses. At this very high usage load, batteries have suffered a lot of strain. The high-capacity battery packs of the Nikon D3 or the Canon 1D MkIII find here a major advantage. But the batteries of the Sony Alpha 700 required a large number of recharges (it is difficult if not impossible to spend a 1000-shot half-day with only a single battery). Charging becomes a strict necessity, even before the end of the day; The use of an additional battery grip could be an excellent idea too. And when we reach a camp site without any autonomous electricity source (generators are often not allowed inside the National Parks limits), it becomes critical to have a DC/AC converter to connect to the 12V plug of the car/truck. But remember that in this case, the plug and the converter become a common point of rupture for all the photo passengers and it may be handy to have a redundant connection (e.g. “crocodile clips”) when a 12V plug fails (I had this experience a few years ago in Kenya) and a spare converter(we found this need in Botswana). Paranoia is useful. I often force myself into relying on nothing more than a 12V-only power source (with the adequate chargers and plugs) to avoid relying too much on the presence of a heavy, bulky, and inefficient converter).
The most strained batteries have certainly been the Sony bridge camera ones. Its owner had the good idea to bring four of them to be able to exchange them often and charge them nearly continuously during the long trips (we had days of 6 to 10 hours of driving either in safari or in transit).
Conclusion
There seems to be no obvious reliability issue with the camera equipment observed here (what happened seemed quite easy to explain from the age of the involved devices and it could well be the mere consequence of low statistical representativity). However, it should be a lesson for all photo travelers: Be sure to plan for all kinds of failures from your hardware and from the hardware you will be relying upon.
If you are as found of action movies and action video games as you love photography, you may appreciate the looks of this small hot-shoe accessory which will help you align your camera with your subject. Four separate reticles (Point, Circle Point, Circle Cross, Cross), two colors (green, red), and three laser strengths define this CR2032-battery-powered $45 gadget.
It’s probably better for wildlife photography if you are not afraid of looking like a weirdo hunting wildlife with extremely unusual devices (it never looked as appropriate as today to associate this news to the “shoot” category/theme.
You wanted 3D photography, Sony decided to bring it to you without even modifying your photo camera.
To reach this point, Sony decided to partner with nVidia, the PC graphics card specialist, which presents now a solution for post-processing any picture in order to bring a 3rd dimension to it..
The result is still quite uncertain for sure (at least until we get to see the actual results), but this is a great marketing coup for nVidia’s software program, 3D Vision Photo Viewer, usable to display these 3D images on the nVidia PC video cards like the all-new GeForce GTX 465.
To go further, wait for some more spectacular announcements from Sony in the realm of 3D imaging, either from the NEX family or from the Alpha D-SLR series.
You have been told so repeatedly (I even wrote in 2007 an article about the weaknesses of CD/DVD, a few years ago already), it is mentioned again in an article about backups for the photographers, but there are still some people to believe that the CD or the DVD is a good solution to the archival problem of digital photographic pictures.
This is all wrong: CD and DVD are optical devices whose shelf life has nothing to do with the century some would believe is the credible target. Even in the best storage conditions.
The storage or the the short-term backup do not bring any significant question, but building decade-long or century-long archives this way is an altogether different issue, understanding that these digital media have no more than a lifetime of 5 or 10 years.
Then:
If this problem is correctly handled in some specialized public organizations, it is widely ignored by the public and most of the institutions or enterprises. A large quantity of personal, medical, scientific, technical, administrative data is thus in really endangered.
So you still doubt it? Your photos are still on a DVD?
Sony just made a round of announcements that should attract a lot of attention in the photography market (but in relation with video).
First and foremost, here are the first samples of the new range of point-and-shoot photo cameras using an APS-C digital sensor. With the NEX3 and the NEX5, they intend to bring a top-quality photo digital sensor (as found in the digital SLR cameras) in a very compact form factor: LetsGoDigital noticed that the NEX5 is still smaller than an Olympus €-PL1 (even if it is based upon a smaller sensor) or the very recent Samsung NX10.
At this point, it may even be useful to notice that this is the first (and long-promised) appearance of video capture technology (using AVCHD file format) exploiting an APS-C-size sensor at Sony. This will certainly open the opportunity to demonstrate the technology expected on the upcoming successor to the Alpha 700 (presented in February with another D-SLR camera from the Alpha range and expected to be at a lower price point).
This issue is going to be very interesting to track in the coming weeks (and do not draw conclusions like the Sony Alpha 750 would appear before the end of May).
But this is only the beginning here: Sony also just presented a video camcorder which is still in development, whose launch is expected this Fall. Let’s stop at some of the most striking characteristics:
It has an APS-C digital sensor (again, like on most of the Digital SLR photo cameras of the Japanese brand)
It grabs 1080p HD videos
It receives interchangeable lenses taken from the Alpha series (of digital SLR cameras from Sony)
Didn’t we say that Sony had decided to break ground in video capture using a photo digital sensor?
It is sometimes unpleasant to discover a little annoying problem like a defective pixel on the sensor of a digital photo camera. It produces a small colored pixel (often black or white, sometimes of some other color). On a RAW file, it could be worse if it produces a colored streak.
It is most visible when shooting long exposures and the strategy used by most photo cameras is simply to shoot an additional black picture(without opening the shutter) just after the photo you wanted to find the hot pixels and remove/subtract them from the original photo. This is observable as a relatively long computation after a long exposure photo.
It takes time in the field and it uses up the camera electrical energy. So, here is a small tool that allow to transfer this operation toward the studio PC: PixelFixer.
The list of photo cameras this tool is compatible with contains a lot of cameras from Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Leica. No Sony I know of (they are left with the in-camera option that works well too).
You thought that Sony was preparing an SLR photo camera with video recording features? (as previously announced for the successor of the Sony Alpha 700, expected later this year)
Here is something else entirely: Sony just presented a video camera (not a photo camera) with a 35mm (or Full Frame) sensor. It will probably knock down RED and Panasonic. Let’s hope that this technology will be immediately applied in 2010 in a Sony Alpha 750.
Announced, but the availability is still not before the beginning of 2011…
It works quite simply: You take several pictures of the same location or the same monument. There is always one or more ugly tourists on the photo, but they are never in the same place. The software will identify the partly masked parts and fill them with data coming from images where they were not hidden by a tourist.
If you have enough pictures, if you work with a tripod (to ensure a good correspondence from image to image), it will “wipe” tourists out of the photo. It also works on passing cars or any other annoying mobile object that is tarnishing some of our photos. Technology at the service of solving a real problem.
The best of all worlds, the miracle combination. But, most of all, a great little trick of engineering: a radio remote control for your photo camera which communicates with a small gadget fixed in the flash shoe of your SLR camera and transmitting the image right from the SLR direct AV connector.
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