Photography educator Mark Wallace has been featured on Fstoppers probably more than any other photographer. His easy to understand approach to lighting and tech talk has made Mark one of the top teachers in the field. On May 18-20th, Mark is hosting a FREE Speedlights 101 Workshop on CreativeLIVE. If you aren’t familiar with CreativeLIVE, they stream full photography workshops for free but also allow you to download full copies for future reference. Enroll for the free online workshop in the full post below.
Here is some info about the course I found on Mark’s website:
Course Description:
Once you know what’s happening with your camera and flash you can do almost anything. Speedlights open up a new realm in your photography. They are light to carry, quick to set up. And you never know when you’re going to need that extra pop of light for a more dramatic image. This workshop will give you the confidence to incorporate small portable flash in your photography toolkit. From freezing action in sports or adding drama in location portraits, this workshop will include lots of live shooting examples that will help everything make sense. Get ready to take your photography to the next level. Once you start working with portable flash, you’ll never understand how you lived without them.
Mark’s Breakdown of the 3-Days:
Day 1 (May 18) – get the principles down. Once you know what’s happening with your camera/flash you can do almost anything. Get students to try things at each step of the way (I have activities for people at home).
Day 2 (May 19) – expand on day 1 and get the flash off the camera and start modifying the light. More hands-on demos with lots of room for Q&A to put things in practice. More show less tell.
Day 3 (May 20) – Working through common scenarios. Day three will be almost all shooting based on the most common scenarios I hear about (how do I freeze motion on sports, how do I shoot at night, etc). Lots of room for Q&A.
Fstoppers has always been about high quality free education and inspiration. So if you are in need of a refresher course on speedlights and studio lighting or if lighting is completely new to you, Mark’s free course should be on your calendar. If you aren’t able to tune in over the weekend, CreativeLIVE is offering $50 off on preorder downloads now until the event.
In the last few weeks the already large number of options for filmmakers have been shaken up. Current cameras all seem to fall into different niches.
There are the depth of field specialists – 5D Mark III and D800 with full frame sensors. There are the resolution and raw codec specialists the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera and Red Scarlet. There’s the slow mo specialist the Sony FS700 and my personal favourite all-rounders the GH2 and FS100 which just keep getting better with firmware updates (the FS100 is now a world cam with latest one from Sony).
What happens next will be a fascinating fight. EOSHD rounds up the contenders.
Canon
Should it exist, the C100 is going to have to be cheap. Putting a stripped down C300 out there for $8k isn’t going to work. Putting it between the FS700 and C300 won’t do either, because frankly that isn’t possible – the FS700 is already better specced than the C300 for half the price. It is 4K ready so more future proof, and does 240fps 1080p whilst the C500 will come in at a LOT more – $30,000 in fact. I think the C500 is going to be great for Hollywood and future proof broadcast acquisition in 4K – a viable alternative to the Alexa but there is an awfully big hole under $30,000.
The 4K DSLR is basically a 1D X stills camera and lacks fundamental features like 25p, robust ports like HD-SDI and XLR, or any usability concessions like peaking. A serious mistake in my view and a very very cynical product. It is also said to be disappointing in terms of the image (not true 4K and only a 8bit codec). The 1080p mode is multi-region but said to be no better in image quality than the 5D Mark III or 1D X, which is just crazy! Everyone is in love with full frame and the DSLR form factor for video. Canon should be providing a proper 2K raw DSLR for $6,000 with an electronic ND filter and XLR in a battery grip, scrap the wobbly HDMI port and with a product like this Canon will clean up. There’s simply no excuse not to sacrifice some margin and give us a proper next generation camera, otherwise they risk losing their accidentally won foothold completely.
Blackmagic Design
I have to admit that when news of this camera came out I had a vision of the future as clear as day, and I’ll be very surprised if the BMD Camera does not push virtually everyone else to compete, like the iPhone did in the mobile market. Yes there will be a slew of imitators BUT the great strength of a post production company like Blackmagic is their expertise in software and recorder hardware. Their Cinema Camera raw recorder is fully integrated and proven hardware. DaVinci is highly desirable as a professional post production suite. Their in-camera firmware and touch screen interface is also leaps and bounds ahead of Japanese software design.
Above: 12bit RAW at 2.5K resolution for $3000 – the sensation of NAB 2012
Red
Like Canon, Red seem to be highly focussed on providing for the very high end with industry tools and not so much the lower end. The Scarlet’s ‘brain’ at $10,000 is pretty reasonable. The rest of the kit to get it operational is extremely expensive. I am not paying $3200 for an SSD, I don’t care if it is used by Fincher and Jackson, that price is out of my imagination. Red’s chief competition at the moment is Arri, Sony and Canon. Panasonic have their 4K Vari-Cam coming but until then aren’t in the digital cinema game. Arri have carved up the lions share of both film and TV. Red have a great run with many high profile shoots but their smaller support network causes doubts in the minds of many producers especially in Europe. Sony’s F65 will provide stiff competition at the very top end – though the Epic has the edge on chassis size.
Red like to portray the image of a lone gun-man fighting against the corporate might of Japan. Indeed the big question here is whether Red are corporate enough to fight Arri & Sony in the digital cinema industry or whether they are too much a loose cannon and too small to compete with large multinationals, with their wide support network, trusted brand names, huge engineering resources and strength in depth. Red do well to win high profile shoots like The Hobbit but they need more scope. Lower down, nearly everyone at NAB was in agreement in saying the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera could be a serious blow to Red’s hopes of securing a mass market footing with 3K for $3k. As for 4K – though we don’t know the price of the 4K recording unit yet, the Sony FS700 certainly seems to undercut the Scarlet – as well as offering higher frame rates (without a crop of the sensor).
Sony
The FS700 is the bomb. It covers broad range of customers from FS100 upgraders to potential C300 buyers – so right the way from well off consumers to broadcast television, not only as a 1080p camera but as a future proof 4K ready one that does 240fps super slow mo. The 4K add-on later is a touch of genius by Sony because it gives them the luxury of being more flexible with their market approach. The market is changing so fast, Sony can wait until the others have their 4K offerings out and bend to their pricing strategy; They only have to take into account the manufacturing and development cost of the external recorder, since the camera already has a 4K sensor and 3G-HD-SDI for $8k.
Hopefully the external recorder will be small enough to integrate into the camera like the current SSD unit on the FS100 does.
Panasonic’s GH2 is brilliant and the momentum keeps building (the GH3 is due this year). The hack shows what low end hardware is capable of when truly unleashed. That camera’s sensor and image processor could be in a C300 competitor if it had the same build, built in ND filter wheel, better LCD, better audio and sturdier connectivity. That Panasonic can put a consumer camera like this out with such a knockout image for $600 makes you wonder what they are capable of at $8000 when freed from the kind of unimaginative thinking that plagued the AF100. AVC Ultra seems positive but I have a couple of concerns about Panasonic - the under specced AF100 is a problem as is the lack of a replacement any time soon. Also AVC Ultra is not a raw codec. Canon have EOSRAW, Blackmagic have uncompressed raw, Arri and Red have their own codecs. Where’s Panasonic’s?
Above: the current Varicam is small chip CCD. Where is the Super 35mm version or a higher end offering above the already dated AF100?
And the winner is…
JVC! Only joking.
I originally began this article before NAB and one piece of the original text is quite pertinent now…
“At some point this year there will be a gap that one of these manufacturers will literally walk straight into, whether it is Sony with slow-mo on the FS700, Panasonic with their 12bit codec or Canon with a 4K DSLR.”
Well it turned out to be Blackmagic Design who walked into a gap.
We’re not talking about a small gap either, rather a gaping hole.
I’m astonished how unimaginative the big guys have been in their approach to bringing the mass market to the digital cinema market. The people who will buy the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera won’t just be a tiny niche of indie filmmakers – they will be stills photographers, camcorder users, DSLR owners, students, artists, freelancers, journalists, small production studios and even some of the bigger ones, broadcasters, wedding videographers and even Philip Bloom.
That is some broad appeal!
Purely by virtue of silly pricing, Canon’s Cinema EOS stuff doesn’t have the same broad mass market appeal and their stills DSLRs aren’t giving us what we want (a major missed opportunity).
Whilst the Blackmagic camera is great remember however that it is only one product. Although the singular Apple iPhone mopped the floor with manufacturers who had 100′s of different models and variations on the market, filmmaking is more diverse than the world of pocketable Nokias. I think by virtue of pushing so hard on specs and being aggressive on pricing Sony are going to come out top dog. The F65 is more powerful than the Alexa for a similar price – $65k. The FS700 offers just so much for $8k it is mind-blowing. The FS100 for low budget shooters is a much better option than a Canon DSLR. Sony are also being pretty brave with their DSLRs as well – first to put 1080/60p in there – first to do a pro mirrorless camera with the NEX 7 and their sensor in the Nikon D800 is probably the best full frame sensor in the world right now. I can’t wait to see what their full frame A99 is capable of in video mode (remember it is in their new business strategy to push 4K tech to consumers).
So I can see Sony cleaning up in a broad range of areas, Blackmagic cleaning up at the $3000 point, Arri maintaining a good footing in worldwide high end production and everyone else picking up the crumbs from under the king’s table.
Above: a Magic Lantern test running on a real living 5D Mark III in the wild
Initial tests by Alex and the team at Magic Lantern show the hack will work with the 5D Mark III. Canon recently posted an updated firmware for the camera, allowing the file to be analysed and it seems Magic Lantern can be ported to the new camera.
For me his hack will be interesting, as this is the first DSLR with the new DIGIC5 processor as opposed to the processor all previous Magic Lanterns ran on – DIGIC4.
More power should allow the camera to be pushed much further in terms of image quality, frame rates and bitrates this time.
It will be great to have all the extra features Magic Lantern offers that Canon doesn’t – like peaking for one!
I wonder if the sensor can do 1080/60p if pushed with the variable frame rate patch?
Here is a sneak preview of whats to come. Please be sure to download the 50Mbit constant bitrate clip rather than judging it from the highly compressed Vimeo stream.
This clip is shot with my modded 5D Mark III without the anti-aliasing filter softening the image. The clip was shot on the softest setting with no in-camera sharpening. Removing the AA filter also makes the camera sensitive to infrared light and gives you a bit of extra detail in the shadows, but you will need an IR-cut filter on your lens for electric lighting and black fabrics. Canon recently produced a 60Da for astro-photography and with this mod the Mk III becomes a 5Da!
There’s no serious issues with moire and aliasing after removing the filter.
As for the resolution increase – it is there!
Neither James Miller or myself has yet had time to test this against a normal 5D Mark III but I do intend to do this soon.
I’m also putting together a step by step guide book on how to do this mod yourself (the safest way). Opening / rebuilding the camera takes about 30 minutes each way (if you follow my instructions).
Canon has issued a product advisory for the 5D MkIII, admitting that the company’s newest addition currently on shelves has some issues exposing correctly while the backlight is on. Canon is working on the issue, but has not yet stated anything specific about possible solutions…
It’s important to note that this issue only happens in low-light situations and that it’s different than a light leak, which is what not-so-uncommonly happens with lenses of various brands. Still, it’s a big issue for some hoping to exploit the camera’s great low-light capabilities; and hopefully Canon will find a solution soon. For a clearer idea of the issue, the video above shows an excellent example of the backlight-exposure problem.
Here’s the full advisory:
“To Users of the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR Camera
Thank you for using Canon products.
The phenomenon described below has been confirmed when using the Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR Camera.
Canon is now examining the countermeasures and once the countermeasures are decided, we will post the information on our Web site.
Phenomenon
In extremely dark environments, if the LCD panel illuminates, the displayed exposure value may change as a result of the AE sensor’s detection of light from the LCD panel.
Affected Product
Canon EOS 5D Mark III Digital SLR Camera
Support
Once the preparations are complete, we will be making an announcement on our Web site.
This information is for residents of the United States and Puerto Rico only. If you do not reside in the USA or Puerto Rico, please contact the Canon Customer Support Center in your region.
Please register the EOS 5D Mark III. By registering, we will be able to notify you via email when service updates are available. If you already registered, please ensure you are opted-in to receive the notification.
Thank you,
Customer Support Operations
Canon U.S.A., Inc
Contact Information for Inquiries
Canon Customer Support Center
Phone:1-800-OK-CANON
1-800-652-2666
TDD:1-866-251-3752
Email: carecenter@cits.canon.com
For additional support options: www.usa.canon.com/support”
Originally Posted here...
Full Article Source: http://fstoppers.com/news-its-official-canon-5dmkiiis-backlight-affects-exposure
Canon 5D Mark III is hard to find but worth it
By Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES – Canon is ready for its closeup, and it's a beauty.
Talking Tech
By Jefferson Graham
The 5D Mark III is the stunning — and pricey at $3,499 — sequel to the $2,200 5D Mark II, an SLR aimed at professionals and serious hobbyists that totally revolutionized video when it was released in 2008.
On the Mark II, video shot on a still camera could, for the first time, look dramatically better than that of a video camera. The Mark II produced cinema-like quality thanks to its large image sensor, which is more than 20 times the size of what's found in a consumer video camera.
It also became the go-to camera for wedding and portrait photographers, who liked its compact body and its ability to shoot wider, high-quality frames in a full-frame sensor. The sensor is larger than what's seen in most digital SLRs.
The sequel, the Mark III, is just out and hard to get. Online retailers report limited supply, and Amazon says it will take one to two months to fulfill orders. However, we got our hands on one and spent a few days shooting photos and video. Consider us drooling.
The Mark III has three major upgrades.
•Sharpness. The camera sensor has been redesigned to produce dramatically improved images, especially ones produced in low light, such as in living rooms and restaurants and at parties.
•Greater focus. To use the autofocus effectively, Canon lets you select from nine dots on the Mark II screen to set your focus point — with the center point being the most accurate. The Mark III has 61 focus points and, of those, some 41 are as strong as the one center point for the Mark II, says Rick Berk, a tech specialist at Canon.
•Video. On the Mark II, a major limitation was that you could shoot clips up to only 12 minutes in length. Now you get 29-minute clips. Which makes it more usable at weddings, school plays, concerts and recitals, where you can't afford to miss a moment .
I've been a 5D shooter since 2006, upgrading rather instantly to the Mark II in 2008, shortly after it was released. I spent the money on the upgrade for one main reason: low-light performance, which was so much better than the Mark 1.
The 5D Mark III has a 22.3-megapixel sensor, redesigned for dramatically improved low-light performance, Berk says.
Light starts with the ISO settings on your camera. Generally, the lower the ISO, the better the quality. In afternoon daylight, you may shoot at 100 ISO, while indoors, you could be at 800 or 1600. That's about as high as you'd want to go for acceptable quality. With the Mark II, I would never go any higher than 3200 before picture and video quality would fall off. On the Mark III the other night, I took pictures of my cat Jinxy indoors, resting under the table, at the previously unimaginable setting of 12,800 ISO. The images look amazingly sharp and noise-free.
For comparison, I took the same shot with the Mark II at 6400 — as high as it goes — and the results are muddy and full of noise.
Focusing still tricky
Getting to shoot longer video clips is a huge plus for the Mark III, as is the ability to shoot the clips at a higher bit rate for an even crisper image. But focusing isn't any easier.
You compose the image on the LCD window on the back of the camera, where it's hard to be as precise as through a viewfinder. (Solution: Many folks buy hood loupes that cover the LCD.) Additionally, you can't effectively autofocus once the recording starts if the camera or subject moves. Because of the issues, most folks making videos with DSLRs shoot in manual focus.
What you can do with video on the Mark III that you couldn't do before is change the audio settings while recording. With the Mark II, if the audio conditions changed during your shot, there was nothing you could do except stop recording, set and reset. Now you change the audio settings during recording.
Additional bonus: Canon has added a headphone jack to monitor sound while recording. It sounds small, but for videographers, this is huge.
Still some issues
Despite all the advances Canon has made to the Mark III, there is still room for improvement:
•Autofocus, as mentioned, is still an issue.
•No rotating LCD screen, such as is found on other Canon cameras, including the 60D and Rebel T3i. These features are beloved by videographers, especially those who need to take shots of themselves.
•The back of the Mark III has buttons in new places that don't necessarily improve ergonomics. More often, they just confuse longtime users.
Still, the Mark III overall is a great leap forward. With the much sharper photos and low-light breakthroughs, I can learn new buttons.
Ka-ching! Canon got me again.
Source: USAtoday For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Canon 5D Mark II Leapfrogs iPhone 4 as Most Popular Camera on Flickr
By Peter Pachal For Mashable
Canon’s EOS 5D Mark II DSLR camera has just passed the iPhone 4 as the most popular camera on the site, according to Flickr’s own statistics on camera usage.
The number of Flickr users who uploaded at least one photo from a 5D Mark II hit 4,643 users yesterday compared with4,460 using an iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 has been Flickr’s most popular camera since June last year, when it beat the Nikon D90.
But Canon’s popular DSLR has been steadily on the rise for months, and it appears the company’s recent launch of the 5D Mark III has led to a spike in usage of the Mark II, which is over three years old and received a$300 price cut after the Mark III was announced. At the same time, iPhone 4 usage has dropped since Apple launched the iPhone 4S last fall. It’s all visible in the table below.
Usage of the iPhone 4S is rising fast, however, with 3,544 Flickr members uploading pics yesterday. It’s probable that Canon’s reign as Flickr’s top camera will be short-lived.
Canon cameras account for three of the top models on the site, with the EOS Rebel T2i coming in third, and the Canon EOS 7D — a more affordable DSLR that came out a year after the 5D Mark II — placing fifth. The 7D had just 3,640 users uploading yesterday, though, so the iPhone 4S will probably soon overtake it.
Besides the rising popularity of its latest phone, Apple can take heart that the iPhone holds the top four spots of the most popular camera phones on Flickr, reported by All Things D. After the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G are virtually neck-and-neck at 968 and 742 active users, respectively. The Samsung Galaxy S II comes in fifth with 481 users.
It’s also important to note that Flickr itself says its stats on camera phones aren’t the greatest. The site says it can only get reliable camera data when it can automatically detect which device took the pic, which it can only do successfully with camera phones about 67% of the time. Camera phones are thus under-represented in the site’s figures, so the iPhone’s true dominance among users is probably significantly larger.
What do you use as your primary camera? And do you think Flickr is a good measurement of popular usage? Share your thoughts in the comments.
BONUS: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Canon EOS 5D Mark III DSLR
The EOS 5D Mark III is the highest-resolution DSLR camera that Canon's ever made.
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, No Lens
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Back
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Top
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Left Side
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Right Side
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Front With Lens
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Top Angle
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Side View With Lens
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Top View With Lens
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, With Battery Grip
Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Front View With Battery Grip
![mark wallace creative live1 [Free Education] Sign Up For Mark Wallaces Free CreativeLIVE Workshop](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_s8WQFBKmqzVgYrXayttt2fhfWp6GEqRDmynez4vBNaYT4X1Xvmt0LyvEZ9jGtTcL1SbEsCzqeExm0FaeSn9SEHAVKzUyxtHSvaStnROHOAfyMYAX8WGdIc-Fk5ewp3vAfPeavG5fQYpAFWdgW8GTRF_tglBs2Zj31IJ_NYIF1S1uDi=s0-d)
This workshop will give you the confidence to incorporate small portable flash in your photography toolkit. From freezing action in sports or adding drama in location portraits, this workshop will include lots of live shooting examples that will help everything make sense. Get ready to take your photography to the next level. Once you start working with portable flash, you’ll never understand how you lived without them.
