24-105mm F4L IS USM

Urgh, It's been a while hasn't it? I'm so sorry but I'm afraid it's another photography post, despite I normally post stuff like this on my Fotopages. Sorry!

Anyway, I've been looking into replacing my retarded "kit" lens for ages. The kit lens is really terrible in terms of poor resolution, relatively slow speed & distortion. I was considering getting the Sigma 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 with Optical Stabilisation - yet to be released, unfortunately.

Lately, Puan Mama Sarah has been asking if it's okay for her to get a Nikon D40 for herself. She's been into photography too - especially taking pictures of the children & of food. I was seriously considering to get Puan Mama Sarah the Nikon D40 (around 250 pounds) and the 18-200mm VR (around 500 pounds) and the Nikon 50mm 1.8 prime (around 60 pounds) totalling to around 800 pounds.

At first, to me buying a new DSLR is okay especially to support Puan Mama Sarah's hobbies. Talking to most of my friends though, they all say that it's a waste of money to buy another DSLR, but of a different brand. We might as well buy a new lens. You could get a nice L lens for less than 800 pounds.

Well, the rest is history. For Puan Mama Sarah, I present the Canon EF 24-105mm F4L IS USM. It arrived today, only a 3 day wait. We tested the lens in Jessops and were both so impressed with it that I felt I just had to get it (word of warning Arep & Rosli, DON'T test this lens!)

The lens came supplied with a carrying pouch, a petal type lens hood and the instruction manual.

This is the new L lens compared to my old 18-55mm kit lens. Notice that the 24-105mm L is significantly bigger, wider and heavier...

... but, it is also way better constructed with weather resistance, metal mounts, metal body etc2. My kit lens is not yet obsolete though, as I still need it for the wide 18-23mm lengths.

Let's put the new lens to the test:


The 24-105mm L is sharp and has good resolution.

Colours are very nicely conveyed.

I finally have longer reach with 105 mm but I found that even at that length, it is not long enough to take good close ups of wild life. The range of 100-400mm would be better.

At 105mm F4, the background is rendered nicely blurry (also called bokeh). Having Image Stabilisation really helps as well - especially in my unsteady, caffeine perfused, hands. I find that at 105mm, a speed of 1/13 would be sufficient for sharp pictures - not bad eh?

Am I happy to have this lens? Yeah, I'm kind of happy.

I'm happy to finally get a sharp lens, with quite good zoom range from 24-105mm and with Image Stabilisation. However, I cannot help but feel the best money-to-performance ratio would be the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8:

The Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 (example image above) has excellent resolution and quite fast at F2.8. It's branded as a macro lens as well and the picture above was taken at the closest focusing distance.

Compare with a shot using the 50mm F1.8 prime lens, below:


and finally the 18-55mm kit:




Anyway, can't wait to further experiment with the new lens.

Sarah's Portrait by Puan Mama Sarah

PMS took this portrait of Sarah around two days ago. Actually, Puan Mama Sarah has been delving herself into photography lately. She's been taking lots of photos and learning camera settings (all of you beware!). Unlike me, Puan Mama Sarah has extremely steady hands and I notice that her pictures turn out sharp even with relatively slow shutter speeds.

Anyhow, the above is just an experiment in using the Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. I read today that Canon cameras apply anti-aliasing to the images to maximise colour accurise and reduce Moire effects. However, the anti-aliasing gives the photographs the classic Canon's "smooth" effect. I have ALWAYS thought Canon's images are less sharp compared to Nikon's - and now I know why!

Canon's official website recommends sharpening JPEG images in Photoshop starting at the following values:

Amount: 300% (300% is huge !!!!)
Pixels: 0.5
Treshold: 0

However, there's also a video tutorial on their website on how to fine tune sharpening. The above image of Sarah is an example. Notice that although I sharpened Sarah's portrait by 300% there's not much noticeable noise and the texture on her face is relatively smooth. The secret is simple - use a high treshold value (around 5-10).

Link here

Our Unplanned Weekend

It has been a hectic weekend, and I finally have something to blog about. We've finally managed to get ourselves out of our winter hibernation.


We had the pleasure of Rosli and family's impromptu visit to Coventry on Saturday. They told us about their plans to come on Saturday morning itself! No matter, as it is always a pleasure for any of our friends to come over. I was slightly worried by the fact that my car was at that time undergoing repairs but thankfully, the car was miraculously fixed the same day despite the mechanic initially saying otherwise. That's one whole other story.


Whenever Rosli comes to visit, two things are a must: (1) Food (2) Photography. In terms of photography, our experimentation this weekend was outdoor photography with multiple flash units. The concept is more or less simple: we used two flash guns - the master unit on Rosli's Canon 30D and the slave unit overhead the model. Outside, the day was extremely sunny and Rosli was shooting against the sun. The picture above is one of the, shall we say, less extreme example. It was a brilliant session, one that I have learnt a lot from.


Another thing about Rosli and wife is that, they are EXTREMELY spontaneous. Probably even more so that yours truly. Anyway, without any prior plans at all - on Sunday we all suddenly came to the consensus of visiting Oxford, in the quest to find the legendary and mythical "Halal KFC". After almost an hour of circling the town centre on an empty stomach to find even an inch of parking space and failing miserably, we gave up the search and instead, settled for lunch/dinner at a halal restaurant called Chicken Cottage instead. Chicken Cottage has been a long time favourite ours - ever since our days in Cardiff.

No visit to Oxford is complete without meeting our Fotopages photography friend Alynn. I have always wanted to meet up Alynn & Rosli - both are extremely creative and enthusiastic photographers and I'm sure a meeting between the two could produce terrifying results (whoops, I meant "terrific" :p ... or did I?). Above is Alynn alluring a young one into the addiction of photography - tsk tsk. Again, we would like to heartily thank Alynn for her hospitality despite her busy schedule. Thank you so much, and please come to visit us in Coventry one day if you can!

All in all, it has been a terrifying (I meant "terrific" but "terrifying" is also appropriate what with the number of hyperactive little ones climbing, pushing, jumping, wrestling, crying and pooing) weekend. I'm already looking forward to the next!

Later! Oyasumi readers.

Cheeky

This was a picture I captured and edited only today - of my cheeky little Sarah. The picture was taken at sunset, and I had to beg and plead for Sarah to lie on our bed, the radiant setting sun shining on her through an open window. It was a bonus that Sarah, who didn't want to be there in the first place, wanted to cheekily stick out her tongue. The wonderful catchlights in her eyes are from bounced light from the flash.

Weekend Project: Still Life

Rosli and our adventures in Wales has got me interested in indoor studio mode and I have been experimenting today. The white background is actually a labcoat (I used to use labcoats for clinical attachments, not lab work). The scene was lighted by daylight from a large window as well as my flash on a remote cable, fired from the opposite side of the window. Grrr, in the end I'm not happy with how they turned out - despite using high-ish apertures (7.1) I still could not get the whole composition pin-sharp and using ISO 400 meant quite high noise. That's why I'm posting the pictures here instead of my Fotopages , haha.

ps
my car is currently being serviced and even though we have been indoors-bound for the past two weeks AND the day has been quite sunny, we couldn't go out!! Original plan was to meet up with Auntie and Uncle De in Essex.

Sunday is reportedly sunny this weekend, hopefully the car will be tip-top by then :)

13 photographs that changed the world

Over at Neatorama is a very interesting collection of 13 iconic photographs that is powerful enough to have changed opinions, lead to movements and has opened eyes.

My favourite is the picture above, the "Dali Atomicus" by Philippe Halsman who favours taking pictures of people jumping. He claimed that jumping brings out the subjects' true selves. The "Dali Atomicus" is his homage to the atomic age prompted by physicists' then-recent announcement that all matter hangs in a constant state of suspension. The picture took six hours, 28 jumps and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water to get the perfect exposure.

I see, that's why everyone does jumping pictures - I don't feel so foolish anymore.

The article is a fascinating read - not to be missed!

Link

via Digital Photography School.

Photography Meet: Coventry

Last week I met up with Rosli Othman and Arep for another weekend of photography. It was a blast. Our venue this time was Coventry:

Rosli Othman photographing the Whittle Arch in Coventry town centre.

Rosli Othman and Arep busy photographing the Coventry Cathedral.


Arep & photography gear.


Rosli Othman at the Memorial Park, Photoshopped to burn and bring out the shadows.


Rosli took this one of yours truly; just in front of Coventry University.


Puan Mama Sarah and Amar, backlighted. Coventry Cathedral.


Puan Mama Sarah, Amar and Hila (Rosli Othman's wife). Coventry University.

Amar; among Rosli Othman's first experimental pictures with my 50mm F1.8 lens.


For lunch we went to Nandos.


Family photo (where's Sarah??). Taken using the 50mm F1.8 on Rosli's Canon 30D with his 580Ex Speedlite.

Looking forward to our next photography venue: Wales!

Canon 580 EX Flash Gun

Err, mind if I let the pictures do the talking?






It's actually a calculated purchase. Together with the Canon 400D, I received a book of coupons on certain items if bought before the end of this year. Always trying to save money, I decided to get the Canon 580EX flashgun - the same one that Rosli Othman has.

I figured that as I do lots of indoors photography of the family, I "need" one of these, really.

During his recent visit, Rosli Othman managed to convince me to get the off shoe cord as well - which I did as part of a 50% offer from the online shop. Booyah!

Oh well, a lot of studying to do on flash techniques - next time we meet OK Rosli?

PS
Anyone interested to buy a Canon EFS 10-22mm wide angle lens? I have a £75 off voucher, bringing the price of the lens to around £280. Anyone interested just let me know, I'll let you have the voucher free of charge (although I would like the lens, I can't afford it .......... yet, but always happy to help another photo enthusiast).

Experimentations with the 50mm F1.8 Prime

The 50mm 1.8 is probably one of my BEST purchases EVER for the Canon 400D. 100% recommended - fast & sharp pictures. LOVE this lens.

50mm lens field test

As usual with any new gear, today I brought the new 50mm out for a field test. All I can say is WOW! The lens is so fast, that even Sarah could not achieve escape velocity:

At ISO 200 and F1.8, the shutter speed was a whopping 1/2000! Even Sarah was not fast enough.

The fast one was subdued.

Pictures taken at the Coventry Memorial Park.



Pictures taken in front of the Coventry University





PS
Larger versions of the pictures and slideshow in my picasa web album.