Jumping into Video, Audio got you down?

Hello readers :)

I wanted to take todays post to comment on the upcoming trend of video in microstock. You've heard this before, on my blog atleast. Believe me though when I state that I am not the only one who sees video as the wave of the future. I'd like to comment a bit about creating video when using a DSLR.

If you happen to own a DSLR capable of video, I do hope you give it a try. You would most likely own either a Canon 7D, or a Canon 5D Mark IV if it's a relatively new camera (and you shoot Canon). It may be one of the Nikon equivalents as well. In either case, A few points to note.

Audio, in general, is difficult to capture with the in camera microphone. Most of the time all you will get it a muffled static noise as wind whips over the microphone ending.
Solution? None really aside from using an external mic or an external sound recorder and later syncing the sound and image in post (neither solution is very great).

The good news tho is that most microstock agencies dont care if it has sound as most clients will most likely overlay their own audio/music/effects over the clips. My advice is to cut the audio completely either in camera or in post. Not only will you avoid the headache of external mic's and such, but you'll be able to increase your memory card capacity by a good ~18%.

I hope it helps :) and goodluck!

Camera returned from Canon, Repaired?

If you've been following along with my Canon 7D Auto focus woes you'll know that I recently had to send it in to Canon for that autofocus that was *say* off base, in my opinion, along with a bit of vertical noise banding even at iso 100.

Posted located here: Canon 7D Focus Issues?

I received the camera back a few days ago and have been running tests to see if there was improvement. The Canon facility wrote that they cleaned the CMOS sensor and calibrated the autofocus. With high hopes I ran it through a gamut of tests that I could imagine.

Conclusions?

Well, the focus is DEFINITELY better. I can hit accurate focus over 90% of the time based on my tests (100 shots, only 7 out of focus). For that series I was using an envelope, printed with text, at 4to 5 yards of distance, using all three of my lenses. my 50mm, my 50-250mm, and my 28-132mm.

With all three, even at the lowest zoom (50mm for the 50-250m and 28mm for the 28-132mm) I hit consistent focus, 33 shots with each lens to make a full 100 shots.

It was broad daylight, and an aperature of 5.6 which is perfect for most of these lenses due to the lower f-stop breaking point of the Canon 7D (5.6 or so, versus the usual 8).

I have to test the noise banding I was seeing before, but I have to wait for a bright day with blue skies to really get a good test shot, no luck so far.

I would report that IF you have a camera that is consistently missing its autofocus mark by just a hair, try a few things:

1). Try a different lens. That lens may be uncalibrated or may have USM issues, it is worth ruling out the possibility that the lens is at fault.

2). If it is the focus on 2 or 3 different lenses then I suggest you try to remove the batteries (Note, I said batterieS... there are two in the unit, the true battery and the clock/time/settings battery). There have been reports online that removing both for 30 minutes at least would reset the camera and for some units seems to have fixed the focus issue.

3). Make sure it is not user error. I'm going to assume that if you are buying a Canon 7D, you are passed the point of learning what your camera can and cannot do and how it works. But, regardless, make sure you have a shutterspeed that is appropiate, make sure you have the right focus points selected (Point, is my recommendation, always Point, never Zone AF unless its a sports event or a fast moving object). The diffraction limit is also important, most lenses only allow 6-11 fstops for sharp pictures, after that you will actually lose quality. It is better explained on page 2 of this posting: Sharp images Canon 7D - Diffraction.
You can also use the lens MTF charts/graphs to decide where your particular lens is the sharpest, those can be found here: Photozone Lens List.

4). If you have checked the above, done your tests on tripods or hand held (at acceptable settings, mind you) and consistently seem to get missed shots, I would send it in. It'll cost you 30$ or so to ship it due to placing the insurance on the unit, but... well worth it, for a working camera.

An important additional note: Make sure you are NOT confusing out of focus with soft. The Canon 7D produces images that are considerably "softer" due to the high pixel count. These images, although apparently unsharp, respond well to post sharpening. If you run sharpening in post, and the image improves and is "now in focus" then auto-focus is NOT your issue. What you are seeing are soft images, due to the high pixel count of the Canon 7D. There is really no good way to change that, aside from setting the camera to only shoot at 15Megapixels in order to test the theory. So I would highly recommend you sharpen in post, to see if your images improve significantly. You can also set the camera to shoot both Raw + Jpeg and ensure that the incamera sharpening for jpegs is set to standard or higher. Then compare the jpegs to the raws. If you find the jpegs to be consistently "sharp and infocus" but raw files are not, then it is NOT a focus issue, but the softness exhibited by the pixel density.

Canon 7D Auto-Focus Issues?

Hello readers!

I am saddened to say, I had to send my Canon 7D in to Canon for repairs. Now, if you have been following the news about this camera you may have heard of excessive noise issues and auto-focusing issues throughout the internet. Fortunately this is something that does not seem to be happening (or have happened) to all Canon 7D's. However, a few out there do seem to be plagued by very unfocused images in conditions that should otherwise have had nice focus. Now, do NOT confuse this for unsharp images. Due to the Canon 7D's high pixel count, images will require a higher level of sharpening to achieve what other (less megapixel) models may have required. Don't let that fool you into thinking it's not a quality image though. However, if you focus and snap a few shots, and in post... even at sharpness setting 100 (or 135 even) you still have a soft image, then you most likely missed the focus somehow.

I have been shooting snaps off all month, and I can count on one hand the number of sharp images I achieved. I checked, achieving the same results on 3 different lenses. So it finally had to go back, fingers crossed that it returns with an amazing focus ability and low noise production (as some have reported post repair submitting).

Below I'll post a few of the images. These pictures have had NO sharpening applied (I tried, it didn't change much, for those not in focus to begin with).

Note that the shutter speed is 1/800, with an f/5.6 in most if not all these images. Keep in mind that at these speeds camera shake should be completely eliminated (I'm shooting at 4x with focal length) and I am not at a shallow depth of field either. For those who may state that lenses have a sweet spot at f/8 and I should have shot at f/8 clearly... keep in mind the resolving power of the Canon 7D places most lenses into a new sweetspot to avoid reaching the difraction point.

Properly Focused Image:

100% Crop of Properly Focused Image (Above):

Now, let's look at the other 19 images (for the sake of speed, I'll only post 1, I can assure you they all look the same, despite changes in angle, distance, and zoom length).

Unproperly Focused Image:

100% Crop of Unproperly Focused Image (Above):

This was a series of 20 shots. One of them, was sharp... 19 were just as this one. These were shot using Center Point (not spot point or AF Zone) without any "modifiers" on the lens (Such as an UV filter). I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that I was shooting at 4x to 7x the focal length in shutterspeed, making camera shake a very unlikely phenomenon (1/800th of a second), and especially unlikely 19 out of 20 times.

Canon 7D, new firmware : 1.2.1

Canon 7D firmware has just been updated to 1.2.1. You can read more about it at the Canon Website, but basically it addresses a few minor features, one of them being the "overheating" warning function in the Canon 7D. Minor firmware update, to be honest, in essential fixes, but an update none the less. 

The instructions on upgrading are quite specific, so make sure to follow them closely if you do decide to upgrade (and I see no reason not to really). Honestly, there is not much that I can honestly say I dislike about this camera or should be "firmware" fixed with exception to: On-camera flash controller cannot do Hypersync flash firing. Fingers crossed, we can always hope! :)

Keep your finger on the camera trigger and chug along in the microstock world!