Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

With strong sales performance from D40x/D80, Nikon has obtained the DSLR market leader position in Japan (Read the previous post titled Nikon is on top, in Japan) with market share of 47.5 percent vs. Canon’s 36.5 percent. With the recently announced two new DSLR products, the EOS-1Ds Mark III and EOS 40D, Canon expects (or just hoping?) to regain the lead in Japan for digital SLR camera shipments. Is Nikon quivering, or just busy preparing its new releases? Let’s just wait and see.

Although the reactions are mixed (some people are just very unappeasable), but majority of Canon fans on DPReview seem to be happy with the 40D feature sets. One fan rejoiced “Canon pulls ahead of Nikon“, and another one yahoo-ed “40D - weathersealed!!! yes!!!“. It is indeed a fine machine. However by comparing to the Nikon D200, which is in the same class as Canon 40D and almost two years older, Canon just did a lot of catch-up. Even CNet agrees (see Canon fights back with two SLRs).

Here is the comparison of the major features side-by-side on DPReview of Canon EOS 40D and Nikon D200. It basically showed a close match of feature sets when the photo-taking aspects are concerned.

Canon’s catch-up done since 30D against Nikon D200

• Dust and weather resistant construction (weather seal)
• More pixels (8.2MP to 10.1MP)
• Increased viewfinder optical magnification from 0.90x to 0.95x
• Custom settings with the mode dial
• High ISO noise reduction
• Infamous CF door that causes loss of data if opened during image writing
• ISO information in viewfinder
• AF-on button
• Blinking highlight alert and AF point display in playback

Canon EOS 40D interesting new features

• Improved sensor pixel design with larger micro-lenses over the image sensor pixels that improves signal-to-noise ratio and improves sensitivity; 14bit analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion. We can expect better image quality.
• 9-point cross type AF sensors, which should improve speed, precision and functionality, minimizing focus hunting in low light/contrast situations.
• Integrated cleaning system. Similar to other manufacturers’ DSLRs, the sensor uses a ultrasonic vibration during start-up and shutdown to shake the dusts off. However the effectiveness of this feature is questionable. Canon now appears to offer a similar “dust ref” software feature as in Nikon to map out the dusts from the photos.
• Live view. It does not auto-focus in this mode. However it is possible to achieve auto-focus by temporarily lower the mirror. This could be limiting the usefulness of the live view feature to mostly studio and macro photography.

What Canon still lags behind

• GPS connectivity. Geo-tagging is quite a hot trend.
• Spot metering coverage. Still a little wider.
• FLASH capability; wireless FLASH (not with RF transmitter)
• Exposure compensation/bracketing range

Overall Nikon still wins in ergonomics and the attention to details, which is difficult to go into details in words. However I have to admire the fine machine Canon just introduced. I believe the competition is always good for consumers like you and me. It leads to cameras with better performance/price ratio.

Updates

10/26/2007: Canon EOS 40D review by DPReview.

Canon has announced two new DSLRS in the EOS lineup. The new EOS-1DS Mark III features a 5616 x 3744 (21.1MP) full frame CMOS imaging sensor, 5fp continuous shooting speed. The EOS-1Ds Mark III is said to be identical to the EOS-1D Mark III in terms of function and usability except the full frame (36 x 24 mm) sensor. The new EOS 40D features a 10.1MP APS-C sized sensor (1.6x crop factor), 6.5 fps burst shooting speed, a 9 point cross-type AF system and 3.0” LCD with Live View mode. Read More…

Infrared and UV photography open a world that typical cameras and our eyes were never meant to see. If you have never seen an infrared or ultraviolet photo, you may want to check out these Flickr groups: Digital Infrared, Infrared, UltraViolet.

According to Fujifilm, this is a DSLR for advanced forensic and scientific imaging. The camera can also be used for conventional daylight photography by adding an optional UVIR cut filter to the lens. Nikon DSLR users will recognize the body is the same as the Nikon D200, just with Fujifilm branding. The camera is Nikon F-mount compatible and can use all Nikkor AF-D/G and AF-S lenses. The detailed specifications and features can be found at Fujifilm website.

For people who truly enjoy infrared or ultraviolet photography, it may be the dream come true. However the firmware End User License Agreement (EULA) will definitely turn some of you off:

“By breaking the packaging seal you acknowledge your understanding and acceptance of Fujifilm’s Ultraviolet (UV) and/or Infrared (IR) sensitive digital camera firmware End User License Agreement. The camera firmware contained in each system package is fully activated to engage the camera’s UV and/or IR capabilities and ready for use. No other firmware modifications are necessary in order to activate the camera’s UV and/or IR wavelength sensitive CCD. THIS LICENSE IS NON-TRANSFERABLE.

You hereby acknowledge and agree that your use of the camera’s UV and/or IR light energy sensitive capabilities, as enabled by Fujifilm’s camera firmware, will be purely to accomplish a legitimate business purpose in the medical, forensic, fire investigative, law enforcement, scientific, systems integrators, local and federal government.

In addition, you further agree not to use the camera’s firmware enabled capabilities to engage in unethical photographic conduct involving the violation of personal privacy, child endangerment, lewd photography, and or paparazzi like activities.”

This is one of the “show me your best ??? pictures” (replace ??? with your favorite camera model) threads going on at DPReview. People are showing off photos taken with Canon 5D in Canon EOS-1D/1Ds/5D forum to a potential Nikon deserter. Even though I am big time Nikon fan, I have to admit that the 5D is very nice for image quality, especially at high ISO. Check out this Pbase gallery too.

Dear readers, do you have your favorite “show me your best ??? pictures” thread anywhere? Please drop me a line at picmax at gmail dot com.

CNet blog reported the leaked details of a high end DSLR from Olympus that may be announced in October and released for sale in November this year. This news was later picked up by Engadget as well. The specifications are not repeated here to avoid excessive drooling. Just head over to the linked sites…

Perhaps you have been enjoying your DSLR very much and are curious if the shutter on your beloved DSLR has approached its life expectancy. Here are some information on how to find out the total shutter actuations:

• Nikon: Get Opanda iExif software
• Canon: Check out the information here
• Olympus: This post may help
• Others: Try ExifTool by Phil Harvey. It is a very powerful command-line utility. In Windows, simply drag and drop the photo over its default name “exiftool(-k).exe” and a console window will show you all the Exif information. Rename it to “exiftool(-k -a -u -g1 -w txt).exe” to get it to write the Exif information into a file. This assumes that the shutter actuation count is actually recorded in the Exif.