Time Lapse with a GoPro Hero3

I’ve been tinkering with the time lapse settings on the GoPro lately, trying to get a good looking sequence.  Florida has LOTS of sun, so its difficult to get good movement in the skies.  Typically when its cloudy, its pretty gray and overcast.  I’ve been stalking the broken cloud cover the last few weeks, trying to get a decent sky.  I was somewhat lucky with this one, but there are people right in front of the camera for most of the sequence and its driving me nuts.  I’m trying to get a good sunrise as well.

 

This one turned out pretty cool.  I mounted the GoPro to an IKEA egg timer to get the movement.  Watch them in HD to get the cleanest image.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.  Thanks for stopping by.

A99 interweb video test part 2 – Sony A99 vs. Sony Nex 5n

***NOTE*** This test was performed with TWO separate copies of the A99.  Yes, I was so disappointed by the video from my first A99, I thought it was defective.  So I returned it and got the same crappy results with A99 #2.  Looking at other A99 videos across the web, its not me or my two copies, it’s the A99.  On to my story…

A99 vs. Nex 5n

I got skewered after posting my results of my A99 vs. EM5 video test with wild claims of bias (I just want good video, don’t care where it comes from), flawed testing methods (focus, push record, what am I missing?), that I rigged it to make the EM5 look better (after spending $6000 on a Sony body and lenses) and so on.  Its all ridiculous.  I put a nice consumer camera (EM5) against Sony’s professional flagship (A99) and the Sony got spanked.

So I figured I’d level the playing field by shooting another test – this time with the A99’s tiny cousin, the Nex5n.  The 5n has a 16 megapixel APS-c sensor, compare to the 24 MP full frame sensor in the A99.  So its Sony vs. Sony – and to lessen the complaints from the whiners, I’m using the exact same lens on both cameras … the stunning Zeiss 24-70/2.8.   I also have the LAEA1 adapter to make the lens work on the Nex5n.  To compensate for the 5n’s crop factor, I shot wider on the A99.  I stopped down the lens on the A99 to equate the depth of field difference between the two sensor sizes.  Everything was shot at a base ISO of 100.  Be sure to select 1080p and watch full screen, or even better on a large TV.

As long as everything is in focus, I’m not really concerned about the rest, but the pixel peeping nerds seem to care so I tried to make everything as close as possible.   The results are not surprising – again the diminutive Nex5n took the A99 to the woodshed.  The softness, moiré and aliasing are again so bad on the A99 its completely unusable.  Fine details are once again mush compared to the 5n.  Its disappointing how bad the results are for the A99.  Absolutely horrible.

Ergonomics on the A99 are a dream.  There are two control wheels – one under the shutter and one by the thumb rest – making it easy to adjust aperture and shutter speed when shooting manually.  Other shooting parameters can easily be adjusted with the joystick on the rear, functions such as focus magnify, AF lock, ISO and more all are easy to find as some buttons are convex shaped and others are concave.  The tilt/swivel LCD is something that should be on every camera, it can be placed on top of the camera for low shots, turned to the side for shoulder mounted shots and tilted down for overhead shots.  I love it.  It’s such a pleasure to shoot with the A99, and the stills results are simply stunning as you can see here.  The video leaves a lot to be desired, and if it can’t best a 5d3, the A99 is going back to Sony.

Some are saying that my results are a by-product of a full frame sensor because the Canon 5d Mark III is also very soft.  That may be the case because full-frame DSLR’s have to hatchet down sensor output in the 22-36mp range depending on your camera to just over 2mp for HD video.  Some also say I’m an idiot.  That may be the case, but the A99 needs glasses – it can’t see.  I’m going to put that to the test in my final shootout with the 5d3.  I’d rather not have to make the switch again as it’s a pain to buy and sell a complete camera system.  I need both stills and video, so my investment has to perform in each medium.  I’d love to see something with great sharpness from the A99, but I haven’t yet and I don’t think I ever will.  If you’re shooting with one and getting good results please let me know.  Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

chris

A99 interweb video test part 1 – Sony’s flagship A99 vs. the Olympus EM5

***NOTE*** This test was performed with TWO separate copies of the A99.  Yes, I was so disappointed by the video from my first A99, I thought it was defective.  So I returned it and got the same crappy results with A99 #2.  Looking at other A99 videos across the web, its not me or my two copies, it’s the A99.  On to my story…

I discovered some issues with the video output of the Sony A99 after shooting some test video.  I alluded to this in my last A99 post, but I didn’t mention specifics beyond the fact that its absolutely terrible.  The issue is twofold – its really, really soft and the aliasing (straight lines look jagged, not smooth) and moiré (fine patterns like fabrics or roof shingles create that weird wave of color) is the worst I’ve ever seen.  Some complain about how soft the 5d3’s video looks out of the camera, but it can be sharpened nicely in post.  The A99’s video gets a little better after sharpening, but its still really bad.

To make matters worse, Sony chooses to milk the outdated AVCHD codec for another generation of cameras instead of offering a new video codec with higher bitrates.   Canon and Panasonic upped the bitrates with the 5d3 and GH3 respectively and it shows in post, you have more latitude for sharpening and color correction.  Compared to the 5d3, I can only apply about half the amount of sharpening with the A99’s video before artifacts show up.  Part of Canon’s softness is the aggressive stance Canon took against moiré and aliasing – video from the 5d3 is the best of any DSLR in that regard.  With the A99 it’s the worst of both worlds – its soft and full of aliasing and moiré.

I wanted something more concrete than just plugging the camera into my TV and being very disappointed by what I see, so I decided to have another interweb shootout while working on my mega EVIL camera shootout.  I decided to shoot the same subjects with the A99 and the Olympus EM5.  The A99 had a $2000 Zeiss 24-70/2.8 zoom while the EM5 had the cheap 14-42mm plastic kit lens.  I figured it would be a complete beat down – and it was – just not the results one would expect.

I kept it simple by with a few wide shots outside and a still life I threw together with random items from the recycle bin and a few books.  I just wanted to see how each camera renders fine detail.  I took a manually focused still frame, using focus magnify to confirm critical focus, before hitting the video record button to make sure each shot had optimal sharpness.  Watch at full screen, 1080p or on a TV to see the difference.  The moiré on the roof is horrible on the A99, and there’s absolutely no detail.  It looks like a watercolor, not full HD video. Blech.  Compare the foliage and trees, there’s so much more detail in the EM5 shots.  I even ran through the focal range, if you really want to nit-pick you can scroll frame-by-frame to find the sharpest point of the sequence.  Its pretty easy with the A99, just look for the moiré pattern on the roof, that’s the sharpest part of the focal range.  Blech again.  In the still life, bounce between the A99 sharpened shot and the EM5 shot, the difference is easy to see.

The EM5 was easily better in every way; it’s a surprisingly capable video machine.  The little Olympus, with its very limited video capabilities, completely trounced the A99.  I tend to shoot mostly wide shots with deep depth of field (DOF) and close-ups with shallow DOF.  The A99 looked good in the shallow DOF shots, but wide shots are dreadful.  The A99 will leave a bad taste in your mouth if you plan on shooting wide, especially when you think about what it costs compared to its little brother – the Nex5n.  Yes the little Nex’s video also trounces the A99… at one-tenth the price and I have the video to prove it. Ouch.

For some reason the Sony defenders on the web want to try and find flaws with my test, but its pretty straight forward — for video the A99 flat out sucks.  Period.  I have more tests that show similar results.  Its sad really, because Sony got so much right with the design and shooting ergonomics of the A99.  Control-wise it’s one of the best cameras I’ve ever used, simply brilliant.  Stay tuned…

So tell me what you think of the EM5 video vs. the A99.  Thanks for stopping by.

chris

Goodbye Canon – hello Sony A99!!!

The search for the ultimate camera continues…

I’ve been very impressed with the dynamic range (DR) of the Sony sensors after seeing the amazing files coming out of the Nex cameras.  I was so impressed, I decided to get a divorce from Canon and go all-in with Sony and its new full-frame flagship … the A99.  Some of the key selling points for me; 1080/60p video – the only full frame camera that shoots 60p in full HD, the tilt/swivel rear LCD (I shoot a ton of overhead and lying on the ground shots), some innovative focusing features, a light body compared to Canon/Nikon counterparts, built-in image stabilization – Canon/Nikon I.S. is lens based, and an overall design that’s geared toward multi-media shooters.  Its very video focused, more than any other DSLR.

The Sony A99, Nex5n and Olympus EM5 … shot with a crappy camera phone

Like I said, I went all-in with the A99.  I bought the Carl Zeiss 24-70mm/2.8 zoom (the finest standard zoom on the planet IMHO) and the Sony 70-400mm G zoom.  The A99 has a built in crop mode that lowers the image from 24 megapixels to about 10mp, but you get a 1.5x crop on your lenses.  So that already long 70-400mm becomes a ridiculous 105-600mm lens.  Right after buying the A99, I had the opportunity to shoot a holiday party and I’m very happy with the results.  More importantly, the people with the cash are happy with the finished images.  Sweet.  There was a wall of windows on one side of the room and the blazing mid-day sun was blowing out everything camera right of the singer.  To camera left was virtual darkness and they didn’t want me to use a flash.  Grrrr…  My assignment was simple – shoot people having fun, performers and people eating.  I’m posting a couple samples from that shoot, nothing was done to the RAW files outside of shadow/highlight recovery.  Darn nice if you ask me.  The images I delivered got a little more work in Lightroom, but just a little color adjustment, a but of noise reduction and some sharpening.

A high ISO shot with lots of highlight and shadow recovery

The camera was great, I got just over 600 shots on a single charge.  Most of the people shots were short bursts and I just chimped away all of the images that weren’t keepers.  That’s less than half what I could get with my Canon, but this is an all EVF camera, so its sucking lots of juice the entire time the camera is in use. The Zeiss is just awesome, has that great Zeiss rendering and micro-contrast, combined with the impressive tones from the Sony sensor.  There’s a lot of latitude in the Sony RAW files for highlight/shadow recovery.  The original images have much darker shadows and the highlights are blown from the wall of windows.  I’m very impressed with the lack of banding or posterization with the crazy contrast I have going on in most of the images.

Nice example of shallow depth of field

The Sony A99 is a fantastic stills camera.  Notice the emphasis on stills.  The AF with the 70-400G is really slow indoors, but beyond that its awesome and it produces beautiful files.  There’s a cool feature called AF Range – you can set the minimum and maximum distance the lens will focus … say 6-15 feet … so you can just have the camera focus on subjects in a certain area.  This would be really handy at something like an auto or cycling race where you can just keep a certain corner or the finish line in the range and nothing else.  Nice.  Its not all rainbows and puppy dogs though, it has issues with video.  Quick summary: its dreadful. Absolutely wretched.  So bad its unusable as a video camera if you have decent eyesight.  My dog even turns up her nose at the A99’s video – and she eats poop.  But that’s another post.  I’ll update with more A99 info soon.  If you have any thoughts on the A99, please share with a comment.  Thanks for stopping by.

chris

The Joy of traveling light

Can you travel to far-away destinations around the world with just 16 pounds of clothes? That’s something I’m going to explore, as the pack pictured below is my “international” setup.  While I tinker with my travel camera setup, I’m also going to refine everything else I use when traveling.  What you see below is everything I took for a month-long trip in South America, minus a small sling pack with camera gear.  Preparation was nerve-racking as I usually take more than this for a few days; I’m a classic over-packer.  This was also my first time outside of the U.S.  I don’t really consider Canada foreign – outside of the bland food and goofy accents.  Most of the shirts, all the socks and my insulating layer are made out of merino wool – it keeps you warm, its naturally wicking so it moves sweat, unlike cotton it insulates when wet, it dries quickly and its naturally odor-resistent.  All that comes at a price, t-shirts made out of merino can easily run $50-75 each.  But it packs small, its comfortable, its really light and you don’t have to do laundry as often as you would with cotton.

This is everything I took for a month in South America

Here’s a rundown of everything pictured:
Gregory backpack – technically considered a daypack, 3 pounds, well padded/ventilated back, very easy to carry
REI green waterproof shell – came in handy a few times in total downpours
Ibex LS merino wool insulating layer – lightweight, warm, anti-stink
REI travel pants – can be converted to shorts, stink and water resistant
Exofficio underwear – great for travel, dries fast
Smartwool socks – again merino wool gets the job done
Smartwool and Ibex shirts – merino wool long and short sleeve T’s and button-ups, easily layered/removed for changing conditions
Teva sandals – my walk around shoe
Oboz hiking shoes – what I wore anytime off pavement
That’s it, crazy eh?

It all adds up to less than 15 pounds. For toiletries I just carried a toothbrush, razor, chapstick, lotion, toothpaste and some camp soap in a one-quart plastic bag.  We used/swiped soap everywhere we stayed and did laundry in the shower.   I shaved with soap too – ouch – but I didn’t want to waste space or add weight with a can of shave gel.  We had a small medical kit that my wife Caitlin carried, since I had the camera, and that was pretty much it. Packing/unpacking was never a chore because we had so little. It was easy to move about and get in and out of airports/boats/taxis/trains/busses quickly.

Posing for a shot while motoring between islands in the Galapagos

So what will we do different next time we go international? I felt like I really stuck out when we went out in the evenings – you just look like such a tourist when you’re the only one in a nice restaurant wearing nylon pants and hiking shoes.  Locals were in jeans and shirts and we’re sporting full on trekker gear.  At 6’2″ I stick out even more than most as I seem to be taller than most of the people we were around. I’ll be bringing a pair of jeans and a couple cotton T’s or polo’s – just to be a little more casual when we’re out at night.  Though most of the time the travel duds were fine.

Feel free to comment if you have suggestions on gear that can improve upon what I already have, I’m always on the lookout for how I can tweak things.  Thanks for stopping by.

chris

Sony Nex-7 vs. Olympus OM-D EM-5 vs. Fuji Xpro1 vs. Sony Nex 5n … An Interweb Mirrorless Shootout — Part 1

Meet the Contenders…

When I set out to find the ultimate small camera setup, I knew I would be looking at a camera with many names –  mirrorless (a camera that combines the large sensor of a DSLR without a mirror box and an optical viewfinder), interchangable lens camera (ILC, or MILC if you combine the last two), compact system camera (CSC), or my personal favorite – the electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens (EVIL) camera. You will see all these terms associated with the same class of camera.  Its a simple formula – big sensor, smaller lenses and bodies, and great IQ.  I want something that’s comfortable to shoot with everyday (if you don’t enjoy shooting with it, you’ll never actually use it), has great lenses (or works well with adapted manual focus lenses), shoots great stills and shoots video that will look good on the web and on TV’s in the 42-60” range since that’s what most seem to have these days (I have a 42). That’s not too much to ask, is it?

When the mirror is axed from a DSLR, the size can be drastically reduced, but that introduces a problem – the mirror creates the viewfinder image in a DSLR by reflecting light into a pentaprism (the hump with the viewfinder that you look through when shooting).  So a mirrorless camera needs an electronic viewfinder (EVF) in order to shoot like a traditional camera. I’ve used DSLR’s for years and I’ve grown accustomed to shooting while looking through the viewfinder – not holding it at arms length like a poop filled diaper… or a camera phone… pick your favorite analogy. So for me a viewfinder is a must. The EVF also needs to have a fast refresh rate, I had a Fuji X100 and the EVF went dark for a couple seconds after shooting while I waited for the hamster inside to get the wheel moving. So. Lame. EVF lag = return the camera before your 30-day return window closes.

Top view of the Sony Nex7 and its Tri-Navi controls.

Right now there are four cameras – at least in my opinion – that are at the top of the EVIL heap, the Sony Nex-7 and the new Olympus with the ridiculous name … the O-M-D-E-M-5 … I added extra dashes because I can’t remember where Olympus puts them, but I think its called the OM-D E-M5 … brilliant … not really.  There’s also the Fuji Xpro1 and the Sony Nex5n which has an optional EVF that attaches to the top, or you can go super small and shoot in poop diaper mode.

The Sony Nex-7 is the most refined Nex camera to date, combining compact size, a ridiculous 24 megapixel APS-c sensor, the highest resolution EVF on the market, 1080p video, lots of buttons and dials in a slick black metal body that screams incredible engineering – especially when you put it next to Sony’s big A77 DSLR – because its essentially the same camera. Sony has clearly established itself as the leader in sensor technology with the Nex-7 and the 36mp sensor that’s in the Nikon d800, the big S may be swimming in red ink, but it still knows how to build a sensor.

The Olympus EM5 is a micro-four-thirds (m43) system camera that’s supposed to be some sort of retro design mimicking the shape of the classic Olympus OM camera from decades ago – just what every camera buyer wants in 2013, a camera that looks like something in the back of grandpa’s closet or worse … some retro-craze piece of junk like the Chrysler PT Cruiser. Fortunately, despite its silly name and heritage nobody really cares about, the EM5 has drool-worthy specs for my inner gear geek – 16 megapixels, the first ever 5-axis image stabilization, weather sealed, a huge OLED rear screen, fast auto focus (so says Olympus), 1080p video (though limited) and what appears to be huge gains in dynamic range and image quality – improvements that rival and in many cases surpass many current entry level DSLR’s.

Olympus EM5 with the optional grip

Fuji jumped into the EVIL game with the Xpro1 and its innovative hybrid viewfinder – it combines an optical viewfinder with an EVF, giving you the best of both worlds.  Sort of… but I’ll get to that.  It also sports a 16 megapixel sensor, a rangefinder styled body that places all major controls at your fingertips, high quality lenses with manual aperture rings and some of the cleanest files at high ISO’s I’ve ever seen.  It rivals my Canon 5d3 up to 6400, which is about the highest I shoot unless its something like a concert – where the noise is acceptable because of the dark environment.  Oh yeah, it also has the best JPEG files around with those gorgeous Fuji colors.  If nothing else, Fuji knows color and the Xpro1 has it in spades.

Last but not least – in terms of IQ, not size – there’s the little camera that could, the Sony Nex 5n.  The little Nex has a big 16 megapixel sensor, a really handy touch screen LCD, 1080p video capability and some eye-popping IQ for such a small camera.  You could *almost* shoot professionally with a few of these, but people writing checks like to see big cameras, not a camera smaller than my phone.  Why two Nex cameras?  Well there a significant price difference between the recently discontinued Nex5n (dirt cheap) and the flagship Nex7 (not cheap at all) and they both do 1080/60p video.  I edit everything at 24 frames per second (24p) and video shot at 60 frames per second (60p) can be slowed down to create some fantastic looking slow-motion video.  And I loves me some slow-mo.  The differences between the 5n/7 are big to some and not so big to others.  I’ll highlight some of these in the next update.

All of these cameras offer big IQ in a small package, but how do they perform head to head? I’ll update over the next few weeks to show the results of my testing.  Thanks for stopping by.

chris

What’s old is new again

Before I dive into discussing some of the compact camera options like the Sony Nex 7 and the Fuji Xpro1, I’m going to talk about some of the lenses I’ll be using.  I’ll be shooting with a bunch of old manual focus (MF) lenses including some Minolta Rokkors and a really cool Kiron Macro lens.  I’m a big fan of old manual glass – they’re a great combination of low cost, bulletproof construction and optical brilliance.  Back in the day lenses were all metal and incredibly well constructed.  Minolta glass was made in Japan with Swiss watch precision and top-notch optics.  You get a lot of bang for the buck.  Some of the more popular mounts such as Canon FD, Minolta and Olympus OM are no longer used, but the glass was produced for decades leaving tons of great lenses that are very affordable.

Kiron 105mm/2.8 macro lens in Canon FD mount on the Fuji Xpro1

Manual lenses are great for video too, you can make aperture adjustments on the lens and the focus ring doesn’t spin forever so focusing is very accurate.  They even have a nice little distance scale on the lens so you can estimate your focal plane at any given aperture right on the lens.  My favorite thing about MF lenses – I can easily repeat rack focus moves.  The beauty of modern technology is that people way smarter than yours truly have figured out that you can make an adapter to mate all the brilliant MF lenses to pretty much any interchangeable lens digital camera on the planet.  So you simply buy an adapter that serves as a coupler between an old lens and a new camera mount, and it works beautifully.

I’m back to a Canon setup for paid work after a brief flirtation (more on this one soon) with a Sony A99.  Most of the time I’m carrying something compact in my messenger bag with my laptop.  My entire travel setup fits in a small shoulder bag and I’m losing nothing in terms of image quality (IQ).  I’ll cover how the lenses and cameras perform while shooting stills and video.  I’m not some obsessive pixel-peeper, so my tests will be images from trips and photo walks, not a bunch of test charts.  Thanks for stopping by.

chris

After technical issues, the blog is back!

Sorry about the blog disappearing, there were some hiccups.  I’m in the process of recovering all of my previous posts and I have lots of content going forward.

This little slice of the web is for me to share my photographic journey while searching for THE travel camera.  I’m a gear junkie, so the chance to endlessly tinker with cool new toys will be tough – ha, ha – but its a sacrifice I’m willing to make.  My wife and I plan to see and experience everything we can on all seven continents.  Yes that means Antarctica.  We want to share our experiences with family, friends and anyone else that happens to click on this blog.  I shoot photos and video, so they’re equally important.  I’m searching for a light camera that shoots both really well.

One of the many great shots captured with my little Canon G10.

For me the days of lugging a giant camera and 15 pounds of lenses on a plane are over.  I used a Canon G10 when my wife and I traveled to South America and it was nice being able to capture what I wanted without being weighed down by a big camera bag.  My banner image of Macchu Picchu was taken with the lowly G10 as well.  I never want to be “photo tourist guy” again, you know – the guy with the big photo backpack, tripod and a giant zoom on a DSLR clogging up busy sidewalks or skinny paths through historical landmarks.  There was this guy in Vegas once, trying to shoot the Venetian on a small stretch of sidewalk when it was absolutely packed, and it just made me think there has to be a better way.  Never again.

The big camera will primarily be used for jobs, with the small cameras serving as backups.  Modern imaging sensors are capable of producing amazing results in a very small package.  I have my sights set on a few different systems including Fuji X, Sony Nex and the top micro 4/3rds cameras.  Check back or subscribe for updates as its a work in progress right now, but I’m shooting (get it, ha, ha … ok lame) for new content a few times a week.  If anyone has any gear or travel suggestions, please let me know.

chris