Feb

19

How do you protect all your data?

Posted by digitalcameras

February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment

If you’ve been shooting digital pictures for a while, you’ve no doubt considered how to keep all those precious memories safe.  There are a number of strategies that range in cost, convenience, and robustness.  Here are a few of them that might be worth looking into.

  1. External hard drive: This is probably the simplest and most common way to backup your data.  You just plug in any of the many external hard drives available out there and drag and drop your data.  The upside is that it’s easy to do so you’re more likely to actually do it on a regular basis.  Also, the price per GB isn’t too bad these days with 500GB drives just over the $100 range.  One twist that I would recommend is that you keep the hard drive itself in a different place than your computer.  A safety deposit box or secure location at your work place are two options.  This way, if you have a fire or some other unfortunate event at home, your data is safe somewhere off site.
  2. DVD: This is similar to the external hard drive idea except it’s quite a bit more tedious.  You also run the risk of have your DVD’s go bad by being exposed to poor environmental conditions.
  3. Internal redundancy:  You can setup multiple hard drives in your desktop computer as a RAID 1, otherwise known as a mirror.  This way, if one hard drive fails, the other will still have all your data and you can rebuild the RAID with a new drive.  The great thing here is that you don’t have to do anything after the initial setup.  There are also potential performance gains from this setup since the computer can read data from both disks simultaneously.  Unfortunately, there can be performance hits as well since the computer needs to write data to both disks.  There are other kinds of RAIDs that can provide redundancy and they are covered in other places on the web so I won’t go into it here.  The downside here is that if your computer blows up, you’ll lose the entire RAID.
  4. Internet: Sites like mozy.com allow you to upload your files to their servers.  The cost is reasonable and even free if you don’t have too much data.  Plus, you get the advantage of having them be off site.  It can be a bit inconvenient if you need to pull data back, but they do usually have software that takes care of uploading the latest updates you’ve made fairly frequently.   The big downside with this option is that if you do have a lot of data, it can take forever to upload it all.
  5. Drobo or NAS: These options are expensive and can take up a lot of real estate.  Also, you don’t get the opportunity to store your data off site.  They do have many advantages if you’re running your own network and need to have a place for multiple users to share data, however, for most of us, this option isn’t all that appealing.
  6. Software backup programs: If you run Mac OSX Leopard, you can use the Time Machine feature to manage your data to another (external or internal) hard drive.  There are other programs that do similar kinds of things for Windows machines, but probably not quite as easily.

So what do I do?  Well, my desktop is setup as a mirrored RAID so my data is immediately backed up as I go.  I also have DVD backups as well as an external hard drive that I backup to once every couple months or so.  They are stored off site.  Finally, I also upload all of my pictures to Flickr so at least the jpgs are backed up there.  Of course, I can’t upload RAW files or any other files that aren’t jpgs so that’s only a partial solution.  In any case, that makes a total of five distinct locations where I have my photos at least.  Is that overkill?  Maybe a little.  But I also live in San Francisco, where the chance of a catastrophic earthquake is a little higher than anyone would like to see it.  And a little piece of mind goes a long way when it comes to something as priceless as the pictures of your family.

Feb

16

Should I use prime or zoom lenses?

Posted by digitalcameras

February 16, 2008 | 1 Comment

A number of months ago, I decided to conduct a little experiment.  I left all the zoom lenses at home and ventured out with but one lens… my Canon EF 50mm f1.8.  This lens is amazingly inexpensive (~$75) but capable of taking very good images.  In addition to its price and quality, it’s also light, small, and fast.  Of course, you do give up some flexibility when carrying around a prime lens vs. a zoom lens.  But that’s pretty much all you give up.So that brings us to the question at hand… is a little flexibility worth sacrificing all the benefits of using prime lenses? Until recently, I would have answered a resounding, “Hell yes!” But advances in camera technology as well as my own maturation as a photographer have started me thinking otherwise.  Let me address both of those items separately.

Advances in DSLR Technology

In 2004, I bought a Canon 10D.  It was lacking in a number of areas.  First, the camera was not ready to shoot until a couple seconds after you turned it on.  Second, the memory buffer would fill quickly which meant downtime until the buffer had somewhat cleared.  Finally, the battery didn’t last very long which meant downtime to replace it with a fresh one when I could potentially miss a shot.  I’ve also had similar experiences with other equipment.  Certain lenses don’t focus quickly.  Certain flashes take a long time to refresh.  Certain memory cards take a long time to write to.

As such, many of the advances in photography over the last few years have been to improve the responsiveness of the equipment.  Digital SLR’s are now ready to shoot as soon as you flip the switch.  Battery life has improved with materials science and more efficient electronics.  Memory card throughput and size/price get better with every passing month.  I, myself, have upgraded to lenses that focus faster and flashes the fire more quickly.

In addition to being more responsive, cameras (and imaging software) have also improved in terms of image quality.  Advances in noise reduction, resolution, and digital workflow mean that you can now crop images a bit and still come away with an 11×14 print with no problem.  Doing that with the 10D would be difficult to impossible.

So that leads me to the latest advance in DSLR technology, the Canon Digital Rebel XTi.  With this camera, I could probably get away with carrying three bodies with three different prime lenses (combination of 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 135mm, and 200mm.)  With the image quality improvements, I wouldn’t mind using say, the 35mm lens, when I would have zoomed to 42mm since I could just crop it down and not worry about losing too many pixels.  Furthermore, with the advances in technology previously mentioned, I wouldn’t have to worry about managing three different cameras’ on/off time, battery life, and memory cards.

Maturation as a photographer

With the advances in technology, I like to think there’s also been advances in my own technique and skill.  Over the last three years, I’ve studied a lot of pictures.  My pictures, friends’ pictures, other professional’s pictures, random pictures on Flickr, etc.  As a result, I’ve grown to appreciate that semi-tangible quality some people call “bokeh” that is more readily apparent with prime lenses than zooms.  It was something I read about but never really valued since I put such a high premium on the flexibility that zooms offer.  However, now that I’ve shot so many weddings and have found the limits of my equipment, I feel like I’m leaving something on the table by not taking advantage of the image quality benefits (bokeh) of prime lenses.  (There’s also the fact that primes generally are capable of capturing a lot more light which has obvious advantages in low-light situations.)

Conclusion

So what would I recommend you do?  Well, it’s really up to you and the situation.  Personally, I’ll be spending more time with prime lenses.  I’ll enjoy the challenge of “seeing” and capturing images with just one focal length.  But there will be situations where I’ll want to have just one lens and not have to worry about carrying around a number of different primes.  However, those will likely be casual picture taking excursions.  If I’m going to be doing any serious photography, rest assured I’ll be using primes.

Other resources:

50mm 1.8 vs. 1.4

prime vs. zoom - Garry Black

prime vs. zoom - Fotolia

prime vs. zoom - Timothy Edberg

Feb

13

How do you get your images to be so sharp?

Posted by digitalcameras

February 13, 2008 | 8 Comments

Christian wants to know why the images that he produces from his Canon Rebel XT with a 50mm 1.4 are not as sharp as the images that I get out of my Canon 20D.  Is it the camera?  Is it the lens?  Or perhaps it’s technique, post processing, or the clean air here in San Francisco.  Actually, all of those items could be contributing factors.  Let’s go through each of them one by one.

  1. I don’t think it’s the camera itself.  My 20D isn’t really any more capable than the rebel XT.  As a matter of fact, if you check out the resolution tests at dpreview.com, you’ll see that the two cameras are identical in terms of resolution and thus, should be able to produce equally sharp images, all else being equal.
  2. It could be the lens.  Some examples of the Canon 50mm at 1.4 have proven to be a bit soft, especially when used wide open.  Also, the narrow depth of field would make it difficult to keep more of the image in focus.  It could also be that the lens and camera combo are either front or back focusing.  You can test it by taking a picture of a ruler at a 45 degree angle (one side closer, one side farther away) at 1.4 and seeing if the focus sweet spot is precisely on the number you expect it to be on.  Put the ruler and the camera on a table and use the timer to eliminate any user variables.
  3. It could be post processing.  I shoot entirely in RAW and post process after the fact although I tend to have a gentle hand in sharpening.  If you’re shooting jpg, verify that you’re using the largest resolution setting with the lowest compression available.
  4. There are a number of points on technique that could help.
    1. Use as fast a shutter speed as you can to reduce motion blur of both your subject and your hand.
    2. Try bracing yourself against a wall or table.  Also, pay close attention to if you move the camera when you depress the shutter release.
    3. As a general rule, keep the shutter speed at 1/focal length at minimum.
    4. Stop down the lens to 4.0 or 5.6 to increase your depth of field.
    5. Use higher ISO to get faster shutter speeds at a given aperture.  Keep in mind that this will likely increase the “noise” that shows up in your image.  ISO 400 is as high as I would go with the Rebel.  Go higher if you must but understand the tradeoffs.
    6. Use a tripod if you can.  This will eliminate hand shake but won’t do anything about your subjects moving of course.
    7. Use prime lenses vs zooms.  Typically, prime lenses are sharper than zooms.
    8. Improve your lighting situation by opening curtain or turning on lights.  You can also move yourself so your subject is more front lit than back lit.  All this is in the name of increasing your shutter speed.
    9. Take a few shots of the same scene in continuous shooting mode.  Sometimes, you will find that the second shot will be sharper than your first because your finger isn’t moving down on the shutter release.  Also, more images to choose from increase your chance of getting one where your subject isn’t moving.
    10. Take out a second mortgage and buy one of those new fangled DSLR’s with super low noise at high ISO.  The new Canon 1DIII and 1DsIII and the new Nikon D3 in particular produce amazingly clean images at high ISO.  Actually, even the “lesser” Canon 5D and 40D as well as the Nikon D300 will produce very clean images compared to the previous generation of DSLRs.  (Ok, this isn’t really technique, but it will certainly give you a better chance at getting a sharper image.)

One other side comment that is particularly relevant given how many people blog today is to make sure you’re comparing pictures on your computer using the original jpg file and not the ones you’ve posted to something like blogger.  The reason is that pictures once posted to blogger get compressed to hell to save on their bandwidth.  One alternative to pursue is to use Flickr to host your images and copy and paste the code from them.  It’s super easy to use and they don’t compress your images nearly as much.  If you have questions as to how it’s done, let me know and it will be it’s own entry here!

Feb

13

Answers to your questions!

Posted by digitalcameras

February 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment

There are already plenty of sites out there that review cameras, talk about technique, and bring you the best deals on the latest and greatest equipment out there.  Thus, in order to bring incremental content to the blogosphere, this site will focus on answering your questions.  Some of what I offer will be based on fact.  Much will be based on opinion.  But all will be open to your feedback and follow up questions from other reads per the comments section of each post.

Apart from answering your questions, I’ll also offer my perspective on significant trends, products, technologies, and of course, photos that seem to be worth commenting on.  Again, I’m going to try not to duplicate content that other sites already provide.

That’s it for now so bring on your questions!