Canon and Sony News for Sep 2017 (Page 5)
From the tutvid YouTube Channel:
Check out my short video breakdown that will help you understand the differences between 8bit and 16bit images and editing in Photoshop.
B&H carries Adobe Photography Plan subscriptions.
Adobe has released updated versions of Camera RAW and DNG Converter with support for the Nikon D850.
Adobe Camera RAW 9.12.1
New Camera Support in Camera Raw 9.12.1
- Nikon D850
New Lens Profile Support in Camera Raw 9.12.1
| Mount | Name |
| Nikon F | Nikon AF-P DX NIKKOR 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6G VR |
| Nikon F | Nikon AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR |
| Nikon F | Nikon AF-S Fisheye NIKKOR 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5E ED |
| Nikon F | Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 28mm f/1.4E ED |
Customer reported issues resolved
- Fixed issue that caused a magenta color cast on some mRaw and sRaw images from the Canon EOS 6D Mark II camera.
Installation Instructions
Please select Help > Updates to use the update mechanism in the Creative Cloud app.
DNG Converter 9.12.1
New Camera Support in DNG Converter 9.12.1
- Nikon D850
Download: DNG Converter 9.12.1 – Windows | Macintosh
B&H carries Adobe Photography Plan subscriptions.
From the B&H YouTube Channel:
After you make hundreds, thousands of spectacular photographs, now what? How do you find and organize them easily? How do you tweak, edit and polish them - and do all of this quickly, efficiently and painlessly? Lightroom is your friend! There is a reason why Lightroom is the go-to software for serious amateurs and pros alike: It’s the multi-tool for the digital photography world.
This video shows you all the cool features, from importing to “tweaking”, from making a slide show to uploading to social media; from laying out a fine print to syncing with your smartphone. You will see that, with the proper workflow, you can find any one of thousands of images in ten seconds. That’s a promise!
B&H carries Adobe Photography Plan subscriptions.
Canon New Zealand has the Canon EOS M100 User's Manual available for download.
B&H has the Canon EOS M100 available for preorder.
From Canon USA:
MELVILLE, N.Y., September 5, 2017 – With massive flooding, thousands left homeless and communities in need of medical supplies, Canon U.S.A. Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today announced it will be making a donation of $100,000 to Americares to be used toward the relief efforts from Hurricane Harvey.
“On behalf of all employees at Canon U.S.A., we extend our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to our customers, partners and all the people in the communities affected by Hurricane Harvey,” said Joe Adachi, chairman and CEO, Canon U.S.A. Inc. “May you have strength, peace and hope during this difficult time.”
Americares is a health-focused relief and development organization that responds to people affected by poverty or disaster with life-changing health programs, medicine and medical supplies. The organization responds to an average of 30 natural disasters and humanitarian crises worldwide each year, establishes long-term recovery projects and brings disaster preparedness programs to vulnerable communities. Americares has a long history of responding to severe storms in the United States including Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Nikon has issued several software updates for compatibility with the D850. See below for more details.
Capture NX-D v.1.4.6
Changes from Version 1.4.5 to 1.4.6
- Added support for the D850.
- Added support for the D850’s new White balance > Natural light auto option.
- Added the following features to support D5 “C” firmware version 1.20:
- Added support for group-area AF (HL) and group-area AF (VL).
- The color temperature for pictures shot using auto white balance can now be viewed in the metadata tab.
Download: Capture NX-D v.1.4.6
ViewNX-i v.1.2.9
Changes from Version 1.2.8 to Version 1.2.9
- Added support for the D850.
- Added support for the D850’s new White balance > Natural light auto option.
Download: ViewNX-i v.1.2.9
Picture Control Utility 2 v.2.3.1
Changes from Version 2.3.0 to 2.3.1
- Added support for the D850.
- Added support for the D850’s new White balance > Natural light auto option.
Download: Picture Control Utility 2 v.2.3.1
WT-7 Firmware v.1.2
Changes from Firmware Version 1.1 to 1.2
- Added support for the D850.
Download: WT-7 Firmware v.1.2
Wireless Transmitter Utility v.1.7.0
Changes from Versions 1.6.1 to 1.7.0
- Added support for the D850.
- The current page number/total number of pages are now displayed at the top right corner of the Setup Utility.
- Fixed an issue that caused only one type of profile (wireless LAN or Ethernet but not both) being imported from D750, D810, D810A, or D7200 cameras after their firmware was updated for compatibility with the WT-7.
Download: Wireless Transmitter Utility v.1.7.0
The Nikon D850 User's Manual is now available for download.
B&H has the Nikon D850 available for preorder.
Mount : RainbowAstro RST-150H Harmonic Drive Mount
Location : Warm Springs, OR, US
Date : 21, Aug, 2017
Director : Prof. JunHo Oh
Photographer : ByoungJun Jeong, YoungSam Choi
BGM : Flowing Air - Mattia Vlad Morleo
B&H has the following new DJI drones available for preorder:
Product Highlights
- Integrated 12MP 4K Camera
- 3-Axis Gimbal Stabilizes Camera
- 4 dB Quieter Than Mavic Pro
- GPS- & Vision Position-Based Navigation
- FlightAutonomy with Obstacle Detection
- DJI GO App-Based Control and Monitoring
- Top Speed of 40 mph in Sport Mode
- Up to 30 Minutes Flight Time
- Tap- and Gesture-Based Commands
DJI Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian Edition
Product Highlights
- 1" 20MP CMOS Sensor
- Electroplated Magnesium Gimbal
- Gimbal-Stabilized 4K60 / 20MP Imaging
- Four Directions of Obstacle Avoidance
- Top Speed of 45 mph in Sport Mode
- Maximum Control Range of 4.3 Miles
- Visual Tracking of Moving Subject
- Distinctive Matte-Gray Obsidian Finish
- Up to 30 Minutes Flying Time
From the Profoto YouTube Channel:
Photographic legend meets ballet’s enfant terrible. Albert Watson’s painterly eye and mastery of light, and Sergei Polunin’s astonishing physicality were ably assisted by the Profoto Pro-10. And the result? Extraordinary imagery we were proud to be a part of. Watch the BTS to learn from one of the great masters of photography.
Like scores of others, you (probably) and I photographed the solar eclipse this year.
While partial solar eclipse images are easy to process (simply make them bright without blowing the red channel), the total eclipse images when bracketed, are in a different league in terms of complexity.
So, like me, you are probably now asking, "How do I process the exposure-bracketed total eclipse pictures?"
While there were many articles teaching us how to photograph the eclipse, those telling us how to process the images we captured during totality are scarce.
A great solar eclipse photography strategy is to extensively bracket exposures during totality, when the corona becomes visible.
While the corona is relatively bright just outside the edges of the moon, it becomes very dim far away from the sun.
Of course, with the sun being 93 million miles away, the word "far" takes on a significant meaning.
While I hoped I could simply load a set of bracketed-exposure images into my favorite HDR software (Photomatix or
Photoshop) and be finished, the results returned were not acceptable to me for a couple of reasons.
The primary problem was that the software did not properly align the moon (it moves across the frame in subsequent images), creating ghosting and still did so even if I pre-aligned the moon in each image.
I could have overlaid the moon from a single frame, but ... I still wasn't satisfied with the overall look of the results.
In the end, after numerous trial and error attempts, I settled on an easy, relatively fast way to merge the results in Photoshop as my solution.
Note that there are many techniques that can be used to process a stack of bracketed total solar eclipse images, so don't think this is the only option.
But, this technique is easy and it produces a nice result.
Hopefully you captured your images in RAW format for the highest quality and in that case, processing those RAW files into 16-bit TIFF format is the first step needed.
Next, the images need to be loaded into layers in Photoshop.
I use Adobe Bridge for this task, browsing to the folder the files are located in, clicking on the first of the series and shift-clicking on the last to select them all.
Then select the "Tools" menu, "Photoshop", "Load files into Photoshop Layers ..." and a new Photoshop document will open with all of the images stacked in layers.
Unless you were using a tracking mount, the moon disk will need to be aligned in the layers.
I simply moved each layer into identical position.
Click on the layer and move it using the move tool.
Toggle layer visibility of the image containing the targeted moon position for use as a guide and use the arrow keys to slide the layer being adjusted into position.
Once the images are properly aligned, crop the image as desired.
Trimming away the missing edges and centering the sun was my decision.
Next, Order the layers from top down in darkest to brightest sequence.
Because I set up the camera to shoot brackets from darkest to brightest (using three custom modes), this sequencing happened automatically for me.
Select the first/top layer and shift-click on the second-to-last layer.
With all except one layer selected, reduce the layer opacity using the "Opacity" box at the top of the layers palette.
Try starting at 20% and adjust to taste from there.
I suggest keeping the image on the bright side at this point.
Making the opacity adjustment (likely) immediately produced an image that looks decent, but one ready for some contrast adjustment.
Click on the top layer and create a new adjustment layer.
The adjustment layer type you should select depends on your Photoshop skill level, but it needs to be a contrast-adjusting layer type that you are comfortable with, curves being the most powerful and levels being very easy.
Use the adjustments the selected tool offers to bring life into the image.
If using curves, try selecting two points to create an S-curve that darkens the darks colors and brightens the light (though likely only slight brightening is needed if the layer opacities were set low enough).
If using levels, try reducing the mid adjustment slider.
You may find that adding multiple adjustment layers is helpful.
The beauty of adjustment layers is that they are non-destructive and can be created or deleted at any time.
Because the edges of the moon become brighter as the exposure becomes increases, the edges of my moon were not as crisp as I liked.
Also, Baily's Beads were one of my favorite aspects for the solar eclipse and they were only found in the images captured just before C2 and just before C3.
So, I incorporated an additional layer into the top of my layer stack and used a layer mask to make only the lunar disk and Baily's Beads visible.
This means a black mask (use CTRL-I with a newly-created mask selected), with the desired visible attributes painted white (I used the paint brush).
Another option for sharpening the moon is to duplicate one of the existing layers (CTRL-J), likely a darker one, giving it a 100% opacity and a layer mask with only the lunar disk made visible.
A technique that can be used to bring out some contrast in the corona is via Photoshop's High Pass filter.
There are a number of ways to do this, but here is one of them:
Select and combine all layers by clicking on the topmost layer, shift-clicking on the last and pressing CTRL-E.
Then copy the combined layers to the clipboard by press CTRL-A to select the entire image and then pressing CTRL-C to copy it.
Next, undo changes until one step back past the layer-combining step.
Select the top layer and press CTRL-V to paste in the copied combined layer.
With the new layer selected, desaturate it by pressing CTRL-SHFT-U.
Implement the High Pass filter selecting from the menu: "Filter" > "Other" > "High Pass...".
From the High Pass filter dialog, adjust the radius until it seems like the results will work well, with a low value being good for sharpening hard edges such as the border of the moon and a high value being good for adjusting overall image contrast, such as the corona.
The next step is to change the blending mode of the High Pass layer to "Overlay" by using the blending mode drop-down list founds at the top of the layer palette.
The opacity of the High Pass layer can be adjusted to reduce the amount of effect and a mask can be used to hide undesirable portions of that layer.
You can create a second or even third High Pass layer if you think it will help.
Adjust individual or smaller groups of layer opacities is another step that can be taken to optimize the final appearance.
For the total solar eclipse HDR image shown here, I combined eight 1-stop-bracketed exposures (out of 14 captured) using opacity values of 100% on the bottom (the brightest frame), 25% for the next three up,
20% for the next three up and 30% for the darkest layer on top.
The top layer has a layer mask that allows only the center of this frame to show with a strongly-feathered border creating a natural transition to the layer below (one click in the center with a very large, totally-soft paint brush tool selected).
With so many options available, you may decide it worthwhile to create multiple versions of your HDR image and that is a great idea.
You worked hard to prepare for and capture the solar eclipse, so having multiple images processed differently simply increases the reward.
Try this technique and let us know how it works for you! If you like it, share it with others. If you know how to improve it, share that with us. I may update this article as feedback comes in, so ... it might be worth stopping back to read it again later.
A larger version of this image is available on Flickr.
ISO 100
7483 x 4989px
Want to know what happens when you don't take the proper precautions to safeguard your (or your rental company's) gear when photographing an eclipse? If so, you will find the latest LensRentals Blog post to be quite illuminating.
In their latest blog installment, LensRentals shows us rental gear returned with holes burned into sensors, damaged mirror box assemblies and melted aperture blades.
See the entire post on the LensRentals Blog.
Strength of Lexar Brand Combined with Longsys’ Consumer Storage Dedication Enables Continued Support to Existing Lexar Customers as well as Exciting New Growth Opportunities
SHENZHEN, China and SAN JOSE, Calif (Aug. 31, 2017) – Longsys, a world leader in consumer flash storage, today announced that it has acquired the Lexar trademark and branding rights from Micron Technology, Inc. The Lexar brand has long been recognized as a leading brand for high-performance, high-reliability removable storage solutions for a wide variety of applications, such as the professional photography market. This acquisition provides assurance to existing Lexar customers that the solutions and support they have come to expect from Lexar branded products will continue to be available. Additionally, the market reach and product breadth provided by Longsys promises to expand the Lexar customer experience into new market segments and geographies.
“We are very honored to acquire the Lexar brand,” said Huabo Cai, CEO of Longsys Electronics Limited. “Lexar has built a great brand name and our vision is to make it even greater. Existing customers can rest assured that the innovative solutions and excellent support that they have experienced from Lexar will continue. The mission to make Lexar the go-to brand for high-performance removable storage continues, and we will expand upon it to offer even more compelling solutions as the age of wireless and big-data impact the consumer storage markets.”
Longsys has been focused on flash storage for over 18 years and provides a broad portfolio of solutions. Its embedded storage brand FORESEE is leading in the market in China and growing rapidly on a worldwide basis. The company develops complete solutions, including software and hardware, which is key to innovation and deploying leading-edge flash technologies, such as 3D NAND. Longsys currently sells over 100 million flash-based products to the market on an annual basis. Lexar customers will benefit from the strategy and company culture of Longsys, including innovation, stability, strict quality control, localized and customized support and services, and a consumer storage focus.
Longsys envisions continued growth in the removable storage market, as many industry trends impact the consumer, including big data, wireless, and Quality of Service (QoS). Virtual reality, 8K video, automotive infotainment, video surveillance and drones are all examples of emerging applications expected to drive demand for high-performance, high-reliability removable storage. Longsys, with its focus on consumer storage, innovation, quality and reliability, is uniquely positioned to offer Lexar products and services to help solve these complex problems and provide solutions the market will demand.
B&H carries Lexar memory cards.
These charts, especially that from the TS-E 135mm f/4L, should make you say "Wow!" Find all of Canon's current TS-E lens MTF charts along with some other models in comparison format here:
Canon TS-E 50mm f/2.8L Tilt-Shift Macro Lens
Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Tilt-Shift Macro Lens
Canon TS-E 135mm f/4L Tilt-Shift Macro Lens
Perhaps now we know why these lenses are priced are so high.
Preorders for All New Canon Products
Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens - B&H | Amazon | Adorama | Wex Photographic
Canon TS-E 50mm f/2.8L Macro Tilt-Shift Lens - B&H | Amazon | Adorama | Wex Photographic
Canon TS-E 90mm f/2.8L Macro Tilt-Shift Lens - B&H | Amazon| Adorama | Wex Photographic
Canon TS-E 135mm f/4L Macro Tilt-Shift Lens - B&H | Amazon | Adorama | Wex Photographic
Canon Macro Twin-Lite MT-26EX-RT Flash - B&H | Amazon | Adorama
Canon EOS M100 - B&H | Amazon | Adorama | Wex Photographic
Sony a7R II-captured Image quality, vignetting, flare and distortion test results along with specs and measurements have been added to the Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM Lens page.
With the new Canon EF 85mm f/1.4L IS USM Lens being announced, it seemed an appropriate time to take a look at the Sony alternative.
The Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM Lens is in stock at B&H | Amazon | Adorama | WEX.
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