Artistically... this is nothing special. But technically, it is not the sort of low-light image quality you normally expect from a point-and-shoot digital camera...

I’m out to prove something to myself… that even with an old point and shoot digital camera it is possible to take great pictures which rival those taken with higher end gear. Why the hell am I doing this? Motivation by seeing someone else’s sub-par work. Also, it doesn’t hurt when someone says that a piece of equipment is outdated junk.

Yes.. what triggered this was seeing someone else’s poor product (no, not shots that I took, for serious!), having to listen to someone else talk smack about low end camera gear for no particular reason other than brand fanboyism.

Okay, feeling motivated to produce superior work even while armed with a simple point-and-shoot camera kind of kicked this whole thing off too, because I shot my mouth off, ranting that way.

Luckily for me, the only person who heard me rant was my wife. Unluckily, she wanted me to back up what I said. Luckily, I was counting on her issuing the challenge like that. Don’t worry. We get along splendidly. She knows how to light a fire under my ass, and I mean that in the best of ways. Of course, I won’t post the offending work on here. That’s just not cool. After all, I’m not a paid pro, and this other person is.

For this little project I chose the Canon PowerShot S400 to try and prove my point. It’s the perfect little camera for the job.  Here are some of the reasons why:

• It’s ‘old enough’ in digital camera years, being of 2003 vintage. The timing of the camera’s age means many people are upgrading it in favor of newer gear. It’s super cheap on eBay right now.
• It is easily overlooked by most people these days because on paper, many of its specifications have been far surpassed by contemporary compact point-and-shoots.
• It’s compact, and has an excellent physical build.
• It has a relatively large 1/1.8″ CCD, the last PowerShot of it’s kind to use that sensor. Current cameras of its class use the smaller 1/2.7″ CCD form factor.
• It doesn’t have too many photosites crowding up that CCD. Four megapixels is just right. Not too many, not too few.
• Canon’s firmware is pretty good at extracting optimum dynamic range most of the time in all shots.
• It has no manual controls. This is actually good. This makes it more challenging for me to trick the camera into doing my bidding.
• This is Canon’s last PowerShot camera to use an all-glass lens, as opposed to polycarbonates/resins on current models.
• Although not really a ‘good’ thing, the camera has a dinky 1.5″ LCD screen, which will make composition and exposure evaluation a bit trickier- which in turn should make this whole crazy feat more impressive.
• The camera has an infinity focus mode, so the camera will still shoot anyway without having acquired focus lock on a nearby subject. Useful for low light  work.

Well, without further ado, here are the first wave of test shots, done at macro lengths.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday by redrocker_9@flickr

Feliz cumple.... by Espace vitto

Pattern by d's 2nd@flickr

Down the road, by humanwarmth@flickr

Pogled sa zvjezdarnice by *shana@flickr

Trio, by La Señorita Pil

To go to heaven, by ~ Araien ~@flickr

Dargın mıyız ? by Derya Hacalaki@flickr

Now for the fun part. These pictures come from two of the WORST digital cameras ever manufactured. Again- the pictures are absolutely beautiful and nothing bad can really be said about them… but the hardware is almost universally derided.

The first four photos were taken with a Polaroid i-Zone 550, a camera regarded as a toy. Its own user base tends to not really like it all that much. Not only a camera, it also comes with a built-in MP3 player, and unfortunately is good at neither task. Advertised as a 5.1 megapixel camera, it was shown to be a 3MP CCD that was upsampled to meet the specification- yet look at the nice shots that came out of the camera in this particular case.

The next four shots were taken with a Pentax Optio E-10, a camera known for its technical crappiness and generally hate-filled user reviews, and for its CCD imager chip randomly dying or batteries mysteriously being drained in abnormally short times.

Again, this is proof that the camera really does not make you a better photographer. Good tools help, but that’s all they are- tools. Many pixel-peepers today simply fail to grasp that.

I have to say I am hooked on pancake lenses. What are they? Well, they’re very flat compared to other lenses, hence the name. Other than their compact size, they don’t offer distortion effects like fisheye lenses, or tilt-shift lenses. The name just implies their diminuitive footprint and possible roots in the Zeiss Tessar lens package design. Now I’m motivated to start a little project that provides some centralized information about them.

UPDATE

I’ve got the first four lenses added into my “Index of Pancake Lenses“, a little database-driven side project that I just launched. I hope to add more in there as I get collect information and develop better understanding of lenses as a whole. Any hints/corrections/additional info are greatly appreciated!

Yesterday, Canon issued a recall on one of their flagship DSLR cameras, the EOS 1D Mark III. One of the problems is related to autofocus issues when not using the center focus point – which I don’t experience because I almost exclusively use the center point. There are a total of 45 autofocus points on the camera viewfinder, with 19 of them being selectable. The remainder are “assist” points.

The autofocus has had knocks on it because under certain conditions it totally freaks out – high temperature heat/haze in the backgrounds, and under low contrast conditions (such as a dancer wearing black against a black background). The EOS 1D Mark IIn, its predecessor, apparently did not have these kinds of issues.

The other problem which is potentially more serious and troubling are ‘ERR99′ messages that occasionally pop up and without real regularity. These cause the camera to become unusable until powered off.

Canon’s biggest problem though is that they are perceived as covering things up.

It’s a lot like when a Windows desktop would crash- you had no idea what happened, and like voodoo in the Microsoft way- with the reboot of the computer, and the waving of a dead chicken, everything would come back just fine. Some users have had to leave their cameras powered off for extended periods of time, while others just remove the battery to reset it, and everything is okay again. I have personally never experienced this problem, so I can’t comment on it.

Canon’s biggest problem though is that they are perceived as covering things up. Having some camera bodies out there that work, and some that can’t focus, and now finally acknowledging some that randomly crash makes this problem worse. In some ways, I wished that ALL of the cameras had failures so that it would be easier to clear the mess away and start over. Then they could issue a credit on current 1D Mark III owners towards the newer model. But I can’t

If you follow the traffic on various Internet forums it would look like the situation has reached Biblical proportions. Everyone from raging drama queens, to unreadable chicken-scratchers, to brand-bashers seem to be coming out of the woodwork as they all smell blood. Others like Markuson@pbase and DPReview can enjoy the sweet taste of vindication as their original complaints were held true.

My hat goes off to people Rob Galbraith at their persistence with trying to find the root cause of the problems.

There has been some misinformation spread about the internal guts of the 1D Mark III in general.

1) The 1D Mark III is NOT does not run DRYOS.

The camera still uses Wind River Software VxWorks. In fact I don’t think any of the SLR cameras use DRYOS as the EDSDK has not been ported or altered to support DRYOS cameras yet. Also, the changes would be significant and Canon would most likely rename EDSDK to something else, as they had done with RCSDK before it.

What this means is that the cameras did not undergo the ‘double bypass’ equivalent of software engineering- having both new code functionality added along with an operating system transplant. With such an undertaking you can bet things could go wrong, and bugs could be introduced. This puts Canon back on the hook for the ERR99 problems that have come up here and there.

2) The autofocus problems now seem to be indeed hardware related.

Rob Galbraith suspected this. Other users with understanding of how passive intensity differential autofocus engines suspected as much too. This puts Canon back on the hook for putting out the impression that all of the issues in the past would be corrected via a firmware update.

What does this all mean? Probably that some engineering errors during testing got put into production, or that the accountants got a bit too chop-happy during the initial production acceptance stages of the camera. Either way, it means this will not be an easy fix, as Canon is now scheduling individual appointments with 1d Mark III users.

Conclusion and what it means to you:

I have mixed feelings about this. I have a camera that seems to be working pretty well, and I am not inclined to f*** around with it. I still really like my camera lot. But then again, I’m not shooting sports like gymnastics or airshows with it on a routine basis.

On the other hand, it would be neat to get a properly working camera up to spec out of the box. I guess I’ll chicken out here and not make ANY conclusions just yet. If you are an owner and feel slighted by Canon, by all means, call them and pester them until you have a camera body that you’re happy with. Just because people like me may be on the sidelines doesn’t mean we don’t support you. Good luck!

06 March UPDATE – Information Regarding Specific Serial Numbers

I called Canon to see what kind of options I had out of curiousity. I spoke with a Canon service engineer, and he did confirm that there were at least three significant revisions of the 1D Mark III. Out of interest in not putting his job in jeopardy, I won’t post his name. But his comments were in line with the contents of this posting here at DPReview. I’ve pasted the contents of his posting here below:

Hi,

According to CPS representatives in my regions, there are 3 different revisions of the Mk III. These are labelled within the battery compartment. There is a code inside of it. Relevant are the last 2 digits:

01-04 are the first one with defective AF mirror
05-08 are the second one (blue dot)
09-13 are the latest. These are fine and should include the latest AF module.

So probably if your cam belongs to the 09-13 range, the new fix is not necessary.

Best regards
Lightjunkie

I might be hallucinating, but the Canon rep I spoke with hinted at more than three revisions, but my interpretation was as many as five. This would have been fairly expensive in terms of man-hours to disrupt the assembly line five times with upgrades to manufacturing processes. Of course, he might be pulling my leg as none of the manufacturing is done in the USA and the possibility of support staff knowing everything that’s happening over in Japan is slim and/or next to not useful.

I’m not sure what exactly would have been hardware related to address. No doubt tooling costs, training costs, and hours lost by downtime for staff at manufacturing positions would be significant. Then again, the 1D series cameras are not made in massive volumes where something like this would be that disruptive. At least Canon was trying to fix matters on the assembly line.

As for me, my conclusion is to stick with the camera that I have. Luckily my camera’s manufacture code ends with a 13. It works, and I really like it so far in terms of performance, ergonomics, and such. After all, it’s just a tool to help take photos, and is basically an expensive little box that captures light momentarily.

Well, now that this is all done for the time being, let’s go grab a drink.

You’re probably here because of a random search. Well, i’m no expert, but i’ve got some equipment, and i’ve been shooting for only a little while. I’m probably the perfect person to offer an objective point of view! I’m a newbie too. Just like you, but the only difference is that I have some gear, and you don’t (yet).

Well, I want to help you. I want to help you save money, time, and frustration. So without further do, please allow me the opportunity to set you straight on a few things.

1. The equipment DOES NOT really matter!
2. Persistence and patience do matter, however.
3. Being creative and curious helps a lot.
4. Special effects are easy. Time consuming, but still… easy.
5. Connections help more than expensive lenses.

The explanation for each of these points continues after the break.

The Equipment Does Not Really Matter

I shoot Canon gear, and I have invested in it mainly because it’s what I’ve always been comfortable using from starting off with point-and-shoot cameras. That’s it. I’m perfectly comfortable with the prospect of having to use Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, and even Sony (who bought up the assets of what was once Konica-Minolta).

Anyone who tells you one system is flat out superior to another is a fanboy. Don’t listen to them. No how good they seem to be at their craft, they are doomed to be the frog in the well. Definitely do not listen to the boisterous keyboard warriors of the Internet forum wastelands. More often than not, these are the types who never even post photos. Probably because they are too busy arguing the merits of one brand over another.

…The camera at its core is just a f#*%ing box that captures light…

Save yourself a lot of stress, go to a camera store, or a Best Buy, and play around with the interface on the cameras on display. Put your brain on ‘IGNORE’ mode with the salespeople. Feel the camera and look around in the interface for what is intuitive for you. Don’t worry if you don’t know what buttons do which. At this point you are not supposed to know. Just put the camera in your hands and work on these things:

1. Can I figure out how to turn it on or off?
2. Is it comfortable in my hands?
3. Is it too light, or too heavy?
4. Can I reach all of the buttons, switches, and doodads with both hands comfortably?
5. Does it feel right?

Seriously, that sounds simple, like for developmentally retarded individuals. But I have quantified the exact things that will be running through your mind at that point. Pick something you’re comfortable with. You’re the one that is going to have to use it every day.

Don’t worry about megapixels. Don’t worry about the ISO rating of the camera. Don’t worry about technobabble this, or whachamcallit that. Don’t let anyone- whether it be a sales droid, a crazy uncle, or even myself get to you to influence the TECHNICAL aspects of your decision. Camera bodies are all competent regardless of the manufacturer and worrying about the TECHNICAL details is really useless at this point.

The camera at its core is just a fucking BOX that captures light. An empty coffee can with a pinhole and some film can do that. There is even a trend these days to use deliberately crappy cameras and lenses to take artsy, strangely overexposed photos. I am serious! (wikipedia – Lomography). So DON’T WORRY about these technical aspects at all.

Don’t worry about getting additional lenses at this point. Learn and use the kit lens that comes with your camera first. I had a kit lens and I regret selling it, because it was damn good at what it did, and was light and cheap. Put thoughts of loading up on lenses firmly out of your head.

…Don’t worry about megapixels. Don’t worry about the ISO rating of the camera…

The main merits of sticking with Canon or Nikon (since they are the big dogs) or some other recommend brand is that if you’re in a class/group environment, you can share other people’s lenses.

Otherwise if you want to go with some other brand, knock yourself out. Building a good DSLR is not rocket surgery, and pretty much everything out there is competent at taking pictures, so you will be perfectly fine with whatever gear you are comfortable with.

Still not convinced? Check out this rant written by Chad Coombs, a professional photographer. He says it a lot more to-the-point and jarringly eloquently than me most of the time. I am being dead serious. Stop right now in fact, go read that page RIGHT NOW, and you can thank me later. I won’t be upset if you decide not to come back. I’m being serious.

Persistence & Patience Really Do Matter

I read my manuals and documentation all the time. I frustrated the hell out of my wife because I take my cameras into the bathroom, and use that opportunity while downloading a brownload to fully understand the feature sets, limitations, and experiment while my gear has a captive audience. No, I don’t take pictures of my own poop. I might though, if I leave one large enough to clog the whole thing down, but you get my drift – OKAY back on subject…

There is a lot to understand about photography, and while I cannot claim to be an expert at ANYTHING in the field, I can at least have conversations with those that do, and take away a reasonable understanding of things they have to say. There are quite a few technical terms, a little bit of math, TONS of marketing bullshit, but even more good tips and techniques.

My point is that I still may not be a good photographer after all is said and done, but I have learned a lot of random things related to the study of light, and there is always more to reach for. Don’t let the initial overwhelming flood of information intimidate you. Embrace it, and just try to digest comfortable sized bits at a time.

Being Creative & Curious Helps a Lot

I’ll admit I need a lot of work in this regard. Every time I give my camera to a child to use, more often than not I get something back that looks better than if I had taken it. This happens! Accept it!

The trick is to not get discouraged, and instead capitalize on the lesson they are sharing with you. Keep an open mind, be creative, and be curious. Who cares if you’re at a museum, and you are lying on the ground to get a better shot of a statue?

Sure, people are laughing at you now, but these are the same people who would gladly over cashmoney for one of your prints afterwards.

Special Effects are Easy, But Time Consuming

If you’re looking at this photo and you say “Wow! I really want to do this! This is SO FREAKING COOL!”

…let me just tell you first to smack that thought out of your head and come to your senses. Don’t fall for this sort of bullshit. You are better than that.

There is nothing wrong with this type of photography- it’s called high dynamic range imaging, or HDR (sometimes HDRi) for short- but it is a special effect. Time will tell if it fades into obscurity as a mere gimmick, or continues its life in a more muted and upscale fashion.  Photos like this are composed of at least two images taken at different exposure settings which are ‘muxed’ together using Photoshop or other applications.

Remember, that these are special effect shots. Good effects like any must be used in moderation. If you rush out and get yourself a DSLR thinking you want to shoot only images like this, chances are you will be frustrated and disappointed. These sort of shots take a lot of time to craft, and it’s all too easy to fall into the trap to overdo them.

Connections Help More Than Expensive Gear

This is something I don’t need to elaborate much on. If you’re at a venue, and you can get front-row access, you stand to get much better, intimate shots than the guy slathered in gear who is sitting in the nosebleed seats, doesn’t know any of the performers, doesn’t even know where the dressing rooms are, or can’t even get the time of day from the security staff.

I often have to remind myself to work on this aspect. It’s really something that people overlook until the last minute.

Conclusion & Wrap-Up

Below are two of my cameras. I use both of them. If you’re bored, you can see a head-to-head comparison between David and Goliath that I am slowly pulling together here and here. You can decide for yourself if even using a DSLR is what you are looking for.

Well, I really hope that this helps you in making your purchase. Remember that what matters is that you are happy and comfortable taking photos. Good luck!

It pays to take your camera around everywhere. This may not be a ‘great’ photo but I love the emotion it sparks when I see it. Best part? No posing, and total spontaneity. I wish I had a better eye for this sort of thing.

Again, not a technically impressive shot, and completely lacking in an interesting subject… but its always fun to experiment.

Normal, mundane things can be fun too.

Well, this is the long-delayed next part of my ongoing comparison between the Canon 1D Mark III and the Canon SX110. For those of you wondering why in the hell I am even trying to compare one of Canon’s premier digital SLR cameras versus one of their budget point-and-shooters, check out this posting in which I try to explain some of the insanity.

Can you tell the difference between output from the two cameras? (Comparison gallery is posted after the ‘read more’ button)

Without further ado, here are some comparison shots. The answers as to which camera took what is underneath the gallery view.

Answers are printed here… (highlight text below to read)

Shots named comparo_11 to comparo_14 were taken with the SX110. Shots named comparo_15 to comparo_18 were taken with the 1D Mark III.

Testing Methodology (Or utter lack of)

The 1D Mark III was using the EF 80mm f1.2L prime lens, stopped down to f/8. The reason I used this lens was completely arbitrary, but mainly for the fact that I plan on doing some night shooting in a later comparison and wanted to keep the lens usage consistent.

Obviously, the 80mm f1.2 rules the night, and there are things that it can do at f/1.2 that few other lenses can match- but for future night testing it will be stopped down to f/8 as well in an effort to make this a fair fight. Plus with such razor thin depth of field at f/1.2 it would be really easy to tell which lens shot what.

The SX110 was adjusted to use as close of a field of view as possible. There’s a bit of slack in this regard because the zoom is not entirely forthcoming as to what focal length it is at.

The resulting images are screen captures which were saved to PNG files to minimize lossiness on output from the SX110, and eliminate it altogether for the 1D Mark III. The SX110 images were taken right out of the camera under default settings. The 1D Mark III images were taken from screenshots of Digital Photo Professional (Canon’s RAW processor). In addition, they were color and contrast corrected to meet the SX110′s settings.

Of course there is a reasonable amount of sloppiness in these tests. I did not use a tripod, this was some real-world shooting with an emphasis on daylight shots with plenty of available light.

I’m sure someone will have something to say about a lack of lab conditions for these tests, but that’s one of the major points as to why I am doing these tests. Can you tell the difference?

I was shooting a Kunqu Chinese opera some time ago and was at one point shadowed by someone using a nice midrange DSLR. He was copying my angles and at times I could hear the autofocus motor of his lens whining as it was right next to my head. It was also apparent that he was trying to shoot as many frames as possible by the way his shutter was machine gunning off a few shots… and then left to agonizingly wait as his camera’s storage buffer were being written to the camera’s memory card. I could hear him silently cursing under his breath. Was it at me?

At one point he gave me this incredulous look as to why I was able to continuously fire away. The only thing he asked me was whether or not I was shooting RAW images or not, and I nodded.

Of course he was skeptical and disbelieving, and then continued to mimic my shooting as best he could. I ended up shifting my location a few times and he could not keep up, as the advantage of the relative youth of my knees compared to his took its toll, and he stopped following me. Moving to a totally different side of the theater helped too, of course.

It’s Not The Camera Gear…

Afterwards I managed a quick glance at his gear. He had a Nikon D200. It is an outstanding crop-sensor DSLR with image output capabilities to compete head to head with the very best out there. His lens was most likely the Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6D AF which may have been a bit on the slow side for the lighting of this particular event, but it is still an excellent lens regardless. The D200 is capable of firing off 5 frames per second, in a buffer 22 frames deep. Enabling in-camera noise reduction halves the frame buffer size to 11, but it is still enough to get the job done.

So if his camera body isn’t at fault, what was the deal?

Well most likely he was using discount, budget-basement memory cards. There is a real performance difference between a top-of-the line Sandisk Extreme and the NewEgg ‘Deal of the Day’. You really get what you pay for in terms of performance, as evidenced by some fairly thorough tests performed by Rob Galbraith on a variety of different camera bodies and memory cards here.

Performance Matters. 15MB/sec Versus 4MB/sec

For my camera body and the two memory card types that I own, there is a wide gulf in performance. I normally shoot with a Sandisk Extreme III 16GB card, which cost about $179 at the time. It has a write performance of just under 15MB/sec when shooting RAW. This concurs with Rob’s tests for that specific camera body and card here. I also keep a few Transcend 133x 16GB cards as backup or traveling storage as well. These cards tested out at 5.838MB/sec under Rob’s testing, but I could barely break the 4MB mark when running my own tests. These cards aren’t necessarily junk, or are unreliable, it’s just that they are SLOW. They cost me under $50 each at the time and served well as backup storage medium when I was on my honeymoon.

Don’t Be A Cheap Bastard

So what does all this mean? Simply put- if you’re going to spend a ton of cash on a nice DSLR camera body equipped with an equally expensive lens, don’t handicap it by cheaping out on your memory card. Get the fastest that you can afford, especially if you are doing higher frame rates of shooting, otherwise you’ll end up like my shadow- constantly staring at the little blinking red LED, hoping for it to go away already.

This will be a bit of an ongoing comparison between one of Canon’s pro-level cameras (the 1D) and a convenient point-and-shoot camera that was purchased on a binge at a bankruptcy sale of a large retailer- the Canon SX110.

This is not meant to be a joke. It’s part of my way to try and be a better all-around photographer and get used to equipment from both professional and casual shooter territory. I’ll be posting more of these types of comparisons as time permits. It’s actually rather fun and isn’t meant to be a put down for the more expensive camera- and definitely not a situation where a rinkydink point-and-shoot is being fed to a tiger den.

I’m not really out to prove anything, just to have some fun along the way- but this is really serious work.

The first comparison is completely casual and semi-scientific. You could say it represents more of a real-world type comparison. There were three subjects that were shot with both cameras, and a 100% cropped image is viewable if clicked below. Otherwise if you just look at the page content, these are much smaller resized thumbnails that you are looking at.

Can you guess which camera took which photo?

EDIT – Whoops. I guess I should set these to equivalent focal lengths. But I’ll do that next time, I promise

Contestant #1 – Canon 1D Mark III

The Canon 1D Mark III is a professional body digital SLR camera targeting the sports and photojournalist photographer market. It has a top frame rate of 10 shots per second, and a weather-sealed body. It has a 10 megapixel sensor known for its ability to work under low light, and both CompactFlash and SDHC memory card slots. While the sensor is not a full frame 35mm sensor, it is considerably larger in surface area than the standard APS-C sized sensors in entry level and prosumer digital SLR cameras.

The autofocus is very quick and accurate. Some of the first-revision cameras suffered from a design defect that crippled the autofocus sensors under high heat and bright light situations, but rest assured that if you have a camera built after May 2008- it is fast and very good at what it does. Few cameras like the Nikon D3 or D700 on centerpoint mode can come close to the speed of this system.

It has a very low shutter lag latency (when you hit the button, it’s so fast it feels like it’s part of your finger) and accepts all of Canon’s EF series lenses. Unfortunately you can’t use any of the EF-S lenses as they have a protrusion out the back and could come in contact with the mirror if you were to even shoehorn the lens to the body anyway. EF-S lenses were originally built for cropped sized APS-C sensors anyhow. Canon’s lens selection from extreme macro (close-ups) to long telephoto (papparazo/ birding lenses) are very deep and versatile indeed.

The camera has very fast controls, and I’ve been so spoiled by its quick interface that I find even the Digital Rebel series to feel sluggish in their handling (they really are NOT though!). There are only a few routines to memorize, and if you do that you can change almost any important setting without taking your eye out of the viewfinder. I purchased the camera prior to my wedding and honeymoon. It was both a impulse and planned purchase. I really love using this camera and it has served me well.

Contestant #2 – Canon SX110

The Canon SX110 is a convenient point-and-shoot camera with a variety of automatic and manual control modes. It has a 10x zoom lens, covering a range roughly from 36mm to 360mm using the ‘standard’ 35mm ratio as a reference. It does not have a viewfinder, and image composition is performed exclusively on its 3″ screen. It can record movies, and has a 9 megapixel sensor. The camera uses easily available AA batteries and use SDHC media. It can be found in retail stores for under $220 USD.

It is well made, easy to use, and has a pretty good ergonomics considering its lineage- as a commodity consumer product. It’s a neat little camera and I would recommend it easily for anyone looking for a simple, reliable camera.

I’m generally for the practice of pixel peeping, as long as it is done in moderation. In case you don’t know what pixel peeping entails, it’s real simple and roughly goes along these steps:

1. Get two or more cameras that you want to compare. Let’s use one that you love, and one that you hate.
2. Pick a subject to photograph, preferably a still life or something that won’t move much or change colors between shots.
3. Set one camera up on a tripod, and take a shot.
4. Set up the other camera to replace the first, using the same settings, and take a shot.
5. Load the images from both cameras to your computer.
6. Zoom into one section with high detail and compare the hell out of both images side by side.
7. Linger around at step 6 or repeat EVERYTHING until you feel that the camera you love and always wanted to ‘win’ all along gets better results than the other one that you hate.

Okay, i’m being a bit sarcastic. But seriously, this is how pixel peeping usually ends up happening.

It’s not that pixel peeping isn’t without its merits, but if you have taken more pictures of $20 bills taped to a wall compared with actually interesting subject matter, you have chosen the wrong hobby. Perhaps chainsaw juggling would be a more suitable endeavor instead.

Some people also consider pixel peeping to be an Internet sport. If you do choose to engage in this giant tub of fail, at least don’t go around on discussion boards making quotes like this:

“in my eyes nikon colors look more fake…that is why i never switched to nikon, even though they make amazing cameras a lot of times the color look too saturated, not natural at all canon has the opposite tendency, which i prefer…”

“for my eyes, Nikon’s color looks more natural, no? From the examples, the tree and lawn has a warmer green.”

So what exactly is wrong with those quotes? They seem like perfectly legitimate critiques of color, right?

Here’s what’s wrong- when the image that is being pixel peeped is that of a Bailey’s Irish Cream bottle label with a painted rendition of a pastoral nature scene.

Yup. Every time I think I have seen something silly, the Internet shows me how much I have to learn about silliness.

This and the EF 35mm f1.4L are my favorite lenses. If I had to choose only two lenses to use, it would be those two.

If you’re reading this you most likely stumbled here because of a Google search or something similar, and are looking for sample shots or a review. Welcome! Glad to have you here. I hope this post helps your decision making process. I’m not going to list the good and the bad like a typical review, because certain ‘bad’ things are actually ‘good’ the way things panned out.

So here goes:

A Positive Experience

My experience with the 85L has been very positive. I own the Mark II version. I have not used the Mark I so I cannot comment on that lens. From what I know, that lens is very similar but with different optical coating and a revamped autofocus motor.

My lens was purchased used but in excellent condition. It focuses crisply and without the requirement of any micro adjustment. It’s very sharp even wide open at f/1.2, and i’m one of those oddballs who will even use the lens in full daylight without regret. Of course, I have to drop my ISO all the way down to 100,  stop down to at least f/8, and stay within the shadows for my shots.

However, outdoor shots in bright sunlight is not what this lens was designed for. Its bread and butter is low available light shooting. Any lens can handle those magical times of the day (sunrise and sunset) but not many venture into the darkness after the sun goes down. I think this lens has given me a new way to view the night. It is a very useful tool even under candlelight and its bokeh (background blur) is supremely excellent- giving portraits a dreamy, wonderland-style setting.

Autofocus Performance, Sharpness, & Depth of Field

This is not an easy lens to use. It requires patience, and has a bit of a learning curve with it. But once you figure it out (the autofocus and DoF), it becomes second nature to operate.

On discussion boards, a frequent source of complaints comes from users who say the lens is not sharp. At the f/1.2 aperture, the lens has a depth of field as little as half an inch.  For new users, that means you need a fairly high shutter speed (around 1/120 or faster) and a very steady hand! Hold your breath and pull on the shutter gently. Having a mindset similar to target shooting with a rifle helps a lot. You need to be steady, deliberate, and patient with the lens.

Again, the lens is wide open at f/1.2, but you just have to be aware of the depth of field being so thin.

Sure, the autofocus is a bit slow as many have noted, but it is plenty fast to get the job done with most portrait work. But if you’re used to shooting fighter jets or steeplechases, it’s definitely going to seem too slow. ANYTHING is going to feel slower than telephoto zooms like the EF 70/200mm f/2.8 or long telephoto primes like the 400mm f/2.8.

You also will need to set your focus points to target the eyes. That’s a beginner tip that was told to me, and I use it not just on this lens but all that I own. I typically only use the center focus point, so I cannot vouch for or have experienced any of the focus issues that some have complained about when off-center.

Build Quality

This lens is built like a tank. There is a sizable amount of metal housing protecting an equally sizable pile of glass… but the lens still feels as if it needs to be treated with care. I certainly have not banged it around very much so I can’t comment about it’s impact resistance. The lens is not weather sealed so it’s not trying to be a sport shooter lens anyway. Here’s what the lens looks like clear through the front:

The Manual Focus Ring

This lens is an oddity to me as it does not have a ‘connected’ manual focus ring. The ring is actually completely loose and you can feel it in autofocus mode. Once set to manual, when the ring is moved it presumably is nothing more than a Hall effect sensor, which then sends the AF motor within the lens along on its way. It may not be a direct connection, but it works well enough that it really isn’t an issue for the most part. It just seems a bit disconcerting at first. You’ll get used to it and people who complain about it are being picky about ergonomics which are valid complaints but definitely not showstoppers.

The front part of the lens also protrudes when at close focus. I have simply been accustomed to focusing back down to infinity and then powering it off.

The Mass Factor

This is a heavy lens. I use it on a 1-series body. I do occasionally use it on my 40D and D60 (The vintage Canon one, not a Nikon). It feels balanced even with those cameras without requiring a battery grip, but that’s just my opinion. This is a lot of weight to be carrying around as a walk-around combo. Well, the only practical solution is to just get used to it.

I’m not a big guy, but i’ve lugged this around for days at a time in Paris, without any real ill side effects. I probably can curl a bit more weight nowadays but that’s about it. If you want image quality, you have to pay for it somehow.

The sheer amount of glass in this lens is fairly intimidating for candid shots, but i’ve managed to pull it off even with this lens.

The Cost

This is an expensive lens. It however helps make pictures that I am really proud of. It is purely up to you to decide whether or not the gains are worth it. I have not tried the less expensive 85 f/1.8 model for long enough time to decide if the differentials are truly worth the extra cost (as you can buy nearly four f/1.8 lenses for the cost of one of these f/1.2 models).

My only regret is that I did not get this lens sooner.

Chromatic Aberration & Flaring

I’m somewhat color blind, so I can’t really comment on this. It hasn’t been an issue for me, mainly out of ignorance more than solid technique or anything else.

This lens also resists flare fairly well, but when looking at photos after a download I sometimes catch an oddball flare that shouldn’t be there… and wonder ‘how the heck’ did I not catch that. Your mileage will vary. The included hood is a bit bulky and has an oddball design in that rotates along with the lens element. It’s a bit disconcerting but really not big deal in the end.

The Field of View

I use this lens on a 1.3 crop factor camera and it works excellently. On a more common 1.6 crop factor, it has a roughly 136mm field of view, which is perfectly usable for individual portraits, but might feel a bit ‘long’ at times.

I’ve tried this lens on a full frame camera briefly, and was quite happy with it as well. So my experience is that despite the crop factor of your camera- from a Rebel to a 1Ds series body, you will find the image quality enchanting and quite lovely.

The Images

Lastly, and most important- the pictures. I really, really love the pictures that this lens helps me take. It has a light collection ability which exceeds the human eye, and sensitivity which probably exceeds it. These are some of the photos that I have taken which I hope can provide a sense of what this lens is like in the hands of a near clueless newbie (that would be me).

Thanks for reading!