Keith's Photography Stuff

Some time ago I put together a page on this site about ‘Choosing your first digital camera‘  I keep it updated every so often and add new resources I find.
This came about after being asked by so many people about what camera they should buy, particularly since I used to teach some introductory courses at [...]

Some photos in the fog
Yesterday morning I was invited to visit to the new ‘digital media centre’ that’s just opened in Leicester. Phoenix Square has a mix of cinema, work places, production facilities and a range of apartments.
I was not officially wearing my ‘photographer hat’ this visit – since I was representing a local business [...]

Looking at high ISO photography with the Canon 7D
The EOS 7D ISO settings go up to 12800, although it should be noted that the 12800 or ‘H’ setting needs enabling in the custom settings.
I’ve looked at aspects of high ISO noise earlier and decided that 6400 ISO should be capable of some interesting results in [...]

How sharp are the images from the Canon EOS 7D? I believe there has been some discussion on the matter
It was suggested (thanks) I take some shots at f/6.3 with the 7D and 1Ds3.
Taking both cameras outside, I picked one of my sharper lenses…
Here are some 100% crops, processed in ACR with no sharpening
Taken [...]

The other day I had to go to the local Post Office, so I took the Canon 7D along with me. All these shots are taken at 800 ISO at f/8 with a EF24-70 2.8L lens.
I’d not expect to print such images at any great size, but I was interested to see how the new [...]

DxO have brought out an update to the Mac version of their RAW converter.
DxO information and trial download (Mac and PC)
V5.3.6 now work under OSX 10.3.6 and includes support for a number of new cameras and lenses – fortunately including the Canon 7D.

Canon 7D and G11;
Nikon D300s and D3000;
Olympus E-3 (Elite edition only), E-30, E-410, [...]

A few tests of AF and AF tracking for the Canon EOS 7D
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t do sports photography, or photograph animals/birds very often, so my looking at AF performance with the 7D is not going to be an exhaustive study
That said, the AF system in my 1Ds3 is no slouch [...]

I just took a few pictures with the 7D and my 1Ds3 to see how high ISO noise compared on the two.
Images are processed (ACR5.6rc) with no noise reduction, but all other settings at defaults.
Article Link: Comparing the EOS 7D and 1Ds3 at high ISO
It’s also worth noticing that the 7D got slightly closer to [...]

Not long after I got my 1Ds3 I heard that noise levels were lower at whole stop ISO settings, A quick test confirmed this and I have it set to whole stop steps rather than 1/3 stop (100,200, 400 rather than 100,125,160,200,250 etc.)
I’ve now repeated this with the Canon 7D and the results are not [...]

I’m working on some more detailed looks at aspects of the Canon 7D, but I thought I’d write up a few more ‘first impressions’ of using the camera. Thanks for all the questions – I’ll try and address as many as possible whilst I’ve got the camera.
I had to go to up to Loughborough University [...]