Instead of Thursday's Task

[JimFox]

I originally bought a 6D as a backup for my 5D MkII and ended using the 6D full time once I looked at the images. Especially for low light. I still have my 6D.

Yeah, it's interesting that the 6D is a lower end camera then the 5D and 5D2, but yet most people preferred the 6D especially in terms of High ISO night time photography. And many people still use the 6D today.

Canon I would say led the charge out of the gate for DSLR's. Nikon had catching up to do. When Nikon caught up with the D700, to me it felt like Canon was sitting back a bit lazy. They finally got off their butts with the 5D3. And from that period on, I think Canon, Nikon and Sony have all made great strides.

With Mirrorless it was Sony that took the lead, Canon then got in the race with some really good offerings and this time it was Nikon who was late to the game. I would say none of Nikon's mirrorless offerings were very impressive at all. Their Z7's and Z6's were simply just mirrorless equivalents to their DLSR cameras. It wasn't until the Z9 and Z8 cameras were released that Nikon finally made mirrorless cameras that could be considered an upgrade to the DSLR's. That's why it's only now, that I finally got the Z8.

Anyway, that's my superficial view on digital camera history from 40,000 feet.

 

[JimFox]

One from 2007, Bandon Beach. As I have said, Bandon is my favorite beach in Oregon.

This didn't need anywhere near the recovery as Doug's or Jameel's. But it did need a bit of work.

Original

Processed using PhotoLab7 for noise, and then Photoshop to process.

 

[JimFox]

Earlier this week I was giving a talk, to a local camera club, on processing. I knew the club well and decided that most people would get something useful out of my pitching it at a simple and quick level. At the start I asked if they would prefer lightroom or photoshop and , unfortunately for me, the wanted lightroom. I had a simple catalogue prepared and the images loaded and did a live demo of processing using their projector screen. This is a high risk strategy as it can go very wrong very quickly but fortunately all went well on the night. My stated aim was to go from RAW to finished in less than 5 minutes or if it was very complex to 95% finished in 5 minutes.
Here is a 2 minute example showing my best "trick" which is reducing the exposure by a stop or 2 and increasing the whites until it looks good. This works best on low contrast, low saturation scenes as it increases both. It is possible to use it on general scenes but the saturation can get out of hand very quickly. Works a treat on mono scenes giving punch.
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I think that I have gone too far with this one but I was projecting it at the time and the projector doesn't have the crispness of a good monitor, that is my excuse anyway. Ken
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This looks great. And I like your trick Ken.

You are braver then me in your presentation. I only know Photoshop. I have powered on Lightroom once or twice and got totally lost, so there is no way I could have done your presentation.

 

[AlanLichty]

Yeah, it's interesting that the 6D is a lower end camera then the 5D and 5D2, but yet most people preferred the 6D especially in terms of High ISO night time photography. And many people still use the 6D today.

Canon I would say led the charge out of the gate for DSLR's. Nikon had catching up to do. When Nikon caught up with the D700, to me it felt like Canon was sitting back a bit lazy. They finally got off their butts with the 5D3. And from that period on, I think Canon, Nikon and Sony have all made great strides.

With Mirrorless it was Sony that took the lead, Canon then got in the race with some really good offerings and this time it was Nikon who was late to the game. I would say none of Nikon's mirrorless offerings were very impressive at all. Their Z7's and Z6's were simply just mirrorless equivalents to their DLSR cameras. It wasn't until the Z9 and Z8 cameras were released that Nikon finally made mirrorless cameras that could be considered an upgrade to the DSLR's. That's why it's only now, that I finally got the Z8.

Anyway, that's my superficial view on digital camera history from 40,000 feet.

That seems like a pretty accurate summary. A big chunk of the 5DII popularity came from its video capabilities. I bought it for Live View since I was playing around with ND filters to blur waterfalls in daylight and had been flying blind with the 5D but I knew a bunch of video freaks that were going nuts over the 5DII. I thought that Canon's 5DIII was kind of a mistake where Canon caved to the MP wars and released a camera that didn't improve on the noise issues of the 5DII but more than doubled the pixel count. The later surprise was the 6D which had way less noise at much higher ISO numbers than the 5DIII and cost less than the 5DII to begin with. The 5DIV was the last of Canon's prosumer full frame DSLRs and while it had less pixels than the 5DIII it was far beyond the 5DIII for high ISO noise levels and better IQ.

I did read through Canon's optical engineering papers back when they first brought out the EOS R on why they went gung ho into mirrorless and it made perfect sense. Our DSLRs were built to preserve compatibility with existing lenses that were designed around the distance between the back of the lens optics and where film used to ride behind the shutter. It was always a compromise for getting the best out of digital sensors so at some point they simply had to plug the plug on the older lens designs and start over from scratch. The EOS R was actually the electronics and sensor out of the 5DIV with a completely revamped body design. They have not released any new software for the 5DIV since so the handwriting on the wall is quite distinct.

Its nice there are so many new options from several camera makers besides Canon and Nikon - it makes everyone continually improve their offerings and we benefit from the competition with better and better toys

 

[AlanLichty]

One from 2007, Bandon Beach. As I have said, Bandon is my favorite beach in Oregon.

This didn't need anywhere near the recovery as Doug's or Jameel's. But it did need a bit of work.

Original

Processed using PhotoLab7 for noise, and then Photoshop to process.

I like the result with your recovery - much more interesting with the colors getting their due.