Canon EOS 5D converted for pure infrared use

[see also my Digital Infrared article]

I’m not sure why I like the flower photo below (a throwaway in terms of technical flaws), but it appeals to me on some basic level. It was shot in infrared (read on for details) using the Canon 85mm/f1.2L at f1.2. I adjusted Levels in Photoshop, sharpened slightly and saved it—a few minutes work.

I received my modified (for pure infrared) Canon EOS 5D today. The factory infrared-blocking sensor glass was replaced with visible-light-blocking glass and the focus was adjusted for infrared use by maxmax.com.

The conversion also has the effect of eliminating the anti-aliasing filter, which in theory means sharper pictures (at the risk of moire with some subjects). The maxmax.com turnaround was excellent; they received the camera on a Friday, and it was back in my hands on Monday. I will verify the cleanliness of the conversion soon, and report on it.

Infrared can be rendered as black and white or color—bizarre color if you like (gee, I gotta work on getting my horizons straight...!). One trick is to use Lab color space in Photoshop, as compared with RGB color space.

A few quick notes:

• As with the Nikon D70, optical quality when shooting infrared is variable. Soft corners are the norm, even at f11, especially with wide-angle lenses (wider than 28mm or so).
  
  
• Hot spots are a problem with some lenses when stopped down smaller than f8. The 50mm/f2.5 macro seems fine; the 50mm/f1.4 has a hot-spot issue.
  
  
• The 5D has good infrared response (though not unusually so). Exposures in sunlight were about 1/125 second at f8 at ISO 100. Today’s sun was somewhat muted, so I will revisit this subject with the D70IR and 5D-IR on a haze-free day.

I expect to produce a detailed report on the 5D-IR and the Nikon D70IR covering many infrared-related issues. Watch this blog.

Fujifilm F30 point and shoot

Always in search of a compact digicam whose quality is better than mediocre (as compared to a DSLR), my Fujifilm FinePix F30 arrived today, a 6.1 megapixel (2848 X 2136) digicam.

While I really like my Panasonic Lumix FX01, it has so much noise as to be marginal past ISO 200, and that makes it a sunny-day-only camera. The Fuji F30 promises much lower noise, and so far that seems to be true—except that it lacks image stabilization, so the net result is unclear as yet. Sensor sizes— The F30 has a relatively large 1/1.7" CCD, which is 7.6 X 5.7mm in size, as compared with the 1/2.5" (5.76 X 4.29mm) CCD in the Lumix FX01, or 75% larger, which should inherently yield less noises.

The FinePix F30 is noticeably chunkier than the Panasonic Lumix FX01, with a larger battery too. Yet it still easily fits in a pocket. It takes second place to the Lumix FX01 in the “cute and elegant” department.

The annoyance of an xD Picture Card can be tolerated, but SD cards are preferred for me, since they can be interchanged among more cameras, including my Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II. Shutter delay is absolutely minimal, provided pre-focus is done (and focus hunting is not too uncommon).

The Finepix F30 has manual controls, and both aperture and shutter priority, my major gripe about the Lumix FX01—you’re forced to improvise to get what you want (see also Consumer Digicams and Diffraction).

Unfortunately, the optical performance of the F30 is marred by color fringing, at least at the wide end (see below). Some of it appears to be sensor “blooming” and some appears to be actual optical chromatic aberration. Whether this is characteristic of the camera design, or whether my particular copy has misasligned optics is not clear. At any rate, the F30’s 36mm “wide” angle (equivalent) feels very restrictive compared to the Panasonic Lumix FX01 (28mm equivalent). The Lumix FX01 might have some color fringing, but somehow it’s much more objectionable with the FinePix F30. To be fair, the Lumix FX01 also produces very blurry corner performance in some cases.

I also have a Casio Exilim Z1000 coming (1/1.8" CCD, slightly smaller than the FinePix F30 but with 10 megapixels). Casio claims low noise and high dynamic range. You betcha! I’ll believe it when I see it for myself.

Either the Exilim Z1000 or the FinePix F30 (or possibly both) will be headed back if they can’t beat the convenience and sheer fun factor of the Lumix FX01, or at the very least produce superior image quality in terms of noise, sharpness and other characteristics.

When are these camera manufacturers going to figure out that excellent design, decent-sized CCD, and superb optics can sell cameras too? I want a camera the size of the Lumix FX01 with a 3" 400,000 pixel screen, a 1/1.7" CCD, aperture priority, adjustable fill-flash and a 24-105 equivalent. And please throw in a built-in polarizer too! While they’re at it, a pure infrared model would be nice, with optics designed for infrared.

Chance favors the prepared photographer

By thinking ahead, maybe you can make a picture that you might otherwise have missed. In this case, I was setting up a macro shot of an unusual red plant (fungus or plant?) when I heard a familiar buzz—that of a hummingbird.

The little guy swooped in to gather whatever sweetness the plant had to offer. All I could do was click the shutter, feeling pretty helpless with the manual-everything 85mm/f2.8 PC-Micro-Nikkor stopped down (manual plunger) and 3-4 stops underexposed. The resulting frame is pushed 2 stops, then further lightened—amazing really, given that any film shot would have been hopeless. Click to see a larger version. A reader was kind enough to inform me what type of plant this is—Sarcodes sanguinea otherwise known as Snow plant. It has no chlorophyll, but derives its sustenance from decaying organic matter, typically in pine tree forests.

Digital Infrared

I’ve posted the 1st iteration my of Digital Infrared article.

Secure Digital (SD) cards 4GB in size

I took a chance, and ordered a 4GB secure digital card for $99. It won’t work in either my Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II or my Panasonic Lumix FX01. I tried in-camera formatting as well as formatting by the computer.

Apparently Canon is working on a firmware update that will address this issue, though whether my card will benefit is unclear.

Undeliverable emails

I respond to all legitimate emails (as opposed to the 300-400 spams I get each day).

Today I responded in some detail to a request for information on choosing between the Nikon D2X and the Canon EOS 5D and Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, a fairly common inquiry to which I’ve responded a number of times in the past. (See also my D2X vs EOS article).

If you email me but do not receive a response, it’s possible that my junk mail filtering trapped your inquiry inadvertantly. It’s also possible that I’ve responded, but that the return email address was inoperable as seen in the example below, where bogus-email-name would be an email account name:

The following message could not be delivered because the address 
bogus-email-name@charter.net was rejected by
host charter.net (209.225.8.224).501 #5.1.1
bad address bogus-email-name@charter.net
Reporting-MTA: dns; diglloyd.com
Arrival-Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:12:23 -0700

Obviously, it’s a bit frustrating to spend the time responding, then have no way to contact the sender!

Please verify that your “reply to” email address works should you not receive a response—thank you. Note that the “reply to” email address can be configured to be different than the “from” email address with some mail clients.

Back online

I’ve returned from my excursion to California’s Sierra Nevada range (aptly named this year), and though I had only 1.5 days available for shooting, I have obtained ample material for my D2X/D200 comparative review, as well as material for a forthcoming Canon EOS 24-70/f2.8L vs 24-105/f4L comparative review. Infrared shooting also produced a number of wonderful shots, using my Nikon D70IR infrared camera.

Nikon D2X vs D200 comparative review

I’ve completed much of my Nikon D2X/D200 comparative review and expect to have it available in the next several weeks. Equipment trouble caused me no end of grief, but I have some definitive conclusions which should be of value to anyone to whom price is less of an issue than knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each camera.

Focus precision with the Canon EOS 5D and 85mm/f1.2L

I don’t feel so bad about the Nikon D2X and Nikon D200 focus precision problems after suffering through the Canon EOS 5D and 85mm/f1.2L today. Here are a few examples of why shooting a fast lens with a high resolution camera requires pinpoint focus—often impossible with autofocus due to its ambiguous coverage, and also impossible with manual focus with less than outstanding eyesight.

I placed the focus sensor precisely on the eye, but got sharp eyebrows instead:

Here I placed the focus sensor precisely on the shiny nut, but the EOS 5D focused a good 6 inches in front of it:

Perhaps I’m expecting too much, but I’d like at least one focus sensor that works. Such focusing errors reduce the success rate by 90% when shooting at f1.2 or f1.4. I haven’t yet checked to see if the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II suffers the same problem; I carried the 5D for its lighter weight today.

Canon 85mm/f1.2L Mark II et al

If you’re a Canon shooter who enjoys good bokeh, check out my brief article Background Blur, and also a thorough comparison of the three Canon 85mm prime lenses at wlcastleman.com. Even if you’re a Nikon shooter, it might be of interest to you.

Consumer digicams and diffraction

See my Consumer Digicams and Diffraction article to understand why a 6 megapixel camera is really a 2.1 megapixel camera in some situations.

Card readers report updated

I've updated my Firewire and USB Card Readers to include results for Compact Flash and Secure Digital cards for the SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 care reader.

SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 card reader/writer

I just received my new SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 card reader. Like the Panasonic Lumix FX01 I purchased a few weeks ago, my Garmin GPS, my Polar USB interface and just about anything else you’re likely to buy, they all contain a label something like the following, taped around the USB connector:

On MacOS X, just rip this label off, plug the device in, and start using it. Ditto for Windows...sort of. The reader did appear and work just fine on Windows XP without installing software, but apparently any manufacturer supplied software is best installed prior to connecting the unit. Why the onus is on the user to worry about such things is one of the crufty hallmarks of Microsoft Windows (along with fantastic support for viruses).

Aperture’s “database”

A lot of angst has been poured out and into various online forums about Apple’s Aperture, and how it ingests files into its database. However, it’s actually not true that these files are in a database, at least not a conventional one. You are not “stuck” with your files in Aperture’s library.

The original files still exist as standalone files in the file system, and can be copied and accessed and double-clicked just like any other files...sort of.

Aperture marks its library as a “package” (a MacOS X concept). This causes the MacOS X Finder to display it as if it were a single file. However, the contents are actually just ordinary files and folders and can be displayed using “Show Package Contents…”:

The resulting window “Aperture Library.aplibrary” is shown below overlaid on top of Aperture’s own window. You can see an Aperture “project” named “CR2” in the Aperture window below it. Thus, each project is actually a folder on disk.

Using the Show Package Contents command one more time on “CR2.approject” results in the window shown below. Each RAW file is stored within a folder of the same name, along with various other Aperture housekeeping files. You can double-click the raw file to view or edit it—try it!

The point of all this is that you are not somehow “stuck” forever with your original raw files in a database from which special tools are required to extract the raw files.

While its true that all the settings, keywords and metadata are stored separately from the original files (hence the non-destructive editing approach), you always have access to the original raw files.

Aperture also keeps the metadata in XML files, so the fear of losing one’s hard work should Apple or Aperture go “belly up” are unfounded, because XML is today’s lingua franca of the internet, and it is nothing more difficult than structured text, not obscure binary bits.

Still need convincing? If you’re a command-line geek, take a look at the listing, which reveals the file and folder structure as it truly exists on disk, along with the XML files and their content for each raw file.

Card readers article updated

I’ve made some additions to my Firewire and USB Card Readers article. If you’re new to this site or haven’t visited in a while, be sure to check out the free articles page, and the comprehensive reviews.

Sonnet Tempo E4i, E4P “interrupt storm”

I have both the Sonnet Tempo E4i and E4p installed in my PowerMac Quad. If you’re purchasing an SATA PCI-Express card for your PowerMac G5 dual-core (PCI-Express slots), you should be aware of a problem that occurs for me on a regular basis with these cards, which I’ll call the Interrupt Storm problem. It occurs sporadically, with one card or two.

The problem manifests itself as 100% CPU usage of one of the cores. On a Quad, the fans ramp up slightly; on a dual-core machine (2 cores total), you might notice an impact to your work speed. If you use Activity Monitor’s history graph, you’ll see that the CPU time is all red (system time), and is being used by “kernel_task”.

The problem is at least a nuisance, and can be resolved by putting the machine to sleep, then waking it up. However, for those who start long-running “money” jobs, such as video rendering, this could be a very serious problem, because it “steals” an entire core’s worth of CPU. On a Quad, losing 25% is an annoyance; on a lesser machine losing 50% could be serious. Worse, it impact disk I/O speed substantially.

DiskTester 2.0 released

DiskTester 2.0 is now available. Users of version 1.0 whose license terms are still extant have been sent a free upgrade. Below is a short listing of available commands; see the DiskTester 2.0 User Manual for details. If a command-line interface makes you uncomfortable, try reading the Command Syntax Primer.

llcG5:~ lloyd$ disktester help
DiskTester 2.0 (C) 2003-2006 diglloyd, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Available commands:
show-info                  show information about one or more volumes
run-area-test              test sequential speed across a volume
run-sequential             test sequential speed for a specific chunk size
run-sequential-suite       test sequential speed for a range of chunk sizes
run-random                 test random speed for a specific chunk size
run-async-test             perform asynchronous multi-threaded I/O
test-reliability           test the reliability of a volume
create-hierarchy-template  scan volumes/files/folders and write a template
                             file for use with 'create-hierarchy'
create-hierarchy           create a file hierarchy using a template file
                              created by 'create-hierarchy-template'
create-files               create files of a specified size
read-files                 read specified item as fast as possible
help                       display usage and examples for available commands

To see examples for a specific command, use:

    "disktester help <cmd-name>"

where <cmd-name> is the name of the command.

To see detailed help for all commands, use 'help all'
				

Firewire card reader speed

[I’ve added the material below and much more to my Firewire and USB Card Readers article].

I just acquired a Lexar model RW019-001 Firewire card reader (about $40), and it smokes the old purple Lexar card reader I had been using (using MacOS X 10.4.6, PowerMac Quad). Thanks goes to barefeats.com for the heads up. I haven’t used or tested the Lexar Professional Compact Flash Reader, so I don’t know if that unit is any faster or not.

I used DiskTester to check the speed using various chunk sizes (size of the buffer written with each request) and a 128MB test size. I have no idea what chunk size various cameras use to write files, so I tested a range of sizes. Clearly, there is a considerable speed increase when using larger chunk sizes, even more clearly, if you regularly download large numbers of files from Compact Flash cards, you should get the newer Lexar “RW019-001” card reader:

----- Lexar RW019-001, SanDisk Extreme III 4GB -----
Chunk Size    Write MB/sec    Read MB/sec
     4K            5.6             4.6   
     8K            8.1             6.9   
    16K           10.3             9.3   
    32K           12.1            11.7   
    64K           13.4            13.2   
   128K           13.5            13.3   
   256K           14.1            14.0   
   512K           14.4            14.3   
    1MB           14.6            14.5   
    2MB           14.6            14.5   
    4MB           14.7            14.6
				

Compare to the old purple Lexar RW011 Rev B model below. The older model is approximately 1/3 the speed!

----- Lexar RW011 Rev B, SanDisk Extreme III 4GB -----
Chunk Size    Write MB/sec    Read MB/sec
     4K            2.2            2.0    
     8K            3.0            2.9    
    16K            3.7            3.6    
    32K            4.2            4.1    
    64K            4.5            4.5    
   128K            4.7            4.7    
   256K            4.7            4.7    
   512K            4.7            4.7    
    1MB            4.7            4.7    
    2MB            4.7            4.7    
    4MB            4.7            4.7