Friday, July 31, 2009
Remembering Kenny Rankin
Thanks to John Connors for reminding me about Kenny Rankin. When I was a kid trying to learn how to play guitar I used to see Rankin on TV and just marvel at his playing as well as his singing. I don't know why he didn't become more of a mainstream star than he was.
A Hole in the Head
A Hole in the Head
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC OS HSM digital SLR lens review
I bought the Sigma Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6 DC OS HSM shortly after it was released in 2008 and have been very pleased with many of the thousands of photos I've taken with it. I've also been surprised with what is an apparent indifference to the lens by the general public. I infer this from the lack of reviews of this lens on Amazon (only 8), and SLR Gear never reviewed the lens at all. I've had this lens now for a year and I can tell you that it is a very nice lens and on Amazon it is currently only $325, which I think makes buying this lens a no-brainer. Perhaps the reason for the indifference is that the lens's longest telephoto is only 125 mm, but I find this to be adequate for almost everything I am interested in photographing. I am not all that keen on sports or wildlife photos, so I eschewed the available super zoom lenses, not just for cost but for weight, size, and image quality issues. While Sigma, Tamron and other manufacturers have longer lenses than this, the analysis I've read suggests that the image quality seems to me largely to go out the window for these lenses after about 100 mm. I think that it's like the megapixel race, where the public equates larger numbers like 200 mm and 250 mm with somehow getting more--kind of like "Ooh, this SUV is eight feet tall and the other one is only seven. I'll take the big one". 18-125mm is about all most people are ever going to need unless they are trying to shoot whooping cranes or soccer matches.
I've done pretty extensive tests on this lens myself, taking many tripod shots out my window in Chicago, trying different apertures and focal lengths, and comparing them to my two Canon lenses, and found it compared favorably at all but the widest setting (shortest focal length). I found the Sigma's photos to be good looking and always in focus. The OS works pretty well, and I was able to take two perfectly clear hand held shots at full 125 mm telephoto at only 1/15 of a second, though I had to use my best technique, as I suspect at full tele it's not hard to overwhelm the OS. Two more identical shots taken without OS were both blurry.
I've taken thousands of shots with this lens so far and have few focus problems. Focus is fast and quiet. I took a number of shots of hovering seagulls at 125mm, and every one was in focus. Here is a 100% crop example. (This shot is cropped to remove a lot of sky. Please note that you can't get this close to a bird in flight with a 125mm)
At 18mm this lens is a tiny bit less sharp than Canon's well-regarded 18-55mm IS kit lens that came with the camera, but as you zoom in the Sigma gets better, particularly at 50mm. Here is I shot on Flickr taken with this lens at 18 mm. Unfortunately Flickr rezzes the image down a great deal so you can't see it in all its 12 megapixel glory, but this will give you some idea.
I will say that this lens requires you to stop it down for the sharpest images, while the Canon 18-55 IS is more forgiving if you shoot wider. You MUST stop the Sigma down to somewhere in the range of f8 to f10 for best results at all focal lengths, and this makes the OS all the more necessary. I would not recommend using this lens wide open at any focal length. But once I knew what I was doing I took some very sharp shots indeed. Here's another one at f8, 125mm
Canon doesn't yet have a zoom for digital cameras with this same range, and the closest thing they do have, the 17-85mm, is more expensive and didn't perform all that well in SLR Gear's tests. The non-OS version of this Sigma did arguably better than the Canon in those tests, and two and a half years after its predecessor's debut you would hopefully expect this newer version of the Sigma to have at least a few refinements to the IQ, but I have no way of knowing that for sure.
The telescoping part of the lens is very tightly constructed, with no looseness or feeling of imprecision at all, unlike the Canon kit lens. It has a zoom lock, but this doesn't seem to be necessary as there is no lens creep. I found this lens to be very well built and solid.
This is not a light lens. At about a pound it is twice as heavy as the Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens. Still, some of the superzoom digital lenses by Sigma and Tamron such as the 18-250mm weigh quite a bit more.
Overall I would say this is a very nice lens and I would buy it again. If you want the option to have one lens you can leave on the camera while traveling around, and if you're hooked on wide angle as I am, and if you also like telephoto but don't need a 200 or 250 mm superzoom and all the image quality compromises that can entail, this is the best and only choice for Canon APS-C digital cameras that I know of at this time, and I would recommend it.
I've done pretty extensive tests on this lens myself, taking many tripod shots out my window in Chicago, trying different apertures and focal lengths, and comparing them to my two Canon lenses, and found it compared favorably at all but the widest setting (shortest focal length). I found the Sigma's photos to be good looking and always in focus. The OS works pretty well, and I was able to take two perfectly clear hand held shots at full 125 mm telephoto at only 1/15 of a second, though I had to use my best technique, as I suspect at full tele it's not hard to overwhelm the OS. Two more identical shots taken without OS were both blurry.
I've taken thousands of shots with this lens so far and have few focus problems. Focus is fast and quiet. I took a number of shots of hovering seagulls at 125mm, and every one was in focus. Here is a 100% crop example. (This shot is cropped to remove a lot of sky. Please note that you can't get this close to a bird in flight with a 125mm)
At 18mm this lens is a tiny bit less sharp than Canon's well-regarded 18-55mm IS kit lens that came with the camera, but as you zoom in the Sigma gets better, particularly at 50mm. Here is I shot on Flickr taken with this lens at 18 mm. Unfortunately Flickr rezzes the image down a great deal so you can't see it in all its 12 megapixel glory, but this will give you some idea.
I will say that this lens requires you to stop it down for the sharpest images, while the Canon 18-55 IS is more forgiving if you shoot wider. You MUST stop the Sigma down to somewhere in the range of f8 to f10 for best results at all focal lengths, and this makes the OS all the more necessary. I would not recommend using this lens wide open at any focal length. But once I knew what I was doing I took some very sharp shots indeed. Here's another one at f8, 125mm
Canon doesn't yet have a zoom for digital cameras with this same range, and the closest thing they do have, the 17-85mm, is more expensive and didn't perform all that well in SLR Gear's tests. The non-OS version of this Sigma did arguably better than the Canon in those tests, and two and a half years after its predecessor's debut you would hopefully expect this newer version of the Sigma to have at least a few refinements to the IQ, but I have no way of knowing that for sure.
The telescoping part of the lens is very tightly constructed, with no looseness or feeling of imprecision at all, unlike the Canon kit lens. It has a zoom lock, but this doesn't seem to be necessary as there is no lens creep. I found this lens to be very well built and solid.
This is not a light lens. At about a pound it is twice as heavy as the Canon 18-55mm IS kit lens. Still, some of the superzoom digital lenses by Sigma and Tamron such as the 18-250mm weigh quite a bit more.
Overall I would say this is a very nice lens and I would buy it again. If you want the option to have one lens you can leave on the camera while traveling around, and if you're hooked on wide angle as I am, and if you also like telephoto but don't need a 200 or 250 mm superzoom and all the image quality compromises that can entail, this is the best and only choice for Canon APS-C digital cameras that I know of at this time, and I would recommend it.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Fujifilm F20 compact camera review
I own the Fujifilm F20 and one of its big brothers, the Fujifilm S6500, which is usually described as a "SLR-like" digital camera. Both are now no longer in production, but the whole series of Fujifilm F20, F30, F31, and the S6500 were renowned for their class-leading light sensitivity. These cameras are now selling for hundreds of dolllars more than when they were new, so great is their appeal. The sensor chips are identical on all of these cameras which is to say that they are 1/1.6 in size, which is larger than most sensors on cameras of this class. and 6.3 megapixels. The F20 has a 3x lens, which is a bit limiting, and no image stabilization, which they tried to cover for with what they called "picture stabilization", which was nothing more than the ability to automatically go to a high ISO setting such as 3200, which at that time was nonexistent on non-DSLRs. I found the whole "picture stabilization" campaign to be rather tacky, what I usually refer to "evil marketing". (I am in marketing myself, but I try not to be evil).
But these cameras were, and probably still are, among the lowest-noise compact digital cameras due to the proprietary Fujifilm sensor, which used octaganal photosites which allowed more and larger receptors to be fit into the usual space inside the camera, which inherently led to superior low-light performance, better dynamic range and probably some other stuff as well.
This shot was taken with the F20 at night on Chicago's Michigan Avenue at ISO800, and although I've rezzed it down for publishing here, even on the full sized image the noise is barely noticable, which is pretty amazing from such a small camera.
It doesn't sound like Fujifilm has reproduced the splash they made with this series of cameras, and many wish the camera industry would go back to some of the basics that Fujifilm did so well at one time.
But these cameras were, and probably still are, among the lowest-noise compact digital cameras due to the proprietary Fujifilm sensor, which used octaganal photosites which allowed more and larger receptors to be fit into the usual space inside the camera, which inherently led to superior low-light performance, better dynamic range and probably some other stuff as well.
This shot was taken with the F20 at night on Chicago's Michigan Avenue at ISO800, and although I've rezzed it down for publishing here, even on the full sized image the noise is barely noticable, which is pretty amazing from such a small camera.
It doesn't sound like Fujifilm has reproduced the splash they made with this series of cameras, and many wish the camera industry would go back to some of the basics that Fujifilm did so well at one time.
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