Council Vandalism - Warwickshire

As promised on my Saturday post.

I went to my local site that has a good display of Common Spotted, Pyramid and Bee Orchids, a number of which I have already posted on previous blogposts.

I was there last Sunday evening and took the first two images of a group growing in a traffic island on the approach to a roundabout, so have set the image in the environment context.

Note the length of the grass - hardly needs cutting does it - not even for Health & Safety!!!!

I went back just two days later with a few other photographers from Stratford Photo Group to find what you see in the third image.

This was just plain vandalism on an official scale!!.

Now if this had been the first time, you could perhaps put it down to just plain incompetence. The sad thing is that this happened last year.

On a good note, one of the locals went out a put up a quick sign on one of the one of the other islands to prevent any more from this fate, and I am pleased to see they were doing well when I went there yesterday.

The final image again shows a single stem in the road context, and before it was turned to grass cuttings

All taken with the Canon 24-70 f2.8L lens and the 1Dmk111.





Martin

Reviews - Canon 50D - A quick hands on trial

Well as I mentioned on this trip report from last week, I was very grateful to Terry at Stratford Photo Group for the loan of his Canon 50D for a few days. Well I didn't use it a great deal, as I tended to go with my 1Dmk3 for the situations where I knew I needed to be sure of my handling of it.

However, it is a fine bit of kit and a body that I 'think' I would have as a back up body to the mark3 in my bag. Well why only 'think'? Well I didn't get a lot of shots out of it and essentially just in one set of light conditions, so I really would need to do a much longer trial before I would be prepared to give up my own personal thumbs up, as you will read below.

General handling was very easy, the only problem I found was down to user error. I use the back button focus method on the !d and have been for many years now. I had set it up the same on the 50D but was unable to find the option where you can switch over the Af-On button with the * button. Well it is there I found out afterwards, but it did cause me confusion when I was trying to grab focus on a Golden Eagle that was stopping down a hill towards me being mobbed by a Raven - so I missed that whole sequence of shots.

However, it did grab focus very well when the user got it right and gives sharp enough images - so no complaints there.

Curlew picture is a repost now I have processed it properly on the bigger screen. Light was awful and shot at ISO800 (see below)

File sizes are pretty big, jumping typically from about 12mb in RAW from the 1Dmk3 to over 20mb on the 50D, so card and hard drive management will be a little more demanding.

Now then the crunch question - higher ISO performance?

At ISO 800, which is a setting I am very happy to use on the 1D, the 50D files are quite a bit noisier with chroma noise. Now I have 100% pixel peeped and of course I appreciate that the 50D has 50% more pixels, but the noise was quite a bit more. I had set the in camera noise processing to be totally switched off so I could ensure a direct like for like comparison. But at these settings, I would need to use Noise software with the 50D whereas I wouldn't with the 1Dmk3. All the images I took were at ISO800 so I have nothing more scientific that that to compare. S0 it is this area that just leaves me with a little doubt.

The rear screen is fantastic and really wish I had that level of resolution on the Mark3.

There are plenty of reviews in much more detail all over the web and in various parts of the dead tree press.

I linked to this 50D tutorial a few posts back, so it is probably relevant to post again for you to get a much more objective technical appraisal than I have given here


Martin

Reviews - Permajet Printing Papers

Over the years I have, probably like many others, had my trials and tribulations with the expensive business of using inkjet printers. But once I got over the science of colour management, as it seemed at the time, and I was getting vaguely similar results on paper to that seen on the screen, I thought it was time to start looking at the different paper options available to me.

I started off many years ago with an A4 Epson something or other, but binned that for a Canon after a year or so, as I was fed up with the rate it was getting through a combined tank of colour ink, and probably leaving lots of unused ink behind. So I got a separate ink tank Canon A4, but once I started turning out Exhibition and Photo Group work, I quickly realised that A3 was the way to go. I was taken with the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 when it was announced, but they seemed to take an age at getting round to launch it, for various reasons. So I got the 9000 version instead. This has been my workhorse for the last two years, and what a stunning printer it is. I know that a number of others have bought it following various discussions we have had.

As great as the printer is, the Canon papers are a little more variable in my opinion. The high gloss Premium Pro is excellent and I have never found another paper to beat it (although I need to test out the new Canon Platinum yet). However, my requirements for high gloss are quite limited and for my wildlife imagery I prefer either semi gloss or matt. Now the Canon papers aren't bad, but I was sure there were better papers available.

This was when I started looking at Permajet papers, following a visit to Stratford Photo Group a few years back. Permajet have a stunning range of papers ranging from digital photo range through to smooth and textured fine art and a stunning range of fibre based under the generic title of traditional baryta.

For natural history prints, I need to use the digital photo range consisting of the Oyster, a semi gloss paper and the matt plus which is self explanatory. These papers are not only extremely good value for money, certainly if you compare to the Canon and Epson own brand equivalents, they are as far as I am concerned of superior quality when the ink is laid on them.

Now while Permajet will supply pre prepared ICC profiles for the Epson range, they have not done so with the Canon 9000 and 9500 range.........yet. However, they now have all their papers with test patches prepared so that they can be uploaded to their site, which should be happening very soon, as I have prepared them all for them.

The service support from them has been excellent. Vij Solanki there has done a great job for me in the past, and even turned out a profile and emailed it to me so it was there when I got home - and I only live seven miles from their offices.

When all the profiles are uploaded, I will drop a quick news update blog post for you.

So great value, very reasonable prices and as far as I am concerned all the quality that I would expect or need from a paper to suit traditional wildlife image printing.

I do use other papers from their range for my landscape work, generally a warm tone Omega for colour work, and the fibre based papers for monochrome, which both given stunning results. Both of these papers are not cheap, but the results are worth it for me.

I have recently been using the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 and have carried out some extensive testing - but that is another story for another day.

If you are planning to go to Focus on Imaging Show later this month at The NEC, then drop by on the Permajet stand in Hall 9, Stand E41 and tell Vij I sent you - not that it will help you :-) But do have a look at the range and quality of the papers, and if you haven't colour calibrated your monitor, and I am sure there is probably no-one left anymore that doesn't (joke) then they can sell you a good range of calibrators too.

Update: ICC profiles for all the Permajet range for the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 can now be downloaded from here. I will do a further update with the 9000 profiles are available

Martin