We do some concert/event shooting at work from time to time, and for our latest assignment I decided to give my new Canon 7D a go. At Lydverkets latest broadcast I packed the 7D and the Canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS and used it the whole evening (at f/2.8). The performing band was deLillos, a legendary quirky rock band that’s been playing since the 80’s.

All photos have been resized and have some pp done in Lightroom, very little if any noise reduction. I shot the event in JPGs with standard noise reduction.

The lighting was difficult, with lots of red ambient/spotlights and LED backlights. I had to keep the ISO between 2000 and maximum 5000 to keep my shutter speed up.

The variable lights made it hard to get consistant exposures (maybe some bracketing shooting would be cool?). But both over- and underexposed shots were possible to tweak to a certain degree.

All in all I found the 7D to be a good lowlight event camera. The autofocus is just kick-ass. I think I had less than 5 photos out of focus out of about 200! ISO performance is great and detail is good. Some photos, especially high ISO shots that were a bit off exposurewise were difficult to rescue. I’d reckon the 5DMk2 would have some more leverage here. But shooting in RAW would probably be beneficial if I’ve had the time to postprocess properly.

The Canon 17-55 IS lens is great for this kind of stuff. At low shutter speeds the stabilization really works well and is very welcome for low light stuff. The reach is a bit short for a concert lens though. Next time I’ll take the 70-200 f/2.8 IS, even if it might prove to be a bit long.

You can watch the whole set at flickr here. You can also see the EXIF info for each photo.

Basically (as I understand it) there is always more detail left in the RAW file when “exposing to the right”, ie. exposing so you just avoid burning out the hightlights. Feeding the sensor with more light can be more efficient than trying to shoot with as low ISO as possible. The examples in the article showed that instead of underexposing with a low ISO value, you’d get less noise if you’d overexpose on a higher ISO setting. I’m paraphrasing and simplifying, but the gist of it was that it’s better to lower your exposure in post-processing rather than trying to keep the ISO value as low as possible.

The test

I decided to try this out for myself on my Canon 40D. I’ve never been quite comfortable shooting with my 40D over ISO 400, as I’ve felt that the noise and loss of detail has been pretty obvious. I shot the scene of my poorly lit room with my Sigma 10-20 at f4.0 in Aperture mode, RAW. (Click images for 100%):

Both photos taken handheld with Sigma 10-20 at f4.0. Only adjusted white balance and exposure to match each other.

The first photo is taken with ISO400,f4,1/8 sec (no exp compensation, centerwheighted), the second on ISO800,f4,1/4sec (+1 stop exp comp). I only adjusted white balance and exposure to match each other in post – no noise reduction other than the default 25% color in Lightroom. Even at thumbnail size you can see that the ISO400 clearly is worse than the ISO800 shot.

There’s more detail, more even gradients, less blotches and smoother tones in the ISO800 photo. I even think the hightlights are better preserved with the “overexposed” ISO800 shot. It’s not stock material, but definitively useful and would stand up to more heavy post-processing.

OK, time for the 800-1600 battle. I’ve almost never used ISO 1600 on my 40D (and the expanded ISO3200 only a handful of times). This might change:

On the right (confusingly – sorry) you have your basic ISO800 shot with no exposure compensation. Just what the light meter in the 40D gave me. To the left the ISO1600 is clearly better, even though I did not do much exposure compensation (it might have been +2/3). I’d say that with a bit of careful noise reduction work and some heave white balancing I’d have a pretty descent, crappily lit indoor shot.

Conclusion

The high ISO settings on my Canon 40D don’t suck. By carefully adjusting exposure to keep your histogram to the right (and avoid burning out useful hightlights), you can get good, clean results on the highest ISO settings. I’ve always struggled to keep my ISO down, often resulting in the need to gain the exposure and getting lots of crappy noise, blotches and banding with it. I will definately work on my techniques when shooting low light stuff, and not worry too much about high ISO values. Now, how did I enable that ISO3200 setting again?

The solutions you can buy are very expensive, so I researched a DIY solution. I ended up making my own adapter from macro tubes and converters (ebay) and a ground glass and holder from http://www.gt35pro.blogspot.com/. For all the parts I ended up paying around U$90.

The adapter is a non-vibrating one but I’m pretty pleased with the image quality. The problem is that it vignettes very heavily, and I mean really heavily. The corners are really dark, which makes footage look very 8mm-ish. Bokeh is nice with the Canon 50mm f1.4. Also, when filming, the image is upside-down and mirrored, so it takes a while to get used to following action. Hand held filming with a 50mm lens is also pretty hard in itself, but it certainly makes the images different from normal video.

This footage is all hand held with no post, so forgive me for the shaky pictures and occationally (heh) out of focus stuff:

The URL to my photos is this one:
http://flickr.com/photos/machineboy/

I’ve tried to organize my photos into sets which you can see on the right on my flickr.com.

Warning, this is not a scientific test. Everything was improvised, using camera placement to keep subject roughly the same size and place. All photos were taken at f2.8. The 35mm photo was scanned from a 10×15cm print, the 120mm was a quick&dirty scan on a Canonscan 8800F without dust removal. Don’t mind the terrible look on the scan, the exposure in real life is much nicer.

This is taken with the Canon G9 digital compact, a 12megapixel camera with a 35-210mm lens. Shot at f2.8 at around 35mm.

This is taken with the Canon 40D and the 17-55 f2.8 IS at f2.8 at around 35mm.

This photo is taken with one of the smallest 35mm film rangefinders, the Olympus XA. It has a prime lens at 35mm/f2.8.

This 120mm medium film format photo is shot with a Mamiya c330. The lens is a f2.8 80mm.

Summary
If you’re looking for creamy bokeh and good subject/distance separation, you won’t find that in a digital compact camera. You need to move back a lot and zoom in to get similar background blur, but of course that changes perspective and makes things flatter (which you might want if shooting portraits). Even the 1.6crop camera 40D has noticeable more DOF than the 35mm one. Just look at the tripod legs the bear sits on. The medium format is totally different looking, it really melts the background completely. For me, it has made me want a full-frame digital SLR, but in the meantime I have these great film cameras that I paid next to nothing for! The medium format camera cost one third of the price of the Canon G9. If you’re into shallow DOF you should just get yourself a couple of rangefinders or a medium format camera right away.

Update: A different DOF comparison with Canon lenses and full frame vs crop: http://www.seriouscompacts.com/2007/12/canon-lenses-on-full-frame-vs-crop.html

If you’re shooting with a crop DSLR, you should get wide lenses with low aperture values to get shallow DOF. This was taken with a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 at f/1.8. Notice the shallow DOF – my nose is out of focus. Yes, I have a big nose, but still.

Links
Test of the Minolta Autocord medium format camera
Get yourself a rangefinder!
4 classic rangefinders: Shootout!

Looking for a great, all-round camera that fits in your pocket and takes better pictures than any digital compact? I’ve been testing some of the most respected rangefinder cameras from the 70’s:

Canon Canonet QL17 III
Konica C35
Olympus 35RC
Olympus XA

All these are well constructed, solid cameras. All are made of metal, except the XA which is made of compact plastic with a great heft to it. They all have quite similar specs, but the Canon being the most advanced and most feature-packed with a f1.7 lens and parallax-corrected viewfinder. A quick feature summary:

Canon Canonet QL17 III
- 40 mm f1.7
- Shutter priority AE
- Bright, parallax-corrected viewfinder with f-stop only
- Full manual control
- Quick loading: Film is easy to load
- Shutter speed: B + 1/4-1/500
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries

Olympus RC35
- 42mm f2.8
- Bright viewfinder with both f-stop and shutter speed
- Shutter priority AE
- Full manual control
- Shutter speeds B + 1/15-1/500
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries

Konica C35
- 38 mm f2.8
- Auto Exposure, no manual control (battery dependant)
- Medium sized viewfinder with both shutter speed and f-stop (My viewfinder should be cleaned, camera quite dirty!)
- Must use smaller, hearing-aid-type batteries

Olympus XA
- 35mm f2.8
- medium/small crisp viewfinder with shutter speeds
- Aperture priority AE
- Electronic shutter, battery dependant
- Uses modern batteries

The test
My testing was done with cheap Fuji Superia colour film, just shooting and using the cameras as an everyday point-and-shoot. At the end I got the film back and had a look at the photos, and my findings are both based on end results and actual use.

Here is one photo from each camera, quickly scanned on my Canon 8800F and resized to 600px width. (Note: These photos were selected not because they nescessarily were the best photos from the roll, but what I wanted and didn’t want to post on my blog. As such they don’t really say much about quality at all, but it’s nice to see what they might produce as everyday results).

The Canonet QL16 G-III lens is sharp and renders the background nicely out of focus. The bokeh is a bit edgy, look at the helmet highlights. The XA rendered it a lot smoother, but the image itself was much less sharp. The Canonet took good, consistent photos and has a great lens. Sharp and at f1.7, it’s usually fast enough to use indoors.

The Olympus has a great lens and good light measuring. This picture has very challenging lighting, but is still well exposed. At f2.8 it’s usally too slow for indoor use at ISO400. Overall the RC35 took great pictures with great sharpness.

The Konica C35’s lens is good and with a nice field of view at 38mm. The photos were pretty sharp and contrasty, and I wish I took more outdoor shots with it. It has an annoying limit that it won’t take the picture if there isn’t enough light, but when there is it’s the easiest camera to use.

The Olympus XA shots came out well, especially outdoor photos. It has a bit of a fiddly focus lever, but takes good photos and is one of the smallest 35mm cameras ever.

Conclusion

Hmm. All four cameras took some great pictures, with the Olympus 35RC and the Canonet impressing me the most. The XA and the C35 also did really well and I think in everyday use all four cameras take very similar photos. Some shots came out wrongly exposed and out-of-focus on all cameras. Rangefinder focusing can be hard when you shoot at wide apertures. It’s really a toss-up for me which camera is the best. I’d probably choose the Canonet for travelling, but the XA and RC35 are also nice pocket cams. The beat-up Konica C35 is great as a backup or for snapshots. If I was forced to conclude any further, I’d rate them like this:

Best feature-wise:
Canonet QL17 G-III. Fast lens, full manual control, great viewfinder, good sharpness. Fiddly to use sometimes with its small controls, but the results are worth it. Expensive compared to the other cameras.

Easiest camera in use:
Konica C35. This is a point and shoot, full auto. Locks in poor light, otherwise you just focus and pull the trigger. This is probably the cheapest camera as well!

Most consistent (took the most in-focus, well exposed photos):
Olympus 35RC. It’s a great camera with a nice lens. It’s not so cool for indoor shots with the f2.8 lens and 1/15 as slowest speed. For outdoor shots it rocks! If you like Aperture priority the XA gets very similar results in a smaller (uglier) package.