I’ve never really had a problem with the original apple earbuds – they fit my ears well and never fall out. The sound quality is decent, with little bass but clearly defined mids and highs. They don’t block outside noise though, so you often end up pushing the volume up a bit which of course won’t make your precious epithelium happy.

For me, the biggest drawback of in-ears is the thumping noise of my body resonating inside my head when walking, and microphonics – the sound of the cord rubbing against my jacket or other stuff

So I wanted to try the in-ear versions, both to get back the bass I was missing out on, and also blocking out the annoying sound of public transport. I also wanted to pay as little as possible because I didn’t know if I would enjoy in-ears and to avoid the customs tax when importing to Norway (less than 200 NOK). And I wanted the mic and skip buttons of the original buds. So I started crawling ebay for earbuds and read lots of reviews. The first buy was the classic V-MODA vibe duo.

The Vibe Duo has been very successful since the first version came out, and I’ve wanted to try them for quite some time. They originally cost around $100, so when I found them on ebay at less than $30 I had to buy. I like them, though they are very, very bass heavy. I ended up using them with the smallest silicon fittings so they wouldn’t totally block my ears. The result is a flatter but less heavy sound and they fit comfortably. With the medium silicon buds they are just to deep and overpowering and not suited for the guitar based music I usually listen to. They look and feel great though. A great step up from the original apples.

PROS:
+ Great textile-covered cable, 45 degree angle minijack
+ Came with pouch, silicon fittings, jacket clamp
+ Metal, looks great
+ Comfortable

CONS:
- Overpowering bass that drowns the mids and highs
- Difficult to press skip button, cylindrical design
- Needs more volume from iphone

Ultimate Ears Super.fi 4vi

These are a discontinued pair made from the pro sound company Ultimate Ears that I found on ebay in bulk for less than 30 bucks. They originally cost four times that, so I hoped they would offer great sound quality. They are very simple and elegant, with a rounded design that won’t get caught in anything. The cable is a bit thin and cheap looking but the skipbutton is easy to press. Soundwise they are very detailed and crisp. Definately a huge step up from original earbuds, and close to my sony mdr-7506 headset in transparency. They do lack heavy bass, but it’s still there. Overall a very nice pair of in-ears!

PROS:
+ Simple, elegant design
+ Easily driven, requires low volume
+ Very crisp and detailed mids and highs
+ Easy click button

CONS:
- Slightly lacking bass
- Flimsier cord and straight minijack plug

Skullcandy Smokin’ Buds for iphone

I bought these just because they were so extremely cheap. They were around $15 including shipping, so I couldn’t pass them up. They look good, with a distinct shape and slightly harder silicon buds than the other I tried. The cord is flimsy and cheap feeling but the clicker is great. Easy to reach, easy to click. Best so far. The sound is decent with slightly bass-heavy, midrangy feel. They aren’t totally different from the original apple earphones but with more bass and lower mids.

PROS:
+ Great price!
+ The best clicker of the three, easy to reach even with gloves
+ Decent sound quality

CONS:
- Flimsy, cheap feeling cord and straight minijack
- A bit long too
- Lacks crispiness (but the bass is not as overwhelming as with the V-modas)
UPDATE:
- After more listening time with these, I find these lacking crispness and high mids. They sound muffled, especially compared to the extremely detailed Super.fi 4vi’s.

Conclusion

After trying all of these for some time and comparing them to each other and the original earbuds, I must say that soundwise there is one pair really standing out: The ultimate ears. They are very detailed (almost a little to crisp) but they work with all kinds of music without really hiding or overexposing anything. The V-modas are more comfortable but the booming bass makes them difficult for me to use. The Skullcandy pair is good without really any high or low points. They’re not exciting or detailed, but will make a nice backup pair.

For me, the biggest drawback of in-ears is the thumping noise of my body resonating inside my head when walking, and microphonics – the sound of the cord rubbing against my jacket or other stuff. That makes in-ears best for listening when sitting down. I love the passive noise-cancelling they give on the subway, but then again a good pair of headphones would probably be even better. Luckily I have a pair of Panasonic RP-HTX7 in the mail for me!

UPDATE: The RP-HTX7 sound pretty decent with very punchy bass and crisp highs. They are lacking some mids though, but work great on the subway. Pity they don’t have the skip buttons and mic though.

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?

It was an interesting read, even if it was quite brief. I guess they left some of the juicy stuff out. My parents gave me a master degree paper on his life and work, and when I have the time I’ll have to read the whole thing. I’ve been thinking about writing an article in english about his life and work, and now I have a few sources. I’ll also have to photograph his paintings and put them online. Some of them are really amazing, very new-impressionist. Lots of colour, large swabs, funny themes.

Interiør med skrivende kvinne

There are a couple of his paintings hanging at Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo. Check them out if you’re in Oslo.

Other links (all in Norwegian):
A short biography (in Norwegian).
Another Norwegian short biography with some paintings.
He also did wall decorations, here is a part of a room he did that is now owned by Orkla AS.