Monthly Archives: October 2008

Canon – you need to fix your glass

Simply unacceptable color fringing.


5D, 50mm f/1.4 at f/8 – after and before correcting for green and red chromatic aberration

When processing the picture included in yesterday’s journal entry, I was reminded again of the truly frightful extent of uncorrected chromatic aberration (color fringing) in Canon’s 50mm f/1.4 standard lens. For many this is a portrait lens on cropped sensor bodies, with an equivalent focal length of 80mm.

The picture on the right is unprocessed, straight from the camera at the lens’s sweet spot of f/8. The one on the left is after removing the chromatic aberration using the sliders in Lightroom. Even in these small pictures the amount of chromatic aberration is shocking – these enlarged snaps would make for a 30″ x 20″ print. (The small scale difference results from correcting converging verticals in Photoshop CS2).

Given the superb quality of the sensors in Canon’s DSLRs, isn’t it about time that some more attention was paid to fixing dated lens designs like the fixed focal length 50mm one? This sort of thing has been properly designed by any number of manufacturers decades ago and there really is no excuse for such poor optical engineering in a medium priced fixed focal length lens who many, suspicious of the bulk and poor optics in most zooms, still regard as their ‘standard’ lens. Especially old duffers like me who toured the world with a 50mm or 35mm on our cameras, because that’s all we could afford.

Now a glance at any news source will confirm that there are more complaining historians in the world than people with fix-it ideas. The fix here could not be simpler, or more lucrative for all concerned. Do a Panasonic. License Leica’s fabulous designs, Canon, forget about corporate pride, and make sure the final product is emblazoned with the Leica name. Use your mass manufacturing genius to drive the price down and I will be the first to have a fully automated 50mm f/2 Summicron-R Leica lens (made by Canon) on my wonderful 5D – the best 50mm lens ever made. Heck, if I’m feeling spendy I’ll even consider springing for the 50mm Summilux-R with its f/1.4 maximum speed – the second greatest 50mm lens ever made. And while Leica, 40 years on, still cannot manage to add autofocus to its SLR lenses, for Canon that would, of course, be de rigeur.

And while you are at it, Canon, feel free to replace your underwhelming 20mm f/2.8 (which I know and dislike) with Leica’s superb 19mm f/2.8 Elmarit-R, or even with the older 21mm f/4 Super Angulon-R which I knew and loved for many years. Leica and Schneider conspired on that design – can life get any better than that?


A big enlargement to make things yet clearer – color fringes before correction

A bargain and a classic

The first classic of the digital age

The Canon 5D was the first camera to bring semi-affordable full frame sensors to digital photographers and, I believe, will go down as one of the great classics of the early digital photography age, much as, say, medium format was defined by the Rolleiflex and 35mm film by the rangefinder Leica. The leap in image quality it offered from 35mm and the ability to regularly match medium format film for definition and detail with none of the pain of operation make it the greatest camera design of its time.

The new 5D Mark II is slated to arrive in the US around December and yet there is already a slew of lightly used 5D Mark I models for sale on the web. Maybe it’s the economy, but I would think the price will soften further once Mark II generates some serious upgrade volume.

Check the eBay and you will see that completed auctions average about $1,300 for a mint condition lightly used body.

But I want the 21+ megapixel sensor in the new 5D Mark II, I hear you say, which begs the question why?

Do you propose making prints larger than 24″ x 30″? Do you want to use the movie mode? Is cleaning the dust off the sensor a real pain? Well, if you answered Yes to these, you may need the Mark II. No one else does.


Two classics – Canon 5D and Leica M3

American Monument

Really, really Big.

‘Really, really Big’. Thus starts the introduction to this book of photographs by Lynn Davis, authored by Witold Rybczynski. Rybczynski’s 4 page introduction is alone worth the price of admission to this book, which features pictures of American Monuments – be they gas stations or the Lincoln Memorial – all in gently printed monochrome. The whole production reeks of class and presents the viewer with subtle images which let you do the thinking. Not that common in photo books where the images frequently scream for attention.

If your interests include architecture and fine photography then there is every reason to own this beautifully made book.

Afternoon languor

Warm sun.

This is the sort of thing I can never resist. Warm sun, old bricks (note the earthquake reinforcing plates – this can only be California!) and one of the very best lenses ever made at any price.


5D, 200mm f/2.8 ‘L’, 1/8000, f/4, ISO 400

Bistro Laurent really has no business being a world class restaurant in a hick town like Paso Robles, but there it is and the food is to die for! Scan the wine list and you will find the Zinfandel wine made from my grape crop – it’s the Peachy Canyon Winery “Especial” 2004 – if you are lucky your local store may have some left, but that’s a long shot as the crop is small and the wine sells out quickly.

Seeing Gardens

A fine collection by a master photographer.

Few artificial creations can equal the joy of a beautiful garden. And while Americans, as a whole, care little for lovely gardens – witness the bare minimum handkerchief of grass and a few tired drought resistant plants so common here – Sam Abell shows that beauty is to be found if you look, and Abell has been doing that with an expert’s eye for decades. And you don’t get published regularly in National Geographic for nothing.

I find the Japanese approach, which sees the garden as a thing of spiritual beauty, much preferable to the America minimum cost/dress-it-for-sale version. Or, for that matter, brown lawns decorated with beer cans in all those tract homes and subdivisions bought and lost by fraudsters, whom we will all be bailing out these next few years.

At last count my garden of some two acres had four lawns, three olive trees and some fifty other trees, both fruit bearing and decorative, and while I work mightily to keep it looking just so, it cannot compare to even the worst picture in this fine book.

If you like lovely gardens and landscapes beautifully rendered, with a serious hint of Eliot Porter thrown in, you will like this book. At $5.95 mine is a Depression Era special, rivaling the cost of a Big Mac and fries with none of the health implications. (Disclosure: I am long MacDonald’s stock – they may serve poisonous garbage but health and morality have nothing to do with stock selection).