Category Archives: Photography

A tale of two sensors

Hardware, Micro Four-Thirds, Nikon bodies

‘Good enough’ is better than good enough.

A clear thinking friend of mine has a simple philosophy when it comes to consumer durable purchases, and he calls it the ‘good enough’ concept. If it’s good enough, forget spending the extra for the top of the line model, the one with the bells and whistles. The marginal return is …. marginal, the incremental cost ruinous and the depreciation far higher. (This reminds me of Lord Chesterfield on the subject of sex: “The pleasure momentary, one’s position ridiculous and the cost? Damnable.”)

And I’m here to declare that Micro Four-Thirds is more than ‘good enough’. My standard for comparison? The full frame sensor in my Nikon D3x, the MFT one being that in my Panny GX7. For all of you who prefer wasting your money see my my product review of the Leica M240. Be assured that I not only do not own two of these, I don’t even own one. Nor will that change.

Some recent sensor history. Panny started with a 12mp design in the ground breaking G1, upping it later to 16mp which my G3 enjoyed. The practical change was that whereas 13″ x 19″ nosey prints were easy with the G1, the easy size grew to 18″ x 24″ with the G3 and later bodies. Nosey? It’s when your viewer sticks his schnozzer in the print and you have to get the cotton balls out to clean the surface. In the GX7 they tweaked the software a bit and got the marketing boys to do some writing, but to all intents it’s much the same as the one in the G3 and others, which is to say very good indeed.


The fabulous Panasonic GX7 – the best street snapper ever made.

Nikon delegates sensor manufacture to Sony, claiming credit for the design (eh?) and perhaps the best full frame sensor they made for the money was the one in the D3/D700. The D3x doubled the pixels to 24mp, trading the increased resolution for more noise at higher ISOs, especially noticeable in the dark bits of the image. The D4’s sensor improved a bit more on the low pixel count one in the superb D700 and the one in the D800 blew everyone out of the water where they remain to this day. But that’s pixel peeper stuff. In the real world of large prints, it’s irrelevant.

Why do I say this? Because I constantly print my images for display in the moveable feast which is the wall displays at the old manse. Coming on a round of spring changes, I have had ample opportunity to tweak and print images at 13″ x 19″ and, better, at 18″ x 24″ from both the D3x full frame body and the GX7 MFT one. In both cases I am using my favored focal length of 35mm FFE. The exceptional Sigma 35mm f/1.4 behemoth on the no less porky D3x, and the magnificent Olympus Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 on the GX7, with AF speed which leaves FF lenses in the dust. I suppose the weight and bulk ratio is some 3:1, yet I enjoy both.

Were cameras dogs (Leica’s M would instantly qualify for inclusion in the latter species, a frou frou toy breed, fragility redefined, constantly in need of attention), then the big pro-body Nikon would be a Golden Retriever. Immensely dependable, lumbering and stolid, it will never let you down, can take a battering from the kids and still emerge with an all-weather smile on its face. And it keeps going longer than you can. The GX7 could scarcely be more different. It’s the terrier of the camera world. Small, fast, high-strung, sharp as a tack, it demands a little more care and attention in the relationship but rewards out of all proportion to its diminutive size. And it burns out (its battery) pretty fast.

Those printed images? I rattled off a handful of 18″ x 24″ on the ever dependable HP DesignJet 90 dye printer the other day and, blow me down, I simply could not tell which were taken on the Nikon compared with the Panny. We are talking nosey examination of micro detail here. Which is another way of saying that the Panny is ‘good enough’, for the Nikon is way better than almost anyone needs. And my rule of thumb has long been if it can print at 18″ x 24″ it can print at any size you want, as the viewer is forced further back as size increases, mitigating resolution loss.

Ah! you say. But no way the MFT system can match the big, fast zooms available to Nikon and Canon snappers, the classic 24-70mm and 70-200 f/2.8 fixed maximum aperture zooms and the like. Think again. Have you seen what Panny and Olympus has been up to recently? How about Panny’s 12-35mm f/2.8 zoom?

Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8.

Or their 35-100 f/2.8?

Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8.

Olympus has hardly been asleep, either. In addition to their wonderful 17mm and 45mm f/1.8 Zuikos which I use, there are such exciting conceptions like these:


The Zuiko 12mm f/2.


The Zuiko 75mm f/1.8.

And don’t even think of asking about size, weight and price, because that’s a losing proposition for the Big Boys.

Finally, modern MFT ‘pro’ bodies like the Olympus EM1 can offer all the framing rates and weather resistance you need, once again at a fraction of the price. And so can the tiny GX7 though no one will take you seriously. Which is possibly the best feature of all.

Do yourself a favor. Put the fun back in your snapping and pick up something which says Panasonic or Olympus on the body and whose lens detaches.

A prodigal son returns

Hardware

The review you have been waiting for.

Long time readers will recall my tearful parting with the last of my film Leicas some eight years ago, after no fewer than 35 years’ hard use, since when I have been busily in denial extolling the virtues of Japanese digital genius while unsparingly trashing the geniuses in Wetzlar and Solms for their tired, overpriced toys.

Well, it’s time to confess that I was wrong. You can take a man away from his Leica, but you cannot take the Leica out of the man.

When that realization came to pass, and when I was forced to admit that the 2013 market left me with some pocket change, I did the only irrational thing possible and plumped down the coin for a couple of M240 bodies, and the full range of lenses. Yup, the whole megillah. Anyway, my accountant says I need the deduction.

Here’s my review at Amazon:

Readers will have become used to the byline ‘Panny GX7, 17mm Zuiko’ accompanying the majority of my snaps published here over the past two months and now the truth must out. They were actually taken on one of my two M240s with the 35mm Asph Summicron, and the Leica owners among you will have immediately spotted the Leica ‘glow’ in the images. It was a minor deception vested in the need to test the gear and confirm that Leica is the only camera for me, and I trust you will forgive me.

Note: I am being inundated with questions about the above. To get the answer, click the image and read the review then figure it out.

Instant update!

Proving there really is one born every minute, Anon writes:

This writer has been attempting to soil these esteemed pages since they started in 2005, and you can read more of his enjoyable, if cowardly, drivel here. And, yes, I can disclose he bought a GX7 on my recommendation and now wishes he had bought the M240 he cannot possibly afford. He’s actually a bearded 27 year old still living in his parents’ basement, bathes monthly, and still rues the fact that the world denies his contribution to computer code. His rôle model is Jeffrey Lebowski. Oh! and he uses Windows, of course.

And another – this guy was no coward as he used a name – but Home Econ hardly qualifies as an education, his protestations to a PhD (10 rupees, Bombay) notwithstanding:

He wanted his comment published. Noblesse oblige.

Saddest thing about these gear fetishists. No sense of humor.

HP DesignJet 90/130 with Mavericks

Printing

One quirk.

As my correspondence indicates many HP DesignJet 90/130 printer users visit here for help with what ails their HP DJ printers, I thought I would make mention of a quirk which cropped up after I upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks.

Mine is the DJ90 which goes up to 18″ wide. 13″ x 19″ prints were being printed correctly from Lightroom 5.3 but when it came to 18″ x 24″ these started printing 13″ x 24″, with the righthand most 5″ blank. I was unable to find any new drivers from HP on the web (no surprise there – they are probably busy paying management yet more while firing engineers) so decided to sniff around the print menus in LR to see what was what.

The driver I am using is the one downloaded through this pane:


Stock HP DJ driver downloaded and installed though Lightroom.

My DJ is connected to an Airport Extreme router and I print to it wirelessly from my Mac Pro in a separate room. Nothing new there.

Go to the Print module and click on ‘Print Settings’ lower left and you get this pane:


Boxes checked and unchecked.

I checked the ‘Scale to fit paper size’ box (the default is unchecked) and unchecked the ‘Scale down only’ one (default is checked).

Now 18″ x 24″ prints are printed perfectly once more.

Update for OS X Yosemite:

No issues. LR5 and Yosemite coexist happily.

The Sirui K-40X ball head

Hardware

A cheap knock-off, well made.

My recent night-time efforts with the Nikon D3x, the 35mm Sigma and the old Linhof tripod in Carmel produced one or two nice snaps but far more in the way of garage language. You see, my old Manfrotto QR plate and jolly, colored Novoflex ball head just could not reliably handle the weight of the camera and lens, the poor ball head protesting that this really was not its role in life.

So I did a spot of research and had pretty much settled on the Arca Swiss Z ball head and related QR plate, a non-trivial $450 with spare plate, when DP Review published a thoughtful review of a bunch of big ball heads, accompanied with excellent test measurements. The Arca was among those tested, and comparison with the $214 Sirui (with spare QR plate) disclosed that the latter was pretty much a Chinese knock-off at less than half the price. Having discounted the American Acratech, whose funky design I concluded was trying too hard to be different for no obvious benefit, I went ahead and joined the lottery, ordering a Sirui from B&H, hoping I would luck out with a good one. The Sirui improves on the Arca Swiss (made in Beijing, for all I know) with more bubble levels – all useless – and a properly calibrated pan base, compared with the dots passing as calibrations on the Arca Swiss. Has anyone at Arca actually tried to use these? With a spare QR plate the Sirui was a bargain and if I got a good one the six-year warranty would make me feel good though it’s likely as useless as those spirit levels. Spare plates are a total rip-off, by the way. Sirui gets $48 for theirs, others charge even more, for a simple machined piece of metal.

Anyway, it seems I lucked out. I had none of the issues noted by DPReview with their sample which had crooked spirit levels and poor rubber sheathing on the locking knob. The QC tag in the box is dated 8/24/2013, so it’s a fairly recent one. The head is beautifully made, no machining marks anywhere, heavy-duty if not too heavy at 18 ozs., and comes with excellent English instruction, probably a first for any Chinese marketed product in the US. I mean, they are written in real, idiomatic, grammatically correct English. By ‘heavy duty’ I mean you do not have to tighten the locking knob at all hard to really lock down a heavy piece of gear safely. The friction adjuster’s use is well explained and while it does allow the presetting of friction so the camera does not flop about on the head when the release knob is loosened, this tends to vary quite a bit with ambient temperature, so use with care. There’s a neat QR button for the QR head which means you only need loosen the QR plate retaining knob a tad, press the button and slide the camera off. Alternatively, you can unscrew the retaining knob completely – four turns, when it locks – and simply lift the camera out vertically as the retaining dovetail grooves are fully separated at that point. This is poor design as the thread pitch of the knob is far too fine, defeating the QR concept. Two turns would have been a nice compromise between safety and speed.


Ball head with the D3x and Sigma 35mm f/1.4
on my ancient Linhof tripod.

The design of the ‘industry standard’ Arca plate is sub-optimal. So much for standards. Engagement, whether sliding the camera in – retaining screw released half a turn – or dropping it in – retaining screw released four turns – is far too fussy as regards placement. The earlier Manfrotto is superior in every way here. Still, I suppose I’ll get used to it, fiddling with the bloody camera until I can get the grooves on the plate and head to align just so. A disappointment. No QR device should need anything other than feel – certainly not sight – to operate and this design fails the test of ease of use. At night on a poorly lit street I’m not about to crouch down and try to see that I am properly mating two black matte pieces of metal ….

The ball head itself uses the meatier 3/8″ female screw thread for tripod attachment, which is a good thing. The Arca plate provided with the head has three slots and comes with two 1/4″ retaining screws. One has a fold out arc to allow finger tightening, but mine immediately fell off as the retaining pin had not been installed correctly. No matter, as there is both an Allen socket in the screw and a transverse slot which will fit a flat-bladed screwdriver or small coin. An Allen wrench is provided but this is simply an awful idea, for you can bet the one time you will need it on the road you will have left it at home. It is also an invitation to the ham-handed to over-torque the retaining screw. The straight slot works with a US cent or dime just fine, and it’s not likely you will be without either. The screw with the fold-out arc has too large a diameter base, meaning it will only fit in the center one of the three slots in the plate. Had Surui bothered to make it a couple of millimeters smaller all would be fine. To their credit (?) they mention this in the instructions and advocate use of the smaller allen screw if either of the two other channels is to be used. This smaller head screw also comes with a screwdriver/coin slot. OK, a good save, but the wrong answer.

By contrast, the spare plate I ordered is of a different design. It comes with one slot only and with the fold out arc screw only, as well as with an Allen wrench. Interestingly it has two small fold up red plastic tabs which can act as a limit device for some cameras where the baseplate will abut the raised tabs. Think of these as anti-twist devices. Not so good for my big Nikons with their rounded-edge baseplates, but a nice idea. This plate resides full-time on my D3x as the fold out arc on the retaining screw has yet to break off and I like the idea of tool-free installation and removal; the stock plate resides full-time on my 500mm Reflex Nikkor. If it helps, the stock 3-slot plate is designated TY-70X, while the single slot spare with the red tabs is TY-70-2.

Here’s the TY-70-2 spare plate on the D3x – I prefer transverse attachment rather than having the plate protrude front and back of the camera’s baseplate. You can see the fold out tabs, the allen head and the screwdriver slot below. The red tabs in longitudinal orientation can be folded up to protrude from the top of the plate allowing certain cameras to abut them.

Sirui has a large selection of QR plates which you can see here. There are many camera specific ones, shaped to fit the baseplate, with versions for the D700, D800, and a host of Canon bodies, if nothing for the D2/3/4 Nikons.

Finally, the panning base is a welcome feature, well indexed in degrees of rotation. The grease used here is heavy and makes for just the right degree of resistance with a heavy camera body and lens. Friction is not adjustable for this function. I have had no issues using the camera vertically via the drop slot in the ball head. Make sure the slot is aligned with a tripod leg and there’s no risk of the rig tipping over.


The vertical slot in use. No clearance issues.

A very nice neoprene pouch comes with the head and, as you will never use it, it makes for a fine lens pouch with proper drawstrings with movement lockers. Handy.

I am the worst possible source to look to for comments on longevity, as tripod use is largely anathema to this street snapper. If I use a tripod a dozen times annually that’s a lot. Thus I will not be able to comment on meaningful, hard use in harsh environments, as I will be doing neither. However, if you are looking for what appears to be a bargain, are prepared to maybe have to exchange the first one or two (this is beginning to sound like a Sigma lens review) and use heavy gear needing a solid head, the Sirui deserves consideration. For me the sweetest part is that I sold my old Novoflex head for what the Sirui cost me!

Some test data:

The D3x is most susceptible to camera shake on a tripod at 1/15th second exposure time. The reason is that the vibrations caused by the slap from the rising mirror are present for a significant percentage of the exposure time. Shorter shutter speeds obviate the issue while longer ones make the percentage smaller with the same positive result. So using 1/15th with the D3x is an iffy proposition if maximum resolution is aimed at. One way to avoid this is by using Mirror Lock Up and a wireless remote to trigger the shutter, with the first press raising the mirror and the second releasing the shutter.

Thus I set up the camera on the tripod taking snaps of the mesh window screen at 1/250 and 1/15th – depth of field obviously varies, but the mesh screen is a very critical indicator of camera shake. Here are the results using MLU, with a 5 second pause after mirror up before wireless release. These enlargements would yield 48″ prints:

Magnified on my display there is no difference, suggesting the Sirui + Linhof + wireless remote are doing their job.

For results from a successful field trip, click here.

Update May 24, 2015:

A reader who has lost his manual wrote that it’s nowhere to be found on the web, so I append images below:

Mac Pro 2009 Part XXI

Mac Pro

A 4K capable graphics card.

For an index of all my Mac Pro articles, click here.

I first wrote of the Zotac nVidia GTX660 graphics card used in my Mac Pro back in my Hackintosh days. That Zotac card has proved to be outstanding, cool running, silent and capable of simultaneously running four displays (2 x DVI, 1 x DP, 1 x HDMI). When I migrated to the 2009 Mac Pro the Zotac joined that migration and except for the lack of the cog wheel/splash screen on a cold start of the Mac, the card was compatible in every way.

My displays are rather dated Dell 2209WA IPS panels, 21″ in size, and I use three. Eventually these will give way to two larger 4K panels once the technology settles down but with a far higher pixel density (3840 x 2160 vs. 1680 x 1050 computes to 4.7 times the number of pixels for a like sized screen) I will go from 21″ to 30″ or so, and the factor increases to 9.6 times. That’s a big increase.


The EVGA has only one fan, yet the card is much larger overall.

Thus I decided to get the best ‘Made for Mac’ card out there, the choices being the ATI Radeon 7950 or the EVGA nVidia GTX680 both ‘Made for Mac’ variants selling for some $600 new. I like the external connector choices on the EVGA more and found a used, mint GTX680 on eBay for $450. I doubt you will go wrong with either. There are yet faster cards but not in ‘Made for Mac’ editions and power consumption becomes an issue, many of these really requiring auxiliary power supplies if they are to be driven hard and if damage to your computer is to be avoided.

The power consumption issue:

The EVGA GTX 680 requires the use of two auxiliary 6-pin power cables connected to the backplane board, in addition to the power provided by the double-width PCIe slot. Each of these runs at 12 volts and can deliver up to 75 watts of power (6.25 amps of current – more than that and you risk frying things).


The two 6-pin connectors attached to the backplane board. I use 1/2″
flex tubing to neatly dress the cables. The PCIe fan is on the right.

The EVGA card I bought came with two six pin cables while the card itself has one six-pin and one eight-pin socket. The instructions clearly state that the 8-pin will accept a six-pin in one orientation only and this proved to be true.


One of the 6-pin connectors goes in an 8-pin socket at the card end.


GTX680 installed. The Apricorn PCIe card with the boot
SSD is below and the powered Orico USB3 card below that.

Installation in the double-width Slot 1 is a breeze, and no tools are required. It took me some 10 minutes, most of that spent unplugging and replugging cables to the Mac Pro. As with the GTX660, the claw at the rear base of the GTX680 is retained by the sliding bar activated by the push button on the PCIe fan’s casing, the latter being moved back for removal and installation, then pushed back into place, making for a secure fit for this large and heavy card.

Why Slot 1? Because inserted in any other slot your card will block a free slot. Not good, considering there are only four PCIe slots available in any Mac Pro.

Static current draw in PCIe slot 1 is 2.95 amps (35 watts) compared with 2.46 amps (30 watts) with the GTX660. An immaterial increase and the new card seems every bit as silent as the old one which was outstanding in this regard.


About This Mac.

The full splash screen appears on cold start, allowing choice of boot drive if the Option key is held down during start. This was a black screen in the GTX660 so boot drive selection had to be made in System Preferences->Startup Drive before restarting. It’s nice to have the splash screen back, but hardly a reason to upgrade, especially as I never turn off the Mac Pro, preferrring to let it sleep. Adventurous hackers can buy a stock PC GTX680 and, using Windows, flash its ROM for the splash screen functionality. As I do not use Windows, and as there is no circumstance under which I can see that changing, I opted for the ‘Made for Mac’ flashed card – though the appearance of the casing on mine suggests it’s actually a flashed PC version. There’s no difference in use. It’s not the first, nor the last, time that a vendor on eBay has lied. For new cards there is negligible price difference between Mac and PC versions and the Mac version will work fine on PCs.

The PCIe fan spools up to some 1500rpm on cold start then quickly settles to the stock 800rpm idle in under 30 seconds:

Noise at ear level (3′ from the front grille) measures at 43dB, the same as with the GTX660, whether idling or under stress.

Benchmark tests:

The most stressful tests for graphics cards include Unigine Heaven (now in 4.0 guise) and the recently released Unigine Valley (v. 1.0), and I show comparisons with the GTX660 below. All run using OS X Mavericks 10.9.1. The GTX680 is 73% faster on Heaven and 10% faster on Valley:


Heaven – GTX680 vs. GTX660


Valley – GTX680 vs. GTX660

With two X5650 12-core CPUs performance is much the same as with two X5590 8-cores:


Heaven – 12-core performance.


Valley – 12-core performance.

This is as expected. These are GPU tests, not CPU tests.

How about power consumption under stress? Using Unigine Heaven as the most stressful test, the current draw from the three sources (PCIe plus the two 6-pin connections) measured thus (worst cases shown):


PCIe current draw.


First six pin connector current draw.


Second six pin connector current draw.

That total power use of 52/63/42 watts, respectively, meaning 157 of a total permitted of 225 watts – is 70% of overall capacity. But individual percentage of capacity is equally important here – you can be under in aggregate but over on one source, a danger point. With each limited to 75 watts, the highest use noted was the 63 watts on 6-pin slot 1, or 84% of capacity. Given the very stressful nature of this test and the short-term peak power use, I remain satisfied that the health of my Mac Pro is not threatened.

With Unigine Valley, the maxima noted were 51/37/41 watts, for a more modest total of 129 watts, and a worst case use of 68% at the PCIe slot.

Monitoring the 1,000 watt Mac Pro power supply, I never saw power use exceed 500 watts during the Unigine Heaven test, a mere 50% of capacity.

GPU temperatures:

I cannot report on these as the GPU sensor is not ‘seen’ by the system. However, the power draw readings, above, are a fine proxy for determining GPU stress, and the permitted maximum power draw is not exceeded here.

Real world subjective use with Lightroom 5.1 and Photoshop CS5:

I’m not one much for subjective data. “It feels faster” is usually the placebo effect at work. But here are my subjective observations with LR and PS, applications I use all the time.

Lightroom is a key app for me and I actually noted a perceptible improvement. The occasional “Loading …” flag when flipping fast through 1:1 previews (I would get it 30% of the time) and the associated 2 second delay has now fallen to 2-3% of the time and a consistent 1/2 second delay.

When exporting a file from LR to PS, the longest part of the process is rendering of the PSD file from the RAW original in LR, before it can be opened in PS. With the GTX660 this took 6 seconds. With the GTX680 it’s down to 2.5 seconds – much faster and a noticeable enhancement to workflow smoothness and speed.

Are these improvements enough reason to upgrade? That’s a function of your patience threshold and the state of your pocket book. You will not go wrong with the slower GTX660 but once you have used the GTX680 it’s tough to go back. If your budget is $200, the GTX660 is unreservedly recommended. A new GTX680 is three times as much.

Comparison with the new Mac Pro:

Will the GTX680 match the D300/500/700 dual GPUs in the new Mac Pro? Once test data are available we will know and I will update the metrics above. If it lags, I would guess it will not be by much. Either way, you will have a great deal of money left in your pocket by sticking with the 2009 Mac Pro.

Now it’s time to start thinking about 4K displays. For a full list of nVidia GPUs which support 4K, click here.

Update May 27, 2014 – new OS X drivers: nVidia has just released a new driver which claims to fix all existing 4K issues. Click here.

Update June 6, 2014 – new Mac Pro:

Here’s Unigine Heaven running on the new Mac Pro (cylinder) with the 6-core CPU and dual top-of-the-line D700 GPUs. In a word – underwhelming, epecially given the very high cost of the D700s:

The premium for the D700 GPUs over the base D300 ones is $1,000, whereas a GTX680 ‘Made for Mac GPU’ for the old Mac Pro can be had new for $640, used for half that amount.

Update June, 2015:

The newest top-of-the-like Nvidia GTX980 card doubles the speed of the excellent GTX680 but also doubles the price – $600 new compared with $300 used for a flashed GTX680. Add a further $180 if you need the ROM in the GTX980 flashed to show the boot and option-start screens.

You can get it in many socket configurations from the usual vendors – Nvidia, EVGA, PNY, Gigabyte, Zotac, MSI, etc. – so choose based on your peripherals. I opted for a dual-DVI/DP/HDMI configuration, but if DP or MDP is your thing any number of multi-socket options is available.

For still photographers the GTX980 is overkill but for heavy video rendering using CUDA-capable apps it’s a must and the premium will be quickly recovered from enhanced productivity. You can read all about the GTX980 here and I recommend it without reservation. Performance is some 20% better than the costliest dual D700 option for the new (‘dustbin’) Mac Pro.

Meanwhile, a used, flashed GTX680 at $300 or less is an excellent choice for many users.