Author: Kevin

Can I Use This Canon Lens on That Camera Body?

Kevin

Canon EOS, EOS M, and EOS R are all interchangeable-lens systems.
In some cases, an adapter can be used to put a lens from one EOS system onto a camera body of a different EOS system. In other cases you cannot; the physical characteristics make it impossible.

(1987 – 2004) Canon EOS cameras were SLR film cameras and then DSLR digital cameras; unlike previous camera systems, the EF lens mount is completely electronic.
(2012 – 2019) Canon EOS M cameras have EF-M lens mount.
(2018 – ) Canon EOS R cameras have RF lens mount.

* Original Canon EOS camera bodies are either 35mm SLR or DSLR with image sensors up to Full-frame (same size as 35mm).
EOS camera bodies employ EF lens mount but the lenses have two variations, EF and EF-S. EF lenses are compatible with full-frame/35mm image sensors, while the EF-S lenes are limited to smaller APS-C (crop sensor). EF-S lenses tend to be physically smaller than their EF counterparts.

* Canon EOS M cameras are all mirrorless and support image sensors up to APS-C.

* Canon EOS R cameras are all mirrorless and support image sensors up to Full-frame.

In general, lenses designed for APS-C (EF-S lenses or M lenses) cannot be used on Full-frame cameras. Possibly you might fit an EF-S lens onto an EF camera body, but potentially the reflex mirror inside the camera could physically hit the back of the lens. If that doesn’t happen, you will likely encounter one or two problems. Sharp focus may not be impossible because the distance between the lens and image sensor is incorrect. At wide apertures, the corners of the image may be dark because the lens is designed for a smaller image sensor.

In general, lenses for mirrorless cameras cannot be used on DSLR camera bodies. This is because the distance between the lens flange and the image sensor is shorter and there is no room for the mirror inherent in DSLR cameras.

EF lenses can be used on most any camera body. perhaps with help of an adapter.
EF-S may or may not fit onto an EF camera body, but don’t try it.
EF-S lenses can be used on APS-C camera bodies, including EF-M and RF with help of an adapter.

EF-M and EF-R lenses cannot be used on camera bodies with EF mount (regardless of the image sensor size)
EF-M lenses can only be used on M-series camera bodies. Technically, an M lens could work on an EOS R-series camera, but no such adapter exists. (As Canon never made many lenses for the M system, likely no adapter will ever exist.)
RF lenses can only be used on R-series camera bodies. (Considering the possibility of an adapter to put an RF lens on an M-series camera body, it seems not possible because the physical diameter of the RF lens mount is larger than EF-M.)

Camera ISO

Kevin

ISO is a property of recording photography; it represents sensitivity to capture light. Before the days of digital cameras, all photographic film was categorized with an ISO rating. Digital cameras have an adjustable ISO. Increasing digital ISO is primarily a matter of increasing the gain of the electronics signal. As with most electronics, gain increases not just the signal but also signal noise (stuff you don’t want). However, many digital cameras today have excellent signal-to-noise ratio.

In the days of film cameras, photographers might “push process” film to achieve higher ISO. ISO 400 was commonly pushed to ISO 800; that’s a difference of 1 f-stop.

Today, using digital cameras, 1-stop is child’s play. Digital cameras can provide 6 f-stops or more …. ISO 51,200 or better. The results can be cleaner (less noise) than the old ISO 400 film pushed to 800.

I shot the image here at ISO 5000 … that was ten years ago.

(Intonition Band, at night under a tent at Fraklin County Fair)

Canon Rumor: EOS R1 and EOS R5 mark II

Kevin

Two new Canon camera bodies have been long rumored to be released soon. For several months, rumors have further suggested the release announcement will coincide with the Summer Olympics 2024. I can only guess this is because some photographers will be shooting the new camera – or cameras – at the Olympics.

Latest rumor suggests Canon will announce one or both cameras on July 17.

The name designation “1” indicates a flagship camera, the best Canon has to offer. That’s the EOS R1.

The EOS R5 mark II is an expected refresh of the very popular EOS R5 that was released four years ago.

The Kanzans are Coming!

Kevin

As some flowering cherry trees bloom early and some bloom later in the season, Kanzan Cherry is king of the late bloomers. (Also known as Kwanzan Cherry.) They are just now beginning to bloom in eastern Massachusetts. Though they appear as quite small red flowers today …. by Monday or Tuesday they will look like bold pink carnations.

The opening photo here is a past year at the Charles River Esplanade in Boston.

And here is what they look like today, about 15 miles north of Boston.

#hanami #sakura #cherryblossom #boston

Outdoor Photographers: You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Kevin

What I want: To create awe-inspiring photo, preferably unlike the images other people have created of the same subject.

Equipped with a guide book that helps to locate known waterfalls, I was surprised to discover that the access road was marked: No tresspassing for any reason. However, while the dirt road was apparently verboten, there seemed to be no prohibition to approaching the river a bit further downstream and then walking upstream. Walking upstream seems a simple proposition, but more often is difficult or impossible. On this day, I found my way, but did step upon a dirt road that may have been private property. I did not linger, but simply moved quickly away.

Arriving at the falls, I found concrete, ropes and a step ladder; not exactly the pristine wilderness that I had hoped for. Furthermore, access to the falls was limited to a single rocky ledge with very few options for camera shooting angle. Without risking gross tresspassing and without risking my life climbing down the cliff, I resigned myself to creating a rather documentary photograph and not spending extended time at this location.

A week later, I had three days in the Port Angeles area just outside Olympic National Park. The popular attraction here is the road to Hurricane Ridge, attaining an elevation of 5200 feet. The season being mid springtime, I anticipated a view of the Olympic mountains with snow-capped peaks. But clouds dominated the skies for the entire duration of my 3-days. From dawn til dusk, the great view of the mountains never materialized.

As the song says: You can’t always get what you want … but you might get what you need.
Setting aside what I want, what do I need?

A walk outside with sod under foot and an eye toward the weather.
My camera equipment must function
A documentary photo, not perfect
Survive the exploration without injury (slipping on a wet rock, or worse)

So, during my trip, it happened more than once. I did not get what I wanted … but I did get what I needed.

Photo Editing: Remove a Telephone Pole

Kevin
After editing in Photoshop

A common problem in outdoor photography : unwanted obstacles. Digitally removing the object can be easy or very difficult.

If the object obscures a plain background such as blue sky or beach sand, then computer software can easily fill-in any space that is vacant when deleting the unwanted object. If the object obscures something more complex such as a person’s face, there is no way to recreate what the camera never captured. While this is surely changing with today’s advances in generative AI, there will always be limitations.

In this image of the Groveton covered bridge, removing the yellow marker post would not be difficlut. The real problem is a telephone/utility pole that stands near the front of the bridge; see the unmodified photo below.

The technique that solves this problem is to capture two images. After taking the first photo, take a few steps to one side and make the second photo. That second capture reveals what was hidden behind the pole in the first capture. In post-processing, I removed the pole and then used pieces of the second image to fill in the blank.

Original photo – Before editing

Of course there are still many wires and shadows of wires across the image. Removing those can be easy against a clear blue sky but becomes more difficult across varying clouds, trees, and the shingle roof. I expect generative AI can make this task much easier … and better. If you look closely at the edited image, you may find a few breaks in cable shadows that I have not yet remedied. AI could potentially figure out the pattern of the roof shingles and extend the pattern, completely fixing the shadow breaks.

How Many Photos Has This Camera Captured?

Kevin

Fifteen years ago, this question was very significant (for most cameras) as an indication of wear and remaining functional life. If you were to purchase a used camera, you would certainly want to know the answer to this question. Today, this is not as true as it used to be.

Mechanical/moving parts are subject to some degree of wear. Metal parts suffer from friction. Plastic parts may become brittle. They eventually wear out. Get maintenance or get rid of it. But many of today’s digital cameras don’t have moving parts and do not suffer the same effects of wear. They have electronic sensors and electronic shutters.

Cameras have commonly remembered how many times the shutter has been actuated (how many photos have been captured). Through various means, you may be able to retrieve that information from a camera. In many digital cameras today, shutter count information may not be available at all. Furthermore, digital cameras are often used to capture video (rather than still photos) and the shutter count isn’t useful information.

That being said, I recently decided to sell a DSLR from 2015. Any DSLR certainly has mechanical parts and the shutter typically has an expected lifespan. As I had used this camera for still photography (not video), the shutter count is useful information. But retrieving this information from the camera proved a bit difficult. Here are several methods that generally might succeed, but in the case of my camera, I found that only one of these methods succeeded.

  • If you have software that shows EXIF information within an image, every digital photo may include the shutter count.
    Didn’t work. While all digital cameras report EXIF, not all cameras include shutter count in that data.
    (Online comment: “Last camera from Canon with shutter count in EXIF was EOS 1D II N.”)
  • Some websites: you upload an image from your camera and it will read shutter count from the EXIF information
    Didn’t work. See explanation above.
  • FreeShutterCount (freeware)
    Requires installing some 3-rd party USB drivers … no thanks (I’m not going to risk installing some unverified USB drivers on my computer.)
  • EOSinfo (freeware)
    Doesn’t work with my camera model.
  • EOS Digital Info (freeware)
    Doesn’t work with my camera model.
  • DIRE Studio Shutter Count (freeware)
    Apple/Mac only; I don’t have any Apple/Mac devices.
  • Tornado EOS
    Multiple people have reported this software contains malware.
  • AstroPhotography Tool (APT)
    Reported shutter count = 30,000

An online search for “expected shutter lifetime Canon EOS cameras” tells me that this camera model should happily provlde 200,000 shutter actuations without any problems. My camera has 30,000 shutter actuations.

Sunrise … Can Be Surprising

Kevin
Block Island, Rhode Island

At the time for sunrise (about 5:39 am), the skies were entirely a grey haze and the sun did not show. After waiting four or five minutes with a drone in the air, I abandoned hope and packed up my gear. Walking back toward the road, only then did I see the red disc had risen through the haze. For a brief moment, I pondered whether to simply enjoy the spectacle or quickly re-deploy my gear; I chose the latter.

In retrospect, the haze was more than just morning fog; it was smoke in the atmosphere from Nova Scotia wildfires that month. ‘Cause that will filter light unlike normal morning fog.

Mostly (not completely), I’ve learned not to be disappointed when sunrise doesn’t manifest brilliant colors. That’s challenging because arriving at a location before sunrise implies effort to get up early enough to travel to my intended location. In this particular case, I had to travel by bicycle … before dawn. Because getting a car onto the island is a bit difficult, I left my car on the mainland. And although motorized scooters are common on the island, they are prohibited by law at this time of day.

Flowering Trees at a Cemetary

Kevin

I love the season of flowering trees; sadly, in the northeast, the season only lasts maybe six weeks.

Ornamental flowering trees are commonly planted in many different spaces ranging from residential gardens to corporate office parks. One category that commonly hosts plantings of beautiful trees is cemeteries. While it may seem odd to some people, I’ve seen people of all sorts and ages strolling through cemeteries, even having a picnic. Last weekend, I visited a cemetery in Wakefield. Although the crabapple trees had all dropped their colorful petals, I counted more than two dozen dogwood trees in bloom.

From that short excursion, I wanted to share a comparison of two images of the same tree but photographed with wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens. There are a few reasons why you might choose to use one or the other. When in doubt, shoot them both.

The first reason you might choose a telephoto lens is because you can’t get close enough to your subject. I personally encountered that scenario a couple weeks ago, stopping to photograph cherry trees in bloom at a cemetery where the gates were locked. I photographed from outside the fence using a 100mm lens.

The second reason you might choose to use a telephoto lens is to control the background. The narrow field of view may enable you to exclude elements from the background. And a wide-angle lens can include more background, for more environmental context. In the two photos I’ve shared here, both the telephoto and the wide-angle image do show the environment context, but a telephoto also allowed me to exclude the tombstones entirely.

A third reason to choose either telephoto or wide-angle is depth perception. Wide-angle lenses commonly exaggerate distance; multiple subjects in the photograph appear to be farther apart, compared to using a longer/telephoto focal length. Conversely, telephoto lenses tend to compress distance, making multiple subjects (at different distances from the camera) appear closer together.

Lastly, when you have multiple subjects at very different distances, a telephoto lens combined with a small aperture may allow blurring the background – if that’s the effect you’re seeking to create. Both the images here employ an aperture about f\4.5.

DJI Camera Drone – Mavic 3 Pro

Kevin

I have one surpassing criteria for an aerial drone …. image quality. This month, DJI introduced two new iterations of their drones, the Inspire 3 and the Mavic 3 pro. Personally, the first thing I need to know is how the camera compares to previous models. Lacking actual real photos from a new drone that I have not used, I must begin by comparing camera specifications. Digging up information can be surprisingly difficult because I’m seeking very specific fundamental parameters and sifting out the chaff is tedious.

Someone online recently asked which was the best for photography (which I presume excludes video). My answer was this: “Two words – variable aperture.” But I confess that I am particularly interested in the new 70mm lens with resolution of 48 MP.

I dug through the camera specifications online and composed this simple table of just the fundamental parameters.

Years ago, still-photo quality was my only concern, but today video quality is also a factor. Frankly, for the purposes of the video that I shoot, video quality is comparable across most DJI drones. I personally do not need 120 fps, nor do I require 5.1K. I do require DLOG recording.