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How to Use Intentional Camera Movement in Your Photography to Great Effect
The post How to Use Intentional Camera Movement in Your Photography to Great Effect appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond.

The presentation of motion in a static image is the subject of this article – a seeming contradiction in terms. This is not the case, and today you’ll discover how to use intentional camera movement to create dynamic images. You’ll learn the techniques you can use during the day and those which you can use at night. So read on and find out how you can make your photos dynamic!

What is intentional camera movement?

This image used a day time zoom burst, and a strong ND filter.

The majority of the time, you’ll be taught to keep your camera still, to avoid blur in your photo. However, what if you moved the camera during an exposure, and you did it on purpose? This is what intentional camera movement is.

Now for this effect to work, you’ll need to use slow shutter speeds. You won’t see any worthwhile results from shutter speeds over 1/100th.

It’s possible to practice this handheld with shutter speeds between 1/50th and half a second. Anything slower than that will require a tripod for the best results.

How to use intentional camera movement during the day

There is more than one way you can apply intentional camera movement to your work. The most well known is probably panning. The following are the main ways you can move your camera, and produce interesting results.

Panning is a technique that tracks movement.

1. Panning

Panning is a technique used to show the motion of a moving object. The aim is to move your camera at the same pace as a moving object and to expose the image for around a third of a second to produce blur in the background.

There are several ways you can refine this technique to produce even better results.

The shutter speed used will also be dependent on the speed of the object you are panning. This is a nice technique to try as there is a clear main subject, which is not always the case with intentional camera movement.

2. Zooming

A night time zoom burst, with light painting across the scene.

Using zoom during the day can also give interesting results. You’ll learn how you can add even more to this technique at night by reading below. The effect is produced by changing the focal distance of your lens, so primes lenses won’t work here.

The following are the steps you’ll need to take to create a daytime zoom burst.
- Exposure – You’ll need to find a location that allows you to expose at 1/10th second or longer. If you choose to use a longer exposure, you’ll need a tripod.
- Lens – You’ll need a lens that allows you to manually change the focal distance during the course of the exposure.
- Filter – Those daytime long exposures will likely require an ND filter to achieve them.
- Zoom in – The effect will broadly be the same whether you zoom in or zoom out, but for daytime zoom, it’s better to zoom in.
- Focus – Focus your camera at the focal distance you intend to finish the zoom burst at. This may require pre-focusing the camera, and setting the camera to manual focus for the exposure itself.
- Location – A location with something overhead like a tree canopy will work best to show the zoom effect. A clear sky won’t show any zoom at all.
3. Intentional camera movement

This type of photo is often very abstract in nature. The goal is to move the camera in such a way it produces appealing blur patterns in your image. You’ll need a longer exposure to produce this.

Circular motion is a type of intentional camera movement.

The best movements are often defined shapes. If you move your camera in a straight line, a circular motion, or perhaps a heart shape, you should get a nice result.

It’s possible to carry out photos like this handheld if the exposure is short, and you keep to a simple movement. An exposure of around half a second would work for this.

4. Using a tripod

It also possible to use intentional camera movement from a tripod, though you’ll be limited to the movements your tripod head will allow. That means you can produce all the shapes mentioned above, you’ll just be pivoting from a fixed position.

The advantage of using a tripod is that the camera will be that much steadier. The next advantage is that if you wish to combine intentional camera movement with a stationary phase to an exposure, this is possible with a tripod.

Techniques you can use at night

Lights from an event like Christmas are great opportunities for kinetic light paintings.

It’s that much easier to practice intentionally camera movement at night. That’s for two reason. The first is it’s easier to carry out long exposure, as the light level will be lower. The second is light sources you’ll see out night will light paint across your scene. In fact by night intentional camera movement might more accurately be described as kinetic light painting. The techniques listed above can be adapted to night photography. Panning is almost the same, so this won’t be discussed any further.

1. Kinetic light painting zoom

Kinetic light painting involves changing the focal distance of a zoom lens, during a long exposure photo. The exposure lengths at night mean you’ll now need to use a tripod to get good photos using this technique.

A key difference with daytime zooming is that it’s preferable to zoom out when practicing this. The reason for this is you want the light paint to zoom outwards across your scene. If you zoom in, the chances are you’ll have light painting across your main subject in the center of your scene. To find out more about this technique, you can read this article.

This photo shows the result of camera rotation, and kinetic light painting.

2. Kinetic light painting rotation

Another type of kinetic light painting is camera rotation. Once again, you’ll need a tripod for this, and you’ll move your camera body while it’s attached to the tripod. It’s a technique that works best where there are tall structures. These can be tall buildings, statues or perhaps Christmas trees.

To make this technique work, you’ll need these structures to have lights on them. To find out more about camera rotation read this article.

Create dynamic images intentionally!

Now it’s your turn to get out and create some images. If you can’t get out and about, try some of these in your yard or home. It’s a great way of adding narrative to an image, or perhaps to create a completely abstract image.

Have you tried any of the ideas mentioned in this article? If you have what were your experiences?

As always, if you have images that display intentional camera movement, please share them in the comments.

The post How to Use Intentional Camera Movement in Your Photography to Great Effect appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Simon Bond.

Digital Photography School
April 24, 2020
DPReview TV: Create beautiful abstract photos with polarized crystals (DIY project)
Tiny crystals on a glass slide may look unimpressive to the naked eye, but with a macro lens and some polarizing filters they become magical. We show you how to make your own.

Know the answer to Don’s polarization trivia at the end of the episode? Tell us in the comments!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get new episodes of DPReview TV every week.
- Introduction
- Making crystals
- Now we wait…
- Crystal depth
- The fancy setup
- Making art
- The basic setup
- See you next time
- Wait… just one more thing!
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
April 24, 2020
Nikon releases firmware update for its D780 DSLR to fix SD memory card errors

Nikon has released a very minor firmware update for its D780 camera system.

Firmware version 1.01 (up from 1.00) addresses just a single issue, wherein some SD memory cards wouldn’t work inside the camera. Nikon doesn’t specify what memory cards caused problems, but a two-month-old DPReview forum post, embedded below, from ‘JS Photo’ noted his Lexar 2000x SD cards (a 128GB and a 64GB card) were throwing errors during a wedding shoot.

We have contacted Nikon to see if any further clarification is available on what cards were causing the problems and will update this article accordingly if we receive an appropriate response.

In the meantime, you can head on over to Nikon’s D780 support page to download firmware version 1.01 for macOS and Windows computers.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 24, 2020
Canon’s Q1 financial report shows Imaging Systems net sales and profits are down 13.9%, 80.6% YoY

Canon has released its first-quarter (Q1) financial report, revealing just how bad the COVID-19 pandemic has affected its bottom line and suggesting it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

The report starts off by stating on its ‘Key Message’ summary page that the COVID-19 pandemic has ‘completely [changed the] global economic landscape’ with the following bullet point saying the ‘global economy faces worst recession since the Great Depression’ due to the ongoing pandemic.

Across the board, Canon saw a 9.5% drop in net sales and an 18.7% decline in operating profit for Q1 (January 1 through April 23), year-over-year (YoY). But even those numbers look great in comparison to those found within Canon’s Imaging Systems division, which accounts for camera and inkjet printer sales.

The report shows net sales and operating profit for Q1 within the Imaging System division is down 13.9% and 80.6%, respectively, YoY. Further split up, Canon states its net sales are down 24.8% YoY specifically for cameras, while its inkjet printer net sales were actually up 7.3%. Despite the current situation, Canon hasn’t changed its projections which currently have net sales and operating profits down 2.5% and up 11.5%, respectively for the entire 2020 fiscal year.

That may very well change though, as Canon expects its second quarter (Q2) to be even worse, as Canon’s current downward trajectory didn’t even start until mid-way through Q1. Combined with the uncertainty of when the COVID-19 pandemic will begin to subside, Canon says it’s difficult to provide accurate estimates of future financials and even clarifies that once the global economy is back on the rise, it’s unlikely cameras will see an immediate return to normal sales.

In addition to the impact on supply, sales of interchangeable-lens cameras were also greatly affected. One after another, live events were canceled or postponed and chances to use cameras decreased. In addition to this, we believe it will take time to see a recovery in the demand for cameras, which are considered luxury items, even after the global economic turmoil has subsided.’

Whatever happens, it seems Canon has little intent on slowing down. In its summary of the results, Canon says it ‘will steadily push forward [its] strategy that focuses on models for professionals and advanced-amateurs to maintain medium- to longterm profitability,’ an obvious nod to the forthcoming EOS R5 camera, as well as new RF lenses on the horizon.

Something worth keeping in mind, as with all financial reports, is that numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. There is plenty going on behind-the-scenes and there is a lot of grey area within the net sales and operating profits within any given division.

For this particular Q1 report, a standout example of this is in the dramatic discrepancy between the net sales and operating profit within Canon’s Imaging Systems division. While we obviously can’t confirm this to be the case, the 80.6% decline in operating profit could very well be due, at least in part, to the research, development and marketing expenses of the EOS R5 and other professional and ‘advanced amateur’ camera systems Canon plans to release in the near future. It’s shaping up to be an industry-shaking camera based on the currently-known specs and actively developing such a system doesn’t come cheap.

You can read through all of the Q1 financial documents on Canon’s investor relations website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 24, 2020
Fujifilm releases very minor firmware updates for six of its XF lenses
Fujifilm has released minor firmware updates for a number of its XF lenses, including five zooms and a single prime.

The firmware version numbers vary from lens to lens, but across the board, all five updates simply list ‘Fix of minor bugs’ as the only change in these updates. Below is a list of the lenses and a link to their respective firmware updates:
- Fujifilm XF 200mm F2 R LM OIS WR — Firmware version 1.01 (up from 1.00)
- Fujifilm XF 8–16mm F2.8 R LM WR — Firmware version 1.01 (up from 1.00)
- Fujifilm XF 16–80mm F4 R OIS WR — Firmware version 1.04 (up from 1.03
- Fujifilm 50–140mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR — Firmware version 1.31 (up from 1.30)
- Fujifilm 55–200mm F3.5–4.8 R LM OIS — Firmware version 1.21 (up from 1.20)
- Fujifilm 100–400mm F4.5–5.6 R LM OIS — Firmware version 1.21 (up from 1.20)
You can keep up with the latest firmware updates via Fujifilm’s comprehensive list of the latest updates for its lenses.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
April 24, 2020

Canon EOS R5: The long game ends with a big leap

The fruit of Canon’s R&D emerges from the shadows

Canon has been the best selling camera brand for most of the digital era. Different people might ascribe this dominance to different areas of strength, be that lens design, ergonomics, color response or simply very successful marketing that’s resulted in a history of cameras that people want at a price they’re willing to pay. For the past few years though, its once proud reputation for innovation hasn’t seemed so evident.

Canon’s US press releases still proudly boast about how many patents the company has been granted, but its electronics development prowess hasn’t shone especially brightly in recent models. The EOS R5’s disclosed specs reveal a camera capable of generating and processing immense amounts of data. This suggests a leap forward in Canon’s semiconductor design and one that might shed some light on why some of their most recent cameras have seemed somewhat lackluster.

Blimey!

It’s difficult to over-stress how much of a technical challenge it is to capture and record 8K footage. Just four years ago virtually every camera maker we interviewed said that 4K was really difficult because of the heat generated in the process and there are many models that stop recording or become very hot if they shoot for extended periods. Canon is promising a camera that can capture four times as much data, from the full width of its sensor while still being able to run its dual pixel AF system in parallel.

The EOS R5’s disclosed specs suggests a leap forward in Canon’s semiconductor design

If that doesn’t strike you as ground-breaking, consider that the EOS R5 can shoot 4K at up to 120 fps. Then look around the current batch of large sensor cameras and count how many can achieve 4K/60. It’s a short list, and one that gets even shorter if you mark off the ones that can only do so using a cropped region of their sensor. The EOS R5 almost certainly sub-samples to achieve this, but that’s still a lot of data.

We don’t know the camera’s full specs, yet, but this all points to a radical improvement in sensor and processing technologies.

A history of innovation

Canon was the first camera maker to fully embrace CMOS technology for its DSLRs, which gave it industry-leading performance for many years (it was another seven years until we saw a camera with a CMOS chip from Sony Semiconductor). It was also the first company to produce a large sensor camera that could capture Full HD video. Technologies such Dual Pixel AF show that the company has continued to work away at pushing its cameras forwards.

And yet, the last few generations of Canon stills cameras haven’t always sparkled, particularly in terms of video: notably the most processor-intensive feature. The EOS 5D Mark IV had to crop its sensor to deliver 4K and still showed a fair amount of rolling shutter when it did, suggesting there was a major bottleneck either in terms of sensor readout rate or the ability to process this data fast enough.

It’s also interesting to note that Canon cameras tend to achieve much lower shot-count ratings per Watt Hour of battery capacity than other companies manage, which is likely to be indicative of lower processor efficiency.

The EOS R, as the first RF mount camera, had plenty of innovations in it, but its cropped 4K video suggests a similar lack of processing power to that of the EOS 5D VI, which wasn’t especially cutting edge two years earlier. The EOS R5 is a vast leap forward from this.

And this has seen Canon’s specs begin to fall behind. This need to crop to produce 4K video was off the pace in when the 5D IV was launched in 2016 (Sony’s a7R II offered full-width 4K capture a year earlier), so to see that same limitation in 2018’s EOS R looked a little embarrassing compared to the oversampled 4K footage offered by Leica, Nikon, Panasonic, Sigma and Sony in their contemporaneous full frame models. It’s a similar story with the EOS 6D II and EOS RP and, despite the appearance of a novel 32MP sensor in the EOS M6 Mark II, the need to sub-sample the chip to generate its video also hints at a processing bottleneck.

So why had this company with a history of innovation dropped so far behind its rivals?

What’s been going on, then?

While it sources 1-inch and smaller sensors from other companies, Canon makes its own APS-C and full-frame sensors and generally hasn’t made them available to rival camera companies. This means that Canon has to recoup its R&D costs entirely from its own models, whereas most other camera makers buy all of their sensors in from a supplier that can spread out those costs amongst its many customers. That obviously creates an incentive for Canon to keep using the same chips for as long as it can.

The differing challenges of building cinema and consumer cameras make it impossible to say whether know-how has been reserved for the Cinema EOS line or has trickled down from it.

Another possibility is that Canon has been keeping this know-how for its more profitable pro video users, holding the main EOS line back to avoid cannibalizing its Cinema EOS sales. But this isn’t necessarily true: the Cinema EOS cameras work in an environment where large batteries and built-in fans are the norm, meaning there isn’t the same pressure on them to be as super-efficient as the mainline EOS cameras need to be. So I’m not sure that’s what we’ve seen: if anything it’s just as likely that the EOS R5 is benefitting from lessons Canon learned through the process of developing the Cinema EOS line.

Playing the long game

Instead, I wonder whether Canon made the decision to step back from the constant two-year development cycle for sensors and processors that other camera makers build their model ranges around, and instead decided to conduct a longer-term project to reclaim the technological lead it’d previously enjoyed.

There are, perhaps, parallels with the way Canon approached its switch to autofocus, back in the 1980s: seemingly content to let Minolta and Nikon own the AF market, only to leap ahead with its EOS system.

Taking a longer-term approach would explain both why the company had dropped so far behind and how it can now not just to catch up but jump ahead

We may never know for sure, but I can’t think of a time when Canon has so clearly fallen behind what the rest of its rivals are offering. That’s why it looks to me like the apparent lull in Canon’s innovation might have been because it wasn’t content to just keep up with its rivals but instead was willing to cede a little ground in the short term, so that it could take a significant lead in the long run. That would explain both why the company had seemingly dropped so far behind and how it’s now looks able not just to catch up, but to jump ahead.

Of course this is likely to be little comfort for customers who bought Canon cameras from the end of the previous cycle, built on technology that was significantly outdated in comparison to their rivals.

So while the rest of the market has been constantly tussling over small gains, seemingly leaving Canon in the dust, the industry’s biggest player appears to have been patiently working to leapfrog them all, taking a bigger lead than we’ve become used to seeing in the industry.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 23, 2020

Shoot now, focus later: multi-view E-mount lens patent is Sony’s latest foray in to light field photography

According to Sony Alpha Rumors, Sony has filed a patent for an interchangeable E-mount lens that will allow users to adjust focus after the shot has been recorded. The lens appears to contain a number of lenses arranged next to each other to record multiple individual images on the camera’s sensor that can be combined later presumably to control focus and depth-of-field.

The site doesn’t tell us where the patent information was seen so we can’t read it for ourselves, but some diagrams are provided that we are told are part of the application.

The Light L16 light field camera from Light Labs Inc

Sony investigating light field technology is nothing new, as in the past it has filed patents for a light field sensor and has a partnership to supply sensors to Light Labs Inc, the manufacturer of the Light L16 camera that was announced in 2015. The draw of the technology is obvious as it can allow multiple focal lengths to be used for full-resolution zooming and/or focus and depth-of-field selection after the event.

We have seen a few attempts at harnessing the idea in commercial camera products in the past, including the Lytro Illum, Nokia’s 9 PureView and to some extent a number of other multi-lens and multi-sensor smartphones. It is hard to tell from the available information exactly what these lenses will used for in this patented idea, and whether they will be to collect distance information or be used to expand the range of tones that can be recorded in a single shot – or both.

Either way, such a lens will need a camera with an extremely powerful processor or the ability to simply record the images for processing in software later – as with Sony’s Pixel Shift Multi Shooting mode that requires images are processed in the company’s Imaging Edge desktop application.

As we have all noticed in the past though, exciting patent applications don’t always result in a product that comes to market. If genuine however this does at least demonstrate Sony is still pursuing ideas in this area.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 23, 2020
10 Photography Projects You Can Work on From Home

The post 10 Photography Projects You Can Work on From Home appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

If you’ve suddenly found yourself at home for an extended period, your first reaction could be to feel restricted in terms of what you can achieve. Fear not, there are lots of photography projects you can work on from home. In this guide, I’ve detailed ten projects I plan on working on in the coming weeks.

1. Make a photography zine

With time on your hands, there’s no better time to start thinking about creating a photography zine. I’ve just made my first zine with images I took while on holiday on the Isle of Wight last year.

There was quite a steep learning curve for me in putting it all together. Some of the skills I learned include: how to select images for a book, page layout using Adobe InDesign, and the difference in how images look printed in the CMYK color space instead of how they’re viewed on the screen in the RGB color space. The next step is to market and sell my zine.

The whole process has been very rewarding. Look out for a future Digital Photography School article coming soon about this topic.

Checking the final layout of my first photo book ‘Every Summer’

2. Organize your Lightroom catalogs

If your Lightroom is anything like my Lightroom, of all the photography projects you can work on from home, this one could take the most time. Over the next few weeks, I’ve decided to start organizing it once and for all.

With well over 200,000 photos, this is a daunting task. Like all big projects, I’ve decided to break it down into manageable chunks. Starting with my 2019 photos, I’m aiming to sort, keyword and organize two months of photos per day.

My process includes adding keywords, adding ratings to photos I like, creating collections for shoots or locations, and flagging photos for deletion. It also includes exporting photos for a variety of uses: family photos, photo projects, stock photography, and for my portfolio and website.

The most rewarding part for me is flagging photos for deletion – this is a fantastic way to free up much-needed space on my hard drive. It’s so easy to forget that you have taken multiple photos – in both JPG and RAW format – of the same subject. I take great delight in flagging the ones I don’t need and deleting them forever.

If your Lightroom is anything like my Lightroom, it could benefit from some organization.

3. Catalog your equipment

If you’re anything like me, you probably have camera equipment in boxes, on shelves, everywhere! Getting it all down on the floor and sorting through it item by item can be a very useful activity. You may well find cameras, lenses, filters, or other items you forgot you had.

As I sort through my equipment, I like to catalog it all in a spreadsheet, making notes about each item. Noting if there’s an issue with its working or cosmetic condition, where I got the item from, and how much I paid for it. This is also a really good way to work out if there’s anything you don’t use anymore and could sell to fund other gear.

4. Research a photographer

When I was on holiday last year on the Isle of Wight in England, quite by accident, I discovered an amazing place called Dimbola. This was the home of the 19th-century photographic pioneer, Julia Margaret Cameron.

There’s a wonderful photography museum inside the house, along with descriptions of how she took the images and many prints of her work. Looking around the house, I wondered how many other amazing photographers I had never heard of?

For this project, research a photographer from the past. It could be from 20 years ago or 120 years ago. You could research a photographer from the genre that you like the most, or someone in a completely different genre. Who knows what inspiration might strike?

Take a look at our Lessons From the Masters Series.

Sadness (1864) by Julia Margaret Cameron. Can you believe this photo was taken over 150 years ago?

5. Create a memories book

When I was growing up, we had a cupboard under the bookshelf that held all of our photo albums. At any time I could dig them out and have a look (and a laugh) at all the family memories they contained.

These days, most of our family photos are on hard drives and devices. One of my goals is to create a series of memories books for my family. When I show my children photos from a few years ago, they always get a kick out of it. Why not use your time at home to create a book for someone in your family as a gift?

One of the advantages of sorting through your Lightroom catalog is that you’ll already have a folder of images ready to go for your memories book.

6. Read a photography book

If photography is your passion, you’ll no doubt have a bookshelf full of photography-related titles. I have dozens of photography books, yet there’s only a few that I’ve actually read cover to cover. Others I’ve put on the shelf telling myself that one day I would get around to reading them. Guess what? That ‘one day’ is here!

I now have a list of books that I will work through in the next month. Some I’ve read before, most I’ve only flicked through. For books that teach a technique, I like to make notes as I find that helps me remember the information more effectively.

Some of the photography books I plan on reading over the next few weeks.

7. Work on your lighting techniques

Now is the perfect time to working on your lighting techniques. As far as photography projects you can work on from home, learning more about light could have the biggest impact on you as a photographer.

Even with a single flash, there are dozens of different ways to light an image.

Once you add a light stand, an umbrella or a softbox, your options grow. Find a book or search dPS for lighting techniques, or watch some YouTube tutorials. Play around with how light affects your images. Often it’s trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t.

The set up for the photo below was quite simple. I laid my camera on a black sheet. Then I attached my Godox flash to a stand, pointing away from the subject into a silver umbrella. I then took a series of photos with Fujifilm X-T3 – a remote on the hotshoe triggered the flash.

There wasn’t much to do in post-production. I darkened the blacks a little and removed a small scratch from the top of my camera. You could apply this or other lighting techniques to people, food, objects, anything.

Try out your product photography skills by photographing your cameras.

8. Video chat with other photographers

In one of the many photography-themed Facebook Groups I’m in, someone organized a video conference a few days ago. About twenty of us dialled in from all over the world for a chat. Having the opportunity to talk to other people in different countries was amazing.

Lots of different topics were covered, including photography projects you can work on from home. Knowing that there are other people out there in the same boat can be quite comforting. Why not organize a video chat with a friend, or a group of people with the same interest? Many video conferencing tools are free, or have a free option.

9. Social media spring clean

It may not be spring everywhere in the world, but there’s no better time to spring clean your socials. Start by looking through your profile, is the description still accurate? Is your website listed? Is your profile photo up-to-date? Then take a look through your photos. Are there any that you’d like to hide or delete because they no longer fit with your profile or brand?

Next, look through the images you exported as part of your Lightroom Catalog clean-up. Think about the best order to post them in. Will you follow a theme based on location? Or simply post them in an order that looks good for the Instagram grid?

Finally, look at who you’re following on social media. Look for new accounts or hashtags to be inspired by, and also consider unfollowing accounts that you’re no longer interested in.

There’s no better time to Spring Clean your socials

10. Research a photographic technique

Photography is incredibly broad and diverse. There are so many different techniques to learn and master. As photographers many of us will only scratch the surface of what’s possible.

On Digital Photography School, there are articles on almost every kind of photography technique you can think of. Some of my favourites include how to shoot traffic trails, tips for shooting pet portraits, and taking better sunset photos.

You can also check out some of my recent articles for dPS including 17 Tips for Shooting Better Urban Portraits and Top Tips for Photographing the Best a City has to Offer in 48-hours.

Traffic trails in Taipei. I took this just before I had to leave for the airport to catch my flight.

Conclusion

Not being able to go out for an extended period of time can be daunting, but there are so many photography projects you can work on from home. From making zines to promote your work, creating photo books as gifts for family members, and of course, cleaning up your Lightroom catalog.

There’s also lots of inspiration you can take, from the thousands of articles here on dPS, or by researching a photographer or photographic technique.

What projects are you working on at home? Tell us in the comments below.

The post 10 Photography Projects You Can Work on From Home appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Matt Murray.

Digital Photography School

April 23, 2020
8K and then some: what the Canon EOS R5’s video specs mean

Introduction

Canon kickstarted the success of the stills/video hybrid ILC with the introduction of the EOS 5D Mark II in 2008. Since then it appears to have focused most of its video efforts on its Cinema EOS line of professional video cameras.

However, as part of its drip-feed of EOS R5 specs, Canon has spelled out a lot more about its video capabilities. And, from what’s been said, it looks like the biggest leap forward in video for Canon’s main EOS line since that launch 12 years ago.

We already knew that the EOS R5 was going to be able to shoot at 12 fps with its mechanical shutter and 20 in e-shutter mode and that it was going to shoot 8K, but the more detailed video specs are worth digesting…

8K video capture

The most eye-catching spec is one that Canon’s previously announced. The EOS R5 will become the first consumer ILC to offer 8K video capture. That’s a huge deal, in part because of what it tells us about the camera’s processing power.

8K is usually taken to mean a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels, which is exactly four times the size of UHD 4K (also meaning it’s the theoretical perfect capture resolution if you wish to correctly represent all the spatial frequencies that can be conveyed in a 4K image).

However, Canon has previously tended to prefer the wider 1.90:1 DCI format to the 16:9 of UHD for its high end cameras. Canon also says that it’s both the 8K and DCI 4K modes that use the full width of the sensor, which could imply the use of a 8192 x 4230 region. This would require a 44.7MP sensor, rather than the ~40MP chip needed for 16:9 8K.

Even though 8K displays aren’t exactly widespread, yet, there are plenty of reasons it can still be useful. Whether it’s to provide greater compositional flexibility in the edit, to provide better quality 4K footage, or to future-proof your next project, 8K capability will have its uses.

8K Raw

And, as if 8K video weren’t impressive enough (and just a reminder, that’s at least four times the data demand that causes some cameras to struggle), Canon says the EOS R5 will capture Raw video data.

Internal Raw video capture is scarce enough in the 4K realm, being almost the sole preserve of the EOS-1D X Mark III, with just a handful of cameras having to hand-off much of the heavy lifting to Atomos’ external recorders. But Canon says the EOS R5 will handle 8K 30p in Raw: that’s like shooting thirty 32MP images per second.

Given the 1D X III shoots 5.5K Raw in 12-bit, we’d assume a similar setup here. Canon hasn’t specified the data rates yet. The R5’s 8K is a little more than twice the number of pixels as the 1D X III’s video, so we’d expect its 8K/30p to be anywhere from a bit above the 2600 Mbps that the 1D X III uses to store 5.5K/60p to somewhere in the high 3000 Mbps range, if the compression ratio is closer to that of the 1D X III’s 5.5K/30p data rate.

Unlike the 1D X III, it’ll be able to output its maximum rate while maintaining Dual Pixel AF.

10-bit C-Log

For those of us without cooled server farms and infinite storage, the EOS R5 will be able to shoot C-Log footage. Like the 1D X Mark III, this is output as 10-bit 4:2:2 H.265 footage.

This is likely to be the Canon Log response that incorporates around 12 stops of dynamic range, giving a good degree of flexibility in when post-processing. LUTs for the Canon Log response are already widely available, for both SDR and HDR output, making it easy to incorporate the R5 into an existing workflow.

10-bit HDR PQ

As an alternative option, the camera will output footage encoded using the PQ (perceptual quantizer) curve used in several of the most sophisticated HDR TV standards.

This provides a means of shooting footage directly for use on HDR displays. It’s interesting to see Canon plump for the PQ response, rather than the simpler and SDR-compatible HLG system adopted by Panasonic, Fujifilm and Sony.

4K/120

As if the promise of 8K video weren’t impressive enough, Canon says the EOS R5 will be able to shoot 4K footage from the full width of its sensor at up to 120p. While maintaining full Dual Pixel AF.

In an era when most of the handful of cameras that can shoot 4K/60 have to crop or sub-sample their sensors to do so, the idea of shooting 120p (119.94) is a big step forward.

It’s likely that both this and the 60p footage will be sub-sampled in some manner (if it could read and process that entire sensor region 120 times a second, it could presumably offer 8K/120, too!).

But played back as 24p, it can be used as 1/5th speed slow-mo, or 1/4th speed for 30p playback, which is a useful creative option in 4K workflows.

IBIS

Like the Nikon Z7, the EOS R5 will have in-body image stabilization.

Another key capability is the inclusion of in-body image stabilization. Canon has pretty well-established digital stabilization in many of its cameras but the EOS R5 will be the first instance of a Canon ILC with a moving sensor providing stabilization, too.

No details were given about whether the in-body system shares the stabilization duties when an IS lens is mounted (passing off pitch and yaw correction to the lens), or whether they both work together, simultaneously.

This feature, combined with dual pixel AF and internal capture of even the highest-quality footage make the EOS R5 an effectively self-contained video package, able to turn its hand to a wide range of shooting styles and situations, including run-and-gun operation.

Potential limitations

There are a couple of details that are still unknown. Many current cameras’ maximum recording times are limited by the heat build-up, especially at their highest resolution modes. The EOS R5 promises to juggle tremendous amounts of data, which is likely to generate a lot of heat, so it’s not clear how long it will be able to run continuously, in its more technically impressive modes.

Also, although it’s a two-slot camera, Canon has opted for one of these to be UHS-II. At present, the fastest SD card standards only guarantee 90 MB/s write speeds (no matter what the peak speeds quoted on the card say). At ‘only’ 720 Mbps, it’s unlikely most of the R5’s highest video rates can be dependably written to the SD card slot, potentially making it a single card slot camera from a high-end video perspective.

Unless data can be channelled to an external SSD across USB-C, the capacity of your CFexpress card might another bottleneck that limits the camera’s shooting duration.

Battery life is the other potential limitation for a camera doing so much hard work. The mockups and computer renderings Canon has shown so far suggest there won’t be room for a battery much bigger than in existing models, so that’s another potential limit (though again, one that clever use of the USB socket might alleviate.

Summary

Canon has let its main EOS line fall significantly behind its rivals (the EOS 5D IV’s cropped video was off the pace when it was launched, so looked even more tired by the time it appeared in the EOS R, two years later), whereas the EOS R5 is not so much a case of catching up as establishing a significant lead.

Canon’s latest spec disclosure was solely focused on video but we’d expect it to be as much a camera for stills shooters as it is a video tool. When more details become available, we look forward to learning what all this processing power will mean for AF and stills shooting, too.

We’ve looked into the implication of the R5’s video specs a bit more detail, in this article, but even if you’re not interested in video, this is a camera worth watching.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 23, 2020
Florian Ledoux’s ‘I Am Vital’ is a short film fit for Earth Day

Florian Ledoux is an award-winning photographer and filmmaker. His work documents the effects of climate change. DPReview featured some of his images, captured while traveling with the Arctic Arts Project, earlier this year. 2 months ago, his second short film ‘I Am Vital’ was released. It presents a timely message for today’s 50th annual Earth Day celebration.

‘Like all my work, and my previous documentary, ‘I Am Fragile,’ the beauty, power, and fragility of these polar regions inspire me,’ Ledoux explains to DPReview when asked about his inspiration behind the film. ‘I feel so many emotions when I find myself in the remote Arctic, co-existing in harmony with the wildlife that calls it home.’

‘I Am Vital’ was filmed across Greenland, Antarctica, Nunavut, Svalbard and Iceland over the course of 3 years. Its purpose is to remind viewers of the important role water plays in our ecosystems. Preventing glaciers and ice sheets, which hold almost 70% of the world’s water supply, from melting away is crucial for maintaining sea levels. 2019 was the second-hottest year in recorded history. Antarctica hit a peak temperature of 18ºC (64.9F), according to a reading from an Argentinian research station thermometer.

‘The main body of my work is still photography but over the last few years I have developed video skills. This allows me to use footage that creates an emotional atmosphere in my films. My aim is to connect people a little bit more with this part (Arctic) of the world,’ explains Ledoux about his choice to start filming up close, from an aerial perspective, with a combination of DJI Inspire, Phantom 4 Pro and Mavic 2 Pro drones. ‘The choice of an ultra short documentary is to keep people focused on the message that is clear and direct for a very short time mixed with powerful images,’ he tells us.

‘I believe in and aspire to share a new perspective of our incredibly resilient, yet fragile planet beyond what we’ve already seen through traditional photography. I hope my work allows viewers to observe our Mother Earth and wildlife from new angles and approaches never before possible,’ he concludes. ‘It is my goal to present a new way of learning about the great white North. It is more than time to act and I want my work to positively impact conservation and result in new and expanded Marine Conservation Areas.’

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

April 23, 2020