Two Ms and a 5DIII

There's a well known photography illness known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome or GAS. A variant of GAS is Gear Migration Syndrome of GMS. GMS exists when you're not actually buying gear with new money but trading items with stores or people or selling something and using the money (promptly) to acquire other gear.

At this point my affliction is more GMS than GAS. Back in November I acquired a white Canon EOS M with a third party EF to EF-M adapter. No lens focal length shorter than 60mm would focus at infinity. I had no EF-M lenses and only that one adapter so I couldn't really tell if the problem was the camera or the adapter although I strongly suspected the adapter. I guessed it was a bit longer than it should be.

Right after Christmas, I traded my EOS 7D and some lenses at Ray Supply for a new EOS M3, kit lens and electronic viewfinder. This let me confirm that the original EOS M functioned well and the problem was the adapter. A different adapter, this time a Fotodiox Pro, works well with all lenses on both cameras.

My latest GMS episode was the other day when I sold my 70-300mm DO zoom lens which is a bit soft and doesn't perform well on crop sensor bodies image quality wise. With some of the proceeds, I've ordered the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 STM lens to use with the 24 megapixel EOS M3.

The two EOS M series bodies with the kit lens, 24mm pancake and 55-250mm zoom lens will constitute a nice little setup for lots of occasions. My full frame 5D Mark III, 24-105mm L series zoom and 40mm pancake lenses will be used for more serious events and occasions. I still have the problem of processing RAW files from the M3 on my MacBook Air but I've a Windows computer I can use if I need to.

I hadn't used the older EOS M for much of anything and decided to try it out with the kit lens for a sunset last evening. One thing the newer M3 is bad at is bracketing exposures. It's much slower than the M. I've been used to the 5DIII at over 5 frames a second and the M at around 3 frames a second. The M3 brackets at about a frame a second.

Here are the three bracketed files from a sunset scene last evening along with the finished product.

24mm, f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 200, 0 EV

24mm, f/5.6, 1/750 sec., ISO 200, -1 1/2 EV

24mm, f/5.6, 1/90 sec., ISO 200, +1 1/2 EV

Winter Sunsets

Now that sunset is getting closer to 5:00 PM it's more likely that I'll be around to scoot down to the Hudson River for some photography. Twice this week there were decent enough sunsets to make the walk in the cold worthwhile.

Last Saturday, the 13th, was the first and the sun had already gone behind the trees on the Western shore of the river. Here are two shots.

EOS 5DIII, 24-105mm f/4L at 65mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec., ISO 400

EOS 5DIII, 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/5.6, 1/180 sec., ISO 400

Last evening, I was down at the river prior to sunset and had to wait a bit for the colors to get good. It was warmer but snowier as we had about six inches fall the day before. Here are some samples.

EOS 5DIII, 24-105mm f/4L at 40mm, f/8, 1/180 sec., ISO 200

EOS 5DIII, 24-105mm f/4L at 40mm, f/8, 1/350 sec., ISO 200

EOS 5DIII, 24-105mm f/4L at 105mm, f/8, 1/750 sec., ISO 200

The EOS M3 Joins the Pancake Project

One of the ways I expect I'll be using the M3 is with my 40mm pancake lens via an EF to EF-M adapter. On the M3 this lens has a full frame equivalent field of view of 64mm. With a maximum aperture of f/2.8 it's about one and a half stops faster than the kit lens at 40mm. It also has better image quality but no image stabilization.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've currently no way to apply lens correction to RAW files so I've got the camera set up to correct automatically as it saves JPG files. This actually works pretty well. I was out this morning and compared the RAW and JPG files and the color fringing present in the RAW files was absent in the JPGs.

I also used JPG files for HDR processing with acceptable results. Here some examples.

First, this is a three file HDR composite using the JPG files.

This is a single file HDR processed from the JPG.

These are JPG files right out of the camera with only a reduction in size done in processing.

And this is how the lens, adapter and a lens hood I had left over from some old Powershot cameras looks attached to the M3.

Frustrations

Right after Christmas I decided to take advantage of a deal at Ray Supply in Glens Falls I saw on their facebook page. They had one new Canon EOS M3 kit which included the 18-55mm lens and the electronic viewfinder. The M3 has a 24 megapixel APS-C sized sensor similar to the one in the 80D I had and sold earlier in the year.

I decided that I could take advantage of this deal by trading in my last EOS 7D and some lenses I wasn't really using much. What I wasn't counting on was that the version of Canon's software won't process RAW files from the M3. The newer version of the software, which I also had to use with the 80D, will not run on my MacBook Air with OS High Sierra. So I can not process RAW files as I normally do.

I have a trial version of Photoshop Elements which will process the RAW files but there is no lens correction feature as with the Canon software. The camera will adjust for lens aberrations in camera but only with JPG output which leaves me unable to adjust white balance.

So, until I get the newest version of the Canon software working, I'm shooting both RAW and jpg files (the camera can automatically save both) and dealing with it the best I can.

Here is the M3 next to the 7D I traded in.

Here are two shots at Cohoes Falls showing the short and long ends of the 18-55mm kit lens (28.8-88mm full frame equivalent), which is shown on the body in the picture above.

These photos are single image files processed with Photomatix HDR software which also will process the Canon RAW files but there's no lens correction.

I also have an adapter which will let me use EF and EF-S mount lenses. Here is one of the hydro-electric dam at Peebles Island from this morning with my 70-300mm DO lens at 160mm (256mm eq.), wide open at f/5 and 1/1250 second at ISO 200. This was processed from RAW in Photoshop Elements because the white balance needed adjusting.

Happy New Year

We're still in the grip on a frigid spell. But really cold temperatures are good for some things. Ice at Cohoes Falls is one of them.

It's only about a 200 foot walk from the car to the overlook depending where there's a parking spot. The 1 degree temperature and -16 degree wind chill made it feel longer on the way back, though. In these temperatures you don't linger. The first shot was made at 10:02:27 AM and the last shot at 10:05:08 AM.

These are all 5 bracketed files +/- 1 EV with +1/2 EV exposure compensation. HDR processing was in Photomatix Pro's Painterly 5 preset with saturation cut back to 0. The aperture for all images is f/8 at ISO 100.

Unfortunately, there aren't different vantage points available this time of year. Trees in the foreground and a chain link fence limit the options. Zooming is about the only way to get a different perspective. The other overlook is not open after the end of October.