New photos added in my wildlife gallery

I have made a few changes and updated my wildlife gallery with some fantastic butterfly shots taken with my new zoom Canon 70-200 2.8LIS II.
They were taken during my trip to Cape Town, South Africa.
Please feel free to check on http://www.sylvainoliveira.com/wildlife/index.html

More pictures added in the sport gallery of my website

I have made a few changes and updated my gallery with some fantastic new sport shots.
Most of these were taken earlier this year while I was working in the Alpes.

Please feel free to check on www.sylvainoliveira.com/sport

Live test of the new Canon EOS1D Mark IV autofocus

After a few thousand shots mainly of sport and action, I would like to comment on the performance of the autofocus of my new Canon EOS1D Mark IV.
Whilst working in the French Alpes at the beginning of this year. The weather was, for the most part, awful and the severe cold and snow was not the most comfortable or ideal conditions in which to shoot alpine skiing or snowboarding.
The One Shot autofocus is working really well and I haven't noticed any issues. The camera always delivered pin sharp photographs, whatever the quantity of light or contrast.
The AI Servo is different to the One Shot but is very similar to the infamous Canon EOS1D Mark III that I used to have. I shot mainly skiers and snowboarders with my Canon zoom 70-200 2,8 LIS with a micro adjustment of -1.
The snowboarders and skiers were on jumps or moguls. As long as I prepared the prefocus from where I could see them, they were very well focused. Although, some (in the cadense of 10 frames / second) were soft. Also with a distance of 6 or 7 meters or less, the photos became out of focus, like the predecessor, the Canon EOS1D Mark III.
I don't know if it's because I stop pressing the shutter and the motor drive is still moving, but at 10 frames/second, the last two shots are always out of focus. Also, within the sequence I have some photos that are a little bit soft. This means the AI Servo is not constant and it becomes more obvious when the speed of the subject varies a lot. With erratic movement, even at slow speed (for example: a beginner skidding whilst turning), the AI Servo doesn't follow the subject properly. A lot of photographs are completely out of focus, especially ones were the subject is close to me.
Also, following my last post, I shot in JPEG at a high ISO and I can confirm that 6400 ISO is the limit usable at low light. It becomes extremely noisy in dark areas or with black colour. I have tried different settings to reduce the noise and with the strong settings, I was losing too much detail. The standard setting is fine with detail, but there is still a lot of noise.
In my opinion, up to 640 ISO, the photos are extremely clean and it can be used for any work for the most fussy of customers. Up to 1600 ISO, the images are still very clean and it should satisfy most people. It's after 3200 ISO that we can see the quality going down. I think the reasonable limit is 6400 ISO and above, up to 12800 ISO is for emergencies. The extendable ISO is marketed to compete with the Nikon D3S. Now wait and see the new lightroom 3 which is supposed to have an excellent engine against the noise.

Overall, I am satisfied with this camera. It gives me the results I expect and delivers great pictures.

Canon EOS1D MarkIV and high ISO

A few days ago I picked up my camera, a Canon EOS1D Mark IV which is a pro body popular with sports and news photographers. The main difference with it’s predecesor, the Canon EOS1D Mark III, is the sensor which is 16 Megapixels with a sensibility of 100 to 12800 ISO extendable by a custom function to an impressive 102400 ISO.












I went to " le musée de la Renaissance ", a castle to Ecouen in north of Paris. It displays some beautiful tapestries housed in very dark rooms. The curtains are always closed and the lights are extremely low . The flash is forbidden to protect the precious tapestries. Psyche’s gallery, for example, is amazing and perfect for testing out my new camera in low light . To get the shot, and to avoid a very low speed (1/15 s at f5,6), without the use of a tripod as it's not allowed, a starting point of 12800 ISO was tried. Unfortunately this wasn’t suitable. It was too noisy unless processed using the RAW files with DXO ( I have heard it's giving brilliant results at high ISO ) or lightroom 3 which is expected to be released very soon. The next test was at 6400 ISO. Still far too noisy although suitable for some customers but not stock agencies. The best results were from 3200 ISO and less as long as the pictures are not under exposed. These were processed using Lightroom 2.6 and I was pleased with it considering the lighting conditions. However, I was disappointed as I thought the new Canon would give me good results up to 12800 like the new Nikon D3S which is at least 1 ½ stops better.

Expections of the new Canon EOS 1D Mark 4

I bought the Canon EOS 1D Mark3 in July 2007 and I have never been completely satisfied with the AI Servo. There were well known issues with the autofocus and the camera had to be returned to Canon Professional Service twice for hardware updates and some new firmwares have been downloaded several times to improve the autofocus. In spite of setting my camera very well ( custom functions and lens micro adjustments ) and the corrections, the autofocus never worked as I expected for a professional sports camera series 1D.

While shooting sports pictures, a lot of them were not really sharp even when the subject was moving slowly towards me.

After, you can see that the autofocus wasn' t consistent and actually it was working better in low light than on a sunny day.

Also, while I was using the camera in high speed motodrive at 10 frames per second, not all the photographs were sharp especially when the subject didn' t have a contant speed or dark/low contrast.

The newborn Canon EOS 1D Mark4 might resolve all the issues and I have a lot of expectations with this new body that I will buy very soon. I hope I will be able to trust the new camera and the trouble I have had will be in the past.

New sport images on my Website

Whilst working in Serre Chevalier, I had the privilege to shoot the Giant Slalom for the British Military Championship 2010 and I kept some images for the sports gallery on my website.
Please check out.

http://www.sylvainoliveira.com/sport/index.html