q about this thing that the Nikon does and the Canon...?

Hi,
(I've alredy posted this in the Nikon D80 part of this forum.)
first of forget my english.

I'm in the process of buying a new cam, my choice will be between the Nikon D80 and the Canon Eos 400 D.

My need is a bit special. I'm a sculptor, so I have to take pictures of my models ( especially portraits format ). After the sculpture is made I take pictures for my portfolio / catalog / customers. You can see my work here > > http://www.sebzar.blogspot.com .

Initially my choice was the Canon because of the price, and the quality looks good. However after having readen the test and comparison on this site, I have a question about white balance. I usually light my models and work with iridescent bulbs or normal fluorescent tubes. The D80 seems to have a larger possibility in term of settings of white balance and..... Color temperature (Kelvin). The Canon doesn't offer any color temperature setting. To you is it a must have ? or do you think it's possible to get a correct ( or same ) quality with the settings offered on the Canon ? Of course I'm talking about manual settings.

My second question is about the lense. The 50mm 1.4 seems to be a good choice for me. Needless to say that distortion has to be minimal or inexistant in my case... A person adviced me to take a macro lense to avoid any distortion. Not sure it's the way to go. What's the best choice to you ?
Thanks in advance.

Seb

I can only comment on the 400D. Although the Canon has a very comprehensive WB correction system, where there is a mixture of lighting types, I find shooting RAW works best. This gives me complete control when converting the shot using DPP or similar software.

My friend is a sculptor and I often help him with photos for his web site. The 50mm f/1.4 will do the job very well, although I prefer to use the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 Macro as it is incredibly sharp. It is actually a bit too long, but because he works in a very large studio, it has not been a problem.

Hope that helps.

Sebb said:

Hi,
(I've alredy posted this in the Nikon D80 part of this forum.)
first of forget my english.

I'm in the process of buying a new cam, my choice will be between
the Nikon D80 and the Canon Eos 400 D.

My need is a bit special. I'm a sculptor, so I have to take
pictures of my models ( especially portraits format ). After the
sculpture is made I take pictures for my portfolio / catalog /
customers. You can see my work here > >
http://www.sebzar.blogspot.com .

Initially my choice was the Canon because of the price, and the
quality looks good. However after having readen the test and
comparison on this site, I have a question about white balance. I
usually light my models and work with iridescent bulbs or normal
fluorescent tubes. The D80 seems to have a larger possibility in
term of settings of white balance and..... Color temperature
(Kelvin). The Canon doesn't offer any color temperature setting. To
you is it a must have ? or do you think it's possible to get a
correct ( or same ) quality with the settings offered on the Canon
? Of course I'm talking about manual settings.

My second question is about the lense. The 50mm 1.4 seems to be a
good choice for me. Needless to say that distortion has to be
minimal or inexistant in my case... A person adviced me to take a
macro lense to avoid any distortion. Not sure it's the way to go.
What's the best choice to you ?
Thanks in advance.

Seb

Click to expand...

--

Thx Jovo.

So you don't use a grey card to set your cam before you shoot ?
I'd be curious to see your friend's website

Seb

Hi Seb,

I love your sculpture gallery. Nice technique!

For the white balance issue, my take is that as soon as you have mixed light sources, you should use custom WB (based on a white frame). What's nice on the Canons is that you can tweak the result on both axis (yellow-blue and magenta-green) which will allow more fine control. Even if you did have the kelvin values, in this case they would be of no use because you don't know what the kelvin value of you lighting is.

As for the 50 1.4, it's a great lens, but if you want to save a few bucks, the 1.8 is terrific and dirt cheap. Many people can't live with the fact that it's cheap and plastic, but the image quality is superb (I've seen tests) and you don't need a metal mount for a lens that weighs under 100 grams. The only issue is slower focus, but I don't think your sculptures will mind...

As for a macro lens, I regularly use the 100mm 2.8 macro. It's terrific, but depending on the scale of your sculptures, you may need to pull back rather far to get the whole thing in the frame.

By the way, how do you get that nice white finish on water-based clay? And what exactly is the resin you use? Is it suitable for exterior sculptures? I love the look, and have been trying to get into sculpture for a while.

Phil
--
http://patenteux.com
Check out my desktop wallpaper and time-lapse galleries!

Sebb, his name is Robert Hitchcock (Dianella, Western Australia) but he is in the process of changing his web hosting arrangement, so it may be some time before his web pages are up again.

I never use a grey card and rely on my eyes during RAW conversion. Both my monitor and printer are calibrated.
John

Sebb said:

Thx Jovo.

So you don't use a grey card to set your cam before you shoot ?
I'd be curious to see your friend's website

Seb

Click to expand...

--

John , ok so what I understand is that as long as you can shoot in RAW format you shouldn't be concerned by WB.

Until now I was using my old Olympus Camedia 2000Z, always getting yellowish pictures or strange colors :/
I think I know your friend's name. Sculpture is a small world
Talk to you

Seb

Thx for the comment Phil
Are you form Quebec ? Ok so we could speak french it would be easier haha.

What do mean with metal mount ? I thought the 400D had a metal mount.. will have to check. Btw some people say this cam is cheap and plastic..

About the slower focus, no the sculptures won't mind but the models will ! Anyway no matter what I take it will be faster than my old Olympus camedia.

For the sculpture I use epoxy or polyurethane resins. Honestly I'm a bit tired of using these toxic stuff, and no they don't last very long in exterior.. not more than 5 years ( some people would consider it as a long time, come to think of it ). I love to work with waterbased clay, it gives you a wide range of possibilities in terms of finish.

Seb

Hi Seb,

I love your sculpture gallery. Nice technique!

For the white balance issue, my take is that as soon as you have mixed light sources, you should use custom WB (based on a white frame). What's nice on the Canons is that you can tweak the result on both axis (yellow-blue and magenta-green) which will allow more fine control. Even if you did have the kelvin values, in this case they would be of no use because you don't know what the kelvin value of you lighting is.

As for the 50 1.4, it's a great lens, but if you want to save a few bucks, the 1.8 is terrific and dirt cheap. Many people can't live with the fact that it's cheap and plastic, but the image quality is superb (I've seen tests) and you don't need a metal mount for a lens that weighs under 100 grams. The only issue is slower focus, but I don't think your sculptures will mind...

As for a macro lens, I regularly use the 100mm 2.8 macro. It's terrific, but depending on the scale of your sculptures, you may need to pull back rather far to get the whole thing in the frame.

By the way, how do you get that nice white finish on water-based clay? And what exactly is the resin you use? Is it suitable for exterior sculptures? I love the look, and have been trying to get into sculpture for a while.
Phil

You should do a custom white balance, even if you shoot RAW. A custom white balance is more accurate than a discrete Kelvin scale.

I would strongly recommend the 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens, but the 50 mm f/1.4 or even the much less expensive 50 mm f/1.8 would be fine. In order to get any depth of field, you are never going to be shooting at f/1.4 with three-dimensional objects.

Brian A.

"You should do a custom white balance, even if you shoot RAW. A custom white balance is more accurate than a discrete Kelvin scale."

Hugowolf said:

Hugowolf said:

custom white balance is done with a grey card, right ? I'm not sure about what it means exactly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

"I would strongly recommend the 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens, but the 50 mm f/1.4 or even the much less expensive 50 mm f/1.8 would be fine. In order to get any depth of field, you are never going to be shooting at f/1.4 with three-dimensional objects."

Hugowolf said:

Hugowolf said:

yes you're absolutely right about the depth of field. It's important to have sharp contours in my case.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Peace

The Canon cameras want a white card to shoot a custom white balance. Nikon does white or gray, or at least used to.

Another option is to put an 18% gray card somewhere in in your picture, and use that in post processing.

There are several macro lenses available. Because of the design of a true macro lens, they are very useful for what you are doing. The Canon line starts at the 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro. Small, light, noisy, and sharp. I don't know if there is an AF version of the Micro Nikkor 50mm f/3.5, but if there isn't, there should be. The longer macro lenses out there may be too long, depending on how much space you have to work with.

--
Crime Scene Photography
A small gallery of personal work: http://picasaweb.google.com/PID885

Sebb said:

Sebb said:

Sebb said:

custom white balance is done with a grey card, right ? I'm not sure about what it means exactly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Grey or white, as long as it's neutral. (but grey is better). If you are in a studio and the lighting stays the same, you will only need to do this once. Place the grey card in your scene and take a picture of it. You then select that same picture for your custom white balance.

In your subsequent photo's and with Custom White Balance selected, anything that is white in your scene should appear as white without a color cast in your photo's.

If you shoot RAW, temperature can be set using software that comes with the camera.

Sebb said:

Sebb said:

Sebb said:

custom white balance is done with a grey card, right ? I'm not sure about what it means exactly.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

You can shoot a grey or white card. I use both, they both work fine. You can use a white sheet of paper, but some papers have blueing agents in them, to make them look 'whiter than white'.

Once you have a grey or white shot, under the light conditions you are going to use for the rest of the shooting, you set the camera to use that shot for its white balance. (It is a two step process: tell it which shot to use, and set the camera to custom balance - instead of 'daylight', 'tungsten', etc).

Brian A.

Caoedhen,
yes macro lenses seem to be interesting for my need... thx

Ok Brian, I wasn't sure it was possible to do that with the 400D. I don't really understand why they complain about preset fonctions in the test, because you buy this kind of cam to have the possibility to have more settings options.
Do you have the 400D ? If yes, are you happy with it ?

Thank you for the explanation
Do you have the 400D ?

Sebb said:

Do you have the 400D ? If yes, are you happy with it ?

Click to expand...

No, I have a 300D and have been very happy with it, except for the silver body.

Brian A.

No, I have the 350D, but there shouldn't be any difference with the 400D

ok thanks

After having seen the Nikon D80 and Canon 400D reviews I still hesitate between them two. Anyway thx for your help
Cheers
Seb

Thx.

The choice between the D80 and 400D is still not clear in my head. Canon have more lenses available I think. We'll see.
Seb