Another drab to fab

So there I was yesterday, lounged back in a patio chair with a coffee, reading over what I'd just written. Some of you might remember the photo of the garden and the camera on facebook yesterday. Nothing has been done to it this year, mainly because a week ago it was still a glacier, and the ground is still thawing. Still, some plants are beginning to poke their heads out. (A few expletive deleted lily beetles too.)

Then I started seeing how the light was falling on the garden, and I was there grabbing some shots. I was really pleased how these three turned out. For once I could see the shot, get the shot, and have it all turn out on the computer screen. One of these is in the running for image of the month. Tell me which you think it is.

That green glow, topped off by the bit of dead material that was bright gold, caught my eye first.

The red caught my eye next. That leaf is maybe an inch or so across, and mostly buried in other leaves, but the light was just right.

Then whatever these are, if you look closely there's some white fuzz clearly showing up on some of the central plants, contrasting with the dark brown material underneath. I was thinking they were like totem poles, either mutated or dilapidated from age. Or maybe gargoyles scrambling up a pole to escape a predator. Then there's the background. Oh my! This is one of the first times I've seen an artistic effect and had the camera capture it. I love how that bush transforms itself into a painted radiating streamer effect. You are only seeing the web version, the full sized version is amazing!

Some distractions

No, nothing has happened to me. Just a few things kind of came together the last half of the week that thoroughly distracted me. It's all come out well and I'll be able to talk about it soon. I once thought that time had been invented so everything wouldn't all happen at once, but not so.

The back patio is back in action! I did the manly pressure washing thing, got two of the rain barrels set up, the BBQ moved back to the regular spot, and the table with umbrella all set up. Even yesterday that was a mound of ice. There's still a little tiny bit of ice where the other rain barrel goes.

We've used the BBQ any number of times over the winter, but this is the first time we've actually eaten outside this year. Bison burgers, if you're wondering.

I don't know how Curtis takes it, being so adorable and photogenic. I think the shutter click woke him up, semi-grumpy.

Green!

As some of you know I'm a volunteer photographer for my community association. I'd seen an ad for a live music night at one of the local restaurants, but didn't think anything of it. Then a similar ad turned up on one of my buddies facebook page. Turns out I know the singer's mom, so made time to drop in and take some photos.

In between photos of her, I had to take some photos of food. Patisserie del Soleil is awesome!

Pushing through

The little plants are growing fast, reaching for the sun, pushing winter debris aside. It makes for some  interesting juxtapositions. Plus the first insect of the year. A ladybug emerged from under some debris while I was watching. I double checked to make sure it wasn't an early lily beetle.

My buddy Julie posted something thoughtful on Facebook about her experience with social assistance  some years ago. She described how humiliating it was, and how it made her feel like a loser, which she totally isn't, but the system didn't know that.

There's lots of reasons why people might need social assistance. Sometimes all it takes is a little bad luck when you don't have much to fall back on. Maybe it was a bad decision that seemed like a good idea at the time. Or you might just be starting out, pushing through adversity, hoping it's a leaf and not a huge rock that gets dropped on you.

Once again I'm struck by how much plants can look like predators, mouths gaping...

This is my favourite of today's batch. The one plant looks like it's wearing a little crown, and the others are peering out, wondering if it's safe.

Hello little ladybug!

This is the lawn just now. I know, yuck!

Actual green! Daffodils!

They weren't there yesterday, at least I don't thinks so. There was still snow covering part of where the plants are growing. One set of stems had pushed up through the snow.

You can't imagine how happy I am to see a real sign of spring! Green things growing. Soon there will be blossoms. You can bet the photos will make it to the blog. Here's what I've got so far.

The back patio is emerging

I dare not say it's stopped snowing for the season, but we've had a couple nice days and the snow is going away. We are hopeful of firing up the barbecue this weekend. To that end I was shovelling around it and the steps to the back of the house. Naturally the camera came along.

I'd known this colour was here, but until today, or late yesterday, it was completely inaccessible without snowshoes.

I'm kind of fond of last years vegetation still standing after a brutal winter.

No idea what these are.

 There's still lots of snow to leave before patio season goes into high gear. Still, the thermometer says it's 10C in the patio, and I believe that. It will probably even get warmer. Just to the left of this photo is the little lodge, and if someone wanted to come over and set up a lounger to work on their tan, I could supply the sunscreen.

Two planters awaiting spring.

Yesterday afternoon I was peering out at the sky, wondering if there was another shot to be had, then I looked down. The afternoon sun was illuminating some of the garden planters, bringing up their deep rich blue, some shadowed purple splotches, and the bright highlights.

We put them there to await spring, which is still months away, or so we think. They seem to be peering out of the snow, almost ready to go. I suspect they are still frozen to the patio stones.

 This one isn't awaiting spring. It's hard at work showing off the display Linda created. The late afternoon light was good to it as well, so I figured I wouldn't leave it out.

There was a super duper lunar eclipse last night. The sky forecast didn't look good for Calgary, though there was supposed to be a patch of clear sky off to the west. Maybe there was, I've seen the notifications that some of my photo buddies have posted photos, but I haven't seen them yet. I didn't feel like chasing it; I've got things to do this morning.

Two cameras, three lenses, one rose bush, part 1

Fair warning. This post will be boring for the non-photographers of you. Even some photographers might be bored. I was doing some experiments to understand my new camera better, and what better way to do that than compare it to the old camera?

The intent is to compare a Canon T6i to a Canon 6D Mkii, using three different lenses. The lenses are the Canon 100 mm f2.8L IS macro used as a reference, the Tamron 70-200 mm f2.8, and the Canon 24-70 mm f4L IS.

All shots were done at ISO 100 in bright sunlight at f4. The cameras were on a tripod aimed at a particular rose bush in our front garden. For each camera I shot the 100 mm lens first to get a grip on what it 'saw' and tried to ensure the other lenses were set to 'see' the same field of view on each camera. I realized only in the middle of the shots that the tripod shoe on the 70-200 mm lens is ever so slightly not lined up with the lens, so I ended up having to move the tripod head slightly between shots.

I shot them in the order of 100 mm, then 70-200, then 24-70 on the 6D, then the T6. I let the autofocus do it's thing. That was a mistake. Once I drill in a bit, I can see the focus point moved around a bit which makes it a bit harder to compare apples to apples. Rather than the rose bush, I should have put the centre point on the corner of the flowerbed.

For people not familiar with the camera model numbers, the 6D MKii is a full frame sensor that is 35.9 x 24 mm and produces an image 6240 x 4160 pixels, and the T6i is a APS-C or 'crop' sensor that is 22.3 x 14.9 mm and produces an image 6000 x 4000 pixels.

There is zero processing in Lightroom, so they will look a little flat and lifeless. The photos were imported from different chips, and exported in one batch, using my usual social media settings.

100 mm macro lens, first the 6D, then the T6.

70 -200, first the 6D, then T6.

24-105, first the 6D, then the T6i

You will have noticed that even though all the lens were shot as close to 100 mm as I could get, the photos look very different from camera to camera. The T6 images are a narrower field of view, so the rose bush appears larger. The photographers reading this know the multiplication factor is 1.6. If anyone wants me to explain why the factor is 1.6, you have to buy me a beer, and I'll explain. Just to warn you, there are optical physics involved.

While I was at it, I compared the two cameras with the same Canon lens at 24 mm, first the 6D then the T6.

 Then I compared the Tamron lens at 200 mm, first the 6D, then the T6.

Lastly I did some more playing with the Tokina 11-20 mm f2.8 on the 6d. In the Canon world, a lens that fits on a full frame DSLR will also fit on a crop sensor, but the crop sensor cannot take full advantage of the lens. If you try to put a crop sensor lens on a full frame camera, you will get a black ring around the image because the lens sends a ray of light that is narrower than the sensor. My Tokina lens is a little odd in that I get the black ring when the lens is at the widest, but not at the narrowest, so I thought I'd document this.

This is the 6D at 11 mm (the widest this lens will go.) All these are still at ISO 100 and f4, aimed at the same rose bush. Don't worry about the weird looking shadow lines around me and the tripod, they're from a tree across the road.

14 mm

16 mm

18 mm

20 mm

I normally think of this lens as my astro lens. It can see lots of the sky and it's a fast lens. Note to self when shooting this on the 6D, set it at 18 mm.

Conclusions.

The different crop factor makes it tougher to directly compare than I thought. While I tried to get the exposures the same, its possible the 6D was reading a hair darker than the T6. Or it's picking up slightly richer colours from what is a pretty desaturated scene. 

All the photos are pretty good, as you'd expect for good quality lenses. I did some pixel peeping in Lightroom to look at the details, such as the red rose hip, or some of the individual thorns. That's where I learned the autofocus picked slightly different points. That makes it impossible to compare how well the sensors pick up details. If I want to compare the image quality, I need to be much more careful shooting the images. 

Learnings

Comparisons can be tricky things, and I didn't think this one through as well as I should have. Force the camera to focus using the center point on a fixed spot, like the corner of the flower bed. Double check exposure settings. Maybe put some text from a book, or a page from a magazine in the photo, along with some natural scenery. I could even close down the aperture to f10 or f15 and see how that affects the images, which implies some parts of the scene are much closer to the camera than other parts.

I suppose I should do a more complicated comparison, where I set the 24-105 lens to 24 mm on the T6, and about 38 on the 6D, and then about 35 and 50 respectively, and about 65 and 105 respectively. The attentive of my readers will notice that 1.6 factor again. 

The other thing to try is to shoot each camera with the 100 mm lens so I don't have to worry about zoom issue, then digitally crop the 6D photo so the field of view is the same, then compare the images.

Both of these are a lot of work, and I really should pick a scene that gives more of a challenge to the cameras. Perhaps the garden in full bloom, or a forest river landscape down in Fish Creek. I confidently predict that none of my photo buddies will want to join me in doing this, where they might be interested in a photo ramble.

Comments

There is more to photography than the photographic end result. There's the experience of actually shooting, and the 6D is a better camera for that, by far. It fits my hand better, has a bigger viewfinder with more information that makes composition easier, and I am getting a technically better image quality if I can improve my technique to take full advantage of it.

If I want to shoot birds or distant wildlife, I'm more likely to take the T6i and the 200 mm lens to get as much reach as possible. For most other things, I'm going to take the 6D to get the better sensor and full advantage of my lenses. I haven't compared macro photos yet, maybe I'll do that for the next macro Monday.

Here's a photo of the two cameras. Note the 6D has a quick release plate on the base, so it is sitting about a cm higher. Otherwise the two cameras are a similar size, with the 6D being a bit bigger. The T6 has a 17-50 lens that was not part of the comparison.