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I like this a lot!

Hey, I like these reviews!

Thanks, that is a very nice review! 

After sending the 17-55 back I'm not sure if I really want an upgrade any more, the kit lens is so cheap and so cheerful, and the mighty Canon 17-55 F2.8 was around 5% better for stills and 10% better for video especially that the only difference was the little bit less depth of field (not worth the pricetag) and the little bit less noise (but under low light conditions it needed extra lights / noise reduction just like the kit lens).

One thing about the Sigma 17-50 I wanted to ask: are you doing much manual focusing with it? The range is half of the kit lenses range (30 degrees vs. 60 degrees) so it must be  pretty hard, innit?

For some reason it couldn't handle my .mov files straight from the camera, but looked like a very capable package. The GUI I have found a bit quirky though, somehow I have felt the screen estate was wasted unnecesarily...

17-55 F2.8 came yesterday. I only had a few hours to play around with it (basically indoors, under less-than-ideal lightning conditions).
My initial impressions are somewhat mixed: build quality is OK I guess, definitely not "great" (lots of plastic, little bit of play on the focus ring, even more play on the zoom ring). 

Usability: heavy as f/ck, this helps with the micro-shakes though (also, the IS feels to be a tad better than the kit lenses IS).

F2.8 - as indicated earlier - is not a world apart from the 3.5 on the kit lens, under these lightning conditions both need noise reduction in post, which is a pity. Of course there is a LOT more noise with the kit lens, but after NR there is very little difference. Of course less noise also means better utilization of the available bandwith for the codec, but it's a 10% difference, not a 30%.

Sharpness: need to test with some ISO charts I have printed, but in practice the difference in sharpness is only visible when looked at at 1:1 on a computer screen: pretty much identical when it comes to video.

AF is again a bit better than the kit lens, but in low light it hunts too. Ultrasonic motor is a bit better (faster, more quiet) than the regular micro-motor on the kit lens, but it makes too little difference.

At this point I am trying to come up with a good reason why not send it back and so far I have not found one.  Maybe my expectations were a bit unrealistic, or I got a lemon (or a very good copy of the kit lens who knows).

Noice! 

No IS I'm afraid, but apart from that it looks very nice indeed! 

Great sugestion!

Actually, the results are a bit of shocking: not even 120 Mbps shows one tiny bit a difference from the original, not even in 100% view. It is possible to demonstrate some difference if I add an insane amount of brightness (100) contrast (74), but that is some kind of crazy magnification of the problem. Even then, half of the difference seems to be mpeg artifacts from the first generation (camera) compression.

There is a barely noticeable difference between 200 Mbps and 120 Mbps (probably 200 Mbps is better, but I could not do a double-blind test this morning), and things get just a little bit uglier if not every frame is a keyframe (as expected by me at least at such a high bitrate).

I see. Well, I guess this request can be closed then.

Does that include Live mode / video mode as well?

I was wondering: is there any specific reason why it is not possible to use the "exposure wheel" (in other, erm... 600D terms: the ONLY wheel) for setting exposure in Exposure Override mode? Thing is, this is possible if I select exposure from ML menu and press zoom in... but it would make everything much simpler without those few extra clicks...

I would just set Exp Override on, and forget that such thing exists at all, and just  set exposure via the wheel.

Well, after (too) much thinking  today I pressed "order" on the 17-55 F/2.8. Should have done some weeks ago really, because now I have to endure that 5-6 days before it arrives....

I do a lot of processing, not everything within Premiere (my main app for doing effects and cutting).

A typical example is a HDR video or timelapse: I usually do tone mapping offline with a tool like the VirtualDub-based toolchain, or that, combined with Luminance HDR or Photomatix pro (for tone mapping).

Thing is, I usually end up with a bunch of .tiff-s or .png-s, directories around 10 gigs or so, which is too much for archiving (I like to archive sources from which I compile my cuts). Long story short: I want to turn those still files into some kind of single (compressed) file.

So far I have been saving 200 Mbps H.264 files (high profile, every frame is a keyframe), because it is:
- compressed
- so far I could not differentiate between framegrabs from the 200 Mbps material and the originals, not even with heavy processing on them.

Of course I might be wrong, and I will figure out one day this is not the right thing to do, so let me know if you have a better or different workflow!  The only thing worrying me at this point is that (at least with HDR video) I get three consecutive (and lossy) compressions: one in the camera, one for the intermediary and one for the final result. At least from my audio experience, three consecutive lossy compressions are NEVER a good idea...

Recently I have created a promo video for an android game created by a friend:

It is nothing spectacular, but ML was used extensively:
- exposure override (kit lens was kind of slow as I did the shooting in a darkened room to cut out screen reflexions from my XPERIA S)
- the brand new zebra to spot over-exposure
- waveform (once you enable, you don't want to switch it off  )

Interestingly enough, I rarely have aliasing issues with my 600D, but this time the finite resolution of the phone screen resulted in some spectacular moire patterns... so I had to record things a bit out-of focus and add some sharpness in post with "unsharp mask".

Look at tests, look for sustained write rate, that's what matters, not the "high_number*"

*: low number

Hi everyone!
I'm close to "upgrade" my canon 600d/t3i to a Canon with ML.
I need to know if i can set my iso for example to 125 or even to 1000.
Thanks a lot

Yes, you can, and you can even get less noise:
http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/ISO

Basically, any HDR workflow consists of two consecutive tasks:
I. Generating a HDR image, usually by merging several photos taken with different exposures (or ISO).
    - please note that technically even one single RAW (.CR2) file contains "high enough" dynamic range that is worth converting into HDR because it contains more dynamics than one can be displayed on a regular computer screen

II. tone mapping the HDR image into a low dynamic range image (LDR). This involves some kind of clever algorithm (Mantiuk, Reinhard, Fattal, etc...) that maps the HDR data to LDR.

My recommendation is to try Luminance HDR: http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/ it comes with a wizard that does both steps, and helps choosing the right tone mapping algorithm by showing how your photo will look like on little thumbnails. It is also free software.

you might want to post some examples of individual images and assembled hdr images.... a lot can depend on the proper settings for the tone mapping algo suitable for the given scene. So far I yave managed to get nice results wity both Photomatix and Luminance Hdr, but I mostly use tyem for HDR timelapses...

Tried with the internal stabiliser in FCPX. It was awful and useless. AE is supposed to be better but I haven't had any luck with post stabilisation no matter what program or settings. For handheld video shots then you need IS to rid that pesky microstutter. A little wobbling adds to the cinema effect me think.
No IS means tripod or atleast monopod.

I came to the same conclusion after switching off IS... seems in low light you either need to:
- use some plugin in post to fix noise
or
(use some plugin in post to fix camera shake or increase stability by adding support/weight)

When it comes to post, Boris Continuum features both, but so far I have found noise reduction more usable than camera shake smoothing... it does help a bit, but it can't get rid of that high frequency shake completely. Premiere CS6 neither, and it takes ages to analyze the footage.

Besides, I've been watching the show  called "The Shield" lately, lots of shake, tons of noise, brilliant acting and story, so who cares 

[SWE] Japan Foto på Fleminggatan. [/SWE]

http://support.japanphoto.se/butiker/stockholm-fleminggatan/

They have everything locked behind glass, but the guy was very nice and showed me everything. They have Samyangs, Tokinas, Sigmas, Canons, even Rode video mikes.

I'd definitely get something like that for a manual lens. I guess it doesn't help with video right? Also, as I have understood the 600D does not officially support this mod, so it would probably break the warranty...

Man, the DoF of 1.4 must be handled with care. Easy as hell to get out of focus pics.
Pixel peeping shows ok sharpness though.
A tri- or monopod is almost a must when filming though (no IS)...unless it can be fixed in post. Gonna have a look.

The AF has problems in lo-light.

Let us know to what extent it is possible to fix that camera shake in post!

I bought a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 prime today. Sweet with the DoF. However f/2.8 would be enough for me as I film people most of the time and the DoF when close to the subject is only 0.36 inches (at f/1.4). Try filming a kid at f/1.4. :-)

Yeah, it really looked smaller on the photos, hell it even looked smaller in that glass cabinet they've kept all the precious L glass  mind you, it didn't LOOK very different from those, apart from the obvious difference in paint job.

At this point I am starting to admire my cheap plastic kit lens more and more... I mean it has decent IS, auto-focus that beats the Tamron (according to my limited experience in the shop), perfectly usable range and image quality that is more than enough for video. It is shocking how much more plastic, metal and precision glass is needed to get that F/2.8 constant max aperture.

At this point I am not sure that the pro's really justify the price tag, and it is clear that - for me at least - none of the 3rd party alternatives would bring enough gain in usability to bother.

I went to a shop today to try things out in real life. In terms of build quality and feel the Canon 17-55 F/2.8 is almost a world apart from the Sigma and the Tamron (17-50). Sigma's focus throw is really short, I'm sure I could learn to live with it, but I learnt to live with the kit lens as well. Tamron is a bit better in terms of manual focusing, but clearly it offers some challenges at wide open, especially zoomed in.

TBH both the Sigma and the Tamron felt closer to the kit lens than the Canon 17-55 F/2.8, and they not exactly sell for peanuts either, also they are a tiny bit shorter (50 instead of 55).

The only downside of the Canon - in my opinion - is its size and weight. You turn the zoom ring, and you can feel you're moving a lot of glass inside. Sigma and Tamron is a bit toy-ish, this one's heavy like a grenade launcher, felt a little disproportionate with the 600D body stuck at the end of it  Also, zooming is smooth, but at the short end gets heavier, with a "hump" at the end. Focus throw is very nice compared to the 3rd parties, as expected.

As it turns out Global Draw has actually no effect on max CBR I can set up... fortunately.