• Canon 14mm 2.8L
• Canon TS-E 24

I currently use the 16-35mm 2.8 II for all of my real estate photography, mounted on a full frame sensor.  Therefore I was very curious to see what the 14mm can do as well as the tilt effect of the TS-E 24.  The following shot used the 16-35.

Here is the comparison shot with the 14mm (first version).

As you can see, the 14mm does make a difference.  While the window on the right roughly lines up on the edge, with the 14mm you can see a bit of the bathroom.  The verticals are better on the 16mm shot, but that is due to camera position, not due to the lens.

Based on this result, I liked the 14mm but not enough to justify its price.  Perhaps if I were faced with a very large interior this would be the lens of choice, but for real estate photography I don’t think it’s worth it.

I also played a bit with the TS-E 24, though I don’t have the shots here.  I do think that I will purchase this lens someday but it’s mainly useful for outside shots - such as the front of the house.

The main problem is it is not wide enough.  I really like the width of the 16-35 at the wide end, though I do like the perspective correction with the TS-E 24.  I did play around with it with taking pictures with a mirror in the bathroom.  Supposedly it helps quite a bit taking pictures in rooms with a lot of mirrors - so you don’t wind up in one of the shots.  I found that the shift does help - but it is not a miracle maker.

Therefore I do plan to buy the TS-E 24 someday, but I’m not sure where it ranks in my current list of things to purchase.  For sure it ranks below buying an Alienbees light.

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• Not correcting for verticals
• Blown out areas from the flash
• Shadows
• Some parts of the photos were too dark

I had a number of theories on how to fix these issues, but for the lighting my idea was to purchase an Alienbees light and an extra Pocketwizard MultiMAX and use it as a third light.  One of my coworkers offered to stop by the house with a lot of the equipment that I am looking to buy someday so I was able to get a good look at what it can accomplish and whether it will solve some of my problems.

One note before I show these shots.  When we took these photos, we were mainly trying to see what the lights and lenses were capable of and what issues we may have.  We did not correct for verticals and I did not Photoshop any of these pictures.  In this way you can get a good idea what the equipment did without seeing what it looks like after Photoshop.

This shot was taken with the Canon 14mm 2.8 (the first version, not the II) and an Alienbees AB1600 with a 60″ x 30″ softbox behind me.  You can actually see the softbox quite well in the window.  In the adjoining bathroom, I placed a 580EX II aimed at the ceiling towards the end of the bathroom.

I noticed the following about the Alienbees light and the soft box, both from shooting at the property and from chatting with its owner.

• I definitely need to get one of these
• The 1600 works quite well here.  We did tone it down on most shots - around 1/16th at ISO 400.  The softbox also diffuses it quite a bit and it comes with a second diffuser that can slow it down another stop.
• I had been debating between a regular light vs their ring light with the moon light.  I believe for real estate the soft box works better, as it fits well to many of the doorways.  Behind me was a walk in closet and we placed the softbox squarely in the doorway.
• When I do buy it, I plan to pick up a Vagabond II for remote power.  We just plugged it in, but I think having a portable power source would be a lot more convenient.

By the way, I found a handy way of getting rid of the reflection of the softbox in the window.

Basically, I placed a 6′5″ gobo in front of the softbox - a bit to the side.  We didn’t move the softbox at all from the previous shot.  In simpler words, I stood in front of it and blocked the reflection.  It darkened that side of the shot a bit, but nothing that isn’t easily fixable in Photoshop.

Here’s a shot we did of the kitchen.

This was also shot with the two lights.  I had my 580EX in the part of the kitchen that is not visible.  There are a bit of shadows on the right side, but with another strobe that may be fixable.

I did run into some issues with my 580EX II.  I suspect that it has problems with its miniport.  I replaced it with a 580EX with a hot shoe cord to connect it with the Pocketwizard and that worked fine, so I may wind up triggering the 580EX II the same way I trigger the 580EX.

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Therefore, I thought I would compile my own list of rumors.  These are exactly that - rumors.  However, I have compiled them based of numerous posts in DPReview, past practices of Canon, and common sense.  Therefore, without further ado.

When will Canon release the 5D Mark II?

They will release it the same time they have been saying all along - at the end of November.  I think this will be very close to the end of November, and many packages may arrive the first week of December.

Will everyone receive the 5D Mark II that preordered?

It depends on when you preordered it, but everyone in the US that preordered within the first few days of the announcement will receive it in the first wave.  If you have not already preordered the camera, you likely will not receive it this year unless you get in on one of the first orders from B&H or you get lucky with your local camera store.

What SLR cameras will Canon announce soon?

Canon will release an upgrade to the 40D/50D next year - most likely in September but there is a possibility for April.  The new model, tentatively called the 60D, will be similar to the 50D but will have video.

Will Canon release a 1 series body next year?

Yes, the new body will include video, will have more megapixels (though my guess is the 1Ds body will not be substantial - probably from 21 MP to 24).  The bodies will have a new AF as well.  High ISO performance will be similar to the 5D Mark II.

Will Canon release a new flash to update the 580EX II?

Yes, it is just a matter of time.  There is always a small team at Canon working on the next flashes.  It is possible this flash may be released next year, but I don’t think Canon feels rushed here.

Will Canon ever get rid of the direct print button?

Nope, the button will be there for the foreseeable future.  Some exec at Canon has a soft spot for this button.  They have made it more multi-purpose though - it now controls Live View.  This is likely the future of the button.  Canon will keep the direct print feature until it becomes too expensive to maintain.  When someday in the future a new generation of printers is released that won’t work with this button, expect the direct print feature to be removed, but the button will stay for Live View purposes.

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Take for example, this lacewing that I found recently in my backyard.

This lacewing appears to be dead.  It has grown pale white and has some ’stuff’ on it.  In cases like this, I do not know truly what has happened but I can comment on what I have observed.

First, it appears that the time of year does not affect when this phenomenon occurs.  The picture above was taken on October 25th.  The following picture was taken on April 23rd.

This appears to be the same phenomenon and the same type of insect.  It also occurred in very nearly the same place in the yard - a large rhodendron bush on the size of our house.  Also, both subjects were around the same height - about five feet from the ground.  However, it’s likely that I just happened to look in the same spot.

I believe that this is a lacewing - though I have wrongly identified insects a number of times before.

So if anyone has any ideas with this mystery, please let me know!

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In general, I found this to be an outstanding book for learning composition and how to inspire yourself to take better pictures.  A lot of the advice here are things that make sense and should be intuitive, but still ring a bell when reading.

Ironically, I do not really like the author’s own pictures.  In fact, I was almost ready to bring the book back after reading the first chapter.  The author seems to imply that he is a great master and is quite full of himself.  He then states that one should be greatly impressed with another’s photos before taking his advice, and follows with his portfolio.

I’m sure some people may like these photos, but I found many of them to be ‘forced’.  Most of the shots are abstract, and I do like some abstract photography, but I got the feeling that many shots were there due to the geometry and placement of objects within the scene, but the shots didn’t have the symbolism and subtexts that are evident in the best abstract works.

Amazingly though, that did not make this a less useful book.  Because he comes from an analytical background, the author explains artistic concepts in words that technical people like myself can understand.  The book goes into depth on how to use the edges of the shot, what types of angles work and which ones do not, and to frame a shot and how not to.

Interestingly, the author is strongly against many of the concepts that we learn early on in photography.  For instance, I have read on many websites that it is a good idea to frame a shot using a tree.  The author states that this is the mark of an amateur photo and doesn’t really look good and after thinking about it I concur.

Other useful sections discuss what to do when you find yourself in a ‘photographers cramp’.  He talks about shooting other things than what you came for and has a tremendous number of good ideas on how to restart the creative juices.

At some point, I do think I will buy a copy of this book even though I have already read it.  Many of the bullet points he provides are worth going back to for further inspiration.  Although I am currently without a camera at the moment, I do think I have noticed an improvement in my photos from the few times I have borrowed a camera.

Therefore I think this is one of the stranger reviews I have done recently.  I really hated the book when I started it, but as I progressed I found a great number of really helpful tidbits that will help me take my photography to the next level.  I don’t agree with all points - for instance I did not find his section on photography levels very useful - but this book is well worth it for those looking into how to improve their photography.

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Of course, I actually had the ‘opportunity’ to shoot this house twice, as my original pictures taken at night turned out so bad that I needed to reshoot.  The following is what I learned from this shoot.

First, am slowly starting to get the hang of multiple lights.  I currently shoot with a 580EX and a 580EX II triggered by Pocketwizard MultiMAXes.  I detest most of the HDR real estate shots I have seen and I prefer the more natural look provided by this method.  However, as you can see from the shot below, I still need to work on my technique quite a bit.  The shot below has serious problems with the lighting.

This time at least, I did get quicker at positioning the lights and setting the power on them.  The first time I tried shooting with multiple lights, it took me over two hours to shoot a small condo.  On the latest attempt, it took me about an hour and a half to shoot a 4200 square foot home. 

I am finally realizing that knowing how to position the lights so they provide the desired light and do not reflect into windows and shiny things is something that needs practice - not instruction.  I have read numerous pieces of advice on how to position lights, but in truth you just need to try it yourself and practice.  Unfortunately, I still need to practice some more.

The shot above shows that I still need to look into purchasing a third light.  In previous homes I did not really need one, but that wasn’t the case with this home.  Here, I had one light on the floor below me and another that I bounced off the ceiling above me.  Ideally, I would have liked to have a light in the office so that room wasn’t dark.

I have already reached an agreement with Nelya that if she lists another home like this I can have my third light.  I will most likely purchase an Alienbees light together with a power supply, as I also found that for some rooms I needed one of my flashes at maximum power.  That was OK for this house, but I did realize that with some of these multi-million dollar homes with the sweeping staircases I will need more power (and those homes neighbor this one).

Still, at times I did feel the need for the ‘fake colors’ as Nelya calls them.

Here I had a flash mounted on a silver umbrella behind me, and another one to the left of the room lighting the tub.  This is perhaps another room that could have benefited from three lights.  When I do buy the Alienbees light, I am thinking about putting a very large softbox on it to provide even light.  I would then use my smaller flashes to remove the shadows that necessitate the shadow/highlight feature.

I do think that when I finally remove my reliance on shadow/highlight, I will have turned another page in my real estate photography skills.

By the way, the Pocketwizards really showed their stuff today.  Admittedly I haven’t played around with the ST-E2 much, but I severely doubt it would have worked in many of the situations today where there was a wall or floor between me and the other lights.  Also, I often shot with the light behind me, as in this shot.  The other light here was in the walk in closet.

All in all I had fun shooting this house.  I still have a ways to go with my photography but I can see improvement which is the important thing.  My next goal is to remove my dependency on shadow/highlight and from there the differences are really fine points - the fine points that make the difference between an average photo and an amazing one.  Of course these fine points take a significant amount of time and experimentation to properly learn.

Of course, even nicer is that it appears that the home will sell quickly.

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Of course, we didn’t have until the weekend.  The property had to be listed that day.  The real estate world does not wait for photographers, so I managed to beg a 40D off of one of my friends (I am still waiting for the 5D Mark II) and I went to the house that night to photograph.

It was that night that I learned how not to photograph a house.

First, when photographing a house.  Do not ever photograph it at night.  I learned this the hard way.  Granted, I could have done things to make the shot above look less hideous, however the main problem is the interior shots looked cramped.  Take a look at this shot.

For a comparison, here is the version I shot on Saturday with a borrowed 5D.

Which room would you think is larger?  This also brings me to the second cardinal rule - always shoot in wide angle.  I actually used the same lens for both shots - the Canon 16-35 2.8L II.  However, the first one was shot with a 40D while the second with a 5D.  The cropped sensor of the 40D means that the only lens I would ever use with that camera would be the Canon EF-S 10-22mm.

Another problem that I had was that I do not have the RAW converter for the 40D files on my machine.  Since I was in a hurry, I just edited the JPG files, while normally I am used to processing the RAW files.  Therefore, the colors turned out quite abysmal.

The pictures were so bad that I actually received my first complaint about them.  Another agent e-mailed Nelya begging her to change the pictures.  I already had planned to reshoot a number of them on Saturday, but after reading the e-mail I decided to reshoot the entire house.

Ultimately, we really had no choice about shooting at night.  We needed to have the house listed and that was the only option.  In the future, we will shoot the house before we have the official go to list it since once we receive the permission it needs to be listed within less than 24 hours.

The house is receiving a lot of attention right now and may even be sold by the time you read this.  The first wave of visitors all saw the ugly pictures, so the damage seems to be small.  Now, of course, we have much better shots for the property.

So in summary, the following are the lessons learned.

1. Do not shoot at night, particularly with interiors.
2. Use a wide angle lens - 16-17mm equivalent.
3. Always shoot in RAW.

I already knew about the second two, but I was surprised at the difference between shots during the day vs at night.

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For instance, as an aside I have finally figured out a routine for learning foreign languages.  As those of you who know me well know, I speak a good number of foreign languages but I have a problem keeping up with languages I am not actively studying.  I believe I have finally figured out how to do this.

In terms of photography, I have been able to reflect on my current skills and goals.  For instance, I have realized that I need to move up a level in my macro photography to fully understand composition.  Right now, I’m content with just getting a good shot of a bug from a good angle.  However, I need to also take into mind the angles and curves in the shot and other aspects in order to make the shot actually interesting.

Here’s an example of the difference.  The following is a shot of a fly I took some time ago.

I don’t think this is a bad shot, but unless someone is interested in flies it really doesn’t give any impact. In other words, though it is a decent shot technically, artistically it isn’t that great.

In this shot, I deliberately tried to get the curve of the leaf coming from the lower right corner of the shot.  In my opinion, this makes the shot much stronger.  I have received much better feedback from this shot, which I took recently, than the other shot.

This is the direction I now realize that I must take my photography.  I must start paying more attention to the composition of my shots and how I can make them more interesting.

This respite has also given me the chance to read more books and get familiar with video, which I expect to start getting involved with once I receive the new camera.

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Therefore I have decided to name goals in different areas.

Skills - How to improve my skills as a photographer.

Equipment - What new gadgets to purchase.

Sales - How to make more money from photography so I can purchase said gadgets.

Clearly the most important thing is to improve my skill as a photographer.  I already have good equipment, so that is not as important.  The following are things that I need to do.

Improve my composition - I need to work more on the composition of my shots.  The shots need to have strength, be interesting, and give a message beyond the subject.  I have been reading a number of books on composition recently and hope to show the results very soon.

Learn from the masters - I need to spend more time examining the works of the most famous photographers in history.  What made their works special?  What do I like about their works?  How is the style of the photographer reflected through their shots?  The library will be of great help here.  In the end, I hope to create my own particular style.  I am on my way towards this, but I think an identifiable style will come in the further future.

Get stronger critiques - For my top shots, I need to have them critiqued by much tougher critics.  Ideally, I would like to hear from a gallery owner why he/she would not hang the shot in his/her gallery.  For shots where I only hear good feedback, I need to find tougher reviewers.

Take more photos - Before, I would sometimes go two weeks without taking any pictures.  I need to take shots more frequently, which will improve the chances of getting that amazing shot.

Take different subjects - I need to branch out from taking only travel and insect photos.  I should look into taking a wider variety of subjects - such as flowers and more abstract imagery.

Improve my editing skills - I need to learn more about Photoshop so I can add more to my images.  In general I don’t like dramatically changing shots from how they came out of the camera, but I do need to learn how to change fine details of the photo in order to make it stronger.

In terms of equipment, I plan to make the following changes and purchases within the next year.

Photoshop Production Premium - I should be able to buy this by the end of this year.  It is the first step towards increasing my knowledge of video as well.

High speed photography - I want to learn how to take pictures of insects in flight.  This will likely involve building my own contraptions, which I’m not sure how to do right now.  It seems more likely that I will need to learn a bit about electronics.

In terms of sales, I intend to keep up with microstock sales and real estate.  I hope to expand my services in real estate soon and to actually begin advertising myself (currently it is just word of mouth).  Eventually I want to start selling fine art prints, but I think that is still around a year away.

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The two primary cameras for young children today are the following.  Please note that by ordering through these links you are helping to support this site.

Note that these are really just two cameras.  Each camera comes in either pink or blue.  Both cameras have been updated recently - but the update is strictly to add more megapixels to the existing cameras.  Everything else about them hasn’t changed.

We gave the Fisher Price camera to our older son when he was three years old.  He used that until losing it in Jerusalem, after which we replaced it with the VTech.

The Fisher Price is a more basic camera, but we felt that it took more high quality pictures.  Here is a shot that Eitan took with it while in Thailand.

The pictures are of a decent quality and generally it exposes quite well.  Here’s a shot he took indoors of his brother.

The camera is really no frills.  It does not have a zoom, the flash cannot be turned off, and obviously the exposure cannot be overridden.  However, for a young child it is extremely easy to use.  It is also practically indestructible as it did go flying on several occasions.

Eitan absolutely loved the camera and was heartbroken when he lost it.  Rather than buying the same camera, I decided to buy the VTech due to the higher megapixel count and the fact that it has video.

The VTech isn’t as good when it comes to pictures.  Although it has more megapixels than the Fisher Price, the optical quality isn’t as good and the exposure is often wrong - particularly when the flash fires.

Here’s an example shot from the VTech.  In general we have noticed far fewer ‘keepers’ from this camera.

You can see that the quality isn’t nearly as good as the Fisher Price, despite the fact that it has a higher number of megapixels.

The VTech does have the advantage that it supports video and has games on it.  For awhile Eitan played these games a lot.  In fact, I think he has used it more for the games than for pictures or video.

For video though, it can be quite funny seeing what happens when a hyperactive kid takes it out for a spin.  He took this video when we weren’t watching. (Note: if for some reason the video does not appear here you can also view it at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirispupis/2993531665/)

He played around with the video for a bit, but no longer uses it.

Recently, Eitan has stopped using the camera completely because it doesn’t zoom.  Currently I help him take pictures with my camera, which he loves to do.  I have been eyeing buying him the Olympus SW1030, which is rugged enough for his age but is a bit high for our budget right now.

However, between the Fisher Price and the VTech kids cameras, in my opinion (and Eitan’s) the Fisher Price is the clear winner.  The VTech has more features and a higher resolution, but the Fisher Price is much easier to use and takes better quality shots.

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