Edward Snowden is a fucking Hero

Edward Snowden – A fucking HERO

Another public service announcement here on the blog today, because certain things just need to be said. This man Edward Snowden is a fucking hero. Imagine the balls one must have to do what Snowden did for the people of the USA, and indeed the entire fucking world. Exposing the NSA and CIA in the way he did requires an absolutely massive pair of balls. The mass we can estimate his balls must have far exceeds Rob Galbraith’s balls, which I’ve talked about before. Whereas Galbraith needed a wheelbarrow to carry his balls around, I believe Snowden’s balls are so massive they distort the very fabric of space-time around them. I’ve drawn a diagram below to explain to you what I mean.

Edward Snowden has MASSIVE balls (click image for larger view)

Einstein was the first to predict this phenomenon many years ago. And today we’d likely be able to observe this if we could see Snowden’s balls. Due to the incredible mass and density of his balls, space-time becomes distorted around them, and as a result objects that are behind his balls would appear to be next to them when viewed from the front.

Humankind in general is now indebted to Snowden for his heroism. It’s like he says:

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: “The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”

“I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

And neither am I, and neither should all of you! It’s like I mentioned in my post about the Apollo XI One Light Workshop: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

And Snowden is a good man. Nothing like the fucking coward Neil Armstrong who fucking died taking all his secrets with him while letting evil continue to fuck up our lives on a daily basis:

I have absolutely no respect for people like Armstrong. They’re fucking cowards. It’s because of people like him that we’re living in the fucked up world that we live in today. It’s because of the fucking cowards like Armstrong that this blog exists today. Except for Galbraith, all the fucking girliemen in this industry were too afraid to stand up against Canon Inc. You should be ashamed of yourself. All ‘o ya!! Remember this quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.“

Obviously I can respect people like Snowden. The world would be a much better place if everyone could be like him, instead of being the fucking pussies you all are.

And if you fuckwads continue to be the sheeple that you are, it’s gonna get worse. Even a fucking gaming console is about to be utilized by the NSA and CIA to monitor you 24 hours a day. Just read up on what Microsoft has planned for you and your children with their Xbox One:

The spying concern wasn’t groundless. The new Kinect can see in the dark, pick out human voices in a noisy living room and read your heartrate just by looking at your face. It was unveiled by Microsoft last week as a fixture of the fall-releasing Xbox One. The thing has to be plugged in for the console to work, and is in some way already checking out what’s going on in the room it’s in.

[...]

Keep in mind that all of this is part of a much bigger global spying policy being implemented by the elite; the NSA Prism program is just a small part of that larger policy. Microsoft has participated in a number of meetings with the Bilderberg group and the names of its executives, such as chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie, have appeared on the secret attendee lists many times. If you don’t know what the Bilderberg group is, you may want to read up on them. That the chief research officer of Microsoft would be joining their meetings and be a member of its steering committee shouldn’t be a surprise. Undoubtedly the policies set forth by the Bilderberg group are brought back by Mundie to Microsoft for implementation in their technology, and that’s how gamers end up with the fucking big brother spy console that is the Xbox One.

You can say whatever you want about Canon Inc., but we’d never dare to do what Microsoft is doing here. Being economically raped, like Microsoft is doing to gamers, is one thing – and Canon Inc. has certainly been doing its fair share of economic raping — but fucking spying on people and sharing their personal data and all communications with the NSA and CIA in FUCKING SECRET while you FUCKING LIE AND DENY you’re doing it is a whole different story.

Pay attention to what’s going on, share and ACT. ACT!!

Sign this: https://optin.stopwatching.us/

SIGN IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Canon Inc. rape, feature requests, and why the Canon EOS 6D sucks balls

Man what a weekend. What a weekend! Things are just so hectic around here I barely get any time to update the blog. But I have to do this update today because my previous post about Canon Inc. raping us all didn’t come across very well with some of my contacts at Canon Inc. To be honest, this happens quite often, but this time I feel that their criticisms do have some validity.

Yeah, it’s true that the 5D Mark III could be enabled to do all kinds of advanced stuff, as the guys from Magic Lantern have shown recently with their RAW video update. However, it may not be reasonable to expect Canon Inc. to just implement and enable any and all possibilities on such a camera. It takes quite a lot of work to implement and test functionality on a camera, and adding features — sometimes what may seem as even minor features — could simply mean a lot of additional engineering work, not to mention testing and Q/A work. And at some point you just have to stop adding stuff and release the product. Otherwise you could go on adding and developing to infinity.

So yeah, maybe I was a little too hard on them in the previous post. Especially since Canon Inc. has shown us in recent years that they do listen. But during the discussion I also mentioned, and we talked about, the possibility of releasing an SDK along with some of our products that would enable other people to more easily extend their functionalities, and even introduce new ones, and basically add value to our products without us having to do very much ourselves. Wouldn’t it be nice if the guys at Magic Lantern, for example, could just use such an officially supported SDK to build cool new features everyone, including Canon Inc. could benefit from — instead of having to hack into and reverse engineer the products?

A company famous for using this strategy for many years now is Microsoft. They’ve been handing out development tools and sample code to software developers for free for years. And look how that has worked out for them. All kinds of programs exist within Microsoft for independent software vendors to get free software licenses to get them started building cool new software for the Windows platform. Sometimes you can even get some funding in addition to free licenses. This leads to more interesting software that runs on their platform, which leads to more value, which leads to more users, which leads to market share and sales, which leads to $$$$$.

With an official SDK from Canon Inc., developers could build on top of our existing products and add value to them, adding all kinds of stuff we couldn’t add ourselves, eventually leading to more interesting products and more customers. There are so many cool benefits I just don’t want to name them all here for the competition to steal.

And you’re not going to believe this, but I had this discussion last week, and lo and fucking behold, I almost fell off of my chair this morning when I saw that Samsung is already releasing the code for their cameras to open source developers.

Canon Inc. needs to act fast man. Who the fuck wants to develop for Samsung anyway? Their platform sucks balls. EOS is where the fucking power lies in this industry, as the guys from Magic Lantern have clearly demonstrated. If we had an official SDK out, people would be all over it.

Now, having said all of the above, this still doesn’t change the fact that for many features, Canon Inc. IS GUILTY of dumbing down and crippling products fucking INTENTIONALLY. That needs to be said. It’s just that it’s unreasonable to expect them to add all features that a product could be capable of supporting.

Just look at the goddamn 6D. I still haven’t written a post dedicated to this camera because honest to God, as soon as I think about this camera I get fucking depressed. Was it really neccessary to put a sync speed of 1/180th on it? Honestly? The fucking 5D Mark III is already crippled with 1/200th sync speed. Why in God’s name was it neccessary to go to 1/180th sync on the 6D?

And you know what pains me the most about this? Just a few days before the release of the 6D, I was on Twitter smacktalking The Lord of the Speedlights about how we already had built-in wireless capabilities via RT on our flashes, and how we’re going to show him that the 5D Mark IV would even have a 1/500th sync speed in the future.

Twitter discussion

And then, just a few days later, Canon Inc. totally fucking lets me down with the 6D and announces it with a sync speed even worse than the D600. When in fact I’m sure the sensor in the 6D would be quite able to handle at least a 1/200th sync speed. I’m just glad The Lord of the Speedlights apparently isn’t aware of this, and never replied to my last tweet to publicly laugh at me and rub the 6D fuckup in. That would have been quite embarrassing.

This kind of intentional crippling of products is just not necessary man. Seriously. The same thing can be said about the 9-point piece of fucking shit autofocus system on the 6D. I keep saying this, but who the fuck releases a camera with a fucking 9-point AF system these days? Honestly? Not only that, but with just one goddamn cross-type point in the center? Really man, that was just not necessary. The 6D could have benefitted from at least the AF system from the 7D. Releasing it the way it is right now at that price is simply criminal behavior. Even the image quality was purposely degraded.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, don’t waste your money on a 6D. Get a Nikon D600, or save some more to get the 5D Mark III. Just pretend the 6D doesn’t exist.

Apart from the 1/500th sync on the 5D Mark IV, I’ve also told Canon Inc. that people want exposure metering linked to the selected AF point. Those of you who have been continuing to spam my inbox with this request, please stop. I know about it, I’ve told Japan, and I keep reminding them. Emailing me about it every other day isn’t going to help right now.

And the same also goes for second curtain sync on our new 600EX-RT flash system when using the wireless capabilities. I already told Japan you guys want that feature. Honest to God, I don’t know why it was left out. Please stop asking me. And the same also goes for being able to set the flash zoom setting on the slaves wirelessly from the master or the ST-E3-RT. This one boggles the mind, I agree. Canon Inc. added the capability to set flash power levels from the master and the ST-E3-RT, but somehow forgot to also let you set the zoom setting wirelessly. So if you want to change the zoom setting on your flashes, you still have to fucking walk up to each and every one of them and do it manually, defeating the entire point of having wireless control over them.

I hope to God that they add these features soon via some kind of firmware update because the kind of emails I receive on these issues almost daily would make even Joe McNally blush uncomfortably while reading.

I’ll be back soon with more. In the mean time keep spamming your local Canon reps with these feature requests!

Phase One is going down

I’m spending a late night at the office, going over some white papers regarding the new DIGIC 6 chip – yes, in the fucking weekend (see how hard I work?) – and decided to take a break only to end up totally fucking pissed off. I was trying to relax, just browsing around while taking sips of my cappuccino when I came across the below video interview by Michael Reichmann with Phase One CEO Henrik Hakonsson.

Now, before I get to why I got pissed off, let me first point out that I got really excited to see Reichmann publicly state how difficult it is to work with the Japanese. I mean, you guys have watched me complain on this blog for over 4 years now about dealing with the fucking morons in Japan, but now you can get confirmation from someone else in this industry who has the balls to openly state this on camera. And here’s the quote which begins at roughly the 25:00 mark:

I will tell you that in all the years that I’ve been working with the Japanese camera makers and I go to product launches or I sit in on meetings where they’re looking at future products and I’ll go “oh that doesn’t work right, what about this and this” and the American – and I’m saying this and I’m gonna get into trouble for it, but I’m going to say it anyhow - the American product manager or Canadian says “you know what, you’re right, gee I hadn’t thought of that, hadn’t seen it.” Another journalist will say “yah, I agree with Michael.” …… Nothing happens! It goes back to Japan and the feedback loop doesn’t exist. Or, it’s 2 years later when there’s a new model, even though it might have been fixed in a new firmware update. So that is, I think for me, is it a question that you’re a European company rather than an Asian company? I don’t know. Is it a cultural business ethic approach, is it even a language approach? [...] But it’s so frustrating when a manufacturer brings out a product and doesn’t respond to the feedback.

Michael, on behalf of the entire goddamn executive team here at Canon USA, I salute you! Thank you for this. This is so fucking true man, and it’s frustrating as hell. I’ve gotten into intensive care because of these people more times than I care to remember. Major blood pressure issues and almost lost my health insurance too. I will say that we did make some progress since 2011 which shows in the 1DX, the 5D Mark III and the new flash system. It’s amazing what a carefully crafted petition and a large amount of threats of violence directed at Japanese executives can do. And while Canon Inc. improved and started listening, things got worse at Nikon and they’re feeling the consequences of that right now.

Dealing with Japan remains a tough challenge to be sure. If you guys want an idea of how tough communications can get with the Japanese, just listen to the conference call below.

Now why did I get pissed off? Well it’s because of Mr. Henrik Hakonsson referring to Canon Inc. as a “Toyota factory” in his Ahnold accent. Actually the exact quote at roughly the 37:15 mark is:

That’s the medium format environment, and then there’s a couple of big Toyota factories just behind us, you know, which we also take very seriously.

It’s Henrik Hakonsson, you idiot

You guys know that I often like to make jokes about Canon Inc. Honestly, who doesn’t enjoy a good Canon Inc. bashing? But when it’s done by the competition, forgive me for this, but then it’s not funny. In fact, not only is it not funny, but it fucking pisses me off. Who the fuck does this Hakonsson guy think he is?? I just sent an email to Mitarai with a link to this video and told him he needs to respond to this pronto. The last thing we need right now is a Phase One CEO openly making fun of us in public. It’s a good thing he also admits taking us very seriously though. Cuz lemme tell ya Hakonsson, you guys are fucking going down in 2014! You’ll hear more about this in a few months. That’s all I’m gonna say right now. Enjoy making fun of the Toyota factory now while you still can. Your ass is grass Hakonsson; your ass is fucking grass.

New book: Direction and Quality of Light

Direction & Quality of Light

I don’t often do this but I have to promote this latest book by Van Niekerk titled “Direction & Quality of Light.” I personally own two of his earlier books and I’ve learned a lot from them. Yes, yes, I know what you’re gonna say, I may be the Canon Camera Guru on the Interwebs, but I must admit that even I can learn new stuff from others all the time. It’s what keeps us all growing, isn’t it? Keeping ourselves open to new information and learning from the experiences of others. And I can tell you, I’ve been following Van Niekerk’s blog posts for a few years now, and when it comes to the direction and quality of light, he knows his stuff.

Van Niekerk – In theaters soon.

If not for the information in the book, I can assure you that you’ll want to get it just to look at the beautiful women he’s shot. And you know, just sayin’, but if the wife and/or girlfriend want to know why you lock yourself up with this book in the bathroom everyday for so long, you can always claim that you’re learning about the direction and quality of light. Longtime readers and followers on Twitter may also remember that I have a thing for Anelisa, the model that’s on the cover of this latest book. Trust me on this: sweet dreams are made of Anelisa.

What I also like about Niekerk, is that he’s one of the few photographers who openly complains about Canon. And as you can no doubt imagine, anyone who openly and publicly bashes Canon for valid reasons immediately earns my respect. Cuz I gotta be honest with you guys, but this entire fucking industry is full of pussies. If the few non-pussies hadn’t spoken up 4 years ago, then today Canon would still not have a DSLR available on the market that’s able to autofocus properly.

Just take a look at this post on Niekerk’s blog, where he discusses the many issues he had with Canon in the past.

Canon Quality Control Sucked

This photo explains some of the reason why I felt I had to go back to using Nikon. The photo was taken towards the end of 2008, and shows my repair slips for the nearly 4 yrs that I had been using Canon.

- this pile of papers doesn’t include any duplicates.

- this pile of papers doesn’t include my attempts to get a sharp 16-35mm (v2) lens. It took a 5th copy to get one that even started to match Canon’s hype about the new lens!  Honestly, the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 absolutely wipes the floor with the Canon optic. The Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 is also a main reason I went back to Nikon. Canon simply has nothing that even matches this lens in optical quality.

- I also had to make two attempts at getting the 4th copy of the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II calibrated to an acceptable level.

- This doesn’t include the initial Canon 24-105mm f/4 that was soft and I returned .. wait for it .. even before these lenses were recalled for the flare problem.

- What this list also doesn’t include are the two repairs slips for 2 of my 3 Canon 1Dmk3 camera bodies that had to have the submirror assembly fixed. (I bought the 3rd body after all the AF issues were apparently ironed out.)

- Neither do these repair lists include the one 1D mk3 that I sent in subsequently for poor AF and frequent error 99 lock-ups.

You have to read the full post for all the details to really understand how fucked up this really is. And don’t even get me started on the 1D Mark III debacle.

Now let me be quick to also point out that a lot has changed at Canon in recent years. Ever since late 2011 shit appears to have gone back to normal after Canon Inc. re-hired the quality control department and put them back to work. Seeing how quality control is a major issue these days at Nikon, it would also not surprise me if Canon Inc. hired some people away from Nikon’s QA department too. However, had it not been for people like Van Niekerk, who have the balls to actually publicly complain about Canon’s fuckups, instead of continuing to kiss ass, we would have still been in deep shit here. Because as I’m sure you can understand, as an executive here at Canon USA I can’t convince upper management of anything if I can’t provide them with customer complaints and enough data to prove we’re in fact truly in deep shit. So I always welcome any and all such complaints. I encourage all of you, yes even you ass-kissing pussies, to stop letting Canon take you from behind like a cheap whore, and instead to grow a pair of hairy balls and really tell them how you feel.

In any case, just get Van Niekerk’s book if you know what’s good for you.

GIZMODO Sucks Ass: Moonlandings were FAKED

FUCK YOU NASA!!!

Apparently Mr. Jesus Dias isn’t aware of my post last year where I explained in details why the moon landings were faked, as evidenced by this recent post over at GIZMODO.

Mr. Dias, please CLICK HERE to check out my Apollo XI One Light Workshop and get enlightened.

Everyone else, please do the same. And send Mr. Dias an email just to make sure he notices this message.

The 5D Mark III proves itself; The D800 sucks balls

Piece of Shit

I don’t usually do this, but this comment by Phil Banno is so true it fucking made my day:

I have a 5D mark 3 and my business partner has a D800. It started as a personal preference but the L series canon lenses blast the nikons out the water, so much so my business partner is selling his virtually new D800 to buy a 5D mark 3 (& he’s a Nikon fan). A lot of you rant about high ISO usage but in a church where you aren’t allowed to use flash, the 5D on 5000 ISO with a 70-200mm f2.8 ISM L series 2  has no equal in the D800 arsenal. And the confetti shots with 6fps also beat the D800. Real camera, used by a professionally qualified, 24 year experienced photographer (not you geeky Mega Pixel Amateurs). The Canon is like a pure racing car, designed for power to weight performance with outstanding handling, breaking and aerodynamics against the Nikon, an American muscle car that can go fast in a straight line then end up in a hedge at the first bend or blow up after a short distance. Too much power (Mega Pixels) and no where near as good lenses (tyres and breaks). REAL WORLD, 5D MK3 is the professionals choice, D800 the Amateaur look at me with my massive over kill mega pixel never to be used above a 20″x16″ canvas choice! 5D super fit professional athlete, D800 steroid muscle freek with a small penis and long term health problems. Canon purposely created a perfected version of its 5D range. Nikon went down the gimmick route. Bullshit for bull shitters so it’s simple. If you’re a true pro buy the canon. If you’re a wanna be amateur by the Nikon but be aware, us true professionals will laugh at you for choosing poorly. You either have it or you don’t. And I photograph her majesty the queen to name drop but one of my clients so beat that!!!

Yeah, read it and weep Nikon fanboys. And FYI the D800 autofocus fuckup saga is still ongoing. The D800 truly is the Nikon 1D Mark III.

I’ll be back soon with more updates. Yes, yes, I know, I have been really slacking here but man, things are just so hectic here at Canon USA. I’m sure you’ve noticed all the products we’re launching every month. I have loads of technical documents concerning the new products to wade through right now just so I can keep my Canon Guru title in the future. Not to mention play with….errr….i mean, test, the new products.

Many have been sending me emails and leaving comments asking when I’ll update again to talk about the piece of shit EOS 6D and the Nikon D600 and all the other stuff. Some even get hostile on me like the guy below.

Request 4 Update

Rest assured that I’ll be back very soon with some very in-dept analysis of all recent developments.

9/11 Was An Inside Job – Controlled Demolition of WTC

Another public service announcement here on the blog today. 9/11 was an inside job. Yes, the WTC towers were brought down in a controlled demolition. Osama had nothing to do with it. Watch the documentaries below and fucking educate yourselves.

Here’s another:

For more information, head to Scholars for 9/11 Truth And Justice.

The Apollo XI One Light Photography Workshop RELOADED

FUCK YOU NASA!!! (Think of the dynamic range that would have needed to be captured to be able to expose for both the bright lunar surface and the dark shadow side of the moonlander and make the shadows appear so bright without the use of fill light (and without overexposing the lunar surface).)

Back in 2009 I posted the Apollo XI One Light Photography Workshop where I showed how we’re all being fooled by those motherfucking assholes at NASA. With the death of Neil Armstrong recently, I thought it would be a good idea to bring this to your attention again. The fucking coward died without telling us what he knows. That he knows more about this is evidenced by the remark he made about great ideas that can be discovered and breakthroughs that can be made by those who can remove “one of truth’s protective layers.”

I have absolutely no respect for people like Armstrong. They’re fucking cowards. It’s because of people like him that we’re living in the fucked up world that we live in today. It’s because of the fucking cowards like Armstrong that this blog exists today. Except for Galbraith, all the fucking girliemen in this industry were too afraid to stand up against Canon Inc. You should be ashamed of yourself. All ‘o ya!! Remember this quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.“

Especially if you’re into photography, the documentary below should be interesting, as it discusses many of the issues with the photographs taken on the Apollo “missions.” Like I argued back in 2009, there’s evidence those fuckwads at NASA used fill lights in their photographs.

Also interesting are the following two documentaries:

A funny thing happend on the way to the moon.

As the Technical Advisor, or Camera Guru if you prefer, at Canon USA, you know that stupid shit like this is not going to go unnoticed by me. I didn’t become the Technical Advisor around here for nothing. And instead of just showing you what I mean, I decided to do an online photography workshop instead. Workshops are so hot right now, everyone is doing their own, so I thought why not have one myself?

In this case the workshop is more about lighting. Lighting on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. This is the kind of stuff the Lord of the Speedlights dreams of doing, but can’t, because he’ll probably lose all of his sponsors overnight. Me, I have Canon backing me so I don’t give a flying fuck. Since the astronauts on Apollo 11 didn’t bring any lights of their own, we really only have one light source on the moon: The Sun. So that makes our workshop a One Light workshop, not to be confused with Zack Arias’s One Light Workshop, which doesn’t come even close to what you are about to experience in a moment.

Okay so much for the intro, now let us start by looking at some of the pictures that were taken during the Apollo 11 mission and reverse engineer the light Strobist style:

This is a picture of the moon. It’s important to take note of the fact that the shadows are all pointing in the same direction, and that the shadow areas are pitch black.

Another picture taken by the astronauts shows the extremely dark shadows. Notice how the shadow side of the hills are totally dark. If you’d stand there you wouldn’t see shit in front of you.

Okay now this is the first picture taken by the fucking wankers who call themselves astronauts. In the top picture, notice how the shadow side of the moonlander is lit. Since there’s only one light, the sun, which is coming from the back of the moonlander, the side we’re seeing would be totally dark, just like the shadow side of the hills in the above picture. And yet, that’s not the case. Same with that white thing on the ground. But take a look at the rocks, their shadow sides are totally black. Some will say that the moonlander was lit by the surface of the moon, but why is the surface of the moon able to light the dark shadow side of the moonlander, and not the dark shadow sides of rocks, craters, hills etc.? Below there’s a simulated version of what the picture would have looked like with only the sun as the light source.

Even more bullshit from the motherfuckers who call themselves astronauts. The astronaut is coming out of the moonlander at the shadow side, and yet there ‘s so much light! Now how the hell is that fucking possible? Simple: There had to be more light sources when that picture was taken (red arrows). If you look at the orange structure, clearly there’s light coming from above. Perhaps an Alien craft flying by was giving some assistance? Below is how that picture should have looked like with only the sun as the light source.

Even more horseshit from the overpaid nutcases at Nasa. Again, the astronaut is at the shadow side of the moonlander, and lit like a fucking christmas tree. I wonder how sunlight was able to reach the astronaut behind the moonlander. Below is again the simulated version of what that picture should have looked like.

Notice again how the shadow side of the rocks and hills are completely black. Somehow the shadow side of the moonlander and astronaut are very lit. This shit doesn’t even happen at Disney World.

In this picture the shadows look believable, very dark and shadow side of the astronauts and flag are a lot darker, essentially black. But why does one of the astronauts have a much longer shadow? Also, is the surface of the moon gray or brown? Seems to me like the assholes at Nasa can’t decide.

Apparently sunlight really favored the astronauts and the moonlander during the Apollo 11 mission. Notice how the shadow side of the rock is completely black, and yet the shadow side of the moonlander and astronaut look a lot brighter. And where is the flag’s shadow? The cocksuckers at Nasa must think we’re all stupid.

The fucking astronaut is standing in the goddamn shadow of the fucking moonlander, how in God’s name is he visible, when the sun was supposed to be the only light source? Looks to me like those fucks at Nasa used a little fill light.

This picture is just awesome. If they decide to do some lighting workshops at Nasa, I’ll be the first to sign up. Hell, I don’t even care what it costs, I’ll take a second mortgage if I have to. If you can do this, you’ll never need to use a flash ever again. Compare this to the picture above with the 2 astronauts with much darker shadows. And the surface of the moon looks a lot more brown in the reflection. Hmmm…

All of a sudden the shadow side of the moonlander and astronaut look a lot darker. Looks like they moved some of the fill lights for this shot. Also notice how the solar panel is throwing a very dark shadow on the astronaut’s right foot. A small panel is able to black out part of the astronaut’s foot, and yet, when the astronaut stands in the shadow of the big moonlander in previous pictures, he is totally lit!

And this is truly magnificent. Forget Zack Arias, forget the Lord of the Speedlights, hell, forget McNally. Those guys are nothing compared to what Nasa achieved here using just one light source. It looks like the sunlight went in one direction, then actually made a turn and came back in the frame from a different direction. You would have to use String-theory to explain what’s going on in that picture. To keep it simple, I made a lighting diagram below the picture to show you how I think the lighting was set up in this case. Forgive me for spelling errors, I’m tired.

And that concludes this Apollo 11 One Light workshop. I hope you’ve learned something important from all of this and that this will make you a better photographer.

Required Reading:

• Apollo Facts
• Apollo Reality

How to get sharp images with a Nikon D800

The EOS 5D Mark III is one sexy piece of equipment.

In my 30 years here at Canon USA I’ve had to make some tough decisions sometimes, but none of them come close to this one. I can’t decide on what’s sexier in the picture above: the ass or the 5D Mark III with 85L. Life can be so complicated sometimes.

The image above is taken from this review of the 5D Mark III by good old Moses:

This review is going to be a long one as I have a lot of things I want to discuss, but for those of you who want the short version, I can tell you just stop reading and go buy the 5D Mark III. You will not be disappointed. In all honesty I can say that the 5D Mark III is currently the best DSLR on the market, apart from the 1DX. It’s a work of art. I bought two myself. And if you’re wondering about the Nikon D800, I can tell you that the 5D Mark III is a much better choice. I wouldn’t buy the D800 even if it was priced at $2000 and the 5D Mark III was still $3500. That is how good the 5D Mark III is. If you think I’m biased, think about the fact that I have recommended the Nikon D700 in the past instead of the 5D Mark II.

Check it out if you know what’s good for you.

While the 5D Mark III is getting praised everywhere, the Nikon D800 appears to be a very fucked camera. As a commenter remarked recently, two of the biggest Nikon whores are trashing Nikon these days. In my previous post we already saw what Ken Rockwell had to say about the D800 and 5D Mark III:

To shooters upgrading from the Nikon D800 and D800E, the Mark III is greatly improved over the Mark II, while the Nikon D800 and D800E are a step backwards in ergonomics and LCD quality from the D700. Therefore the status quo has reversed; I used to prefer Nikon, while today with the 5D Mark III, I greatly prefer it to my D800E. Pixels impress amateurs, while guys like me who shoot every day for a living are more impressed at how my 5D Mark III lets me get more of the right pixels faster, not just more of the wrong ones.

—

The 5D Mark III is the world’s best DSLR.

Now it seems Thom Hogan is also having issues with Nikon:

The one thing I think Nikon is getting wrong here is this: Nikon knows they messed up and shipped some number of defective cameras. Yet they are defacto forcing the customer not only to detect the problem, but to pay for shipping of the unit back to Nikon for repair. I think the least Nikon could (and should) do is this: for every camera they receive that actually gets fixed by this new recalibration test, Nikon should refund the shipping cost to the customer. If I were in charge, I’d go further than that and try to find some small reward I could include above and beyond that, along with a note of apology.

Yes, that’s costly. But so is a US$3000 camera that doesn’t focus right. Why is the customer the one that gets punished here?

Remember how I wondered if Nikon was becoming the new Canon? Man, how the mighty have fallen. I would have expected this kind of crap from Canon Inc. months ago, but not from Nikon. A word of advice to all of you Nikon morons: Stop kissing Nikon’s ass and start fucking complaining. Because if you don’t, you’re only going to get a lot more fucked. I hope all of you learned some valuable lessons watching me pull all the hair off of my head (yes, that’s what happened) in the last 5 years in order to get Canon Inc. back on track. This after loads of ass kissing in previous years almost cost us our lead in this industry. Do NOT let it get that far with Nikon. It’s all up to you.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 58% of you who don’t like all the megapixels on the D800 had better fucking let yourself be heard, or else you’ll be fucked, and you’ll only have yourself to blame for it.

While Nikon is busy pulling off all the above crap, Canon Inc. appears to have become a new company, going so far as to release a new firmware upgrade for a 3-year old camera, the EOS 7D, that almost makes it a brand new camera:

Since its introduction, the Canon EOS 7D has become one of the most popular APS-C EOS DSLRs among serious photographers and semi-professionals. Now, Canon is giving the EOS 7D an exciting upgrade with new Firmware Version 2.0.X! With Firmware Version 2.0.X, the EOS 7D gains a multitude of feature enhancements for higher performance befitting the flagship APS-C EOS. These improvements include a higher maximum burst rate (130* for JPEG Large/Fine and 25* RAW images) for continuous shooting, definable maximum limit for ISO Auto, compatibility with the GPS Receiver GP-E2, and manual audio level adjustment. Additional upgrades also include faster scrolling of magnified images, quick control during playback, in-camera RAW image processing, JPEG image resizing and ratings, plus customization of file names and time zone settings. These significant enhancements are a sure-fire way to make an amazing camera even better than ever before!

I can still remember when Canon Inc. released the barcode scanner with the 7D and I gave them hell here on the blog. How times have changed. How times have changed.

To be honest, I do feel sorry for you Nikon morons. I’m laughing my ass off, but deep down inside I feel your pain even as I laugh. And because of that I want to help you guys out with a few tips on how to get the most out of the piece of shit D800. You’re stuck with that stupid hunk of garbage for at least 3 to 4 years now, so you might as well learn how to get decent results out of it. First let’s take a look at how you can get sharp images with the D800:

How to get sharp images with a Nikon D800

The diagram above shows you how you should use the D800 and get sharp images. The key thing here is to make sure that the D800 doesn’t move even a micrometer. As you can see you need to be on rock solid ground first. I recommend a steel reinforced concrete floor that is a least 2 meters thick. You then position your heavy duty tripod on top of that and make sure it is bolted to the concrete floor. For extra stability, stack as many tripods on top of eachother as you like until they can support a combined load of at least 100 KG. Sandbag the shit out of the tripods to make sure everything stays stable. Then put the D800 on top of that. Now remember, you don’t want to touch the D800 at all. Use a WIRELESS remote trigger to take your shots. Not wired, because that could cause the camera to receive small vibrations through the cable which is going to motion blur your pictures to hell. Also very very important is to make sure you shoot on a windstill day. The windspeed should not be higher than 3 knots or else it will cause micro camera shake and your pictures will look like you used a shutter speed of 30 seconds while traveling at 100mph through rough terrain. And last, but most importantly: pray. Say a prayer each time before you take a shot. If you’re an atheist you need to become religious, hell, very religious, if you want this to work. If you’re a Christian, ask Jesus for extra stability during these rough times. If you’re a muslim, talk to Allah. If you’re a Hindu, make sure Shri Krishna hears you before taking the shot.

Finally, I wish you good luck using the D800. May the force be with you.

Happy Birthday to Helen Oster @ Adorama

Today is Helen Oster’s (@HelenOster) birthday and I wanted to dedicate this special post to her. Yesh, yesh, the very shensual, the verri toit… Helen Oster from Adorama.

Adorama's Birthday card to Helen

If you don’t know who Helen Oster is, let me tell you that she’s mainly the reason why I shop at Adorama. If you are a regular reader, you know that I ordered my retail copies of the world’s best DSLR, the 5D Mark III, at Adorama a while ago. And it’s because of the fact that I know Helen is there when I need her and that she’ll do the best she can to help me when I need it. And trust me on this, Helen often goes out of her way to help. Not just me, but customers in general. She has really earned her excellent online reputation as Adorama’s Customer Service Ambassador. Reading that post on Adorama’s blog brought tears to my eyes.

For a few years now Helen has been Adorama’s secret weapon on the Internet. I’ve been following her ever since I started this blog and I’ve referred people to her since 2008 and without any exception she’s always managed to make them happy. Check this post of mine from 2008, where she had just helped out Thomas Hawk to get his 5D Mark II. Or this one, where she joined the conversation to offer her help.

Just recently I relied on her help again, and although I can’t go into details, let me say that she went out of her way to help me in ways that I would never have expected.

I’m very happy to see that Adorama recognizes the enormous value that Helen brings to the company. It really should not be underestimated. It would not surprise me one bit if many of the customers on the Internet shopped at Adorama because of Helen. Hell, I already know customers buy at Adorama because of me. And I don’t come even close to 1% of the dedication Helen puts into this.

Coincidence? I think not...

I may not have as much influence as Helen online, but as you can clearly see in the screenshot above, I do contribute a little to Adorama’s success. (I hope Henry Posner doesn’t see this.)

We live at a time when customer service is one of the most important things a company can use to set itself apart from others. And this goes for many industries today and will only become even more so over time. Hell, in many industries it’s essentially the only thing you have to differentiate yourself. And with Helen, Adorama has a very big advantage in this area.

Helen, thank you for all your help, your time, your patience and your kindness. I wish you a wonderful, happy and memorable birthday. If I could, I would give you a very long, warm hug that would last at least 10 minutes (even longer if it doesn’t make you feel weird). Who knows, maybe some day I’ll be able to. Lots of love from me. ♥