Fujifilm may be fucking us up in the near future; Nikon already fucked

Fujifilm X-Pro1 kicking some serious ass even at ISO12800 (source)

OK, I know you guys are expecting me to talk about the stuff we launched yesterday, the new EOS T5i Rebel and that small EOS SL1 of which I wonder who the fuck is gonna buy that piece of crap. But I’ll have to save that for another post. Man, I gotta tell ya, Tokyo appears to have fucking lost it again. The price difference between the T5i and SL1 is a hundred bucks. Who the fuck is gonna buy the crippled SL1 when they can get the T5i for just $100 more? Notice how the T5i comes with 9 all crosstype AF points when the $2000 costing 6D got only one fucking crosstype point in the center. Just thinking about this gets me all worked up. But let me not get ahead of myself here, I’ll be discussing this crap in the near future in another post.

What I want to dedicate this post to is a very lengthy email I got from a reader who in my opinion makes some really good points. And I asked for his permission to share this with all of you, because I think everyone should be aware of this. And I think Tokyo needs to pay attention to this because otherwise Fujifilm are gonna give us a lot of problems in the near future. And this guy isn’t the only one saying this; I know the S3 and S5, and the recent Fuji cameras are kicking ass certainly as far as image quality is concerned. Fuji has had some excellent sensor tech for years.

The Lord of the Speedlights shooting a Fujifilm X100s (source). Yep all the cool guys have one, as you are about to find out below. Update: Check out his full review.

You guys know that I’ve been here hammering on this stuff for over 4 years now; I keep telling those morons in Japan that we don’t need more senseless megapixels. What we need is better pixels, not more. We need smoother, better image quality, less noise, and kickass color reproduction and usable dynamic range EVEN AT THE HIGHEST ISOs. And we need that coupled with a fucking lightning fast and sharply accurate AF system that covers the whole fucking frame and could autofocus on the dark side of the moon.

This guy asked to remain anonymous, cuz he’s a wedding photographer and doesn’t want clients googling his name to find my blog with all the fucks and goddamns and stuff like that. Might be a turn-off for the brides. I mean, we all know how this world is full of fucking hypocrites, right? Can’t say “fuck” online cuz it’s rude but meanwhile you wouldn’t wanna hear the stuff they scream out loud in the bedroom at night when they’re busy fitting 12 inches of cock inside their vaginas.

Anyway, I highly recommend you read this guy’s letter below and check out the material he sent along with it. Also let me take this opportunity to let you all know that if there’s something you’re fed up with as well, and would like me to share it on here with everyone, just send it along to me. If it makes sense and if it will make the fuckwads in this industry pay attention, I’ll definitely post it.

Letter to Fake Chuck

Hey Chuck,

Just wanted to drop a line and say thanks for saving me from a Nikon D800 (and possibly even the D4!) Yes, I went to the Nikon website and looked at that shadow banding file you showed your readers (the library shot) when I realized that is where the crop was from. I was shocked.

I have been shooting weddings for eight years. Only 50+ to date, but competition is stiff as you can turn over a rock and find more photographers than lawyers these days. Passing 50 as the sole shooter facing a tsunami of competition is nothing to sneeze at under those conditions (and all strangers, not the Facebook-friends-family network that most rely on!!!)

I have used a digital SLR on all my weddings starting back in 2005… and a Nikon… body and glass.

It was a Fuji sensor that captured everything you see on my website. First an S3 Pro in a frankenstein Nikon F80 body (that felt amazing in the hand surprisingly enough), then an S5 Pro in that venerable Nikon D200 body with only an 11 point AF system! (F#@k me, what the hell do you need 51, or 61 in the Canon, focus points for other than to please the measurebators and marketing dept.) The S5 I bought at the end of its retail life, literally one of the last bodies remaining in Canada.

I love Nikon bodies.

I love Nikon glass.

I love the Nikon flash system (which I believe Canon users have also taken note of).

But I hated the colour and image quality.

Well, maybe hate is too strong a word. Let’s say I did not LOVE the colour as that is what is most important to me, and every photographer I would imagine.

It was not so much the Sony sensor itself as it does produce some amazing files, to be completely honest. But for me, it was

1. the quality of those files compared to FUJI plus
2. the WORK you had to do in order to get those amazing images.

It was the 2) part that kept me from buying a full blown Nikon digital system, camera AND sensor, when I started my wedding photography business.

As a wedding photographer, skin tones are everything and the Fuji just nails it, in JPEG, every time under almost any lighting conditions.

When I finally decided on the Fuji S3 Pro back in 2005, it was because I kept reading on DPREVIEW forums just one repeating question about Nikon digital SLR cameras:

“How do you tweak your skin tones?”

“What do you do to get good skin colour?”

“What are your camera settings / photoshop tricks to get good skin tones?”

Over and over and over again… tweaking a Nikon to get what you want from it.

I even had a chance to test out a D300s at one point. Not bad. A very good camera. But… I looked at my Fuji colour… then the Nikon… Fuji… Nikon. I realized I still was not getting what I WANTED from the camera as it was. Tweaking… always the tweaking. And I am not talking expected adjustments an corrections. I am talking about getting an overall tone and feel, not just correct colour, straight out of camera.

Granted, in the early days of digital, I think everyone was working those first pixels to get what they wanted compared to film, but I wanted nothing to do with that. I wanted to shoot and get in the can what I was able to do with film and the FUJI S3 came the closest in my opinion and I went with it. (I almost… almost… bought an F100 system if you can imagine.) Pick your body, pick your film. The machine, and the image, were separate (So to speak, glass is important but if the camera is not loaded with film or the sensor dies, there is no photo!) I was not about to compromise on my workflow (Nikon and Fuji film) just because digital came along to up-end the apple cart on the whole photographic industry.

The D3 was a game changer. This is just plain fact… but now also history.

It was just too much $$$ for me at that stage of my business and there was still just something… off about the colour (as far as skin tones go, landscapes are stunning). Even after all the development since the S3, and the S5 being an older system, I just did not trust the D3, for the cost, to get the image quality I wanted… EASILY. I knew WORKING a D3 file to get what I wanted was way easier than before when I was looking at a D2/D200. The colour, the dynamic range, all greatly improved. Nikon truly nailed a product launch with the D3 (especially in low light / high ISO performance). So much so that I believe many Canon shooters switched to the dark side (there is no light for fan-boys). If I could have afforded it, I would have bought a D3 instead of the S5 (2009). I was even close to doing so again in 2011 when I realized there was no FUJI S6 Pro coming down the pipe no matter how much I dreamed about it or what rumors you could find on DPREVIEW. I think Nikon saw the writing on the wall – lots of glass sales, but a lot of Nikon DSLR camera bodies sitting on retail shelves if they gave Fuji even an old D2 body, or even a D300 body, which they still could do and I would buy it in a heartbeat.

So, I have hung onto my S5 well past it’s prime and it has kept up, but the low light/high ISO performance is just not cutting it anymore. And at 6 MP, the resolution is just not there to compete with the other professionals that I am now in camp with. (12 mp would be perfect, 36 is just stupid and Nikon knows better as it championed “it is not the megapixels” with the D2H.)

So here I am again… looking, reviewing… and wanting to find nothing more than those good days in the FUJI S3 forum on dpreview – a ton of posts with nothing but, gasp, PHOTOS on display! No gear talk, no “what is your camera settings” or “what photoshop action did you use.” Just plenty of stunning images with amazing colour and skin tones, straight out of camera jpegs. My first wedding with my S3 Pro? Out of the box, a weekend test to confirm it worked, shot the wedding straight to JPEG. No camera adjustments, no photoshop tweaking other than density, colour cast and saturation, if it needed it. If you go to my website you can still find S3 images in my portfolio!!! I have printed one 4ft by 6 feet and it looks stunning.

I found your killer blog on one of the last links I had googled for Canon 1DX promotional videos (having just watched the Nikon D4 WHY video… and how SOFT… oh hell… out of focus, let’s be honest if that is what “sharp” is with D4 video)… and I am glad I clicked that last link.

The fact Canon tried to sue and shut you down three years ago cemented my already gut feeling about the new lineup of Nikon, full-frame, pro DSLRs and all the criticism you have written about them.

Not gunna do it.

I LOVE NIKON!!!! I love their ergonomics and handling, the glass… the flash system… everything… still do.

But that S5 has got to go and the 1DX is going to be my future system if Nikon does not get their act together. I have not invested in full frame body and glass (well, not a lot anyway) as the S5 is APS-C so this is not a small amount of $$$ we are talking about.

That said… I was wondering if you would do a blog post for me. If Nikon has any sense at all, or just plain fear of bankruptcy as I think these issues are THAT BAD for a company that is PRIMARILY imaging (unlike Canon and its wide R&D and products in other fields)…

If you want to send a message to Nikon as you did to Canon to prove you are no fan boy of anyone… just great cameras and great photos…

Then tell Nikon this.

TOSS THAT $HIT SONY SENSOR AND GET THAT FUJI X-TRANS IN FULL FRAME FROM THE X-Pro1… NOW!!!!

Seriously. With all due respect to Sony, can I be more clear about what I want from Nikon?

And I don’t think I am alone.

Have you seen the shots from the Fuji X-Pro1?

Here are just a few links:

Google search for sample photos.

Fuji X-Pro1 vs Sony NEX-7 vs Olympus OM-D E-M5 – Low Light Test

Check out the low light A$$ DESTRUCTION of the X-Pro 1 in that clip above at the 7:30 mark. Stunning.. just @#$% “Jizz in your pants brilliant.”

Ummm. Maybe. Ummm. Yes. :: Fuji X-Pro 1 Review

And a video on Zack Arias using it.

Here’s one link to a professional D4 wedding shooter who is looking at incorporating the X-Pro 1: (Provisional) Review: Fuji X-Pro 1. As you can see from Ryan’s work here, the D4 does create AMAZING photos. http://www.ryanbrenizer.com/2012/05/review-nikon-d4/

But, why bring along an X-Pro 1 to a friend’s wedding shoot? Is not the D4 enough? And LOOK AT THE COLOUR compared to the X-Pro 1. Can you see what I am talking about? The tone? The feel? There is just… something… about FUJI colour that makes my heart want to hold it forever. Nikon… is just a little… yellow/green. And I know those images from the D4 are not straight-out-of-camera JPEGS. The X-PRO1 images very likely are.

Note the D3 in the camera size comparison shot (Where is his D4? Is the X-Pro 1 BEFORE his D4 purchase?). Note the death of all Sony attempts at setting industry standards (BETAMAX, memory stick, XQD?). Note the smaller, mirrorless system creep-up on all DSLRs for pros. Note that Canon, Sony, and Fuji are all competing in those spaces with their own sensors that they have 100% access to the full image quality from because they design the sensor in-house.

Note to Nikon: You DON’T have a lot of wiggle room here to rest on your reputation and skate over this storm. What happened to the D2H sensor? A 4mp beast that resolved incredibly higher than its MP rating if I am not mistaken. That was Nikon’s in-house sensor… and its development just died. I read a wildlife photographer that picked up a D2H and the files were very good for the time it was developed. With everyone focused on the megapixel race, Nikon focused on quality. Maybe I am a loner again, but I liked the D2H files that I saw from the Nikon website.

What happened?

I love Nikon. I would even take a D4 if given one (actually, I would prefer a D3s if I am being 100% honest), but I am not alone in wanting more from Nikon than it has delivered. This review also swayed my move to Canon and away from the D4.

CANON 1DX VS NIKON D4

For a 16mp, APS-C size sensor in the X-Pro 1, that FUJI X-TRANS would wipe out BOTH Canon and Nikon if they ever… ever… put out even a half respected DSLR body. If you look at their pro-sumer line, they are getting there.

Even Canon shooters are using the X-Pro 1 professionally.

Fuji X-PRO ! REVIEW PART 2

I really like the Canon colour (and may soon love it in the 1Dx) as it has been getting my attention over the years… but still… to date, even with the 1Dx… this is how I dumb-it-down between Nikon and Canon in terms of colour quality.

Nikon… skin tones are chalky, no life, no zest.

Canon… skin tones are milky, like a good white chocolate.

Fuji… skin tones are PERFECT!!!

With my FUJI S5… either I got faster and better at colour correction… or the sensor just NAILS COLOUR/EXPOSURE no matter what light you are in EVERY TIME! I swear, I could shoot a wedding and if I had to, just hand the cards over at the end of the night. The jpegs are THAT good. My assistant was stunned that I shoot straight to JPEG. Or, scared to death if she had to do it to be more accurate. When I went to the S5, I was colour correcting my own work in 1/3 of the time because the files were that much of an improvement over my S3. I am impressed to hear (and see) that some of the 1Dx out-of-camera jpegs are also that good.

But still… that FUJI colour. The Fuji sensor was not perfect. It was softer to be sure, much like the D4, but the X-Pro1 seems to have resolved that issue. I still believe many are saying not for landscapes or true sharp and deep depth of field images. The APS-C size, while amazing, does not compare to full-frame pixel well depth in that regard.

But man… can you just imagine what a full-frame X-TRANS sensor in a Nikon body would create?

I still might go with a 5D Mark III and an X-PRO 1 for weddings. I just don’t know. But that larger pixel well on the 1Dx is what I want. The greater dynamic range and lower noise is not just marketing jargon.

Canon EOS 1Dx Hands-on Review

Scrub to 11:30 in that video if it does not work as the pixel depth and ISO is compared between the 1Dx and the Mark III.

I have done a lot or research on these two cameras. I still want to get a D4 and a 1Dx in my hands for a week to play with if I can. But I suspect… the 1Dx is going to win and sadly, the D4 will confirm all I have so far learned about it from you and others linked above.

As a Nikon shooter, I am seriously concerned this D4/D800 gaff could put Nikon into bankruptcy. Especially with the simultaneous release by Canon of the 1D C cinema camera… and 1D X in one body. This is NOT a normal time in digital photography… the stills+motion movement is coming, and Nikon just might get left behind.

As you noted Nikon finding out via the accounting department – “stiff market competition” and declining sales. And as I pointed out above, Nikon just does NOT have the wiggle room to NOT respond to customers and loyal users. They simply do not have the deep R&D pockets nor capital/corporate base of Canon. I would not be surprised to see FUJI outright purchase Nikon if it gets that bad and if they really want a piece of the pro DSLR market. Being smaller has worked in Nikon’s favour in the past as they have always found a way to do more with less and catapult far in front of other competitors (The D1) by using that smaller company magic of creating outstanding cameras for professionals.

But something has gone wrong. Horrifically wrong by the looks of things. It looks like Nikon decided to relax with the D4 thinking the D3 put them ahead of Canon for good.

I mean come on… in camera HDR is all Joe McNally is asking for… and Canon is the one to do it just for him in the Mark III?

Change… is the only constant.

Kodak thought they had deep enough history and loyalty to survive the digital revolution.

I think Nikon might be at risk of facing the same fate as Kodak if they don’t respond to professional complaints and customer needs.

Thanks again for saving me $10,000+ on Nikon gear I would regret the moment I looked at my first out-of-camera jpeg.

UPDATE 22/3/2013: The Lord of the Speedlights just published his full review of the Fuji X100s. It just confirms everything the letter above already discussed, and then some. Looks like I’ll have to get the finance department here at Canon USA to allocate some budget to get a couple of those babies so I can uh… use them for R&D and uh… competitive analysis. *clears throat*

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens Sample Image and Stuff

Anelisa, oh Anelisa…

I wrote a few weeks ago about a new book on lighting titled “Direction & Quality of Light” by Van Niekerk and I told you all to order it if you know what’s good for you. I’d be a total fucking hypocrite if I didn’t go ahead and order one for myself after telling you to do so. So here’s proof that I did get my own copy. Because it’s fucking good. And not only that, but I ordered my SIGNED copy directly from the vampire slayer himself.

Signed baby, signed.

Those of you paying close attention to the pictures will notice how I strategically placed the book between some of our test gear lying here in my office. I figured Van Niekerk would really appreciate his book surrounded by top quality state of the art Canon gear after everything he had to say about our poor quality control (of which incidentally he’s right). And you have to admit, the Canon logo does look cool next to his signature.

The pictures were shot using the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens. A lot of morons write to me every week about this lens not having IS, despite the fact that this lens is so sharp it could crack your monitor viewing images at 100% as we discussed on this blog before. Just take a look at the 100% crop below.

100% crop, click to enlarge

There’s more to image quality than just IS. So you retards complaining to me had better recognize and stop spamming my goddamn inbox and wasting my bandwidth and hard drive space.

And in case you were wondering, as far as I know, Van Niekerk has no clue who ordered this book and who he signed it for. But I’ll tell you this though, all the pictures of gorgeous women I’m seeing in the book are indeed making me do certain things in new ways, if you know what I mean.

In other news, I’ve been playing for a while now with some of our upcoming bodies. Been having mixed feelings about a lot of things going on here right now. For one, I can’t seem to convince Tokyo about the fucking megapixels they keep stuffing on the new sensors. Then there’s the marketing teams who come up with all kinds of retarded feature sets for new bodies. Who the fuck uses a goddamn 9 point AF system these days? Honestly? Nikon just released the D7100 with a frikkin’ 51 point AF system at $1200! Only 15 cross type points and not very sensitive, admittedly, but at least people have more options compared to our ancient 9 point system, which even made it into the $2000 6D and totally fucked it up. Apparently Tokyo is of the opinion that everyone using a 6D composes pictures with the subject right in the fucking center of the frame every time. People write in asking me which camera to choose and I always recommend the D600 instead of our own 6D. Because that’s how I am and that’s how you guys know me; I’m honest. I hate to bullshit people.

But more on that in another post. I need to spend some time now with a preproduction model of the new 7D.

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 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

Introducing the Nikon 1D Mark III (AKA the piece of shit D800)

The Nikon 1D Mark III (AKA D800)

Even when I’m on a well deserved vacation this God forsaken industry refuses to allow me to get some rest. Here I was trying to relax on the beach on a beautiful sunny day in the Bahamas, quietly sipping some exotic looking drink I can’t remember the name of, when my phone starts going crazy. Facebook, SMS, Email, Whatsapp – fucking everything started giving me notifications while at the same time calls were being diverted from the office as well. Similar to a crazy war veteran, I started getting flashbacks from 2008 when the 1D Mark III debacle was still upon us and started reciting prayers in my mind hoping to God this was not related to issues with the 1DX or 5D Mark III.

Turns out all the fuss was about the piece of shit Nikon D800 and D4 winning the EISA 2012-2013 camera of the year awards. If you ever had any doubt about all these awards and reviews in this industry being nothing more than a big fucking joke, then I’m hoping that this will remove all doubt. Just check this out:

The EISA judges said: “The best professional camera of the year is Nikon’s full frame 16-million-pixel D4, for its ability to deliver the highest image quality even in extremely difficult conditions. Tests performed by EISA magazines found the camera has an exceptional combination of high resolution, wide dynamic range, very low noise levels even at ISO 12800, super-fast autofocus, short response time and high frame rates that can be maintained for very long sequences. The body is rugged and well protected against dust and moisture. The viewfinder delivers a sharp, comfortable and very precise view of what will be recorded. Almost perfect handling makes the D4 very easy and pleasant to use and we especially like the new joystick control that’s available whether the camera is in the horizontal or vertical position. The D4 also delivers very high video quality thanks to its uncompressed output.”

This is just pure hogwash. High video quality? BAHAHAHAHA right, with all the softness, moire and aliasing? Looks like the EISA judges aren’t aware of Philip Bloom’s review:

And highest image quality? With the shitty JPEG engine in both the D4 and D800?? Please, don’t make me laugh. Even the 5D Mark III JPEG images look better than the D4 images:

So, what can be taken away from this test? Well, the 5DIII kicks the daylights out of the D4, no doubt about it. The kickers that make the 5DIII even more superior: it has 6Mp more resolution than the D4 and only costs half as much. Talk about getting bang for your buck!

And also:

After comparing the sets of images in Lightroom and comparing the two cameras, there wasn’t exactly a clear winner. The Nikon D4 seemed to have cleaner highlights, while the Canon 1Dx appeared to have better contrast and possibly cleaner shadows. In the end, if we have to award a point here and pick a winner, it’s the Nikon D4 – by a hair. Still, the Canon 1Dx still has slightly more pleasing colour and overall image tone.

Not to mention the awful as fuck green screen on both the D4 and D800 that makes everyone, including Ken Rockwell, want to shoot with Canon instead:

Matt is not alone in noticing this issue with the Nikon D4, as a simple internet search will instantly reveal many others complaining of the same green screen issue. Matt has actually called Nikon about the issue and feels that Nikon may have been a bit coy in their response when they claimed that this was the first they have heard of it, and boldly claimed that the D4 has a more actuate screen than its predecessors. Maybe Nikon doesn’t have the internet?

Needless to say, the greenish cast that the Nikon D4 exhibits is enough of an issue to put Matt into a big decision scenario; stay with Nikon or switch to Canon? Though there have been reports and claims of fixes and work-arounds to counter the green screen issue, we found that none have been effective in resolving it. Canon has an incredibly enticing system in the 1DX…is it enough to sway Matt away from his beloved Nikon system after over a decade of professional loyalty?

And super-fast autofocus on the D4? Well, certainly these guys seem to disagree with those fucking EISA idiots:

The previous tests were close to call. This wasn’t. The Canon 1Dx ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED the Nikon D4 in the AF speed test. It was almost three times faster than the Nikon. Where the D4 was yielding an average of just under one image per second, the 1Dx was handily snapping three. Even more telling was the hesitation that the Nikon D4 seemed to display, at times not knowing if it should continue to focus forward, or head back. In contrast, the Canon 1Dx just ripped it to shreds, launching it’s AF like a shotgun, sure and confident, every time.
Matt, who has over a decade of experience with Nikon cameras & lenses was absolutely blown away by the Canon performance here. He echoed himself over and over again for hours afterward, saying “I can’t believe how fast that Canon can drive those lenses…”  A clear winner in the Canon 1Dx

No wonder these guys are considering getting the 1DX instead of the D4:

And high resolution? The 1DX wins here with 18MP – 2 MP more than the D4. High frame rates? Again 1DX wins with 14fps compared to 10fps on the D4.

So you tell me: Apart from some obviously huge Nikon cocks, what the bloody fuck are those EISA judges smoking? The 1DX should have been the winner here.

Judges from EISA are seen here testing a Nikon D800 in the field

And then there’s the D800. Oh God, the D800. I’ve spent a number of posts discussing this stinking heap of crap in the past already. First we had those fucking idiots at DxOLabs blatantly misleading everyone with their claims. Now it looks like these morons from EISA also want to join in and continue to mislead the entire fucking industry with the D800, strangely while the press stands by and watches it happen. This is what the fuckwads at EISA would have you believe:

The EISA judges said: “This year’s best camera is the Nikon D800. Its 36-million-pixel full frame sensor offers exceptionally high resolution capture and, according to EISA magazine tests, no compromises have been made to the extent of the camera’s dynamic range or noise levels at high ISO settings. In a compact and reasonably priced, strong and sturdy body, it offers first-rate metering and a 51-point autofocus system developed from the professional D4. The camera has a clear and bright 100% viewfinder that is very precise and comfortable to use even for glasses wearers. The tiny flash can command additional Nikon flash units and delivers just the right amount of fill-in illumination even in complex lighting conditions. The D800E version delivers even higher resolution images without needing any post processing sharpening: the image quality comes close to that of a medium format camera, but with the benefits and versatility of a lightweight 35mm reflex camera.”

No compromises have been made with noise levels at high ISO settings? I beg to differ.

D800 sucks balls

And also:

How can it be that the D800 gets a better score for low light high ISO shooting (2853 ISO), while clearly the 5D Mark III has less noise at the high ISO values????? Clearly there’s something seriously wrong here, and DxOMark is misleading everyone with their overall scores. In the noise graph above the 5D Mark III is in the middle, and when it comes to the scores, suddenly the D800 performs better. But even from the sample pictures above, it’s clear that the D800 performs worse at the high ISO values. So how can it get a higher score for low light shooting on DxOMark??

Don’t forget what Ken Rockwell said:

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is the world’s best digital SLR. It easily lets us create smooth, clean, beautiful and colorful images in any sort of light. It handles much better my cheaper Nikon D800 and D800E; my 5D Mark III handles and sounds smoother, quieter, feels better and makes better-looking images than my Nikon D800E. The 5D Mark III also has the best LCD ever put in a DSLR, while the LCD on my Nikon D800E is smaller in actual use, and most importantly, the Nikon’s LCD isn’t color-accurate. My 5D Mark III LCD is big, bold, bright, sharp, clear, colorful and accurate, and automatically varies its brightness brilliantly for use in any light. (My D800E also has auto LCD brightness control, but doesn’t work well enough to want to use it.)

—

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. It’s a huge improvement over the 5D Mark II due to the improvements from automatic color fringe correction, and the greatly improved power, depth-of-field and playback controls. If you shoot Canon, you deserve one of these.

Obviously those fuckwads at the EISA don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Because the movie mode of the D800 is crap as well, with all the noise, aliasing and moire. This can be seen in Philip Bloom’s review above, but here’s another:

But the shitty green screen LCD, the noisy-ass images and the horribly aliased and moired video are the least of your concerns if the universe hates you so much that today you somehow find yourself owning a D800. A bigger concern for you should be the malfunctioning autofocus system on the D800, that as of right now, is shaping up to become the equivalent of the 1D Mark III debacle for Nikon.

So here you have a camera with a 36MP sensor, that’s so fucking overhyped with regards to the resolution that it supposedly produces (which in reality isn’t that much more compared tot he 5D Mark III), but apparently you can’t actually focus accurately to take advantage of the resolution on the sensor. I have to say, this reminds me of the 5D Mark II which had a similar problem. Fortunately Canon Inc. got their act together with the 5D Mark III, but all of you Nikon morons are now fucked with the D800. Similar to the green screen LCD, Nikon apparently refuses to really acknowledge the autofocus problem on the D800. Nikon whore Thom Hogan already had the following to say about it:

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?

Here’s more from Thom Hogan:

 August 7 updated (commentary)–Consider this email: “I got the estimate today for my D800 AF repair; it’s listed as a B2 repair and they want to charge me $245 for the repair as I did not include the bill of sale. I called and asked them if there were any D800′s out of warranty and they insisted that it was procedure. I was bucked up to a supervisor who also insisted that I needed to send them a bill of sale.”

Let’s see, the camera has a NikonUSA sticker on it, the serial number starts with 30, the camera has only been out for a couple of months, the camera was registered immediately on purchase on the Nikon site, need I say more? In short, Nikon’s customer support has always been on the poor side, but making customers jump through hoops to service a known problem is just pathetic. Oh, did I mention that the person in question was an NPS member and someone who has taught photography for 30 years? Just how many students do you think he might influence as to camera decisions?

Nikon morons are literally filling up the Internet with their complaints regarding the autofocus issues on the piece of shit D800. Here’s a screenshot taken on Nikon Rumors:

Nikon D800 is fucked

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Many loyal customers are now switching to 5d mark III or 1DX due to superior AF  system and better low light capabilities.”

BAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those Nikon morons really need stupid fucks like DxOLabs and EISA to make them feel better about spending their money on the worthless crap that is the D800.

That’s just fucking hilarious. Here’s what Lloyd Chambers has to say:

But after testing today with my D800 and D800E both just back from Nikon, my conclusion remains the same as what I initially showed in my review of the Nikon D800: the D800 /D800E has poor autofocus precision, and that’s with the center focusing sensor, which is the best one (one example). In short, the asymmetry issue is a footnote issue compared to the fundamental problem of poor precision in general.

—

In my testing today under the same conditions, the Canon 5D Mark III + 85mm f/1.2L II achieved both high precision and high accuracy, similar to what I found with the Canon 1D X autofocus. If anything, an ƒ/1.2 lens is more of a challenge than an ƒ/1.4. lens.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lloyd, man, just get a 5D Mark III or a 1DX and throw that piece of shit D800 in the river.

And similarly, you may want to check out this website with a discussion of the D800 issues. Here’s the end result after some failed attempts at getting it fixed:

My choice(s)? Getting rid of a defective product, not bothering to check the My Nikon website each day for reasonable answers that never come, skipping the robotic conversations full of empathy but no meaningful information, not risking an additional failed attempt by Nikon’s Service Center to fix my D800, not wasting my time taking photos of test charts, and using the camera I already have. The good news? My doctor also tells me that, with time, the phenomenon of seeing Siemens Stars everywhere will eventually subside. And if Nikon will reimburse me $73 for the scenic, but fruitless trip my D800 took to Melville, I suspect I will feel even better.

So once again, my D7000 is glad the D800 has left our home. And this time… so am I.

Here are some quotes from the comments:

Nikon’s stupidity and arrogance are beyond belief!…or are they?  As much as I and many respect this site, Thom Hogan, the more sane posters at dpreview, etc., many D800 owners,such as those Thom met in Alaska, have no idea they have a defective camera and a manufacturer whom doesn’t give a damn.
Galbraith is offline, Nikon Reviews is apparently a shill, Kelby is all self-promotion now—who is going to speak up for poorly treated Nikon customers?
It unfortunately seems that there are many cameras Nikon cannot fix with recalibration. If recal was the solution, they would have done it a long time ago. It is a stopgap measure which can improve some cameras, but there must be a major manufacturing/structural error which is so expensive for Nikon to fix or replace, they have decided not to do it. That is why there has been no public statement.
So, if you have a camera they cannot “fix” with recal, Nikon has abandoned you.  What can we do about it?
No class action suit unless someone is injured (your response when I suggested this previously)?  I’m not an expert or a lawyer.
Nikon needs to pay for this, in more ways than one. What can we do?
Those readers who have suggested we need a kinder, gentler response to those nice Nikon people need not apply.

—-

After hearing of the mess Nikon has made of this problem and comparing it to my experience with my first Nikon, the D5000, I am seriously considering selling all of my Nikon equipment and moving to Canon.

—-

I finally got my D800 back from Melville, exactly a month after sending it in due to extremely inconsistent af. I of course had to cover the shipping and insurance costs. I tested it once again and found that it was in much worse condition than before sending it in. Before I sent it in the center point was slightly off and the edges were a complete mess. After receiving it back the edges are slightly better but the rest of it is absolutely horrendous, including the center! The af is so bad that I can even see through the viewfinder that it is not grabbing focus and it goes without saying that the resulting images are completely fuzzed. I am using charts and multiple lenses to test, i.e 24 1.4, 35 1.4, 24-70 2.8 and so forth. I am comparing all my results to lv which is perfect.

Being a full time photographer with multiple Nikon bodies and lenses including the D4, I am somewhat astonished and appalled  by the conversations I have had with Nikon and with the treatment I am receiving.

I wish I had returned my body when I had the chance but wrongly trusted Nikon repair to do the right thing. It’s back in a box heading to Melville yet again and my fingers are crossed that I do not get stuck with a $3000 lemon.

—

My D800 is back from the second repair attempt. The left focus issue is not resolved. Maybe I can return it back to Amazon after 5 months of use … unbelievable …
—
After reading your story and several others in a number of forums I am convinced that I made the right decision when I returned my D800 to the vendor. As much as I like the D800 I cannot bring myself to spend $3k on something with a known defect that Nikon can’t seem to repair.
—
My D800 came back from Melville today UNREPAIRED. El Segundo had it for 19 days and couldn’t fix it. Melville received it Tuesday, overnighted it to me last night and it is still not focusing on the left. This issue was escalated to Nikon’s Sr. Management (I spoke to them on the phone yesterday) and they still could not get it right.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those of you who ended up buying this piece of garbage can try to get sharp images by reading this post of mine.

How to get sharp images with a Nikon D800

What a nightmare for Nikon and all those Nikon morons who bought into the D800 hype. I warned all of you from the very beginning that the D800 was a piece of shit. I warned you, you poor pathetic fools, I warned you. But ya just wouldn’t listen. Some people have emailed me and called me a prophet or psychic, but with my 30 years of experience in this industry, “predicting” this stuff is a piece of cake. I’m not called the Canon Camera Guru for nothing – I fucking earned that title!

And honestly, when Nikon was caught using footage from the 5D Mark II to promote the D800, you had to realize the video quality from the D800 was probably nowhere near good enough to sell the camera. Certainly, as we’ve seen, it sucks compared to the 5D Mark III.

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!

So what do those fuckwads from EISA have to say about this??? Does this camera really deserve a camera of the year award? Honestly? As far as I’m concerned, Nikon can go ahead an rebrand the D800 to become the Nikon 1D Mark III. It fucking deserves that title!

Everywhere you look right now, people are impressed with the 1DX and 5D Mark III, especially with regards to the autofocus system. Both of these cameras are using the new 61-point AF system with 41 cross-type points that just kicks incredible amounts of ass in terms of speed and accuracy.

But there’s something seriously wrong in Europe. Nikon appears to have some strong influence on key organizations and publications in Europe. DxOLabs is one, but EISA clearly is also biased towards Nikon. I’ve already sent an email to Mitarai to have this situation thoroughly investigated.

CLEARLY what you can get out of all of the above, is that the Canon 1DX and Canon 5D Mark III are really the best DSLR cameras available today. Everyone who is honest and isn’t biased or influenced by Nikon says this. You simply cannot come to a different conclusion GOD DAMMIT!!!!1

Now all of you stop bothering me and let me enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Canon 5D Mark III VS Nikon D800 Image Quality – DXOMark Sucks Balls

Nikon Piece of Shit

I’m beginning to have some serious doubts about the future development of the intelligence of our species these days. Seriously. I thought we were making progress but boy was I wrong. Seems like people are getting dumber by the day, especially the Nikon morons. I thought it was pretty clear from my last post that the image quality of the Nikon D800 was fucking awful compared to the 5D Mark III. And not just for stills, but also for movies. The one argument people keep throwing at me every time is that you should down sample the D800 images to the size of the 5D Mark III images to do a fair image quality comparison. It’s fucking pointless to have to down sample images to compare image quality, since the higher megapixel images have more resolution for a reason – people expect to make bigger prints that will still look sharp. But you’d be surprised by the sheer number of fucking morons who don’t seem to get it.

Just to entertain them, I had already done a comparison between the D800 and the 1DX where I had down sampled the D800 images to 18MP in order to “make it a fair comparison” according to the Nikon fuckwads. And the result? The 1DX still kicked the D800′s ass!!!

Now, let’s take a look at the D800E images downsampled to 22MP and compare them to the 22MP images from the 5D Mark III. I chose the D800E because images from the D800E are slightly sharper compared to those from the D800. So I’m even giving the piece of shit D800 an advantage  here.

For this comparison I’m going to use JPEG images from The Imaging Resource. You can find these samples by visiting their Comparometer. We’re going to look at the image below:

Sample from The Imaging Resource

Remember that for this comparison the D800E images are down sampled to 22MP to match the 5D Mark III.

Check out the noise on the D800 image. And why is the 5D Mark III image sharper? Where’s the goddamn fucking resolution on the D800 everyone’s talking about???

Check out the noise on the D800 image.

Check out the noise on the D800 image.

Why is the 5D Mark III image sharper? Where’s the goddamn fucking resolution on the D800 everyone’s talking about???

See that??? Not only is there more noise present on the FUCKING DOWN SAMPLED D800 image, but the 5D Mark III image even seems to be sharper with more detail in some areas!!! All the detail on the D800 gets fucking blurred by the noise reduction, and even then there’s still a lot of noise present in the end! BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

What a fucking joke, Jesus Fucking Christ. God dammit. What a goddamn fucking joke. And what you’ve just seen happens at all ISO values. Remember that this is an image from the D800E, it’s as sharp as it gets for the D800! So you tell me: Is this fucking marginal increase in resolution worth all the extra noise you’re seeing in the images above????? Is it worth the fucking huge diskspace eating files??? Is it worth the slow frame rate??

But think of this, how in God’s name did those cocksucking morons at DxOMark reach the conclusion that the D800 is better at high ISO compared to the 5D Mark III?????? HOW GOD DAMMIT??? HOOOWWWWW?????

Weht jest wan bombaclad minute here, mon! Dees nuh look irie tuh me!?

Dem people ah DxOMark ah fuckan eediats!! A wha kinda fuckery da?!?!

But seriously, the sight of these results on DxOMark instantly had me cursing like Joe McNally.  Just WHAT THE FUCK is going on here? It should be fucking obvious to anyone that the 5D Mark III image quality is better compared to the D800. How the fuck does DxOMark end up with results showing better low light performance for the D800?!?!?!?!?! Especially when their own fucking noise graph shows otherwise??????????

5D Mark III has less noise compared to the D800

Not to mention that even on DPReview the RAW image comparisons show the same shit.

D800 sucks balls

And the thing is, this fucking worthless bullshit data from DxOMark is making its way into other comparison websites like Snapsort, and thousands of users are being misled and misinformed right now!!!!

Snapsort uses the fucking bullcrap data from DxOMark

And where’s the press for fuck’s sake???? I only saw Dan Havlik from PDN briefly mention this on Twitter a while back. The press had better start questioning DxOMark about this fucking mess.

Honestly, if I was a heart patient I would have fucking died by now. In fact my blood pressure hasn’t been this high since the great 1D Mark III debacle of 2008. If it’s not fucking Canon Inc. that’s pissing me off, it’s the goddamn fucking morons in this God forsaken industry.

I’m going to get fucking wasted now. Any more of this and I’ll end up in fucking intensive care tonight.

**********************************

UPDATE: If you’re considering buying a D800, READ THIS FIRST!!!

**********************************

5D Mark III Selling like Hotcakes while Nikon Fanboys Attack

Nikon Fanboys swarmed the blog, again

See the graph above? The last time this happened was when I posted about how fucked the Nikon D800 is. This latest spike in traffic is in response to my post yesterday about DxOMark sucking balls, and more specifically how the 5D Mark III trashes the D800.

It would seem as if the average IQ in the Nikon camp is at an all time low these days. The comments leave a lot to be desired. Then there’s the emails accusing me of all kinds of crap. Do you people honestly think I love bashing the D800? I don’t give a fuck about the D800. This is not about the D800. It’s about letting Canon Inc. know our users are not going to love the megapixel shit that’s currently going on at Nikon. Tokyo had better recognize we’re going to go fucking batshit insane on their ass if they go down the D800 route. It’s more than clear what the drawbacks are of so many megapixels. It’s fucking pointless. If I had anything to say about it, the sensor in the 5D Mark III would have been the same 18MP sensor from the 1DX and we’d have even cleaner image quality on the 5D Mark III.

I just updated the DxOMark blog post with yet another video showing why people love the 5D Mark III and choose that instead of the piece of shit D800:

Listen carefully to this guy’s conclusion and why he went with the 5D Mark III. It’s all about low noise and better image quality. And as I have shown yesterday, the 5D Mark III is way better in this area than the D800. Sure, the D800 has better dynamic range at low ISO, but it’s too bad that the extra megapixels make all the dynamic range worthless in the end. Plus it’s a goddamn tragedy that Nikon can’t seem to nail something as basic as the correct white balance in 2012. This was also quite apparent in the review done by The Camera Store.

So I’m not surprised one bit that the 5D Mark III’s are selling like hotcakes right now. Just check the sequence of tweets below (screenshot taken moments ago), within a matter of minutes all stock at B&H was gone.

5D Mark III selling like hotcakes

Plus, you might also like to read this tweet:

According to a major retailer, the 5D Mark III has outsold the D800 25 to 1. I guess that’s all that matters in the end.

Get that?? 25 to fucking 1. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Recogniiiiize!

5D Mark III, D800, D4 – DXOMark Sucks Balls

I just got off of the phone with Mitarai. We had a lengthy discussion about the imaging division at Canon and the way we’re heading right now with EOS. We also discussed some of the more recent issues and the need for better quality control. Things are looking very good for the future right now at Canon especially now that he took over again from Uchida.

It’s been very hectic around here recently and I just couldn’t find enough time to update the blog. There was NAB and the whole launch of the EOS C500 and 1DC cameras and a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes. Plus the press was all over me for weeks. Everyone wanted a piece of the “legendary” Chuck Westfall. I felt like a Hollywood celebrity. And it’s fun, I have to admit, but it can really wear you down. I’ve felt exhausted for weeks. Fortunately I’ve had some time to rest and as you can see I’m back on the blog to address some really burning issues.

First let me get the NAB interview issues out of the way. Here’s an interview Engadget did with me:

I was fucking pissed off when I saw the interview on their website later that day. Those guys seriously need to get some lessons in how to properly do video interviews. First of all, only my mouth is constantly in the frame. If you’re going to interview someone as important as me, at least make sure my face is fully visible in the goddamn frame. Secondly, the sound is fucking horrible. This is so disappointing for such a big website like Engadget. I’ve seen small bloggers do videos with better sound! Very disappointing production values from Engadget.

Dan Chung from DPreview did a much better job interviewing me here:

Framing was good, audio much better, but I almost punched him in the face when he kept repeating how expensive the 1DC is to him. He said it once, what’s the fucking point of repeating it constantly? What the hell did he expect me to say? If you don’t have the money, simply don’t buy it for fuck’s sake! It’s not like Canon Inc. is begging or forcing you to buy it, okay? Just fucking get a 60D or something. Or a Digital Rebel. Anything! But don’t annoy me by constantly whining about the price of the 1DC while recording it! I’m warning you – and this goes to all of you in the press – if you want to get punched in the face the next time you interview me, just repeat Dan Chung’s performance in this video!

Mitch from Planet5D did a much, much better interview with me. You can really tell I enjoyed talking to Mitch during this interview.

And then there was this interview with Scott Bourne from Photofocus.

Scott made me feel really important and powerful, legendary even, and I especially loved the intro. Thanks Scott, looking forward to seeing you again!

Now, on to a more important issue. Those fucking ganja smoking Europeans at DxO Labs are at it again. While everyone expected the 5D Mark III to score at least as good as, and possibly even better, than the Nikon D800 and Nikon D4, it scored far lower on DXOMark. Just look at this sad picture:

I’ve said it before 3 years ago, and I’m not going to repeat myself:

Go ahead and believe those morons at DxO Labs if you want to. Who are you going to believe? A bunch of ganja smoking Europeans who don’t have anything to do and slapped up a website with some “data” to kill some time, or your own eyes? And get this, according to them the Nikon D90 has a better sensor compared to the Canon EOS 5D? Daat’s riiight, mon! When you ees high, ewrytheeng ees possybal!

Honestly, can the 5D Mark III score so much lower than the piece of shit D800? We’ve already established and discussed to death on this blog the fact that the D800 is a piece of shit camera:

• The Nikon D800: Less than meets the eye
• Nikon D800 VS Canon EOS 1DX Image Quality
• The Nikon D800 is fucked

But since a lot of people apparently seem to go through life completely brain-dead, let’s fucking take a look at it again.

First of all, even DXOMark shows that the 5D Mark III has lower noise compared to the D800.

5D Mark III has less noise compared to the D800

From the graph you would think that the difference in noise performance between the 5D Mark III and the D800 isn’t that big. But once you look at some sample images, you see how big the difference is. The noise on the D800 is fucking terrible. Here’s a comparison of RAW images on DPReview:

D800 sucks balls

That’s just nasty. It’s even slightly worse than the 7D. And this is at ISO 3200 but essentially this is a problem at all ISO values. And don’t forget the color dithering and image banding which we had already discussed in a previous post:

BAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And in JPEG mode the 5D Mark III is sharper than both the D800 and even the D4. Where the fuck is all the supposedly extra resolution on the D800?

Soft and muddy piece of shit image quality of the D800

The comparison above is from DPReview, at ISO 6400. But at all ISO values the 5D Mark III images are sharper in JPEG mode. Apparently both the D800 and D4 have some kind of shitty JPEG processing engine. We had already seen that the 5D Mark III has better image quality than the D4.

Here’s a comparison from Cameralabs that clearly shows the cleaner and sharper images from the 5D Mark III in JPEG mode:

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

The noise on the D800 is so bad, that even in Live View it becomes an issue when trying to focus in low light situations:

D800 Live View Sucks Balls BAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!!1

To be fair, the sensor in the D800 is better when it comes to dynamic range at low ISO values:

Meh.

But what’s the use of more dynamic range when there’s also more noise, color dithering and banding and when the JPEG images are fucking soft? The amount of detail you can get out of the shadows is pretty impressive at ISO 100 on the D800, but at higher ISO values the noise is going to become a problem. And as you can see, above ISO 800 the 5D Mark III actually takes over with better dynamic range. Combined with the lower noise, the 5D Mark III is definitely the better camera for low light shooting (think events, weddings, concerts etc. etc.).

And with the superior AF system on the 5D Mark III even in low light, and the higher frame rate, the 5D Mark III is a definite winner. The review below clearly shows the difference between the AF systems of the 5D Mark III and D800.

There’s also the review of the 5D Mark III by Kay from DigitalRev that caught my attention. I think everyone else should take this review as an example. In general I think all camera review videos should contain more young pretty asian girls. Especially if it’s a review of a Canon camera. Please do take notes.

Those of you who know me personally know that I have a thing for asian women. Hell, I’ve been married to one for years now.

Holy hell

There’s just something about asian women that drives me crazy. They look so.. exotic. I’ve never been able to quite put my finger on it. But anyway, you’ll note that the 5D Mark III easily locked focus on the subject in the review. Although I must admit that this was not a particularly challenging situation for the AF system. I know for a fact that I would have easily locked focus on the subject myself, had I been there. Ahem.

Photographer Ryan Brenizer riverdanced his way through a wedding recently with the 5D Mark III and raved about the AF system on the camera being better than even the D3s.

Has Canon finally fixed the autofocus in the 5D line? In a word? Abso-freaking-lutely. The autofocus is accurate, fast, and a pleasure to use — in some ways moreso than the Nikon D3s. I immediately turned off all sensors except the extra-sensitive cross-type sensors — and still had 41 left! Combined with the joystick, I never have to play the focus and recompose game very much unless I want my point of focus to be at the very edge of the frame. And even then I can get it close enough to not compromise the accuracy of my focal plane, which can matter when you’re shooting with a lens like the 50mm f/1.2L

Not surprising given that the AF system on the 5D Mark III is the same one from the 1DX. The only significant issue Brenizer had was with the lower dynamic range in the images from the 5D Mark III, but only when significantly pushing the exposure in post.

Sir Philip Bloom of London did an excellent review of the video capabilities of the 5D Mark III, check it out below.

Bloom recently also compared the video capabilities of the 5D Mark III to the D800 and D4, and the 5D Mark III is the clear winner as far as I’m concerned. The only issue Bloom had with the 5D Mark III is the soft video out of the camera, but which can be sharpened to become quite excellent in post. Compare that to the “too damn soft” video on the D4 which remains crap even in post and the fucking horrible aliasing and moire on the D800 with lots of noise at higher ISO values that you’ll never be able to fix in post even if Jesus himself was assisting you. Here’s what Bloom had to say about the D800:

It does have some downsides to it. I was very very scared when I heard about the really high megapixel count of 36 megapixels. It’s absolutely insane! I don’t need that for stills and I certainly don’t want it for video. And the low light performance does suffer because of that.

Again, up yours DxO Labs!!!!

The winner, also for video: 5D Mark III!

However, the best part of the above comparision by Bloom is really the absolutely lovely Diana:

Yeah that’s right, get her drunk Philip!

When Diana appeared on screen I lost all interest in what Bloom was talking about. I believe he said something about the noise on the cameras but I can’t be sure. The audio just got completely blurred out in my mind. All I cared about was Diana. I immediately fell in love. She is so cute it hurts to watch this whole comparison sequence. I’ll be forever grateful to anyone who can send me her email address and a link to her Facebook profile. Who cares about the noise performance of any goddamn DSLR when Diana is on screen? Honestly? Even with the horrible noise on the D800 Diana still looks absolutely gorgeous! And when you watch this sequence, pay attention to how Bloom gets her to drink bottle after bottle of beer. You’ll even see her on screen going “Drink again now?”, no doubt responding to Bloom’s frequent requests to keep taking another sip. Nice going there Philip, this is a really great way to get a girl drunk. Bastard. You shagged her didn’t you? Don’t fucking lie to me, man! You got her drunk, declared the shoot a wrap and brought her to your hotel room, didn’t you!? You lucky bastard.

Seeing as how the D800 performs worse compared to the 5D Mark III when image quality is concerned, both for stills AND video (noise, softness), you tell me how the fuck those cock sucking morons at DxO Labs ended up with such a high score for the D800 sensor? Someone please tell me, because for the life of me, I’ll never be able to figure it out. Nikon probably paid a load of money to DxO Labs and possibly signed some long term advertising contracts and sponsorship deals to be able to position the D800 and D4 so high above the 5D Mark III. No other explanation makes sense.

When reviewing all the information above about both the 5D Mark III and the D800, it should be quite clear to anyone that the 5D Mark III wins. Overall it is the best camera to have for both stills and video and the image quality is clearly superior in both cases.

DxO Labs can take their fucking worthless sensor database and cram it up their ass!

UPDATE 14 May 2012:

I just saw this comparison video of the 5D Mark III and the D800. Pay attention to the conclusion, especially you Nikon morans! Check it out:

See why that guy chose the 5D Mark III instead? Because of the great fucking image quality! Nikon can’t even handle something as basic as white balance correctly for Christ’s sake. And the aliasing and moire are fucking horrible. Plus the 5D Mark III’s AF is better.

An Interview with Yours Truly

Mitch from Planet 5D got his 5D Mark III before me. I hate him for that.

The 5D Mark III is currently getting into the hands of people around the world, and initial reactions are very positive, as you would expect. This camera is the best Canon has ever released, period. IT FUCKING ROCKS.

Don’t believe me? It’s even better than the Nikon D4. But don’t take my word for it. Check this out:

So, what can be taken away from this test? Well, the 5DIII kicks the daylights out of the D4, no doubt about it. The kickers that make the 5DIII even more superior: it has 6Mp more resolution than the D4 and only costs half as much. Talk about getting bang for your buck!

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed if you’re a Nikonian, you may want to cry. Hell, forget crying just perform seppuku on yourself and skip the misery that lies ahead of you for the coming years. How the mighty have fallen! Canon is kicking so much ass in this industry right now it’s fucking incredible.

Mitch from Planet5D somehow got a retail copy of the 5D Mark III before me. And as the caption on the picture above says, I hate him for that. Because that’s what you do when people get a 5D Mark III before you. You hate the crap out of them! I’ve got mine on pre-order with the good folks at Adorama. Last I heard I’m #1,239,545 in line. I’ve already spoken to the very sensual, the verri toit, Helen Oster from Adorama to get me my stuff fast. Important people like me shouldn’t have to wait this long for a 5D Mark III goddammit.

I have more on the 5D Mark III in an interview I did recently with Aputure, you can read the whole interview here. Here’s some from the interview:

What inspired this blog? You seem to put a lot of time/effort into each post.  

I and many others in this industry got frustrated with Canon more than 3 years ago around the time of the great 1D Mark III debacle. Many ancient civilizations had foretold a time of great upheaval at Canon which would occur in our lifetime during the coming of the new age of Aquarius. And I think that’s what we started experiencing back then. It was a major change in our collective consciousness at Canon. Continue reading…

The previous interview was a while ago with Black Star, for those of you who’re new to the blog and missed it.

That’s it for now, I need to get back to testing my 35mm f/1.4L II.