Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anyone have experience with the Canon EOS 30D?

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-23-2006, 08:27 PM:

I will be trying the EOS 30D next week shooting a friends wedding with it. Since I get to try it before I buy it I thought I'd ask if anyone here has any expereince with using one??? Reccomend or not? Good or bad aspects???

Also my Photoshop 5.0 is getting old (ok decrepid!) and what plug in if any can I use to take advantage of the RAW file that this camera also puts out?

Thanks!
Mark

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-23-2006, 09:55 PM:

Adobe Photoshop 5.0 cannot handle RAW to my knowledge. Even Adobe CS handles RAW pretty crappily with a plug-in unless Canon has their own proprietary plug-in that I don't know about (all RAW is not created equally). Canon's RAW manager in their image browser is far more versatile in my experience. It lets you switch white balance between all of the different camera white balance modes, adjust exposure (just like the camera would) and all that crap. RAW basically means that it is the exact image straight from the CCD before processing. Once you get it looking OK in the Canon program you can export as a TIF and import into Photoshop -1.0. It is kind of a pain in the ass to go through these steps in a different program, but it is worth it.

JPEGs are retarded unless they are for the web. Avoid.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-24-2006, 12:16 AM:

Thanks Joe for that detailed answer... I'm looking foreword to putting this camera through its paces. I agree on JPED... but then JPEG 2000 might also be worth looking at... since we will all be looking at it sooner or later.

Mark

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-24-2006, 12:20 AM:

Another item to consider: Adobe Lightroom.

The current Beta is now available to download for both Mac and Windows users. The first Mac-only Beta was already proving itself to be a better tool for handling RAW images than Apple's Aperture. The final "gold code" product should be available for sale by the end of the year (in both Windows and Universal Binary Mac formats).

The Canon EOS 30D is supported in the latest Windows-based beta of Adobe Lightroom.

I don't know if the final "flattened" images from Lightroom (in standard RGB-8, RGB-16 or RGB-32 formats) will require PhotoshopCS2. Photoshop 5.0 had very limited capability for 16-bit per channel color. PhotoshopCS2 has quite a bit more room for handling "high dynamic range" image data, such as that which comes from RAW-based images. If you're doing professional, paid work then PhotoshopCS2 would be an extremely worthwhile investment.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-24-2006, 08:48 AM:

Thanks Bobby!

I've downloaded Lightroom but where can I download some RAW images to work with?

Mark

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-24-2006, 05:37 PM:

I would send you some but 7.2 megapixel RAW images can be upwards of 8 MEGABYTES!!!!! OMG!!!! Just so you know, RAW generally uses a 4:1 or maybe even 5:1 compression.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-24-2006, 07:01 PM:

The compression level may really be only 2:1. Honestly, that's as good as lossless data compression gets for any kind of data, be it imagery, audio or other archival data. Some variant of LZW is usually in use.

RAW images are not widely available for download on the Internet because nearly all are very proprietary. Nearly all RAW image files have unique hooks to the specific camera model used to capture the original RAW image. This is why applications like Aperture and Lightroom must support many different kinds of D-SLR cameras and add support for newer models in different point release updates.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-24-2006, 09:16 PM:

According to the Canon manual, RAW files use approximately 4:1 compression (compared to an uncompressed RGB TIFF) and are lossless.

Anyway, HERE is a RAW image file for you to download and play with. It is 6.45MB and is something I just snapped right now. It is a one second exposure and handheld, so it may be a touch blurry. This is from the Canon Powershot S70 camera, which kicks ass.