Hi Jeff,

I can tell you that my year old iMac at HQ is noticeably faster than my four year old dual quad MacPro Tower, and thats' before you factor Thunderbolt interface into the equation. I love my 30" Cinema monitor but the funny thing is, when I calibrate my monitors (Cinema, 27" iMac, 17" MacBook Pro) I like the color and tonal qualities of the Adobe 1998 stock setting much more. After quite a bit of attention to color calibration, I've set everything back to Adobe 1998 and am very happy, as are my designer clients.

My dual quad/30" tower set up will most likely be going away in the first quarter of 2013. Probably would have gone away yesterday during my trip to the Apple store, but they had nothing off the shelf, and you have to order the really top shelf performance stuff from Cupertino anyway. Now I'll wait for Zim's thoughtful analysis before I upgrade.

I have been running some tests on the 1DX bodies, and my suspicions have been confirmed. Utilizing the highest speed drive setting does aggravate the crud on the sensor problem. Beginning with a spotless sensor if you shoot a burst of high speed images, the upper left corner of the images show progressively more particulate. A similar volume of images shot at a slower drive setting does not accelerate particulate build up on the sensor. I think it's a combination of mirror actuation lubricant and dust being stirred up by the rapid mirror movement.

My findings are going to influence how often I take advantage of the high speed buffer in the X bodies, because it creates a ton of additional Photoshop work and in most cases, I just don't need 14fps.

JWilsonphoto wrote:
I have been running some tests on the 1DX bodies, and my suspicions have been confirmed. Utilizing the highest speed drive setting does aggravate the crud on the sensor problem. Beginning with a spotless sensor if you shoot a burst of high speed images, the upper left corner of the images show progressively more particulate. A similar volume of images shot at a slower drive setting does not accelerate particulate build up on the sensor. I think it's a combination of mirror actuation lubricant and dust being stirred up by the rapid mirror movement.

My findings are going to influence how often I take advantage of the high speed buffer in the X bodies, because it creates a ton of additional Photoshop work and in most cases, I just don't need 14fps.

I was cleaning my bodies the other day and I accidentally looked through my loupe without locking up the mirror and discovered that the mirror had a ton of dust on it. I never notice that looking through the camera but now I'm wondering if the dust isn't promptly migrated onto the sensor as you're surmising, Jim. Without a complete mirror box cleaning (which I haven't been doing all that often) I'll bet that cleaning the sensor is only good for a couple of shots before some crud comes off of the mirror and gets attracted to the sensor.

Rob

Happy new year everyone...wishing you all the best pixels in 2013


Happy New Year by Steven Szabo, on Flickr

JWilsonphoto wrote:
My findings are going to influence how often I take advantage of the high speed buffer in the X bodies, because it creates a ton of additional Photoshop work and in most cases, I just don't need 14fps.

Have you been able to figure out if there is a specific fps point at which the crud stays away? Makes me wonder as I have my eye on the rumors for the 7D Mk2 and it having 10fps.

Been hammering through Petit pics all weekend. Still have not made it to race day yet.

Tim,

Love them Protype/LMP1/porsche/Ferrari images my friend.

Keep em comin...

Xmas & hot summer, = Motorsport drought here in Aussie...

Shot some Images of the Errikson Skycrane, "Malcolm" as it sat on the tarmac here in town on standby on Boxing day. Aussie Bushfire season is about to start, record wet year equals record pasture growth, now coupled with a dry finish to winter & a hot dry summer its going to be a bushfire bonanza, we have 6 Erriksons in Aussie on standby at the moment, 1 in Sydney, 2 in Melbourne, 1 in Adelaide 1 in Perth & 1 here in Wagga, I really hope we dont need them.
Went up into the mountains yesterday for New Years day, we have a Rodeo held in a small town up there, this is the 68th year.
Took my 300f2.8 got some great shots on Steer wrestlin & used my 70-200 for the Horse & Bullriders, lovin my 1D4....
Ill post a few in the next few days.

Al

Tim Adams wrote:
Been hammering through Petit pics all weekend. Still have not made it to race day yet.


Tim - I have a hard time deciding if I like your racing air better than your racing ground. They are both tremendous portfolios. The #67 monochrome Porsche is terrific

I've been playing around with a few 2012 images today and like this capture.

Happy New Year all!!

Have those of you who are backing up to DVDs considered burning onto blu-ray discs, which are supposed to hold 50gb of data?

2012's in the rear view...



Happy New Year everyone!

Chris

Great shot Chris! Happy New Year to you as well.

Jeff that image just keeps getting better!

Dear Rob,

You are spot on my friend. A few weeks ago when I was out of Visible Dust tools, and I observed exactly what you described. I'd have the sensor clean as a whistle, then I'd go out and shoot a half dozen frames of the sky. When I would pull the images up on the computer screen, there was dust back on the sensor. I'm sure it was coming from the mirror chamber because it wasn't oil it was dust. Visible Dust has swabs and Chamber Clean for just that reason. The best procedure is to clean the chamber, then the sensor. The other thing I learned, and it makes sense, is it's darn near a hopeless task to clean either of those things in dry winter air but we gotta do what we gotta do.

Chris: Is that what your year in review video has been reduced to?

Good to see you on here Warner - hope to see you at an actual airshow this year buddy!

DanNehmer wrote:
Jim,

I'm doing this for a hobby and can't keep up on the DVD's and one external HD. I can't imagine you're logistics, especially with the D800. I just purchased an second external HD, and will keeping it off site in the safe deposit box. I'm hoping one HD on site, the computer it's self and a second HD off site should be sufficient for my purposes. Plan to swap HD's (offsite with the onsite) once a month to keep each current.

Dan

That's what I do, currently I manage to squeeze everything on one 1.5TB drive, which I duplicate and keep the second offsite. But I'm creating images faster than the price of storage is going down. So I don't think I'll be able to stay with a single drive much longer.

I could retire the two 1.5 TB drives as mirror images of one another and then start over with 3TB or so, but those 1.5TB drives won't get much exercise and I'll be worried about them. I guess that's where I'll need to start looking at an array.

Mark

That's what I do, currently I manage to squeeze everything on one 1.5TB drive, which I duplicate and keep the second offsite. But I'm creating images faster than the price of storage is going down. So I don't think I'll be able to stay with a single drive much longer.

I could retire the two 1.5 TB drives as mirror images of one another and then start over with 3TB or so, but those 1.5TB drives won't get much exercise and I'll be worried about them. I guess that's where I'll need to start looking at an array.

Mark

Mark,

I was thinking when the two drives were full I would retire and then start a second set for the next 1Tb of pictures. Figured that if one failed, both wouldn't. Wasn't thinking to up size the drive to keep all data on one drive but that opens an interesting question. Will "retired" drives fail and leave the data locked on an old drive? Anyone have an opinion as I will likely have to cross that bridge next year?

Dan

It is a constant logistical challenge. With this latest 5D, I'll have 105 TB at home, the same at HQ and another 80 TB on hard drives packed in bubble pack at a third site. Once I get the newest 5D configured and loaded, I'll know if I'm covered for the next year. Yes, I'm paranoid beyond reason., but just because your paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not after you....

Glenn Watson wrote:
Chris: Is that what your year in review video has been reduced to?



2 years in a row... no video

Well I think we can forgive that seein as how the past two years kind of seem like 6 months.