I like the way that the colors of the sky reflect off the wet sand. Photographed on January 9, 2009.
All posts by Andrew
Sand Patterns
I really liked the texture of the sand at low tide. This image was taken in twilight, and I’ve intentionally kept it quite dark. Photographed on January 9, 2009.
Moon Reflection
The moon was rising when I was at the coast yesterday, so I thought I would experiment with capturing its reflection in one of the tidepools. Photographed on January 9, 2009.
Barnacle Sunset
I made it out to the coast this evening and was treated to a wonderful sunset. It was low tide, and I felt that this barnacle-encrusted rock would make for a good foreground subject. Photographed on January 9, 2009.
Purple Moon
I liked the way the moon looked against the twilight sky. Even with a 500mm lens, I still had to crop the image significantly to get this composition. Photographed on January 3, 2009.
Firmware update fixes 5D Mark II black dots problem
Good news! Canon just released a firmware update for the 5D Mark II, and it looks like the black dots problem is fixed. Before installing the new firmware, I setup my camera and a test subject and took a series of images. Then I installed the new 1.0.7 firmware without moving the camera and reshot the same images. You can see the comparisons below.
(The swatches are bigger than in the original test from a few weeks ago, because apparently I had my camera closer to the subject this time. I didn’t notice until afterwards, and there’s no way to rollback the firmware and reshoot.)
| Original (1.0.6) firmware | New (1.0.7) firmware | |
| ISO 100 |  |
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| ISO 200 |  |
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| ISO 400 |  |
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| ISO 800 |  |
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| ISO 1600 |  |
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| ISO 3200 |  |
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| ISO 6400 |  |
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| ISO 12800 |  |
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| ISO 25600 |  |
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So it looks like everything is okay. Hopefully people who photograph city lights and other problematic subjects will confirm my findings with real-world images.
Update: Just a word of caution…I normally wait a little while before installing new software, just in case the update actually introduces new problems. This time I rushed in so that I could serve as a guinea pig. Things seem to be fine so far, but if you aren’t bedeviled by black dots you might want to wait a week or two and see what happens.
5D Mark II firmware updated to 1.0.7
Canon has just released updated firmware for the 5D Mark II. This is supposed to fix the black dots problem. I’m going to install the firmware this evening and will post again once I’ve tested to see if the black dots are gone. Here’s the download page.
Flood Reflections
The fields around the local wildlife refuge tend to flood in winter…part of what makes it a good haven for birds. After the recent bouts of snow and rain, the water was particularly high and I wanted to take advantage of the reflections from the sunset. Here I’ve included the reflection of the fence as well. Photographed on January 3, 2009.
Redwing Blackbird
I really like redwing blackbirds. The light could be better here, but I still thought it was a pleasant photo. Hopefully I can work with them again at this same location and make some stronger images. Photographed on January 3, 2009.
Paw Detail
It’s a little unusual, but I liked this close-up detail of a dog’s paw. Photographed on January 3, 2009.