I’ve received at least one email, and now a comment about sudden flash death induced by or related to LPA design’s Control TL PocketWizards. Moreover, a recent post on Canon rumors has a link to a paper, purportedly produced by LPA Design employees summarizing their investigation into flashes failing.
LPA design claims to have received reports from 120-140 customers that their 580EX II flashes, has been damaged within the past 18 months with similar symptoms. The symptom specifically is the inability for the damaged flash to produce controlled bursts. Lacking the ability to control the output, the flash will make a full power discharge all the time, even for TTL pre-flashes.
TLDR, The Brass Tacks
The potential exists with at least Canon’s 580Ex II and possibly Nissin’s Di866 (I’ve received a report of a Nissin Di866 being fried in a similar manner) flashes that a failure can occur.
The failure doesn’t appear to be related to heat buildup, so AC-5 soft shields aren’t a problem.
The failure appears to be strongly related to an electrical arc formed between the flash tube and the flash’s reflector, eventually frying the controller.
Replacing the fired controller, doesn’t fix the problem, and the flash will die again, even if it’s never used with a PocketWizard.
LPA Design claims that failures have happened to less than 0.5% of the MiniTT1/FlexTT5 units, and less than 1% of 580EXII flashes connected.
From my interpretation of the LPA design report, the problem lies in the flash and not the PocketWizards.
Moreover, it seems that if your flash exhibits defects that lead to the failure use becomes a consideration. In LPA Design’s tests, the arcing occurred randomly, even in HSS discharges where you would expect to see it in every “pop”.
Finally, it’s entirely likely that as many 580EX II flashes are failing on users who aren’t using PocketWizards at all, but we’re not hearing about it since they either aren’t being used as much or simply are being considered a case of random broken equipment by the users.
A Deeper Analysis
The LPA investigation tracked down the problem to 2 main areas. First, the failure is ultimately noticed when the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) that controls the actual flow of current to the flash tube dies. Secondly, it appears that the IGBT dies due to repeated arcing between the flash tube and the reflector behind it.
It’s that time again, time for Canon’s spring product announcements. The big, at least for me, announcement is a 200-400mm lens. However, Canon is also bringing to market a 2 new consumer level SLRs and a pair of new low end flashes.
Call this a day late and a dollar short. I’m not big or important enough for Canon to give prior notice to, so my comments are limited to what I can glean after the embargo’s end and the press releases go up.
Overall, Canon has put forward a couple of solid looking entry level cameras, finished replacing their new stabilized super-telephoto primes, and released a pair of low-end flashes, one with some very intriguing features. Moreover, Canon is clearly continuing to treat video support as a first class citizen in their SLRs by adding features that make sense and continuing to refine and improve the way you can use it.
Nikon Compatible PocketWizards are Shipping to Dealers
LPA Design has begun shipping their MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 ControlTL PocketWizards for Nikon cameras to dealers in Europe and Canada. US versions are expected to follow in 2 weeks and be available on store shelves in mid-December.
Rob Galbraith has an indepth preview of the Nikon ‘Wizards available. I’ve also updated my review with the few applicable notes on the differences between Nikon and Canon versions.
Version 1.35 of PocketWizard Utility now Available
In addition to the release of Nikon compatible hardware, there’s also a new version available for the PocketWizard Utility, which attempts to simplify the UI and adds some much needed functionality.
Version 1.35 of PocketWizard utility adds a number of useful features including:
Saving and Loading device settings to your computer.
Streamlining firmware updates by
Saving your device configuration automatically
Performing a factory reset when the firmware flash is completed automatically
Prompting you to restore you configuration, automatically
Simplified UI by hiding advanced configuration options from the default UI
All of the above changes are welcomed updates if you ask me.
New MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 PocketWizard Beta Firmwares
Firmware version 5.206 for the MiniTT1 and 5.207 for the FlexTT5 brings the following improovments.
Operation when swapping an AC3 ZoneController onto or off from a MiniTT1 or FlexTT5
while the radios are powered on and the camera is awake has been improved.
Improved modeling light sleep behavior with the PowerST4.
Corrected AC3 operations so that exposures at the shutter speed just above X-sync are
now proper.
Improved operation of an AC3 on a transmitter on a 1D Mark IV.
Added logic for better detection of a flash in the top shoe that is slow to become
ready (low batteries).
Remote camera triggering logic has been further improved.
Improved operation with the 5D Mark II when making fast aperture changes.
Eliminated banding on the 5D Mark II and 7D for the first HSS exposure.
Many improvements implemented for operation with the new PocketWizard Utility.
Keep in mind, however, that version 5.206 and 5.207 are beta releases and won’t be avaiable unless you’ve opted into the beta firmware program. They also require version 1.35 of the PocketWizard Utility to download and install.
What is it with camera companies coming up with a great idea, developing it then stopping one killer feature away from completing it? The latest example of this, well at least in my opinion, is Fuji’s new Finepix X100.
I’ve been mulling this camera over since it was announced on the 20th, and I have to say, it’s hard not to get excited about it. The X100 is a near-compact camera that is clearly aimed squarely at the serious photographers.
Actually, the Finepix X100 is, to me, a hairs breath away from being the digital Leica M for those of us that can’t afford a Leica M9.
The design is pure “reto” genius. If there ever were a camera that packaged the sensibilities that made rangefinders attractive into digital body while preserving the functionality, this would be it.
The X100’s design sensibilities are straightforward and follow and in many ways that makes for some strong queues that the X100 is targeting serious photographers.
It’s fall, Photokina 2010 is coming up, and just a week ago Nikon announced their fall new products. Today, it’s Canon’s turn.
EOS 60D: High Low-End, not Low High-End
First up is the impressive as a consumer class camera, but maybe not so much as a replacement for the EOS 50D. What’s gone is the Aluminum/Magnesium body, the 6.3 FPS frame rate, AF micro adjustments, and compact flash cards.
Out with the old in with the new. New to the EOS 60D, among other things, is:
A 63-zone color sensitive meter
+/- 3 Stops of exposure compensation
A combination multi-controller and rear dial ripped right from the PowerShot G11
An articulating high resolution screen and wireless flash control
In camera image resizing
Creative image filters (soft focus, grainy B&W, Toy Camera effect, and a tilt-shift effect)
Clearly canon is putting more and more focus on video in their new SLRs, though the lack of video information on the Canon USA product page is a bit of an odd oversight. The EOS 60D has full manual video control, including manual gain control of the audio. It also has in camera editing functionality, which I guess is handy given what appears to be the target market for the EOS 60D.
Canon announced today that they’ve developed a 120MP (that’s a 13,280 x 9,184 pixel image) APS-H format sensor that has a laundry list of features. The sensor can be completely read out in about 10ms, resulting in a 9.5 FPS frame rate, it can do full HD video from the whole sensor (I assume) or one of several 1/16th area sections. Fortunately, or unfortunately as it may be, this is just a prototype and not something Canon has any immediate plans for.
The full press release can be read on Canon’s website. What follows are my thoughts on this sensor and what it could mean for photography down the road.
Small Pixels, Big Picture
From the scant details in the press release, we can make a few estimates about the sensor. For starters, the sensor packs 120 million pixels, resulting in a 13,380 x 9,184 image, in a 29.2mm x 20.2mm area. Simple math tells us, that the pixels are approximately 2-microns across.
2um pixels alone aren’t something new, many of the better performing current generation point and shoots have pixels that size, including Canon’s PowerShot G11 and S90. What is unprecedented, however, is the move to make a sensor with that pixel pitch that big.
You can’t say that technology isn’t moving at anything less than a frightening pace. I use to think it was cool, at this point I feel like I’m constantly struggling to keep up. Photography has morphed into a combination of photography and videography that’s slowly gaining an ever growing emphasis on video especially in journalism. Now the major magazine publishers are looking to take their magazines into the digital age as well.
Of course who can blame them. In our world of short attention spans and an ever increasing desire for what’s shiny, still images and paper magazines are becoming increasingly problematic to sell.
Even worse the rest of the world is seemingly waging a virtual two pronged attack against the traditional media with social media on one side and bloggers on the other. Couple that with the ease of duplicating digital content and the widespread perception that everything online should be free and it becomes hard to see ways to add enough value to traditional media to keep people paying.
Recently though, it seems that at least two major media companies have started investigating ways to present their content in a format that takes advantage of the digital medium. However, I fear the idea of a digital magazine will ultimately go nowhere partly for technical reasons and partly because they won’t have the foresight to really embrace the digital medium.
Digital magazine technology was recently demoed by Time Inc. for Tech Crunch and it appears there might be a bright idea buried in it, even if I think it’s doomed. It appears in the case of the Time’s prototype, to leverage a widely available framework (Adobe Air which is based on the ubiquitous Flash environment) to present the digital magazine on top of a commodity computing platform (in this case a HP tablet computer).
Today Canon introduced the EOS 1D Mark 4, the fourth generation in their professional cameras aimed at low light and action photographers. As I’m writing this, information is just starting to trickle in, but from what I’ve seen the 1D Mark 4 isn’t nearly what I was expecting.
What is apparent to start with is that the 1D mark 4 looks to fix many of the deficits of the 1D mark 3 and put Canon back in the running with Nikon in the high ISO noise performance game.
ISO
Like the D3S that was just announced a few days ago, the Canon EOS 1D Mark 4 supports ISO sensitives up to ISO 102,400 in expanded mode. The base ISO range is from 100 to 12,800, with H1 (25,600), H2 (51,200) and H3 (102,400) expanded options as well as a Lo (ISO 50) option. I think again, like the D3S, the EOS 1D Mark 4 is a camera where expanded ISOs, at least the high ones, are no longer absolutely necessary for low light shooting.
That said, the ISO 3200 shot from Canon Japan (Sample 5) looks pretty solid to me.
Nikon has announced their newest pro body, the D3s, and it’s quite an update if you ask me. Lots of ISO (up to ISO 102400), movie recording, a self cleaning sensor, a new 1.2x crop mode and a quite shooting mode top out the list of new features.
The Sensor
That said, the big news from the D3S is high ISO performance. The D3s expands the base sensitivity of the sensor a full stop on the top end, from ISO 6400 to ISO 12800. Further in addition to the normal H1 and H2 expanded modes, Nikon has added an H3 expanded mode equivalent to ISO 104,200.
While there isn’t much to go on yet, the fact that Nikon felt comfortable expanding the expanded range form 2 to 3 stops may say a lot about the sensor’s performance. At least if H3 isn’t just a bullet point to gain some photographic bragging rights.
It seems that you’re looking for updated Spyder3 colorimeter software. A lot has changed since 2009 when this article was originally published, perhaps most importantly is that there is even more powerful and fully featured color management software available now. Even better it’s free, and open source. If you’re interested, you can read through my guide to getting started with DisplayCal and ArgyllCMS.
If you use a Spyder 3 Pro or Elite and don’t have the Spyder Utility set to auto update, there is a new version (3.1.2) of the Spyder Utility to introduces several improvements to the UI as well as fixing some annoying bugs I was experiencing in the previous version. The new version also introduces two new calibration targets for default CRT and LCD luminance levels.
I recommended disabling your anit-virus software when you install the Spyder Utility. I had problems when installing while either Kaspersky or Avast were running causing the software to take forever to install. Temporarily disablingthe AV software, and the install was done in maybe a minute tops.
Download the new Spyder software from Datacolor’s website (links to download page below):
Spyder3Elite 3.1.2 – Win
Spyder3Elite 3.1.2 – Mac
Spyder3Pro 3.1.2 – Win
Spyder3Pro 3.1.2 – Mac
Update 2016-06-27: The original links with this article no longer work and have been removed. Drivers for legacy Datacolor colorimeters can be found on their site here.