Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: on August 07, 2005, 08:26:33 am

Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: on August 07, 2005, 08:26:33 am
Ray,

If you shot with a 500mm or 600mm lens in low light you might find otherwise.

MLU is Canon's Achilles Heal, and it's high time they fixed it.

Michael
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 08, 2005, 11:06:22 am
Quote
I have an Olympus E1 and the MLU problem is handled marvelously: there are four memory settings that can record the entire camera setup.

SNIP

 When I first tried it out it felt like discovering an orgasm switch.
Orgasm switch -- LMAO!

Anyway, you can assign presets on the Canon DSLR's too, but it still requires entering the menu screen to activate it. As well-dampened as Canon's mirrors are, they still impart notable image blur between 1 sec and 1/30th sec (1/8th and 1/15th are the worst).  

Bottom line is if you shoot landscape from a tripod you find yourself at those problematic shutter speeds more often than you might think...  It is a royal PITA to have to enter the menu in any fashion to activate MLU.  To add insult to injury, Canon's MLU also requires the additional PITA two-presses-of-the-shutter-release for MLU; the first to raise the mirror, the second to capture the image.  A simple button push or lever activating MLU is mandatory for efficient landscape/fine-art shooting in the field.  PERIOD!

IMHO only,
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 09, 2005, 10:53:08 am
1/8th seems to be the achiles heel for mirror slap in most cameras, and tapers off up or down from there.  With my 1-series bodies I avoid 1/4, 1/8 and 1/15th like the plague unless I use MLU.  By 1/2 and 1/30 it does not seem to be a significant problem, but is still visible.

FWIW, mirror slap has always been better -- meaning less of it -- in heavier cameras.  I assume this is a function of inertia providing added damping for the harmonic oscillations.  Anyway, it would explain why the mirror slap in the 20D is more visible than that from a 1-series camera.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: boku on August 09, 2005, 06:48:53 pm
I am not going to mention the rumors of Canon releasing news of the 12 MP, 1.3 crop-factor, "tweener" (3D?) on 8/23 with a stationary pelical mirror that doesn't flip.

No way. My lips are seeled.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: crspe on August 06, 2005, 02:58:15 am
Hi,
Michael was again complaining about MLU on the Canons but it has never been an issue for me.  I would love to hear from others if they also struggle with this or if I am missing something...

The way that I handle MLU is to leave it always switched on ... aargh, impossible you think? No.  I shoot almost all of my photos in motor-drive mode where MLU is automatically disabled. This means that if I then need MLU at some stage, I just need to hit the drive button to switch to single shot and take a photo with mlu enabled. Then drive button again ... multi shot, MLU disabled ... keep shooting. Does this not work on all cameras? Am i missing something here?

It certainly avoids the stress of navigating Canons menu structure.

Chris
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 06, 2005, 08:00:17 pm
I am in the dedicated lever or button camp a-la Nikon.  Canon's menu-driven MLU is a PITA, plain and simple.  

Even more disturbing to me is the fact that Canon could EASILY offer a firmware upgrade that added to CF12 the ability to assign MLU to an existing function button like the LCD light...
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 07, 2005, 09:25:56 am
Okay! I'll try it, Michael, to see if the results are sharper. But usually when I use my 100-400 (640mm on the 20D) in low light (but not too low), it's handheld at ISO 800 or 1600.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: jani on August 08, 2005, 10:09:11 am
Quote
When I first tried it out it felt like discovering an orgasm switch.
I want an orgasm switch, too.

Canon, are you reading this?
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 08, 2005, 02:05:45 pm
Quote
You can get away with a single button press if you are using either the 2-seoond or 10-second delay drive modes. When you press the shutter, the mirror pups up, the timer counts down, and the shutter trips. For static subjects, this is quite handy.
Yes, I do that often. But still, when the wind is blowing and you are waiting for that break so the flower stops wagging, the 2/10 sec delay does not work...
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 09, 2005, 03:12:12 am
If Canon were to give priority to an MLU switch, that would imply one of two scenarios, (a) Canon's mirror dampening is deficient, or ( despite the best mirror dampening that technology can provide, mirror slap is still a major problem.

I can honestly declare from the bottom of my heart that I have no direct, personal evidence that either of the above statements is true.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: boku on August 09, 2005, 07:52:23 pm
Quote
Quote
I am not going to mention the rumors of Canon releasing news of the 12 MP, 1.3 crop-factor, "tweener" (3D?) on 8/23 with a stationary pelical mirror that doesn't flip.

No way. My lips are seeled.
Aren't they actually talking about a FF 5D?  Not that I'm spreading rumors, either.   :cool:
Well the way it goes on that other crazy website - the 3D "tweener" will have a 1.3 crop @ 12 MP and drop to a 1.6 crop (with fewer MP) when used with a EF-S lens. The pelical mirror permits the extended-back EF-S to mount.

I just saw the 5D PDF. Obviously, one of these rumors (or both) are wrong since they would not release both in that price range (both rumored at $3.5K). If either of these fly, I am an early adopter. And that, is no rumor.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 09, 2005, 11:23:23 am
Quote
 Anyway, it would explain why the mirror slap in the 20D is more visible than that from a 1-series camera.
Jack,
Where are the tests or reports that show this? If the effects are less visible on a 1 series camera, then mirror slap is even less of a problem than I imagine because it's not too bad with a 100-400 zoom on the 20D. I haven't tested other lenses with the 20D, but the fact that the 100-400/20D is almost perfectly balanced at the point it fixes to the tripod probably helps.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 09, 2005, 12:39:23 pm
Quote
Well, that sort of defeats the whole purpose if you've got to dig through and activate MLU first, doesn't it.
Agreed, but  I was just pointing out that the single button press does indeed work as described in conjunction with the self-timer.  Nowhere have I agreed it is an efficient solution, in fact I am stating the opposite.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: jani on August 06, 2005, 08:06:50 pm
Quote
I am in the dedicated lever or button camp a-la Nikon.  Canon's menu-driven MLU is a PITA, plain and simple.
You can count me in on that one (as per my big wish-list to Canon for the next camera).

Quote
Even more disturbing to me is the fact that Canon could EASILY offer a firmware upgrade that added to CF12 the ability to assign MLU to an existing function button like the LCD light...
Yes.

I wonder how difficult it would be to reverse-engineer the firmware of these cameras ...

That's something else than Open RAW that we could find useful; Open firmware, as long as it's possible to reinstall an original Canon firmware to "reset" the camera if something goes wrong.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: dturina on August 08, 2005, 05:02:49 am
I have an Olympus E1 and the MLU problem is handled marvelously: there are four memory settings that can record the entire camera setup. I have one for normal handheld shooting, and one for tripod, with MLU, dark frame reduction, remote release and what not. All it takes is to press a button, and you have de facto prepared the camera for a different way of shooting, and with another command you can switch it back. When I first tried it out it felt like discovering an orgasm switch.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on August 08, 2005, 01:22:08 pm
Quote
To add insult to injury, Canon's MLU also requires the additional PITA two-presses-of-the-shutter-release for MLU; the first to raise the mirror, the second to capture the image.  A simple button push or lever activating MLU is mandatory for efficient landscape/fine-art shooting in the field.  PERIOD!
You can get away with a single button press if you are using either the 2-seoond or 10-second delay drive modes. When you press the shutter, the mirror pups up, the timer counts down, and the shutter trips. For static subjects, this is quite handy.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 09, 2005, 12:00:22 am
Quote
"As well-dampened as Canon's mirrors are, they still impart notable image blur between 1 sec and 1/30th sec."

If the mirrors were indeed well dampened, this statement wouldn't be needed. Canon's film camera mirrors appear to be dampened far better than their digital cousins. The Nikon film cameras I used to shoot with were so well dampened, that I rarely used MLU at all.

"You can get away with a single button press if you are using either the 2-seoond or 10-second delay drive modes. When you press the shutter, the mirror pups up, the timer counts down, and the shutter trip"

Unless I'm missing how to do this, and I just referenced the entire manual, neither my 1Ds or 1DsMKII, when operated in either 2 or 10 second delay, flip the mirror up at the beginning of the sequence, only at the end of the delay just prior to the shutter opening. This would be great if it actually worked.
No offense, but one of my last film cameras was the Nikon F5, and even its mirror casued visible image degredation in the 1/2 to 1/30th second range.  The EOS 1V was the same.  Granted, they were both far superior to earlier offerings like the Nikon F3 and Canon F1, but they still showed the problem of mirror harmonics.

The single button press does indeed work with Canon bodies;  when CF 12 (MLU) is activated along with the 2sec or 10sec self timer, you press the shutter release, the mirror pops up and the timer starts, 2 or 10 seconds later the exposure occurs and the mirror drops.  

With the D-Rebel it works the same way, except the 10sec timer automatically becomes a 2sec timer when used in conjunction with the MLU function.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 09, 2005, 12:49:24 am
I agree that mirror slap can degrade image sharpness between around 1 sec to 1/30th exposure, or even between 2 sec to 1/60th. The problem is, demonstrating this. Lenses have different performance at different apertures. My 100-400 at 400mm is sharpest at f11; less sharp at f16 and f8 and less sharp again at f5.6. Higher ISO's on a DSLR might not produce the same image sharpness degradation as higher ISO's on film do, but there is nevertheless some degree of sharpness degradation as one bumps up the ISO on DSLRs.

The only way I can think of properly testing the MLU advantage is to use  a lens (preferrably a high quality telephoto) at the same aperture and ISO for all shots. The only variables should be shutter speed and MLU off or on.

To vary shutter speed with a constant aperture and ISO entails using studio lights which can be brightened and dimmed, or waiting several hours for the natural light to dim in the late evening.

Rigorous testing of such matters is not as easy as one might think and there's lots of scope for myths to develop.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: lester_wareham on August 09, 2005, 03:47:11 am
Quote
I don't think mirror slap is much better than it was 20 years ago. In fact my 20D has more slap than my A1 and not much less than my Ftb.

At least on the Ftb lockup was simple, you just pushed the DOF pre-view leaver further and it locked the mirror up.

I guess the current MTU is OK as long as you remember to turn it on and off. Why it can't be mapped to another button with a custom function I don't know.

Is it true the pro 1Dx bodies have the same menu driven system? I thought this was just to save a little production cost on a prosumer body.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: pfigen on August 09, 2005, 12:03:49 pm
"The single button press does indeed work with Canon bodies;  when CF 12 (MLU) is activated along with the 2sec or 10sec self timer, you press the shutter release, the mirror pops up and the timer starts, 2 or 10 seconds later the exposure occurs and the mirror drops. "

Well, that sort of defeats the whole purpose if you've got to dig through and activate MLU first, doesn't it. It was implied in the previous post that just using the delay would pop the mirror up first, and it doesn't. If I've already got the MLU activated, I'm probably going to use a cable and not the self timer at that point.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Paul Sumi on August 09, 2005, 07:08:58 pm
Quote
I am not going to mention the rumors of Canon releasing news of the 12 MP, 1.3 crop-factor, "tweener" (3D?) on 8/23 with a stationary pelical mirror that doesn't flip.

No way. My lips are seeled.
Aren't they actually talking about a FF 5D?  Not that I'm spreading rumors, either.   :cool:
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: sergio on August 06, 2005, 11:38:29 am
Canon MLU is very poorly designed. I keep forgetting all the time it is on and missing precious opportunities. It really is a pain. And I don't like have the drive in multishot mode. I really think a pro camera deserves to have a dedicated button for this task, just like in the old days.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 06, 2005, 10:07:25 pm
I guess the reason Canon have not allocated a separate button to this function is because they've dampened mirror vibration so well they believe MLU is now rarely needed.

I've always found that a particularly sturdy tripod in a totally breeze-free environment and a shutter speed between 2 secs and 1/30th are prerequisites for MLU to serve any purpose. I find that I am rarely in such a situation. In fact most of the occasions I've used MLU have been during testing of lenses (to be sure, to be sure) and testing for the conditions under which MLU might serve a purpose  :D .
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: crspe on August 08, 2005, 04:44:25 am
So ... is it only hacked 300D's where MLU is disabled in multi-shot mode? There was only 1 reply about the 20D that it is not disabled there.  How about with other Canon cameras? It seems amazing to me that MLU is not switched off in multi-shot mode. What happens when MLU is enabled, in multi-shot mode if you hold down your finger? Do you get multiple shots? Does the viewfinder just stay black the whole time? what is the shot rate? MLU delay then full speed, or MLU delay between every shot?

Its almost ironic to think that in a hacked 300D, MLU is fixed whereas in all other Canon cameras, it is effectively broken / hardly usable.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: rokkitan on August 08, 2005, 11:41:56 am
My suggestion (to Canon) is to make MLU part of a 2 second timer setting. Then it should be easy to switch to: single, continous, 10 second timer and 2 second timer w/MLU. A Custom Function could enable/disable it: disabled, 2 sec. timer enabled, 2 sec. timer with MLU enabled, both enabled. -RKS.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: pfigen on August 08, 2005, 09:57:12 pm
"As well-dampened as Canon's mirrors are, they still impart notable image blur between 1 sec and 1/30th sec."

If the mirrors were indeed well dampened, this statement wouldn't be needed. Canon's film camera mirrors appear to be dampened far better than their digital cousins. The Nikon film cameras I used to shoot with were so well dampened, that I rarely used MLU at all.

"You can get away with a single button press if you are using either the 2-seoond or 10-second delay drive modes. When you press the shutter, the mirror pups up, the timer counts down, and the shutter trip"

Unless I'm missing how to do this, and I just referenced the entire manual, neither my 1Ds or 1DsMKII, when operated in either 2 or 10 second delay, flip the mirror up at the beginning of the sequence, only at the end of the delay just prior to the shutter opening. This would be great if it actually worked.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 09, 2005, 01:54:34 am
However, haing taken just recently a few shots of my neighbour's fence with my 100-400 securely fixed to a tripod, at a range of apertures ISO's and shutter speeds, all at 400mm, I've been able to extract from the confusing mass of variables some direct comparisons.

At 1/8th sec, at ISO 100, MLU on produces a marginally sharper image that would be apparent on a very large print; much larger than one would normally print from a 20D image.

At 1/125th sec and ISO 1600, MLU on also produces a very,very marginal increase in sharpness at 300% on screen which just might be visible on a 4x6ft print scrutinised closely. I would consider this to be extreme pixel peeping and of no practical significance.

I see no point in comparing images shot at different ISO's and apertures (well there was a point. I've just done it and found there are too many variables.)

Of course, I understand this test is not the last word. The 100-400 is not the best of lenses. It may well be that a $10,000 600mm lens on a 1Ds Mkll will show greater differences in the same circumstances. But I'm unable to test such lenses. I'm content knowing the limitations of my own equipment  :) . All else is academic.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 09, 2005, 08:55:27 am
Quote
I don't think mirror slap is much better than it was 20 years ago. In fact my 20D has more slap than my A1 and not much less than my Ftb.
I'm sure mirror slap will behave differently on different cameras. One would certainly hope that modern materials and design would improve the situation. The 20D mirror is a particularly noisy one, yet it's smaller and lighter than that of a full frame 35mm DSLR.

Noise of itself does not degrade image quality (I mean, audible sound waves as opposed to lower frequency vibration). Shout as loud as you like when pressing the shutter but I doubt that image quality will be affected. (Although I have to admit I haven't tried this  ). I wouldn't be surprised if the noisy mirror slap of the 20D is actually a deliberate engineering trick to transform harmful low frequency vibration into harmless (but audible) high frequency vibration.

I took a number of shots today with the 100-400/20D combination to see if the telephoto effect extended the normal range of slow shutter speeds where MLU can be beneficial. It doesn't appear to. At 1/60th and 1/125th there was essentially no difference between MLU on and MLU off, at ISO 100 and f11. At 1/30th and slower, there was  noticeable but slight degradation in 100% crops on screen, with MLU off, but it's doubtful that such differences would be noticeable on an A3 size print after the usual processing and sharpening.

The tripod I used is nothing special, just an average, inexpensive Slik Able 300DX. I used a cable release. Some shots were taken inside and some outside. It was a particularly calm day.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Jack Flesher on August 09, 2005, 12:35:13 pm
Quote
Jack,
Where are the tests or reports that show this?
Nowhere, I compared them for myself...

But to be clear I compared my 1Ds2 to my Rebel XT, not a 20D; the 20D could certainly be better than the Rebel.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: jani on August 09, 2005, 07:08:23 pm
Quote
FWIW, mirror slap has always been better -- meaning less of it -- in heavier cameras.  I assume this is a function of inertia providing added damping for the harmonic oscillations.  Anyway, it would explain why the mirror slap in the 20D is more visible than that from a 1-series camera.
Well, the FOV factor could also come into play here.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: jani on August 06, 2005, 06:01:14 pm
Also, on the 20D (at least my camera, firmware 1.1.0), setting the camera to continuous shooting does not turn off the mirror lock-up.

It annoys me a lot.

There is just one thing that makes it slightly better than destructively distracting, and that's the fact that when I press "menu", at least "custom function" is already selected, and entering there puts me right at mirror lock-up, because that's where I was last. So it's "only" the following steps to disable:

Menu, set, set, turn wheel, set.

Of course, if I was shooting with auto-bracketing, I'd have to go to two different menus to get a sensible configuration for hand-held shots again.

This way of handling the user interface ruined some wedding shots, when a friend was taking images because I was the best man. He had to change to one of the non-RAW modes in order to take images at all (because he couldn't find what was doing that mirror lock-up in the menus, no wonder ...), was thoroughly distracted, and unfortunately the white balance was way off in the few pictures he had a chance to take.

Canon needs to fix the user interface for mirror lock-up. And auto-bracketing.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Ray on August 08, 2005, 08:11:29 pm
Quote
Yes, I do that often. But still, when the wind is blowing and you are waiting for that break so the flower stops wagging, the 2/10 sec delay does not work...
This is the sort of situation where the advantages of MLU are highly dubious. The sorts of long exposures that create a problem without MLU, also create a problem with the slightest breeze.

I suppose it's quite likely one would need to use a really slow shutter speed in moderately low light if the flower was the foreground to a wider scene that one also wanted to be in focus, ie. one is using f16 and a low ISO. However, in such a situation, when the flower is still, other parts of the image are usually affected by breeze, causing blur with or without MLU.
Title: Canon Mirror lock-up ... is it so hard?
Post by: Stealthfixr on August 09, 2005, 02:55:59 am
Having played with a Minolta 7D recently, I found my 20D's MLU to be a clunky & slow in comparison.  Canon makes some great cameras, no doubt.  They also seem slow to adopt user driven changes/inputs.  I think Jack's idea above is a great one ... Canon, can you hear us?!