What's New

August 29, 2004

How would you manage on a week-long workshop shoot in a remote location? Do you have the ability to walk away from a shot because there might be something better down the road. Find out more in Swimming with the Sharks.

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August 27, 2004

This is an update on my December, 2005 Antarctic Workshop Expedition. The waitlist is still open, but there are now more than 200 names registered and it is likely that not everyone from those that have sent in their requests thus far will be able to attend. But if you'd like to add your name, I am still accepting them for the waitlist.

If you have already registered, please be advised that I expect to start contacting waitlist registrants within a week or so. I'm just waiting to complete a few final details with the expedition company. You will be contacted in the order in which you applied, but you will need to be prepared to respond quickly once you receive my e-mail. Keep an eye out for it beginning later next week.

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August 26, 2004

Most photographers are interested in having their images display as high technical quality as possible. Fine grain film, hi-res sensors, top ranked lenses — we have always been focused on (pardon the pun) achieving optimum image quality. Regrettably though, with the advent of Internet chat forums (some at least), along with digital camera, and software that allows us to look at things at the individual pixel level, this has escalated to a fetish for some people, and in my opinion a destructive one at that. It has little to do anymore with creativity, the joy of seeing, and the making of images.

With this in mind today I am publishing a photograph taken recently that displays both green and red chromatic aberration, is out of focus, has motion blur from hand-holding, is highly underexposed, and which basically looks like crap at 100% onscreen in Photoshop. It is the latest entry on my Miscellaneous Moments page. I humbly suggest that Caravaggio might have approved.

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August 24, 2004

In a sad but likely inevitable sign of the times it has been announced that Ilford has gone into receivership. Ilford's famous product offerings include Ilfochrome (Cibachrome), Multigrade printing papers and highly regarded films such as FP4, HP5, and Delta. Unless someone picks up the pieces (unlikely) these will be sadly missed by those who haven't yet made the transition to digital, and even by many who have. An item in The Financial Times provides further details.

On Thursday, Sept 9th I will be giving a presentation to the London (Ontario) Camera Club titled Photography in the 21st Century, Technology and Esthetics. The meeting takes place at 7:30pm and is open to the general public. You can find out more by contacting the club secretary.

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August 23, 2004

Part Two of my Canon 20D review is now online.

Three new portfolios from members of my July Iceland Workshops are now online.

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August 21, 2004

The final details for my December, 2005 Antarctic Workshop Expedition are still being worked out, but I am now pleased to announce the roster of instructors for the trip. In alphabetical order the expedition's photographic teachers and guides will be...

John Paul Caponigro, Steve Johnson, Michael Reichmann, Seth Resnick, and Jeff Schewe

This is possibly the finest group of photographic and digital imaging instructors ever to work together on a single workshop. Chris Sanderson, the award-winning director / cameraman for the Video Journal will also be available to work with anyone who will be shooting video during the expedition. In addition to scheduled seminars throughout the 12 day trip all six instructors will be available for one-on-one instruction and print evaluations. Each of us will also be living and shooting alongside workshop members every day.

If you would like to add your name to the waitlist for this workshop expedition, now is the time to do so. It will almost certainly be sold out by the time it is formally announced next month, and people on the waitlist will be given priority in reserving their places. Find out more.

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August 20, 2004

After several days of leaks, "accidential" postings by Canon, and rampant online speculation, the Canon EOS 20D is now official. Read Part One of my EOS 20D review, based on a week of field and bench testing a pre-production sample.

There is also a new Featured Image for August, which is shown as well on the site's Home Page.

A reminder that I am still accepting waitlist registrations for my December, 2005 Antarctic Workshop Expedition.

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August 17, 2004

This is a preliminary announcement for my December, 2005 Antarctic Workshop Expedition. If you're looking for the photographic adventure of a lifetime, you won't want to let this one pass you by. It's still 15 months away, but when the trip is formally announced next month it will sell out quickly. Put your name on the no-obligation wait list. What are you waiting for?

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August 16, 2004

Windows PC users have a variety of panoramic stitching programs available. Unfortunately Mac users are less well served, especially at the high end. There is now a new first-rate stitching program available for both Macs and PCs. It's called Realviz Stitcher 4.0 and it's of industrial strength as well as being easy to use. The fly in the ointment is that it's the most expensive such program yet made.

Another Icelandic image taken last month is the new Home Page photograph.

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August 12, 2004

It's taken close to 15 months, but Epson's Ultrasmooth Fine Art Paper is finally shipping. Some countries got it earlier than others, but unfortunately it will now only be available in rolls and large sheet sizes suitable for use with Epson's wide-format printers. My review is now online.

Two new photographs from my Iceland shoot last month are now also online; one on the home page, and the other illustrating the Ultrasmooth paper review.

Update: In a very surpising move (well, maybe not so surprising) it has been announced that Hasselblad and Imacon are merging. "Shriro Sweden, the holding company of Victor Hasselblad AB, and part of the Hong Kong-headquartered Shriro Group, has announced the acquisition of leading international high-end scanner and digital cameraback manufacturer, Imacon. The move will see Imacon and Hasselblad merge to accelerate Hasselblad’s ambitions in the professional digital photographic sector, and creates the first single source supplier for digital photography at the top end of the professional photographic market".

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August 11, 2004

Late yesterday (Tuesday), some malicious pea brain hacked this site's home page. It's amazing that there are people out there with more time on their hands than brains or decency, but such is the state of things, I suppose. Maybe they should consider taking up something creative like photography if they have that much spare time on their hands.

In any event, the site is now likely secure (he said with fingers crossed). I apologize for any inconvenience, which is more than the wanker who did this is likely capable of. And of course since Video Journal subscriber billing is handled by a highly secure third party there never was and can't be any threat to subscriber information.

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August 10, 2004

The photographs in my essay The Black Church — Two Icelandic Portraits published a couple of days ago, have lead to a great deal of comment in private e-mails that I've received. Many people were quite taken with the one of the Black Church and Child, which is also the current Home Page image. In a couple of these discussions I started to analyze why there are aspects of this photograph that are visually compelling, and I now explore these in a brief commentary titled Counting Triangles — Understanding What Works, and Why.

And, a reminder, as I do from time to time, that this exists as a commercial free site because of subscriptions to our unique video magazine on DVD called The Video Journal. Click on one of the links immediately below and find out more. Support this site and give yourself or someone else a photographic gift. A single issue is just $19.95 and a one year (4 issue) subscription costs just $69.95.

Update: Shortly after Counting Triangles — Understanding What Works, and Why appeared I received a very insightful e-mail which sheds some additional light on the geometry of the photograph. It has now been added to the article.

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August 8, 2004

It isn't often when concentrating on landscape photography that one gets the opportunity to do a portrait, or to capture a unique human moment that incorporates a dramatic locale. On my first Iceland workshop last month we had such an opportunity. It's described in a new essay titled The Black Church — Two Icelandic Portraits.

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Every now and again I get an e-mail from some well-meaning soul pointing out that the dateline on today's What's New is a day ahead. Maybe my computer's clock is wrong, they conjecture. No, it's not. There is a simple reason why I date entries as I do.

I live in Toronto, which is in the GMT -5 time zone. I usually publish my articles in the late afternoon or early evening, local time. This is at about midnight GMT. But for some people, such as the tens of thousands of readers of this site that live in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea and elsewhere in Asia, it is already "tomorrow", and has been for quite a few hours. People in more than 120 countries around the world visit the site each week.

So when a reader in New York, for example, sees "tomorrow's" date on a listing here, it needs to be kept in mind that it's already that date in most of Europe, and folks in Asia are starting to think about lunch. For them it's not tomorrow. It's today.

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August 7, 2004

The new camera season is coming fast upon us. Photokina, the biannual world's fair of photography is just a month or so away, and the manufacturers are priming the pump for new product announcements. Some will be fresh and totally unexpected while others will be obvious follow-ups to existing offerings. First out of the gate is Konica Minolta.

On Friday afternoon at 4PM Konica Minolta launched a new web site to promote their upcoming Dynax/Maxxum 7 Digital SLR. First announced at the PMA show this past spring the 7 will be the first DLSR to incorporate a vibration reduction mechanism involving the sensor, thus providing stabilization capability to all Minolta lenses. This technology was first seen in the A1 and A2 digicams released during the past half year.

The new site is long on glitz and short on substance at this point, but it looks as if K/M will feed it with new material as the weeks progress. Possibly a clever way of trying to maintain interest, but based on a recently published interview with the company's president it seems that even they aren't sure at this point when it will ship, at what price and even what the final name will be. Such is marketing in the Internet age.

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August 5, 2004

In many ways these are still early days in the photographic industry's transition from the world of film to digital. One area where there continues to be misinformation is with regard to the advantages of shooting raw files rather than JPGs.

The preeminent raw conversion program, and one that can handle raw files from more than 60 different digital cameras, is Camera Raw, a component of Photoshop CS. Now, highly regarded author Bruce Fraser has written what will likely be the definitive book on the subject. It is titled Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS. My review, the first to appear anywhere, is now online.

Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos

One of the greatest documentary photographers of all time passed away on Wednesday. Henri Cartier Bresson was 95. If you have not yet seen it, you may want to read my review of his major retrospective book and exhibition from last summer titled The Man, The Image and The World.

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August 3, 2004

The winner of our 8 Megapixel Digicam draw is Eva Li of Vancouver, BC. Congratulations Eva! Eva has decided to accept a Minolta A2 as her prize, and one will be shipped to her this week.

Our new contest, which begins today and runs through December 15th, is for a free next-generation digital camera from one of the world's leading manufacturers. At Photokina in September, 2004 many new digital cameras will be announced, but one will stand out from the crowd, and will be available prior to Christmas, 2004. It could be yours! You can't win it if you're not in it, so support this site and subscribe now.

There are now three new portfolios online from Iceland workshop members.

Update: Apologies for the problems with some of the links at the top of each page. This began yesterday when I tried to fix something else, and more things broke. All is now well — I think. Thanks to everyone that drew it to my attention.

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August 1, 2004

It's the first of a new month and that means a new article by our favourite observer of the passing photographic scene, Mike Johnston. For August Mike places his tongue firmly in cheek and gives us Uses and Applications of 35mm Lenses.

Members of my two Iceland workshops last month have now started to submit their work. I'm pleased to publish today portfolios from this shoot by five of the 23 workshops members — Ian Lyons, J. David Levy, Frank Forward, Jonathan Sachs and Mike O'Callahan. It's fascinating to see how different people interpret the same environment. Additional portfolios will be published as they are provided, and more of my own photographs from Iceland last month will appear as illustrations in upcoming articles.

Video Journal subscribers should note that Stephen Sauve is now your primary contact for issues related to subscription services. If his name seems familiar, it is because Steve is also the composer of the wonderful music featured in each issue of the Journal.

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July 29, 2004

Mac owners will be pleased to learn that Phase One has now announced and made available for the first time an LE version of Capture One. This means that now all three versions of Capture One, LE, SE and Pro are available for both the Windows and Mac platforms.

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July 28, 2004

There are three items of interest today.

The first is the publication of a new article titled Abstracting The Landscape. It is an examination of the differences between what I call Snapshots, Postcards and Images. It also contains descriptions of the making of two of the best photographs from my recent three week shoot in Iceland, one of which is now featured as the site's new Home Page illustration.

The second item is a mention that Mamiya has announced a new version of their medium format RZ67 Pro. It is called the IID and features the same MSCE (Mamiya Serial Communication for Exchange) interface as found on their 645 AFD cameras. There are some that think that with the increasing pixel count and excellent image quality of high-end 35mm DSLRs, that the days of medium format cameras are numbered. Think again. Every advantage that MF had over 35mm in the days of film still hold true today, along with some new ones.

True, the best MF digital backs are pricey, and are likely to remain so for some time, but for working pros this is less of a factor than in the amateur market. In the meantime, MF digital has become a vibrant part of the new photographic landscape, and Mamiya's introduction of the RZ Pro IID is just another sign of this return to vitality. The only losers are those medium format camera makers like Pentax who were too thick to see the digital writing on the wall, and photographers who abandoned their MF systems a couple of years ago in the belief that medium format would be supplanted by high resolution 35mm digital. For some, maybe. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the stories of medium format's demise are somewhat premature.

Finally, a heads up for Video Journal subscribers. Issue #11 was due by now, but its publication has been delayed by some weeks. The reason for this is twofold. Chris Sanderson, the Journal's producer and editor, moved to a new home in June, and his editing system along with the rest of his life was in boxes for several weeks before and after the move. Once that was past he joined me in Iceland for three weeks during July, assisting me with my workshops there. The bottom line is that Issue #11now won't be out until some time in September. We'll keep you updated here as the publication schedule becomes clearer. Chris and I both regret any inconvenience that this delay may cause.

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July 25, 2004

Alain Briot today provides us with the seventh installment of his exclusive nine part series for this web site on Esthetics and Photography. It is titled Keepers, and in it Alain explores issues related to selecting, categorizing and storing your work.

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July 22, 2004

What are the ingredients needed for strong outdoor photography? Certainly a great location. And the right equipment definitely can't hurt. But more important than anything else is light, which I provide an example of in a new essay titled It's About Light .

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July 18, 2004

I have just returned from three weeks in Iceland where I conducted two photographic workshops. Here are the basic stats... Including a 5 day break in between sessions we drove some 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the majority of it over unpaved roads. We had 24 workshop members in all, including men and women from Australia, Canada, Switzerland, the U. K., and, of course, the U.S.

I shot some 2,500 frames, which filled up 35 Gigabytes on my laptop. My main landscape camera was the Contax 645 with Kodak Proback, and my snapshot camera was the Minolta A2. We also ate more hotdogs and hamburgers at gas stations than I care to remember.

A portfolio of my work from this year's trip to Iceland will appear on these pages later this summer. I will also be publishing a sampling of work by each of the workshop members as they are submitted.

One of my favourite photographs of the trip has just been made the front page image on the site. How it was made is detailed on the Featured Image page as July's entry.

My mailbox contained some 1,700 e-mails when I returned yesterday. If you wrote, it may take me a while to reply. If you don't get a reply by the end of this week and the subject was important, please resend the e-mail as my mailbox overflowed during my time away.

Mike Johnston's July column is titled Comparisons and the Odious: Fakery, Actual and Conceptual. It is an insightful and entertaining look at one of photography's perennial topics. I'm sorry to have to have made you wait more than two weeks for this very fine article.

The semi-finalist for June in the 8MP Digicam Draw is David Van Gosen of Baltimore, MD. Congratulations David!

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June 26, 2004

From June 27th though July 17th I will be offline, conducting two field workshops in Iceland. During these three weeks I will not be able to respond to either e-mail or Forum postings. (The current front page photograph is from my shoot there last July.)

Video Journal orders are automated and shipped by our fulfillment company the same day that they are received. If you have questions regarding new or existing subscriptions please contact Stephen Sauve. He will be able to answer your questions and solve any problems. If there are issues with the Luminous Landscape site itself that you'd like to report you can contact Neil Cowley. Neil will be administering both the site and the Discussion Forum during my absence.

For regular readers used to two or three new articles every week you can turn to the more than 2,000 previous pages on the site. These contain feature articles, tutorials and product reviews. There likely is something there that you haven't yet read.

A reminder that this site is supported solely though subscriptions to our quarterly DVD video publication — The Luminous Landscape Video Journal. Click on one of the links above or below to find out more, and then please consider a subscription or the purchase of an individual issue. You'll be supporting this site and also will discover a unique photographic resource.

See you again in mid-July. Cheers!

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June 24, 2004

There are hardly any web sites producing reviews of medium format digital backs, and few such reviews appear in print. To fill that void, during the past half year I have been trying to review most of major backs available. I have been particularly interested in versions that can be used in the field rather than just in the studio.

In the next week or so Phase One will start shipping its P20 and P25 backs. These are completely self contained medium format backs that will be available in versions for all of the major camera systems. The P20 is a square format 18 Megapixel back while the P25 is 22 Megapixel almost-full-frame 645 in size.

Though only introduced to dealers 10 days ago, thanks to Vistek and Phase One I was able to spend two days last week field testing one of only five pre-production samples of the P25 that exist in the world. My exclusive Phase One P25 First-Look Review is now online.

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June 22, 2004

Advanced fine art photographers as well as professionals and commercial studios know the advantages of using a RIP when printing. Colorbyte Software is one of the oldest and most respected names in RIPs for both Iris and Epson inkjet printers. They have just released their latest version ImagePrint 6 and at the same time added support for the new Epson 4000 printer. My hands-on review of Imageprint 6 for the Epson 4000 is now online.

The site's front page photograph has been changed. Keeping with the seasonal theme, this is of spring planting in rural Ontario. I have driven by this rich farm area regularly for years, and each spring have visualized such a shot, but it never came together properly. Last week it did.

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June 20, 2004

After six months to a year or learning and using Photoshop many photographers are keen to explore some of the more advanced image processing capabilities available. Sometimes these are arcane and only relate to the more esoteric aspects of image interpretation and control. But when a new tool is uncovered that really helps produce superior images, especially ones that can compensate for shooting errors, we all perk up our ears.

Today we begin publishing a series of advanced Photoshop tutorials by Glenn E. Mitchell II, Ph.D. It is titled Restore Those Clipped Channels, and it explains how to use a saturation mask to repair severe saturation problems. Additional tutorials in this series written by Mitch, (as he prefers to be called) will appear here every few weeks.

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June 18, 2004

One of this site's recent Home Page images has generated a lot of reader comment along with questions about how it was shot and processed. I have therefore made it June's Featured Image and have provided an in-depth look at how it was made.

My colleague and photographic guide and instructor Steve Kossack still has a few spaces left on his Colorado Fall Color Workshop in September.

On Sunday I will publish the first of a series of advanced Photoshop tutorials by Glenn E. Mitchell II, Ph.D. Anyone looking for improve their image processing skills will find this new series to be very worthwhile.

I will be spending this weekend shooting with the new Phase One P25 22 Megapixel full-frame 645 medium format digital back. The industry has been buzzing about this new back since it was announced several months ago. It was first shown to dealers at a launch event in Copenhagen last week. I now have access to one of the few pre-production backs available, and will be field testing it as well as putting it on the DxO Analyzer test bench. I expect my review to appear here by the middle of next week.

June 17, 2004

Earlier this year this site had the first online review of the Panasonic LC1, and then again a two-part review of its dressed up sister the Leica Digilux 2. Both of these were done by contributors, but I was keen on seeing for myself how these cameras handled, and how they would perform both on location and on the DxO test bench.

I recently spent a month using an LC1, and my Leica Digilux 2 / Panasonic LC1 Test Report and 4th Opinion is now online.

As regular readers may recall I am a contributing editor to Photo Techniques Magazine, and my writing appears there several times a year. The latest issue (July / August, 2004) contains my article Comparing the New 8-Megapixel Cameras.

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June 15, 2004

With some digicams now offering 8 Megapixel imaging chips and 28-200mm f/2.8 equivalent zooms a lot of photographers are asking themselves — self, which one is best for me? And, why should I prefer one over the other? To try and make sense of this I have just published an essay titled Digicams vs. DSLRs.

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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
- 30% OFF

We've just made it easier for everyone to discover and enjoy The Luminous Landscape Video Journal. Based on the tremendous response to our single issue promotion last month we have decided to make the current, and indeed all issues available for just $19.95. No subscription necessary.

But when we announced this a couple of days ago we made a mistake. We didn't properly consider the consequences for existing and new annual subscribers. So, here's how it now works. We've reduced prices across the board by 30%, including subscriptions.

Any Single Issue, Including the Current Issue #10 — $19.95

A One Year 4 Issue Subscription — $69.95

A One Year 4 Issue Subscription
and 5 previous issues, and
a chance to win an 8MP digicam — $149.95

First Class Mail Delivery to Anywhere in the World is Still Free

And, to make good with anyone who purchased either a $99 or $185 subscription during the past 90 days, since March 15th, 2004, we are offering you a free DVD of your choice. Just drop us a note and let us know which one you'd like. All subscription renewals will also now be charged at the new reduced rate of $69.95.

Find Out More — Read What Subscribers Are Saying — Order or Subscribe

Remember — it's sales of The Video Journal that keep this site operational. Without your subscription or purchase we can not continue to exist.

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June 13, 2004

Many of the best photographic locations for landscape work in the United States have become clichés. I'm thinking of locales like Yosemite and Antelope Canyon. That isn't to say that they aren't enjoyable, or than original work can't still be done there. But, landscape photographers are always on the lookout for somewhere fresh to ply their trade.

The Buffalo National River, located in Arkansas, appears to be just such a place, and in this exclusive report by contributor Mike Boyd he shows us in words and images just how spectacular it can be.

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June 10, 2004

The correct settings that need to be made when printing are one of the leading causes of confusion and frustration among photographers. In Understanding Printer Colour Management I provide a brief tutorial on how to set up both Photoshop and your printer to use profiles properly.

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I made a purchase today that I never thought I'd make in my lifetime. I purchased a Lacie 1 Terabyte hard disk. For those of you who skipped Grade 9 math class the day that terabytes were discussed (if they were at all), a terabyte is a thousand gigabytes. And since a gigabyte is a thousand megabytes, a terabyte is a million megabytes. The mind boggles.

In any event, the Lacie D2 Bigger Disk (to give it its formal name) is the first terabyte drive to become available. It has a list price of U.S. $1,195. This makes the retail cost per gigabyte about a $1 a gig. The drive has Firewire 800 / 400 and USB 2 interfaces and works with both Macs and PCs. The rotation speed is 7200 RPM — as fast as standard IDE drives usually get. I've started using it with Firewire 400, but I have a Firewire 800 card on order. Once I've used the drive for a while I'll publish my usual hands-on review.

For anyone wondering what on earth one needs a terabyte drive for, here's one answer. Each of my finished Canon 1Ds and Kodak DCS Pro Back files, with Adjustment Layers, ranges in size from 250-500MB. Thus, at an average of 300MB per file that's only 3 files per gig. The Lacie drive therefore will only hold some 3,000 processed images. A lot, but not as infinite as it seems. Of course it'll also hold 100,000 ten MB raw files. Guess I'd better got outside and start shooting.

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June 8, 2004

Back in December, 2003 I published a first-look review of the Epson 400 printer, months before it started to ship. In April I took delivery of one of the first production 4000s to become available, and have been using it daily since. My Epson 4000 Review Update is now online.

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June 7, 2004

Very good news for current and prospective owners of the Konica / Minolta A2. Many user (myself included) have experienced autofocus problems as well as spontaneous camera resets. As is usually the case with Japanese companies, Minolta did not admit publicly that there was a problem. But there was, and they have been working aggressively to correct it.

The fix has been completed, and it will be available within the next 48 hours on the Konica / Minolta U.S. web site. The problems that have been addressed with this firmware release (V1.12u) are (to quote Minolta)...

I have updated the firmware on my camera with an advance copy of this new version and the installation went smoothly, and so far at least it appears to solve the problem. Just download the files, extract KM003.app and KM003.brd by running the .exe file, and copy them to a CF card's root directory. Make sure that a fresh battery is installed, and place the card in the camera. Set the A2 to Playback mode, and turn on the camera. There will be a message asking if you want to update the firmware. Confirm, and about a minute later it's done.

This is a welcome relief to a problem with what I regard as the best of the current crop of 8 Megapixel digicams. Thanks Minolta!

June 6, 2004

Mike Johnston returns today with his now monthly column and observations on the passing photographic scene. This month's article is titled Scenic Fatigue.

June 4, 2004

The second of two new lens reviews to be published here this week is now online. The Canon 70 - 300mm f4.5-5.6 DO IS is only the second Diffractive Optic lens to be introduced by Canon, and it turns out to be a very appealing and versatile piece of glass.

The Miscellaneous Moments page and the Home Page have both had new, related, photographs added.

June 2, 2004

This is a first announcement for a Master-Class Workshop to take place Algonquin Park in north-central Ontario in early October. This unique workshop is intended for experienced landscape and nature photographers who would like to spend an intensive long-weekend working with Michael Reichmann, and in a spectacular location for fall colour. The main focus of the workshop will be on seeing, composition and the esthetics of fine-art landscape photography, rather than on equipment or technique. Workshop members will bring their portfolios for review, critique and roundtable discussions.

Anyone may apply for the workshop, but attendance will be based on acceptance of application and a small portfolio review. If you are interested in joining this exciting gathering of photographers, don't hesitate. My workshops always sell out very quickly. Sorry — SOLD OUT.

A fall colour workshop in Colorado with Luminous Landscape associate Steve Kossack still has a few spaces available.

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The May semi-finalist in the 8 MP Digicam Draw is Bret Douglas of Chattanooga, TN. Congratulations Bret!

June 1, 2004

Just a couple of weeks ago Canon began shipping two new lenses, the 28 - 300mm f3.5-5.6L IS and 70 - 300mm f4.5-5.6 DO IS. I have now used both of these lenses in the field and also run them through the DxO Analyzer test bench. My review of the Canon EF 28 - 300mm f3.5-5.6L IS has just been published, and the one on the 70 - 300mm f4.5-5.6 DO IS will appear here before the end of the week.