Home (USM)
Home  
 
 
Home » Photography » USM


 

USM

Photography USB portUV filter

Canon USM camera lens explained
If you notice your Canon digital SLR camera lens has the letters USM written on the side, it means the lens has a small motor built into the body. Hence, USM is short for UltraSonic Motor.

 


4 USM Lens Review - A Review of the Canon 50mm f1.4 USM Le...
Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II Lens Review - A Review of the Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II L...
Lens Review - Review of Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8 ED Fisheye Lens ...

USM
USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) is a Canon devised Autofocus SLR lens motor system.

USM - Abbreviation for UnSharp Masking, a means of creating additional definition in the edge transition areas of an image in order to retain detail.

USM - Canon's UltraSonic Motor, a fast auto focus motor used in their high quality EF lenses and in the Powershot Pro 1 fixed-lens digicam.

USM
( Unsharp Mask ) The term comes from a conventional colour separation camera technique that uses a unsharp photographic mask to increase contrast between light and dark areas of the reproduction and gives the illusion of sharpness.

Do USM lenses take better photos than non USM lenses?
No. USM (ultrasonic motors) are autofocus mechanisms. They in no way affect the optical quality of a lens.

Manual USM
Remember what we said about photographers being control freaks?

USM got us started on our sharpening endeavor, but the one pass approach, so often used by many photographers, left us with a number of sharpening problems.

USM has three basic controls: Amount, Radius and Threshold. They work together-if you've seen many formulas for USM, you'll notice that as one changes, the others change, especially Amount and Radius, as noted above.

USM is "ultrasonic motor". All Canon EOS-system lenses have built-in focus motors. There is no motor in the body as is the case with Nikon, for example.

For USM, I used a 200% amount setting for the 16-megapixel capture and an amount of 400% for the 6-megapixel capture (Figures 3c and 3d). Both had a Radius of 0.5 pixels and no Threshold.

See USM
Underwater Connector
Flash connectors that are specifically for underwater use.

What does USM do?
What to watch out for: haloes, noise, and aliasing
Setting the variables ...

500mm f/4L IS USM
600mm f/4L IS
© 1999-2009. Jafa Photography. All rights reserved.

Canon® EOS - EF - USM - IS caps are produced in the following sizes:
200mm F2.0 IS, 300mm F2.8 IS, 400mm F4 DO IS, 400mm F2.8 IS, 500mm F4 IS, 600mm F4 IS, 800mm F5.6 IS. Some Non - Image Stabilized caps are still available ...

2L USM
It may seem crazy that such a small lens costs so much, but Canon’s EF 50mm f1.2L USM lens has a wealth of features to match its hefty price tag. This super fast, professional L-series lens with a staggering f1.

8L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens - fast, great for portraits, weddings, sports, versatile focal length. Quite a heavy lens and not cheap.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens - for its price perhaps the best value lens in terms of the quality of output.

5L USM and a Tamron 500/8 mirror lens in a Tamron adaptall mount. A rare and hard to obtain adaptall mount for the Canon EOS was used to mount the Tamron lens on the EOS body.

I figure a Canon EF 28-70 USM 2.8L would go perfectly with it. Given a focal length multiplier of 1.6, that makes a 44.8-112 zoom. Unfortunately the total cost would come in at over $3000.

0 L IS USM (introduced with the original 5D). This lens does suffer from distortion at both the wide end and the long end, ...

I do think that having USM done in conjunction with noise reduction is much better than doing them separately. You can accomplish this with the licensed version of this plugin.

While the quality and performance of Nikon AF-S lenses or the Canon USM equivalents is unparalleled, so is their size and weight! ...

Mark decided to buy the 70-300mm USM Canon Lens. Without Image stabilization it costs less than $200 on Amazon (IS costs $500).
The lens is an excellent value. Having this much reach will go a very long way towards better wildlife shots.

For example, the Canon EF 600mm F4/L IS USM telephoto lens is a profesisonal-level lens with a VERY wide opening, called an aperture, which is unusual for a lens of this magnification.

8 L USM
Canon EF 24-70 f2.8 L USM
Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 L USM IS
B+W UV Filters & Polarizer
Toko 77mm Cross Screen filter
Minolta Autometer IV F
Lowepro Magnum AW
Commercial AW camera cases
Manfrotto 410 geared tripod head ...

For macro I prefer the Canon 100mm USM IF. It’s got the fastest autofocus response in a macro lens that I’ve ever used. I’d use the new Canon 60mm macro but it’s EF-S only.

35x ultra wide-angle zoom with USM
Image Stabilizer (4.5-stop). Intelligent IS
HS System (12.1 MP) with DIGIC 5
Full HD, HDMI
6.8 cm (2.7″) vari-angle LCD, EVF
Smart Auto, Multi-area WB
High-speed Burst HQ
Manual modes
Zoom Framing Assist ...

Quick tip: I found that Canon USM lenses work fantastically quick and are much better than the cheaper lenses when working with auto focus.
Histogram ...

These ultrasonic drives go by different names according to the manufacturer, for example USM (Canon), AF-S/Silent Wave (Nikon), Super Sonicwave Motor/SSM (Sony), Supersonic Wave Drive (Olympus), Extra Silent Motor (Panasonic/Leica), ...

URL: Uniform Resource Locator (Web address)
USM (Canon): UltraSonic Motor; Canon's fastest, quietest autofocus lens mechanism
VR (Nikon lenses): Vibration Reduction ...

We read and hear of a post-processing technique called "Sharpening" using "USM" (or "UnSharp Mask") and decide it is just too difficult for us.

8L USM lens. I am contemplating getting a housing for it and going underwater. If I do, would my existing lens work well? I would also like to get a good Wide Angle lens. What WA would you recommend??

Camera Settings
At this point, I was ready to start shooting. I mounted my Canon® 5D with a EF50mm f/1.4 USM lens to a tripod and dialed in the following settings: ...

Barred Owl photo captured in Central Florida late afternoon light with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IIn and Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens at 1/1250 sec., f/7.1, ISO 400. © Richard Ettlinger ...

Unsharp Masking
Often abbreviated USM. Describes an image focusing process. The quality of the result depends on the characteristics of the algorithm used.

or digital system built in to a lens for removing or reducing camera movement, most effective with telephoto or telephoto zoom lenses. Can be found on most of Canon's "L" range of lenses as well as mid-range lenses such as the EF 28-125 IS USM ...

This produces an increased visual contrast on edge sharpness, thereby enhancing the image. The particular control section of a scanner that carries out this particular function is the unsharp masking area (USM).

Unsharp Mask (USM) Unsharp mask is an image-processing technique used to sharpen an image and enhance detail. True unsharp masking is done by subtracting a blurred version of an image from the original.

See also: Camera, Image, Photograph, Lens, Light