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Welch wrote:

The most i've done with my camera in 2 months was wipe it out

Uh-oh

Welch wrote:

The most i've done with my camera in 2 months was wipe it out for an AMAZING rainbow that popped out of now-where.

I hope you meant whip it out.

Although the judge tells me I'm not allowed to whip anything out in public any more.

My god Spoofe..... that last shot........ teach...... me..... your.... ways :|

Yessir:

Step 1: Drive far away.
Step 2: Long exposure, but not so long as to make the stars come off as trails (which can readily be seen at about 10 or 15 seconds or so).
Step 3: Minor adjustment to tone curves, to make the dark parts really dark.

Step 1 is the most important; it also helped that there was no moon the night before last. I just put myself in the right conditions at the right time, which in this case required a three hour drive and an overnight camp. Pretty much anybody else that's been posting in this thread would've snapped off awesome pictures out there.

Voldenuit wrote:

Welch wrote:

The most i've done with my camera in 2 months was wipe it out for an AMAZING rainbow that popped out of now-where.

I hope you meant whip it out.

Although the judge tells me I'm not allowed to whip anything out in public any more.

Yes whipped it out............. ehheeem.... They haven't caught me yet

You know..... People always talk about a TR BBQ get together..... as much as I love chatting with some of the guys here on TR, the thought of flying to a spot for a 1 day Wing-Ding is sort of pushing the envelope of my capabilities.... BUT..... My question is why don't we have a get together for something photography related? It would make for a great photo-workshop weekend... We can throw BBQ and beer in on the side too . Would anyone be down for something like that?

I hope you don't mean in Fairbanks, unless you're planning to set it up as a webinar

Welch wrote:

You know..... People always talk about a TR BBQ get together..... as much as I love chatting with some of the guys here on TR, the thought of flying to a spot for a 1 day Wing-Ding is sort of pushing the envelope of my capabilities.... BUT..... My question is why don't we have a get together for something photography related? It would make for a great photo-workshop weekend... We can throw BBQ and beer in on the side too . Would anyone be down for something like that?

I know that I would ABSOLUTELY be down for a TR group photography outing...hopefully within a driving distance (under 12 hours) from me. Within that radius from me (Omaha Nebraska) there are a ton great places to go, but I'm not sure how many others are within that area...

Ahaha, ya... Not talking about Fairbanks. That would be pretty unfair of me to expect anyone to fly here. I'd be willing (wouldn't have a choice) to fly down to the states for a photo get together. Preferably once I get some more knowledge and experience under my belt so I'm not bothering everyone while i'm there, plus I'm in college now so i'm strapped for cash/time. Luckily enough I am a travel agent, so If its someone Alaska Airlines flys I can actually go for 90% off going Standby ! I've also got a girlfriend to work around so it further complicates things, but if the place/time/ect was right it would be one heck of a get together. That or maybe you guys would be interested in coming up in March for the World Ice Art Championship... probably could even be hired by a group or the organization to be an official photographer, something I believe they were short on this year, they'd pay the plane/hotel tickets I'm sure. !?

Hack your Panasonic GH1 or GF1:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/ ... -and-more/

A bit risky since you have to actually flash the firmware, unfortunately.

ludi wrote:

Hack your Panasonic GH1 or GF1:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/ ... -and-more/

A bit risky since you have to actually flash the firmware, unfortunately.

Actually, I've been experimenting with it for the past few days.

Hacked the GF1 to do 1080p, but the MJPEG codec is not great for FullHD, because to get a compromise where the bitrate was low enough not to overrun the write buffer (using a Class 10 card) meant that the pictures were a little bit muddy for my tastes. Even then, complex scenes with lots of detail/motion could overrun my buffer and prematurely end my recording.

In the end, I settled for upping the 720p bitrates for both MJPEG and AVCHD, and my videos now look a lot crisper than they did before (at the cost of larger file sizes).

Some people are reporting good results with lower bitrate 1080p MJPEG (1080p AVCHD is not available on the GF1 with the current firmware tool), but I'm pretty happy with my results. Every time you patch the camera, you need to increment the firmware number by 1, so I'm being very conservative with keeping the revision number below what Panny's next official patch will probably be. Of course, nothing's stopping you from patching the new firmware, but I'm just being super cautious.

Also good is that the firmware patch tool can remove battery DRM (all geeks rejoice), European cameras' 30min movie limit and enable English menus on Japanese cameras.

Loving the stuff from the last two pages: macros, wilderness, sports, astronomy – inspiring!

I’ve been rather busy of late but today I got around to buying the 35mm f1.8 I’ve been eyeing. So on getting home I was using it to practise some lighting shots.



I took this one using the aperture priority mode and the tripod. Now I just need to get out and use it in some more interesting places...

ludi wrote:

Hack your Panasonic GH1 or GF1:

Heh, now we're overclocking cameras.

SPOOFE wrote:

My god Spoofe..... that last shot........ teach...... me..... your.... ways :|

Yessir:

Step 1: Drive far away.
Step 2: Long exposure, but not so long as to make the stars come off as trails (which can readily be seen at about 10 or 15 seconds or so).
Step 3: Minor adjustment to tone curves, to make the dark parts really dark.

Step 1 is the most important; it also helped that there was no moon the night before last. I just put myself in the right conditions at the right time, which in this case required a three hour drive and an overnight camp. Pretty much anybody else that's been posting in this thread would've snapped off awesome pictures out there.

Not sure why, but reading this reminded me of this. That's probably a bit overkill for your standard family portrait. Looks like a mahusive webcam.

Richie_G wrote:

Loving the stuff from the last two pages: macros, wilderness, sports, astronomy – inspiring!

I’ve been rather busy of late but today I got around to buying the 35mm f1.8 I’ve been eyeing. So on getting home I was using it to practise some lighting shots.



I took this one using the aperture priority mode and the tripod. Now I just need to get out and use it in some more interesting places...

I like the composition and contrast, but maybe just a bit too dark?

Also, there's an evil orange eye glowering at me from under the desk

I wanted to get closer, and he'd have let me...but there are safety considerations to be had

EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro, again. 1/200 second, f/9.0, ISO 400:



These flowers grow on some sort of decorative bush that is planted around the office park. Clusters of 20-30 blossoms form and they're tiny, slightly smaller than pencil erasers. Just look like white dots when walking past. I didn't even see the aphid (or whatever that bug is) until reviewing the images on my computer.

ludi wrote:

I like the composition and contrast, but maybe just a bit too dark?

Also, there's an evil orange eye glowering at me from under the desk

Yeah it was a bit difficult to get it all lit properly without blowing up the record cover, I didn't want to use any post processing else I'd have increased the fill light in photoshop. The main source of light was a small desk lamp that's seen better days, but I like it because of the temperature of light it gives. I'm not sure how I would have increased the exposure in the darker areas without over exposing the record sleeve, anyone know?

I just got the OM -> Micro 4/3 adapter for some inexpensive lens goodness. These are shrunk and hosted on facebook, so take with a grain of salt.

Olympus E-PL1

28mm F2.8




75-150mm F4

Corrado, I can't help but hear "I am not amused by your new toy." when I see the look on his face in the first and last shots.

--SS

Beautiful weather today, no way was I going to stay in. Went for a walk around town, took the camera and was using the 35mm f1.8 Nikkor and the 90mm f2.8 1:1 Tamron Macro. Aperture priority was the mode of choice today - I've been using manual a lot but it's a pain to use on the move, I think it's best suited for still subjects. In addition I put ISO to automatic and played with the exposure value setting to make small adjustments.











There's a lot of geese in Malmö, and they strut around like they own the place: calm as Hindu cows.





Something I've noticed is that the 35mm prime isn't as sharp as I had thought it would be. I've no doubt that it's likely something I'm doing wrong - I was using it at f2 for most of the pics I was taking today.

Are you sure what you're thinking of as a lack of sharpness is not simply very shallow depth of field? In those shots you're in a bright sunny day. There's no reason to be shooting at f/2 unless you really want the selective focus.

Skrying wrote:

Are you sure what you're thinking of as a lack of sharpness is not simply very shallow depth of field? In those shots you're in a bright sunny day. There's no reason to be shooting at f/2 unless you really want the selective focus.

One thing I've been realising is how few primes are tack sharp wide open. My Panasonic 20/1.7 is, but my Canon 50/1.4 USM is a *lot* softer. Same deal with the Asahi S-M-C Takumar 50/1.4 I shoot on my GF1 - I have to stop it down to at least f/2 to get acceptable results. I guess there's a reason Leica 50/2 Summicrons command their price premium .

As to shooting wide-normals wide open, about 90% of my shots with the 20 are at f/2. You have a point that Richie could probably have stopped down on his shots and it would have made little difference to the composition or shutter speed. I imagine the 'softness' was probably more noticeable since he was shooting with the Tamron 90/2.8 at the same time - quite a sharp lens, that.

In any case, stopping down a bit (even to f/3.5 or f/4) can do wonders for sharpness and resolution. This doesn't just apply to primes - there are lots of zooms that are soft wide open at the tele end - it's a shame that most consumer zooms are already slow at tele, so you'd have to stop down to f/7.1 or f/8 to get acceptable sharpness.

Aye I was deliberately keeping the aperture large to play with DOF. I've seen that this lens in particular (still talking about the 35mm, the macro lens is fine) is noted for being sharp all the way open, so either my expectations were too high or I'm doing something else wrong.

I'm actually suspecting it is to do with the autofocus, in fact I'm almost certain of it. I've been reading up on it last night and figuring out which mode is best for me to use (AF-S single point [I like to re-press the button half down on a subject and re-focus myself, rather than have continuous, dynamic or 3D tracking modes]). The images I posted above were taken from the ones where I had got the focus how I wanted it, I discarded a number of shots that were just slightly out of focus. In hindsight I realise the mistake I'd made in thinking the lens wasn't as sharp as I had expected could have been easily quashed by reviewing the shots and checking the sharpness across the whole picture to see if it was sharper elsewhere. Seems so obvious now!

Richie_G wrote:

I'm actually suspecting it is to do with the autofocus, in fact I'm almost certain of it. I've been reading up on it last night and figuring out which mode is best for me to use (AF-S single point [I like to re-press the button half down on a subject and re-focus myself, rather than have continuous, dynamic or 3D tracking modes]).

Focus-recompose can lead to FP shifts, especially at closer distances. Best done with a little DOF 'safety net' by stopping down an aperture or two.

Another thing you might want to check is whether your lens is back-focusing or not. You can test this on a tripod and taking identical shots with PDAF and CDAF (live view). If the PDAF shots end up being out of focus, you might want to get your lens calibrated - some Canons can do in-body corrections for microfocus adjustment, dunno about Nikons.

At the behest of someone on another forum, I rooted my S-M-C Takumar 50/1.4 out of the drybox and took some shots with it at varying apertures, enlisting the help of a compliant (though not particularly still) subject:

Here is the S-M-C Tak at f/1.4 on my GF1:


And at f/2:


f/2.8:


I must say I was rather pleasantly surprised at the performance of the lens wide open. I'd mentioned before that whenever I opened the lens fully, the LCD preview screen on my GF1 would bloom out, casting purple fringes around subjects, even in non high-contrast scenes. They would disappear completely on stopping down to f/2. As a result, I never took (m)any shots wide open, assuming the final capture would have the same look. To my amazement, the images I took at f/1.4 today didn't have any blooming in the final shot, even on 1:1 view in Lightroom.

I must say the look at f/1.4 is quite interesting. The background looks like an Impressionist painting, and the scene almost looks "unreal". No PP was applied other than white balance and contrast levels.The lens is also plenty sharp enough for portrait purposes. I think I might start using this lens some more again...

Quick throw-together panorama, I didn't post-process the source images yet so there are seam lines visible. Had the right day and lighting, though. Was using the EF 85mm f/1.8 and a tripod and got a decent 135 degree field of view in about ten shots (right-click and "view image", or save the image, to see the whole thing):



On an unrelated note, I got to tinker with my roommate's new Rebel T1i this evening and wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. First, the extra resolution (15mp versus 10mp) is probably helpful when going to the printer, but it didn't help the camera resolve the image any more clearly in difficult settings (shooting my f/4L at the full moon, for example). The noise handling at higher ISO speeds seemed better than my XS, which is a plus, but the additional 3200 ISO setting didn't seem to offer much over the 1600 setting. Live View operation is a bit cleaner but I don't like how that feature operates in general.

On the upshot, the menu system is cleaned up a bit, the "Your face has arrived/your face has left the building" display control sensor takes the pain out of viewfinder sighting at night (XS display can be switched on and off but only with a manual button), and the 1080p video capture feature is there if you want it.

So, nice camera body, but not necessarily worth the price premium unless you do a lot of night shooting or will actually use the video capture feature.

Voldenuit wrote:

Richie_G wrote:

I'm actually suspecting it is to do with the autofocus, in fact I'm almost certain of it. I've been reading up on it last night and figuring out which mode is best for me to use (AF-S single point [I like to re-press the button half down on a subject and re-focus myself, rather than have continuous, dynamic or 3D tracking modes]).

Focus-recompose can lead to FP shifts, especially at closer distances. Best done with a little DOF 'safety net' by stopping down an aperture or two.

Another thing you might want to check is whether your lens is back-focusing or not. You can test this on a tripod and taking identical shots with PDAF and CDAF (live view). If the PDAF shots end up being out of focus, you might want to get your lens calibrated - some Canons can do in-body corrections for microfocus adjustment, dunno about Nikons.

When I'm out next i'll see how it goes with the change in AF settings, otherwise I'll have a go a what you've mentioned.

Oh yeah, and I'm definitely a dog person. The Alsatian is among my favourite of dogs, along with the Border Collie and Jack Russell.

Does anyone know of any programs that can help me find duplicate photos on my computer? And i do not mean duplicate as in they share the same file name, but duplicate as in they are identical images but with two different file names...

Been a bit busy of late. Did manage to snag a few, though:







All taken with the PL45. Love the color rendition of this lens.

EDIT: Had some free time, so went out and took these. The following were all taken with the S-M-C Takumar 50/1.4 wide open:

Great shots Voldenuit!

Here comes a bunch of shots showing the two different types of photography I've been doing lately. First, an engagement session for a couple who's wedding will be this September, followed by some architectural photography. My full time profession is an Architect in training, and the building happens to be my first building (and furniture) design as a lead designer, which I'm extremely excited to see it finished! Of all the photography that I'm doing, I'm finding that the hardest for me is architectural photography...but I'm learning something every time.

jobodaho wrote:

Great shots Voldenuit!

Here comes a bunch of shots showing the two different types of photography I've been doing lately. First, an engagement session for a couple who's wedding will be this September, followed by some architectural photography. My full time profession is an Architect in training, and the building happens to be my first building (and furniture) design as a lead designer, which I'm extremely excited to see it finished! Of all the photography that I'm doing, I'm finding that the hardest for me is architectural photography...but I'm learning something every time.

Thanks! Love the engagement shots, especially the 'Abbey Road' shot - looks like you really captured the chemistry in the couple.

I like the architecture shots too - love the framing and the composition, and you exploited the contrast in colour to bring out the subject.