Photography Thread

[emopunker2004]

Originally Posted by OLS

On the whole, neither the D70 or the D100 is very good at 'auto white balance'.
Maybe I am better suited to use the alternative, with my lifetime working in TV,
where I set the white balance manually at the start of every shoot. You simply
call up the 'pre' setting with the command dial and point the camera at something
white and half-press the shutter. (I THINK this is the way to set it, I have forgotten)
I find that you have to treat this as a much more complicated deal than we from the
Point and Shoot side are used to. You need to think about what you are about to
shoot before you go off and snap away. The three things I have found most
important with these cameras is to learn the auto-focus zones and how to move
them around with the Directional pad, and second, finding the best metering mode
for the situation, and practice is the only way to really know. Thirdly, you have to
USE THAT FILL FLASH. Your battery is going to last WAY longer than we are
accustomed to, and you should ALMOST use the flash on every shot outdoors.

I get in the most trouble when I get overly excited and just start firing away
and forgetting that maybe the clouds have come up big time and my old WB
setting is no longer valid, or I failed to look at the result on the tiny little screen
and noticed that I am shooting way hot or way dark. When I slow down and
think first about what I am shooting and what I want, and then adjust the camera
to get it ready to do it, I find I get pretty reasonable shots. After that I still have
a bad habit of shooting the rest of the day with the same basic settings. I did it in
New Orleans. I set up both cameras with a few test shots, and then shot for two
hours without caring about anything but the subject. It hurt me badly, but not
TERRIBLY.

I could care less and always shoot auto. Wb can easily be corrected in post if you shoot RAW. Sometimes I set it to fluorescent or incandescent though if shooting inside

[emopunker2004]

A B&W surf pic


IMG_3124 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[emopunker2004]

Cropped surf pix in B&W. What say you?


IMG_3124-2 by emopunker2004, on Flickr


IMG_3108-2 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[OLS]

I think it is all in what a person prefers; I almost always prefer a bit wider view so the other shots work better for me,
but in terms of intensifying the action, I guess the crops work pretty well. I would also leave more room for the
surfer to 'surf into' so to speak. and leave the greater proportion of the cropped photo open to the left, but that
is also another preferential deal, and not a rule of composition per se.

[OLS]

The saga continues.....

I had a Nikon D90 in the kart at Ado last night. Came in this am after 'sleeping on it' and found it GONE.
WHEW, mission accomplished. A man who has bought 5 used bodies in 2 months and still has two does NOT
need another one. Still, by lunch I had found one at my new mortal enemy, B&H. I ordered that one
and then in less than ten minutes, tried to cancel the order by phone. 'Ike" assured me that it was cancelled
and that a cancellation confirmation would be coming my way very soon. Well, that was hours ago. I do NOT
think a confirmation is coming. So I guess now I have a D90 coming. Funny, when I need B&H to be fast,
they are slow, and when I need them to be slow they are fast. Another reason to stick with Ado....they're
ALWAYS SLOW.

Last night I had a dream. I was looking at the large LCD on the back of my Nikon DSLR. Now of course,
I DO NOT HAVE a large LCD screen, I have a D70 and a D100. But in the end, the only reason I thought
I wanted a D90 was for the screen. Anything else I got was a bonus. I love my D70, but I am too old
to be peeping at that little one inch screen. WTH good is something that small? I can't hardly tell $hi+
about what I need to correct from looking at it. But the real reason I was trying to cancel it was that
in the end, I realized for $70 more I could have a D300. I wanted to go to Ado and pick that up instead.

I REALLY wanted a D700. I love the idea of full frame, I had already SHOT with it after the infamous shipping
error. But in the end, I do not have expensive lenses or fast lenses. Full Frame would only serve to highlight
that fact. I would lose the "sweet spot" of the lens projecting onto the crop sensor and likely end up with a
lot of blurry corners in full frame that I would obsess about. So unless I miss my guess, I have a D90 coming.
You'd think I would be more excited.

[OLS]

By the way, make no mistake about it, yes I wanted the larger LCD for my old eyes, but the reason I tried to
cancel the D90 and quickly get the D300 is that it has lens adjustment system that can "fix" lenses that
don't autofocus where you think they should. The camera can recall the adjustment settings from
lens to lens. Since I have 90% used lenses, some of my lenses are not exactly perfect. But now that
the whole sitcho seems officially screwed, ehh, I can still enjoy my 3" LCD and just move on.

[GWN]

Originally Posted by OLS

By the way, make no mistake about it, yes I wanted the larger LCD for my old eyes, but the reason I tried to
cancel the D90 and quickly get the D300 is that it has lens adjustment system that can "fix" lenses that
don't autofocus where you think they should. The camera can recall the adjustment settings from
lens to lens. Since I have 90% used lenses, some of my lenses are not exactly perfect. But now that
the whole sitcho seems officially screwed, ehh, I can still enjoy my 3" LCD and just move on.

I think Lightroom offers a similar function, albeit in post.

[shark]

Originally Posted by OLS

By the way, make no mistake about it, yes I wanted the larger LCD for my old eyes, but the reason I tried to
cancel the D90 and quickly get the D300 is that it has lens adjustment system that can "fix" lenses that
don't autofocus where you think they should. The camera can recall the adjustment settings from
lens to lens. Since I have 90% used lenses, some of my lenses are not exactly perfect. But now that
the whole sitcho seems officially screwed, ehh, I can still enjoy my 3" LCD and just move on.

AHHHHGHHHHH!!!! I need to stop reading this thread! Now you have me curious about the D300. Must....resist...the ODO...temptation....

[OLS]

GWN, I think you mis-read my meaning when I talked about fixing lenses. i am not talking about fixing
the effects of lens distortion in post, I am talking about a lens that consistently focuses on the wrong plane.
If I have a lens that is always focusing in front of or in back of the point where I intend it to and IT SAYS it
will, these more advanced Nikons have settings where the camera body recognizes a particular lens and
adds or subtracts distance to compensate, theoretically resulting in crisp images every time. If I had a lens
that consistently focuses behind where I want it to, I can dial in compensation.

Lightroom cannot focus an image that is already taken blurry, lol. OH that it COULD, haha.

[OLS]

Nah Shark, if I can take it, you can take it. We just need to get better at using our cameras and
take the LCD out of the equation. But one bit of temptation I WILL throw at you is the fact that I kind
of took it for granted that my 50mm f/1.8 lens was good, and didn't need 'testing' as I like to call my evening walks.
I took it out last night, and where I used to only use my cheapie, used, bargain lenses in testing, to see which
ones I would give to my sister for free, lol, last night I wanted to have a lil bhokeh revolution. I took out
the D70 and my 50mm 1.8 and ramped the shutter speed up so high that even with all the remaining daylight,
the lens was stopped WAY down, not to it's max wide open aperture of 1.8, but around 2.8, and shot a bunch
of stuff. For what is basically a $100 lens, you talk about nice photos. you can get em new for $115, used for
around $90. In ALL of the fast prime lenses out there, only one stands out as being a real bargain to me. It took
my D70, and will take mine and your D100 into a much nicer territory. You oughta look into one, Shark, before
you waste your money on an upgrade YET. Let those Nikon D800s and D7100s filter down a bit to all those
folks that just HAVE TO HAVE those new cameras, and around Christmas, get yourself a nice D7000.

These whipper-Snappers like Justin need those fancy doo-dads to shoot pichers, us ole folks can squeeze
art out of ten year old gear, lol. Kidding, Justin, you know I am.

[OLS]

I am gonna take out the D100 tonight with the same lens and shoot all the same stuff.
I gotta figure this out. I love the color rendition of the D100, but it's meter does not
seem to be able to hold the D70's meter's hat. I still love the camera, though, I will likely
keep it til it disintegrates, it just FEELS good in the hand, and it is fast for a dinosaur.
And its only a body, after all.

Oh and Shark....if you think you might wanna try out this lens, you can get it here...
Gray market means that you do not get a Nikon USA warranty, but Adorama will
warranty it for the same 1 year, so if you feel lucky like I do, its a STEAL. In this
case gray market does NOT MEAN fake.

[Jefft72]

Those are some nice test shots Brad. I picked up a 50mm 1.8 Canon and like shooting with it, but haven't gotten enough experience with aperture values. Understanding the theory and effectively putting that theory into practice involves much test shooting.

The shots that I posted a few days ago were from when I was playing around, however I should have shot in aperture priority mode to have a better handle on the outcome.

[emopunker2004]

Just got this in for the cruise. Olympus TG-2. Waterproof to 50ft, drop proof to 7ft, and freeze proof to 14*F


Olympus TG-2 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[OLS]

jeff, I agree that to be confident with the depth of field DOES take a ton of no-pressure practice, if for no
other reason than making all the mistakes. I knew I wanted to just hammer the blur, so I did what I said I did
earlier, opened it ALMOST wide open with just a bit of wiggle room to ensure that I did not suffer from 'wide-open
softness" syndrome. But what I found out was that I had TOO MUCH blur in most of the cases. Now, I DO have a
'depth of field preview' button on my camera which basically shows me through the lens what the depth of field
will be like under the current metering and settings, but I do not use it...I WILL though, now.

I went out tonight, but the wind was way up, so none of the flowers would really stay still. That presented
a lot of issues in itself. I found again that the D100 has metering issues, but I guess its like a Montecristo No.2,
when its ON, its fabulous. I got a little of both tonight. Great results and head-scratchers. When you
compare the two camera's results, you can see that the D100 seems to have better dynamic range.
granted I DID NOT make an attempt to set them up the same, like I should have. One could have
saturation set higher, there are a number of things that could be fundamentally different.
I need to check them both out tonight. ANYWAY, here are the same basic shots and some extras.

[OLS]

Here are a few others, simply because they were SO spectacular. These are the ones I see have such great
dynamic range displayed, in addition to the onion flowers and the dogwood flower above (note the leaves) in the post above.

In the yellow tulip, you can clearly see that I used way too much aperture for this particular shooting sitcho.
the DOF is so narrow, you can only see 1/4 of one petal in in the plane of focus. But since the LCD is SO TINY,
you can't really tell what you have and fix it on the scene. You have to wait to get home.

[emopunker2004]

Nice pix brad.

Well that ****ing Olympus has to go back to where I ordered it. Having a replacement sent.

See anything wrong?

P3100001 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[emopunker2004]

Went over and "babysat" my niece and dog sat the dog while her parents were at the hospital with our other niece.


IMG_3400 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3266 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3318 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3288 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3282 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[emopunker2004]

IMG_3411 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3396 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3368 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[emopunker2004]

IMG_3332 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3367 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

IMG_3293 by emopunker2004, on Flickr

[shark]

Still life: