tyrion Posted July 11, 2011 Report Posted July 11, 2011 We love Asheville, been there a bunch of times. First stop is the Early Girl Eatery for some pumpkin bread to bring back to the cabin.
Salt Peanuts Posted July 11, 2011 Report Posted July 11, 2011 (edited) The guys at the NH Hunt's were nice enough folks when I've been there, though admittedly, I wasn't asking them pointed questions or trying out too many things so they didn't really have a chance to be jackasses even if they wanted to. I've stopped at the Cambridge store to pick up a strap once, but that's been it. I have not been to their flagship store (Melrose) or the one in Boston. I've found that they're all just far enough it's easier for me to just order from Adorama/B&H. Edited July 11, 2011 by Salt Peanuts
Knuckledragger Posted July 13, 2011 Author Report Posted July 13, 2011 (edited) Last month I was returning home from a particularly insane party, and as I approached the Connecticut river, I decided to park and venture across the old railroad bridge. It's now part of the Norwottuck Rail Trail. The fog was insanely dense, so I heard this boater before I saw him. I climbed up on the railing of the fence and took a few pictures of him before he disappeared underneath the bridge. Cleaned up slightly in Photoshop, but most unedited. 17-40 F/4L @ 29mm, F/5, 1/60th, ISO100. IIRC, color balance was set to cloudy. EDIT: anyone know what the name of this type of boat is? It's not a kayak, AFAIK. It looks like a 1-man crew shell. EDIT 2: It just a "racing shell" I guess. Edited July 13, 2011 by Knuckledragger
Salt Peanuts Posted July 14, 2011 Report Posted July 14, 2011 I really, really like the shot, Knuckles.
HeadphoneAddict Posted July 14, 2011 Report Posted July 14, 2011 Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us
spritzer Posted July 17, 2011 Report Posted July 17, 2011 I was playing around with my new camera on my way to work last week. Here is a shot of the midnight sun and the mountains north of Reykjavik at roughly 4:15AM.
Jon L Posted July 17, 2011 Report Posted July 17, 2011 Going to work at 4:15 AM can't be too fun. Busy Bee? IMG_4119 by drjlo1, on Flickr
spritzer Posted July 18, 2011 Report Posted July 18, 2011 I've been doing that every day for more than 6 months now so one gets used to it. Not staying until 5PM is really the hard part though...
crappyjones123 Posted July 20, 2011 Report Posted July 20, 2011 for some reason i cant get shots as sharp as the one jeff posted a long time ago of that tram in nyc with my nex 5. iirc he mentioned using the kit lens even. dont know if it was post processed though. at 1:1 viewing, i see a lot of grain/noise in the photos - even the ones taken during the day at 200iso with 1/4000 sec shutter speeds. i can slow down the shutter to say 1/320s and stop down the lens but even then i see that grain. given that the zeiss 35mm is one of the sharpest lenses out there, id like to know if its something that i am doing wrong or whether it is just the nex.
crappyjones123 Posted July 20, 2011 Report Posted July 20, 2011 wasnt being critical for the sake of being critical. asked so i could improve if i was doing something in poor practice. if it is camera limitation then so be it. however if i can be doing anything different to get sharper images then id like to learn.
Jon L Posted July 20, 2011 Report Posted July 20, 2011 given that the zeiss 35mm is one of the sharpest lenses out there, id like to know if its something that i am doing wrong or whether it is just the nex. When I had the Zeiss 35mm f/2 ZE for Canon, I ended up with less percentage of razor-sharp photos compared to Canon lens, probably mostly due to my lack of manual-focusing skills. But I felt even well-focused Zeiss photos were not sharper or less noisy than Canon lenses. What Zeiss did have was a warmer tone, which to this day I'm not sure whether I liked or not. Anyway, manual focusing in dark places, without a tripod, without manual-focus screen, can definitely challenge the best of us. At any rate, here is my new Chinese ("Fancier") carbon-fiber tripod, which reportedly comes from same factory as Benro, Flashpoint, etc. Not bad at all for $160 or so I paid including a decent ballhead.. Yes, I'm a cheapskate, and no, $500-600 carbon tripods are not in my future. IMG_4202 by drjlo2, on Flickr
Salt Peanuts Posted July 20, 2011 Report Posted July 20, 2011 On a more constructive note, if you underexpose your shots, that can result in more noise. Also, if you are shooting in jpeg, shooting in raw and processing it yourself will most likely give you better result.
crappyjones123 Posted July 21, 2011 Report Posted July 21, 2011 i do shoot in raw. i was following the camera ev reading so far but all my shots seem underexposed so started going by what i was seeing on the screen. better results. will try and perhaps over expose shots a tad and pull it down in lightroom and see if i can get any better results.
aerius Posted July 21, 2011 Report Posted July 21, 2011 wasnt being critical for the sake of being critical. asked so i could improve if i was doing something in poor practice. if it is camera limitation then so be it. however if i can be doing anything different to get sharper images then id like to learn. Problem #1 as Jon L noted is that you're using a manual focus lens on a camera which was never designed for it. It does not have a viewfinder, nevermind one with the old school focusing screens which had microprisms, split image rings and other focusing aids so that you can really dial in the focus. You're dependent on an LCD screen with its limited resolution & sharpness plus its view magnifier function to judge focus, it can be made to work but it's a PITA. I've tried it on a micro 4/3 camera and it's a hell of a lot slower and less consistent than my Olympus OM-1 film camera (not exactly fair since the OM series had one of the best viewfinders ever made). With regards to noise, yeah, looks like underexposure. I loaded up the sample in Photoshop and the histogram is squashed up on the left with a sizable gap on the right. Here's what you do, pick a few typical scenes of stuff that you'd photograph and take a series of pictures of each scene, using the exposure compensation function to dial up the exposure a bit in each one until you start blowing out the highlights. Then back it off a notch. Then note how much you had to dial it up and remember that number or save it into the settings. Use the standard jpg output to get this part dialed in, open them up without any editing in Photoshop or whatever you use and confirm that the highlights and everything else is good using the histograms. Only after you've got the compensation dialed in should you start dicking around with raw. You want the images to come out of the camera as good as they can so that you don't have to dick around with them too much in raw processing & Photoshop.
Jon L Posted July 21, 2011 Report Posted July 21, 2011 Still practicing hand-held shots with extension tube. IMG_4508 by drjlo1, on Flickr
Knuckledragger Posted July 22, 2011 Author Report Posted July 22, 2011 Well, shit. The battery door of my 30D, which has been failing for months, finally came off in my hand today. I spent an hour duct-taping it back together (in away that doesn't interfere with any of the controls or the memory card door) and it looks like ass, but works. This is kind of an issue as I have very big job shooting an event on Saturday. Anyone got a spare D3S lying around that I could borrow?
Asr Posted July 22, 2011 Report Posted July 22, 2011 (edited) Some pics from a trip to San Francisco last weekend. Was yet another fantastic 5-day mini-vacation - in fact, I think I'm going to make all of my future trips 5 days. Just long enough to feel like I've taken up temporary residence in a new area and don't want to go back home at the end. (Sorry if 25 pics is too many, didn't really want to pare this set down further.) #1 - N-facing view from my hotel room #2 - Chinatown #3-#4 - fire jugglers at Justin Herman Plaza (Market & Embarcadero) #5-#8 - CA Academy of Sciences (in Golden Gate Park) #9-#10 - De Young Museum (also in Golden Gate Park) (#10 made me think of HC) #11 - NE area of the city from a boat tour #12-#13 - Aquarium of the Bay's "underwater" tunnel exhibit #14-#18 - Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf area #19 - downtown SF near the Metreon #20-#23 - SF Museum of Modern Art (expand the towel pics to read what's on them - I got a laugh out of the embroidered text) #24-#25 - views from the Grandviews Lounge of the Grand Hyatt SF (GG Bridge in remote background of #25) On a photography-related subject, I incidentally discovered on this trip that the Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 produces image quality superior to the Nikon 16-85 f/3.5-5.6 when all variables are kept constant - better contrast specifically, along with slightly sharper IQ, and better starburst effects on light sources (easily noticed on night shots). Edited July 22, 2011 by Asr
Salt Peanuts Posted July 23, 2011 Report Posted July 23, 2011 (edited) The rumored Nikon mirrorless is real If the rumored sensor size is correct, it's really dissapointng, though I'm sure it'll still sell like hotcakes. Edited July 23, 2011 by Salt Peanuts
Cankin Posted July 23, 2011 Report Posted July 23, 2011 If the rumored sensor size is correct, it's really dissapointng, though I'm sure it'll still sell like hotcakes. The upcoming Canon EVIL may have the same sized senor. I guess they don't want EVIL to lower sales of traditional DSLR.
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