General Photography Chat

[amaryllis]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Here's a sample for Tilt-Shift using Gimp.




I could have pushed the blur more and faster out towards the edges, but it was a first attempt.

Hi, these pics are great! I would like to know how to use my cam as well as you do!
Happy New Year!

[Robert Pence]

Originally Posted by photoLith

I havent had photoshop for 4 years and have not really been editing my pictures since Ive just had iphoto, but I got photoshop lightroom 3 today for Christmas and its pretty freaking amazing. Heres one of my more favorite pictures I took this year and then a before and after with photoshop. Its amazing how just adjusting the white balance can make a photo so much better.

Impressive! I've always liked the subject matter in your photos and the dynamic way you often compose them. Seeing the color corrected to the way the eye subjectively views the scenes increases their impact.

Originally Posted by diskojoe

LOL. Im wondering how many years ago this happened and how hot was this woman that this memory is still so vivid.

But yeah you can edit a lot of unwanted things out with PS that you could never do with film. Or at least not nearly as easy.

The only thing hot was the hot pink color of the shorts. Think flab, loose and jiggling wherever it wasn't constained by excessively-tight clothing. Ghastly memories are harder to erase than sweet ones, and if certain songs can be earworms, certain sights can be eyeworms

Originally Posted by ue

... But I don't even see why you would bother, if you know how to make a proper exposure in general (and keep in mind you need not be on the dot with negative film anyways, due to genuine HDR), the film photo should turn out fine on its own, what with the special looks each film has.

True, with qualifications. Film has a greater latitude (range of values from lightest to darkest areas) than digital. In fact, the latitude of film can capture images that exceed the dynamic range of scanners, digital printers, and darkroom-processed paper. In a darkroom that's where burning and dodging come in, and it's where HDR works wonders with scanned negatives used for on-screen display or digital prints. With my admittedly limited skills I've found some carefully-exposed negatives difficult or impossible to render in a digital print without blown-out highlights or lost shadow detail. That's where HDR comes to my rescue.

I can make multiple scans of a negative, usually three to five, and then merge them in HDR to come closer to the scene as I saw it when I took the photo. I'm still a novice at this and need to work more with Photomatix to learn all its bells and whistles, but the technique shows promise.

[photoLith]

^
Thanks for the compliments man.

I finally sold my D7000 which I was terribly displeased with and on Tuesday am going down to the Houston Camera Exchange to buy a D300s, that camera was released way back in Sept 2009, so its pretty ancient in digital camera years, but Nikon has yet to release a replacement for it. I went back to using my D200 after buying the D7000 and I bought that back in 2004, so its basically a fossilized remnant of the early years of pro digital cameras, but its still a kick ass camera. Im debating between the D300s though and the full frame D700. The only problem with the D700 is that a lot of my lenses were built for DX cameras, or 1.5 crops. Like my Tokina 11-16mm lens would have a large dark ring around it if I shot it at 11mm on the D700. But I would love to have a full frame camera, I just have so much invested in DX glass, and not FX.

[Robert Pence]

Originally Posted by photoLith

^
Thanks for the compliments man.

I finally sold my D7000 which I was terribly displeased with and on Tuesday am going down to the Houston Camera Exchange to buy a D300s, that camera was released way back in Sept 2009, so its pretty ancient in digital camera years, but Nikon has yet to release a replacement for it. I went back to using my D200 after buying the D7000 and I bought that back in 2004, so its basically a fossilized remnant of the early years of pro digital cameras, but its still a kick ass camera. Im debating between the D300s though and the full frame D700. The only problem with the D700 is that a lot of my lenses were built for DX cameras, or 1.5 crops. Like my Tokina 11-16mm lens would have a large dark ring around it if I shot it at 11mm on the D700. But I would love to have a full frame camera, I just have so much invested in DX glass, and not FX.

I'm not thoroughly familiar with the D300s, but I carried a D200 for a few years and got some outstanding photos with it. I agree with your assessment that it's a kick-ass camera. I'm not sure how much difference there is in the sensor and ultimate capture qualities between the D200 and D300s, or how much you'll actually gain over the D200 for the money you spend.

The price has come down significantly on the D700 since I bought mine, and if you feel like spending the money I strongly recommend it. The D700 has a setting that will enable it to automatically crop for DX lenses, so you still could shoot with your collection of excellent DX lenses and start adding FX lenses as you see a need. Even with the DX lenses I think you will see an advantage in image quality from the D700's larger pixels, and the high-ISO capability is an asset.

[photoLith]

If I buy a d700 I would eventually buy the Nikon 14-24 2.8 lens, but that's a 1500 dollar lens. When you set the d700 to the 1.5 crop does it also take down the quality of the photo? Does it still have the larger pixels as in it's regular mode or would it act more like a d300? The d300s is light years ahead of the d200 noise wise. You really can't use the d200 past ISo 400, it starts getting ridiculously noisy. The d300 you can use comfortably to iso 800. I'm sure on the d700 you can probably easily set it to 3200 and look like the d200 at iso 400.

[ue]

If you don't have your heart set on zoom lenses, you can pick up some nice prime lenses much more cheaply. Most notably is the Nikon AF-D 50mm f1.8, which is great for portraits, blue hour, urban abstractions, even landscapes. There's also 20mm, 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm for wide angle and 85mm, 105mm, 135mm, etc. for telephoto.

[photoLith]

^
I already have all the nikkor lenses I could ever want, all the way up to 500mm but I would need a 14mm fx on the full frame. Nikon makes a 14 f 2.8 but it's much older than the 14-24 and only 300 bucks cheaper.

[ue]

Ah, ok. I was just making the suggestion for if you didn't have ANY FX compatible lenses, the primes would be a cheap way to go.

[Robert Pence]

Originally Posted by photoLith

If I buy a d700 I would eventually buy the Nikon 14-24 2.8 lens, but that's a 1500 dollar lens. When you set the d700 to the 1.5 crop does it also take down the quality of the photo? Does it still have the larger pixels as in it's regular mode or would it act more like a d300? The d300s is light years ahead of the d200 noise wise. You really can't use the d200 past ISo 400, it starts getting ridiculously noisy. The d300 you can use comfortably to iso 800. I'm sure on the d700 you can probably easily set it to 3200 and look like the d200 at iso 400.

The way I understand it, the DX mode automatically crops the field down to DX size, just as if you shot with a DX lens in FX mode and then cropped the resulting image in Photoshop to get rid of the vignetting. In DX mode the sensor doesn't change; you still have the same-size pixels, just fewer of them. Like I said, that's my understanding; I haven't tried it because I sold my only DX lens with my D200. If you have access to a friendly retail camera shop, you might take one of your DX lenses and a compact fash card in and try it on a a few shots on a D200, and then see what the results look like.

With my D700 when I'm doing walk-about photography I usually set the ISO on 200 or 400 depending on the day, but sometimes I've set it at 1600 with satisfactory results. I haven't gone beyond that. Because you generally shoot with a tripod, you would have a lot of flexibility.

[bulliver]

Originally Posted by Robert Pence

The way I understand it, the DX mode automatically crops the field down to DX size, just as if you shot with a DX lens in FX mode and then cropped the resulting image in Photoshop to get rid of the vignetting. In DX mode the sensor doesn't change; you still have the same-size pixels, just fewer of them. Like I said, that's my understanding;

That's exactly right. Shooting RAW with a DX lens on the D700 would leave you with a 2,784 x 1,848px frame as opposed to 4,256 x 2,832px with an FX lens.

[photoLith]

^
Thanks for the info man, im pretty set on a d700 now, it's just money but well worth it. And I also always keep my camera on 100 iso as I almost always do night photography and have my tripod. But Robert do you think the d700 is worth it for 1000 bucks more than the d300?

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Someone turned me onto Rokinon, and I was wondering if anyone here has a Rokinon lens or has used one before since I've never heard of them. This is the lens I'm looking at: http://www.rokinon.com/product.php?id=180.

I've seen a few photos taken with that lens, and they look pretty sharp. I'm also interested because that's pretty cheap, especially compared to the official Nikon fisheye.

[photoLith]

I wouldn't trust too cheap of a lens, and I've never heard of them before.

[flar]

I don't know about the fisheye, but I've heard their 85mm 1.4 rivals the legendary Nikkor 85 1.4. No auto exposure and focusing though.

[photoLith]

I decided Im going to buy the D300s because I used a D700 today and it automatically crops your pictures while using a DX lens and it goes from 12 mgpx down to 6 and when its on a DX lens theres nothing you can do to change that. So, instead Im buying a D300s and I was also able to buy with the money I will save by buying the D300, the R1C1 macro flash. I have the Nikon 105mm macro 2.8 vr already but couldnt get spectacular macros of insects like Ive wanted, so this flash will do the trick. Now I just have to wait for spring for all the bugs to come out.







Excuse the crappy iphone pics.

On another note its very hard to find any D300s bodies anywhere right now. All the camera stores in Houston are sold out and every online store that reputable is back ordered and or out of stock. I hope the prices arent about to be jacked up. Nikon has come upon hard times, with the tsunami and then all the flooding in Thailand which wiped out more of their plants.

[ue]

I don't think I've ever seen a flash like that, but it looks neat. The whole thing looks like a great buy. I didn't know that the D700 cropped the DX images that much, thank you for that.

[bulliver]

Cool, always wanted to check out that flash unit, but it is quite pricey for such a specialized purpose.

[ue]

For those interested in architectural photography of the 20th century, Julius Shulman's Los Angeles is going for real cheap on Amazon. $10 in Canada and the U.S. (roughly 30 cent difference between .ca and .com).

[photoLith]

Originally Posted by bulliver

Cool, always wanted to check out that flash unit, but it is quite pricey for such a specialized purpose.

Ill post some pictures I took with it and the 105 macro tomorrow. Its a kick ass unit, but yes, very pricey but imo well worth it. This will open up a huge new section of photography to me. I sure got a lot of questions at the arboretum I went to today, people were very confused by it lol.

[diskojoe]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

Someone turned me onto Rokinon, and I was wondering if anyone here has a Rokinon lens or has used one before since I've never heard of them. This is the lens I'm looking at: http://www.rokinon.com/product.php?id=180.

I've seen a few photos taken with that lens, and they look pretty sharp. I'm also interested because that's pretty cheap, especially compared to the official Nikon fisheye.

Rokinon is not too bad. One down side is they are manual focus only. But they price is right and the glass has nice coloration to it. I'm not real familiar with this one but I know sabotai uses (or at least used) a rokinon 85mmf1.4. For nikon I believe they make chipped version.