PF Photography: Tips, Tricks, & Photo Sharing

[Andre]

Wow, that's a really striking shot! The tracks make a nice frame. Did the software come with the camera?

Yes indeed, there is software to stich the frames together. Canon provides "PhotoStitch" (version3.1). However I prefer to use Panasonix "Panorama maker" (version 4) by ArcSoft, that came with the other camera. These are thumbnails of the original shots (at 6% size)

You can see that the right frame is indeed correctly exposed. So I need to check the stitch program to see why it screwed up. The light was indeed beautiful.

 

[turbo]

Does your camera have a burst mode, and if so, do you use it? I have found it very helpful to capture very fleeting expressions, especially in children. Here's my brother's little girl (14 months) getting a feel for the little patio chair that we bought for her. I had no idea that I had managed to get such a coy eyes-askance expression before she had actually turned to face me.

 

[Borek]

We have spent last weekend somewhere in Poland again. Honestly - pictures below expectations Perhaps these two worth of sharing. First, Marzena:

(if you look carefully - on the border between green and brown, about an inch from the right edge - sits a hare:

we have spotted it when browsing the pictures, neither of us saw it in the field )

Me:

Unfortunately, my picture has too shallow DOF, so it looks good only when small

 

[chroot]

Borek,

Are your skies really completely blown out? Could you recover some detail in them with some adjustments?

If you do a lot of landscapes, I'd recommend using HDR or a gradient neutral density filter to pull the sky back into proper exposure.

- Warren

 

[Borek]

Unfortunately sky was completely flat - it was hazy afternoon for the first picture and just a gloomy, cloudy day (with more or less constant cloud cover) in the second. Not much to be done (apart from pasting sky from other picture ).

On the first day morning sky was much more interesting.

Building haze is already visible over the horizon. Clouds are modified with the filter, they were not so prominent in the reality.

We slept in the building with the red roof.

 

[Borek]

Anybody with experience in using software chromatic aberration reduction?

I have a Canon EF-S 18-200 lens here. Without AC correction it can be difficult to accept, especially at the wide end. I thought Digital Photo Professional will be able to do the correction, from what I know it works nicely for other lenses. However, EF-S 18-200 is not supported yet. I have to decide fast whether I want to keep the lens or not, Canon support will either answer or not if they plan to upgrade DPP in the near future.

BTW: Canon web page is not aware of the lens existence, so it is not possible to ask a question about it. "Product not found".

Samples later.

 

[Borek]

Still no answer from Canon, but did some testing on my own. Adobe Lightroom, trial version:

Heavily cropped and zoomed, periferal part of the picture. Bottom - with original aberration, as seen through the lens on the wide end. Upper - after the aberration has been corrected with Lightroom.

I have not decided yet, but could be I will keep the lens.

 

[Andre]

Tried a panorama too. The light was nice after the heavy rain / cold front passed. Close to 180 degrees from the south window. The right frame is not nicely fitting despite locking all settings for all the frames.

So looking at the horizon it seems empty however if you aim down south with the 300 mm, you pick up the city of Rotterdam, on an average-visibility day the 'skyline' looks like this:

The tower in the life size crop (Euromast) is at 17.7 km away, about 11 miles. Anyway, yesterday afternoon, for some unknown reason, the haze started to disappear, which is highly unusual under these conditions and for once we had an amazing visibility like this:

 

[Andre]

In that crystal clear visibility the sunset was extremely bright, I may have mentioned that in chat (when I poofed due to finger trouble):

anyway the last second of the sun setting:

Check out the colors (original, unchanged), would that be the green flash behind those clouds?

 

[turbo]

Hard to tell about the GF Andre with all the brilliant orange clouds. Nice sequence though.

 

[Borek]

Still no answer from Canon

Funny thing. I asked them about the Digital Photo Professional on 19^th and yesterday got the answer - they have released new version on 21^st

 

[GeorginaS]

Does your camera have a burst mode, and if so, do you use it? I have found it very helpful to capture very fleeting expressions, especially in children. Here's my brother's little girl (14 months) getting a feel for the little patio chair that we bought for her. I had no idea that I had managed to get such a coy eyes-askance expression before she had actually turned to face me.

Fantastic catch of her expression, turbo. What a doll she is.

 

[turbo]

Fantastic catch of her expression, turbo. What a doll she is.

Thanks. She is usually very happy and playful, but she has a stubborn streak you wouldn't believe under some circumstances. One of her sandals came undone during their visit and she about threw a fit when her father or mother tried to put it back on her foot. She wanted to do it all by herself and was very unhappy when they tried to put the sandal on for her. She sat on the deck for probably 15 minutes trying to get that sandal on her foot. Eventually, her mother put back on for her, and Hayley was VERY unhappy (LOUD!).

 

[Andre]

same scenery

How the storm moved in last week:

 

[Borek]

Wow. We have lately a lot of storms here too, but not as picturesque. Especially when you look from the ground level as I do.

I recall seeing very similar wall of clouds back in Feb 2002 when flying to London from Warsaw. Funny thing - it must have been more or less in the same place

 

[Astronuc]

Very cool pic, Andre!

 

[Andre]

Thanks Astro, I promised to post the whole series of that storm. So here they are:

 

[Andre]

A 50% life size crop of the pic in the garden thread:

The sun was finally out to brighten up the rain drops.

 

[Ms Music]

My daughter just emailed me this. She is bored out of her mind and goofing off with my camera. Not the best pic because of being "self taken", but I thought it was pretty creative. And the reflection of the lens is cool!

Just call her HAL.

 

[Andre]

Nice one mM and sorry for the late reply

Have some orchids in chiaroscuro:

Just need a helpfull sun

 

[matthyaouw]

That is some mighty fine lighting Andre

I spent a couple of weeks in Scotland last month:

 

[Andre]

Nice work Matt, excellent.

So, after finding myself unable to satisfy a request of a sibling to make wide angle -real estate broker- interior pictures, I decided that I needed a wide angle lens.

So instead of going to the retailer I did some research and settled for a second hand, like new, etc, economical feasible Tokina 12-24mm for these reasons

So I wanted to compare it with the kit lens and I made this test shot with both lenses.

This messy rainforest is my front yard. I see if I can make something decent of it next year. The white rectangles are the crops below at 100%.

So I first processed the RAW shot, with only one click out of ten for sharpening and some trail and error work to take care of the Chromatic aberration. To the left is the camera processed jpg and to the right the result of the RAW processing and especially the fuchsia stems in the middle crop show some success dealing with the chromatic aberration.

A second shot almost similar was made with the kid lens with identical processing giving these results:

Again, especially the fuchsias suggest that the Tokina wide angle lives up to its expectations.

 

[chroot]

matthyaouw,

Amazing work! How much work was done in post? My favorite is the second from last.

- Warren

 

[matthyaouw]

That looks a pretty nice lens. I didn't consider it when I went for my ultra wide because I thought I'd miss the extra 2mm advantage the sigma had, but I'm finding 10mm is just too wide for most things I want to do with it.

 

[matthyaouw]

matthyaouw,

Amazing work! How much work was done in post? My favorite is the second from last.

- Warren

Thanks! Most of them have just had a contrast & saturation tweak and a sharpen. The second to last had the sky darkened a tad. The last had some pretty strange colours because of the filters it was taken through so it had its white balance changed a whole load and the sky was partially desaturated.

 

[Borek]

I have several versions differing in the size of the white spot, can't decide which one is the best.

 

[~christina~]

Beautiful pictures Andre, matthyaouw, and Borek!

 

[photo759]

 

[Andre]

Moths are cute

This is Behe

Or somewhat closer (60% crop)

 

[Andre]

Slightly different focus and some color processing

 

[turbo]

Darn your macro hide, Andre! I have been looking for one for over a month, and nobody in the US has them. Everyone wants my credit card # to lock me in, but nobody can ship a lens. I don't play that game.

 

[Andre]

Darn your macro hide, Andre! I have been looking for one for over a month, and nobody in the US has them. Everyone wants my credit card # to lock me in, but nobody can ship a lens. I don't play that game.

Sorry to hear, Turbo. I was looking around to see if I could assist. This is definitely true:

Here is a warning for anyone contemplating the purchase of the Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens: You will find yourself looking for little things to use for subjects - which are everywhere. No bug is safe. You will find you neck hurting from looking down all the time. You will discover a world you never knew existed. Macro photography is great fun. And men - You now have another reason to buy your wife flowers (they make great subjects).

 

[turbo]

Thanks, Andre, though possible warranty issues and for-certain import duty issues make me want to buy from a US company. I'll just have to wait it out - meanwhile the nicest macro season (summer) is waning.

 

[Andre]

some 'against the light' pictures that somehow I did not select for the contest, because I thought the big sunset -although not my favorite- would be considered best

 

[Borek]

Yesterday I have seen a friend of mine. It happened that in the last few years we have seen each other about once per year and only for a moment, so we have not exchanged much information. We have finally spent a few hours talking about everything that have happened in the meantime. He told me his 18 y.o. son is interested in photography and just got accepted to National Film School in Łódź (200 people interested, 7 places available). Then he gave me these links:

http://miachal.fotolog.pl

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11516102@N07/

There are moments when you want to throw the camera away and to stop thinking you ever knew how to take a simple picture.

 

[turbo]

Pretty talented at age 18 - he earned his way into that school.

 

[Andre]

True

Anyway, I browsed some old files and had forgotten about this capture of the dew in the cold morning

 

[turbo]

I have been waiting for the Canon 100mm macro to come off back-order. Canon has made no announcements, but it is funny that such a popular lens should be out of production for such a long time. That's got me thinking...is Canon re-designing that lens with Image Stabilization? It would be a really great move on their part.

Until that happens, maybe I should be happy with what I've got. I shot these today..the first one with the 28-135 at 135mm and the second with the 100-400 at 400mm. I used the on-board flash for the first, and natural lighting for the second.

 

[turbo]

I started digging around, and this site has a Canon press release that claims that Canon's new hybrid IS system is a perfect match for macro lenses, in which high magnification also magnifies the blurring effects of shake and tilt. That would explain why the 100mm macro has been unavailable for months. My fear is that a new 100mm macro IS will also carry a red band (L designation) and jump several hundred dollars in price. Grrr!

http://www.canonrumors.com/

 

[turbo]

If this is real, the lens is going to be $$$$!

http://www.canonrumors.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/8689686.jpg

 

[Borek]

Link is not working - I mean, it displays only generic CanonRumors logo. Probably protection against hotlinking.

 

[turbo]

Link is not working - I mean, it displays only generic CanonRumors logo. Probably protection against hotlinking.

Oops! It showed for me after I checked the link, but that was because I had the image in my cache. It's a picture of a 100mm macro USM IS, with a red band, so it's been upgraded to L-series.

 

[Andre]

That's going to be a heck of a glass for sure. But you can see it at the start page:

http://www.canonrumors.com/

 

[matthyaouw]

So here's your lens Turbo, officially announced: 100m f2.8 L with iS

But good news for your wallet:

The Canon EF 100mm F2.8L IS USM macro will supplement, rather than replace the existing 100mm F2.8 USM macro

Now all you need to do is convince yourself not to buy the nicer version. Good luck!

Canon have also announced the Eos 7D. This looks like a nice camera! The same size sensor as the 40d, 450d etc but with some of the perks of the 5d and its ilk.

 

[Borek]

I wonder if 7D CFx settings allow to remember - for example - +/-1 Tv bracketing with continuous shooting. This is a setting that I use now and then when it is hard to decide what exposition will be the best, but setting it requires a lot of tinkering; having it as an easily accessible preset would be a perfect solution.

 

[Andre]

So here's your lens Turbo, officially announced: 100m f2.8 L with iS

But good news for your wallet:

Now all you need to do is convince yourself not to buy the nicer version. Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002NEGTSI/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Anybody interested in a Canon EF 100mm Macro USM non IS? Barely used, well about 700 shots, I think.

 

[Andre]

Anyway, spent sometimes in the modest dutch forest and heather fields today to shoot ~200 pictures. I named this picture wow-heath.

The species is Erica tetralix, but this specimen was the only one covered with those thick sticky water like bubbles.

Wow.

It was way too late for dew, I see that the leaves also possesses sticky, adhesive glands but this is weird.

 

[turbo]

Anyway, spent sometimes in the modest dutch forest and heath fields today to shoot ~200 pictures. I named this picture wow-heath.

The species is Erica tetralix, but this specimen was the only one covered with those thick sticky water like bubbles.

Wow.

It was way too late for dew, I see that the leaves also possesses sticky, adhesive glands but this is weird.

Any bugs caught in the sticky stuff? Around here, we have little plants called "sundews" that often live in nutrient-poor places like on rotting wood. They have sticky stuff on their leaves that looks tempting to insects. Bugs get stuck in the goo, and as they struggle to escape, the leaf folds around the bug, and as the bud dies, the plant absorbs its nutrients.

 

[Andre]

We have sundew as well, but no bugs here and lots of these flowers without the sticky stuff. It was close to this tree

Notice the boxes in the centre at the back. If you get real close it loox like this:

 

[lisab]

We have sundew as well, but no bugs here and lots of these flowers without the sticky stuff. It was close to this tree

Notice the boxes in the centre at the back. If you get real close it loox like this:

Ah, very nice...I bet it's a wonderful place for a bear to go on a long explore .