OT: Digital cameras
Iain Jones
digital cameras on here!
Since I lost my old faithful 35mm camera last week I'm considering
replacing it with a digital, but to be honest I don't really know what I'm
looking for - I get the megapixels side of it and that's about it. For the
35mm side of things it took me long enough to get my head round the ISO
numbers (with the help of this newsgroup a couple of years back ;-)
My old camera was an Olympus AF10-XB compact model (details at
<http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2B551088> ), point-and-click, nothing fancy,
I was happy with the results. I'm after something similar. Pics will mainly
be kept on my computer, some on the internet, if any are printed they won't
be bigger than A4 size.
Questions I've come across in my research:
- Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
- What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
(rather than the LCD screen)?
- Last week I used up 4 rolls of 36-exposure film across the whole week.
What's the equivalent memory needed for this many photos?
- Are they more prone to damp and cold than 35mm cameras?
Many thanks
Iain
Faolan
<Xns9501D146A5E6Dia...@217.32.252.50> scrolls contained
these prophetic words:
> Questions I've come across in my research:
>
> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
> (rather than the LCD screen)?
> - Last week I used up 4 rolls of 36-exposure film across the whole week.
> What's the equivalent memory needed for this many photos?
> - Are they more prone to damp and cold than 35mm cameras?
Oh boy, this is a cracker ;o)
1) Some cameras are more prone to blow outs than others. Comes down to
how the sensor handles the light, cheaper you go the worst it can
become...
2) Depends on the camera and types of battery, a 10D dSLR can pull about
400-500 shots with a 1Gb Microdrive, my 602 Pro can pull about 400 with
the same Microdrive but using standard NIMH (2000mHA) batteries. Also
down to how much you use the LCD preview and flash...
3) Depends on the size of MegaPixels and the final image and resolution
you choose, such as my 602 can fit about 440 shots (6MP fine) on a 1Gb
Microdrive but a Canon 10D can do about 250 ish RAW iirc.
4) I have not experienced this, but if you keep a sachet of silica gel
(you get this with most electronic items) in your camera bag then you
are helping to keep the moisture out.
How big a camera do you want to carry, how much zoom do you need, what
size of prints do you want to print. Do you want manual or full auto, do
you need the ability to use a external flash, these are all questions
you need to ask yourself.
You note I have not said anything about MegaPixels, it's a fallacy that
people think that a 5Mp is better than a 3Mp camera, it not's necessary
so it comes down to how well the picture is rendered. Don't fall into
this trap. 3Mp will produce decent 8x10 shots.
Steves-digicams.com and DPreview.com are good places to start.
Check out Fuji, Canon and Olympus cameras these have all got good reps,
Kodak do some good cameras as well.
--
Scottish Heritage:
http://www.CelticShadows.co.uk
Brian Innes
> Firstly - apologies to those who may be fed up of newbie questions about
> digital cameras on here!
>
> Since I lost my old faithful 35mm camera last week I'm considering
> replacing it with a digital, but to be honest I don't really know what I'm
> looking for - I get the megapixels side of it and that's about it. For the
> 35mm side of things it took me long enough to get my head round the ISO
> numbers (with the help of this newsgroup a couple of years back ;-)
>
> My old camera was an Olympus AF10-XB compact model (details at
> <http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2B551088> ), point-and-click, nothing fancy,
> I was happy with the results. I'm after something similar. Pics will mainly
> be kept on my computer, some on the internet, if any are printed they won't
> be bigger than A4 size.
I'm happy with my Olympus C5000z camera. Was also happy with my Olympus
C4000 until I lost it... (Long story!) It has manual controls and
aperture / shutter priority.
hope this helps.
--
Brian
Paul Saunders
> Since I lost my old faithful 35mm camera last week I'm considering
> replacing it with a digital,
> My old camera was an Olympus AF10-XB compact model (details at
> <http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2B551088> ), point-and-click, nothing
> fancy, I was happy with the results. I'm after something similar.
The general concensus is that 6MP is roughly equal to the resolution of
film, however the lenses on cheap compacts are hardly of the best
quality so probably 3-4MP will do.
> Pics will mainly be kept on my computer, some on the internet, if any
> are printed they won't be bigger than A4 size.
In my opinion 4MP is enough produce a good quality A4, 3MP is probably
okay at a push. Note that most 3MP digital cameras are actually 3.3MP
so there's not that much difference with a 4MP.
> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
That's primarily an issue of exposure. In my experience most exposure
meters tend to overexpose, resulting in washed out skies. Best to take
the reading off the sky to prevent overexposure. The other thing is
that digital cameras often produce lower contrast images than film.
While this is actually a good thing, it results in flatter looking
images with less colour. Boosting colour is easy, so is contrast.
Boosting contrast also boosts colour. There should be settings to
adjust in camera to get a good looking result straight out of the
camera, or (ideally) you can post process later for the best restuls.
> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder
> primarily (rather than the LCD screen)?
Depends on what batteries the camera uses. I've heard that camera's
which use AAs have a pathetically short life. Li-ion batteries are
waaaaaaaaaay better! This may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer
but Canon estimate 450 shots with the LCD on, over 1000 with it off.
People have reported going away for a week and not running out of
battery power. You're more likely to fill your memory cards before your
battery runs out with a Li-ion battery.
> - Last week I used up 4 rolls of 36-exposure film across the whole
> week. What's the equivalent memory needed for this many photos?
With a 6MP pro camera using top quality RAW mode, 1 gig. With a 4MP
camera in RAW mode, 576 meg. 4MP at top jpeg quality, 288 meg.
> - Are they more prone to damp and cold than 35mm cameras?
Don't know about damp but you definitely don't want to get them wet.
Not recommended for use in rain, although I know someone who's used his
Canon G3 in the rain for a short while without problems. Cold is really
a battery issue, it won't last so long. I've used my G3 and 300D in
sub-zero/snow conditions though without any problems.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk
http://www.photosig.com/go/users/userphotos?id=118749
Fran
> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
> (rather than the LCD screen)?
>
thereof. If you can find 2100s or above the battery life will be
good; however always carry a couple of spare sets if you're going
to be away from your car for more than a day at a time (see
below). Use your camera at its maximum resolution. You'll get
fewer pictures to your cards, but you'll be able to crop and play
with them better if they're bigger to start off with. Always
have at least one spare card with you, of whichever memory your
new toy uses, and don't necessarily go for the biggest cards (in
terms of Mb) you can get. Oh, and you'll probably want a card
reader to plug into your computer, so that you don't need to use
the batteries whilst transferring your photos to the HDD.
http://tinyurl.com/9bg2
Thinking of batteries, I bought myself a 'new toy' over the
weekend and I'm very happy with it: one battery charger from
Maplins. It runs from either the mains or a car battery (via the
lighter) and can charge NiMhs or Ni-Cds as long as you don't mix
them. The big things for me are:
* Works from car battery;
* It can charge *single* batteries! So if, like me, you have the
odd 'flattery' that you can't otherwise charge because it's on
its own - well now you can;
* As long as all the batteries you're charging have the same
chemical wotnot, they can have different milliamperages, as each
is charged separately;
* It came with 4 x 2300ma NiMhs, which it charged up in just over
an hour in the car.
It's a... hang on.... <rummages> Vanson 1-hour NiMh/NiCd Battery
Charger.
I don't have shares in the company - I'm just very pleased with
it.
--
Fran
If you need my email address please ask.
Paul Saunders
> Oh boy, this is a cracker ;o)
>
> 1) Some cameras are more prone to blow outs than others. Comes down to
> how the sensor handles the light, cheaper you go the worst it can
> become...
Well maybe the sensor is an issue, but blow outs are down to crap
exposure in the vast majority of cases. Just take the exposure off the
sky or set it manually.
> 2) Depends on the camera and types of battery, a 10D dSLR can pull
> about 400-500 shots with a 1Gb Microdrive,
With jpegs maybe, but if you're using it seriously (and why wouldn't you
be if you buy a camera like that?) you'll only get 130 shots in RAW
mode. But maybe I misunderstand you because this was a battery
question?
> 3) Depends on the size of MegaPixels and the final image and
> resolution you choose, such as my 602 can fit about 440 shots (6MP
> fine) on a 1Gb Microdrive but a Canon 10D can do about 250 ish RAW
> iirc. 4)
No, 130.
> I have not experienced this, but if you keep a sachet of
> silica gel (you get this with most electronic items) in your camera
> bag then you are helping to keep the moisture out.
Good advice.
> You note I have not said anything about MegaPixels, it's a fallacy
> that people think that a 5Mp is better than a 3Mp camera, it not's
> necessary so it comes down to how well the picture is rendered. Don't
> fall into this trap.
As a general rule *most* 5MP cameras are better than *most* 3MP cameras.
This is generally valid if you are comparing the same type of camera,
i.e. compact vs. compact or DSLR vs. DSLR. But a 6MP DSLR is better
than an 8MP compact.
Paul Saunders
> Oh, and you'll probably want a card
> reader to plug into your computer, so that you don't need to use
> the batteries whilst transferring your photos to the HDD.
Yeah that's a good idea. I've lost count of the number of times my 300D
has run out of battery power whilst transferring the images to the PC.
It's never run out in the field but it frequently runs out when
transferring files. I don't know why that is, but the transfer is very
slow, only USB 1.
Graeme Cogger
217.32.252.50>, iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com says...
> Firstly - apologies to those who may be fed up of newbie questions about
> digital cameras on here!
>
> Since I lost my old faithful 35mm camera last week I'm considering
> replacing it with a digital, but to be honest I don't really know what I'm
> looking for - I get the megapixels side of it and that's about it. For the
> 35mm side of things it took me long enough to get my head round the ISO
> numbers (with the help of this newsgroup a couple of years back ;-)
>
> My old camera was an Olympus AF10-XB compact model (details at
> <http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2B551088> ), point-and-click, nothing fancy,
> I was happy with the results. I'm after something similar. Pics will mainly
> be kept on my computer, some on the internet, if any are printed they won't
> be bigger than A4 size.
>
> Questions I've come across in my research:
>
> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
Possibly. Digital cameras have a smaller dynamic range than
35mm print film - more like 35mm slide film. Exposure
therefore needs to be more accurate in difficult conditions.
There are advantages, however - it is easier to deal with an
image with incorrect exposure after the event, by basic use of
a photo editor.
> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
> (rather than the LCD screen)?
My Canon G3 took about 150 pictures before it needed
recharging, but this was with extensive use of the LCD when
taking the pictures and for reviewing. It's easy enough to put
it on charge overnight.
> - Last week I used up 4 rolls of 36-exposure film across the whole week.
> What's the equivalent memory needed for this many photos?
Again, on my (4MP) G3, the highest quality JPEG was ~2MB, so a
256MB card would be enough. I tend to shoot in RAW mode,
however (gives you more options for post-processing) and these
are about twice as big. A 512MB card is under £50 these days.
Another factor, though, is that you have the ability to review
your images after shooting, and delete the ones that didn't
work. In this case, you wouldn't need so much storage.
> - Are they more prone to damp and cold than 35mm cameras?
>
I don't believe so.
My wife and I also made the move from good quality film point-
and-shoot cameras to digital versions. OK, the digital ones
were much more expensive, but we were both amazed at the
improvement in the quality of our pictures. Having the ability
to make even simple adjustments to the images in a photo editor
is a benefit I could now not live without. It makes me realise
what a poor job most film processors do.
Paul Saunders
>> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
>
> Possibly. Digital cameras have a smaller dynamic range than
> 35mm print film - more like 35mm slide film.
People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Digital cameras have a
much wider dynamic range than film, that's their biggest advantage IMO.
I can only assume that people have this misconception with digital
because they aren't taking advantage of the wide dynamic range in the
post processing stage. Or maybe they have that misconception because of
over-exposure which seems to be extremely common amongst digital camera
users, for which the blame lies largely with the exposure meters in the
cameras, not the camera sensors. [1]
Anyway, as I'm sure I've pointed out many times in the past, whereas
Velvia has a dynamic range of only 5 stops or so, both of my digital
cameras have had an exposure range of 10-11 stops.
It's quite possible that cheaper digital cameras have a narrower dynamic
range, especially if they only produce 24 bit output, but I don't have
any experience of cheap digital cameras so I can't comment.
[1] As I've often recommended, expose for the sky and don't worry if
the image looks dark in the viewfinder (it always does). You can easily
brighten it later. I frequently extract amazing detail from areas of
the image which initially look almost black. But you can't do it the
other way around.
Another way of looking at it is to compare exposure with sound
recording. With analogue tape recording it doesn't matter if the signal
occasionally goes into the red. It causes a slight distortion but it's
not that big a deal With digital recording you must *never* allow the
signal to go into the red. The signal clips and result sounds awful.
Likewise with photography, if you over expose a film shot it fades into
white in a smooth way, but with digital you get a sharp transition into
white which looks a lot more nasty. Never over-expose digital if you
can possibly avoid it.
Road_Hog
"Iain Jones" <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9501D146A5E6Dia...@217.32.252.50...
> Firstly - apologies to those who may be fed up of newbie questions about
> digital cameras on here!
>
> Since I lost my old faithful 35mm camera last week I'm considering
> replacing it with a digital, but to be honest I don't really know what I'm
> looking for - I get the megapixels side of it and that's about it. For the
> 35mm side of things it took me long enough to get my head round the ISO
> numbers (with the help of this newsgroup a couple of years back ;-)
Okay, lots of technical answers already. General user answer, I have an
Olympus MJU 300 as my company camera (also personal use) good quality build,
metal casing and pictures are equivalent to a 35mm and it's 3 meg camera.
MJU 400 4 meg available for Ł168 see
http://www.lauriem.plus.com/bargain_basement.html
Go and have a look at it in the flesh to convince yourself.
NEWTON
> [1] As I've often recommended, expose for the sky and don't worry if
> the image looks dark in the viewfinder (it always does). You can easily
> brighten it later. I frequently extract amazing detail from areas of
> the image which initially look almost black. But you can't do it the
> other way around.
It's possibly worth mentioning what Paul means by this because, although he
has often mentioned it, I don't recall that he has explained the process and
how simple it is and someone who doesn't know might think there's some
measure of faffing about involved :-) Apologies if you have Paul. I mustn't
have been concentrating.
We're talking landscape here and most such shots have sky in them. It's the
sky bit that can sometimes, depending on where the sun is and how much cloud
there is in the image, be over exposed and have blown out bits of pure white
(which are dead and can't be worked with - but could be replaced and that's
an entirely different story). To prevent this happening simply briefly
compose your shot and then swing the camera up to point at the sky above the
land that you are going to include in the photo, that is the bit just above
the horizon so that the camera is looking at the sky rather than the land,
and then half press the shutter. The camera will take an exposure reading
from the bit you've pointed at. Keep your finger half pressed on the shutter
and swing the camera back down to again compose the shot your after. The
camera will keep the exposure levels previously set when you pointed at the
sky.
It takes maybe one second to do this.
As Paul says, the image might appear dark and under exposed but don't worry
about that. If you have software you can correct this later.
--
Dave Newton
Lake District walk&image site
http://www.daves-lakeland-mountains.co.uk
Dave Pickles
> Okay, lots of technical answers already. General user answer, I have an
> Olympus MJU 300 as my company camera (also personal use) good quality
> build, metal casing and pictures are equivalent to a 35mm and it's 3 meg
> camera.
Seconded. Also the Olympus MJU series are rated splashproof. Rubber seals
around anywhere that water might get in. I've never had mine seriously damp
(yet) but I don't doubt that it would survive. My only minor niggle is that
the lens cover doesn't completely seal, so pocket fluff can accumulate on
the optics.
--
Dave
Dominic Sexton
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>
>> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder
>> primarily (rather than the LCD screen)?
>
>Depends on what batteries the camera uses. I've heard that camera's
>which use AAs have a pathetically short life. Li-ion batteries are
>waaaaaaaaaay better! This may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer
>but Canon estimate 450 shots with the LCD on, over 1000 with it off.
Paul, we have been here before!
Please look at the Canon specs for their cameras that use AAs and you
will find them comparable to the specs for their battery pack cameras
when running on NiMH.
e.g. the A80
http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a80/specs.html
AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800
AA NIMH LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000
That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion waaaaaaaaaay
better now does it????
Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem to
repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
--
Dominic Sexton
http://www.dscs.demon.co.uk/
Mark Cavendish
>AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800
>AA NIMH LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000
>
>That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion waaaaaaaaaay
>better now does it????
>
>Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem to
>repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
And of course with the CRV3 Li-ion rechargeables (replaces 2 x AA)
you've got even more flexibility (and better prices as manuf in bulk
and lots of competition!). Tho' downside to Li-ion is that they
degrade from the minute of manufacture: use them or lose them
.
Mark Cavendish
Cardiff, Wales
Chris Gilbert
> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
I have found that CCD doesn't necessarily respond in exactly the
same way as film, especially in extreme light conditions. It's a
case of practising with, which of course you can do your hearts
content. Delete until your happy with the results.
> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
> (rather than the LCD screen)?
Firstly, don't bother with digital viewfinders. They are a complete
of space. A review screen is essential and if you're only using it
to review what you've taken then it wont impac too much on bettery
life. Do not go for anything that uses a proprietary battery so you
can go for standard rechargeables, as discussed.
> - Last week I used up 4 rolls of 36-exposure film across the whole week.
> What's the equivalent memory needed for this many photos?
Depends on the resolution. I have a 128mb card and 64mb card for backup
and unless I'm doing something that may be used later for A3+ work I
will shoot at about 3M pixels and I will get your 144 shots on my two
cards. Also, you'll find that you'll edit out your weaker shots, making
better use of what memory you've got.
> - Are they more prone to damp and cold than 35mm cameras?
Not that I have noticed but I have recently had to send my camera back
to Fuji after it broke when dropped only 18 inches in its case, so in
my experience they are more fragile than thier predecessors.
Other factors: Digital zoom is also a waste of space. Optical zoom
is the king. Check out how many ISO equivelant speeds it supports
and shutter speed equivelants. Mine will do up to 400 ASA and 1000th
sec but I could sometimes do with some more extremes. Mine also lacks
a B mode which really irritates me.
With all technology there is a pay-off between sophistication and
ease of use. I don't mind paying good money for a camera with a lot
of features because I know that I am going to use them. I am sure
that someone can recommend an excellent point and shoot variety of
camera that delivers excellent picture quality with limited flexibility.
Chris
Mike Clark
Earlier this year I opted for an Olympus mju-digital 400. My reasons
were that I have used other olympus cameras, both SLRs and compacts, and
they all have had good lenses and exposure metering. Also the mju series
of cameras are small, easy to use, and are water and dirt resistant.
I use my cameras to record my outdoor activities in rockclimbing,
mountaineering and ski-mountaineering. They have to put up with
conditions such as sea spray, rain and snow, cold and heat, and be
usable in all seasons. Weight is also an issue for activities such as
multi-day mountaineering and ski-mountaineering.
I use the maximum image resolution on the 4Mp camera but compress the
files onto the xD picture card as jpeg files. This means that a single
64Mb card can hold about 150 shots. The lithium ion battery seems to
last very well and on a recent two week ski-tour and taking about 100
shots each week, the battery was only charged once in the middle
weekend, and even then it wasn't empty. The automatic metering coped
well with the snow conditions, it also has the ability to set exposure
compensation, but I found this was only necessary for early morning or
evening shots.
I'm pleased with the results so far and find that it is a reasonable
digital alternative to my mju 35mm compacts (which I still use).
Mike <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"
Paul Saunders
> Paul, we have been here before!
>
> Please look at the Canon specs for their cameras that use AAs and you
> will find them comparable to the specs for their battery pack cameras
> when running on NiMH.
>
> e.g. the A80
>
> http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a80/specs.html
>
> AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800
> AA NIMH LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000
I'm surprised.
> That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion waaaaaaaaaay
> better now does it????
Evidently not.
> Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem
> to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was simply going
by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure I've been told that AA
battery life is terrible in digital cameras, often running out after
just 20 shots or so. Maybe they were low capacity rechargeables, I
don't know.
I've also read repeatedly how impressed users are with li-ion batteries
compared to AAs.
Paul Saunders
> I'd offer different advice to suggest that you don't delete anything
> based on an in-camera review (unless the shot is totally pants). Many
> times I've found that the I've got my best results from pics that look
> less than promising at first glance.
I totally agree. There have been a few occasions when my first shot was
the wrong expsosure so I took a second shot but didn't delete the first,
after which (on downloading to the computer) I discovered that the
second shot was out of focus or suffered from camera shake whereas the
first one was really sharp. A brightness adjustment in Photoshop is
easy but sharpening a blurred photograph is impossible.
> Maybe when I'm better at my craft I can delete
> in-camera.
The big problem is that of sharpness, you really can't tell how sharp an
image is in camera. Zooming in helps but isn't perfect. One problem
with RAW mode on the G3 was that you couldn't zoom in to see the full
detail (I think you were only shown the .thm (thumbnail) file which was
useless for zooming. The 300D saves a jpeg with the RAW image. While I
first thought this was a pointless waste of space I now realise that
it's useful for zooming into to check sharpness. Unfortunately the jpeg
is only saved at medium size so I can't check the sharpness at full
size. Still, it's better than nothing.
When taking pics quickly though, I rarely have time to go into viewing
mode and faff about with zooming. Simpler to just take one or two extra
shots and check the sharpness later. Only if I was running out of shots
would I start looking critically. The sun shots today were a good
example, I took 13 altogether since I knew that most would not be
perfectly sharp.
Paul Saunders
> First of all, I'd suggest you're more serious about your photgraphy
> than you give yourself credit for, anyone who can shoot 4x36 in a week
> is not hanging back for bets!
Ha! I take that many in a day! Half a roll a day is really restrained
IMO. :-)
Paul Saunders
> It's possibly worth mentioning what Paul means by this because,
> although he has often mentioned it, I don't recall that he has
> explained the process and how simple it is and someone who doesn't
> know might think there's some measure of faffing about involved :-)
> Apologies if you have Paul. I mustn't have been concentrating.
I think I have but I'm not 100% sure.
> To
> prevent this happening simply briefly compose your shot and then
> swing the camera up to point at the sky...
> ...The camera will keep the exposure levels previously set when
> you pointed at the sky.
Thanks for the clarification Dave.
> As Paul says, the image might appear dark and under exposed but don't
> worry about that. If you have software you can correct this later.
Yes, to be precise, don't worry if the *land* appears dark on the LCD
screen (not the viewfinder as I mistakenly wrote).
Phil Cook
>Iain Jones wrote
>
>> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
>
>I have found that CCD doesn't necessarily respond in exactly the
>same way as film, especially in extreme light conditions. It's a
>case of practising with, which of course you can do your hearts
>content. Delete until your happy with the results.
>
>> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
>> (rather than the LCD screen)?
>
>Firstly, don't bother with digital viewfinders. They are a complete
>of space. A review screen is essential and if you're only using it
>to review what you've taken then it wont impac too much on bettery
>life. Do not go for anything that uses a proprietary battery so you
>can go for standard rechargeables, as discussed.
The optical viewfinder on my Canon A40 *is* a waste of space. It has
an abysmal coverage of the field of view and I have almost never used
it for composition prefering the LCD screen instead. I suppose I could
get used to the crop factor of the viewfinder much as I did with my
Zenit SLR.
A review screen is not essential. Once you have figured out how your
camera's auto exposure works you can get away with not using fancy
things like live or review histograms to check exposure most of the
time. To save batteries I would use the LCD to compose and switch the
camera off just after taking and not be tempted to look at the shots I
had taken with the LCD
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"
95/284 5/219 c.100/300 (>900m with drop>100m )
Mark Cavendish
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was simply going
>by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure I've been told that AA
>battery life is terrible in digital cameras, often running out after
>just 20 shots or so. Maybe they were low capacity rechargeables, I
>don't know.
Problem often is caused by people not looking after their NiMH batts
properly - not keeping them in sets and *never* splitting. Get 1 bad
batt in a set of 4 and it'll drag the others down. Otherwise they
perform very well and are very cheap to replace.
There is another problem which has afflicted my Sigma in the past:
high power drain when shot is taken which leads to batts dropping
below the voltage threshold and triggering a 'low batteries' warning.
Not sure if it affects other dSLRs but wouldn't be surprised (Li-ion
wouldn't have that prob and high end, quality NiMH are OK)
Dominic Sexton
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>Dominic Sexton wrote:
>
>> Paul, we have been here before!
>>
>> Please look at the Canon specs for their cameras that use AAs and you
>> will find them comparable to the specs for their battery pack cameras
>> when running on NiMH.
>>
>> e.g. the A80
>>
>> http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a80/specs.html
>>
>> AA ALKALINE LCD ON Approx. 250 LCD OFF Approx. 800
>> AA NIMH LCD ON Approx. LCD OFF 350 Approx. 1000
>
>I'm surprised.
With my A20 I only ever need to change batteries on a trip (2000mAH
NiMH) if they have not been charged for quite some time.
It also used to be nice that the spare camera batteries would fit my
headtorch and GPS but now I use a Tikka and Geko 201 most of the time I
no longer have that advantage.
>
>> That hardly makes the 450/1000 you quote for your Li-ion waaaaaaaaaay
>> better now does it????
>
>Evidently not.
>
>> Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem
>> to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
>
>I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was simply going
>by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure I've been told that AA
>battery life is terrible in digital cameras, often running out after
>just 20 shots or so. Maybe they were low capacity rechargeables, I
>don't know.
>
The first digital camera I used (an early Olympus Camedia loaned by a
client for work) would only do very small number of pictures on fresh
alkaline AAs. But it would quite happily take pictures all day on 650mAH
NiCds!
The alkaline cells just couldn't deliver the high current used by the
camera but the NiCds had no problem with it. I was gobsmacked at the
difference especially as the nominal capacity of the NiCds was 1/4 that
of the alkaline cells.
From Canon's figures quoted above it seems that the current drain of
modern cameras is not as bad as with the early models so alkaline cells
are not a complete waste of time.
Iain Jones
was expecting more along the lines of "get in the right newsgroup"!
I must admit most of the technical stuff went over my head, but then I've
just back back from work so I'll try reading it again later. My old camera
was auto-focus, and that's about all I knew about it - no manual controls
for exposure/shutter speed/whatever.
In terms of how serious I am about photography, I spend a bit of time
framing the shot and do the odd experiments like taking a picture into the
sun (some nice silhouttes as a result), and I've picked and chosen who to
develop them for me. I've only gone into the technical side of it once, and
that was asking what ISO film to use.
Saying all that though I'm reknowned for under-selling myself ;-) but
money's the big issue really, whatever I get it'll be going onto the credit
card to pay off slowly. What's tempting me most is no cost of films &
developing (getting towards £10 a go, to buy the film then get it
processed).
For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
is welcome.
Cheers
Iain
Richard Bonnage
"Iain Jones" <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote in message
snip
> For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
> is welcome.
>
>
> Cheers
> Iain
>
I use the 750 because of the optical zoom x10 which I like when in the game
parks. The only draw back I've noticed with digital cameras is the shutter
lag. I do U/W photography and it's a bloody nightmare trying to guess where
the fish going to be in the time it takes the shutter to operate. I must say
I don't really notice this too much with normal use.
Richard
Chris Gilbert
> The optical viewfinder on my Canon A40 *is* a waste of space. It has
> an abysmal coverage of the field of view and I have almost never used
> it for composition prefering the LCD screen instead.
Ah, but that's not a digital viewfinder, is it ? Really, digital viewfinders
are pants and not worth paying the extra for.
> Zenit SLR.
Fine camera :-) Sadly consigned mine to the bin and replaced it with
an excellent Pentax A1. Since superceded by a Canon AE1 and now
the Fuji..
> A review screen is not essential. Once you have figured out how your
> camera's auto exposure works you can get away with not using fancy
> things like live or review histograms to check exposure most of the
> time.
I agree with you with regards reviewing exposures etc. I really don't
think it's a suitable tool for the job nor even designed for it. Reviewing
composition, however is very useful and I do tend to edit on the go.
Features like on-camera crop also seem a bit over the top on higher
spec cameras as you're usually downloading to PC for onward
processing anyway.
Chris
Paul Saunders
> The only draw back I've noticed with digital cameras
> is the shutter lag.
It's not shutter lag. It's auto-exposure and auto-focus lag.
> I do U/W photography and it's a bloody nightmare
> trying to guess where the fish going to be in the time it takes the
> shutter to operate.
Set the exposure and focus manually and there won't be any lag when you
press the shutter release. Essential for action subjects.
Note that there's no lag with my 300D even with auto-exposure and
auto-focus. "Pro" cameras are much better in this respect.
Adrian Godwin
>
> Thinking of batteries, I bought myself a 'new toy' over the
> weekend and I'm very happy with it: one battery charger from
> Maplins. It runs from either the mains or a car battery (via the
> lighter) and can charge NiMhs or Ni-Cds as long as you don't mix
> them. The big things for me are:
>
I bought one of those a few months ago - I'm very pleased with it
(it does a particularly good job if you leave the cells in the
charger to trickle charge while they cool down).
However, it sounds as though they've upgraded the package slightly
- I got 2000mAh cells and, although the car adapter was mentioned
in the leaflet, it wasn't included. Is it simply a lead with a
plug for the charger on one end and a cigarette lighter plug
on the other, or does it have some electronics in it ?
-adrian
Dominic Sexton
Jones <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> writes
>For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
>is welcome.
Take a look at the Canon A80 and A75 as well. The weather resistance of
the Mjus are a plus but Canon has a very good reputation for image
quality.
Take a look on www.jessops.com to see the specs.
If you have a branch of Jessops near you pop in and have a play with the
models you are interested in.
Bernard Hill
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>Dominic Sexton wrote:
>
>> Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem
>> to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
>
>I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was simply going
>by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure I've been told that AA
>battery life is terrible in digital cameras, often running out after
>just 20 shots or so. Maybe they were low capacity rechargeables, I
>don't know.
You are perfectly correct Paul. The difference is not in the capacity
but in the chemistry.
For instance a AA alkaline has about 2400mAh capacity but only lasts a
few shots or a few minutes, whereas a NiMH AA of 1200mAh capacity works
for a much longer time.
Basically alkalines are not manufactured to mix the chemicals fast
enough. They can supply the 1A current for a few minutes and then the
chemicals around the 2 anodes are exhausted and the batteries are not
physically able to mix the depleted and fresh chemicals fast enough to
keep it going. That's why when you give it a few minutes rest it will
give you a few minutes more work. And also why your "exhausted" AA from
your camera will drive a torch (low current) for nearly as long as a new
one.
>
>I've also read repeatedly how impressed users are with li-ion batteries
>compared to AAs.
Size for size, yes. But I am frustrated by the small Lion batteries
(550mAh) in my Minolta tiny camera which runs out much faster than my
Canon 4xAA.
--
Bernard Hill
Selkirk, Scotland
Bernard Hill
<fr...@privacy.net> writes
>iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com said...
>> - What's the lifespan of batteries, assuming I use the viewfinder primarily
>> (rather than the LCD screen)?
>>
>thereof. If you can find 2100s or above the battery life will be
>good; however always carry a couple of spare sets if you're going
>to be away from your car for more than a day at a time (see
>below). Use your camera at its maximum resolution. You'll get
>fewer pictures to your cards, but you'll be able to crop and play
>with them better if they're bigger to start off with. Always
>have at least one spare card with you, of whichever memory your
>new toy uses, and don't necessarily go for the biggest cards (in
>terms of Mb) you can get. Oh, and you'll probably want a card
>reader to plug into your computer, so that you don't need to use
>the batteries whilst transferring your photos to the HDD.
>http://tinyurl.com/9bg2
>
>Thinking of batteries, I bought myself a 'new toy' over the
>weekend and I'm very happy with it: one battery charger from
>Maplins. It runs from either the mains or a car battery (via the
>lighter) and can charge NiMhs or Ni-Cds as long as you don't mix
>them. The big things for me are:
>
>* It can charge *single* batteries! So if, like me, you have the
>odd 'flattery' that you can't otherwise charge because it's on
>its own - well now you can;
>* As long as all the batteries you're charging have the same
>chemical wotnot, they can have different milliamperages, as each
>is charged separately;
>* It came with 4 x 2300ma NiMhs, which it charged up in just over
>an hour in the car.
>
>It's a... hang on.... <rummages> Vanson 1-hour NiMh/NiCd Battery
After a while my Vanson from Maplin never stopped charging on one cell
position. I could charge 3 batteries reliably but that was not much
use...
Cost me £40 too.
Bernard Hill
SteveOrrell@?.?.invalid writes
>On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 13:16:44 +0100, "Paul Saunders"
><pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Steve Orrell wrote:
>>
>>> First of all, I'd suggest you're more serious about your photgraphy
>>> than you give yourself credit for, anyone who can shoot 4x36 in a week
>>> is not hanging back for bets!
>>
>>Ha! I take that many in a day! Half a roll a day is really restrained
>>IMO. :-)
>
>shutter release shutter release shutter release, plus I'm sure
>spaceitis will get you, even subconsciously?
>;-)
>
>I'd take praps a roll-equivalent in a trip oot (Weds eve) but I'd tail
>off in my enthusiasm over a week ;-)
One reason I changed to digital was that I took typically 700 photos in
a week of holiday in good weather on my film camera. I recovered the
cost of the digital mighty quickly in not developing film, especially as
I had them all scanned to CD at the same time.
Bernard Hill
Jones <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> writes
>
>is welcome.
My advice is to buy cheap. Regard the £100(?) you spent as learning
money to decide what you really want. You can always sell it on eBay
afterwards anyway.
I went for a Canon A20 as my learning camera. I moved up to Olympus E10
SLR. But the A20 takes most photos for me as I take it on all my walks
as a visual record.
Bernard Hill
<{d-sep03}@dscs.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <Xns9502B82293C6Fia...@217.32.252.50>, Iain
>Jones <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> writes
>>For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
>>is welcome.
>
>Take a look at the Canon A80 and A75 as well. The weather resistance of
>the Mjus are a plus but Canon has a very good reputation for image
>quality.
Seconded.
Always worth downloading full pictures from
so that you can print the same picture taken on different cameras.
Graeme Cogger
@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk says...
> Graeme Cogger wrote:
>
> >> - Do pictures get more "washed out" in bright light than 35mm?
> >
> > 35mm print film - more like 35mm slide film.
>
> People keep saying this but it just isn't true. Digital cameras have a
> much wider dynamic range than film, that's their biggest advantage IMO.
> I can only assume that people have this misconception with digital
> because they aren't taking advantage of the wide dynamic range in the
> post processing stage. Or maybe they have that misconception because of
> over-exposure which seems to be extremely common amongst digital camera
> users, for which the blame lies largely with the exposure meters in the
> cameras, not the camera sensors. [1]
>
> Anyway, as I'm sure I've pointed out many times in the past, whereas
> Velvia has a dynamic range of only 5 stops or so, both of my digital
> cameras have had an exposure range of 10-11 stops.
>
> It's quite possible that cheaper digital cameras have a narrower dynamic
> range, especially if they only produce 24 bit output, but I don't have
> any experience of cheap digital cameras so I can't comment.
>
Sorry Paul, but I have to disagree. I did a quick search of
the highly respected 'Luminous Landscape' website (usually my
first stop for info on technical questions), and here are a few
links discussing the issue.
The first one contends that even the top DSLR out there (Canon
1Ds) has a range of about 6 stops.
The second one explains why using a 12 bit colour depth does
_not_ provide as great a dynamic range as you would think.
The third describes measurements of the Canon D30, proving it
to have a range of 6 stops (the newer Canons are supposed to be
similar).
The final link, from another site, describes someone's
experiments to compare dynamic range from scanned slide film
and the Canon 10D - he rates the 10D as slightly better than
the scanned slide, but much poorer than negative film.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/1ds/1ds-
field-4.shtml
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-
series/understandexposure.shtml
http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/Pontification/m_Aesthetics_S
hootout/_Is_slide_better.html
Graeme Cogger
@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk says...
>
> The big problem is that of sharpness, you really can't tell how sharp an
> image is in camera. Zooming in helps but isn't perfect. One problem
> with RAW mode on the G3 was that you couldn't zoom in to see the full
> detail (I think you were only shown the .thm (thumbnail) file which was
> useless for zooming. The 300D saves a jpeg with the RAW image. While I
> first thought this was a pointless waste of space I now realise that
> it's useful for zooming into to check sharpness. Unfortunately the jpeg
> is only saved at medium size so I can't check the sharpness at full
> size. Still, it's better than nothing.
>
salesman, but what the hell :-)
The modified firmware I described elsewhere also allows you to
change the size and compression of the JPEG stored with the RAW
images. I imagine you could therefore save a larger JPEG if
you wished...
ste©
"Graeme Cogger" <gco...@bigSPAMfoot.com> wrote in message
news:40c63c40$0$20510$cc9e...@news-text.dial.pipex.com...
| In article <ca4alq$2g3$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>, pvs1
| @wildwales.fsnet.co.uk says...
| >
| > The big problem is that of sharpness, you really can't tell how sharp an
| > image is in camera. Zooming in helps but isn't perfect. One problem
| > with RAW mode on the G3 was that you couldn't zoom in to see the full
| > detail (I think you were only shown the .thm (thumbnail) file which was
| > useless for zooming. The 300D saves a jpeg with the RAW image. While I
| > first thought this was a pointless waste of space I now realise that
| > it's useful for zooming into to check sharpness. Unfortunately the jpeg
| > is only saved at medium size so I can't check the sharpness at full
| > size. Still, it's better than nothing.
| >
| I think I'm in danger of coming across as some kind of
| salesman, but what the hell :-)
Nahh, but admin that you work for the Canon repair centre? ;-)
| The modified firmware I described elsewhere also allows you to
| change the size and compression of the JPEG stored with the RAW
| images. I imagine you could therefore save a larger JPEG if
| you wished...
Sounds good! Give me a 300D and I'll try it myself! ;-)
Ste
AC
"Iain Jones" <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9502B82293C6Fia...@217.32.252.50...
> was expecting more along the lines of "get in the right newsgroup"!
>
> I must admit most of the technical stuff went over my head, but then I've
> just back back from work so I'll try reading it again later. My old camera
> was auto-focus, and that's about all I knew about it - no manual controls
> for exposure/shutter speed/whatever.
>
> In terms of how serious I am about photography, I spend a bit of time
> framing the shot and do the odd experiments like taking a picture into the
> sun (some nice silhouttes as a result), and I've picked and chosen who to
> develop them for me. I've only gone into the technical side of it once,
and
> that was asking what ISO film to use.
>
> Saying all that though I'm reknowned for under-selling myself ;-) but
> money's the big issue really, whatever I get it'll be going onto the
credit
> card to pay off slowly. What's tempting me most is no cost of films &
> processed).
>
> For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
> is welcome.
>
>
> Cheers
> Iain
>
I bought a Panasonic DAM LOC which is a 4 mega pixel jobbie. Bought it
direct from Panasonic for Ł249 less than 2 months ago and since then they
have reduced the price twice (which has really knarked me) to a very
competitive Ł199. This is my 1st digital camera and it has there are a few
features on it but I am just a point n shoot type although I have played
around with the exposure etc - that's the fun of these type of things, you
can experiment without the cost of having them developed! It's quite a small
camera but chunky if you know what I mean!
Try http://www.panasonic.co.uk/ for the details on it.
Here are a few of the shots I have taken with it.
http://www.pbase.com/nalac/onmydayoff
Btw, people talk about RAW mode on here - what exactly does that mean?
regards
Alan
Richard Bonnage
"Paul Saunders" <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ca5821$df8$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Richard Bonnage wrote:
>
> > The only draw back I've noticed with digital cameras
> > is the shutter lag.
>
> It's not shutter lag. It's auto-exposure and auto-focus lag.
>
> > I do U/W photography and it's a bloody nightmare
> > trying to guess where the fish going to be in the time it takes the
> > shutter to operate.
>
> Set the exposure and focus manually and there won't be any lag when you
> press the shutter release. Essential for action subjects.
>
Chris Gilbert
> I'd also humbly suggest that he following article contradicts you:
Not a feature universally available on all digital cameras and probably
not one that the original enquirer would be interested in given his
assertion that all he wanted to do was point and shoot. A useful
tool for anyone taking it that seriously, however.
Chris
RJ Webb
>For instance a AA alkaline has about 2400mAh capacity but only lasts a
>few shots or a few minutes, whereas a NiMH AA of 1200mAh capacity works
>for a much longer time.
>
>Basically alkalines are not manufactured to mix the chemicals fast
>enough. They can supply the 1A current for a few minutes and then the
>chemicals around the 2 anodes are exhausted and the batteries are not
>physically able to mix the depleted and fresh chemicals fast enough to
>keep it going. That's why when you give it a few minutes rest it will
>give you a few minutes more work. And also why your "exhausted" AA from
>your camera will drive a torch (low current) for nearly as long as a new
>one.
When I have to put alkalines in my camera, I cascade the batteries
down through my GPS, and when that has had enough, the tranny gets a
fair run off them.
Richard Webb
rob burton
Thirded, based on the results of a 14 month around the world trip
using a Canon A40 about 7000 pictures heavier. I'm by no means an
expert photographer though.
The advantage with digital though is that it doesn't cost to keep
trying until you're happy.
I am now a much more kean photographer than I ever was than with a
film camera.
You are always tempted to keep retaking the same shot to try and
improve the picture. The reason I chose this camera was for it's
normal batterries, in case we ran out of recharging possibilities and
the ability to shoot short video clips with sound (though not of very
good quality). The only real niggle I had was the macro mode couldn't
be used very close in, though this is much improved in the A80 and
A75. They also improve the video to about TV quality and though it's a
feature you won't use much it can provide some veru good wildlife
footage. The other slight niggle is always wanting a bigger optical
zoom, though these pictures are still croppable to some extent before
printing at normal size.
Practically speaking copying the pictures to CD was a chore in a
couple of places, (especially when you're being blatantly overcharged
and then have to show the guy how write to do it. We had a 256MB and a
128MB card which take about 400/200 pictures at standard settings. 2
cards can be alot more hassle than 1 in some places). The camera took
a fair amount of abuse and adverse weather conditions and stood up
well. I also noticed the camera seemed to take very good pictures at
midday even when the sunlight was very harsh. You did need to do the
focus on the sky technique and generally then the rest of the photo
was still well exposed. As mentioned it is still possible to get good
pictures from a low exposed initial shot. As also mentioned the
optical view finder is a bit off compared to the real shot, but still
sometimes necessary in bright light conditions (Make sure you take
your sunglasses off).
One quick question. Does anyone know of places that can print at the
4x3 ratio rather than cropping the top and bottom automatically to a
6x4 or is it still necessary to manually crop them before they chop
someones head off.
On a walking related note I can really recommend the Rila mountains in
Bulgaria, and the Torres Del Paine in Chile and virtually anywhere in
New Zealand for some really great walking.
Not so long ago I saw amazon selling Canon A60's for £100, which is a
very good deal, though I'm not sure if you can still get them.
--
Rob Burton
Mike Clark
> In article <Xns9502B82293C6Fia...@217.32.252.50>, Iain
> Jones <iain.jo...@NOSPAMbtinternet.com> writes
> >For now, the Olympus MJU 300 or 400 are looking tempting. Any more advice
> >is welcome.
The Mju 410 is also a recently introduced improved version of the 400.
It offers an extra auto exposure mode designed for snow and beach
scenes, it records sound on movies, and the lag on exposure has been
reduced considerably. The 410 has been introduced at the old price of
the 400 so that means that both the 400 and 300 are available at reduced
prices compared to a few months ago.
>
> Take a look at the Canon A80 and A75 as well. The weather resistance
> of the Mjus are a plus
agreed
> but Canon has a very good reputation for image quality.
>
Yes I would also agree. Lens quality is an important consideration. Some
of the digitial cameras available offer good electronics with lots of
gimmicks but to get the best image you also need to source a camera that
uses good optics.
Mike Clark, <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"
Bernard Hill
<robb...@totalise.co.uk> writes
>Not so long ago I saw amazon selling Canon A60's for £100, which is a
>very good deal, though I'm not sure if you can still get them.
>
You can, but beware when they're from abroad. You pay VAT and import
duties amounting to perhaps 20% extra.
Mark South
No, Amazon.co.uk is inside the UK borders and their listed prices include VAT.
The A60 is a discontinued model now BTW.
--
Mark South: World Citizen, Net Denizen
Phil Cook
>Phil Cook wrote
>
>> The optical viewfinder on my Canon A40 *is* a waste of space. It has
>> an abysmal coverage of the field of view and I have almost never used
>> it for composition prefering the LCD screen instead.
>
>Ah, but that's not a digital viewfinder, is it ?
It's what I use it for agreed not a viewfinder as such but it gives me
the view and i find it easier than squinting through a hole, except
when the sun shines. :-(
>Really, digital viewfinders are pants and not worth paying the extra for.
Most of them are pants. But the 1Mpix one on the Minolta A2 is much
better than those that have gone before it on other 5 & 8 Mpix
cameras.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"
95/284 5/219 c.100/300 (>900m with drop>100m )
Phil Cook
>Btw, people talk about RAW mode on here - what exactly does that mean?
A RAW file is the actual raw information recored by the imaging chip
rather than a JPEG processed from it by the camera. By using RAW and
post processing later you can choose how the picture comes out,
manipulating white point, contrast, sharpening, etc to your tastes.
Think of the RAW file as your digital negative.
Each camera maker has their own file format and you need a RAW
converter to process it into an image file. Most camera makers provide
the software for free but there are much better versions available to
buy.
Bernard Hill
<mark....@null.invalid> writes
>"Bernard Hill" <Ber...@braeburn.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:dqiDxhGm...@braeburn.demon.co.uk...
>> In article <feb77408.0406...@posting.google.com>, rob burton
>> <robb...@totalise.co.uk> writes
>> >Not so long ago I saw amazon selling Canon A60's for £100, which is a
>> >very good deal, though I'm not sure if you can still get them.
>> >
>> You can, but beware when they're from abroad. You pay VAT and import
>> duties amounting to perhaps 20% extra.
>
>No, Amazon.co.uk is inside the UK borders and their listed prices include VAT.
>
My apologies. For amazon I read eBay, where I saw some yesterday. You
are quite correct.
>The A60 is a discontinued model now BTW.
Good grief. Makes my A20 look ancient...
ste©
"rob burton" <robb...@totalise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:feb77408.0406...@posting.google.com...
<snip>
| One quick question. Does anyone know of places that can print at the
| 4x3 ratio rather than cropping the top and bottom automatically to a
| 6x4 or is it still necessary to manually crop them before they chop
| someones head off.
|
<snip>
|
| Rob Burton
I've always had an excellent service from Photobox:
http://www.photobox.co.uk/static/services.html
You're looking for the 6" x 4.5" prints, which is 4x3 ratio, i.e., no
cropping needed.
Good luck!
Ste
y_p_w
Bernard Hill <Ber...@braeburn.co.uk> wrote in message news:<pHme6kE0...@braeburn.demon.co.uk>...
> In article <ca48n9$k74$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>, Paul Saunders
> <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
> >Dominic Sexton wrote:
> >
> >> Much of what you post does appear to be based on fact but you do seem
> >> to repeatedly bark up the wrong tree on this particular point.
> >
> >I've not had any experience of such cameras myself, I was simply going
> >by what I'd heard from other people. I'm sure I've been told that AA
> >battery life is terrible in digital cameras, often running out after
> >just 20 shots or so. Maybe they were low capacity rechargeables, I
> >don't know.
>
> You are perfectly correct Paul. The difference is not in the capacity
> but in the chemistry.
>
> For instance a AA alkaline has about 2400mAh capacity but only lasts a
> few shots or a few minutes, whereas a NiMH AA of 1200mAh capacity works
> for a much longer time.
The best AA alkalines currently have a 2700-3200 mAh rating.
> Basically alkalines are not manufactured to mix the chemicals fast
> enough. They can supply the 1A current for a few minutes and then the
> chemicals around the 2 anodes are exhausted and the batteries are not
> physically able to mix the depleted and fresh chemicals fast enough to
> keep it going. That's why when you give it a few minutes rest it will
> give you a few minutes more work. And also why your "exhausted" AA from
> your camera will drive a torch (low current) for nearly as long as a new
> one.
No. It's a matter of internal resistance of the cell relative to the
load resistance of the device. As the load resistance (taking a picture)
of the device goes down, the high internal resistance of an alkaline cell
becomes a larger factor, and voltage across the device load is reduced.
The voltage across the device comes from a simple voltage divider equation:
Vdevice = Vcell * Rdevice/ (Rdevice + Rbattery)
An alkaline AA under a difficult device load will convert the majority
of its power output into heat within the battery, while a NiMH AA will
transfer more to the device load. An alkaline's internal resistance
will also increase by a factor of 2 to 3 through its useful life.
Alkalines are often useless in digital cameras after only 1/3 to 1/2
of their useful energy has been depleted. The voltage they can deliver
across a difficult load goes down with the increase in internal
resistance and decrease of the open-circuit voltage.
An alkaline cell is excellent for low-drain applications, when the device
load is considerably higher than battery's internal resistance. In
addition, the self-discharge of most rechargeable cells makes them
unsuitable for long-life applications such as wall clocks.
The maximum current of a cell would be with a load of zero, in which
case the current is:
I = V/R.
Resistance going down results in maximum current going up. This is
the reason why Li-ion, NiMH, or NiCad cells can charge flashes
considerably faster than alkaline cells.
Paul Saunders
> Sorry Paul, but I have to disagree.
That's your prerogative but you're still wrong. I've done my own tests
which have proven this. I have given lengthy details before. Do I
really have to explain this all again?
> I did a quick search of
> the highly respected 'Luminous Landscape' website (usually my
> first stop for info on technical questions), and here are a few
> links discussing the issue.
I respect that site too, but he's not always correct. I've disagreed
with him on this issue in the past.
> The first one contends that even the top DSLR out there (Canon
> 1Ds) has a range of about 6 stops.
Which is roughly comparable to slide film. In the same paragraph he
then writes; "Shadows on the other hand have great depth, and a bit of
work with Photoshop can salvage a remarkable amount of information from
deep shadow areas." and proceeds to show an example of a silhouette
photograph in which much of the detail appears almost black. The next
photo shows incredible detail in the black area after brightening it.
He then concluded; " I judge it to be about one to two stops better than
transparency film, and roughly comparable to colour negative film."
which contradicts what he just wrote.
In fact, comparing those two photographs I think he's being too
conservative in his estimate of "one or two extra stops". He's got far
more than two extra stops of detail out of that black area IMO (and I'm
basing that comment on my own tests plus spot meter readings, not just
his photograph). I suspect that his initial comment of 6 stops contrast
range may apply to how a photograph looks straight out of the camera,
and this may be where the common misconception originates. Most people
probably don't do much post processing and shadow brightening, thus
those people are probably only getting 6 stops out of their cameras.
They're not exploiting the hidden detail.
> The second one explains why using a 12 bit colour depth does
> _not_ provide as great a dynamic range as you would think.
Yes, the "expose to the right" argument. I'm sorry, but I've done my
own tests and they just don't match up with what he's saying. I wrote a
lengthy post about my results some time ago. I've read the same thing
on many sites, that "The way that it really works is that the first
(brightest) stop's worth of data contains 2048 of these steps - fully
half of those available."
This mathematical analysis might seem quite logical, and many might
accept it without question, but I did question it. The fact is that
reality does not match the theory, not my reality anyway. What he says
is happening is not what's happening with my camera. I don't have a
technical explanation, I just know what I'm seeing. Something about
those maths is wrong. Where did they get them from anyway? Did Canon
give them a technical explanation of how their cameras work, or are they
just making assumptions that the maths work this way? I suspect there
are other factors that they aren't taking into account, since the theory
doesn't match my observations.
Without going into detail, I did my own tests, photographing a grey card
at many different exposures. Not only did I get detail (not over or
under exposed) on 11 different exposures (hence my original argument for
the 11 stop contrast range), but I also counted (using Paintshop Pro)
the number of colours in each exposure. If the "exposing to the right"
theory is true then the maximum number of colours (tonal gradients in
the grey card) should have occured in the brightest exposure. They
didn't.
IIRC the most sensitive exposure was the the third one, so two stops
below maximum gave the greatest sensitivity in terms of tonal gradation.
I've noticed this when processing photographs. Very bright skies (i.e.
exposed to the right) have less latitude for adjustment than a slightly
darker sky. I don't know why this is, but it indicates that there's
something wrong with the theory. I don't know what it is, but I suspect
that the camera designers know something that the internet theoreticians
don't.
I also determined that the histogram is not linear. The 6 brightest
stops cover 9/10ths of the histogram, with another 4-5 stops contained
in the remaining 1/10th. I know this fits with the fact that the darker
stops have fewer brightness values contained in each, but that doesn't
mean that they don't exist. Interestingly the brightest stop covers a
much smaller section than the second and third stops, in direct
contradiction to the notion that the brightest stop contains half of the
brightness values (supported by the fewer brighness values contained in
that exposure).
The non linear histogram may be another reason for the six stop myth.
Since 6 stops of brightness cover most of the histogram, many people may
assume that there's hardly any extra dynamic range in the little bit on
the left. They are wrong, there's 4 or 5 stops crammed in there. I
know that the detail is of inferior quality, I'm not arguing with that,
but the extra dynamic range is there. The inferior quality of the
darker stops only becomes a problem if you brighten it too much. If you
leave it fairly dark it looks fine. You can see detail in the darkest
shadows without it looking bad. The human eye can't discern so much
detail in very dark things anyway, so those extra stops are quite
usuable.
> The third describes measurements of the Canon D30, proving it
> to have a range of 6 stops (the newer Canons are supposed to be
> similar).
Actually it proves no such thing.
He concludes; "What does this all tell us? First, you have to understand
that most colour transparency films have a contrast range of about 5
stops. The best current digital SLRs about 6 stops and colour negative
film about 7 stops. Carefully processed B&W film can have 8 stops."
But he then goes on to say; "The frame you see above has been imported
in 8 bit mode and the only adjustment made was a bit of USM. No Levels
or Curves adjustments were made. If I had imported it as a 16 bit file
and spent some time with it in Photoshop I could have extracted
worthwhile detail in both the highlight and shadow areas."
That last paragraph is very telling. If he had imported it in 16 bit
mode (especially if using one of the latest RAW converters) he could
have extracted far more dynamic range. His 8 bit photograph is a
classic example of why I keep telling people they should use RAW mode
for every shot.
To further support this, look that the shadow areas in the picture.
They aren't all that dark, certainly nowhere near as dark as the
silhouette photograph shown on the 1Ds page, from which he extracted an
amazing amount of extra detail. All this photograph proves is how much
dynamic range you lose by working in 8 bit mode.
Also, if that histogram is representative of what the camera's histogram
showed (which it may not have), then I must assume that the latest
digital cameras are indeed better than the D30, because when I take a
photo like that my histogram does not stretch to both ends.
> The final link, from another site, describes someone's
> experiments to compare dynamic range from scanned slide film
> and the Canon 10D - he rates the 10D as slightly better than
> the scanned slide, but much poorer than negative film.
I'm afraid that I can't access the final link, but from all my tests and
what I've said already I'm sure he must be wrong. I can't understand
why so many people on the internet believe that digital has such a low
dynamic range, and who go to such lengths to prove it mathematically,
when the opposite is so clearly the case. But that fact is only clear
with appropriate post processing. Looking at the pics straight out of
the camera I'm not surprised that people think digital is only
comparable to slide film. That's how it looks straight out of the
camera.
But that's not what proves to be the case when you process a RAW image
appropriately and use Photoshop to extract all that extra detail that's
hiding in the shadows. There's far more detail there than most people
realise, and I don't care how many internet "experts" supposedly "prove"
that not to be the case, it's there! I can see it with my own eyes.
I've measured it, I've tested it. If others are "proving" otherwise
then there must be something wrong with their testing methods or their
conclusions.
Of course, you could argue that there's something wrong with my testing
methods, but if so, where is all this extra dynamic range in my
photographs coming from? I'm not imagining it, it's there. For the
past year and a half I've been shooting digital and slide film side by
side, often photographing exactly the same scenes. My digital shots
have vastly more dynamic range than my slide shots. How can this be if
digital is comparable to slide? It's quite simply impossible. And you
can't blame my scanner, it's a Nikon 4000ED, 42-bit scanner with a dmax
of 4.2, so I'm extracting all of the dynamic range that exists in my
slides.
I originally bought a digital camera to save money on film, intending to
use the digital for snaps and film for the important shots. I now find
myself doing the opposite. I was stunned at the extra dynamic range in
my digital camera when I first discovered it and have preached endlessly
about it ever since. Don't you remember last year's gigantic thread "G3
Contrast Range"? The second longest thread in this newsgroup in the
last 5 years.
Do you honestly think I'd have such a religious conviction about this
topic if my digital camera only had one stop more dynamic range than
slide film? I'd hardly have noticed the difference if that was the
case, and I'm still amazed that so many people, including the internet
"experts" are still seemingly unaware of it. I can only put it down to
the fact that few people bother with decent RAW conversion and
appropriate post processing.
Oh yes, another of my tests was done with a spot meter, with Chris
Street in attendance making his own measurements. We both measured a
contrast range of 11 stops between the bright sky (near the sun) and a
dark foreground shadow. The single exposure with my G3 captured detail
in both.
Original RAW conversion showing no sky overexposure (ignore the sun's
reflection on the sea, we didn't include that in the test). Notice the
apparently "black" foreground. This is what you'd get on slide film and
the black would be *really* black.
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/dr/dr1crw.jpg
Same image brightened with Curves to show the colour and detail recorded
in the "black" area. Even the yellow lichens on the rocks can be
clearly seen. If you did this with slide film you'd just get a solid
light grey area in the foreground, no detail at all.
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/dr/dr2crw.jpg
A hasty process of the image to show how it might look after suitable
processing (note that this is a terrible photograph).
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/dr/dr3crw.jpg
This myth of the narrow dynamic range of digital cameras badly needs to
be dispelled. Since I don't want to keep arguing endlessly about this
subject I really should do some more careful definitive tests and
publish the results on my website. Then I could just post a link.
Oh, and by the way, the earth goes around the sun. As Galileo
demonstrated, just because the majority of people believe something to
be true doesn't necessarily mean that it is.
Paul
ste©
"NEWTON" <david.newton...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2il2bgF...@uni-berlin.de...
<snip>
| To prevent this happening simply briefly
| compose your shot and then swing the camera up to point at the sky above
the
| land that you are going to include in the photo, that is the bit just
above
| the horizon so that the camera is looking at the sky rather than the land,
| and then half press the shutter. The camera will take an exposure reading
| from the bit you've pointed at. Keep your finger half pressed on the
shutter
| and swing the camera back down to again compose the shot your after. The
| camera will keep the exposure levels previously set when you pointed at
the
| sky.
<snip>
Yes, I've used this technique since I got my first digital camera a few
years ago. When you half-press the shutter down, if you're not happy with
the exposure setting that you see on the screen, then simply let go, and
half-press the shutter down on a different piece of sky, until you are
happy.
When using this technique and auto-focus, the camera will take the focus and
exposure from the same place - what I've recently been doing with my Canon
G5 is to half-press the shutter whilst over the place I want most in focus,
then pressing the Manual Focus button. This then lucks the focusing on the
subject, then I can half-press the shutter again to do the exposure
separately. Anyway, this slightly different way is useful sometimes.
| Dave Newton
Ste
Paul Saunders
> Yes, I've used this technique since I got my first digital camera a
> few years ago. When you half-press the shutter down, if you're not
> happy with the exposure setting that you see on the screen, then
> simply let go, and half-press the shutter down on a different piece
> of sky, until you are happy.
Basically yes.
> When using this technique and auto-focus, the camera will take the
> focus and exposure from the same place - what I've recently been
> doing with my Canon G5 is to half-press the shutter whilst over the
> place I want most in focus, then pressing the Manual Focus button.
> This then lucks the focusing on the subject, then I can half-press
> the shutter again to do the exposure separately. Anyway, this
> slightly different way is useful sometimes.
Did you know that you can press the * button to lock the exposure? This
is independent of the focusing.
Of course, the next generation of digital cameras have "live" histograms
so that you can see the spread of brightness values in the scene before
you press the shutter. Even more convenient.
ste©
| steŠ wrote:
|
| > Yes, I've used this technique since I got my first digital camera a
| > few years ago. When you half-press the shutter down, if you're not
| > happy with the exposure setting that you see on the screen, then
| > simply let go, and half-press the shutter down on a different piece
| > of sky, until you are happy.
|
| Basically yes.
Hey, no basically's about it, that's what I've been doing for the past 2 and
a half years!! :-P
| > When using this technique and auto-focus, the camera will take the
| > focus and exposure from the same place - what I've recently been
| > doing with my Canon G5 is to half-press the shutter whilst over the
| > place I want most in focus, then pressing the Manual Focus button.
| > This then lucks the focusing on the subject, then I can half-press
| > the shutter again to do the exposure separately. Anyway, this
| > slightly different way is useful sometimes.
|
| Did you know that you can press the * button to lock the exposure? This
| is independent of the focusing.
Yes, but I rarely use this one. Though in hindsight, it might have been
better today whilst taking photos in my dinner hour - as in manual focus
mode, I have it set so that smaller square appears, and it's then harder to
frame the shot properly when this is there.
Speaking of which images, I've uploaded 4 of the 25 here:
www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool2.jpg
www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool3.jpg
www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
The only adjustments made are to do a spot of auto-levels, and unsharp mask
of 80% (1 pixel, 0 threshold).
Any ideas on what I need to do to process these nicely Paul? When I was
playing with them (adjusting levels, hue/saturation, etc), I notice that
they seemed to get more noise with each adjustment. Is there a way to edit
images without increasing the noise as you work on them?
Like I said, any ideas or tips will be greatly appreciated! ;-)
| Of course, the next generation of digital cameras have "live" histograms
| so that you can see the spread of brightness values in the scene before
| you press the shutter. Even more convenient.
I've read live histograms being mentioned - that would certainly be a nice
feature to use.
| Paul
Ste
AC
> Of course, the next generation of digital cameras have "live" histograms
> so that you can see the spread of brightness values in the scene before
> you press the shutter. Even more convenient.
Ah, that's what all them "mountains peaks" are on the viewfinder!
:o)
There's one on my Panasonic.
Paul Saunders
>> Did you know that you can press the * button to lock the exposure?
>> This is independent of the focusing.
>
> Yes, but I rarely use this one.
It can be sometimes be very useful to lock the exposure and focus
separately and in advance, especially if shooting action, to avoid lag
when taking the shot. You could focus on the spot where the action is
due to take place then wait until the subject reaches that spot.
Essential if you don't have superfast auto-focus.
> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
I'd try to move slightly to the right on this one, to stop the left edge
of the building being obscured by the tree. Good candidate for a
contrast mask this one, to lighten the foreground arch.
> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool2.jpg
This is quite nice. Slightly tilted but otherwise fine. Various bits
of buildings are obscuring one another but I doubt you could do much
about that.
> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool3.jpg
Very nice clouds, this is what you get when you don't overexpose the
sky. Did you use a polariser on this shot? The buildings seem to be
slightly titled but that's probably parallax from pointing the camera
up. You could use a perspective transformation to stretch the top of
the picture and straighten all the buildings below. Pity there's no
foreground interest on the water, like a boat. The other thing that's a
bit disconcerting is the buildings on the edges being chopped and the
same applies to the clouds. In fact, I may play around with this one to
show you what I mean.
> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
That last one is quite nice, possible the best of the four. I almost
thought it was going to be a panorama as I saw the pic load in slowly.
This would be a good candidate for a panorama. Rather than simply
chopping the photo in half, if you set a tripod up on the edge of the
water, zoomed in to fill the screen with the buildings (keeping it level
of course, ideally with a camera spirit level) you could then pan around
and shoot half a dozen or more shots with a big overlap. Even better if
you turned the camera to vertical orientation, zoomed in more, and took
a dozen or so shots.
You could end up with a very impressive panorama with a huge resolution.
Perhaps quite saleable! (especially if you have good light and clouds -
if there are moving clouds then take the pics quickly). Stitiching
could be a problem of course, but that's why I recommend using a tripod,
a spirit level and a large overlap. A bit of effort spent taking the
shots could save a lot of time later. You might end up with a
resolution of say 10,000 x 2,500 pixels which could produce quite a
large print. Maybe you could pay that internet site to print it for you
and then offer it to the local council? At the very least it would be
good enough for Alamy.
> The only adjustments made are to do a spot of auto-levels, and
> unsharp mask of 80% (1 pixel, 0 threshold).
>
> Any ideas on what I need to do to process these nicely Paul?
Most don't need much doing to them, except the first which could benefit
from a contrast mask. Correct the slight tilts and crop out (or stamp
out) distracting features on the edges of the photos. Do you know how
to correct tilt accurately? Use the measure tool to draw a line along a
straight edge, then use Rotate Canvas - Arbitrary. The exact angle of
the line you drew will be automatically entered into it.
> When I
> was playing with them (adjusting levels, hue/saturation, etc), I
> notice that they seemed to get more noise with each adjustment. Is
> there a way to edit images without increasing the noise as you work
> on them?
Increasing noise is a problem when you boost contrast, that's why I
recently said I wanted the lowest noise camera (300D rather than D70)
and why I always use the lowest ISO if possible. The less noise you
start with the less there is to enhance.
Boosted noise is mainly noticeable in skies rather than land. Best bet
is to use Neat Image to smooth out the sky (but not the land). If you
haven't got the Neat Image plug in then you could process the entire
image in Neat Image, then paste it in as a layer on top of the original,
then use a layer mask to mask off the land so that only the smoothed sky
shows through. Easy to create a sky mask with the "channels - new
channel (usually blue) - levels (turn it into black and white) - control
left click" technique. Then apply a layer mask revealing the selection.
I'm still not sure whether it's best to smooth out the noise before or
after adjusting the contrast.
Paul Saunders
Okay, I've been fiddling about with you shots quickly.
>> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
This is the one I recommended a contrast mask on, here's what it could
look like (you could do more to this like boosting local contrast and
increasing saturation slightly).
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool1_cm.jpg
>> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool2.jpg
Here's an example of correcting the tilt and the parallax with the
perspective transform tool;
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool2_transform.jpg
>> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
This is a simple crop to show the area a panorama might cover. Note
that I've cropped out the distracting buildings on the edges;
>> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
Finally...
>> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool3.jpg
I wrote; "The other thing that's a bit disconcerting is the buildings
on the edges being chopped and the same applies to the clouds. In fact,
I may play around with this one to show you what I mean." I spent a bit
more time on this one, cutting, pasting, cloning and perspective
transforming.
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool3_clone.jpg
The point I'm trying to make in the image above is not to chop off
interesting details on the edges of a photograph. The chopped buildings
looked distracting, so I cloned them out, but more importantly, you had
very interesting clouds on the left and right, but both were chopped.
It would have looked much better if the interesting clouds were in the
middle of the image surrounded by blue sky on each side, as demonstrated
by my version. I'm not suggesting that you cheat like I did, the best
method would simply be to wait until the clouds drifted across into just
the right position. Of course, you may not always have time to wait and
even if you did they may never form a suitable pattern, but that would
be the ideal if possible. The next best thing would be to take a few
extra cloud shots and then cut and paste later. You could take an ideal
land shot and an ideal sky shot and subsequently blend the two. At
least if the two shots were taken at the same time the lighting and sky
colours would match, which would make the images far easier to join up
than to paste on a sky taken on a completely different day.
Waiting for that perfect moment in the sky is just as important as the
rest of the composition. Here's a classic example by Galen Rowell;
http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.classics/aa0097pic.html
Graeme Cogger
knew what was what, re: film vs digital. Now you're pushing me
back towards research mode again - my wife will never forgive
you :-)
In article <ca9tmj$a80$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk>, pvs1
@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk says...
> Graeme Cogger wrote:
>
> > Sorry Paul, but I have to disagree.
>
> That's your prerogative but you're still wrong. I've done my own tests
> which have proven this. I have given lengthy details before. Do I
> really have to explain this all again?
>
>
I guess I missed all the discussion first time round - I didn't
even know it had cropped up here. Just when did this place
become uk.rec.walkingwithbigcameras ? Hmm... I'm not really
helping avoid that, am I?
> > The final link, from another site, describes someone's
> > experiments to compare dynamic range from scanned slide film
> > and the Canon 10D - he rates the 10D as slightly better than
> > the scanned slide, but much poorer than negative film.
>
> I'm afraid that I can't access the final link, but from all my tests and
> what I've said already I'm sure he must be wrong.
>
It looks like the link wrapped (in my newsreader, at least) -
did you paste the extra bit on the end?
I've read it a bit more thoroughly now, and the guy certainly
seems to have been able to drag more shadow detail out of
negative film than the same scene taken with a 10D (RAW).
Unfortunately, he's only posted the processed images, so it's
hard to know whether the 10D results could have been improved.
> Oh, and by the way, the earth goes around the sun. As Galileo
> demonstrated, just because the majority of people believe something to
> be true doesn't necessarily mean that it is.
>
Well, them's pretty convincing arguments :-)
I'd actually not previously seen anyone claim that digital had
more dynamic range than print film, so I did a search of the
Fred Miranda forums as they seem to attract pro shooters rather
than amateurs. There were quite a few people claiming that
film was better, but usually just as a bald statement (rather
like mine in my first post!). I did find a couple of people
with the same view as yourself, and they sounded like they were
speaking from experience rather than dogma.
Perhaps my new toy (300D) is even better than I'd thought :-)
One of the reasons I upgraded from the G3 was that by default
the camera acts like the dynamic range is lacking, and pushing
the shadows to bring out the detail could give a posterised
effect with poor detail. Your examples suggest that the 300D
may have more latitude for this type of post-processing, which
is exactly what I'd hoped. I'll have to experiment myself,
when I get the time.
Chris Gilbert
> Just when did this place
> become uk.rec.walkingwithbigcameras ?
Some time not long after Paul joined ;-)
> Hmm... I'm not really
> helping avoid that, am I?
As many of us. To be fair, it wouldn't get discussed so much
if there wasn't a strong overlap in interests in walking through
beautiful countryside and taking home images of it.
Chris
ste©
| steŠ wrote:
|
| >> Did you know that you can press the * button to lock the exposure?
| >> This is independent of the focusing.
| >
| > Yes, but I rarely use this one.
|
| It can be sometimes be very useful to lock the exposure and focus
| separately and in advance, especially if shooting action, to avoid lag
| when taking the shot. You could focus on the spot where the action is
| due to take place then wait until the subject reaches that spot.
| Essential if you don't have superfast auto-focus.
Yes, I've done this before - the last time was to photograph the fish in my
fish tank. Otherwise, it's annoyingly slow to lock onto moving subjects,
with a 1% success rate. :-S
| > www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
|
| I'd try to move slightly to the right on this one, to stop the left edge
| of the building being obscured by the tree. Good candidate for a
| contrast mask this one, to lighten the foreground arch.
To take this photo, I was standing in the middle of a road, and was almost
zooming all the way in. I noticed the branches in the way of the building
at the time, but when I moved right, there was a central reservation bollard
in the shot.; so I just lived with it.
| > www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool2.jpg
|
| This is quite nice. Slightly tilted but otherwise fine. Various bits
| of buildings are obscuring one another but I doubt you could do much
| about that.
Yes, nothing I can do about the buildings overlapping - it's just a busy
shot whichever angle you go, but I'd rather have it than leave it and
walking away. I
didn't even notice that a few of these shots were tilted, but I've not
studied them closely yet either. It's not very good though, as I had the
spirit level in my hot shoe! I must start paying closer attention to it...
| > www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool3.jpg
|
| Very nice clouds, this is what you get when you don't overexpose the
| sky. Did you use a polariser on this shot? The buildings seem to be
| slightly titled but that's probably parallax from pointing the camera
| up. You could use a perspective transformation to stretch the top of
| the picture and straighten all the buildings below. Pity there's no
| foreground interest on the water, like a boat. The other thing that's a
| bit disconcerting is the buildings on the edges being chopped and the
| same applies to the clouds. In fact, I may play around with this one to
| show you what I mean.
Yes, I had a polariser on all of them (except for the first shot). As for
cutting buildings off etc, I blame the LCD and the sun for that! When it's
really sunny, it's difficult to see what's on the viewfinder, and especially
for details on the edges of the frame, and of
course, the G5's view finder is useless at the best of times, but even worse
with the Cokin polariser and filter holder stuck at the end. If I had a
D-SLR, I'd be able to get much better framing in all conditions. Saying
that though, I'm not too concerned with the chopped off buildings in this
image, but it is a shame about the clouds - my 'normal' photography can be
to snap, snap, snap at times, so I must be more careful in future.
| > www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
|
| That last one is quite nice, possible the best of the four. I almost
| thought it was going to be a panorama as I saw the pic load in slowly.
| This would be a good candidate for a panorama. Rather than simply
| chopping the photo in half, if you set a tripod up on the edge of the
| water, zoomed in to fill the screen with the buildings (keeping it level
| of course, ideally with a camera spirit level) you could then pan around
| and shoot half a dozen or more shots with a big overlap. Even better if
| you turned the camera to vertical orientation, zoomed in more, and took
| a dozen or so shots.
I actually emailed this one into work for a wallpaper on my 19" monitor, it
does look quite nice on that size screen. I
tried to make the fence a lead-in line, so it's interesting to hear that
you'd chop it off completely to make a panorama. I've not done any
panoramas for ages (since they last messed up!), but I'll have to have
another go soon. Of course, I'll post any decent ones I get.
| You could end up with a very impressive panorama with a huge resolution.
| Perhaps quite saleable! (especially if you have good light and clouds -
| if there are moving clouds then take the pics quickly). Stitiching
| could be a problem of course, but that's why I recommend using a tripod,
| a spirit level and a large overlap. A bit of effort spent taking the
| shots could save a lot of time later. You might end up with a
| resolution of say 10,000 x 2,500 pixels which could produce quite a
| large print. Maybe you could pay that internet site to print it for you
| and then offer it to the local council? At the very least it would be
| good enough for Alamy.
I've been meaning to contact some councils to see if they want to buy photos
of places I've visited and got nice photos of. I've been meaning to do a
lot of things, but never do! :-) Still not done my Alamy test CD, but I've
done 6 images out of 10 (to 15). Should have the rest done next week. Like
you say though, if Alamy don't accept my G5 images, then getting some
stitched images together would still be an option.
| > The only adjustments made are to do a spot of auto-levels, and
| > unsharp mask of 80% (1 pixel, 0 threshold).
| >
| > Any ideas on what I need to do to process these nicely Paul?
|
| Most don't need much doing to them, except the first which could benefit
| from a contrast mask. Correct the slight tilts and crop out (or stamp
| out) distracting features on the edges of the photos. Do you know how
| to correct tilt accurately? Use the measure tool to draw a line along a
| straight edge, then use Rotate Canvas - Arbitrary. The exact angle of
| the line you drew will be automatically entered into it.
Ahhh, the processing advice is what I was asking for; not for a critique
from some stranger who has never taken city shots in his life! ;-)
When processing, I will clone out any dodgy features, and even things such
as litter or little dots or whatever. Yes, I know about that Measure Tool
trick, and it's what I've been using since I got Photoshop 7 - it's much
more simple than guessing the angle of correction, which is what I think I
used to do in my Paint Shop Pro 7 days.
| > When I
| > was playing with them (adjusting levels, hue/saturation, etc), I
| > notice that they seemed to get more noise with each adjustment. Is
| > there a way to edit images without increasing the noise as you work
| > on them?
|
| Increasing noise is a problem when you boost contrast, that's why I
| recently said I wanted the lowest noise camera (300D rather than D70)
| and why I always use the lowest ISO if possible. The less noise you
| start with the less there is to enhance.
I shoot as ISO 50 at all times, but of course, it's nothing like a D-SLR.
That Imaging Resource website that Bernard Hill posted the other day is
useful for seeing comparable test shots from cameras, as the photos are all
of the same subject (I thought the poster was quite useful, as this would
never change, apart from the odd percentage change of lighting in the room).
It was interesting to see the differences between the G5, EOS 10D, and EOS
1Ds.
| Boosted noise is mainly noticeable in skies rather than land. Best bet
| is to use Neat Image to smooth out the sky (but not the land). If you
| haven't got the Neat Image plug in then you could process the entire
| image in Neat Image, then paste it in as a layer on top of the original,
| then use a layer mask to mask off the land so that only the smoothed sky
| shows through. Easy to create a sky mask with the "channels - new
| channel (usually blue) - levels (turn it into black and white) - control
| left click" technique. Then apply a layer mask revealing the selection.
I've used Neat Image since you first recommended it, and I think it's great.
I use it on the whole image though, and not just the sky as you suggest. I
never use Masks (apart from making some basic selections), so will have to
look into this more.
| I'm still not sure whether it's best to smooth out the noise before or
| after adjusting the contrast.
Decisions decisions, eh. I'm currently doing lots of little tests, but any
differeneces are hardly noticable.
My latest test is in RAW processing - low sharpening versus high sharpening.
It appears that to make a low sharpened image as sharp as a high sharpended
one, an unsharp mask of about 150-200% is needed at the end of processing,
which seems to make the shot noisier than the high sharpened one was to
begin with. However, for Alamy, this little sting in the tail would only be
noticed by the purchaser *after* they had bought the image and applied
sharpening, and to the Alamy staff, the low sharpened image might look
better. It's a tricky one, but I will do some proper tests when I get the
chance. But I'm only talking about RAW sharpening here, I don't do any
Photoshop sharpening in post processing (for my Alamy test CD).
I'm just off out for the day, so will reply to your other post tonight or
tomorrow.
| Paul
Ste
Paul Saunders
> To take this photo, I was standing in the middle of a road, and was
> almost zooming all the way in. I noticed the branches in the way of
> the building at the time, but when I moved right, there was a central
> reservation bollard in the shot.; so I just lived with it.
The problem is that if a shot isn't perfect then it isn't perfect. No
amount of excuses will improve the shot. You can't put a crap pic on
display and get people to like it by listing excuses. I'm not being
critical of your pic here, just saying that "some pics work and some
don't" as a photographer I knew used to say.
It just stresses the importance of finding a good viewpoint.
Composition is what it's all about. Sometimes good viewpoints are easy
to come by, sometimes you have to search hard for them. City
photography is probably harder in that respect than landscapes since so
many buildings are built in close proximity to one another, without any
consideration for the photographer!
> I didn't even notice that a few of these shots were tilted, but I've
not
> studied them closely yet either. It's not very good though, as I had
> the spirit level in my hot shoe! I must start paying closer
> attention to it...
It's easy to do when taking shots handheld, not usually so noticeable on
landscapes though.
> As for cutting buildings off etc, I blame the LCD and the sun for
> that! When it's really sunny, it's difficult to see what's on the
> viewfinder, and especially for details on the edges of the frame,
> and of
> course, the G5's view finder is useless at the best of times, but
> even worse with the Cokin polariser and filter holder stuck at the
> end. If I had a D-SLR, I'd be able to get much better framing in all
> conditions.
Definitely. I always found that my film shots were better framed than
my G3's and the same is now true of the 300D.
Saying that though, I'm not too concerned with the
> chopped off buildings in this image, but it is a shame about the
> clouds - my 'normal' photography can be to snap, snap, snap at times,
> so I must be more careful in future.
I think it's a really good idea to have two cameras, a snap camera
(compact) and a serious camera (SLR). That way you have to make a
conscious choice about which camera you want to use for each shot. If
it's a snap, use the compact, but if you take out the SLR then you know
it's a serious shot so it reminds you to take more time and effort over
it.
> I actually emailed this one into work for a wallpaper on my 19"
> monitor, it does look quite nice on that size screen. I
> tried to make the fence a lead-in line, so it's interesting to hear
> that you'd chop it off completely to make a panorama.
That wasn't a criticism of your fence lead in, which looked quite good.
I just thought the top bit would make a good panorama in it's own right.
> Like you say though, if Alamy don't accept
> my G5 images, then getting some stitched images together would still
> be an option.
I don't see why they shouldn't. A GF'd 5MP file should be okay. Their
limit used to be a digital camera that produced a 15 meg file, which is
5MP I think, although they've now increased the limit to 17 meg for some
reason. Still not a lot in it though. Worth a try. Didn't someone say
a while back that they accept pics from his D30 camera which is only
3MP?
> I've used Neat Image since you first recommended it, and I think it's
> great. I use it on the whole image though, and not just the sky as
> you suggest. I never use Masks (apart from making some basic
> selections), so will have to look into this more.
Yeah. I've never been happy Neat Imaging a whole image, makes it look
too soft for my liking. Having said that, Alamy recommend in their
guidelines that you add simulated grain to an area that's been smoothed
out in order to maintain a consistent grain structure across the whole
image, so maybe they wouldn't like smoothed skies only. Remember that
photographs have always had grain so photo buyers would expect to see gr
ain in the pics.
> My latest test is in RAW processing - low sharpening versus high
> sharpening. It appears that to make a low sharpened image as sharp as
> a high sharpended one, an unsharp mask of about 150-200% is needed at
> the end of processing, which seems to make the shot noisier than the
> high sharpened one was to begin with.
I'm wondering if you're so used to seeing "ready-sharpened" images
straight from the camera that you're applying a bit too much sharpening?
When I first started working on zero sharpened images it was a bit
disconcerting at first, they looked way too soft, but I've since gotten
used to it and it doesn't bother me at all now. In fact, pre-sharpened
images bother me a lot more. I now use far less sharpening at the end
and I do so with Focus Magic, I don't use conventional sharpening at all
anymore, I find it horrible. If you don't already use Focus Magic, get
it, it's the monkey's peanuts.
> However, for Alamy, this
> little sting in the tail would only be noticed by the purchaser
> *after* they had bought the image and applied sharpening,
I wouldn't consider that a sting, and I suspect that the buyer would
sharpen their images in a different way to you, so your results may not
be what they would get. If unsharpened is what they want then give it
to them, they'll know what they want to do to the end result. Besides,
I think a lot of people these days are overly obsessed with sharpening.
> and to the
> Alamy staff, the low sharpened image might look better.
Definitely.
> It's a
> tricky one, but I will do some proper tests when I get the chance.
> But I'm only talking about RAW sharpening here, I don't do any
> Photoshop sharpening in post processing (for my Alamy test CD).
Sharpening is sharpening. The fact that you're adding it at the raw
stage is irrelevant, you should always add sharpening at the very end
(or not at all in the case of Alamy). There's nothing particularly
special about "RAW sharpening", it's just the same as in-camera
sharpening and should be avoided. Any sharpening degrades the image and
the degradation looks worse with subsequent processing, *especially* if
you later increase the size of the image with GF - if you do that you're
making the sharpening artefacts larger.
I now have a much better understand of sharpening and how it relates to
print dpi. The human eye has a resolution limit, I personally can't
seem to see much difference above 240dpi (without magnification). This
may be because I can't focus as closely as I used to when I was younger.
Which begs the question, "why would I need to print at 300dpi?" (which
seems to be the professional standard). Well let's say that I enlarge
an image so that it will print at the size I want at 300dpi. If I then
sharpen it with a radius of 1 pixel, I won't be able to see the
artefacts with the naked eye, because the 1 pixel wide artefacts will be
smaller than I can focus on, but the image will still look sharper, even
though I can't see the sharpening!
In contrast, if I printed it at 240dpi I would be able to see the
artefacts if I looked closely. The larger the image and the higher the
dpi, the smaller the artefacts are relative to the print size. Thus the
artefacts are below the visible resolution limit (effectively invisible
to the eye), yet the image will still look sharper as a result. Do you
see what I'm getting at? For this reason, sharpening at any stage
before enlarging the image will result in visible artefacts since the
artefacts will be enlarged too.
I think I once wrote that I wasn't sure whether to apply Focus Magic
before or after enlarging (since it "focuses" rather than sharpens it's
not like normal sharpening). Well after some testing I now know the
answer. Like normal sharpening it's best to do it last of all.
Although it doesn't create exactly the same type of artefacts as
conventional sharpening, it does affect the image in a way which makes
it look worse after enlarging. If "focusing" before enlarging, the
result doesn't look as good as "focusing" after enlarging. If you do
both it looks terrible! So not only will I not be sharpening my Alamy
images (at any stage), I won't be focusing them either.
By the way, in Photoshop CS, the built-in RAW converter has "sharpen for
preview only" set as the default. What this means is that it only uses
the sharpening slider to make the preview image look better, but doesn't
apply any sharpening when converting the RAW image. I don't think
they've made this the default for no reason. Pros don't sharpen until
the very end, if at all. Get used to working on softer images, and only
sharpen the end result for your own use (printing, websites etc.).
ste©
| Paul Saunders wrote:
|
| Okay, I've been fiddling about with you shots quickly.
Not that they needed 'fiddling' about with by some cowboy photographer, but
thanks anyway! :-)
| >> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
| This is the one I recommended a contrast mask on, here's what it could
| look like (you could do more to this like boosting local contrast and
| increasing saturation slightly).
| http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool1_cm.jpg
The problem with the contrast mask is that I think that the brick wall
'frame' now detracts too much from the main scene! Perhaps some cropping
might be in order, and I will revisit this scene again some time and see
what other angles I can find.
| >> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool2.jpg
| Here's an example of correcting the tilt and the parallax with the
| perspective transform tool;
| http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool2_transform.jpg
I had to look closely to see the difference! But I'll keep a close eye out
for tall buildings in future, in case they need playing with.
| >> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
| This is a simple crop to show the area a panorama might cover. Note
| that I've cropped out the distracting buildings on the edges;
| >> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool4.jpg
I believe you meant this link:
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool4_pan.jpg
Yes, there's definitely some panoramic opportunities to be had around here
(and the biggest one for me is to shoot the Liverpool skyline from the
Birkenhead side of the water), but from experience, it is much tougher to
get these right in city shots than in farmers fields or mountainous areas.
But I've got my spirit level now, so perhaps I'll have more luck than
before, and I'll let you know how I get on.
| Finally...
| >> www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool3.jpg
| I wrote; "The other thing that's a bit disconcerting is the buildings
| on the edges being chopped and the same applies to the clouds. In fact,
| I may play around with this one to show you what I mean." I spent a bit
| more time on this one, cutting, pasting, cloning and perspective
| transforming.
| http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/ste/liverpool3_clone.jpg
Interesting work Paul, I'd never thought of cloning in bits of clouds before
as I thought it would be to fiddly. Did you just use the clone tool, or
anything else?
| The point I'm trying to make in the image above is not to chop off
| interesting details on the edges of a photograph. The chopped buildings
| looked distracting, so I cloned them out, but more importantly, you had
| very interesting clouds on the left and right, but both were chopped.
| It would have looked much better if the interesting clouds were in the
| middle of the image surrounded by blue sky on each side, as demonstrated
| by my version. I'm not suggesting that you cheat like I did, the best
| method would simply be to wait until the clouds drifted across into just
| the right position. Of course, you may not always have time to wait and
| even if you did they may never form a suitable pattern, but that would
| be the ideal if possible. The next best thing would be to take a few
| extra cloud shots and then cut and paste later. You could take an ideal
| land shot and an ideal sky shot and subsequently blend the two. At
| least if the two shots were taken at the same time the lighting and sky
| colours would match, which would make the images far easier to join up
| than to paste on a sky taken on a completely different day.
An interesting take on it Paul, and I'm certainly going to frame more
carefully in future - I'd rather get it right in camera, than create lots of
faffing around in Photoshop later. But for times when I can't get it right,
I'll have a go at the blending method you suggest, and see if that works.
| Waiting for that perfect moment in the sky is just as important as the
| rest of the composition. Here's a classic example by Galen Rowell;
Hey, you're a pro photographer too, why not use an example of your own Paul?
;-)
| http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.classics/aa0097pic.html
Very nice, I've never seen a cloud like that before! I love the tranquility
of this image, though I think it would be interesting to see if it would be
better with a 'normal' cloud in the sky, or the moon or something?
| Paul
Ste
ste©
| steŠ wrote:
|
| > To take this photo, I was standing in the middle of a road, and was
| > almost zooming all the way in. I noticed the branches in the way of
| > the building at the time, but when I moved right, there was a central
| > reservation bollard in the shot.; so I just lived with it.
|
| The problem is that if a shot isn't perfect then it isn't perfect.
A shot doesn't need to be perfect, and I never said it was perfect.
| No
| amount of excuses will improve the shot.
Hey, no excuses were offered with the photo, but only to your critique.
| You can't put a crap pic on
| display and get people to like it by listing excuses. I'm not being
| critical of your pic here, just saying that "some pics work and some
| don't" as a photographer I knew used to say.
Well this photo defintely works (IMO). I was out today and flicking through
a book about Liverpool, and I seen this exact shot in there, seriously! Out
of interest, I've just flicked through the Alamy website when searching for
Liverpool. On page 7, there are two shots of the same scene. None of their
trees are covering the buildings, but it looks as though there has been a
new tree planted since those shots were taken, or they've just done a
wide-angle version of the shot and stood a bit closer? I'll revisit the
scene and have a look. But obviously, Liverpool is a very photographed
place, so there's likely to be a photo of everything from every angle, but
never mind; I've got to start somewhere.
| It just stresses the importance of finding a good viewpoint.
| Composition is what it's all about. Sometimes good viewpoints are easy
| to come by, sometimes you have to search hard for them. City
| photography is probably harder in that respect than landscapes since so
| many buildings are built in close proximity to one another, without any
| consideration for the photographer!
Yes, but I'm learning. And reading your posts is helping me too, thanks. I
now know that I need a D-SLR for more accurate framing, and I need to pay
closer attention to the spirit level! :-)
| > I didn't even notice that a few of these shots were tilted, but I've
| not
| > studied them closely yet either. It's not very good though, as I had
| > the spirit level in my hot shoe! I must start paying closer
| > attention to it...
|
| It's easy to do when taking shots handheld, not usually so noticeable on
| landscapes though.
Yes, you must be going for the easy option! ;-)
| > As for cutting buildings off etc, I blame the LCD and the sun for
| > that! When it's really sunny, it's difficult to see what's on the
| > viewfinder, and especially for details on the edges of the frame,
| > and of
| > course, the G5's view finder is useless at the best of times, but
| > even worse with the Cokin polariser and filter holder stuck at the
| > end. If I had a D-SLR, I'd be able to get much better framing in all
| > conditions.
|
| Definitely. I always found that my film shots were better framed than
| my G3's and the same is now true of the 300D.
Yes, I remember you saying.
| Saying that though, I'm not too concerned with the
| > chopped off buildings in this image, but it is a shame about the
| > clouds - my 'normal' photography can be to snap, snap, snap at times,
| > so I must be more careful in future.
|
| I think it's a really good idea to have two cameras, a snap camera
| (compact) and a serious camera (SLR). That way you have to make a
| conscious choice about which camera you want to use for each shot. If
| it's a snap, use the compact, but if you take out the SLR then you know
| it's a serious shot so it reminds you to take more time and effort over
| it.
Now that's one extreme way to take photos more seriously! :-) I don't rate
these 'snap' or 'serious' shots things, as you know. I could have taken
those other shots in the same time (plus or minus a second or two), and they
could be classed as serious or snaps. I don't consider myself to aim for
serious shots, but I aim to be more careful with things - though it's
probably the same thing.
| > I actually emailed this one into work for a wallpaper on my 19"
| > monitor, it does look quite nice on that size screen. I
| > tried to make the fence a lead-in line, so it's interesting to hear
| > that you'd chop it off completely to make a panorama.
|
| That wasn't a criticism of your fence lead in, which looked quite good.
| I just thought the top bit would make a good panorama in it's own right.
I'm with you now Paul! :-)
| > Like you say though, if Alamy don't accept
| > my G5 images, then getting some stitched images together would still
| > be an option.
|
| I don't see why they shouldn't. A GF'd 5MP file should be okay. Their
| limit used to be a digital camera that produced a 15 meg file, which is
| 5MP I think, although they've now increased the limit to 17 meg for some
| reason. Still not a lot in it though. Worth a try.
My G5 produces 28.8mb 16 bit TIF files, which are 14.4mb 8 bit TIF files.
| Didn't someone say
| a while back that they accept pics from his D30 camera which is only
| 3MP?
Yes, and they never had any problems.
| > I've used Neat Image since you first recommended it, and I think it's
| > great. I use it on the whole image though, and not just the sky as
| > you suggest. I never use Masks (apart from making some basic
| > selections), so will have to look into this more.
|
| Yeah. I've never been happy Neat Imaging a whole image, makes it look
| too soft for my liking. Having said that, Alamy recommend in their
| guidelines that you add simulated grain to an area that's been smoothed
| out in order to maintain a consistent grain structure across the whole
| image, so maybe they wouldn't like smoothed skies only. Remember that
| photographs have always had grain so photo buyers would expect to see gr
| ain in the pics.
I didn't even notice where Alamy said about the simulated grain, I'll have
to have another look at their site.
| > My latest test is in RAW processing - low sharpening versus high
| > sharpening. It appears that to make a low sharpened image as sharp as
| > a high sharpended one, an unsharp mask of about 150-200% is needed at
| > the end of processing, which seems to make the shot noisier than the
| > high sharpened one was to begin with.
|
| I'm wondering if you're so used to seeing "ready-sharpened" images
| straight from the camera that you're applying a bit too much sharpening?
No, the sharpening on the low sharpened image was to see how much it would
take to make it the same sharpness as the high sharpened image. When I
sharpen an image, I do so to make it look just like it did to my eyes. If
it looks a bit soft, then that's not right, IMO.
| When I first started working on zero sharpened images it was a bit
| disconcerting at first, they looked way too soft, but I've since gotten
| used to it and it doesn't bother me at all now. In fact, pre-sharpened
| images bother me a lot more. I now use far less sharpening at the end
| and I do so with Focus Magic, I don't use conventional sharpening at all
| anymore, I find it horrible. If you don't already use Focus Magic, get
| it, it's the monkey's peanuts.
I've got Focus Magic, but I thought it was far too slow to be bothering
with. It was okay, but not worth the wait, from my limited use.
| > However, for Alamy, this
| > little sting in the tail would only be noticed by the purchaser
| > *after* they had bought the image and applied sharpening,
|
| I wouldn't consider that a sting, and I suspect that the buyer would
| sharpen their images in a different way to you, so your results may not
| be what they would get. If unsharpened is what they want then give it
| to them, they'll know what they want to do to the end result. Besides,
| I think a lot of people these days are overly obsessed with sharpening.
You were the one who was recommeding in this newsgroup to sharpen an image
more than usual before printing, even if it doesn't look quite right on
screen, it would be better in the print, I think you said?
| > and to the
| > Alamy staff, the low sharpened image might look better.
|
| Definitely.
|
| > It's a
| > tricky one, but I will do some proper tests when I get the chance.
| > But I'm only talking about RAW sharpening here, I don't do any
| > Photoshop sharpening in post processing (for my Alamy test CD).
|
| Sharpening is sharpening. The fact that you're adding it at the raw
| stage is irrelevant,
You think so? I'm not so sure. I think that the RAW processing definitely
has an effect, as proved in my quick test with the unsharp mask.
On a similar note, remember us talking about the interpolation used by the
Fuji's a while back? I think we both agreed that whilst a Fuji 6mp
interpolated photo was better than a 3mp photo interpolated by Photoshop.
| you should always add sharpening at the very end
| (or not at all in the case of Alamy). There's nothing particularly
| special about "RAW sharpening", it's just the same as in-camera
| sharpening and should be avoided.
I know it's the same, but what about my 'quick test?'
| Any sharpening degrades the image and
| the degradation looks worse with subsequent processing, *especially* if
| you later increase the size of the image with GF - if you do that you're
| making the sharpening artefacts larger.
I actually view the artifacts the same as jpeg artifacts, and believe they
should be cloned out. This is tedious, but gives better results.
| I now have a much better understand of sharpening and how it relates to
| print dpi. The human eye has a resolution limit, I personally can't
| seem to see much difference above 240dpi (without magnification). This
| may be because I can't focus as closely as I used to when I was younger.
| Which begs the question, "why would I need to print at 300dpi?" (which
| seems to be the professional standard). Well let's say that I enlarge
| an image so that it will print at the size I want at 300dpi. If I then
| sharpen it with a radius of 1 pixel, I won't be able to see the
| artefacts with the naked eye, because the 1 pixel wide artefacts will be
| smaller than I can focus on, but the image will still look sharper, even
| though I can't see the sharpening!
|
| In contrast, if I printed it at 240dpi I would be able to see the
| artefacts if I looked closely. The larger the image and the higher the
| dpi, the smaller the artefacts are relative to the print size. Thus the
| artefacts are below the visible resolution limit (effectively invisible
| to the eye), yet the image will still look sharper as a result. Do you
| see what I'm getting at?
I kind of get what you are saying - where did you read this btw? It sounds
interesting and worthy of further reading...
| For this reason, sharpening at any stage
| before enlarging the image will result in visible artefacts since the
| artefacts will be enlarged too.
Though Neat Image remove a lot of noise (not all artifacts though), and
makes a smoother image.
| I think I once wrote that I wasn't sure whether to apply Focus Magic
| before or after enlarging (since it "focuses" rather than sharpens it's
| not like normal sharpening).
'Focuses,' hmmmm.... (sounds like marketing hype when you say that)
| Well after some testing I now know the
| answer. Like normal sharpening it's best to do it last of all.
| Although it doesn't create exactly the same type of artefacts as
| conventional sharpening, it does affect the image in a way which makes
| it look worse after enlarging. If "focusing" before enlarging, the
| result doesn't look as good as "focusing" after enlarging. If you do
| both it looks terrible! So not only will I not be sharpening my Alamy
| images (at any stage), I won't be focusing them either.
I might start using low sharpening then (for the Alamy CD), but I'm not so
sure whether this is actually better or not. What about that little test I
described above? How do you explain that the extra noise by getting a
comparable level of sharpening, which would have to be done before printing?
I know you like doings tests, so have a go yourself and let me know what you
find. It only took me a few seconds to do (after both versions of the image
were processed).
| By the way, in Photoshop CS, the built-in RAW converter has "sharpen for
| preview only" set as the default. What this means is that it only uses
| the sharpening slider to make the preview image look better, but doesn't
| apply any sharpening when converting the RAW image. I don't think
| they've made this the default for no reason. Pros don't sharpen until
| the very end, if at all. Get used to working on softer images, and only
| sharpen the end result for your own use (printing, websites etc.).
Have you got Photoshop CS now? Or have you just been fantasising about it
whilst reading reviews of its features? ;-)
| Paul
Ste
Paul Saunders
> The problem with the contrast mask is that I think that the brick wall
> 'frame' now detracts too much from the main scene!
I don't think so. I think it makes the picture.
> Interesting work Paul, I'd never thought of cloning in bits of clouds
> before as I thought it would be to fiddly. Did you just use the
> clone tool, or anything else?
First I cut the clouds from the right hand side and pasted them onto the
middle of the picture. Then I cut a little bit of cloud from the left
and pasted it onto the right hand side of the first clouds to fill in
the bit that was missing. Then I flattened the image and used the clone
tool to tide up all the edges. Sometimes I adjust the opacity of the
clone tool to get a smooth blend between bits that don't join up right.
Sometimes I used the healing brush to smooth out different shades of
blue in the sky.
> Hey, you're a pro photographer too, why not use an example of your
> own Paul? ;-)
How about this one?
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/urw/expedition7/bare-rock.jpg
Or this one?
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/pg/gl/gfw75.jpg
Or this?
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/pg/g3a/0212160025-75.jpg
>> http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.classics/aa0097pic.html
>
> Very nice, I've never seen a cloud like that before! I love the
> tranquility of this image, though I think it would be interesting to
> see if it would be better with a 'normal' cloud in the sky, or the
> moon or something?
I don't think a normal cloud would look better. There's something
really special about this cloud. I don't know where Galen got his best
clouds from, I've never seen any to compete with his in this country.
ste©
| steŠ wrote:
|
| > www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg
|
| I'd try to move slightly to the right on this one, to stop the left edge
| of the building being obscured by the tree. Good candidate for a
| contrast mask this one, to lighten the foreground arch.
|
| > almost zooming all the way in. I noticed the branches in the way of
| > the building at the time, but when I moved right, there was a central
| > reservation bollard in the shot.; so I just lived with it.
|
| The problem is that if a shot isn't perfect then it isn't perfect. No
| amount of excuses will improve the shot. You can't put a crap pic on
| display and get people to like it by listing excuses. I'm not being
| critical of your pic here, just saying that "some pics work and some
| don't" as a photographer I knew used to say.
|
| It just stresses the importance of finding a good viewpoint.
| Composition is what it's all about. Sometimes good viewpoints are easy
| to come by, sometimes you have to search hard for them. City
| photography is probably harder in that respect than landscapes since so
| many buildings are built in close proximity to one another, without any
| consideration for the photographer!
Okay Paul, I revisited the scene last week, with perfectly clear blue skies.
Unfortunately, it was a much worse shoot then on the previous time, and most
of the images were a bit crap(per). I think that having white fluffy clouds
in the sky is better than a plain blue sky.
Anyway, I tested the above photo and your comments, but I was right, there
is a traffic bollard in the foreground of the frame way if I step to the
right. So I tried what I suggested, and stepped closer to the arch, and
then to the right. Obviously, this meant I had to use wide-angle rather
than zoom, and this is what spoiled the composition in my opinion, as the
main buildings now look so far away and small in the frame.
Anyway, see for yourself:
(1) http://www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool1.jpg (zoom)
(2) http://www.stephenmciver.com/images/liverpool5.jpg (wide angle)
<snip>
| Paul
Ste