AlexF

I'm edging closer to my pics being ready!

now all I need to work out is how to put a library of images on my website

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Point duly noted, thanks Phil

Ditto.

frog

A very good point here Phil, everybody's mileage varies, and what one pair of eyes sees may not appear obvious to another. It's the same with HiFi, some people claim they can hear a difference when they switch fuses round, I can't... doesn't mean there isn't, just means there is no need for me to bother with my fuses

Generally speaking, the view is that the processing power that exists inside a camera to turn a RAW into a JPEG in near-real time will be limited and therefore compromised, whereas a piece of software that's dedicated to the purpose, and, allows itself 10s to process each images, should do a better job of it.

Again, a Ł300 camera won't be as good as a Ł2000 one, all things being equal.

More fundamentally though, a RAW image contains exactly what the sensor sees (it's a digital negative), whereas a JPEG being a lossy compression system, the image you end up with is not a true representation of what you took, regardless of how good the JPEG algorithm is.

There is a reason why the JPEG files are so much smaller... they are compressed, and data is lost in the process

So, when it comes to recovering a few highlight, or shadows, you won't have anywhere near as much information from a JPEG than you would in a RAW image, possibly limiting your options and the end result.

Hope this helps.

frog

Picasa has nice and easy to use templates for this Select a few images, click on the Folder menu item, then Export as HTML images, choose a max image size and a template. This will generate a directory on your PC (under My Documents\Picasa Web Exports) that you can upload to your web server using your favourite FTP program and hey presto !

Muska

Here are a couple of pics i took at a VW show at the weekend... I'm really pleased with the composition of them. And i was loving hte fish eye lens!

The pictures of the mk1 golf are the best ones i've ever taken.

Matt.

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Thanks Froggy.
I will do some googling tonight.

Nice pics Muska, heres some i shot on Sunday...



















Click to enlarge.

frog

Really good example of diffraction on the edge of the lens with this pic, something that I will cover in a forthcoming lesson.

Look at the edges of the cars on the far left, and the people on the right, you can see a little rainbow effect where the picture appears a little blurry

Out of interest, what fisheye lens is it ?

Stu @ M Developments
You're welcome

Muska

Cheers stu, yours are excellent! Really like the second one down and the lion on its side.

Greg, it was just my kit lens with a cheapo semi fisheye (jessups!) i think. donated from my friends work for the day.

Cheers,
Matt.

danja

Some good stuff here lads, liking the zoo shots Stu

Heres my latest from the garden, they've decided to bring up a family in one of our hedges, awwww

The father...

frog

Since everyone's sharing, here are a couple of my week end's efforts.





Links to 800x600 pics (not resized by PF)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...raphy/monk.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...raphy/Zoe1.jpg

danja

Nice work Frog

What was your kit setup on this my friend?

Dan

frog

Thanks Dan

Both taken with my KonicaMinolta7D and Sigma 70-300mm APO macro (F4-4.5) lens.

Dog: 210mm, ISO 100, F5.6, 1/120s, EV -.75.
Lens in macro mode obviously to get that close. It was a little dark by then, so a little fill-in flash made it.
Had to retouch his left eye a little, flash reflections were too much for the sensor and I ended up with three unsightly blobs

Little Girl: 130mm, ISO 100, F4, EV -.75.
The other one was clear daylight, she was mucking around posing which is great, she loves the camera. Only problem is, I have to show her the result on the LCD after most pictures

sunny

iTrader: (1)

was bored at work and had my camera about, thought I’d share this pic of my R1 with you. It was taken from the 2nd floor inside our building on 300mm zoom through dirty double glazed windows hence the lack of quality.



Cheers,

Sunny.

Muska

What kit have you used sunny?

still looks like there is lots of quality there.

Matt.

danja

Excellent

I think your Sigma is similar if not the same as mine isnt it? Mines the 70-300mm APO DG Super Macro II, I normally have mine set in MAcro on the lens to when shooting 200-300mm zoom, very usefull I think

frog

It's the same indeed, I've got my min aperture values wrong tho

frog

Whoops, did I forget to mention that Lesson Three has arrived

https://passionford.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3813539

danja

Excellent mate, very impressed

frog

That means a lot coming from you mate Thanks

danja

It's just great to see so many ppl with the same passion as me and for people to go to the lengths that you have to provide novices with the perfect platform to kick-start their new found passion also

Keep it up, and if you need any help with anything you know where I am

Dan

frog

Feel free to comment and/or criticise where I have made mistakes

sunny

iTrader: (1)

Alright mate, quality has been dropped down alot due to the bike being so far away and I had to crop that section out of the main picture (crop was very small hence the loss of quality). Also the dirty windows didn't help.

I used my Canon 5D with a not so good 75-300 f4 lens (it is the only long focal range lens I have at the moment). Shooting in raw helped me bring the image to a half decent level.

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Well, just come back froma short break, one afternoon/evening of which i devote to getting to know this camera better and practise one or two things... One of these things was nightime exposures.. pics and questions coming soon.

Zetec Andy

Im after alittle guidance myself, i love photography and currently own quite a basic Fuji finepix E510 5.2MP digi cam.

I believe you can buy a small selection of lenses for it, but im unsure, should i just wait and save for a new camera or will i see a significant benefit from new lenses?

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

I feel qualified to answer this one now actually.
In my personal opinion, the glass makes the camera, and also opens up new opportunities for pictures too. But before buying nw glass, ask yourself WHY DO I NEED IT? And answer itv honestly, and when you have done, do some research and see if the glass will really fix the problem... more often than not its user error, and teh user is blaming his tools. All due respect intended of course.

If the Glass upgrade is still going ahead...
The most important decision of all is to decide "IF" you are going to upgrade your body anytime soon, and if you are, what to?

Glass is expensive, and it is made to fit certain bodies (Canon & Nikon are not interchangeable for examples to name the big 2)

My point being, if your going to upgrade, perhaps to an EOS 30D like i did in this very topic, then it would be a real waste of money to upgrade your Fuji lens for Ł300 say, and then find it wont fit the new EOS you had saved to buy, leaving you with a time consuming sale of teh old lens to endure just so you can upgrade teh EOS.

With regards selling your lens on after you buy it, thats another issue. Is there a large used market out there for your lens when you come to upgrade yet again? The Canon and Nikon market is just immense... but i dont personally have experience of Fuji, so try eBay, so what the market place is like before spending substantial amount of money on glass you may not be able to easily sell when the next upgrade path arrives.. and it will.

Hope this advice is of use.

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Onto my question for teh resident experts.

While experimnenting with underexposing pictures to compensate for the metering of light sources, i found i couldnt get teh lightsource to show clearly and sharply. It always tended to blur if you follow me, and across teh lake it always recorded with an orange tint which i dislike...

2 examples with exif:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/06...=nightlake.jpg

Flash used: No
Focal length: 28.0mm (35mm equivalent: 153mm)
CCD width: 6.57mm
Exposure time: 2.000 s
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO equiv.: 400
Whitebalance: Auto


http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/06...t=rockcafe.jpg

Flash used: No
Focal length: 53.0mm (35mm equivalent: 290mm)
CCD width: 6.57mm
Exposure time: 0.500 s (1/2)
Aperture: f/4.5
ISO equiv.: 640
Whitebalance: Auto

Both pictures shot raw as well as jpeg and as yet are completely untouched since pulling from teh camera. Any suggestions?

Zetec Andy

Thanks stu,

I really like my current camera but i want something with more zoom for motorsport and nature photography.

The trouble is a dont often use my camera, but when i do i want good results from it.

A makro pic...


Normal settings pic...

N1ck

love the doggies nose. ima photographer but this thread is just too long

frog

Stu, can you explain what you mean, and were trying to do, I am not sure I understand

I notice from the EXIF that you used relatively long exposure times (i.e. 2s), I presume you used a tripod.
A few things could have caught you out...
1. A cheap tripod may be a little flimsy and not actually hold the camera all that well.
2. When pressing the shutter button, the camera can shake/move, even with a tripod. I would recommend using a remote if possible.
3. Try and see if you can lock your mirror (should be in menus) when taking long exposures... Again, the mirror movement which you can hear when taking the picture (click - clack) can make the camera shake ever so slightly.
4. If you have used an IS lens, you need to turn IS off when using a tripod afaik. Otherwise, IS gets confused and tries to compensate for movement that's not there...

Lastly, and this is more to do with CCDs in general, you may have quite a bit of noise (although on the first ISO 400 should be ok, ISO640 on the second is probably starting to introduce noise), or, because of the extreme latitude (very dark and very bright scenes) of your pictures, the CCD couldn't quite capture it all 100%.

If you can, send me a screenshot of the histogram for your RAW files, this may well tell us something.

Probably colour balance, the artificial lights appear red/orange while the light clouds at the horizon are natural light.
Try to change the colour balance in software to see if you can adjust it so that the orange lights aren't so orangey

First of all, look at the RAW images, the JPEGs (with my camera) aren't usually all that good.
Then, try and play with the RAW images, adjusting exposure should bring some detail back, then highlights and shadows will bring more detail in the trees on the first one.

I hope this helped a little.

foreigneRS

or use the timer facility

frog

Very good point nick

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Sorry, couldnt have been more vague if i tried i guess.

As you well know, if i used teh TTL exposure metering system on teh camera in a scene like that (It was actually very dark indeed) it would simply not work as it would automatically expose only for the lights on the building, due to the dark backgrouds, sky etc... so i was playing with various exposure levels to get the shot how i wanted it to look instead, using full manual.


Its a pretty decent sturdy thing. Cost well over Ł100. Although i still accept its NOT as sturdy as say a Manfrotto carbon, which it will likely be upgraded too later this year.

I did indeed use a remote.

Never thought of trying that. Its a feature i have yet to experiment with.

No i didnt use an IS lens, but i also never thought to turn it off if i ever did, so great advice thanks.

My problem is just the lights themselves being very blurred, maybe the 2 in the center of the bar shot are the most extreme example. They were very sharp pin lights in reality, and the camera has still overexposed them slightly to my thinking.


Will try that and see how i get on, thanks.

[/quote]

frog

So you've got a good tripod, used a remote, and not an IS lens which means the blurring isn't down to movement.

tbh, looking at the trees, they are quite sharp (for a small jpeg on my screen). I just wanted to make sure we had all bases covered

So it's probably a sensor issue (note: There is nothing wrong with your camera or sensor... ).

Basically, you've exposed very dark and very bright stuff at the same time, and the CCD in all cameras (as film did in the old days) can only deal with a given range of light variation either side of the correct exposure.

Anything brighter, or darker outside of that range will either be blown out (bright areas), or, show no detail (dark areas) simply because it isn't possible for the CCD/film to capture the wide range of differences at the same time.

This is most likely what's happened to you here, the lights are totally blown out, and appear blurred as a result.

Essentially, the CCD converts the light information into digital data (analogue to digital conversion), anything outside of the 0-255 (for example) range is lost, similar I guess to using a sensor which outputs 0-12V with an ECU that expects 0-5V, anything above 5V will be sampled as if it was 5V thus giving incorrect results.

If you consider that 128 corresponds to the "average" brightness in the picture, the camera will only be able to record plus or minus a certain amount either side.

I feel I am digging a hole with a spade at this point

The histogram for the picture should show it on the right hand side which corresponds to the bright parts of the image. If it looks like it's truncated, then that's what's gone wrong here.

The only solution, would be to take two pictures, one exposed for the lights, the other exposed for the dark areas, and blend them together in photo editing software, but that's pretty advanced stuff

frog

Here's an extreme example:



Plenty of detail in the fur, but where the flash reflected in the eye and just below the eye, it's a big white blob

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

I get what your saying now Mr Frog and will hopefully nip out later this weeka nd try out a few things to see what affects apperture and exposure time make to the problem, not to mention using mirror lock too... just because i never have done before!

Thanks for your help, and i reckon your photo courses should be moved to GD for a while personally. Just say the word if you want to try it...

frog

Film and CCD latitude is on my list of topics to cover, just been to busy to put pen to paper (screen) recently... I have around 10 more topics to cover in total from memory

Up to you, they're there to benefit those who need them, if you feel they're better placed in GD, I don't mind

danja

Can we show our latest pics off again?

I'm going to anyway lol





The art of layer masking 2 exposures

I like your first image Stu, could do a bit with that in RAW and a dib dabble in Photoshop

frog

Stunning Dan, absolutely stunning

danja

Why thankyou Frog

Dug these out of my Cornish trip at Easter, finally found a final version worth sharing lol

Stu @ M Developments

iTrader: (12)

Thanks Greg, i will move them as you deserve the exposure after all your efforts.. people should be reading the damn things

remind me ina wek or 2 to move them back thats all.

Dan... AMAZING pics!!
Thanks for the comment on my lake scene.. its my first serious attempt to do anything like that and i was out an hour or so bloody freezing.. I fear Nicole wasnt too impressed when i got back from my "Justa quick shot of the lake in darness babe, be right back", she had gone to bed.

That ripple across the middle was a damn midnight duck... pesky things, i presumed they slept at night.