Digital Photography

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Andre_online
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Andre_online »

Stereo wrote:lolwut? "Look honey, it's a bigass lens from two miles away staring straight at us!"
LOL!!!
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Just did some maths and figured that, at f/5.6, the aperture diameter would be just over 8 inches. Even at f/32, the aperture diameter is still roughly 1.5 inches. :lol:
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Stereo
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

I'm about to lose my f***ing mind. I'm definitely getting this. I've been DYING for an HD camera. Now it's the perfect fit with high quality lenses and HD video. :D (This is a DSLR if you're mentally challenged :P)

http://ricehigh.blogspot.com/2009/05/pe ... nally.html
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

You're a Pentax fan-boy, ain't ya? :P

I was at an air show in Chino, California, Saturday, but before I went to the air show, I picked up some lunch at a local strip mall and saw a camera store that was going out of business, so everything was on sale, up to 80% off. I went inside, not expecting much, and not seeing much. Apparently the store had been going out of business for a while, because there was almost nothing left. Though, in a glass case in the back of the store, there were still a few lenses left - all Sigmas, I think. They weren't kidding when they said everything had to go - there was a 70-300mm for $150 and an 18-50mm macro for $10! I was pulling out my wallet when I saw the sign - there were no Canon/Nikon-compatible lenses left. Hell, there was hardly anything left in the store that worked with Canon or Nikon cameras. Made me sad. :(

And then my batteries died, like, 30 minutes after I got to the air show. x.x
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Stereo
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

xHaZxMaTx wrote:You're a Pentax fan-boy, ain't ya? :P
I guess I can call you a Canon fanboy? Lol...

I'm not a fanboy if I use a company's product and enjoy it. I'm just kind of getting fed up with my newbish K100D (equvalent to XTi) and I want to move on to something that is professional and will last me a long time. My friend wants me to be his skate photographer and since it has video recording, I can do that too, and I love making vids. I'm ready to dish out some money for something that will keep me satisfied for a long time. That doesn't make me a fanboy... I'm not going like ZOMG PENTAX FTW LOLOLOL ALL OTHERS SUCK MAJOR BUM NO MATUR WUT! It's not like a game company where you might get tired of their games and stop buying/using them. Once you buy a DSLR, you're basically stuck with the manufacturer unless you REALLY want to change and sell everything on eBay for a lower price. I personally like Pentax, just like you like Canon. Is it a crime to talk about a company other than Canon or something? lol... You talk about Canon a lot on here, I don't recall calling you a fanboy. It makes me crai :|
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Zero260
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Zero260 »

Lol @ people who take offense to being called a fanboy. It's just saying you're brand-loyal. Nothing wrong with that.
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Stereo
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

Yeah, but to me, an example of a fanboy is this, and I've seen LOADS of these when I was choosing between the PS3 and 360:

*Watches a PS3 vs 360 video or maybe just goes on it to post a comment*
PS3 SUCKS HORSE doodle 360 FTW ITS THE BEST EVER

I'd rather be labeled brand-loyal than a fanboy.

EDIT: Damn... 12 hours left till its release... It's even got an estimated price of $1200. :mrgreen:
EDIT2: Awww it's only coming out in July...
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Meh.

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It's really hard to hold a camera steady in a car for 1/30".

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Single-exposure HDR using the Shadow/Highlight tool in Photoshop.

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'Nother single-exposure HDR. I've learned that I should over-expose shots like these by about a stop to expose for the planes, instead of the sky, which the camera seems to prefer to do. Anywho, I didn't use any exposure compensation for this shot, so the planes came out pretty dark, which I had to lighten, which made them kinda noisy. Unfortunately, this was probably the best pic I got from the air show. :/
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

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Zero260
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Zero260 »

Epiiic. Did you take those today? I've been seeing some interesting clouds as well...
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Nah, these were taken Thursday afternoon.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Snap. Co-worker just gave me his old Minolta X-700 and 50mm f/1.7 lens. o:
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Just me left? :P

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Single-exposure HDR.
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Zero260
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Zero260 »

Epic as always. :)

Sooo last Saturday while I was at my cousin's graduation party, I met a guy walking around with a 50D. Turns out he's my cousin's neighbor. He gave me a short tour of the camera, then let me take some candid shots around the party. After I finally gave it back about an hour later, he was telling me how impressed he was with my shots. After talking to him a bit longer, he welcomed me to use his camera whenever I'd like! :D I'm definitely borrowing it this September for Formula D.

The controls and settings were easy to use and very similar to my camera. It felt so solid and it shot so fast. The shots looked noiseless. So awesome.

And I was this close to buying a T1i... I might hold off for now. My friend just bought one. I haven't got to play with it yet... He says the photos are amazing, but the 1080p HD video is not so great at 20fps. The camera needs to be perfectly still to get decent footage.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

I was thinking about getting a T1i, too, but the main thing I don't like about it is that the video modes are completely automatic - there's no way to change aperture, ISO, etc. That and the auto-focus and image stabilization are both very audible through the camera's microphone.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

If I was either of you, I'd save up for something professional (40D, 5D, 1D, etc). The T1i is still an entry-level camera, just more features than the XSi. I'm pretty sure you won't regret it. And if you buy full-frame, the 28-135 is a very nice lens. ^^
Last edited by Stereo on 16 Jun 2009, 22:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Zero260 »

xHaZxMaTx wrote:That and the auto-focus and image stabilization are both very audible through the camera's microphone.
I also heard about that. You could prevent that if you had a lens with manual focus, though, right?
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Stereo wrote:If I was either of you, I'd save up for something professional (40D, 5D, 1D, etc). The T1i is still an entry-level camera, just more features than the XSi. I'm pretty sure you won't regret it. And if you buy full-frame, the 28-135 is a very nice lens. ^^
Oh, definitely. My next camera is going to be a pro-sumer, for sure. I really liked the 50D when I used it in the store.
Zero260 wrote:
xHaZxMaTx wrote:That and the auto-focus and image stabilization are both very audible through the camera's microphone.
I also heard about that. You could prevent that if you had a lens with manual focus, though, right?
Yeah, and, honestly, manual focus is probably for the best, since the auto-focus can be slow and can not always focus on what you want it to.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

Woohoo, got around to uploading some stuff. ^^

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Image Image Image Image

C&C?
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Zero260 »

Needs moar cats.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Damn, those are sharp. :o Any PP?

I'd share my most recent pics, but PhotoBucket is being stupid and reducing the quality of anything I upload to the point where it's full of .JPG artifacts. :| I think I'm just gonna start linking from DA.

These are ~200% crops from both DeviantArt (right) and PhotoBucket (left):

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The file fro PhotoBucket has considerably more .JPG artifacts than the file from DeviantArt. What I can't figure out is why. I have a Pro PhotoBucket account (meaning I actually pay for the service) which gives me the option of uploading files up to 5MB regardless of dimensions, but a majority of photos are being resized to 50-200KB, anyway. Though this only seems to happen with .JPG files, which is why I uploaded the example as a .PNG.
Last edited by xHaZxMaTx on 23 Jun 2009, 22:25, edited 2 times in total.
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Stereo
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

xHaZxMaTx wrote:Damn, those are sharp. :o Any PP?
I've noticed that flickr sharpens photos a bit, but they're pretty small compared to the original size. ^^
But I think if you shrink them in Photoshop with Bicubic Sharper sampling, you'd get the same effect. The originals were pretty sharp, the only editing being exposure/contrast/etc.

BTW add me on DA (GTWerks)

I've noticed that DA screws with JPG's as well. It's clearly visible in some photos. Kindof a disappointment.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

Well, I am hyped. Guess what I ordered yesterday?
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Best part of all is that I don't have to pay for it. I got it for good grades and because my parents think it's better than spending money on other things.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by xHaZxMaTx »

Ooh, prosumer. Nifty. :o

So I've been doing some research on image resampling algorithms. Photoshop is fairly limited in this regard, unfortunately, its best option for resizing an image to smaller dimensions being Bicubic Sharper. I remembered reading an article, a while back, that mentioned the algorithm Flickr uses, which is the reason Flickr's photos always seem so sharp. I couldn't remember the name of the algorithm, so I've been looking to find it, stumbling across all sorts of other algorithms and programs, but I finally found it. It's called Lanczos resampling. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any free programs offering it, nor do there seem to be any plug-ins for Photoshop. The difference is very obvious, as made apparent by Stereo's last few uploads.

I'll keep looking looking for any free programs or plug-ins that feature the Lanczos algorithm, but I guess, for now, uploading to Flickr would be the easiest thing to do. :P

Edit:
So apparently GIMP, which is free, has Lanczos resampling built-in. o: However, comparing it directly with Photoshop's Bicubic Sharper, now that I'm able to resample the same image using both algorithms, the Lanczos resample just looks pixelated in comparison, though it seems to vary from photo to photo. I seem to be getting the best result by applying an unsharp mask of 100% with a radius of 1-3 pixels before resampling using Bicubic Sharper. Both algorithms seem to have their strong and weak points - I guess you just need to experiment.
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Re: Digital Photography

Post by Stereo »

Well, my K20D came today. I am very happeh. Although it feels a lot heavier than my old camera. :O
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