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I thought there was a thread on this already somewhere... anyways, my HP Colour LaserJet 1600 is a fantastic all-around printer. It does B&W and colour text and graphics very well, and does colour photos surprisingly well. In fact, probably as good as any laser printer I've seen, and as good as...

Neat Image, yes. USM in Photoshop, yes. ISO 1600? Yeah, I wish. That was ISO 400. Anything above 400 is rather useless on a point & shoot unless it's from a Fuji 6 MP sensor. Yeah, of course a D300 or D3 at 6400-25,600 ISO would be nicer, but that's a silly comparison. Anyone can get some...

I think geekiness is much more often the manifestation of psychiatric / psychological conditions to various degrees than we give it credit for. Asperger's syndrome, OCPD, SAPD, AvPD, overfocused or hyperfocused ADD, etc. Sometimes it's complexes formed as a result of upbringing at various stages...

I still think it's valid, given an infinite amount of monkeys.

Took these pics at a basketball game with my compact P&S camera (Canon A710is): Jamario Moon shooting over Antawn Jamison Chris Bosh Jamario Moon taking it to the hoop! (check out the fan in the front row in awe!) Watch for him in Saturday's dunk competition against Dwight Howard. I think...

Anybody like the PPO health care providers in the US, since universal health care isn't exactly the answer either, despite Michael Moore's musings on the subject. Despite the universal health care stuff, I think Hillary could be the best president out of all of them. The Clintons seem to have...

Sorry, I meant the memory usage for the firefox.exe process was around a gig, and its commit charge was 1.5 GB. Overall system... I'm usually using around the same amount as you are or more... 2-2.5 GB mem used and 3.5-5 GB commit charge.

As I was closing Firefox to install another program, I noticed that I tend to keep a few tabs open: ... and this was after closing a couple dozen tabs because Firefox seemed a little sluggish ;) I think the memory usage was around a gig, and the commit charge was almost 1.5 GB when I hit Alt+F4.

Ugh. That D60 was a little disappointing from Nikon after seeing the features on Canon's Rebel 450D/XSi. The D90 better be good!

Yeah, the USD is getting hammered again these days with the low rates. Don't think it will go back down to the levels we saw the 1st/2nd week of November 2007, but since the Fed will keep cutting rates for a while, it doesn't look like the dollar is going to rebound any time soon.

LOL... that was good. The guy reminds me of Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways... his voice twinged with patheticness and self-loathing as he demonstrates his expertise at a hobby that gives him pleasure and allows him to escape, but is also a source of frustration, as it rewards...

That would be 13.5 cm. I rarely use lens hoods for this reason and it makes it harder to put the lens cap on/off.

Oh, not to worry. These are cheap P&S models, not an $8,000 dSLR. And for end-users, there is no real "hacking". It's just loading a TSR extension from your SD card into memory on startup, not writing a modified firmware onto the EPROM. There can be no evidence that you have modified your camera...

Yikes! Forget about the vignetting. You can fix it in PP easily. That's some serious CA there, which is much harder to fix, given the asymmetric nature of it.

BTW, if you're interested in the A710is, I have a New In Box A710is I could make available, bought as a backup of my current A710 in case it breaks. I'm using my Olympus E-510 as my main travel camera these days, and it doesn't seem as worthwhile to have a spare A710 around just in case when...

Whoops. Turns out they managed to crack the DIGIC III firmware with the A570 and G7 DIGIC III cameras. Still, those two models are hard to find now, so get them while you can. OR, you can take your chances that they have made initial progress with the DIGIC III and it's only a matter of time...

You'd better get one fast, Gilbo. All the DIGIC II models are out of production now, and the supply of remaining units in the retail channels are drying up quickly. DIGIC III models have not been successfully hacked yet, and it remains to be seen if they can pull it off. IMO, the SD cameras...

Actually, more of an Olympus man these days. Unfortunately, noise is a fact of life with the smaller sensor. The way I've thought about Nikon and Canon NR is that Nikon tends to prefer less luminance NR with the goal of preserving detail better, but ultimately, that "trick" does not give them...

Good shots, Dave! Always hard to take pics of birds. But if I might say... that's a lot of NR you're using there! Personally, I'd rather see more noise but more resolution and sharpness. Shooting in RAW helps, so you avoid the crappy in-camera NR. You can also try something like Unshake -- a...

No, but as a general rule, calling tech support isn't very helpful unless you work for the same company and your dog happened to eat your tech support script binder. So you call up tech support a few times for those problems on the pages your dog ate, write down the steps, and voila -- you don't...

You could always get a Sigma 150/2.8 macro for a nice tele prime that won't break the bank. It has superlative image quality (one of the sharper lenses ever tested) and isn't ridiculously pricey or heavy (it's "only" 980 g, or 2.2 lbs). The only thing it doesn't have is IS. But don't...

I don't think you'll get any meaningful vignetting with a typical non-slim B+W UV filter on a FF lens/body combination. They are just not thick enough. You will get vignetting with a thicker old school Hoya CPL or when you stack filters, but not with a single 4-5 mm thick UV filter. You are...

I, too, recall Tony as being an influential voice both on SR and SF. Can't remember who recruited me to SF after the MBF, but I am grateful. I was still involved with discussions on SR for some time after that, but I eventually stopped going to SR and made SF my "home" online. I know I'm not...

Why insist on using a UV filter if you are so concerned about its effect on image quality? UV filters don't have any photographic utility these days with digital cameras; their only purpose is to serve as a lens protector. They can only degrade image quality, not improve it. Every glass-air...

Oh yeah, huge variability in the effectiveness of IS. When I got my first VR Nikkor, I was stunned that I could take pics at 1/6 sec that were still clear at 200 mm (300 mm @ 35FF eq)! But then I used it at the US Open (tennis) and found that I couldn't count on it even at 1/250 sec, so I just...

I think you just answered you own question but didn't know it. That's the whole point. That "cropped" image is 1.5x smaller than a FF image (16x24 vs 24x36) and must be magnified by the same amount to get to the same output size. That's why nobody shoots a billboard size print with 110 film and...

Strangely enough, you'd be surprised at how many people say it's wrong, and that it's 1/f and the FLM or "crop" factor does NOT apply. On the DCRP Nikon SLR forum, one thread was going on for pages with only me and a couple other members arguing that the FLM does apply. A surprising number of...

Indeed. Fuji was the last holdout during the megapixel wars, but with the launch of the F50, it looks like all hope is lost. Although, I do think that we will see a temporary plateau in megapixel count as mfr's struggle to keep raising pixel density. I think the ISO wars are now in full swing...

Yes, the recommend shutter speed is supposed to be 1/effective focal length (35FF) anyways. So a 100 mm lens should be used with a shutter speed faster than 1/160 sec on a Canon 1.6x APS-C body. If you wanted to be conservative, you would go for 1/2f, which would be 1/320 sec.

Yes, lost in all this technical discussion is size & weight and how sleek and sexy it looks for women. To your point, mubs, women tend to have a better eye for beauty and composition than men do in general.

That is, unless you can find the A710is instead, which is, as udaman reiterated above, definitely preferable to the A570is by virtue of its ability to shoot in RAW mode and use the live histogram & zebra mode with 3rd party firmware. It doesn't have the hotshoe of the G9, but is otherwise almost...

Have you tried fleabay? They usually have people selling cameras you can't buy in stores anymore for 50-100% more than the original price. The Pentax Optio Wx0 line is better known for its water/dustproof capability: http://www.h20camera.com Neither Olympus nor Pentax are known for...

... confusing me!

Is that a pigeon?

Wow, it's like the Lord of the Rings trilogy on shooting in JPEG ;) You know, you didn't have to go through all that trouble to convince us. All you had to do was say "Ken Rockwell -- the Chuck Norris of Photography -- thinks shooting in RAW is for weenies." End of story. And if Ken even so...

Yes, there are long lenses available for the 4/3 mount from Sigma too, not forgetting the Bigma too (50-500), but they are all quite slow. I was comparing long and fast lenses between systems with consideration given to the greater speed required by the noisier 4/3 sensor.

Interesting article: http://www.fourthirdsphoto.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=19507

Well, the same promotional legend has it that they designed the sensor size and aspect ratio to allow for minimal lens size and weight for the broadest possible range of focal lengths while maintaining telecentricity and adequate pixel pitch and resolution for maximum image quality into the...

I don't know if any of you have read the literature (marketing propaganda dressed up as a documentary if you're cynical) on the genesis of the 4/3 system, but the story behind it goes something like... we were looking for the perfect combination of size, handling, and image quality. After much...

Actually, I have no idea if the bugs are gone. Haven't bothered with panorama in a long time. I guess dd's reply indicates that the buggies are alive and well ;)

Try http://www.autopano.net

Nope. Heard it was of marginal benefit compared to a real bounce flash or the Gary Fong Lightsphere itself. Yet, would still want to try one for those situations where it's not practical to bust out the FL-50 and attach a GF Lightsphere to the bounce head. The E-510's pop-up flash has such a...

I thought I was going to see a weapon of some sort, like someone wielding a bag of drives, about to lay the smack down on some poor soul... That, or I thought someone was going to put some weed in there instead a bunch of nuts and bolts ;)

Tannin, Did you ever get one of those "Better Beamer" things for your flash to see if you could fill shadows from far away? Wondering how effective they are...

Just to show that you can actually make do with 200 mm and f/5.6 if you wanted to... (and that you don't need an advanced AF system or fast fps either to shoot sports) D40 + 70-300/4.5-5.6 VR ISO: 400 Exposure: 1/500 sec Aperture: f/9.0 Focal Length: 220mm RAW > CNX for curves, NR...

Miscellaneous flash photography tips: 1. The biggest technical difference between a pro and an amateur is lighting control. Right off the bat, most amateurs are at a huge disadvantage because they don't have the right equipment (most just use the pop-up flash on their cameras or have a single...

There are a few important techniques to learn with flash photography that can make a big difference. Nikon's built-in CLS makes it easier and more convenient, but you can achieve the same results with any combination of flash and body if you get a slave control system and know how to set flash...

I'd say the 17-55 + D300 combo is fairly typical of what a serious photog might have on them at any given time, and about the upper limit of what they would have around their necks and shoot handheld for extended periods without a tripod. The 70-200/2.8 VR changes things a bit. This is the...

I'm not surprised... high end expert shops like that are often like that in any hobby, whether it be art, photo, audio, video, cars, restaurants, clothing, condos, you name it. But why would you buy your lenses there? Why not online at Amazon, B&H, 17th Street Photo, Sigma4Less...

Indeed. You can feel the torque of the SWD motors twist the camera body when spinning the lens elements into place, a bit like a V8 engine twisting the chassis when you rev it. Hmm... if the E3 sensor trickles down to the compact E-series models, that would do the trick, as the current gen 10...