dSLR thread

One of the things that attracted me to the belt concept was that I could do lens changes while standing. Another was that I could wear it on more intense trips, when my backpack was full of tent/sleeping bag/climbing gear/etc.

And of course, that the camera could be in front of me always, without dangling from my neck.
 
mubs said:
The events are always indoors, with poor lighting, hence the crucial need for flash and good exposure with flash, something Gilbo mentioned earlier is a strength of Nikon's. Thanks for the tips, I really appreciate the practical advice you folks give here.
Click to expand...

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 power ratios manually.

Anyways, for mobile "ad hoc" candids or group photos, one of the easier and more efficient solutions is to use a single SB-600 mounted on the camera with a Gary Fong Lightsphere or Sto-Fen OmniBounce on the head and the head pointed at 60 degrees towards the ceiling.

If you want to take it further, you can use the CLS wireless capability, use the pop-up flash for a weak front fill (-1 to -2 EV) and use the SB-600 off-camera from a diagonal or side angle.

If you are able to actually set-up a photo shoot area and are able to put up a backdrop, flash stands, and umbrellas, that would be even better. Using 2 flash stands and umbrellas -- one to the side or slightly behind and diagonal and one diagonally to the front and side coupled with a weak front fill from your pop-up should give you a pro quality lighting setup and would cost maybe $570 ($370 for 2 SB-600's, $200 for 2 umbrellas and flash stands)

Gilbo, Thanks for the info on Nikon alternatives. The P&S I have now has a zoom range of 35-140mm (35 mm eq), and I find that inadequate at the long end. It appears that other Nikon lenses in the range I need are middling to poor in performance/quality, hence I picked these two (nothing but rave reviews). As you said earlier, I would have settled for a 70-200 /4 with VR if that was available and was a good lens.

Tannin, thanks for the info on the Lowepro and Kinesis products![/QUOTE]
 
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 external flash) and/or they don't know how to use it properly.

2. The problem with most rookie flash pictures is poor coverage / diffusion, leading to excessive contrast and poor lighting balance across the 3 dimensions (top to bottom, side to side, and especially, front to back).

3. This is usually because they are relying exclusively on a single point source of light from the poor excuse of a flash known as the pop-up flash built-in to most cameras. One cannot possibly hope to achieve reasonable flash coverage and diffusion with a single point source that is located 6-10 feet away from the subject and nothing else to the sides, top, bottom, and behind.

4. The simplest and cheapest method of compensating for this is to set the camera to shutter-priority and use the following principle: the slower your shutter speed, the more the ambient light contributes to the overall exposure and the less your flash contributes. You don't even need to bounce your flash or use multiple flashes for this. Just your pop-up flash or even an external flash mounted on-camera.

If there is enough light, the goal is to use your flash purely as fill. To do that, you need to do two things:

(a) set the exposure such that you're about 1 EV underexposed without using flash (keep an eye on your exposure meter and adjust the shutter speed until it's around -1 to -1.5 EV). You may find yourself down around 1/3 to 1/15 sec, depending how dim the room is. Adjust the ISO higher to get the shutter speed high enough to avoid blur, depending on if you have IS/VR or not and the focal length you're using, etc. I find 1/15 to 1/30 at 400-800 ISO is a typical setting in most rooms.

(b) set your flash exposure compensation (FEC) to -1 to -1.7 EV. You will have to try out different settings to see what work, but generally, you will need a bit more negative compensation when you're close to your subject. Backing off a bit can do wonders to tame your flash.

Make your lighting diffused and balanced enough to avoid harsh contrast between light and dark. If you have a single external flash, you would usually bounce off the ceiling with a bounce/diffuser accessory. Using it directly isn't going to give you good results unless you use slow-sync to help you out.

5. Sometimes, you can't really rely on room lighting to balance out your lighting coverage for you. So what you have to do is use more than one light source. You can either get multiple flashes, or use a single one and simulate multiple sources by bouncing it off the ceiling and using a bounce-diffuser (e.g, Gary Fong Lightsphere or Sto-Fen OmniBounce).

If you're going the single external flash route, it needs to have a bounce head. Some of them don't. The SB-400 has a flippable reflector, the head itself is fixed in position. This is okay if you just want to use the flash directly, but you can't use a Lightsphere or an OmniBounce.

6. The ideal (but more expensive and complicated) route is to use multiple flashes with flash stands and umbrellas. Flash coverage is as good as you want to make it with multiple light sources and umbrellas to diffuse it. Nikon's wireless CLS makes it easy, but hardcore flashers like doing it with PC cords, optical slaves, or third-party wireless solutions and manual flash power settings.

7. Sometimes, if you're photographing a group on an angle (a typical situation is a table setting with a row of people on one side and a row of people on the other... like at the head table of a wedding or when you're at a restaurant), and it's obviously not convenient to use a multiple flash setup and the ceilings may be too high to bounce and cover such a wide area, the solution is to use a single external flash directly (with slow-sync, of course), but turn the head one stop in the direction you're shooting.

So if you're shooting one side of the table from the right hand side and your camera is pointing diagonally across the table to the left, angle your flash head bit to the left, as if it's pointing directly at the far corner of the table. With the way light intensity falls off rapidly with distance, this works well to compensate, avoiding the "hot spot" that overexposes subjects at the near end of the table and having the far end of the table dark.

8. Ideally, you want to match the colour of the flash(es) to the other lighting sources in the room and set the WB to match. So, if the room is lit by incandescents (as it usually is), use an orange gel (coloured overhead transparency) on your flash. If it's all fluorescent tubes, use a green gel. In a pinch, I just use what's available.

For example: I tear off part of the sticky strip from a post-it note (the mild yellow is often enough of a correction) or use a piece of scotch tape and draw a fat stripe across the middle area using a yellow/green highlighter in an office setting. Other "gel substitutes" I have used:

- plastic grocery bag that had orange lettering on it to match incandescent

- plastic grocery bag that had green lettering on it to match fluorescent

- yellow-orange legal sized envelope as a reflector
 
ddrueding said:
Just received a 12" tall print of this. I really like some of the details around the picture. I'm still trying to figure out how to frame it.
Click to expand...

Why it looks overexoposed and has strnge compositition. Waht will you do with an expensive fram in a while if it is a specialitatsize?
 
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)

DH_volley_1.jpg

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, crop/resize, USM

IL_forehand_1.jpg

D40 + 70-300/4.5-5.6 VR
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/400 sec
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 185mm
RAW > CNX for curves, NR, crop/resize, USM
 
LOST6200 said:
Why it looks overexoposed and has strnge compositition. Waht will you do with an expensive fram in a while if it is a specialitatsize?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that overexposed, but what do I know ;)

The composition is odd but intentional. That is the stretch of SF bay (called "City Front") where all the big sailboat races are held. It has more significance than just being pretty.
 
I don't think it's overexposed either. Yes, you could darken it a fraction (not too much), play with levels/curves a bit if you wanted to, and that would make it more picture-postcard-like, as a side effect bring the colours out a bit more too, but I don't think I'd do that.

Matter of taste: do you want it to look like a beautiful picture postcard? Or do you want it to look like San Francisco Bay around lunchtime on a warm. hazy day? The light is a bit flat and harsh .... well, I'll let you into one of the best-kept photographic secrets, David, in the real world light is flat and harsh a lot of the time, in the real world we do have smog hanging over cities. Are these things not allowed to happen in photographs?

All depends if you want to record your vision of reality, or if you want to make pictures that lots of people will like, some of them enough to give you money.

What Lunar really means, I'm sure, is something like "that is not the way a successful photographer would deliver such an image: he would drop the exposure a little, shoot a bit earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon, and crop it differently". And, of course, he is absolutely right. But that may or may not be what you want to do with your picture.

By the way, I have no opinion on which presentation is "best". Sometimes I frame and process my stuff more-or-less as a picture-postcard professional would do (allowing for our difference in skill), sometimes I retain "flaws" that seem to me to be a part of that particular shot and the way it wants to be presented. As examples, I have favourite shots with obvious lens flare (hell, sometimes I contort myself in such a way as to deliberately include the sun in-frame even if I plan to crop that bit out just to get a nice bit of flare in the right place. I have favourite shots with weird framing. (Not too many - the "rules" of composition are, in most cases, pretty sound - but you should always be prepared to break them whenever it seems like a good idea.) I have favourite shots in ..... whatever. You get my drift.
 
Thanks for the comments, Tannin. One of the reasons I like the way that shot came out is that it is real, I've been there lots of times and that is how it looks on the best days.

At the same time, I would love to know how to control what it looks like. That I like how it came out is pure coincidence; I was showing some tourists around, pulled out my camera, and grabbed 6 quick shots while standing on a fence post. Time of day? That was taken around ~4PM. If I shot it later, I would have gotten more shadows, no? If I had shot it earlier I would have gotten warmer tones, no?

These are things I would like to play with. And I think polarizing filters are something I should look into as well (or can that be done just as well in PP?)
 
You need a PP guru to answer properly, DD, but some simple things you can do to most pictures (if you want the "postcard look") without needing any actual PP skill are:

1: Photoshop levels: chop off the blank areas at each end of the histogram - what you are doing here is making the result use all of the dynamic range available, or saying the same thing another way, getting more contrast

2: Adjust the exposure a fraction, this too makes the the colours more vivid. (Depends on the picture though - not something you do as routine)

3: Increase the saturation. Take care with this. too much looks dreadful. If you shoot pretty flat (as I do) then around 10-20% if often appropriate.

These things are to real post processing as a hamburger is to a top-class meal - not the same thing at all, but enough to get you by on: cheap, quick, and often all you need to bother with.
 
It is hard to determine from the jpeg, but the image does not look so good. There are several problems that may be recoverable if the RAW file is not clipped like the jepg and appropriate curves and other parameters are used. If you plan to print large single-row pans in the future, start by turning the camera in the appropriate orientation. ;) That helps compensate for the low resolution of the body. Pans are often difficult to compose if substantial perspective, orientation and distortion compensations are used, which is more prevalent with wider lenses. Therefore it is best to frame a little loose.

Perhaps I'm too meticulous or just slow, but usually it takes around an hour for processing/working a single image and quite a few hours or even days for a pan depending on the image complexity and lighting.
 
Last edited:
Lunar,

I would love to know all that stuff. But for me, the only way to take days at it would be to do something, stare for half an hour, and undo it.

When you say "turn the camera in the appropriate orientation", which orientation do you mean? This picture was taken holding the camera normally.

When you say "frame a little loose", what to you mean? To capture more picture than you intend to use? Doesn't this conflict with using longer lenses to avoid "perspective, orientation and distortion compensations"?

I'm still keeping all the RAW pictures I shoot, as well as PP results, and sometimes intermediate steps. Unfortunatly, I don't know how to recreate the CS3 "Photomerge" function step-by-step, so it is difficult to take more control of certain elements.

I like these larger format shots, and until I get a significantly higher-res body, they will involve stitching pictures together. Does anyone have tips, or a link to a guide, or suggestions about software that is better than CS3?

Thanks all, you've helped me find another expensive and time consuming hobby ;)
 
ddrueding said:
Lunar,

When you say "turn the camera in the appropriate orientation", which orientation do you mean? This picture was taken holding the camera normally.
Click to expand...

What do you mean by normally, as compared to abnormally?

It looks like you have only a little over 2.2K vertical resolution which is far less than the ~3.5K resolution of the sensor.

When you say "frame a little loose", what to you mean? To capture more picture than you intend to use? Doesn't this conflict with using longer lenses to avoid "perspective, orientation and distortion compensations"?
Click to expand...

Yes. A common pitfall that novices face is cropping pans too tightly since it it may not be feasible to exactly previsualize the final result in the viewfinder. Who said to use longer lenses for landscapes? Not me. You may be thinking of some traditional portraiture distance expectations, which are cultural and predate photography.
 
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...
 
Normally would be in the horizontal orientation, the position that all these cameras are shown in.

The 2.2k vertical was the result of a significant amount of cropping due to perspective, and a little based on what I wanted to show.

I didn't say use longer lenses for landscapes, I believe I was referring to your comments that wider angle lenses cause more perspective, orientation and distortion when stitching images.
 
E_dawg, nope, not yet. I had to get a different tripod head first, one that has the appropriate flash brackets available. I've done that now (mail-ordered a Wimberley from the USA a month or two ago), but I won't get arpoujnd to getting the flash system till sometime in the new year. I'm off to (probably) Western Australia in a week or so and I'll have enough gear to cart around as-is, not to mention having to settle down a little on the expenditure side for a while, with the ink still wet on the 1D III and the 40D, plus a 24mm tilt-shift lens, the Wimberley, and a few other toys this year.

First priority next year will be a new Thinkpad (the R52 with its 1.8 Pentium M and 1.5GB RAM is getting a bit squeezy), maybe a flash, and then it will be time to start saving up for one of the big-ticket items I have my eye on ... possibilities are a 1Ds III, a 400DO, or an 800/5.6.

I should have been normal - you know, had hair-weaving and bought an open-top sports car 20 years too young for me to celebrate my mid-life crisis, instead of taking up wildlife photography. Would have been miles cheaper.
 
e_dawg said:
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...
Click to expand...

I've been using the Flash X-Tender since around 10 years ago when the inventor Walt Anderson sold them directly to me. :lol: Better beamer was a later rebranding of the product by resellers I believe. Realistic light gain is about 2 stops with a modern zoom-head flash. I have a bunch of arms and spare lenses and have modified the attachments (elastic band is a PITA).

Although filling shadows with flash was more important on Velvia than with digital, fill is still useful today. Even when the Wimberly or Kirk bracket system is used to increase the flash off-camera axis, the angle on a 500+ at typical distances is small and the usual "flash" look results. One bit of serious warning is that the lens can easily burn the flash or set something on fire if the sun strikes the fresnel at approximately a right angle. Been there, done that... ;)
 
ddrueding said:
Normally would be in the horizontal orientation, the position that all these cameras are shown in.

The 2.2k vertical was the result of a significant amount of cropping due to perspective, and a little based on what I wanted to show.

I didn't say use longer lenses for landscapes, I believe I was referring to your comments that wider angle lenses cause more perspective, orientation and distortion when stitching images.
Click to expand...

You are losing over 55% of the pixels compared to the other orientation.
 
Tannin said:
E_dawg, nope, not yet. I had to get a different tripod head first, one that has the appropriate flash brackets available. I've done that now (mail-ordered a Wimberley from the USA a month or two ago), but I won't get arpoujnd to getting the flash system till sometime in the new year. I'm off to (probably) Western Australia in a week or so and I'll have enough gear to cart around as-is, not to mention having to settle down a little on the expenditure side for a while, with the ink still wet on the 1D III and the 40D, plus a 24mm tilt-shift lens, the Wimberley, and a few other toys this year.

First priority next year will be a new Thinkpad (the R52 with its 1.8 Pentium M and 1.5GB RAM is getting a bit squeezy), maybe a flash, and then it will be time to start saving up for one of the big-ticket items I have my eye on ... possibilities are a 1Ds III, a 400DO, or an 800/5.6.

I should have been normal - you know, had hair-weaving and bought an open-top sports car 20 years too young for me to celebrate my mid-life crisis, instead of taking up wildlife photography. Would have been miles cheaper.
Click to expand...

Open top Carrera GTS, Rolls, Mercedes SLR (see lots of those around lalaland with owners gunning the accelerator from stop light to stop light, lol), occasional Lambo covertible/drop-tops...all over $500k Tannin, think you're hobby is cheaper. I bought an inexpensive Alfa spyder in my early 20's, was fun for a while- living dangerously, could have lost my head in a roll-over but was lucky to not flip it...no mid-life crisis manifesting in that way now, only think about safety now.

Better buy that Stinkpad soon, probably the last of the 4:3 CTO options, soon only widescreens will be available (curse Apple for yet another pop-culture 'innovation', lol)

Current Lenovo R,T & X series all are still available w/standard aspect ration screens...but for how long?

IMO, the Canon TS-E 24/3.5 (whoa, did all the talk back there on my thread get tannin to thinking? ;) ) is a waste on a crop factor like the bodies Tannin has, you're paying for a soft lens in the corners, you might as well get the full 24mm perspective...in others words, demands a FF like the 5D. Anyone ever buy a Canon reconditioned dSLR, selling 5D's for $1.6-1.8k recently...30 sold so far that I've been watching at this seller?

Bestcameraone

I've been watching the 30 or so being sold at this e-bay only seller for the past 2 months (must have 50-100 of these to sell). But then the rumors have the 5D MkII (or whatever being annouced next month...probably at the same price as a new 5D however, which is way too expensive considering it probably wouldn't have ISO6400 or higher gain modes like the D3). The 45mm TS-E would be what I'd get on a crop factor body, one stop faster, easier to focus with not so bright finders on CF bodies, sharper lens at wide open too. Then again, I'm probably going to buy a used TS-E 24/3.5 and use it on a 300D (firmware hacked to get ISO high-gain mode of the 10D until Canon FF bodies come down in price, and *pray* size/weight/thickness/noisiness)...would be nice if Canon were to put a 'quite' shutter mode on the revised 5D though, the dRebel's are noisy enough as is.

Anyone ever use the puffer (e_dawg?)?
http://store.garyfonginc.com/puf-01.html

Anyone buy one of those Chinese knockoff, Benro, carbon fiber tube tripods? Wish they made ultra-light weight, super compact thinner models like Silk.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/pma06.htm

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Does your head have damp? Could it can adjust the damp?"[/FONT]
Click to expand...
 
LunarMist said:
You are losing over 55% of the pixels compared to the other orientation.
Click to expand...

So I should be using the "long" side of the frame for the direction not being stitched, and just have more pictures to combine? I like the idea, but (as mentioned in another thread) I can't seem to merge more than about 4 pictures before it crashes.
 
udaman said:
Anyone ever use the puffer (e_dawg?)?
http://store.garyfonginc.com/puf-01.html
Click to expand...

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 tiny surface area that it is very concentrated like a point-source and is very harsh. I'm very reluctant to use it without some sort of diffusion.

Anyone buy one of those Chinese knockoff, Benro, carbon fiber tube tripods? Wish they made ultra-light weight, super compact thinner models like Silk.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/pma06.htm
Click to expand...

Don't think you need to go that high end for a light tripod. There are a number of cheap lightweight aluminum tripods that you can travel with. I bought the Manfrotto Modo 785B with grip action ball head for travel for $80. 2 lbs, 17" when folded, and can support 2 lbs. Slik Sprint is similar and can support 3-4 lbs. The CF tripods might be able to carry more weight relative to its own weight (they may be able to support 5-6 lbs on a 2 lb structure), but since the tripod itself is so light, you're not going to get great stability anyways with the CG so high...
 
ddrueding said:
So I should be using the "long" side of the frame for the direction not being stitched, and just have more pictures to combine? I like the idea, but (as mentioned in another thread) I can't seem to merge more than about 4 pictures before it crashes.
Click to expand...

Stop using modern, crappy software. :) I do 5K x up to 30K (max limit for TIF) single-row pans on an old Win2K system.
 
Cool picture. I noticed two things while panning from left to right.
In the middle of the picture did I see two finger prints?
Near the right side of the picture is a Blimp hanger. I believe it is the same one featured on the History channel story about airships. Really neat to see it on your picture as I thought it was torn down.

Bozo :joker:
 
Bozo said:
Cool picture. I noticed two things while panning from left to right.
In the middle of the picture did I see two finger prints?
Near the right side of the picture is a Blimp hanger. I believe it is the same one featured on the History channel story about airships. Really neat to see it on your picture as I thought it was torn down.

Bozo :joker:
Click to expand...

Finger prints would be unlikely, as this is a combination of >5 pictures. Unless you see 5 fingerprints, I don't think so. The hangars on the right are Moffet Field, still used by NASA (and the MythBusters on a few occasions). The Bay Bridge is really hard to make out, but the supports and Angel Island are pretty visible. Now that I know where to be to take that, I'll rent the 1Ds-II the next time I go, and wait for optimal weather.
 
I downloaded the latest version and gave it a spin. The ability to pull panoramas out of a folder full of files was attractive, as was it's ability to handle RAW files. But it didn't detect anything, and crashed afterwards ;)
 
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 ;)
 
udaman said:
How's about a "Something Random Picture" thread, so as this one doesn't go in to the thousands with the majority just random pictures?
Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with David just posting a link compared to some people embedding huge 3rd party photos inline, often without credits or © info. :(
 
The pictures I'm posting I don't consider to be excellent examples of anything; I'm just looking for (and receiving) constructive criticism as I go. I'm sure that, in time, I'll be glad to not have these pictures featured as examples of my work.
 
What I wouldn't give to have a D3 sensor in a Oly OM-1 sized body, running a Canon TS-E 24mm/3.5. ISO6400 would allow indoor room low-light 1/30th sec shots with the lens tilted and stopped down to the sweet spot of F5.6 or F8. Could do 100th/s @F11 w/ ISO 12,800 or 25,600...I could live with the noise and lack of detail in some instances. The D3 kicks butt on Canon FF bodies. Canon doesn't even have (can pray for the 5D update to stay at same MP, and double or triple the high ISO...lol, will never happen) a FF to compete @ISO 6400, and probably won't for at least another year.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=7-8745-9153
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top