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Photography Equipment & Software Thread

rundll

By rundll
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Nicky

Nicky

Posted
Posted

as its night, and if you use the 50mm wide open you'll get some pretty good bokeh, plus if they're at any sort of distance, you'll be able to get them all in focus anyways fairly easy. i'd take the zoom, and put the 50 in your pocket.

and spot metering.

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Zomby

Zomby

Posted
Posted

Use shutter priority mode, surely? Work out what speed's acceptable for moving fish (e.g. 1/120), lock that in, then let the camera worry about the aperture etc. It'll probably end up using max aperture the whole time, but it might stop down if the going's good.

Consider spot metering too - certainly if your fish is lighter/darker than the surrounding water.

EDIT: Just saw your pics in the photo thread - nice!

Yeah I tried shutter priority but I just got all flustered and confused, I'll try it again when I go back on my own. I shall deffo be cracking out out the 50mm and "zooming with my legs" :lol:

I think I'm starting to understand things a little bit now, it's slowly starting to trickle into my brain.

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Dr Slotter

Dr Slotter

Posted
Posted

I'm currently sorting out our home media storage/access and we are finally going to jump on the 'proper' NAS bandwagon. How do people organise and use their photos with such a system?

We currently have:

MacBook (2 users) and an iPhoto database with all recent (2-3 years) images on

Windows desktop (1 users) with older images as JPEGs scattered over a reasonably organised file structure

Windows laptop (1 user) that can access the photos on the Windows PC via Windows' Simple File Sharing.

XBox 360 that can access the older photos directly and any exported/non-iPhoto images on the MacBook

What would be ideal: All photos on the NAS that can be edited/viewed/copied etc. from each machine and by each user.

What would be OK: All photos can be edited/viewed/copied by one machine (preferably the MacBook) but viewed by everything else.

Now, I understand that a NAS is platform independent so I guess to achieve the ideal would I have to use cross-platform software (Lightroom?). If I were to limit editing of the images to the MacBook can, for example, iPhoto/Lightroom/Aperture be setup to manage a library of separate files so other machines can see them from the NAS rather than one big library file/database. Would the choice of software for the 'ideal' solution need to bear that in mind?

Any pointers gratefully received!

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Talvalin

Talvalin

Posted
Posted

Okay, so a while back I got the Slik tripod that was recommended by someone in this thread and whilst it's been very good, it's not ideal for long-term travelling.

I'm currently bumming around Asia doing occasional hikes, and I was wondering if it's possible to get a reasonably light-weight tripod that can deal with the weight of a 400D + the 24-105 F4 lens, possibly something that I can hook my rucksack to and stabilise?

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GViper

GViper

Posted
Posted

Okay, so I'd like to get a good camera. Not DSLR or whatever is all the rage these days, something that I can take to a photo place to develop, and has some, er, lenses. Something that'll take lovely high quality images on the cheap, essentially :)

Where's somewhere cheap I can get this sorta thing? What am I even looking for?

In case you can't tell, I'm a bit new :)

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NecroMorrius

NecroMorrius

Posted
Posted

Okay, so I'd like to get a good camera. Not DSLR or whatever is all the rage these days, something that I can take to a photo place to develop, and has some, er, lenses. Something that'll take lovely high quality images on the cheap, essentially :)

Where's somewhere cheap I can get this sorta thing? What am I even looking for?

In case you can't tell, I'm a bit new :)

Too vague buddy!

Let us know your budget etc.

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

Posted
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I read Thom Hogan's depressingly expensive tripod article, then decided to go with a decent monopod, as I could actually afford that.

Picked up an Induro AM24 monopod (high quality Gitzo ripoff with twist-locks) and the Kirk Monopod head that combines a Manfrotto tilt-head with an Arca Swiss clamp.

It's pretty damn good, although the balance of my D40 with 70-300mm is still somewhat problematic, just due to the body/lens weight ratio and lack of lens collar. The clamp is capable of holding it steady, but it can be hard to manoeuvre once loosened. But that's an issue with my camera, not the support.

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gerald.d

gerald.d

Posted
Posted

I went out today to take some pictures of the kids, but it was pretty badly overcast and my 70-300 F/4-5.6 was having a hard time to take sharp pictures, even with IS on. Maybe I should go for the 17-55mm F/2.8 over the 15-85mm F/3.5-5.6 as kitlens replacement after all.

When I don't have my contact lenses in, I keep reading 'kitlens' as 'kittens'.

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TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

Posted
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What were you shooting at out of interest ? If the light is bad you might struggle to get a decent shutter speed. Even with IS I try to stick to the 1/focal length rule. Also if your shutter speed is slow maybe your kids were moving a bit fast as well.

I was shooting pictures of my children playing in the sandy dunes/forest ... I had some nice pictures, but loads of moved pictures too. I shot at ISO 1600, and used various apertures to experiment with DoF. But even wide open at ISO 1600 I almost never got to f/focal length when shooting at 300mm. The pictures taken at the wide end, 70mm, came out a lot better most of the time.

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Talvalin

Talvalin

Posted
Posted

My Vanguard can easily carry my Canon 550D + EF 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM combo, although I do make sure to put one of its feet forward to prevent it from toppling over.

Which model have you got?

(and thanks to everyone else who answered my question btw :))

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Sapa

Sapa

Posted
Posted

Maybe a stupid question but I've only just started considering buying some filters so I'm clueless. I have several different lenses and I'm guessing they are all different sizes for fitting filters. Would I need to just choose the lens that I think I would use the filter on the most and just go for that size?

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TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

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The diameter the filter needs to be is on the lens (common sizes are 52mm, 58mm, 72mm etc). It could well be that you'll have lenses with the same diameter so you can share filters. Apart from that, it depends a bit on how you use your lenses. If you use a certain lands mainly for landscapes / outdoor photography where you get to see a lot of sky/clouds often, get a circular polariser. For any lens you use outside, get an UV lens (maybe not in combination with circular polariser, I'm not sure).

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TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

Posted
Posted

What were you shooting at out of interest ? If the light is bad you might struggle to get a decent shutter speed. Even with IS I try to stick to the 1/focal length rule. Also if your shutter speed is slow maybe your kids were moving a bit fast as well.

If the lights bad you might well need to bump your ISO up. Remember that even at the wide end you won't get a big depth of field @ F2.8.

That bastard Napoleon's been shooting his kittens again.

:angry:

Oh, I noticed this afternoon that IS was actually turned OFF :facepalm:

No wonder I had such a hard time getting sharp photos.

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Sapa

Sapa

Posted
Posted

The diameter the filter needs to be is on the lens (common sizes are 52mm, 58mm, 72mm etc). It could well be that you'll have lenses with the same diameter so you can share filters. Apart from that, it depends a bit on how you use your lenses. If you use a certain lands mainly for landscapes / outdoor photography where you get to see a lot of sky/clouds often, get a circular polariser. For any lens you use outside, get an UV lens (maybe not in combination with circular polariser, I'm not sure).

Cool, thanks. BTW, all of my lenses came with UV filters but I read they weren't worth bothering with and if anything they reduce image quality. From what I heard they were only really useful for providing a layer of protection for the lens glass.

The main reason I want to get some filters is because I have lots of issues with the sky being over exposed or the foreground being under exposed. I find it difficult to get a good balance of exposure. Would ND filters be the best thing to look at to try and fix this?

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

Posted
Posted

Don't digital sensors (as opposed to film) filter out UV anyway, making a UV filter just a bit of glass? To that end, Hoya/Kenko do the Pro 1-D "Protector" range, which proudly do absolutely nothing other than act as a barrier on the end of your lens.

I've wavered to-and-fro on UV/clear filters - I used to use them on most of my lenses, but have reconsidered lately. I'd like the option of 'em for shooting in dusty/sandy environments or when dealing with sea-spray, but in just about any other situation the hood will do as good a job of protecting the front elements of the lens, and will cut down flare rather than potentially increasing it.

Also, they cost money, and it's always nice not to spend it.

Kimchi, it sounds like you want either an ND filter or an ND Grad. The former is basically dark glasses for your lens, so you have to use a longer shutter time to get an exposure - this is what everyone uses for those smooth waterfall shots or the sea-as-mist ones. This will lower exposure uniformly across the image though, so it won't help in situations where there's a big difference in dynamic range between the sky and the ground.

An ND grad is a slightly different beast - it's usually an adjustable rectangle of glassy-stuff which is a gradient between dark-glasses style tint at the top, and translucency at the bottom. You typically use it to pull back bright skies, by sliding the rectangle up and down until the change-over point of the gradient is roughly on the horizon. End result - for the same shutter speed, the sky will be less exposed than the ground, evening out the dynamic range. You can actually use them upside-down to force foreground detail into silhouette against a dramatic sky.

I think you can only get Grads in Cokin-style format, i.e. as a rectangle held in front of the lens with a special filter holder, rather than as a screw-in. Might be costly, not sure.

Disclaimer - never used an ND Grad, but I'm reasonably confident I know what I'm talking about :ph34r:

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Fletch

Fletch

Posted
Posted

I've just bought some Cokin ND Grad square filters, basically you get a ring adapter which you buy in the size of your lens, you will need one of these for each lens you want to use the filters with if they are a different size, to this you clip on the filter holder which you then slide the filters into, it has 3 slots so you can stack filters if you need to.

This sort of thing.

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PopeSmokesDope

PopeSmokesDope

Posted
Posted

You want some hi-tech grads. Do a search on this thread failing that I'll post some stuff tomorrow. And Nap if I hadn't done the same thing myself so many times or forgotten to switch from MF to AF I'd be calling you a muppet.

Yup the Hi Techs are better than the Cokins... much less colour cast.. although there's still some there, which I don't think you'll ever get rid of unless you use glass filters instead of resin ones

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