Digital SLR

[Harry Cleary]

Heres a few tips Garrie, hold onto that woman! a DSLR who’s been a good boy then! ! and always dry under your armpits after a bath……not much use but thats all I know 😀 😀

[Shane Drew]

Hi mate,

I’ve been a fan of Olympus for years, started with my trip35 when I was a kid, had my own dark room, when I got older with Olympus OM1 and OM10 cameras SLR’s, as well as Praktica SLR’s.

One bit of advice I can offer, Film photography is way different to Digital photography.

Its all about the software as much as it is about the camera. With film, you were more conscious of light, aperture and such, with my Nikon D70 and Software shooting RAW, I can adjust lighting etc after I have taken the shot. You do not have the same options just shooting jpeg.

In keeping with my ‘film’ experience, I try not to go down the photoshop route. I prefer my photos to be untouched, straight from the lense.

I have had some professional photographers praise my work, thinking I’m a photoshop guru. I’m not, and they are amazed I can get such a good result untouched. Only last week, I was offered a job with a photographer based on my work but its not easy at first.

Thing is, it took a lot to get my head around when I went digital. If you are a ‘film’ man, don’t be discouraged when the results are not as expected when taking film.

The downside to RAW though, is that if you submit photos to Royalty Free sites, the ‘noise’ will always be an issue. That is where the Canon, Nikon, Olympus (or whatever) camera needs the software. It lets you manipulate photos electronically, like you used to do in a dark room.

I’m not familiar with the Olympus DSLR, but with an excellent name for lenses, I’d imagine it will take great shots anyway. 8mp is nice too.

If you are a PS guru, you may find it easier to manipulate the RAW through there, but most manufacturers have software that is best suited to their camera. http://www.bibblelabs.com/ is considered one of the best resources in the business. May be worth checking out.

Have fun mate, its a whole new word out there with DSLR.

[Garrie]

Hi Shane,

Thanks for informative reply and taking the time to post.

Really looking forward to getting the Camera now, I love old buildings and trying to get "moody" shots using different lighting effects.

I take it shooting in RAW is better and then creating the JPG in PS?

Cheers
Garrie

[Marcella Ross]

your 30th Garrie ………… wish it was me , I’m 39 the end of this month 🙁 :hung: what date are you?

Nice pressie by the way 😀 If you’re looking for something moody to photograph drive down the road a couple of miles any monday morning and I doubt you’ll find anything moodier than me!

[Rod Young]

quote Garrie:

I take it shooting in RAW is better and then creating the JPG in PS?

Adobe has strong recommendation that you archive the RAW data that has not been applied with filters or colour adjustments. In PhotoShop, you can then create filter layers that "rest" on top of the RAW data. There is also some batch functionality built in there as well (Bridge), so that you can apply same effects to a collection of photos.

Cheers,

Rod

[Shane Drew]

Rods reply is right, but the camera software (nikon anyway) does the layer thing too.

With RAW, save the original file in RAW, and export your finished file as a jpg. That way, your original can be manipulated again later. Make the jpg your final file. You’ll find the camera software should give you the option of exporting in RGB, CMYK, Tif and jpg. Depending what you want to do with the file, will dictate how you will save it.

A converted 6mb RAW file can end up being a 30 or 40mb jpg once the file has been manipulated

I like Animal Photography and Landscape Photography myself.

You can take good shots in jpg too. When I went to NZ last year, I took 500 photos. Shooting in RAW would have been difficult to store for me without a PC. I just took more care to get the shot I wanted. I listed over 100 for sale on the web, and as I said before, some professional photographers have expressed some very encouraging comments.

I’m 47 this year, so you are all whipper snappers to me 🙂

Cheers mate

[David Rowland]

my colleague has just bought a good nikon after using an olympus all year, hes loving it

[Steve Morgan]

Garrie,
Have a look in some of the specialist magazines, Digital Photo is very good for techniques and photoshop methods and useful tests of equipment. They’ve used a lot of column inches on bodies and lenses recently. Back issues are available. I have most of them if you want a copy of a review.
Their current recommendations for a DLSR beginner are Canon EOS 400D, NikonD40 and Samsung GX-10.
Don’t dismiss the current generation of ‘creative compact’ cameras, the lenses may be a bit slower but the top end models have a lot to offer, and it’s only one ‘lump’ to carry.

Have look at the site below if you have a particular make/model in mind their reviews are good.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/

Steve

[Garrie]

Marcella – 29th for Me 😀 oh and I feel a lot older than 30 heehee, I’m a right rickety old man. I bet you ain’t that moodie :lol1:

Rod/Shane – I’ve heard that you should take 3 pics in RAW, Over exposed, under exposed and normal, them use PS to "blend" them together, is this correct?

Steve – I’d love a Canon but they are rather expensive, the E-500 does all the things I would require and the Noise isn’t bad at a Rate of ISO 400, I don’t think I’d be using a higher ISO. Thanks for the link to the site

Cheers All
Garrie

[John Childs]

Can we please keep this on topic.

I like to read about photography, but the age thing depresses me. 🙁

[Garrie]

😀 *rofl* aye me too..

[John Childs]

quote Garrie:

😀 *rofl* aye me too..

What are you whingeing about you young whippersnapper? 😀

[Marcella Ross]

Garrie to quote a phrase you know so well

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’ 😉 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[John Childs]

quote Marcella:

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’

You’re not helping Marcella. 👿

[Marcella Ross]

quote John Childs:

quote Marcella:

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’

You’re not helping Marcella. 👿

:rofl: John!!!!!! ……….. I’m telling Jenny! 😉

[Garrie]

quote Marcella:

Garrie to quote a phrase you know so well

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’ 😉 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

LOL Quality :lol1: :lol1: I think I’m 26 then, I’ll have to ask her 😳

[Shane Drew]

quote Garrie:

Rod/Shane – I’ve heard that you should take 3 pics in RAW, Over exposed, under exposed and normal, them use PS to “blend” them together, is this correct?

Cheers All
Garrie

A myth mate. I take animal shots. Getting the critters to stand still long enough to get three exposures is impossible for a start.

The camera software lets you adjust exposure in RAW anyway, so taking 3 shots is unnecessary.

[David Lowery]

Olympus make the best cameras and are second to none on service. Had an Olympus trip like Shane and had it for 20 years then is just stopped working 🙁 Sent it off to Olympus service centre explaining what a wonderfull camera it was and hated to part with it so if they could repair it, I would have been enternally grateful. It was sent back to me a week later and fully repaired and a nice letter off them saying that I hope that it would give me a few more years service without problems and that there would be no charge 🙂

quote Marcella:

Garrie to quote a phrase you know so well

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’ 😉 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

Bet your hubby is feeling ancient :lol1:

Dave

[George Elsmore]

:rofl:

[John Childs]

quote Dave n Rob Lowery:

Bet your hubby is feeling ancient

I don’t have enough life insurance to make comments like that. 😀

[Harry Cleary]

quote Dave n Rob Lowery:

quote Marcella:

Garrie to quote a phrase you know so well

‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel!’ 😉 :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

Bet your hubby is feeling ancient :lol1:

Dave

You walked into that one Marcella 😀 😀

[David Lowery]

Thinking about giving SignUK a miss 😕

[Martin Grimmer]

quote Shane Drew:

quote Garrie:

Rod/Shane – I’ve heard that you should take 3 pics in RAW, Over exposed, under exposed and normal, them use PS to “blend” them together, is this correct?

Cheers All
Garrie

A myth mate. I take animal shots. Getting the critters to stand still long enough to get three exposures is impossible for a start.

The camera software lets you adjust exposure in RAW anyway, so taking 3 shots is unnecessary.

Shane – think Garrie is referring to the dynamic range, which understand isn’t as good for digital cameras as it is for film. ‘Merge to HDR’ is a function in Photoshop that will allow you to merge three photos in the way Garrie desribes to end with a photo with high dynamic range. Think only good for still life as you need a tripod to line up same photo. Cant’ pretend that I know the full ins and outs and unlikely to be of use to many except perhaps professional still life photographers.

RAW, as you say, is a great way to manipulate exposure etc. and should suffice.

Martin

[Marcella Ross]

quote Dave n Rob Lowery:

Thinking about giving SignUK a miss 😕

you better give it a miss Mr Lowery or I’ll have you over my knee and skelp your backside for that comment! 👿

cheeky boy ……………! 😀 😉

[Steve Underhill]

I Use a Canon EOS 400D, It comes top consistently in all the major photo tests in magazines, it is a 10.2 megapixel camera wheras the nikon D50 and 70 are 6.1, it takes exceptional shots with the right lens, which is worth spending out on, my camera cost £500 and I have £1600 worth of lenses for it!
This is until I can afford the 5D or 1DS II. but at £1600 and £5000 respectively I will have to wait a while.
Nikon lenses tend to be cheaper, but Sigma make a huge range of lenses for the canon and are more in line with nikons pricing, Canon lenses are without equal especially in the L series and although expensive are the very best money can buy.
i would choose Canon over Nikon or Olympus but if you had to choose either of the other 2 I would choose Nikon, Canon and Nikon are number 1 and 2 market leaders and the range of products available for the 2 ranges is astounding.
Check out some reviews of them etc, go to dpreview.com
or ephotozine.co.uk, I have a profile on there under the name canonball and all pics were taken with a 350D and the 400D if you want to see the quality of it, If money is an issue go for a 350D at 8.2 megapixels it has more resolution than the low end Nikon cameras and if you intend to blow up the pictures you need all the resolution you can get.
And always, always shoot in RAW, especially if you have adobe photoshop CS3 the raw editor in there is fantastic, even better than CS2, (not sure when CS3 is out mind Adobe gave me a beta key as I bought CS2) You can do just about anything with it.

[David Lowery]

quote Marcella:

I’ll have you over my knee and skelp your backside for that comment!

:wow: :thanks2: :yes1: :cheer: :funky: :thumbup2:

[Shane Drew]

Thanks for the explanation Marts. I didn’t know that. I don’t use PS at all

Cheers 🙁

[Chris Wool]

i am keeping out of the side topic 😀

shane its well worth the effort to go the PS route setting the white and black points with PS levels expands the image tones but a correctly exposed image in the first place is the trick to learn adjusting after the event is really trying to put your mistakes right.
concentrate on depth of field for the image and metering from what you say your composure is very good anyway the rest will only enhance your image.
i have said before that if its pin sharp and metered correctly you can so much more with it.

sorry if i rattled on and you know that

chris

[Steve Morgan]

Garrie,
The current edition of Digital Photo (April)has a short but informative article about RAW files, if you are still trying to get more information.
Steve

[Shane Drew]

quote Chris Wool:

sorry if i rattled on and you know that

chris

Thanks Chris. Never apologize for clarifying a point mate. I can be a bit thick at times 🙂

[Garrie]

Thanks again for the help.

The Camera arrived yesterday and I love it, the quality of pics, colour depth is just great, really looking forward to using it outside 😀

The Camera allows you to take both RAW and JPG at the same time, just need to buy a 4gb compact flash card.

Thanks again and I will picking up a copy of Digital Photo

Cheers
Garrie

[Chris Wool]

enjoy

[Garrie]

Hi all,

Need a little advice (mods hope you don’t mind) Just a quick question.

I was messing with long exposure the other night, trying to draw my name with a torch light ( I know sad, but I’m just learning)

I’ve added a link to the pic (only HQ mode JPG), the pic is straight off the camera, not PS or anything, however I can see red, green and white dots in the pic, is this what they call noise? I have a noise reduction option on the camera which is not set to on yet, will setting it to on sort the problem?

Shutter time was 15seconds

http://www.onemileahead.co.uk/bits/bits.jpg

Thanks again
Garrie

[Martin Grimmer]

Garrie,

That’s not noise – although can’t tell you what it is. Noise is a lot more grainy.

(if you do get noise on any other picture, there is a good programme called Neat Image which is free for non commercial use and can get rid of a lot of noise. Don’t have a link but check on web).

Martin

[David Rogers]

It might help a bit, but if these are not just ‘jpg noise’ they may be light picked up as ‘scatter’ from any dust, oils etc on the lens surface – maybe the different colours from the very slight refraction they cause.

The compression on most cameras – even high-end ones is quite agressive & introduce a lot of ‘articles’, really quite noticable on solid colours – why a 6Mb photo ends up at 500k!

If you can – output in RAW format for optimum results as it’s uncompressed (so no jpg anomolies) – but take up loads of space on the card…and longer to save.

Dave

[Steve Morgan]

Garrie,
I think you’re correct that you’ve got noise in the image. Long exposures and high ISO numbers are both a cause, did you have the camera set at it’s lowest or highest ISO setting?
Try repeating the exercise with different settings ie. lowest ISO number and lens wide open then repeat , progressively closing the lens, but keeping the exposure and ISO the same. I imagine somewhere in the set you will get a satisfactory image.
Photoshop has noise reduction filters that can be used with RAW files as well as jpegs so that could be a last resort.

Don’t you get wonderful abstract images with a torch on a long exposure. Try hanging the torch on a string and let it swing.

Steve

[Shane Drew]

I tend to agree with Steve. Its not what I was expecting to see, because I’ve had the same problem. Mine tho was consistent across the image, whereas this does look a bit like dust on the sensor/lens. Given its brand new I’d discount dust on the sensor tho.

I think I’d be trying a few settings as Steve mentioned.

BTW, I wouldn’t be apologizing for trying something like this. You get some brilliant effects trying things like that.