***DSLR Thread***

[FlyBoeingJets]

Originally Posted by nocturn

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenn_c...7600001128420/
Best shot right here. Nice and sharp. Good color saturation.
Good Job Glenn.

All with the D200 and the 400mm?

Thanks. Yeah. All with the new D200 and the big lens.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Well, my D100 didn't sit on Ebay for 24 hours before someone purchased it. I gave the person a pretty good deal ($450 for the body and battery-pack with some extras), but I'm glad I sold it so quickly. I'll be shipping it off to Boulder, CO today!

[nocturn]

That's awesome.

I just went and picked up the multi battery base grip for the D80. Makes a hella difference in weight and simple gripping. The new Digital SLR's are too small for larger hands like mine. I always had the feeling I was going to drop the damn thing especially when I had the big glass on.

Also picked up a nice Giotto monopod for quick fauna shooting stability.

Some time in the next 2 weeks I'm going to have my wife buy me the 60mm Macro Nikkor for my b-day. What a nice wife she will be...


I shot off some more bird action last eve. I'll post them in a bit.

[nocturn]

Male Eastern Blue Bird

Same Blue Bird, different pose.

Female Eastern Blue Bird. The above male's mate.

Eastern Phoebe

same Eastern Phoebe

Song Sparrow in mid song.

[ValleyFan]

So like the retard I am, I managed to drop my EF 24-70 f/2.8L the other day onto a carpeted hardwood floor. It landed just wrong, and I managed to bend the rear mount 0.02" out of plane, so just enough not to mount. I drove it down to Irvine today (1.5 hr from Burbank), flat repair rate of $156.00, and they had it on the bench within the hour (back probably tomorrow). They offered to clean my 5D for free to boot.

Just thought that perhaps someone else here might be as retarded as I am one day and would like to know how much a lens gravity test costs.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Repairing any kind of camera equipment isn't cheap. I had a set of AA batteries that were less than two weeks old blow up inside my flash last year just before Thanksgiving. Four weeks and $180 later I had my flash back. I guess that's still 1/4 of the cost of a new speedlight, though.

Note to self: DO NOT EVER USE COSTCO KIRKLAND BRAND BATTERIES AGAIN.

[nocturn]

Here's my next lens. http://www.expresscameras.com/prodet...618728&start=1

Thats the cheapest I found it. Everywhere else it's between $750 and $850.

Its alot of bones to throw at a micro but I tried it last week on my buddy's D200 and WOW...what a lens.

[FlyBoeingJets]

That's a fast one, for sure. F2.8 should get you some high shutter speeds and extra-shallow DOF. Good for birds and relatively close action shots that you want to be able to freeze. A relatively short minimum focus distance for a 105mm, too.

Today I'm taking the D200 out to the ballgame along with the 80-200 and the 70-300 lenses. I'm going to shoot in RAW format and process the images with the three software suites I'm trying out (Nikon's, Adobe's Lightroom, Capture1). I want to compare them side-by-side to determine which one's flow I like better.

Link to the "Best Photo Processing Software???" thread...

I'll post some of the results tomorrow.

[ValleyFan]

Originally Posted by FlyBarneyJets

I'm going to shoot in RAW format and process the images with the three software suites I'm trying out (Nikon's, Adobe's Lightroom, Capture1). I want to compare them side-by-side to determine which one's flow I like better.

I don't know how Adobe Camera Raw is with Nikon Raws using the default "As Shot" settings, but with my Canon (5D), I had to make my own color profiles using a Macbeth ColorChecker chart in different lighting setups (available at www.sampage.net/color if anyone is interested) before I was at all happy with the color coming out of ACR. But once I got my profiles in there, ACR has been great.

[ValleyFan]

It seems that most of those still active in this thread are Nikon-ers, but for the Canon folk, I just finished renting a lens (EF 85mm f/1.2L, Mmmmmmmm) from www.lensrentals.com, and it was one of the best lens rentals I have experienced so far. Really great rates, lens was in good shape, you can reserve lenses if you know you need it on a certain date, and everything is in stock (unlike rentglass which is why I went looking for another rental house). Anyway, renting is a great way to try out the lenses you can't afford, and this is a great resource for that.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

I don't know how Adobe Camera Raw is with Nikon Raws using the default "As Shot" settings, but with my Canon (5D), I had to make my own color profiles using a Macbeth ColorChecker chart in different lighting setups (available at www.sampage.net/color if anyone is interested) before I was at all happy with the color coming out of ACR. But once I got my profiles in there, ACR has been great.

Lightroom is supposed to support all current proprietary RAW formats. We'll see how it works a bit later tonight. I'm still trying to figure out how the program works.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

It seems that most of those still active in this thread are Nikon-ers, but for the Canon folk, I just finished renting a lens (EF 85mm f/1.2L, Mmmmmmmm) from www.lensrentals.com, and it was one of the best lens rentals I have experienced so far. Really great rates, lens was in good shape, you can reserve lenses if you know you need it on a certain date, and everything is in stock (unlike rentglass which is why I went looking for another rental house). Anyway, renting is a great way to try out the lenses you can't afford, and this is a great resource for that.

Rentglass.com never has anything I need in stock. I rented the 80-400 VR Nikon from ziplens.com and I was very happy with it. Their customer service was amazing, too. Very attentive and they came through with exactly what they promised me. The lens was in like-new shape when it got to me, too.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Originally Posted by FlyBarneyJets

Lightroom is supposed to support all current proprietary RAW formats. We'll see how it works a bit later tonight. I'm still trying to figure out how the program works.

Okay folks. Here's a few images that I processed with Adobe Lightroom. I'm loving this program! And I love shooting in RAW format! There is SO MUCH MORE DATA in the image to play with! It gives you MUCH MUCH more control over how your images turn out!

Main dome at Griffith Observatory. I processed this in B&W (durhey) and tweaked the highlights and contrast to bring out the cloud detail. I also turned off the noise reduction to give it that grainy look.


Obelisk. A shape study. B&W processed much the same way as the one above.


Another black-and-white processed image. This one was shot from the roof with the 10.5mm fisheye. I liked the way the contrast turned out.


An architectural/scenic. I enhanced highlights and slightly deepened the blue hues. In addition, I cranked up the color and luminance noise-reductions.


Here's an indoor, low-light image. Shot through the fisheye with a 1/8 sec exposure at f2.8, ISO200, no flash. Fast enough to stop motion while not underexposing was what I was after. White balance was corrected for tungsten lighting and noise reductions were maxed.


The rotunda. This image turned out to be one of my favorites of the day. White balance corrected for custom color samples (I used the light coming through the glass door). Sharpness cranked to maximum.


Tesla Coil. Creative cropping saves a ****ty photo.


This was an interesting one to process. I found that as I cranked up the highlights to bring out the clouds, I lost the color in the greenish patina of the brass hardware. This is the happy medium.


Ghetto Buzzard. This shot was experimental in nature. I wanted to make sure the exposure wasn't so fast as to freeze the rotor blades. This was cropped and enlarged from the original image.


Here are a few images I shot at Dodger Stadium last Wednesday. These were taken from my seat in the lower reserved section, about a third of the way between the third-base bag and the foul pole. Probably three-hundred yards. 70-300 lens.



Those two really show the limits of the optics on my cheap-ass 70-300. Its especially noticeable when you zoom in a click or two. Ghosty whites. I need a better quality long lens.

EDIT: Sorry, folks. If you're reading this page of this thread for the first time, there's a reason there's no pics in this post any longer. The server where these pics were was changed. Most of them are on my Flickr page, now.

[FlyBoeingJets]

Damn. No loves for my picses.