Messages

1

Landscape / Re: Jippieeee! It's spring! Post your first spring pictures here.

« on: May 16, 2013, 11:17:03 AM »

Not much greenery around here yet, but here's a roaring waterfall at its biggest at the end of the snow melt.


Chute Montmorency, Québec by pagarneau, on Flickr

Like this one alot. Dramatic, good comp.  It really flows (pun intended).

2

Landscape / Re: Sunset landscape

« on: May 14, 2013, 03:56:23 PM »

Great composition. The rock makes the image.

Agreed.  The rocks and the silky look of the water really make the picture.

I also agree with JBeckwith, a longer exposure to soften the water might have also looked real nice.  But that certainly doesn't take away from the photo you got.

Love the colors, too.  I generally prefer to be looking UP at a landscape, rather than down; I would have put the horizon on the bottom third and included the sky instead of the rocks.  Actually, truth be told-I would have done both, then spent 20 mins arguing with myself later about which one I preferred

3

Animal Kingdom / Re: Show your Bird Portraits

« on: April 19, 2013, 08:00:15 PM »

dawgfanjeff, I like the second pic ... really funny ... nice shot.

Yeah, everybody get a chuckle out of that one.  Looks like his first landing

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Animal Kingdom / Re: Show your Bird Portraits

« on: April 19, 2013, 09:32:30 AM »

Untitled by dawgfanjeff, on Flickr


Something whimsical

Watch Out!  Coming in Hot! by dawgfanjeff, on Flickr

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Technical Support / Re: Best Methods For Long Term File Storage ??

« on: November 15, 2012, 02:15:08 PM »

I don't love the printing idea; however...all those pictures will be the most valuable thing you have when the zom-pocalypse occurs!   Except bullets of course 

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Technical Support / Re: Best Methods For Long Term File Storage ??

« on: November 15, 2012, 11:11:11 AM »

We don't really have a firm set of requirements here, and obviously that affects the advice.

Archival
I can assume that we want to protect against fire/flood, theft.  For these you need offsite backups, or a good safe. Cloud offers automated backup while you're sleeping, but slow and not for free, on the upside, they handle all the messy RAID stuff for you.  CD/DVD/BD sound great but are extremely time consuming and tedious, and you still have to be disciplined to physically take them someplace. 
Local NAS.  On local network, so GB backups are fast.  You can run them on demand, and/or scheduled. AND you don't have to worry about paying for bandwidth used. Downside, not as turnkey as some would like.  I have a netgear readynas ultra 2.  Two disks, mirrored (RAID 1).  Best for redundancy, not for performance. Like other NAS solutions, it supports lots of other features, has an ftp server, DLNA, etc.., etc...lots more.  Not saying its the best one in the world, but it's what I went with.  I use robocopy scripts to copy data to it.
 
Note, for scripts, onsite backups are fine, but it needs to be additive, NOT with a sync, else you run the risk of replicating the accidental deletion (d'oh!) or simply overwriting non corrupt data with corrupt data. If you are using robocopy, that means you want /e /s but NOT /mir. 

Retrieval/Media
How fast do you need to get the data back?  An hour?  Same day?  A month?
For local workstation crash, accidental deletion.  NAS gets the data back, fast and free, but of course there is upfront cost. Cloud gets the data back, ondemand, but SLOW, and might be subject to data consumption charges.  CD/DVD/BD...gets the data back, but slow b/c you have to go get it.  Tape I discount entirely. Too tedious, expensive and quite subject to obsolescence.  If you'd archived with top of the line SCSI tape system 10 yrs ago, you'd be kicking yourself today trying to use it to restore data.   
I don't have a solution for this one either...yrs ago a few of us talked bout hosting ftp sites for one another at each other's houses, but that is hardly permanent/reliable either, plus the bandwidth hogging issue.  I am thinking about 7zip ing all of it (with verify switch) and dumping it to USB3 removable storage and putting it in a safe at home every so often. Of course, neither USB nor sata is future proof, but its the closest thing we have right now, and it's cheap/scriptable.

One note about defragging...it's on by default in Win7, and presumably, Win8. Not sure diskkeeper is adding any value. In Windows server, you can schedule it with defrag.exe.

7

EOS Bodies / Re: Red AF in AI-Servo fixed in 1D-X before 5D Mk III

« on: October 18, 2012, 01:39:23 PM »

a simple firmware update

There is no such thing as a "simple" firmware update.

Software is complicated.  Adding features without breaking anything else is very difficult.  And verifying software is unbelievably difficult.

Some are better at it than others.  But you definitely want "correct" much more than you want "soon".

+1 +1 and +1

Very true.  As somebody who manages an enterprise dev shop in a Fortune 100, I certainly appreciate the costs of gathering requirements, performing development, validating in QA, user acceptance testing, etc...  It's certainly not as simple as just turning something on and posting the new fw to the website and being done with it.  As with anything, the hard part is making it look easy.
As a 5DIII owner, I certainly appreciate why Canon targeted the 1DX first.  Those users pay, in part, for the privilege of getting fixes and updates first.  If i were a IDx user, I'd be scratching my head ad the 5DIII users getting it first. 

8

Software & Accessories / Re: What are most people using for processing RAW

« on: October 03, 2012, 01:40:23 PM »

ACR 99% of the time.  I really, really, really wish Adobe would make this standalone, or alternatively, let me use LR4 without its wonky (to me) workflow.  I script alot of my workflow, and I don't want to get forced into somebody's library concept.

9

Canon General / Re: How do you sell your gear?

« on: September 27, 2012, 10:38:33 AM »

I have sold stuff on CL with no issues, expensive guitar included. 

In addition to that excellent advice already given (cash only, meet inside a public place, etc...), write up a bill of sale, make two copies and both of you sign and date it in blue ink.

Something like this,
------------
I, <your name> sell my Canon 10-22 EF-S lens, serial number <######> to <buyer name>, AS IS.
-------------

The "AS IS" protects you (in my state anyway) from the buyer assuming any warranty is expressed or implied.   No buyer should have a problem signing this, it protects you both.

10

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 7D to 5D III upgrade..worth it?

« on: September 10, 2012, 01:52:24 PM »

Funny how similar we are sometimes.  I also sold my 7D (still working on selling my 10-22) to help fund a 5DIII.  I had a very early 7D, and was always disappointing in low light perf.  I'd almost never go above 1600, 3200 only in emergency.  The 5DIII has preposterously better IQ.   It is so much better it feels like I'm cheating.  Now when people complement my pictures by saying "you must have a great camera", I might not get mad, I might agree!

Yep, I lose a little reach.  Fine-I'll crop or rent a lens when I need more than my 70-200mm f4L provides. 

Besides IQ and AF, I like this about the 5D.
For me, handling and "feel" are very, very similar to 7D.
Menus are easier to get around. 
DOF preview button is better now, although I've accidentally bumped it a few times,

Don't like as much:
Moved playback zoom button.  Still keep messing that up...
Mode dial lock.  Blech. The very few times I ever accidentally moved it, I just move it back.  Over all much less effort then having to press the lock release button to turn it, esp if I am also holding a remote shutter release, my hat, glasses, lens cap, etc...
These are just niggles.  Otherwise, this things is a monster.
So yes.  WORTH IT.

11

Software & Accessories / Re: Reikan FoCal Testing Distance and Accuracy

« on: September 09, 2012, 09:05:22 AM »

I thought drivers were for trucks and racecars.  What the hell are they doing on a computer?  Gee, I'm glad to be a Mac user.   

There is nothing wrong with Windows.  The driver conflict usually caused by software.  Windows provide a default driver for camera devices.  After you install EOS utility, the driver will be updated.  When you upgrade your EOS utility, the driver will be updated again.  Windows is much open than Mac, so it doesn't restrict Canon for the driver update.  If EOS utilty programmers have perfect coding, the new driver might bring you some benefits.  On the other hand, users might face some problems when the code was not well written.  Nothing is absolutely right and wrong between open and close platforms.

For us that do not care about drivers and which code is written well and want to turn the machine on, run the software of choice to do a task. Such as turning it on, edit my raw's in Lightroom and then shut it off to shoot some more, pc and all of it's openess dosen't make sense. 

This is precisely my experience on all my windows boxes...

12

Software & Accessories / Re: Need help - setting up a 5D on a windows7 PC

« on: September 09, 2012, 08:58:17 AM »

Also, make sure to install the updated codec pack so explorer will be able to show RAW previews.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26829

13

Animal Kingdom / Re: MY dog

« on: September 06, 2012, 10:15:30 AM »

Some great pooch shots here.  This is mine from first day testing 5DIII with 70-200 f4 L.

Untitled by dawgfanjeff, on Flickr

14

Canon General / Re: Do you feel your photos have improved proportionally to the cost of your gear?

« on: August 30, 2012, 01:50:08 PM »

I'd say no, but it's still worth it:)

From an economics standpoint, I think its literally impossible for the answer to be "Yes".  Even a $50 functional camera is infinitely better than no camera.  After that, the returns on extra money spent decline rather rapidly.  You'd be hard pressed to distinguish between a wallet size pic that was taken with a 1dx vs. a 10 yr old P&S.   What the 1dx gives you, of course, is the ability to print much larger quality pics, shoot in damp conditions, change lenses (which also cost more $), AF faster, etc..., but it is drastically more expensive.   Of course, this is the concept of diminishing (marginal) returns. Same issue with cars.  A 300K super car isn't 300x faster around a track than a $1k beater. 

This is really the sister discussion to "is the <insert camera here> worth it?" discussions.  For a pro, who is earning a living with gear, its a very real topic. Will new gear allow me to increase revenue to offset the cost?  If yes, do it.  If not, don't, at least not yet.
For a hobbyist, the calculation is very different.  Will I enjoy my hobby more? Will I capture more memories and WOW shots with the new gear?  These aren't quantifiable, but still very real.  I have a 5DIII arriving tomorrow that I expect will improve the quality of my photography enough to offset it's added cost, even though I will earn $0 more with it.   
 

15

Third Party Manufacturers / Re: What to tell a newbie?

« on: August 21, 2012, 04:54:05 PM »

I get this asked of me all the time, too.  Like everybody else here, I shoot Canon for my reasons, but those are obviously MY reasons, not theirs.  Of course, I can't describe my reasons in terms that make sense to them, so instead I recommend this: 
1. Immediately narrow it down to either Nikon or Canon. 
With those, they will get the best support and the broadest possible array of choices of both accessory and lens.  Either of those will give them a solid base from which to learn photography from the most basic to the most advanced. Along the way, they will get killer images from either.  If they want, later they can obsessively scour reviews, spec sheets, and rumors sites to switch if they want.  Then,

2. Rent one of each based on your budget (I use aperturent.com).  Pick the one who'e ergonomics you prefer.
3. Don't look back.  (Unless you picked Nikon )