Messages

1

Lenses / Re: 200 1.8 - Am I dreaming??

« on: February 21, 2013, 10:14:42 AM »

Canon stopped servicing them some years ago, and now various parts are unavailable, the main reason I sold mine a few years back.
Awesome lens, though. Hugely front-heavy.

2

Software & Accessories / Re: Rescue of preview renderings in lightroom 4.3

« on: February 11, 2013, 03:33:57 PM »

sorry, I completely misunderstood.

good luck, I've had to make do with jpeg previews when the raws got corrupted, it's a bummer.

3

Software & Accessories / Re: Rescue of preview renderings in lightroom 4.3

« on: February 11, 2013, 11:30:15 AM »

Very easy to re-generate them. Select all the photos in the catalog, go up to 'Library' select 'Previews' select 'render 1:1 previews'.

If you have 10's of thousands of photos, just do it during computer down time and let it grind away.

Fresh previews directly linked to the source image with all the develop pipeline changes you've made in a place Lightroom knows how to find automatically - Seriously, I think it is far better to create new.

You will likely want to find the old previews and delete them, however, as they usually are a very large space hog.

4

Lenses / Canon 200-400 video review

« on: February 03, 2013, 10:07:11 PM »

On Lula, a hands-on pre-production lens review.


http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/canon_200_400_view_review.shtml

5

Animal Kingdom / Re: Bird ID - Help Please!!!

« on: November 26, 2012, 11:55:04 AM »

Black-bellied Plover, juvenile

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Lenses / Re: Why The EF 200-400 f/4L IS 1.4x Delay?

« on: November 13, 2012, 05:34:03 PM »

This gets my vote....especially when wearing gloves - football, anyone?

I can imagine the AF/MF and AF range limiter switches are a little hard to get to in a hurry, esp on a pro body?

That...or you go to flip the AF/PF/MF switch and hit the lens mount release instead?   

7

Lens Gallery / Re: Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM

« on: October 06, 2012, 09:47:21 PM »

That squirrel is very impressive, quite a job handheld at 600mm. Congrats.

Any noise reduction for the ISO 6400?

8

Software & Accessories / Re: Lightroom 4.1 Running SLOW!

« on: September 26, 2012, 10:14:31 PM »

Hope it helps, Chris.

Regarding efficiencies, the best thing you can do is have the fastest internal HD or (far better) SSD you can afford.

Enjoy this definitive article concerning program/cache/data location combinations in Lightroom:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/blog/will-an-ssd-improve-adobe-lightroom-performance/

Regarding your second point, it sounds like some heavy action is occuring under the hood....possibly in Lightroom, which will automatically generate additional previews in the background or write XMP metadata to the sidecars as you work. I prefer to force all that addtional HD activity at one time, rather than take the performance hit. Or, you may have some system activity that is slowing Lightroom performance. Best to minimize programs that may make calls to the data or system drives.
In win7, I have the cpu/mem "gadget" on my desktop - not to be taken seriously, but rather as an indicator when the hamsters are pantin'.....

Thanks wtlloyd...I'll give those a try tonight.

Are there any efficiencies to be gained by using different hard drives for cache or photo storage.  All of my photos are their own HDD so I could use that drive or my normal C: drive for cache and such.  Thoughts?

I've been building 1:1 previews lately and I haven't seen much of a change.  It's so slow that when I try to select a photo, I have to let the mouse hover over the photo for an extra few seconds because if I move the mouse away, it will select whatever I am hovering over at the time, up to 3-5 seconds after I clicked a mouse.  That sounds trivial, but it's excrutiating when I am trying to cull through 2,000 images from a shoot.

9

Software & Accessories / Re: Lightroom 4.1 Running SLOW!

« on: September 26, 2012, 10:24:18 AM »

There can be a couple bottlenecks.

At Edit>catalog settings>file handling select the highest preview size, high quality, never discard. This is assuming you are using a 24" or larger monitor.

In catalog settings>Metadata deselect "Automatically write changes into XMP" You'll have to periodically force this as a matter of good housekeeping, on the files you are working on, to keep the XMP current with the catalog.

At Edit>Preferences>File handling set your Camera Raw Cache to 20GB. This is not the same as your previews, and 20GB is ample. You might consider selecting "purge cache" at this time.

Pre-building 1:1 previews can help a lot. More than anything else you can do. There is still some re-rendering in Develop, but the initial view is more accurate. For 60,000 images from 8 to 21 megapixel cameras, my preview cache is around 200GB.

You can choose this on import, or by selecting all photos in the catalog, then Library>previews>render 1:1 previews. It's fairly quick on import and you can start ranking and editing files while the previews are being generated, anyway. To re-generate ALL your photo previews can take hours, best to let it grind away while you are doing something else.

Re-optimize your catalog after.

Lightroom is far more CPU dependent than GPU. Additional memory benefits tail off rapidly after 8GB ram, unless you've got a dozen programs open at once, I'd guess. I typically only have Lightroom and CS6 running at the same time...

10

5D MK III Sample Images / Re: Flash in animal eyes

« on: July 31, 2012, 02:09:34 AM »

Lightroom or Photoshop - select the pupil (the color is caused by the light bouncing off the retina inside the eye) and feather your selection slightly to taste. Reduce the saturation and luminosity.

11

Lighting / Re: Portrait Lighting - Newbie

« on: July 27, 2012, 10:54:19 AM »

Well, you asked for mobile lighting kit recommendations, not studio strobes - granted, they can be used with power packs, but that won't be a light and quick setup.

Check out this site http://strobist.blogspot.com/
and read this http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html
and look here for configured kits http://mpex.com/strobist.html
and consider reading this site http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/
and in particular, you might be interested in this book for cutting edge portable gear http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/p/all-about-book-number-five-leds.html

and all that ought to get you through a bowl of whatever you're having for breakfast today 

12

Landscape / Re: Need critique please

« on: July 14, 2012, 09:53:08 PM »

Working with small jpeg is not good....

Cropped, knocked down highlights, tweaked tones and saturation, straightened sign (a bit, not able to do much, again, with jpeg). Gradient down the sky, brushed the building face a bit lighter. Couldn't get the roofline exactly level because I chose to straighten up the sign. Hills in background are fine, mountains aren't supposed to be level, or no one would go there 
Uggh, I hate the clouds. Working on the raw file could avoid that....
Composition, maybe crop down some more sky, but I already threw away a bunch of pixels, and there weren't many to start with...could get rid of the purple chromatic weirdness below the sun.

13

Animal Kingdom / Re: Show your Bird Portraits

« on: July 14, 2012, 08:47:50 AM »

You really want to get good?

Buy this book :http://www.birdsasart.com/ABPII.htm

Spend time here: http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/content.php

14

Sports / Re: Waterpolo

« on: July 11, 2012, 10:05:41 AM »

I shot my sons High school W.P. games for 4 years. No better lens than the 100-400, you'll find that switching lens is not practical the ball moves from goal to goal too quickly. I used a monopod.

Best position for action is behind the opposite teams goal, that way you get the faces you care about driving toward you....the back of players heads with no ball in sight (dribbling) is about as compelling as photos of birds flying away from you (ya, I got a million of those).

CP for the daylight glare and pretty fast shutter, as already mentioned. You want to freeze the water movement. Water will be your worst enemy, darn stuff is everywhere and 9 times out of 10 it will ruin your best action shots.

15

Lenses / Re: Advice for trip to Hawaii

« on: July 09, 2012, 12:24:32 AM »

Two reasons not to get a convertible. One, rain squalls pass through, sometimes 4 or 5 times a day.
Secondly, and it relates to your gear list - don't leave gear in the car when you pull up to some tourist stop. So only pack what you are willing to keep at your side or on your back, especially if you are planning to hit the highways and tour the island.
That said, I'd pack a couple zooms and a macro. The less time spent fiddling with gear, the more shots you'll get.  This goes double when traveling with family. Save the Full Monty kit for when you are on a dedicated photo trip with no obligations to interact with family.