Messages

1

Software & Accessories / Re: Screen protector question

« on: Today at 01:09:30 AM »

The glass used by Canon for the screen is so astonishingly tough, the only people who would say you need protection are the manufacturers of the protection.

I shoot every day with two-three bodies and have done so with digital for all of this century. I smashed a screen on a 1Ds when it flopped back on a tripod that wasn't locked. Canon CPS fixed it for free in 10 minutes. I very slightly damaged a screen on a D30  (not to be confused with the 2006 30D) after it bashed continuously against a belt buckle while attempting to ride a horse. I'm not especially careful with my gear, and other than those two careless mishaps every screen I've had has been pristine at the end of 2-3 years of hard labour when the bodies are upgraded.

Save your protection for other fun pursuits.

-PW

Lol

2

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: 1DX and 5D3 RAW files

« on: May 21, 2013, 09:32:31 AM »

I have had both cameras for a bit now and have collected lots of RAW from both cameras and as I get time I process them and put them in correct folders.

I NEVER COME TO KNOW WHICH CAMERA TOOK WHICH PHOTO unless I check metadata.

My opinion: There is no difference in IQ. I may be wrong, but I would not pick either camera just for IQ. While shooting, it is a different story altogether.

Would love for someone to post photos and educate me. Not challenging, I want to learn.

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1D X Sample Images / Re: Any Thing shot with a 1Dx

« on: May 21, 2013, 09:04:28 AM »

1Dx 300f/2.8, Shot @ f/6.3 1/320th ISO1600

The choice on the day was Leopards, or, A pack of Wild Dog had come into the area, no choice, these Animals are not only Beautiful but severely endangered, so we looked for these Guys all day, finally found them hunting just on Sunset. The tall Grass made them, for me, exceptionally hard to shoot in the fading light, so every shot I tried with the Pack Running I blew, but everything stands still sometime.

Eml...I envy you...you cover such an incredible range of photography....and you do it very, very well...again, nice shot!

+1

So many great photographers and mentors on this site. I used to visit other websites...now, pretty much only this one.

Exactly.

4

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 21, 2013, 08:45:28 AM »

It's when you start adding elements not in the original capture, It's no longer photography.

I could not agree more, adding to the image changes it to photographic art; however, subtracting (the corner of a building, a flying bird, contrails, et cetera) is perfectly acceptable.  Obviously anything you can do it a wet darkroom, you can 'legally' do the same in photoshop.

Sir if you are serious, I do not understand your logic. Regards.

5

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 21, 2013, 06:06:06 AM »

This is an interesting article from Bryan Peterson on this issue. Thought I'd share

http://bryanfpeterson.blogspot.in/2010/06/every-photograph-is-lie-yet-within-that.html

He says: "Personally, I have NO problem with any image that has been dramatically altered, as long as it is 'believable' OR so obviously altered that it's not even a question e.g. fantasy, dream-like photographs. I don't mind the 'lie' that is created from a dramatically altered image, since I have felt for years that every photograph is a 'lie' anyway, but my problem with the dramatically altered 'lie' is that it can lead one to believe that a given landscape or cityscape really does "look like that" when, as it turns out, there is no such place on earth."

Thanks for the share! In my photo, such clouds do exist in that part of the world.

6

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 21, 2013, 02:07:43 AM »

So many opinions on this subject and all of them are equally valid. 11 Pages worth...

Yes RLP. Agree!

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Canon General / Re: Desired fantasy gear

« on: May 20, 2013, 12:12:49 PM »

A nice remote control kite rig for aerial photography....

Yep!

8

Canon General / Re: Desired fantasy gear

« on: May 20, 2013, 12:09:16 PM »

I would love a body with option of full frame and crop with the flick of a switch.
This fantasy stems from something I read in this forum earlier. Was it a Nikon camera?
I do not know Nikon gear at all so not sure.

But something like this would be great for me. Advantages of FF and crop in the same body! While we are at it, let the crop have even faster frame rate.

I believe the Nikon D800 has this. It effectively becomes a built in TC. I would love that too.

It's not quite as good as a TC because with a TC you have more pixels on your subject whereas with the Nikon crop modes you are simply cropping the image in camera.
So yes it looks closer on the back of the camera but it's the same as taking an uncropped photo and cropping it in PP. Less work I suppose but less control over the crop and same number of pixels on the subject.

Really! Wow, I learnt something. I know its basic for some...

9

Canon General / Re: Desired fantasy gear

« on: May 20, 2013, 10:08:18 AM »

I would love a body with option of full frame and crop with the flick of a switch.
This fantasy stems from something I read in this forum earlier. Was it a Nikon camera?
I do not know Nikon gear at all so not sure.

But something like this would be great for me. Advantages of FF and crop in the same body! While we are at it, let the crop have even faster frame rate.

I believe the Nikon D800 has this. It effectively becomes a built in TC. I would love that too.

You could create an action in photoshop to autocrop your photos from the centre of the frame by 1.5 times and there you go. Problem solved.
However the "higher framerate"-function when less pixels are used is interesting (but not for me). I would like to go in another direction though - less noise! Use 25% of the pixels and reduse the noise by 50% or something by grouping the pixels together 2 by 2 or something, letting those 4 pixels simulate 1 larger pixel. THAT would be an interesting "crop" mode for me (although it would not be a crop mode since it would not crop, it would  be high sensitivity, low resulution mode). I have no need for faster framerates (however I understand that other photographers may need all the FPS they can get.)

22 mpix to use at low ISOs
11 mpix to use at high ISOs
6 mpix to use at superhigh ISO.

Interesting

10

Canon General / Re: Desired fantasy gear

« on: May 20, 2013, 07:02:26 AM »

I would love a body with option of full frame and crop with the flick of a switch.
This fantasy stems from something I read in this forum earlier. Was it a Nikon camera?
I do not know Nikon gear at all so not sure.

But something like this would be great for me. Advantages of FF and crop in the same body! While we are at it, let the crop have even faster frame rate.

11

Canon General / Re: Desired fantasy gear

« on: May 20, 2013, 06:59:28 AM »

Self carrying camera bag.
Lightstands that do not blow over when windy.
Speedlights with the capacity (recharge time, capacity and power) of big studio strobes @ 1000WS.
Voice activated controll of speedlights and more groups (A, B, C... to K).
Jet pack for those unusual camera angles.
Weather controll to roll in those perfect clouds when the sky is just too boring.
Laughing gas kit - the lens can emit lauging gas to make the people at the wedding more relaxed and happy thus generating better pictures for the photographer. Or if the weddingshoot goes terribly wrong the photographer can use the gas for his or her own comfort.
Device to slow time. That would make it easier to get the shot when a lot is going on.

When it comes to camera bodies I´d like to have the eye controlled AF back. I´d also like to have the AF points spread out over more or less the whole frame. The 5D mkIII has a larger spread than the 5D mkII but I´d like even more.
I´d also like to set what points I can manually choose - when I use the "all cross type points" preset it takes forever to change AF point from one side of the frame to the other. Perhaps a portrait-mode AF that looks for eyes and put focus there. And a wedding mode that look for four eyes and give a large enough DoF to have them all sharp... From last wedding everything looked good on camera monitor but when I got back to my computer I saw that the groom was a bit OOF, but the bride was tack sharp. Not good and my own fault of course, but that wedding-mode would be cool.

Other than that.... Update the 50 mm /1.4. Give it better USM, better build, better sharpness wide open, better contrast.

Many good ideas here... Really!

12

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Am I crazy to sell my Canon gear?

« on: May 20, 2013, 06:49:14 AM »

You did not mention the kind of photography you do.
Decision depends on that.

13

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 20, 2013, 06:25:15 AM »

Thank you everyone for taking time to comment. I learnt a lot.
Appreciate.

Hi Sanj, as always you bring something interesting to this forum. It made for an interesting discussion without too much polarization.

Pretty much all my photos goes into LR4 where I will work more or less with them depending on what I will use them for. I do some work for my children's school, for website, promotion material etc, then I shoot medium JPEG and only adjust some WB and little bit of exposure sometimes. I am now preparing for my first exhibition and of course for those I spend alot more time on each photo.

I am originally from Sweden. I think it was last year or so, a wildlife photographer won the wildlife photograph of the year or something, the subject was a lynx. There are plenty of them in Sweden, but you rarely see them. People started to question the picture and finally the guy came out and admitted that he had taken the picture of a lynx at a zoo and then pasted it into a regular winter landscape. I guess his career as a wildlife photographer came to an abrupt end.

Having said that, I think we are allowed to do whatever we want with our pictures as long as it's clear what we've done, depending on the purpose of the picture, art, documenting a scene, publishing etc.

Sometimes though, I just accept that the sky was white that day.

thanks
J

I understand what you saying. I looked at the photo a long time and the bland sky kept irritating me so I added the cloud. But the moment I did that I got bit unsure of myself and posted here to get advice from experts.

14

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 20, 2013, 06:22:50 AM »

I found the sky boring and added clouds to make it more interesting.

Do you think this is cheating? I really want to know.

Am very confused. I have made changes but not altered nature. Have I done something wrong?

What is your goal?

To create a piece of art or to depict reality?

If you're creating art then adding clouds is fine.

If you're trying to depict reality then obviously no.

I have concluded by now that from the moment a photographer picks up the camera, reality in its true sense fails to exist.

15

Animal Kingdom / Re: Wrong Photography Ethics?

« on: May 20, 2013, 06:16:31 AM »

Most of us are not forensic photographers who shoot crime scenes and dead bodies ... photography for me is a passionate hobby and an art form ... I'm no good at drawing or painting or sculpting  ... the closest I can hope to get to any decent art form is making images and manipulating them the way I like ... I am happy to manipulate and change images so they are pleasing and/or compelling to look at ... even if it mans adding a lighting bolt or removing an ugly wire or add an extra cheetah or make a fat person look a little slimmer (in fact I routinely use liquify tool to make people, with a big paunch, look a little slimmer) and as a photographer it gives me great joy to see people feel good about themselves when they look at the images I've manipulated ... I don't give a damn if the so called "purists" think it is unethical ... I thank God everyday that photography is my hobby and that it gives me a chance to look for beauty in the world around me and if I can't see it, I'll just manipulate that scene in photoshop, and I don't need to worry about being unethical coz I am not a forensic photographer shooting crime scenes and dead bodies.

That makes two of us! But in my case I must not enhance nature pictures to much that it is a total lie. In other words if I photograph a running cheetah, I cannot put a lion behind it to create a false story.
Regards and thanks.