Messages

16

Lenses / Re: I'd love a little adivce...

« on: March 11, 2013, 05:50:25 PM »

not long ago i read on the phoblographer:

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2013/02/27/duclos-lenses-wants-to-modify-your-rokinon-lenses-for-a-unique-cinema-look/

So you can get your rokino/walimes/samyang/bower modified to get "that" look...

17

Software & Accessories / Re: RECHARGEABLE - POWER-EX - ENLOOP - IMEDION

« on: March 11, 2013, 10:00:32 AM »

Eneloop: medium capacity (1900mAh), medium max drain BUT: charge, put in your bag, forget, still charged when you need them.

I bought 8 and i'm totally happy with them.

Also got 8 hi cap "regular" accus (2500mAh) together with the recharger. they are not bad, but i need to charge the lot a few hours before an event or else they are (half) empty. But they offer slightly better flash recharge time and they last a bit longer.

As self-discharge sucks... my vote goes to eneloop (=

18

Lenses / Re: Samyang 14mm T3.1 for still photography?

« on: March 03, 2013, 01:57:53 PM »

If you work with liveview, you should be totally fine. Use the 5x/10x to set accourate focus, use the live-histogram for the best aperture setting, or you can play around in Tv/M mode until you get the EV meter where you want it.

I dont have any samjang stuff, but with the lensbaby its nearly the same, although it does have aperture clicks (Edge 80) or aperture discs (rest).

The aperture value is not shown, as there is NO communication between lens&body. A nice feature would be that you can manually set it for the metadata...

19

Canon General / Re: How well do you see color?

« on: February 25, 2013, 04:32:08 PM »

Your score: 0
Gender: Male
Age range: 20-29

at 10:30 PM with tired eyes...

20

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: GEAR GRINDING - or, what bug's you about your equipment

« on: February 08, 2013, 08:08:53 AM »

my .02$ for this "multi-outline-bokeh": try shooting these images WITHOUT image stabilisation, and you have solved the problem.
Before further explanation, try to understand how IS works...

Does IS affect bokeh? I've been shooting for only for just over a year so I'm a relative newbie here ... want to learn.

Yes it does (in special circumstances only: shallow DOF with objects just OOF). Consider the location of the IS group inside your lens and imagine what happens when you tilt the camera body by a single degree or less during the exposure. Think about location of the sensor, location of the IS group, location of the photographed object (which remains focussed) and the location of the object(s) slightly out of focus. A sketch might help

Corollary: If you happen to shake your lens around the nodal point, no "multi-outline-bokeh" will occur

21

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: GEAR GRINDING - or, what bug's you about your equipment

« on: February 08, 2013, 07:20:46 AM »

my .02$ for this "multi-outline-bokeh": try shooting these images WITHOUT image stabilisation, and you have solved the problem.
Before further explanation, try to understand how IS works...

22

Speedlites, Printers, Accessories / Re: post your best photographic gear for under 100 euro (100$)

« on: February 01, 2013, 10:43:07 AM »

Cullmann Nanomax 200T

23

Lenses / Re: Fellow stargazers & nighttime landscape loners!

« on: December 19, 2012, 02:46:47 PM »

i used the tokina 11-16 on a crop body - works quite fine, 30sec/f2.8/ISO400 gives decent images.
took some 400 shots (last half hour clouds came in ) and merged all together:


Sternenhimmel über dem Zwüschbi by SwissBear85, on Flickr

On a crop, i would suggest the tokina 11-16 II - should have better flare-controll and other benefits

After some searching, the only differences I can find in the II version are better coatings (better flare control and maybe slightly better transmission) and one more of the elements is SD (low dispersion) glass. There's also something about a GMR sensor for the front element to improve auto focus, but I can't tell if that's for Nikon, Canon, or both? Are there any good reviews of the II version? Is it worth the extra $150?


I've thought about getting a Samyang 35mm F/1.4 for star shots as it seems to do very well wide open, but it probably wouldn't be wide enough to be really useful on my crop body.

I plan to build a barn door tracker like this:
http://www.keteu.org/posts/a_smart_barn_door_drive.html
It's probably the most cost effective way to improve my star photos, and I can build one for well under $100. There are simpler plans out there (even manual ones), but I like the approach of this one because I'm an electrical engineer.

Now I just need to find somewhere dark enough to get good photos!

The flares of version I are pretty bad - in this shot you can actually see moonflares on the right side between the startrails - if you know where to look. the version II is on my shoppinglist - as the lens i used belongs to a friend of mine

For location... i shot from a location 2100m AMSL where the next seasonally inhabitet hut (!) is 1.5hr walking distance, as is the end of a dirt track that is passable with a 4WD car. One of the more remote places in switzerland

24

Lenses / Re: Fellow stargazers & nighttime landscape loners!

« on: December 18, 2012, 02:32:39 PM »

i used the tokina 11-16 on a crop body - works quite fine, 30sec/f2.8/ISO400 gives decent images.
took some 400 shots (last half hour clouds came in ) and merged all together:

[...]

On a crop, i would suggest the tokina 11-16 II - should have better flare-controll and other benefits

Great shot! Just out of curiosity, do you take one image with the lens cap on for canceling out noise?

Nope, i exposed a few hundred times 30sec and did some miraculous postproduction with GIOTTO

25

Lenses / Re: Fellow stargazers & nighttime landscape loners!

« on: December 18, 2012, 08:39:44 AM »

i used the tokina 11-16 on a crop body - works quite fine, 30sec/f2.8/ISO400 gives decent images.
took some 400 shots (last half hour clouds came in ) and merged all together:


Sternenhimmel über dem Zwüschbi by SwissBear85, on Flickr

On a crop, i would suggest the tokina 11-16 II - should have better flare-controll and other benefits

26

Software & Accessories / Re: Best panorama photo stitching software.

« on: December 17, 2012, 10:21:30 AM »

i use hugin and im happy with it. only HDR could be handled a bit more intuitive.
But it works great and gives superb results. It might be a bit more complex than others, but then again you have controll and can easily correct bad autostitches.

Autopano Giga is only good, if you shoot on a pano-head (with angular raster) - you must have exactly the same number of pics per row.

27

EOS Bodies - For Stills / Re: Using 1DX in very low temperatures

« on: December 08, 2012, 09:21:49 AM »

From a physical point of view:
- don't expose your equipment to rapid temperature changes
- the air inside your equipment should be very dry - else it might condesate/deposit and cause harm

So keep your equipment far away from the bathroom and when going outside, keep your stuff the first (half) hour in its bag...

28

Lenses / Re: Focal Distance: furthest possible maintaining blurred BG

« on: November 26, 2012, 07:42:04 AM »

Well, my question was quite blurry - that might be due to the fact that i'm neither native speaker nor have a vast vocab in this rather specific section of technical english.

But "to get better with my english", what could be a better wording for it?

Thank you again for all the answers. as it seems, this topic isnt quite easily understood

29

Lenses / Re: Focal Distance: furthest possible maintaining blurred BG

« on: November 25, 2012, 01:41:09 PM »

Of course, the size of the object is not the only variable - the other is the lens.

...

But...perhaps this will help: at a basic level, OOF blur is determined by magnification and aperture (ignoring exceptions like near 1:1 macro and fisheye lenses).  In your scenario, you're filling the frame with the subject, therefore magnification is not varying with focal length, although distance to subject will increase with increasing focal length to fully frame the stick.  In that case, the determinant of OOF blur amount will be aperture. Thus, the 'best' current Canon lenses will be the 50/1.2 and 85/1.2. 

...

Let's back up a step - why is this important to you?  What are you trying to accomplish?

This actually answers my question and also makes sense.
So, Rule of Thumb: the faster the Lens, the bigger an object can be maintaining some blurred background

Now for the "why": I enjoy OOF and i want to know the limitations/dependencies of it. (and i like numbers - might be the case why i study maths)

Thank you for all the answers

Now that the test parameters are fixed, whats the maximum working distance with a 85f/1.2 maintaining mackground blur?

30

Lenses / Re: Focal Distance: furthest possible maintaining blurred BG

« on: November 25, 2012, 07:29:28 AM »

The size of the Object is the variable. For a clear definiton, it can be considered as a stick which is framed that it has 100% Image width / long side of the sensor.

The subject distance is maximised in terms of "still isolated" (as mentioned above) from the background. The Background must therefore be at "infinity".

"With the Lens XY it's possible to isolate an object with a maximum size of Z"

I hope this makes clearer what i want to know...