NancyP said:

Bird photography is specialized, and better gear does add up to better shots. I don't have $20.000.00 right now to drop on a bird photography kit, so I use a $2,400.00 (price when new) kit of 60D and 400mm f/5.6L.

Click to expand...

This is no bad combo, in particular if there is enough light. The little 400mm is a superb lens, I use it quite frequently when I do not want to carry a 500mm with me.

Went iPhoto > TIFF > photoshop and it worked. I'm almost disappointed it did work haha

I got a TG-3 and quite enjoyed it. It was used mostly at the surface though and anyway not deeper than 1 meter.

Zeiss 100 macro: http://www.traumflieger.de/objektivtest/open_test/zeiss_100_2_makro_planar/overview.php
(Test in German)

The Zeiss 100 on the D800
http://www.colorfoto.de/produkte/zeiss-makro-planar-t-2-100-mm-zf-2-nikon-d800-1465949.html

Last month I posted a short video on a retired Hollywood filmmaker's HDR panoramas of Albuquerque. However, the video only touched on his finished results. This link will take you to his site and some of his work:

http://www.unit16.net/Adobe%20Web%20Gallery/content/index.html

After viewing his work, you will understand why I picked ABQ as my retirement home. Our Fall is usually spectacular, and the winter and spring scenes can be quite good as well. If you like thunderstorms, July and August can produce some intense weather formations and plenty of lightning!

Got to say I'm a very happy bunny with my 70D. But then I need that AF .

FunPhotons said:

climber said:

Maybe they can make a flash with adjustable light temperature.

Click to expand...

Sounds nice but I don't know of technology for that at the flashbulb level. What I'd do is put a thin film LCD in the front, then put whatever color cast you want on it. Effectively it's an electronic gel, and you'd lose a half stop or whatever. Of course that could be done as an add in too, though batteries might make it bulky.

Convenient, but plastic gels are more accurate and cheaper.

Click to expand...

Two bulbs?
You'd be limited to two temperatures and I'm sure it wouldn't be great for the shape of the projection, but it would be cost effective.

Just "fixed" it. I removed the battery and after putting it back in - everything is working normally. Not sure why it fixed it though, but it did.

Legalese78 said:

One night when I was out of town, my pit bull decided she was into my 16-35 f/2.8 II...which means that she pulled it off a shelf that is four feet off the ground, and used it as a chew toy. I was sure that this was the end of the lens but, honestly, it works perfectly, cosmetic damage aside.

Click to expand...

Yes except now its a Sixteen to Thirty-Slime lens!!! LOL!! HA I kill me.. I'm here all week people..

LJ3Jim said:

The fine details might be better with the 300:

http://www.lj3.com/misc/plane3.jpg

Regards, Jim

Click to expand...

An old friend of mine owns that Mustang, and I once flew it into an air show with him. Quite the experience...

Anyway, I should think that at the same aperture, with moving subjects, you won't see any appreciable difference between the slower or faster lenses. There could be some in ideal conditions (very heavy tripod, etc.), but even then I wouldn't expect to see a decisive advantage. On the other hand, if you need to shoot at f/2.8, you don't have much choice, do you?

CR Backup Admin said:

Our organization in a large company bought a 3D scanner about 1991. Then the company making the scanner went out of business and as soon as computer operating systems became incompatible with the drivers, we had a $5K piece of junk. I think we were the early adopters.

We also used 3d printers for prototyping of parts. The printers were very expensive, and you did not normally own a printer, but paid $$$ to have your part printed.

Click to expand...

Yeah, until the last few years, CNC was much more cost effective. One of the other members works at a really cool shop that has all sorts of industrial equipment.

Have one machine that functions as an industrial scanner, it has an arm that traces the outside of an object and does a really good job at copying large objects.

Unfortunately, all options I'm seeing now are people doing digital 'selfies' I want to copy some out of print A/C knobs, not my face.

On another note, has anyone else noticed that the colors straight out of camera are not all that great (especially when moving up the ISO ladder)?

I am also finding that the color on a fair number of the files I get to be a little more difficult to manipulate to a point I am content with. Color in general, I have found is not the best with the Sony.

To make matters worse, the auto white balance is by far the weakest I have experienced with any camera I have owned or currently own. This only makes matters worse when trying to work with the color in the files afterward.

Was also thinking that this may be a symptom of me already being used to Canon and Fuji files in post. But something about these Sony files still makes me feel as though there is more labor in post to get them to look the way I want.

Wi-Fi in cameras is strange. Its mostly optimized for transfer to smartphones, so if you want to use it where you do not have a long enough cord to reach your computer, you must take camera or card to the computer.

Samsung has about the best implementation.

Canon has now responded that we should keep an eye out for the site to come back up later in the week.

If it were a one time happening, that might be ok, but their site has been down frequently, as I found out today by doing a search.

I'm disgusted, and considering a return of my camera. The dealer will not take it back, but at least Amex will refund $300 of the purchase price, and I can sell it.

The problem is that none of the cameras is very good at Wi-Fi, so there is not much to chose from. The Sony RX100 III will not transfer to a computer at all, you must go to the computer and pull the images, so its even worse.

I've been on Instagram for a little while now and it's funny how many photos I've seen people post that are covered with "PROOF" watermarks...

My favorite and most heard line has to be "Wow, that's a great camera, I bet it takes great pictures." I'm sure no one else has heard that one.

And when asked to take an outdoor group photo, "We can just take our picture [of us all in blue suits] here in the conference room [with blue walls, two different white balanced fluorescent bulbs, and projector going] and you can drop us into the outdoor background, right?"

alexturton said:

The 24 70 ii is sublime and you won't regret it.

Click to expand...

this sums it up nicely. i LOVE it.

JonAustin said:

adhocphotographer said:

So, I've tried to have a lens free year this year...

Click to expand...

Wow ... how do you take any photos when you're lens free??? ;D

Click to expand...

Indeed, it has been tough!

JonAustin said:

The best way to curb G.A.S. is to stop reading photography-related websites!

Click to expand...

Agreed, and have been avoiding this site for a time now for that very reason... but now... well... screw it!

lo lite said:

vstrike said:

Those light field cameras are just another means of postponing photographic decisions to the office desk. In former times you had to get it all right at the moment of the shot, now we can, thanks to raw imaging correct the exposure later, thanks to cameras like the 1DC choose the right moment later (when recording video, Canon did promote this with the term "micro expressions" google for "micro expressions canon"), now Lytro offers postponing the focusing …

Call me old fashioned, I don't like all this. Off course I also make mistakes and I am happy when I am able to correct them to some extend later on but usually I prefer to choose the right moment, the right framing, the right focus point, the right exposure and the right field of depth at the moment I take the shot.

Click to expand...

That's not what the purpose of the camera is for. It is not so you can correct your mistakes, it is so you can make the process interactive. You determine the depth and the focus range in camera. There is just as much to think about when using the Lytro as a DSLR, if not more. This is built more for the monitor than it is for prints. Not saying whether it is good or not, but I find the concept very interesting.

Click to expand...

I think too that the technical concept is very interesting. But you need a special viewer to have the interactive aspect for the shots. And then again how many subjects can you imagine (aside from the hand picked examples at the lytro website) where an adjustable focus really makes sense? To me this lytro stuff is still mostly a nice toy, nothing that I would really miss in day to day photography.

Click to expand...

What about to increase DOF to your images? Can allow focus stacking from a single image.

+1 for YN603C. I have three flashes all hooked to one of these little tranceivers.

And here is a sample (w/ two flashes):

500px

i wasn't having a go mate, taking pith out op if anything. You haven't really taken control of depth of field until you've shot film medium or large format.

Got my replacement adapter ring from my dealer. Great service btw: Calumet. From all the adapters I got, this looks ok. Still has those marks on either side, but not some specles or material damage as the other ones.

The ND pro glass looks ok too now, no yellow specles. I will look at that a bit closer when I have time.

So far I have then:
* W/A adapter ring
* CPL adapter ring
* filter folder
* ND 0.9 por glass

Next will be either another ND 0.9, a little stopper or a big stopper. Haven't found any realiable info about color casts about the higher ND ones.
Finally after that some soft grades an I am done.

the 1d3 values are by now in very grasual decline, you have very little to lose by keeping it for the time being.

perhaps a lot to gain, not least a known quantity.

7d2 will cost 20-30% more for early adopters.

7d2 will need a couple of fw revisions to get it working sweet.

7d2 might not tick all your boxes... folk think of it as an action orientated camera, I think of it as canons first serious video dslr (it was the first with manual exposure from launch, the first with a pal mode from launch, the first with a dedicated video switch) so the new 7d might be the first with a 3x imaging block. it might be friggin massive. it might bethe first with xlrs built in! it might take the a7s route of reduced mp count for cleaner 4k video scaling.

I don't know. neither do you.

but you do know your 1d3.

Nobody apart from camera anoraks are going to look at a beast like the 1d3 and think, ooh that isn't a 1dx. or a 7d2.
And camera anoraks aren't generally the best photographers. hung up on specs. technically focused. boring.

Care more about your images, and what no 7d2 or anybody else can bring to them... you!

Might you take better pics with a 7d2? possibly. but not yet. so keep the 1d3

the 7d2 has been inevitable for the last 5 years.

I shoot a quite a lot of sports such as football (soccer for the Americans) etc. and am always in mode 3, but normally use a 400 f/2.8 ii rather than the 300.

Sports/action photography is exactly what mode 3 was designed for.

I say make sure you use a good macro tripod such as a Redged, the Canon dual Macro flash and a focusing rail like the Novoflex Castel-Q. Along with the 100 you'd have an amazing kit with a steady image. I've used mine with the Tamron SP 1.4 TC (same as the higher end Kenko) but the IQ def degrades. If used with the right tools, such as above) you have fantastic cropping ability if the image needs it. Well, ymmv but it works great for me on a 5D3.

Removed by Moderator. No selling is allowed.

While waiting for Canon to reinforce the lens release button, I strongly recommend getting a set of Optech Uni-loops and connecting them to the lug of your camera plate and to the BR carabiner.
Costs $6 and provides great insurance, without altering the position of your camera+lens combo.