Tnx! Its crazy but i shot it in only 1 day. I have to sneak around my tripod ." The only thing that bothered me was the resolution"Well the Cosina lens is not so great glass . I mainly use it at 300mm and the focus its not that "sharp" at that distance . Hopefully get a better lens for next project!

AdamJ said:

I think we're at cross purposes here, neuro. I was talking about the Perfect Clear software referenced by the OP.

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My bad, sorry! I do agree - I'd stay away from a 'one button' image editor. Reminds me of iPhoto's 'enhance' function - a black box with a sparkly-rainbow-magic-wand icon.

DArora said:

You could have used alcohol based wet wipes to clean it off. After wiping it couple of times, it definitely reduces the odor.

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yep i did this with a couple of used 580 flashes they are ok now
but in future i wont buy gear from smokers or smoke smelling gear

Thanks MaxPower for the opportunity to play. Your 100-400L seems to be a very good copy.

TigerTiger

neuroanatomist said:

And before the cries of pot and kettle surface, let me state for the record that I bring my personal laptop to work, and use that to surf CR.

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LOL!

I'm in the same boat. Just bought a 100 2.8L IS Macro last week. Played around with it over the weekend photographing flowers and just getting an idea of what I could do with the lens. I've seen the same books mentioned but haven't purchased anything.

My nephew took a workshop with Mike Moats (tiny landscapes: http://www.mikemoatsblog.com ) but Mike only conducts his workshops in the Midwest and Southeast. So, if you live in that part of the country, you might want to check out his macro workshops. There are others that give workshops, but Mike Moats doesn't charge you an arm and a leg.

I'll probably checkout the usual book suspects.

BTW - Mike Moats has an eBook: "Creating Art With Macro" that's $14.95

The main thing that differentiates different TC's is the accuracy of the machining. The front and rear mounts need to be very parallel. Canon goes to extremes to assure this, and you pay the price. Kenko is also excellent.

Then, there are the plastic body tubes from China which may have flimsy mounts that flex and bend. If you use one rarely and are not hung up on perfection, they are fine. But, if you want the best quality, get Kenko or Canon.
I've had all three, I ended up selling my Canon set, and later, sold my Kenko set. I have a cheap Chinese set that I only use to play with once a year or less, and it serves the purpose.

Now that I am selling many of my light weight primes and getting larger zooms, I may pop for Kenko again. I keep a eye out for used ones on our local Craigslist and have found some deals every few years.

All my shots were using the existing lighting that is part of the monuments. The MLK shot is most striking - I got a lucky balance of the spotlights from the ground and some pre-dawn light in the sky. The Lincoln memorial is well lit on the inside (at least for a slow exposure - 1sec @ f8 ISO200). I brightened up the lettering a bit in both cases in post (LR4).

Ha, well thanks for your opinion guess I can start saving or wait till the guy wants to let them go for less so if they do die it won't be such a loss.

Thats great thanks, i think the 430 is enough for me. I like the idea its smaller nad lighter too.

charlesa said:

It is hand holdable easily it seems... although more interested in samples on how it would compare to a 400 mm f/2.8 prime... and the price I believe will surpass the price of the supertelephoto primes themselves.

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I held it - I wouldn't want to handhold it for more than a few minutes - especially not when coupled to a ! series body

Thanks! Yes indeed he was from the SADF or even the 'new' SADF...I will have to ask him when I see him again

CustomizedMacs.com said:

Now, I see that the petal hood is bigger. Bigger is better? Not for cameras? The difference between the two is small. Unless you have your own opinion, which I want to hear. Convince me the regular one is better when the petal one is bigger and at the shortest sides is a few millimeters bigger.

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Even if you don't want to take a video of it, for your own understanding, please just fit the petal hood, make sure the lens is set to autofocus, and then half press the shutter to let the lens AF on different subjects. Try it without looking through the viewfinder, but looking at the camera - just as the people you're trying to impress will see it. If you find the rotation of the petal lens hood impressive, I'm pleased for you.

Please note that the videos you posted were not only through the lens, but there was no focusing there - just zooming.

And as for the depth of the hood, it should be as deep as possible without introducing vignetting. Canon are pretty clued up when it comes to optics - I'd guess they're a bit better at it than you and people that make cheap rubbish to sell on eBay, so personally I'd go with the Canon design.

mezzoutopia said:

I had my brand new 1DX since early Feb 13. I had also bought an extra original LPE4N batteries. Was out with my family to a Marine Aquarium for a weekend holiday and brought my 1DX along with only one fully charged LPE4N. Was at the Aquarium for about 4 hrs when my 1DX suddenly showed low batt and shut down. I took the batterries out for a while and reinserted and it still did not work. Last night, I put the battery into the charger and it showed more than 50% charge remaining. When I took it out after 2 mins in the charger and put it back into 1DX, it still have 64% remaining. Subsequently the 1DX shut down again after a few shutter clicks. I decided to swop to another LPE4N and everything is Ok now but I have not tried to shoot until the battery is around 60% level. I checked the "System Status Display" and there is no "Caution warning". Has this happened to anyone of you before? What do you think is the problem, the battery or the camera?

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I'd send both to Canon. Just in case there's something that doesn't work in the exact combination

I would keep an eye on ebay and when a lens that interests you comes up, low ball the bid, especially close to the end of bidding. Of course make sure that selling has good feedback. You should be able to find a deal if you are patient.

why not send out a link to a website that you can update frequently.

UV 0 i think ..uv for well uv and 0 is that it don't block visible light as a ND would...

You could just read the CR news, there is already a long thread. The poll makes no sense at all.

The best thing about the 6D to me is the Image quality and high ISO performance.

The best thing about the 6D for my wife is the ability to view my photos immediately while I'm shooting them and download/post the ones she likes on Facebook or text/email them to her friends right away. The images are resized to 1920x1200 so when you download it to your phone, it's < 1 sec per photo.

If I messed up an exposure or white balance, it has built in raw processing so I can fix it and it will spit out a Jpeg for her to download to her phone.

distant.star said:

.
Digic 6??????

You mean I've got a 5D3, and I'm now out of date!!!!

Oh, Canon, what have you done to us!!!!!!

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Afraid you may be right, the 5D3 can no longer take a decent picture, its useless, send it for scrap. Its a conspiratorial plot they don't know how to run a company. I'm off to Nikon.

jrista said:

hjulenissen said:

TheSuede said:

Deconvolution in the Bayer domain (before interpolation, "raw conversion") is actually counterproductive, and totally destructive to the underlying information.

The raw Bayer image is not continuous, it is sparsely sampled. This makes deconvolution impossible, even in continuous hue object areas containing "just" brightness changes. If the base signal is sparsely sampled and the underlying material is higher resolution than the sampling, you get an under-determined system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermined_system). This is numerically unstable, and hence = impossible to deconvolve.

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There is no doubt that the CFA introduce uncertainty compared to sampling all colors at each site. I believe I was thinking about cases where we have some prior knowledge, or where an algorithm or photoshop-dude can make correct guesses afterwards. Perhaps what I am suggesting is that debayer and deconvolution ideally should be done jointly.

If the scene is achromatic, then "demosaic" should amount to something ala a global WB, filtering might destroy recoverable detail - the CFA in itself does not reduce the amount of spatial information compared to a filterless sensor. If the channels are nicely separated in the 2-d DFT, you want to follow those segments when deconvoluting?

-h

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On a per-pixel level, a bayer is only receiving 30-40% of the information a achromatic sensor is getting. That implies a LOSS of information is occuring due to the filtering of the CFA. You have spatial information, for the same number of samples over the same area...but the information in each sample is anemic compared to what you get with an achromatic sensor. That is the very reason we need to demosaic and interpolate information at all...that can't be a meaningless factor.

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Off topic, sorry but I just had to scratch the itch. We know the negatives (more processing, incompatibility with current standards, more focus should be spent on different sensor types), but every time I read something like this I can't help but think a RGBW array would be awesome.

jimjamesjimmy said:

Don Haines said:

I found that the tripod weight was more important than mirror lockup. I have a pair of tripods.... the old heavy one moves a lot less than the new lightweight one.... but hang a weight off of the lightweight tripod and it gets very steady. I have a eyelet in the bottom of the central collumn that I attach to the camera bag with a length of light rope.... makes the setup much more stable.

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surely if it was a bit windy your bag would be swaying all over the place? my tripods pretty sturdy and there was no hint of wind in my room or shake on my floor!

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The "trick" is to have the bag just touching the ground, or hung using a bungy cord. That way the tripod is pulled down to steady it and the bag cannot sway about.

I'm not buying another "fast" wide angle lens until a manufacturer can offer me near-zero coma and near-zero CA. My Sigma 35mm f/1.4 was a *horror* in this regard at f/1.4; the only useful portion of an astro image was perhaps 10% (at most) near the center. And if a lens can't shoot cleanly at f/1.4, I don't think they ought to advertise it as such. My Sigma 35mm was only useful at f/2.8 and above. At 1.4 it was a joke.

As consumers, we've been far too forgiving of these horribly distorted lens designs. Here's hoping the manufacturers are listening.

chauncey said:

I'm in the market for a new body with the criteria being superior low light capabilities, something my 1DsIII is somewhat lacking, and superior IQ.
Dynamic Range and bit depth also rank in the want column as well. I'm thinking that photomerge will overcome the need for high MP needed for large images.

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Noise is NOT primarily determined by pixel size as so many people falsely assume. It is primarily determined by technology and total sensor surface area. When you stitch images what you are basically doing is simulating a larger sensor surface area.

Low ISO noise has been a solved problem for a long time now, and no modern sensor produces noisy low ISO images when properly exposed. People who claim otherwise are zooming to 300% in PS OR using image viewers with horrible scaling algorithms (Apple's Preview is one) OR trying to lift shadows by 3-5 stops. Or all of the above. Suffice it to say, noise is going to be even less of an issue when you stitch multiple frames and thereby simulate a larger sensor.

Dynamic range OTOH is primarily driven by technology and pixel size, and stitching won't help this. Then again, if you're shooting a subject still enough for stitching, you're shooting a subject that's still enough for exposure blending / HDR.

FWIW - I find stitching 3 frames (camera orientation opposite of image orientation) to be relatively easy and practical. Anything more is a chore. Even the lowest Rebel can match a top notch MF film scan with a three frame stitch. It's rare to need or even see prints that big.

I'm thinking that a crop sensor that utilizes the "center sweet spot" of the lens coupled with reduced MP to allow more utilized light would be the answer.

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You're not taking technology into account. The current sensors in either format are the lowest noise sensors Canon has produced to date, and noise is being further squashed into oblivion for a given print size by the stitch. Though stitching doesn't help DR, the current sensors are also the highest DR sensors to date, again due to technology.

If DR is truly a concern then 1DX, 5D3, or 6D. If you're doing this for big landscape prints, be aware that the DR gains aren't a great benefit in practice. Generally if your landscape scene exceeds the sensor DR, it REALLY exceeds it, and you need to exposure blend/HDR. In which case any sensor will do.

Don't forget to buy a panoramic head.

You may also want to consider if the shift function on the T/S lenses better serves your needs.

Rienzphotoz said:

Artifex said:

jimjamesjimmy said:

Rienzphotoz said:

jimjamesjimmy said:

(though if sony had a FF i would be v interested in that , shame)

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Sony does have a FF camera ... Sony a99 Full-Frame DSLR

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sorry i meant pentax!!

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I don't want to get you even more torn out, but it seems that Pentax have confirm that they plan to make a FF camera.
Source: http://photorumors.com/2013/02/03/pentax-confirms-their-full-frame-dslr-camera-plans-again/

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Pentax Full Frame will be a very long wait ... from what I read in that article, they've been talking about it since 2009

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Yes, I see that! It's a shame Pentax doesn't have a FF body yet; heavier competition for a same market often mean better products and smaller price (though the oil market doesn't quite follow this logic). I would personally love to see a good quality, not to expensive Pentax FF body; since their camera current are backward compatible with lens from the film era, I can hope the same with a FF body.