Totally non-car-related pics
Posted by Cab Treadway
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Well, not totally non-car-related... you can see part of a car in two of the shots.
Just received (finally) the new 35mm lens I ordered six weeks ago. Haven't played around with it too much, but here are a few of the first shots. Daniel, you should totally get one of these. 
Can't really decide if I like this one or not. Well, I like it, but can't decide if I like it a lot or just a little. 
5 second exposure, but the view of the water wasn't great, so it's not all that cool. This creek is much neater to look at in the fall and winter. 
Me and my girls, just hanging out. Molly looks like she's being tortured, but she really loves us.  Cab 
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
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very cool. i want that lens, but i am also tempted by the sigma 30mm f/1.4, even though it is $440 compared to $200. doesnt sound like its worth the extra monies, but from what i have read, the f/1.4 is like 60% wider than the f/1.8. it'd be nice to take the camera to a kind of dark concert and not have to use flash.
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Yes, f/1.4 is 2/3 of a stop faster than 1.8, so you can shoot in lower light. From what I understand, Sigma lenses can be very good or very bad, sometimes you have to return them once or twice to get a good copy. The price of this Nikkor combined with the focal length sold it for me. So far we're quite happy with it.
Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
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Cab, #2 is a fantastic shot. You should be proud of that! I think black and white works well for that one, too.
 Next time, you can enhance the sense of height and how far you daughter is reaching by framing it so that she is more toward the top of the frame, with more space beneath her feet.
Honestly, #1 doesn't do much for me. The subject seems to be your neighbor's mailbox. 
I like the color one of your daughter, but her feet are cut off. That's OK if it's a real tight close-up portrait, but for a distant shot like this you really want her feet. Sorry -- that's a pet peeve of mine. I think a vertical orientation might help this one too.
The last one is a nice family portrait. I love your daughter's expression, and your face half-hidden behind the dog. If you get yourself a flash with bounce capability, you can bounce the flash off the ceiling to eliminate the reflecting eyes of Molly. It's hard taking flash pictures of animals because their eyes are always doing that. Or, try it with a high ISO, wide open aperture, and no flash. I actually do that a lot. I personally try to avoid flash whenever I can (except for fill flash outdoors) because natural lighting looks so nice. __________ Dave '91 325iX Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2009 05:22AM by Dave_G. |
Thanks. It was really just spur of the moment, so I didn't really have time to think about framing.
I know what you mean. I was wanting a shot looking down the street, and I did intentionally leave our bank of mailboxes out of focus, but it didn't come out really like I was thinking. That's why I'm not really sold on it.
I'll keep that in mind. I don't really love that shot, but I liked her expression.
A good flash is on my wishlist, but I have a couple more lenses I want to add first. My wife took that shot (obviously I didn't), and I can't get her to play around with the camera settings to save my life. She really just wants a snapshot camera, which is why the D90 works well for us. Enough control for me to have fun with, and pretty good auto mode for her. These shots were the first I took other than a few test shots indoors after getting the new lens. I was just outside on an overcast and rainy evening just fooling around. There will be more.  Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
yes i have read about the quality control issues which is a bummer, but otherwise the reviews seem to be praising. I am very happy with my sigma 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, but I definitely need something that won't block the pop up flash (for the rare instances i use flash) and i really want some shallow DOF. The optical stabilization on the sigmas (at least mine) seems to be really really great- i can take a hand held shot f/3.5 shutter speed 1/5 and get a non-blurry photo which is just a little bit soft. it probably helps that the lens is heavy. i too would like to get a flash like the SB-600, but i don't know if i can justify the pricetag.
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Wow, She's getting big Cab; what a sweetie. Your hooked brother! It looks like she digs you too B) When my two got to me (early on, but that's another story) my whole life started to form around them- in the best possible way  gave love a whole other meaning
Nice pictures, I find the camera thing is always nice, but the real deal is the content and being able to capture it... I wish I knew how to throw a few up like you guys have done, I got a few nice ones lately too. Rick |
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cab, i noticed the file names were CSC_xxxx.jpg. are you editing the files within the camera?
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Yes, those ones I generated in camera. I did the b&w conversion, adjusted EC a bit on a couple, and made the jpgs in camera. I shoot in raw, and normally generate jpgs on the PC, but saved a little time and did them in camera that time. I'm thinking about getting Photoshop CS4, too. Once this summer term finishes (tomorrow!), I'm going to download the trial version of that and CaptureNX, to see if I prefer one to the other. Getting the full PS would be nice, and being a student has its advantages on pricing, that's for sure! Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
I want to shoot in RAW, but I feel like I would be wasting my time since I would just be converting to JPEG anyway and wouldn't really know what to change. Have you found a nice online guide to shooting in RAW? Are there batch converters from RAW to JPEG? I took about 500 photos on my road trip (deleted about 60), and while I think that is too many photos, that is how it will be for a while as i continue to experiment with the framing of different shots, and that is too many photos to convert from RAW to JPEG. My camera does RAW+JPEG, but the JPEGs are "basic" quality instead of "standard" or "fine". I suppose I could do that and then convert my favorite photos, but in general I like to have a slew of photos. I "have" PS CS4, but haven't used it to convert RAW to JPEG, just for doing a little picture modification. Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2009 09:43AM by daniel. |
Cab, Grab a copy of GIMP from the net. It's free and has more of the features and power of full Photoshop than you are likely to ever need
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GIMP is good. I like it.
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I decided to shoot RAW because memory is so cheap these days. We have a 30 MB/s 4 GB card in the camera, which is good for about 270 RAW images. I usually do a hard drive dump when there are about 100-150 pictures. Any more than that and it becomes unmanageable, at least for me while working, in school, and chasing a toddler. If we were going to be traveling, I'd probably pick up a few more memory cards.
Plus, hard drives are so cheap now, with TB drives under $100, I figured that I'd much rather just shoot RAW because just in case we (accidentally, most likely) got some really great picture, we'd have it in its full format if we ever did want to play around with it. I just don't like storing pics in a lossy compression format since there's no real reason to. Sometimes, if I'm taking a quick shot that I know all I'm going to do is throw it up online, I'll switch to JPG format for that shot, but most of the time we just leave it in RAW-only. Our camera will also do RAW+JPG, in large/medium/small and fine/normal/basic, but there's just no reason to do that, IMO, since RAW files are so easy to convert to JPG. As for converters, so far I have just used the s/w that came with the camera, so that's Nikon Transfer to import files and ViewNX to sort, do some basic modifications, and convert to JPG. It's been fine so far, but I think eventually I'll want to do more post-processing, so I want to look into Nikon's CaptureNX and PS. I might just buy the entire Adobe suite (PS, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Acrobat), which is not terribly inexpensive, but with the student price and the fact that I'm not going to be a student all that much longer, might be worth it for me. It's probably more than I'll ever need, though, so we may just pick and choose a program and go with that. Anyway, I want to try the trial version first before buying anything. Peter, I'll definitely check out GIMP, too. Thanks for the heads up. Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
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you could also check out adobe lightroom.
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Oh yeah... forgot about that one. It's also on my list to check out. Since I've never actually used any of these, it's hard to keep them all straight. I guess they all serve different purposes, and I/we have to figure out which ones we really would use, or it's just a waste of money.
Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
well it was my birthday on thursday, and i received an amount close to half of the cost of this lens in amazon gift certificates, plus $100 that my friend gave me and said "you have to spend this on camera equipment". i couldn't NOT buy it. It will get here thursday, just in time to test it out on some fireworks this weekend! i love/hate spending this much money, but with the gift certs and my current employment, it was much easier to stomach. i will post some photos next week.
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Nice. I know what you mean about spending money like that. At least you get a new toy to play with! The cost is a big reason why I went with the 35mm f/1.8. I know good lenses aren't cheap, but I just have a real hard time (given my skill level) at plunking down more than a couple hundred. My next lens purchase will be quite a bit more than that, but it won't be for a while. I plan on the Nikkor 16-85 next, then a 10-20 or 10-24 after that. At that point, I'll probably be fat and happy for a while. Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
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I check out used inventory on B&H and Adorama from time to time. I'm a little leery of buying used, but those vendors warranty used stuff, so I guess it would be worth it. The problem is, usually the price delta between new and "good quality" used isn't all that much, and for the extra $100 or so, I'd rather have the peace of mind of buying new.
Cab
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
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