SDN Photography Talk Thread

[The Grim Squeaker]

I'll give it a try with my compact though

Thing is, you want to use it on a camera with a screw-on filter, because that's what keeps the plastic over the lens taut. If it's slack, you won't get good results.

I understood it as the plastic being over the lens, not in between it and the filter.
I'd be too worried about moisture to try that I think...

I need an assistant and an umbrella, it worked in Japan! . Hum, that just gave me a rather excellent and patentable idea . You're not getting a cent!

[Bounty]

I'd be too worried about moisture to try that I think...

How can moisture get in? Worst that can happen is that your filter gets wet.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I'd be too worried about moisture to try that I think...

How can moisture get in? Worst that can happen is that your filter gets wet.

If the plastic bag isn't properly waterproof/airtight. We're talking about thin, cheap plastic here.

[aerius]

Shooting with 2,400$ worth of non waterproof gear in the rain without an umbrella and in very heavy rain no less... Well... nah.

Get a UV or clear glass filter and a transparent plastic bag, like a food storage bag or something. Put the bag over the whole camera, make sure it is very flat across the front of the lens, and then screw on the filter. Your camera will have a raincoat even if you don't.

Actually I'd say this is what $5 disposable cameras are for. If you break one it's not a big deal so you can shoot with them in pretty much any imaginable situation. I used to bring them on many of my mountain bike rides where crashes were almost guaranteed and would damage a regular camera. The quality's not top notch but who the hell cares? I got the shots I wanted whereas I would be stuck in Squeaker's situation with no photos and lots of regrets if all I had was an expensive camera which I didn't want to ding up.

[Simplicius]

The trouble with people is that being people, they ask why you're taking photos of them in the campus. Still, i'll be working on it, but with a strong emphasis on being very candid. (/Who, me?).

Trying to be the perfect Stealth Photographer is stupid. You will be noticed. You will be asked what you are doing. If you try to pretend that you weren't doing anything, or try to avoid being noticed or ever asked, you will be seen as someone who got caught doing something they shouldn't. If you give a rat's ass about your reputation as a person or a photographer don't slink around like a coward, as if making photographs is something to be ashamed of.

If someone asks what you were doing, tell them that you were taking their picture, or contemplating taking their picture, or taking a picture that they were very likely going to be in if they stayed where they were. If this upsets them, apologize. If they ask you not to, respect that - but keep whatever photos you've already shot. If they are interested, offer to show them the photos. Offer to give them a print. Make them a part of the process. If you have a card, give them one in either case so they know you are photographing in general, instead of stalking them specifically or just being a random creep.

If you are shy, so fucking what? I am very shy. I also have a job with a newspaper, where I photograph individuals and crowds, directly or candidly as necessary. I have to approach people, even for candids, to get names and hometowns. And guess what - I cowboy up and do it. I approach people despite my shyness. And it works.

True, most people are all too happy to get their picture in that paper. That helps. But you're in the worst of both worlds right now - people see you as a furtive creep, and you can't get good shots. If you are open, honest, and approachable, you will get more and better pictures, build your reputation, and maybe even get a little business out of it. But you have to just go out and fucking do it even if you're uncomfortable, instead of sneaking around with long lenses and never getting anywhere.

[The Grim Squeaker]

1. My comment was made in a humorous tone.
2. Want a bet that I have a considerable amount of experience when it comes to taking photos of people, then showing it to them and striking up a conversation, often before I take pictures? I wasn't joking when I said that I started with people pictures out of purely selfish, personal, social reasons. (It's an icebreaker & conversation starter).

As a side note - when you're taking the pictures for a reason, a non profit reason no less and have permission for it, it's much, much, much easier than "Well, I just took a picture of you sleeping/snogging your GF/typing for fun". The latter works, but the former is almost always accepted, for obvious reasons.

[aerius]

Or just go up to them and say "hi, I'm doing some work for an arts project, mind if I snap a few pictures of you while you keep on doing what you're doing?" or something along those lines. I've had people come up to me and do that on school campuses and I have no problem with granting their request. The worst that'll happen is that someone will turn you down, oh darn, there's only another 10,000 people on the campus.

[Simplicius]

1. My comment was made in a humorous tone.

Since I misread, I apologize for being snappish. The humor didn't come through when I read it.

[aerius]

I heard the incoming E-P2 has a viewfinder, but I'll wait and see the reviews when it arrives. Though I hope it'd come out by the end of the year so I can decide whether it's worth buying or not.

E-P2 is released Should be available by christmas depending on how bad the backorder situation is. Still no built in viewfinder, it now comes with a clip-on electronic viewfinder like the Panasonic GF1, it's like a GF1 minus the flash, but prettier. Then again, if I pair it with the 20mm/1.7 lens from the GF1 I doubt I'll be using the flash at all. Man, that EVF is fugly, and the lines on the camera aren't as clean thanks to the bigger hump needed for the damn thing.

[Simplicius]

Looks like it can be used as an angle finder, though, which is a neat touch.

[Simplicius]

With film consolidating its position as it becomes more of a preference product, what do you all think of The Impossible Project (the reinvention of Polaroid-style instant film)? I haven't seen anything suggesting that this isn't a serious undertaking, and in some of the press they've said that they anticipate a small but constant demand, and further that there was a steady production of 20-30 million film packs per year right up until the Dutch factory in question was closed down.

I was quite young when my parents were still using their Polaroid (infrequently), and I don't think I ever made a photo with it myself. I seem to recall that the packs were rather expensive for only ten frames or however few there were. I'd expect an instant film to remain more expensive than conventional film no matter what, and I suppose the higher price combined with infrastructure, materials, and development costs incurred in a rather short period of time could be a problem.

In 2010, when the color version should hit the shelves, Impossible hopes to sell 1 million new films, with prices likely to range from $23 to $28 for a 10-shot cassette. The company predicts worldwide demand will eventually reach up to 10 million films a year.

Yeah, that feels kind of steep. On the other hand, there's also some vague talk about a companion company working on a new instant film camera to go along with, which could give it a shot in the arm from the people who like to try gadgets because they're fun.

Assuming it all succeeds, I guess this could go two ways: a product that, by virtue of being decent quality and an unusual item, is cool and fun enough to find a niche in the film world; or a product that is so riddled with quirks analogue qualities that it is all but unusable for general applications and so has to be cynically marketed to hipsters if it's to find a market at all.

[The Grim Squeaker]

The photos as they stand don't need any work at all to make them look accurate. If you want them to convey your subjective impression, then you will want to brighten them up, bump contrast, and go crazy with saturation until it 'looks right.' But you don't have to do any of that; there's nothing about them that needs actual fixing.

It could be my mind playing tricks on me.. "Huff", I HATE seeing something majestic (and photogenic) and being unable to take a good picture of it.
HATE IT.

Hate.


See? I can use the phototalk thread for commentary too

[Simplicius]

It could be my mind playing tricks on me.. "Huff", I HATE seeing something majestic (and photogenic) and being unable to take a good picture of it.
HATE IT.

Hate.

I'm well familiar with that frustration; happens to the best of us:

Early the next morning I drove to Orderville. The dawn and the sunrise are always rewarding in the Southwest, especially in autumn. I saw many beautiful things, but few exciting picture possibilities. The photographer should not allow himself to be trapped by something that excites him only as a subject; if he does not see the image decisively in his mind's eye, the result is likely to be disappointing. I responded to a vigorous detail of a nearby barn, but I could not visualize an image and experienced a gnawing frustration.

Pretty sound advice in there, actually.

Edited a typo.

[Bounty]

Any suggestions for medium-light, indoors shooting, in a situation where a flash would be intrusive? I took some snapshots at a birthday party yesterday and ended up using shutter-speed priority as low as I thought I could handhold with no flash and fairly high ISO, and the results are, if certainly good enough, a bit... weird-looking. The colours came out very saturated for some reason and the high ISO means lots of noice.

Is there a better way to do this apart from getting more light? How far can you "push" digital images anyway if the original's underexposed?

[aerius]

Is there a better way to do this apart from getting more light? How far can you "push" digital images anyway if the original's underexposed?

Digital can be pushed quite a bit if you're decently skilled with Photoshop, with more advanced techniques 3-4 stops is easily done without making things look wrong. I'm not that good so a couple stops is about as far as I can go without making things look funny. I generally leave my camera on ISO 100 and bump it up to 200 if I absolutely have to, my camera is crap at 400 & above so I avoid going that high at all costs. If I go up to ISO 400 I might only have to do minor editing in Photoshop to fix the exposure, but the problem is I get all sorts of noise & digital artifacts. Doing a bigger adjustment from ISO 200 gets a better end result for me.

A sample of pushing digital, I think I shot this at ISO 100.
I went too far on this one and messed up the background, but it gives you an idea of what can be pulled off.

Before


After

[Bounty]

At ISO 400 I get horrible noise. The problem is that you don't notice it while shooting, the screen's too small.

[aerius]

Zoom in. Once the picture's taken, you can go to the display/review mode on your camera and zoom in on the picture to check the noise, focus, and other details. On Canons this is done with the zoom control which you use for zooming the lens in shooting mode, and once you're zoomed in you can use the control pad buttons to move around in the picture. It takes a few seconds but I don't find it's a problem unless I'm at an event where I have to take pictures in quick succession.

[Bounty]

So I've been thinking... I have a few cameras lying around I don't really use. Flea market survivors that I fixed and cleaned up. While interesting, they aren't really day-to-day shooters. I was thinking about selling them before, but couldn't really justify it - for spare change I had a nice collection of antiques, even if I only used them once a year.

However, I've just noticed that an electronics store nearby has the Olympus E-420 with the 14/42 on sale (about $400, down from $700), and it's getting very good reviews. If I flog some old crap on eBay, and maybe sell my A640, I can basically get that Olympus at no loss (I originally got the A640 at a discount which is pretty much the current resale price, and I can sell the old cameras for much, much more than I paid for them).

Now, the E-420 has drawbacks - it's an SLR, which I tend to avoid, and it doesn't have a flip-out screen. On the other hand, it's not much bigger than the A640, and I still have my film cameras if I need something small to bring along.

On the one hand, I'd have a very capable camera for daily without having to spend money that wasn't already sunk into cameras in the first place, and cameras that are right now just sitting on a shelf would get a home with someone who appreciates them more.

On the other hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of trying to buy a better camera 'just because', and despite the glowing reviews I'm not really feeling how a DSLR would be substantial improvement over my current compact.

Any advice?

[aerius]

On the one hand, I'd have a very capable camera for daily without having to spend money that wasn't already sunk into cameras in the first place, and cameras that are right now just sitting on a shelf would get a home with someone who appreciates them more.

On the other hand, I don't want to fall into the trap of trying to buy a better camera 'just because', and despite the glowing reviews I'm not really feeling how a DSLR would be substantial improvement over my current compact.

Any advice?

Well, the first step would be to see where you find your current camera is lacking for the photography you're doing or plan to do, then determine if a DSLR can do those things better. For example, if you're doing a lot of low light photography then a DSLR can make sense since you can push the ISO a lot higher without messing up the image quality which allows you to get a lot of shots that would not be possible on a compact. If you're doing a lot of daylight street scenes & candids it doesn't make much sense as the DSLR isn't going to give significantly better results unless you're making large fine art prints of your photos.

Figure out what you need as a photographer, then see if a DSLR will fill those needs better than your current camera. If it'll do so a lot better, then get it, if it doesn't, then wait for something else that does.

[Bounty]

That's the thing; I don't know in what way the DSLR is better, and I don't know where to begin looking for the answer. I'm not starting from the idea that I need a new camera; I'm just finding myself with the opportunity to move to a camera that is supposedly very good, and would like some input on what it can offer me.

I have my needs as a photographer covered by my film rangefinders. I use my digital when I need to have a good enough image with 99% reliability and film doesn't offer that. My current camera is adequate for the job; I just wonder if an SLR - this SLR - can go beyond that base requirement.

I mean, there's got to be a reason why the cool kids are lugging around SLR's that cost twice as much as a good compact, right?

... right?

[Bounty]

Actually, two things I do miss on the A640 are dedicated controls for manual focus and shutter/aperture settings. You can approximate them with a firmware hack, but that disables zoom.

[Simplicius]

I mean, there's got to be a reason why the cool kids are lugging around SLR's that cost twice as much as a good compact, right?

... right?

Conspicuous consumption Image quality and flexibility.

The Oly has a bigger sensor for the same MP count. You get much less noisy high-ISO than a compact. The Oly also has in-body image stabilization which gives you even more low-light options 1.) regardless of what lens you've got on there 2.) than you'd ever have with the A640, which has no IS at all.

Olympus also has kickin' rad anti-dust, and even has Live View.

The Oly kit zoom is slower than the compact, but if you eventually pick up the 25/2.8 (50mm equiv) you can slap that baby on the front and use it in the same fashion as your rangefinders, albeit with reflex viewing.

It's a way better camera than the A640, especially at that price (size being the biggest point against it). Hypothetically, it would be worthwhile because you will use this more often than your compact (because it is more useful). However, if you use your compact very infrequently, then "more often then the compact" is still a rather tiny amount of time, and maybe then it doesn't matter as much.

[Bounty]

The Oly also has in-body image stabilization

From what I read, it's a marketing trick - it doesn't have actual IS, just a pseudo-mode that forces high ISO and shutter speed.

[Simplicius]

Yes, my mistake. I read so damn many camera reviews last night I can't keep them all straight - it's the E510 that's got the real thing.

[aerius]

That's the thing; I don't know in what way the DSLR is better, and I don't know where to begin looking for the answer. I'm not starting from the idea that I need a new camera; I'm just finding myself with the opportunity to move to a camera that is supposedly very good, and would like some input on what it can offer me.

I have my needs as a photographer covered by my film rangefinders. I use my digital when I need to have a good enough image with 99% reliability and film doesn't offer that. My current camera is adequate for the job; I just wonder if an SLR - this SLR - can go beyond that base requirement.

In this case my personal opinion is that there really isn't a need for a DSLR since you're just using your digital to get reliable "good enough" pictures. It doesn't sound like the digital is your primary camera, nor are you using it to make high quality pictures, plus your photographer needs are already met by your film cameras.

If you're planning to do a lot more work with the digital and require the focus/depth of field and other controls which a DSLR offers, then that's a reasonable cause to get one. If it's just going to be a backup camera for the most part, it becomes rather hard to justify the purchase.

I mean, there's got to be a reason why the cool kids are lugging around SLR's that cost twice as much as a good compact, right?

... right?

Penile compensation in many cases. I know enough people with DSLRs who never use more than 1% of the camera's capabilities. Seriously, I could easily recreate every single picture they've taken using my Canon SD800, and that's without touching Photoshop.

There's only a handful of people I know who actually need a DSLR to take their photos, half of them are photographers who've had their photos exhibited in various galleries, the others either need the fast autofocus of DSLRs or are damn good photographers themselves.