JAPster

Greetings to the great photographers on PN... Its been quite a long time since my last post, been busy with life.. etc.. but have a question now. Quite some time back (5 years) I moved from Georgia USA to another state. It was necessary to put much of my stuff, including almost all my cameras, lenses, miscellaneous itms, in a typical storage unit in central GA. At time of storage, they were in a wooden bedroom dresser with wooden drawers. They were clean, lenses mounted with covers in place. The batteries are NOT in the cameras but removed and stored separately. The dresser is in the SU and has not been disturbed, to the best of my knowledge. The SU is a typical type, with pulldown rolling steel door. Not air conditioned, not heated, nothing in the way of environmental controls. The dresser holds my collection of cameras at that time, everyting from 35mm rangefinders, to 35mm SLRs (various generations, makes, models, ages). Even a folding frame Box Camera that uses that roll film. So the SU would have gone through at least 5 cycles of each season, with the variations of climate, temperature, humidity, and weather, etc. I still don't know when I will be able to retrieve those cameras. My question is, if and when I do get back down there to pick them up, what potential or actual issues should I expect to find with any of these cameras. I know they were all in working condition when I stored them, but would SU storage cause damage or new issues that were not there before? My thanks to any who respond ! JAP

Looks like the subject was in motion (leaping forwards) when you snapped the picture. In the fraction of second between the moment you focused on the subject and the moment when the shutter actually stripped, the subject had moved forwards, and the focus point was now on the subjects back half.

I recommend the Nikon D300 also. It is a 12 MP D-SLR, and is very solidly built. I bought a new one back in 07, along with some lenses and an SB-800 flash. Although it cost a chunck of money at that time, I have never regretted my purchase decision. I have taken several thousand exposures with this camera, and it has never had a single problem. The price for one should be quite a bit less now, and may be in the affordable range for your budget.

<p>I think I agree with RM & JVM about buying an external add-on DVD/CD drive and installing that on the new laptop. Just read the fine print carefully to make sure the unit, its drivers, & apps are compatible with Windows 7. Once that drive is installed & tested, you can use it not only to install disc based software, but also to make backups and archive copies of your photo projects. </p>

<p>sample 3, Nikon D300</p><div></div>

<p>From examining some of the other images I've already made in this project, I notice several people wearing glasses, which appear to be modern styling, and those lenses show no flash reflection at all. Those images have no issue whatsoever with flash reflection. So in addition to the comments already made, we can add that modern anti-reflective coatings on spectacle lenses will greatly reduce if not eliminate this type issue. I'll attach another sample to illustrate.</p>

<p>Thank you gentlemen for the link to the pertinent article, and your helpful comments. And yes I was using the wrong term when I used 'glare', thank you William for your correction. Thinking correctly about a problem - any problem - is always the first step towards solving it.</p> <p>With the little camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ8, i dont have the option of moving the flash. I'm using the pop-up, and trying to get the best i can from it. It does not have a hotshoe so with this camera its pop-up flash or no flash - meaning pure ambient light.</p> <p>The SB800 could be moved off camera, repositioned per suggestions, and then set to trigger off the D300's pop-up flash. I know the Nikon CLS supports that. I dont have any other flash accessories like a connector cable, or extended flash grip that would enable me to remove the flash from the hotshoe.</p> <p>Another option is to simply not use flash, just shoot with the ambient light, as it is. That means shoot under that bank of florescents. I could do that of course, but then the image will look inconsistent from the rest of the images, which are all shot with flash. </p> <p>I actually have a medium size reflector board I made from an old styrafoam boogie board someone threw in the dumpster. One side is white, the other is shiny silver metallic reflective panel made from old Starbucks coffee bags (they are reflective on the inside). So I can definitely try the reflector idea.</p> <p>I'm planning to reshoot this individual, so I'll be carefully considering these comments & reading the articles.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Hi folks...<br> I'm curious about how serious image editors sequence their cropping vs their sharpening.</p> <p>For example, if you have taken a nice horizontally oriented raw picture of a person, with the intent of cropping it later to make a vertical 8.5 x 11 portrait, do you advise doing the 8.5x11 ratio crop first, and then do a sharpen on the cropped image.... OR.... do you do your sharpen first, across the entire raw image, and then do the 8.5 x 11 ratio crop.</p> <p>I've done it both ways, not sure which way is really the best, but am slowly coming to an opinion that i get a better result of i crop the image to 8.5 x 11 format first, and then apply a sharpening. This sequence seems to produce a high quality image, at least with the s/w app i'm using.</p> <p>But i'm very curious to hear how more experienced people handle this, and which approach they use, and why...</p> <p>AP</p>

<p>sample image, glare problem, Lumix DMC-FZ8</p><div></div>

<p>sample image, glare problem, from the D300</p><div></div>

<p>a little more info... I dont have any lens filters, ie like a Polarizer filter, that might possibly remove the glare before it gets in the image, and 2) the software i use to do the basic manipulations on the image does not have sophisticated image editing that might be used to do glare removal. It can do basic image edits, but nothing fancy.</p> <p>That's why I need to somehow alter my setup to eliminate the glare on the glasses.</p>

<p>Hi folks..<br> I have a question for folks who have shot lots of portraits.</p> <p>I'm finishing up a little photo shoot project for a local organization where i do volunteer work. They asked me to shoot staff pictures of all the workers, and i agreed. Everything has gone pretty well, and the i,ages are turning out quite good. Except for one person who wears prescription glasses to do not have the modern non-reflective coating. On the initial set of images i made of this subject, 3 out of the 4 images had terrible glare spots right across the glass lenses, which effectively marred the image. The 4rth image also had it, but not quite so bad. It is useable, but I think i can do better, with better thinking & perhaps a tweak in my setup.</p> <p>To describe my setup...The subject is sitting in a patio chair placed about 8 IN in front of an indoor brick wall. This brick wall is about 6 FT behind the checkout-counter of this retail establishment. The overhead ceiling is plain white stucco, normal height. There is one bank of flourescent lights shining on subject from overhead, not directly overhead but maybe 2ft in front of subject. The chair is placed at about 45 degree angle w/respect to the wall. I ask the subjects to simply sit there, relax, compose themselves, and their head and upper body are turned slightly left to look at the camera.</p> <p>Here's my shot plan for each subject...<br> 1st shot.... Panasonic Lumix DmcFz8 ... shooting Shutter Pref Mode, 1/60th sec, Iso 200, with Pop-up Flash with add-on modifiers to intensify & expland the flash, and a Puffer to then diffuse it. This creates a nice even "frontal" diffused light effect all the way across the subject with the brightness level just right.</p> <p>2nd shot.... Nikon D-300 with Nikon SB-800, shooting Bounce Flash right off the white ceiling.<br> 3rd shot.... Nikon D-300 with SB-800, bounce flash off the ceiling, & the SB800's little white card pulled out.</p> <p>4rth shot... Nikon D-300 with SB-800, with SB-800 diffuser cap, bounced off the white celing.</p> <p>5th shot... Nikon D-300 with SB-800, with SB-800 diffuser cap, flash aimed straight at subject.<br> 6th shot... Nikon D-300 with SB800, w/o diffuser, flash aimed striaght at subject.</p> <p>The SB-800 is set up to shoot in Auto TTL, Balanced Exposure, The D300 is in Program mode, ISO400.<br> When I shoot the shots, I simply stand on the other side of the checkout counter, lean against it, brace my elbows on top of it, compose the shot, then fire away. So I'm actually shooting at a slight downward angle from the counter to the subjects face.</p> <p>Later the images are imported, cropped to a vertcial portrait format, sharpened, and a simple grey border added.</p> <p>That's my basic setup, and almost all the images have turned out quite good except for this one person. Her glasses really throw up a flash-back glare right back into the camera.</p> <p>Any good suggestions on how I can alter my setup to prevent this.?</p> <p>Thank you for reading my question, and for any comments...</p> <p>AP</p>

<p>Allan, what kind of drive does your new laptop have? also, what kind of O/S?<br> I've had no problems installing media from Install CD's on my vintage Gateway Laptop <br> (purchased spring 07), and it has a DVD drive, driven by Windows XP Pro. Perhaps the <br> drive on your new laptop can read the Install CD just fine... have you actually tried it?<br> In the event you do get the CS5.5 installed on the new laptop, you will need to contact<br> Adobe Customer Care and place rqst for license transfer from old system to the new <br> system. Sounds as if you only have license to install & use that media on one home <br> system. Should be pretty easy to set up a 'chat' line with Adobe Customer Care, tell<br> them the situation, ask them to guide you through process of changing your license<br> from the old system to the new system. Once that's done you delete it from you old<br> systems.</p>

<p>Cory, what does it tell you if you click on 'Learn More'? Perhaps there is an explanation there.</p>

<p>Hi HC...<br> Welcome back to photography, in the Digital Century. And welcome to photo dot net!<br> At some point you should add a good tripod to your equipment. That will help you hold the camera very steady for both landscape shots and wildlife shots, particularly in marginal light of morning and evening hours. Also, if you plan to do any future video work, you want a tripod with a silky smooth panning head for video pan shots (when you have to swing the video camera around to track a moving subject). Cheap tripods often use a lot of plastic parts manufactured to low tolerances, the pan head action is 'sticky', it 'chatters' a lot as you pan the camera, and this defect can ruin any video footage that captures it.</p>