waldenl

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Just ordered a 70-200 VR for ~1400, check around for pricing.

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I've got to go in favour of this. I've seen a couple of these on the Nikon forum, but I had no idea they were in the other forumns too. If not a dedicated forum, perhaps a way to search for posts starting with W/NW across all forums and a "standard" to start such posts with W/NW would accomplish both Eric's desire and Sam's concern.

Guys,

 

Would it be possible to show the ratings given a photo alongside the

comments on that photo? I often rate and enter comments at the same

time and I'm sure others do too. It would be helpful to see the

rating given a photo so you're reading the comment in context.

 

For example: "Nice shot, better DOF needed" on a 6/6 rating is

different from the same on a "3/3" rating. The first meaning, it's

great as is, this could have made it a winner, the second more of

a "ho, hum, next time try..."

 

Thoughts?

Fair enough, but I stand by my statement that many may be willing to lend a hand.

Brian,

 

You make a comment that the query to find the comments is very expensive, why? Perhaps I'm over simplifying the issue, but aren't you looking for comments posted by a user? Surely that's a relatively simple SQL request, no? With correct indexing that should fly.

 

This brings up another subject, what makes this site tick? I've not found anything on the site about the hardware and/or software behind the site. Are you willing to accept input/changes from the community? Many members are doctors, lawyers, builders, etc. But some of us are in the IT field, and we'd be willing to lend a helping hand.

 

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not trying to pick on you guys. I love PN and I think you do a great job keeping it running. But perhaps another set of eyes would help?

 

-Walden

I'd be more concerned about the photographer formerly known as �[� Z

 

:-)

I'm a little confused about the comment vis-a-vie auction sites. Are you saying that photos here are used to show pix of things on eBay (and other sites?)

 

The inbound request for the picture should show the referring site. Why not simple disallow requests where the referrer is the auction site? It's not foolproof, but it would cut out 99% of that traffic.

What do people use in the keep/discard step in a workflow? I'm

looking for something that will _quickly_ show me my images from a

shooting session and allow me to make a keep/discard decision. Part

of the key is a quick draw of the images. I'm looking for something

that will "snap" the images onto the screen so I'm making quick

reactionary decisions. I don't want to analyze each image, I want a

gut feeling and move on. Each image should take me less than a

second to decide, probably more on the scale of 1/10 of a second.

Problem is, everything I've seen does a progressive draw of the

image, or doesn't allow delete.

 

Ideally I would be able to "flag" something for deletion so when I

get to the end I can go back and say, "well, nothing blew me away on

subject x, but I need a shot of subject x, so what's best."

 

-Walden

Diana,

 

1) As you say, "whoops" on the white balance. Although you can correct that mostly in PS.

 

2) Why are you shooting Medium? You want to throw away the extra pixels you paid for?

 

3) If you're coming into PS, change to color mode 2. The Adobe gamut is much wider than sRGB, again why throw away info to start with.

 

4) What was the in-camera sharpening set to? Again, if you're going to PS I'd set it to none. That's where mine is.

 

-Walden

I have to second Buddhadev's and Rob's responses. I attended one in NY several years ago. And while the equipment was shows outside the classroom, the actual class was equipment-neutral. Of course they're going to show Nikon equipment as examples, but the techniques and "rules" discussed are applicable anywhere.

 

Now, IIRC, the class is tought by different people in different places, so YMMV, but when asked roughtly 1/3 of the class were repeating and maybe 1/2 of that for the third or more times. I think the class is outlined, but not scripted, so beter teachers make better classes.

Put something white in a test shot along with the flower and see what it looks like. I use warmcards (www.warmcards.com) but any white paper will help. See if the white you're seeing on the monitor is the white on the paper. You could be getting a yellow reflection off something (house?) that your eyes filter out when you're looking @ the photo. If you have Photoshop and the color is off the white card can be used to pull it back in line.

 

Also, are you sure your monitor is corrected?

 

I shoot a D100 and i've not seen a yellow problem.

What exactly do you consider "an acceptable end product?" Any idea how much tweaking goes into making a good high-end print from film? It's just all done at the lab. Just about any digital will product an acceptable snapshot out of the box.

 

As for white balance, what is white? Look around the room, is the back of this page white, is the snow outside white, is the light from the bulb white? If you can see so many different whites how do you expect the camera to record the correct color as "white" unless you tell it what the correct color is. That's white balance.

Rip, you mention that you're going digital. Just be careful of the cropping factor (aka magnification factor) of digital (presumably the D100) At 1.5x your 50 is a 75, you 85 is a 122, etc. Cool on the high end (your 300 is a 450) but sucks on the low end (your 20 is a 30). Just keep that in mind as you select the lenses.

shahrooz,

 

You call yourself a serious amatuer, but there's no mention of existing equipment. IF you own a Nikon film body you'll want a Nikon DSLR so you can share lenses. On the other hand, if you're buying all new the 5700 is an option. Personally I'd go for the D100, or wait for the much-rumoured D70.

 

As far as film v. digital, as a serious amatuer myself I was always a fan of film, then I bought the D100. How do you get better w/anying? Practice! While the D100 may cost more to start, there is no film cost. Feel like shooting, go ahead. I feel much free-er to experiment on digital since it costs nothing. I've had my D100 for a couple of months and I've shot >1600 shots. Is that a lot? I don't know. But for me it is. That's over 66 rolls of film. What would that cost?

 

One of my New Year Resolutions is to go out every Sunday morning and shoot 100+ shots. Of what, I don't care, I live in NY, I can find something. I would never do that with film, too expensive.

 

One note on the lag-time issue. The D100 _can_ have less of a lag than a film camera depending on the settings. But lag is only a problem if you're shooting things that move. If you're a landscape photographer do you care if the camera doesn't take a picture for 1/2 a second after you click the release.

 

-Walden

Brian,

 

Thanks, I've always wonderes how that URL entry worked. I am disappointed to see however that's it's case sensitive. Anything that can be done about that?

 

-Walden

Thanks all, that's what I thought. Peter, you're correct that would clarify things, of course the marketing department might not like it as much <G>

Can someone clarify something for me. On a digital camera (in my

case a D100, but question holds on any) I know there is

the "multiplier" effect. In my case it's roughly 1.5. So my 50mm is

a 75mm w/o a loss of light. However, what does that 75mm mean? Do I

have the magnification of a 75mm, or just the narrower range of

view?

 

To put it another way, can I get as "close" to a far away object

with my 300mm on my D100 as with a 450mm on a F100?

 

Thanks,

-Walden

Most CF cards come pre-formatted. I know I started using my D100 with a Sandisk Ultra II 512 w/o formatting it and I had no problems. However, every so often, perhaps every 30 downloads, I do a reformat just to get rid of any deleterious stuff that may have accumulated on the card. As a IT person I know that 1) this is silly and the files are deleted as part of the upload so what's the point, and 2) shit happens and it can't hurt. A reformat is a 10 second operation so why not?

 

-Walden