fanta

Advised values change slightly depending on the source. Currently I am using 7/128/246, and I see I retain a little texture in significant shadows/highlights. Be aware that you may run in photos that do not have an actual white point, and in this case you do not want to force a (246,246,246) point into them (or whatever value you use). E.g. if the lightest part of the picture is a very luminous sky, you may still want to retain some blue in it.

Unfortunately not all displays allow to set their internal LUT through software, and some (NEC) only allow to do it with a proprietary interface, which may not be supported in calibration/profiling solutions of different vendors. For this reason I see no evil in adjusting the various LCD parameters by hand during calibration, when the calibration/profiling software is not able to do it automatically.

Beside gamut matter, I believe a printed photo is anyway unlikely to have the snap of the same photo on screen, because the screen is actually a light source, while the print you see because of reflected light. It's possible you have calibrated and profiled the display correctly, just your expectations cannot be met.

I believe Mark is right. I have asked a related question on Adobe forums recently, and received answer that LR, if there is no embedded profile in a TIFF file, assumes sRGB. If you need to tag the photo with a different profile, then you must do it with a different application (e.g. PS) before importing the pictures under LR. In LR you cannot change the working profile, nor set an assumed profile for untagged files.

I have tested a VP2030 at the office during week-end considering it for personal purchase for photo editing, and discarded it: image lightness changes very obviously just moving the head around a little. Both the HP LP2065 and NEC 2070NX are 1600x1200 LCDs that in my view are much more suitable for photography.

As Glen pointed out, you probably need something purer to clean the lenses. Good alteratives I believe are the Kodak cleaning fluid and the Residual Oil Remover. The latter leaves streaks more easly (that you can then take away with Kodak fluid), but looks very effective to me.

I have read the same question in the forum in the past, try looking for it. I recall the answer was that the updater is actually the full installation, and you can tweak the Windows Registry (don't know the corresponding under OSX) to make the updater believe the application is already installed.

Gerry, I believe that during your test you had to see the same noise level because, viewing the two pictures at the same size on screen, you were averaging noise in them to the same levels. To see the difference you had to pixel peep at 1:1 zoom level.

 

Which gives a clue to try to answer Morrie question. How much noise will be perceivable will depend on the size (and viewing distance) of the presented picture. I don't see why bother taking the picture at lower resolution, or downsampling it. Once you get your picture at the presentation size, if there is too much noise, I believe the way to go are NeatImage/NoiseNinja/etc; you can download evaluation versions from their respective web sites.

 

This said, of course you don't expect from the G9 the same noise level of a DSLR... but you can expect it will allow you to take pictures you wouldn't have taken with a DSLR (say, because you didn't have the DSLR with you, or because it would have been too invasive). Unless you have the budget for a Leica, I bet you can be happy with the G9 :)

I have recently purchased the G9, which fits your requirements. It has acceptable (to me) shot-to-shot speed with RAW, a viewfinder (which actually covers less than the actual frame, I believe the specs state 80%), and the display is nothing short of amazing, with a viewing angle close to 180 deg... basically if you can see the display, you can see the image on it. I am finding its focal length range to be very appropriate for street fotography. The camera feels good in the hand, and the dial with ISO settings is just terribly convenient, as well as the possibility to program the shortcut button to take the white balance reading for custom WB.

I have tested again with a different set-up, and got different results (auto-focus dead on with 24-105 right away), which is inconsistent with previous experiments. I came to understand that to make reliable measurments that make sense one must have the greatest accuracy, and also repeat them multiple times. So given I have no issues in field, as per Bruce and Joshua advice, I will stop fretting with measurments.

To advice you already received, I would add to invest approx. 13 USD in a book, "ON BEING A PHOTOGRAPHER" by David Hurn/Magnum and Bill Jay, if you don't have it already. I believe it can inspire you to action, and then, you will know what you want to add to you gear.

I suggest you consider one with swivel head (both up-down and left-right), that will allow you to bounce the light off a wall or ceiling, and practice with it before important occasions. With the same camera I use a Speedlite 420EX and am satisfied with it; Canon replaced it with a more recent model, the 430EX, that allows to set flash compensation on the flash unit itself, must be very convenient. The same unit can also be used as a remote slave unit, with the transmitter you can buy separately, should you eventually need it.

 

If you plan to take quite some flash photography, you won't regret buying it, just the diminished chance for red eyes makes it worth, and if you learn to use the swivel head, you can get a more beautiful illumination.

 

BTW, to save money, I would recommend you buy 4 rechargeable AA Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) Batteries with a battery charger, to power the flash unit. Using disposable batteries is a much more expensive proposition, in the long term.

Todd, I am very happy with Tiffen. For what you indicated, I guess some useful filters are the circular polarizer (I am not aware of any way to do the same in software) a clear/UV protection, and (for landscape) reverse ND grad filters.

 

For UV protection I believe a good one is Tiffen UV Haze 1; however, if you happen to use digital, you can do with an actually clear protection, without UV filter, as digital is not sensitive to UV.

 

Take care that if you use filters with a wide angle lens, they probably need to be specific for wide angle (and unfortunately more expensive) to avoid introducing vignetting or light fall-off.

 

Reverse ND grads are very interesting to bring down a luminous sky or sunrise/sunset, and expose the whole frame correctly. An alternative with digital (you didn't say if you use it), is to take multiple pictures with a tripod with different exposures and combine them via software with HDR. Anyway, I believe there are good options for reverse ND grads with the Cokin system, also from other vendors (I know Tiffen and Singh-Ray).

 

Then if you use film, you may want to look at filters for color correction. With digital, frankly I believe it is cheaper and easier to do systematically well via software. I have the greatest admiration for landscape photographers like Joe Cornish who can color correct with filters + film, but I don't have a clue how they get it right while in the field :)

Check this thread out:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Nl5Y

LR works in a very different way than other applications for photography. I would suggest you invest a couple of hours to study it, e.g. with the provided tutorial, or some book (Martin Evening book is a good one, for instance).

Amar, I would recommend against the cotton swab, it can leave lint behind and therefore more spots on the pictures. A hand blower (no compressed air, it can stain the IR filter with propeller) fixes dust most of the times. There are also chemical fixes for more stubborn stuff. Visible Dust (based in Canada) has an impressive array of tools and fluids to clean the camera and sensor; I find them quite expensive, but what I used from them delivered.

Check the warranty period. Is it 18 months only in your country?

With CF now quite cheap I don't see why one should go to people with no reputation on eBay. How much do you actually save, in US, compared to say Adorama and B&H? I don't see those retailers selling bogus cards, their reputation is their main asset.

 

When I switched from Ultra II to Extreme III, I had measured a slight increase in the frame rate after the initial burst, that is after the camera buffer memory is full. I actually had to time it to find out.

Part of the mirror of my Rebel XT is blue too, but I don't see it in the viewfinder. I bet it is normal.

File > Export... will allow you to save a copy in a format of your choice. As others pointed out, LR is saving all your changes to the image as metadata (instructions, if you like), and without actually changing the origial file. Metadata are stored in LR database (that one should periodically back up) or you can choose to save them as a sidecar file (.xmp). File > Catalogue Settings > Metadata gives you the switch. If you decide to use the database only, you can still direct LR to save .xmp files when you want with Metatada > Save Metadata to File

 

Ciao.

Make at least two copies of everything. It can be conveniente to have one copy on an external HD (e.g. USB2, Firewire, also SATA are available), and if the other copy is on DVDs, re-read them, say, once a year to see if any is failing.

I have been using NeatImage for years now, since I used to scan slides, and am always amazed by what it achieves; it is available as a stand alone application with batch processing, and also as a Photoshop plug-in. Noisware and Noise Ninja are other applications of the same kind. I believe a free eval is available for all of them. You should download them and try.

Is it possible you are still using on your machine both Adobe Gamma and a CLUT loader provided with EyeOne 2? I don't know the specifics of EyeOne 2 as I use a different system, still, usually calibration/profiling gear also comes with a CLUT loader (also called LUT loader) invoked during system start-up or when you log-in, which doesn't interact well with Adobe Gamma or any other application loading the CLUT.

I believe LCDs on DSLR are doing huge harm to photography: so many good and great photographs have been missed, and will be missed, because of it. You take your photo, then automatically take the eye away from the viewfinder and look at the LCD to check it... meanwhile the scene in front of you changes, and most likely yes than no you are missing a better opportunity... but you don't know it, and will never know it, because you are not looking through the viewfinder anymore... nor are you looking in front of you.

 

Selecting and deleting your pictures on camera, say in the hotel room, is almost as much dangerous. I don't believe one can be critical of her/his photographs browsing them quickly on a 2 or 3 inches LCD. A critical review needs to take its time, analyzing frames slowly, on a big screen, and to be (as much as possible) less subjective, may be after memories and emotions have settled, very much the corresponding of looking at contact sheets with a loupe. I am OK with deleting a picture that is *definitely* useless, but how do you know that one week later, or two years later, you won't re-evaluate what you have done in a different way?

 

Only really good usage I see of LCD is to check the histogram (assuming one doesn't get distracted from the subject), and to read/set camera parameters. I regard a bigger LCD on a DSLR as nice to have, not a must have. And if I couldn't educate me not to look at it after taking the picture, I would switch it off or cover it! So many opportunities wasted!

Looks underexposed to me. May be the bird was between you and the sun?

Noe, I have recently purchased the 24-105 mainly for street/people photography and love it. I have preferred it over the 24-70 because the latter doesn't add anything to wide angle, and is way less versatile on the long end. While I respect the convenience of a wider lens, I also came to realize the impact of f/2.8 (or f/1.4 with the 50mm I own) to depth of field. A luminous lens is a great thing, but not the answer to all dim light problems. And given I have just wrecked my good old 28-135 IS, I know how many pictures I couldn't have taken without an IS.

 

Anyway, there is an interesting comparison on Mr. Reichmann web site: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/28-105.shtml

 

Frankly I don't believe that 24mm on an XTi is very useful for landscape. For instance, give a look to the Canon 10-22 for that.