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rffffffff

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Posts posted by rffffffff

    Hockey Pictures

    in Nikon

    Posted

    In the rink that I shoot at primarily, I am lucky to get 1/250, f/2, ISO 1600... Its terribly dark and with a f/2.8 lens, I can not shoot reliably without being at ISO 3200.

     

    If I were you, ronny, I would go out and pick up a 50 1.8 if money is tight ($99), an 85 1.8 if money is okay (~$400) or a 200 f/2 if you are rolling in money! ($5000)

     

    In all likelyhood, you just need faster glass.

    Bulb Exposures

    in Accessories

    Posted

    instead of wasting time, bump your iso from 100, lets say, to 3200... then take a test exposures... once you are satisfied, run the shutter down 5 stops and the iso back 5 stops... its a nice way to figure out whether 2 minutes or 4 minutes is right without wasting six minutes.

    I am building a new computer... any opinions/options welcome.

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    if you have 4gb of ram in xp pro, only three will be available to photoshop in my experience.

     

    xp64 will allow 4, but there are no hp drivers for my printer or scanner, so it sucks for me.

     

    also, a additional scratch drive is useless unless you use it. with 4gb of ram, unless you are modifiying many files at one time or doing complex large stuff, youll likely never run into the scratch drive anyway...

     

    I would raid the hard drives, as mentioned... either raid 0 if your data isnt important or raid 1 if it is... if you wanted to spend a little more money, an areca 1110 or 1210 controller and 4 hard drives as a raid 0+1 or raid 5 setup would be nice...

    attention EE engineers and/or Nikon insiders

    in Nikon

    Posted

    You might be barking up the wrong tree greatly, but I know nothing about lenses specifically.

     

    The likely difference in the ability of the body to handle VR is in physical lens contacts and/or current handling capability.

     

    The VR fuction is powered from the camera, but likely handled completely inside the lens.

     

    I bet, but wouldn't personally try myself on a $1500 lens, that the only thing you need to get VR working is the correct battery voltage on the correct pins of the lens. I would think, but I am not sure, that the 'switch on' that the VR does when you press the shutter button for the first time is the camera applying voltage to two pins.

     

    If I am correct, its likely that you could figure this out with a digital meter. Figure out if there is a pin that goes hot (referenced to the ground pin) in the corresponding time that VR would work. If so, all you need is a battery and a switch.

     

    The alternative is that there may be a hot pin and an active pin separately... the hot is always on and only when the active pin goes high or low the VR works.

     

    Its probably that simple, but who knows... A battery and a switch might be all you need, but then you may also have to deal with some current limiting or conditioning circuit to prevent the VR circuitry from breaking...

     

    On the other hand, I seriously doubt that there would be any benefit from VR in this context. VR almost hurts my eyes when I am shooting with its wacky movements and jumps.. I think I would prefer a scope without!

    Newbie Nifty NEF Knowledge Needed

    in Nikon

    Posted

    You can download nikon view free from nikonusa.com, and its worlds better than picture project, in my opinion. It has rudimentary editing capabilities but does a decent job. Also, photoshop elements can handle NEFs well, and its sometimes available free as bundled software with things like tablets. If you have to pay for it, its relatively cheap too, like $49.

    How to eliminate glare in PS CS2

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Its actually really easy... but a little time consuming.

     

    The advice to choose your background better should be given to the fly, not the photographer. If I could make a grumpy off two year old with wanderlust sit next to his sister and smile everytime I wouldn't have any photoshop skill at all!

     

    I duplicated the layer, dragged it so that the properly exposed background covered the glare area, masked it so that you could only see the area covering the glare, then lowered the opacity on the new layer to 55%. It allows for a relatively loose mask with a soft brush, but you have to do it about three times to get all of the different areas.

     

    the 55% opacity gives the area some shine, but with a good texture too.

     

    Or, you could clone stamp yourself a whole layer of countertop texture first and only do one mask.

    d2x autofocus problem

    in Nikon

    Posted

    I think the 'don't use matrix metering' may have been more because you shoot in backlit situations, rather than having anything to do with autofocus....

     

    The AF sensors on the D2X, though, seem to be a bit larger than the indicated area in the viewfinder... I find that many times it will focus on the background above the sensor when the camera is in portrait orientation and the center sensor is not selected, if that makes sense. I very carefully have to specifically not include high contrast areas NEAR the active sensor, even if it means moving the focus area to a less desirable position...

     

    Also, I find the D2X is much more likely to suffer from noticable camera shake than the D2H. Why? I havent a clue, except perhaps that the increased pixel density makes it more noticeable. The traditional 1/focal length, for optimum results with this camera, has been changed in my head to 1/(focal length x 2)

     

    All that being said, the amount of soft pictures that we get out of the D2X doesnt generally affect us greatly, but generally causes me to wonder if I should drop it off at nikon just for them to check it out... But we can't live without it!

    SB 800 hints & tips HELP!

    in Wedding & Event

    Posted

    When you are bouncing the flash, the bounce card helps with the eyes a little bit, but harshens the light slightly... I generally prefer the look a little with the card because it leaves a catchlight in the eyes, where sometimes without it doesnt... When people are wearing glasses, you might lose the bounce card to try and eliminate glare if it shows up.

     

    Dont be afraid of bouncing the flash sideways too... if you are near a wall, you can get nice lighting effects if you think about the subjects direction and light source location...

     

    The biggest thing, for me though, is to shoot with the flash in ttl mode, (not BL unless you are outside using it for fill) and leave the camera in manual. If the backgrounds start to get too dark, you can bring the shutter down, which wont effect the subject in general terms.

     

    I use the aperture to control depth of field, shutter to control background brightness, flash comp to control subject brightness and ISO to control the mixing of the flash and ambient light. This is all assuming you are not outdoors in bright light...

     

    If thats the case, the flash on ttl, comped down a bit, will help with shadows and everything else is relatively easy... Once again, raising the shutter speed will bring the background down if the sky is getting too blown out.

     

    Hope that kind of makes sense!

    SB-800 Master --- restting itself to Single Mode

    in Nikon

    Posted

    Honestly, I would take a q-tip and a touch of rubbing alcohol and clean them up regardless, and do the same to the bottom of the flash.

     

    just avoid getting it on any rubber bits, or using too much... it wouldnt hurt anything, but its not great for rubber....

     

    Also, try switching flashes, to see if the second one behaves the same, and also, make sure you have fresh batteries in everything, as mentioned above.

    Calibrated w/Spyder2Pro, Drycreek profile. Prints too dark

    in The Digital Darkroom: Process, Technique & Printing

    Posted

    although it makes no sense, your monitor at 6500k is good and the photo viewing standard at 5000k is also good... I talked to some of the calibration experts about this and generally I got little reason to explain it, but they said its the way it is...

     

    It sounds like your monitor is way too bright. My calibration software allows for different brightnesses... CRTs are recommended to be at 100, and LCDs are recommended to be at 140... (sorry, I dont know the units of measure) One of my dell lcds wont get too far under 180 unless I turn the brightness all the way down, then turn the R, G and B down equally (to somewhere around 30-40)... Try to recalibrate at that point and and see where it gets you. I am not sure if your software offers brightness levels in the same numbers that I use, but if so, this might help you get down there...

    Shooting with Strobes and TTL's

    in Lighting Equipment

    Posted

    we use nikon sb800s together with alien bees a lot, but in general, they are good for background lights, perhaps a specular hair light, and accents. Playing with backgrounds and gels on a few speedlights can be fun, but its hard to use them as part of the main lighting solution.

     

    My flashes have an "su-4" mode, which essentially just fires the flash when it sees another flash. I set the power manually, as posted above.

     

    One other nice use I came up with recently was at a wedding working with only one alien bee... I had it bounced off of the ceiling of the church but the ceiling was so high that we had kind of dark shadows under the eyes, even though the light was soft... One speedlight on camera, in manual mode, directly at the wedding party worked as a really nice fill, 'opening up' the eyes perfectly... It wasnt dramatic lighting, but it was better than racoons!

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