smedly64

My daughter and I are at the different ends of the album issue. She creates albums where the photo is only one part of the production, as she adds colorful borders, journal entrys and grafiti to creat a page that tells a story.

For me I create nothing but a picture, as I dislike poseing, there are no traditional family shots. just people places and things as they happened.

I have had both the 1.4 and the 1.8 and all the above is valid.

If 50mm is important to you and the price of the 1.4 is not a problem get it. if you wish to have a very good lens that is economical then the 1.8 is for you.

just think you could buy 3 to 4 1.8 units for the price of a 1.4

with a DSLR the 1.8 is a great quick lens that is good for close head shots, sharp and fine. If you break it throw it in the can and get another

This may be a bit off the line of the question, but I generaly believe that messing with the subject is a no no. We may not steal the soul but we may have a resposibility to capture the real moment.

I think many times we rig the picture to our view. ergo we recreate the soul in our oun image. Not so much thief as remakeing the soul in our oun image.

I went from a 300D to a 20D and never looked back. The 350 may be a better choice for the dollar value but the 20d is fine in the hand, quick and slap on the 420Ex and the 28-135 IS, and it measures up to one of the fine quick walk around street cameras out there.

The 20D feels solid and has a very flexible option list to work in the future. I kind of lust for a 5 but I am not that flush.

As a novice I see that we have volumes of work in front of us and much maybe with little value. I think it is not the medium but the magic that makes the picture (or what ever art. I see fine work in modern tech, in traditional media, I agree it is the magic that will grab you.

Today we have tools that with a minimum of effort can produce amazing results, but it still will take the great eye to make magic.

Good discussion. I have been interested in maybe changing to a large LCD to replace my Sony 19" trinitron, but have yet too see one that is better. I view 1024X986 at 85HZ the screen is steady crisp and when adjusted correctly the Printed images are as the screen displayed.

I may just hold onto this unit for a while.

Bas, Good point. The big issue for lots of us is ease of use. If your need is to process and handle images producing output for whatever. The Mac has always been the machine of choice, nomatter what the version of OS or CPU used.

 

If you get off on playing with computers and operating systems (I do) you can talk of systems and processors and brands. but if you just need a good screwdriver, forget the discussions and get the best tool for your needs. Apple has always produced machines (a bit expensive) that did visual things better than the others and forced most vendors to produce things that connected to the Mac with little nashing of teeth. See the job, do the job, go on to the next job.

Remember I am a PC user for other reasons.

Just a note from the old gamer. You are right about balancing the computer to what you are doing. If you are a gamer and are playing a game that demands lots of horsepower (ie. fast video card) most people forget to add more ram to the motherboard as the file sizes to the modern game such as Doom are HUGE. Guess what if you are dealing in raw, Tiff, or other such image files they are also huge.

 

My suggestion for PC users running Win2000 or XP is 512 meg minimum and 1 gigabyte or more for large image work. (or game playing)

Ho! Alistair what makes you want to go to a CRT?

I us a 19" Sony CRT(tuned fairly well on my PC) and would like to hear some issues with image creation on an LCD. I like my CRT but have thought about an LCD. My Sony 19" is so crisp and stable I have not been able to find a replacement.

What do you think?

I am to old to play halo, (slow hands)In Doom just a bigger gun.

Thanks for the comment.

Back to the question.

Come on guys (oops and ladys) I find that lots of CPU power and Lots of Ram is more important to the graphics program. I use a big fast video card but believe that the moving of bits is harder on the computer than the video image. I most likely would see a crisp picture with a mid level video card as well as with my 6800GT.

For those not into this, you still need to use a good monitor.

Spend the money buy a good trinitron matrix tube.

Oh yea what about the LCD monitors.

This thread is kind of fun as it is an age old battle of Apples and oranges (oops apples and PC) I disigned boards for the apple II and created the first simple office networks on MACs befor WIn XXX came to be the dominant OS. Today I run a fast PC running XP, Linux, WIN98, Win2000, and my Ipod.

I have been very happy that Apple has come to life and began the trip back to mainstream use. I would be very pleased to see them not make a big gaff and Steve G seems to have been able to do that in the last few years. Some of you guys will be pissed at the changes, some will just adjust and continue to produce great work.

I would like to run a Mac but today my mainstream work is PC based.

I predict that big changes are in the works and 64 Bit CPUs and their operating systems are the big issues. Apple maybe be very smart in their choice to be sure that they have a solid CPU for the new 64bit OS needed next year.

I am offended by the "my generation" stuff. I am 60 years old, run an AMD64 powered machine 1GB or ram and a High end gamer card because I play Doom 3 when I am not working on Pictures from my D300 Canon.

 

Yes I believe that I can see the images in Paint Shop pro9 better on my rather expensive video card, and the horsepower of the AMD64 with lots of ram makes my image work easy and quick. I remember haveing to go for a cup of coffee when asked the program to rotate bits in a lesser powered computer a few years back. I like the power and I like blasting the baddies in Doom even though I will probably die of old age next week.

This is a good question. have used many cards and computers over the years and now have a big fast PC with a high end gamer card. I have thought that large monitor, lots of Pixels (1280 X 1024) high scan rate made the images crisp and easy to work with, but maybe dealing with fixed images don't require the high end card. What I do know is that a fast processor and lots of Ram is necessary for power hungry graphics programs. I am a fan of paint shop pro and moving lots of image bits around puts a big drain on PC power.

Oh I actualy do play games so the card is not a complete loss.

The first Macs were powered by Motorola 68000 family processors, then on to IBM PowerPC chips. If Apple changes again, not a big deal, other than creating some backward compatibility issues.

Remember OS/10 is just a version of Unix, been around for quite a while and availible in all flavors of processors. Apple at one time sold their OS for other computers and had little success. For PC users Linux is starting to look a bit like OS/10 and is makeing Microsoft a bit nervious. Well not really.

Im not sure it is a MAC or PC issue. Yes the Macintosh folks select equipment and prepare it for good images.

In general choosing a good monitor, proper video card, and adjusting to the correct settings in the PC world requires some thought and investigation, where in the Mac world it is kind of done for you by the folks at Apple.

I am always suprised when I set up or repair a computer that many people spend very little time on selecting and adjusting their monitors. If you think what you see is important, take the time to look and ask about how to setup your computer. If you have a choice look for or ask about finding the best view possible.

 

A better question I would like to ask is how well do LCD monitors do in graphics (images) compaired to CRTs (tube type monitors)

I use a 19" Sony (tube type) with a high scan rate and have yet found a LCD that matches it.

I must admit that I love viewing the rags. Sometimes the pictures make me laugh, or cry or cringe, or hurl. As stated above the need of the herd to view reality is bent and distorted, but the skill of the Photographer to provide for the herd is there and it puts food on the table. I am a novice snapshotter that could not even measure up to the lowest PAP but at times I can see skill and vision in their work. I hate the fact that the herd drives them to the point of killing the subject to make a buck.

I am kind of flabergasted that Bots are used in this enviroment.

I like rateing although I am a novice and most likely suck at rating.

Ellen you gave me a fine comment on one of my photos and I have loved your work, very diverse.

 

This site has made me think better of how I shoot. caused me to be better. Feedback is important to me and I am sad that the need to be great or to alter the rateing of others is less than I expect from the fine folks that work this site.

I use a D300 with the 100mm 2.8 macro and love the results. Moderate

price and great shots. But.

It seems to be slow to snap to focus. sometimes won't grab focus at all.

I keep a 420ex on board most times.

Anyone have similar issues?

Bull, Bull, Bull,

Porn is a multiBillon dollor business. Titilation for pay. Some fun, some creative, some garbage.

I like it but do not create it.

Erotica to me is some of the 19th century media. Porn of a different era.

Its about money.....

Dress it up in Hustler, purify it in Playboy, call it art, some of it definatly is. Take the high road, take the low road. Whatever!

We are driven by survival.. Procreate or die, find food or die, our main drives control our output.

I use a D300 and have both 50mm 1.8II (great inexpensive) and the 2.8 100 macro (much more expensive) they are both fine in their own right. For me the 100 is used more than the 50mm given the way I shoot. To tell the truth the 50mm is so light and quick it is a better value as it is a bit wider, lots cheaper, crisp and very handy. I love the 100 for that close and intimate view as wellas the ability to stand back a bit and get fine shots. The only problem I see with the 100 is it can be a bit slow or jumpy on AF. It has a very long element focus travel.

As a shooter with a D300 (rebel) the EF-S is a good inexpensive lens but limited to the D300 +D20 as said above. The suggestion is well made on price that a 50mm 1.8 ($70 -80) makes better first choice. crisp, cheap, compatible with Film cameras. go hit ebay for a good used USM zoom (lots to choose from) good prices works on all.

When I bought my rebel I chose to buy a 100mm macro for the new lense (more money) and love the results.

I liked Mr HPs Rant, He must be a reader of Heinlein.

Well said.

We can create many catagorys of art but miss the real issue in that any Photo, drawing, painting may be beautiful, and still be meaningful to the viewer. Some items may have been created to be non pictorial and convey a message and be lost in the viewer eye.

If its good, its good, meaning not withstanding. Look at the work of the folks in this arena, very pretty, very meaningful.

As said in the above note.

Most video chipsets (CCD cameras) the individual pixels are like buckets that collect light, and at some point are shifted out to the external memory. In video it may vary from 15 to 1000 transfers per second.

In single frame CCD imagers (telescope varity) it is also true you set the requirement and it stores then dumps the values to the external memory. I thought your images with dots was odd. When I have used my D300 in a similar mode I get a line not dots?

Each instant in time and the image of that instant may in itself show us something that expresses some point to ponder. It may be mood, color, or something. In a photo of the instant we can view and arrange our thoughts on the item, compare it to some memory fragment and build the photo to something more.

In motion film or video, we have no time to resolve those issues. We must on the fly try to fit them into our thoughts by merging the images in a stream that will create a parrelle stream inside us.

Each powerful, each art in its oun right.

I supect that video is more powerful at an emotional level as it washes over us in a wave of images that we must ride on to its end. where a single photo causes us to tear it apart and sink in to a single moment.

I am a movie buff and love being pushed around by great cinimatography, but find that at times I want to stop the motion to view that perfect moment.

I agree that Nature shots in general need to be more nature and less pose or alterations. Minor shifts of materials or position will never cause much fuss. I have noticed on many of the nature photos that create a big stir, show the signs of major alterations. I still think they are great, but should be marked not a nature but something else.