bennyboy

No worries.

All seems OK now - touch wood.

I just wondered when roughly we can expect the site to perform nominally again,

the last couple of hours have been extremely hit and miss (verified via 3

different ISP's and computer systems). Perhaps an outage notification could be

used in future?

Cheers Pete,

 

I'll take a look - do these books also concern the art of critique (overtly)? I've already got some books covering composition and visual perception - they also cover critique but not to the level I'd like to go into. Might be worth replying out of band so we don't hi-jack Marcs thread.

Perhaps if a 'karma' like system ever evolves (I think Phil alluded to the fact that he'd like something on those lines), comments such as these will be below the threshold level of most viewers?

 

Strong critiques are quite time intensive, and I suspect most people just want to let the photographer know that they appreciate there work - another avenue may be a comments independant 'thumbs up' system perhaps - where the photographer can see all those who gave them a thumbs up, it may alleviate the need of many to leave simple comments.

 

I think that a lot of us simply do not posess the skillset to offer a detailed critique - there's another avenue for learning for the site, I for one would be very interested in expanding my critique abilities (if anyone has some suggested reading it would be most appreciated).

 

I wonder of people leave comments like this in preference to using the rating system nowadays - who knows.

Your photos must be 511 pixels in width or less to display inline on a forum page, and they must have a caption too.

Hi Lou Ann,

 

You're probably quite correct that the site could do with more buyers guides (and it's a good revenue stream for the site with clickthorughs), but are you aware that some of what you mentioned has already been done?

 

There's a guide to choosing a digital SLR system directly linked on the front page, which I imagine is pretty useful for an SLR novice. I'm thinking something similar for each of the other formats would be good, the current gearing up pages don't offer a broad enough view. Perhaps a similar first link on each of those pages would work well?

 

Homogenous page lyaouts for each system (insofar as possible) would be a good thing .

 

Regarding filter systems, I can talk to you about the Lee system if you want to drop me an e-mail with questions.

No, but it has glow Mark :)

Yeah it's very similar.

20 & 35mm Flektogon prices in m42 seem to have gone mad - I got my flek 35/2.4 for about 10 pounds (sterling), they're going for over 100 on flea-bay now.

Without doing a test, I can tell you that the 400/5.6 will beat any of the zoom+TC combos hands down. Of course it is not as flexible as the zooms.

 

There's some test shots of a 400/5.6 +TC in my portfolio (at the bottom) - click into the picture to see more info and other pics.

Are you sure that the mirror fell out of your first body? It wasn't the interchangeable focus screen?

 

The 00 aperture is what the camera displays when it thinks a manual lens is attached - ie stop down metering. Sounds like dirt on body or lens contacts to me.

<center><img src=http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/4956802-lg.jpg></center>

I've not charged my 2 batteries for about 4 weeks... still shooting. Approx 500 shots and lots of chimping.

Or you can just zone focus if using a small aperture - you know, like people have done for the best part of a century.

I find the best approach for me is to rarely, if ever, rate the photos of those who I have marked as interesting, and I'd prefer if those people didn't rate my work either (to a large extent they don't - or at least they don't directly). Their constructive comments mean far more to me than a number which usually only serves to leave me feeling embarassed.

Kelly, if you click on the 2nd links titled (PDF) the files download immediately.

Philip, I understand your postition regarding the OP being best suited to deciding which answer they found most useful. But, that does not mean they have discerned the BEST answer from the posts. Or even read past the first answer.<br><br>

 

Scenario:<br><br>

 

Q: <em>How do I make the sky look darker in my photos?</em><br><br>

 

A1: Use a polariser <strong>(OP clicks this as being the most suitable answer)</strong><br><br>

 

2 hours later another answer gets added.<br><br>

 

A2: If you're using an AF camera then you should try a circular polariser, 'older' linear polarizers are available but may stop your cameras autofocus from working correctly, avoid them. Also to get the best effect from a polarizer, the camera generally needs to be pointing at 90 degrees from the direction of the suns rays, turn the polarizer until you see the desired darkening. <strong>(OP doesn't read this more in depth reponse which clearly offers more information)</strong><br><br>

 

My second answer isn't that eloquent, it was written on the hoof, but I think it shows that allowing others to also vote for the best answer (and calculating a karma figure) will be more discerning.

Phil, would you care to offer some detail about how the RAW files will be handled, do you envisage them purely for sales purposes, will the system render web versions directly from them, will we still be creating out own 'presentation' versions etc?

 

I must admit to feeling uncomfortable about offering my RAW images online, I'd much rather offer a high resolution tiff or jpeg consistent with my own interpretation of the original RAW image. Your thoughts on this would be most welcome.

Exactly. There was talk of the 'time to live' being taken from the time of critique submission, but I don't think it ever got changed.

I seem to remember Brian M stating that photos submitted via e-mail were deliberately given an id with a significantly higher value than those uploaded manually - that would account for the folder order being different to what you expect.

Another place where people are doing a lot of this: http://oomz.net/mf

Tim, my guess is that it's because profit margins are higher on slower lenses - slapping a DX label on a lens (and some coatings) makes people think it's a technological marvel and shell out more cash. VR may also be part of the thinking.

Vikram, you may be able to repair these yourself, fungus can easily be removed, but can sometimes etch the lens coating (sometimes removing the coating completely is the only option), typically a professional repair will not be cheap.

 

As for the OOF lens, you would have to open the lens up to inspect why it is not achieveing focus.

 

If nobody else pipes up I would suggest visiting http://oomz.net/mf/ there are many people on there who may be able to provide diagrams and perhaps even photographs showing how to disassemble/clean these lenses.

 

Good luck.

I think disabling the skip button could be a valid way forward, BUT, only if the O & A vales are amalgamated into a composite 'rating' value. (add O & A, divide by 2, round up or down by convention - not hard to do)

 

Anyhow, I've said it many times before.