randy_cooprider1

Close up of wedge salad with blue cheese dressing.<div></div>

Clam chowder.<div></div>

<p>The last picture contrasts the brownstone with the newer buildings. The A7 nad lens combo make very sharp images. This July fourth we ate a BJs brewhouse.</p><div></div>

Post a few of your week's efforts (3 max) with long side no more than 700 pixels.

#2 A bee in the clover taken with the kit lens at about 5 feet (1 2/3 meters). Slightly processed in PSE 8 after DxO.<div></div>

#1<div></div>

Howard may be in transit somewhere so I'll start off. This week I downloaded the 31 day free trial of DxO optics software to see how it performed. It has been said that most cameras are better than most photographers so maybe most software is better than most post processors? Nonetheless I was particularly interest in the DxO "clearview" and noise reduction features. After using Adobe products for years the adapting to a new product was hard. Not the software's fault. The first picture was completely processed using the DxO software and was very quickly done. Sony A100 kit lens, program mode.

<p>Howard, we have been on a family vacation to Dauphin Island AL. The car was so full all I had room to pack was a small P/S camera which was not a Sony. Love the tones in your shots.<br> <br />Randyc</p>

<p>I adjusted the white balance, lightened the shadows, upped the vibrance, squared the format and did a glass distortion then erased the filter over the wood crosspiece. Then I looked at all the other submissions and thought they were better.</p><div></div>

<p>Lannie, PSE 12 gray scale conversion. Your original looks yellow to me (and my laptop) but this one doesn't???</p> <p>Randyc</p><div></div>

There are none of the star shaped flowers around here but they are very interesting Paul. Santa Barbara is a beautiful area.

Paul, a real redwinged blackbird. Light wasn't too good so details minimized..<div></div>

<p>The girls expression is good. All I did was clean up the lighting levels, adjust for skin tone and remove the extra people.</p><div></div>

Japanese Iris<div></div>

Climatus on mailbox<div></div>

Well, my oldest grandson just graduated university and I loaded the 300 mm Sigma on the A100 in hopes of maybe bagging a bird or two after the party. No luck. there were hawks circling overhead and birds hiding down here. I learned again that the 300mm is not user friendly so after waving it at several things and watching them dance around, I picked on some relatively immobile flowers. I wish I had taken the beercan since it has better color rendition and is slightly smaller. Had some fun shots this week? Post up to three no larger than 700 pixels on the long dimension.

Paul, I've got a side blotched car and the lizard looks better!

#2<div></div>

Howard is on travel so I am starting the thread. My regular laptop is acting up and I had to use a backup which does not have the later version of PSE with Sony ARW converter. There is a free standing one that I downloaded and it was able to make the change of my Nex 3 files from ARW to JPG. Whew! The flowers are blooming so here are a couple for review.<div></div>

<p>Mr. Even, have you considered a different camera model? Nikon is a terrific camera and my first really good 35mm was and still is a Nikon Photomic FTN however if dynamic range would assist your efforts, this URL shows the DR of the Oly OM D EM10 to be 12.3 which is very competitive and way less than a MF digital camera.<br> http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Olympus/OM-D-E-M10<br> There are probably others so this is just an example.<br> Good Luck</p>

<p>Rick, great post. Pictures are clear, sharp and colorful. Problem is now I wanta Werra. {:-)</p>

Great!

ISO 1600 80-200 xi lens at about 157 mm equivalent F8 1/200 sec<div></div>

ISO 400<div></div>

<p>Howard, there are bluebells in Texas (son lives in Dallas) but we have not made down in time to see them. I like the middle shot the best with the trees being the background.<br> This PN thread has references that describe the optimum exposure and how to achieve it. <br />http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00dGSZ <br />My A100 has features that are useful but at ISO 800 and above light noise is visible so this method was interesting if it improved the A100 performance. <br /><br />Setting the A100 as directed in the second article to +1.3 EV with bracketing set to +.7 and -.7, RAW mode and segmented metering I exposed some available things. The ISO was varied from 200 (which with normal exposure has low noise), 400 and finally to 1600. Bracketed exposures were made. Evaluating the results for exposure to the right (ettr) was easy. The A100 histogram was turned on and the exposures were checked for ettr where the right side of the curve is against the vertical axis. Then they were adjusted in photoshop PSE12 camera raw for the output image. One disadvantage of this technique is that three shots would not work for fast moving subjects so a workaround might be to overexpose by .7 EV and get some improvement. <br /><br />The 1600 ISO picture was taken at about 0800 est with overcast sky. The highlights between the branches were blinking on the camera lcd so they had been overexposed however it was easily fixed in RAW processing.<br /><br /></p><div></div>