david.seaton

<p>Scott-<br>

as others have said, you can create a larger (say 2x2) mosaic and do software emulation of the perspective correction functions. Emulation the focus-plane effects will be MUCH harder.</p>

<p>You may also be able to get a pano head and software solution for well under $400. First off, Hugin is one of the best stiching software solutions and is open source freeware. It's powerful and fairly easy to use. For 180x360 stiching especially, photoshop and cannon's software WON't do it, there is too much mathematical remaping/warping that needs to be done, and you want a specialized program.</p>

<p>As far as heads go, I use a panosaurus, which is only $80. Granted, its not as stable as the $400 heads, but it is stable enough that i've had good success with xt and the 24-105, and overall I'm very happy with it. I'm not sure how well it will handle the 5D2 w/ 24-105. (FYI, an inverted ball head won't work, you'll get massive parrallax issues.) I'm assuming you already have a decnt triopd?</p>

<p>My advice would be to take a flyer on a the panosaurus or other 'entry level' head, and see if you A) like pano photography and B) NEED something heavier duty.</p>

Edward-I think your understanding is off here, or atleast confused by another brand.

Fuji uses L, M, S to differentiate actual pixel dimensions.

They use "Fine" and "Normal" to distinguish different levels of JPEG compression.

 

see the "File Write / Display and Sizes" heading under this review:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/FujifilmF31fd/page4.asp

 

To the OP--Memory cards are cheap and its easy to batch resize in post processing (google faststone photo resizer)., I would shoot at Large Fine at all times, you never know when you'll get a keeper. You will not gain anything by having you're camera downsize the photo off the bat. You may be thinking of the (still conceptual?) idea of pixel binning, in which the camera treats 4 pixles as one pixel to improve noise/DR. However, your camera doesn't do this, its just resizing a jpeg and gives you no benefit.

The 40D is also heavier than any of the rebel line.Important if you do backpacking.

Very interesting thread on prehaps one of the most intriguing new aspect of digital photography.

 

I think Edward nailed it on the head when he said:

 

"You only notice HDR when it's done wrong." and "For others, HDR is a tool you use on location so you don't have to lug lights around, but the ultimate goal is to get normal looking images."

 

There will always be people taking pictures of their old junker in the front yard, over HDRing them, and throwing them on flickr/myspace/deviantart and call it edgy art. A few years ago it was oddly composed, oddly focused images converted to high contrast black and white and thrown on F/MyS/DA and called edgy art.

I take it you have the old 18-55 (non IS version). The new IS version is reportedly much better and costs about $180, I haven't used either but it might be worth getting opinions on.

 

I don't own, but have used, the 17-40. Its a great lens! Others with more experience can comment further, but it seems like it would be a good replacement for you kit lens, although maybe a little short (but you've got the 50mm)

 

Have you considered the 17-55 f2.8? its a stop faster and has IS but is ~$300 more. I do own this lens and love it.

Michael

 

You might consider this camera a candidate for conversion to infrared. They replace the filter anyway. It would probably be about the same price as a repair.

 

If you do go the new camera route, we should get in touch--I would be interested in buying your old one for this very purpose.

 

Dave

I am only posting this in the Canon forum because it?s the one I frequent the

most. I think this would be applicable basically every forum on the site.

 

Has any thought ever been given to creating a "Sticky" type of post to address

some of the most frequently asked questions for a particular forum? Something

sort of halfway between a true article and a post? Almost all of

these "popular" questions ("70-200: Which one?", "Will my old XXX brand lens

work with the XTi", "Is the $300 5D on SuperCameraDeals.com real?", "Which

lens for sports?") seem to get rehashed on a weekly basis. I?m sure most of us

who have been around here any amount of time can begin to anticipate responses

with out even opening the thread!

 

Clearly, a lot of these questions are answerable by using the search or

reading existing articles, but sometimes people are new to the site,

overwhelmed by search results, etc. Also, people who have been around long

enough to know where to find articles, probably have seen many of these

threads already, so a very basic FAQ in the form of an article would probably

not be that helpful. Newer users tend to gravitate to the forum; I know I did

when I was new. For example, Philip has a great overview/review of the

different 70-200s, yet how many times do we see "Which 70-200 should I get?"

 

Maybe there is a way we could have 4 or 5 posts that are sort of like

a "journal review", like an overview or survey of all the posts relating to a

certain frequently asked topic. In one sense, they would be more of what this

site considers articles, however, there wouldn?t be much editorializing, it

would basically be a synthesis of opinions posted on the topic in other

threads, specifically responding to the common questions. It would be

different from an article or review, however, in that it would permanently be

fixed at the top of list in the forum.

 

I am not an expert on any of the questions frequently asked here, but I am a

believer in action: I would be willing to edit and synthesis the first of

these hybrid article/post, if it can appear as a sticky type of thread.

I'll share a funny story about SF and photostores. I was there this summer, and went to the middle of nowhere (tourism wise) to buy an EF-S 10-22 from Calumet the first day I was there because, obviously, I wanted to use the lens on my trip. I got down to the Fisherman's Warf area, and saw what is probably your same Discount Photo. As I was walking past (With my 24-105 on camera) the employee who was out on the side walk calls out to me "Hey, I've got a nice new lens for your camera there" and I go "No thanks, I've got all the lens I need!". I saw in the window they had the 70-200 2.8 IS for something like $2,750.

 

Anyway, if you truly feel you were ripped off (not that you just over paid) and paid by CC, I would def. contact the card company. What does your recipt say the return policy is?

Most of the effect comes from dodging and burning. Im not sure what your level of PS experience is, but basically it selectively darkening/lightening of areas. <br><br>

 

For instance, on your third link, the wheel ruts have pretty obviously been dodged (made lighter). So have parts of the bushes, and the very white parts of cloud. <br><br>

 

PS has dodge/burn tools but the best way is to do it with adjustment layers and masks. <br><br>

 

see Nigel Nagarajan's response on this thread

<a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00DcgJ">http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00DcgJ</a>

<br><br>

It has a good explanation of using layers/masks for D/B. Also, now that you know what its called, you should be able to find some tutorials on the web.

Johnathan Swift also wrote a satirical essay called A Modest Proposal in which he suggested alleviating Ireland's poverty / starvation crisis by eating babies.

I disagree that doing them by hand gives the best results. Its very hard to properly warp the photos to make the various elemnts line up. A better option is a true pano stiching software that lets you set control points by hand, and also will output a layer PSD file. thats a whole other thread however.

This lab has "poster specials", large prints for very competitive prices. You have to know a little bit about resizing, etc. I've used them with very good result.

 

http://www.elcocolor.com/poster_special.htm

Jeff just a note on your comment:

 

"In an attempt to avoid blown highlights I use the histogram on my 20D and watch for the flashing areas to see whether I have achieved a 'good' exposure...."

 

The flashing highlight blown indicator on the LCD is based upon the JPG not the RAW, if you take a second exposure and over expose by 1.5 or 2 stops and STILL get the flashing areas on your LCD, then you've truly blown those areas in the original shot. If not, the raw will should still have detail

the only "problem", at least with the canon lens, is that you are paying for and carrying the weight of a full frame coverage lens, but not "using" parts of it. Whether or not this is a Problem or just a "problem" depends on your feelings on the issue.

 

For me, it wasn't a problem. I use a 24-105 as my primary lens on a 350D and don't mind the weight. The cost sucked alittle, but remember you are essentially "cropping" out the worst performing parts of the lens, its corners which makes the average IQ of the lens higher.

 

I don't know enough about the tamron 100-300, sometimes these older lens need re-chipping/have compatibility issues. i have no experience with this lens so some one else will need to chime in.

I've printed many panoramas on Kodak metallic by ordering a large print from El-Co Color. They do a 20x30 for like $16 and a 30x60 for around $50, and they will go longer than that 60 and charge by the inch for your 19x72 (I don't know how much tho). You can usually fit 2 panos on each sheet which is great.

 

http://www.elcocolor.com/internet_only_specials.htm

Also, crystal, @ f/16 you are probably getting a decent amount of diffraction which is hurting the overall quality directly (its adding noise, indirectly hurting quality by requiring you to pump up ISO; adressed above). Stopping up to f/11/iso200 as suggested will help with the noise and give you some better over all sharpness--which will REALLY help the print "sparkle".

?

 

What kind of store do you have? What is your clientele? How are you're other items priced vis a vis the competetion? Simply not enough information.

 

I do have a math\econ degree so I will give you this:

Price per meter = (Price Per Roll / meters per roll) x (1 + your profit margin)

that would def. be neat. It is intereting that with both usb2 controllers and wi-fi USB adapters being comodoitized price-wise that we haven't seen a generic adapter that would fit any camera, screw into the tripod mount battery grip style, and attach via a short USB cable to the camera's port, and interface to your wi-fi with the controller USB.

 

I'd hack one up if I knew how to progam a controller to handle it.

Diane-

 

You can make multi level panoramas as well! if you are using a X and Y axis pano head and have set up the nodal point you could make a top row of 3 shots, then a bottom row of 3 shots, and stich it in a 2x3 pano. Max Lyons uses this technique with a 200mm lens to get gigapixle sized images... think 20X20 panoramas! <a href="www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/">www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/</a>

You might want to stop at your bank first, and see what kind of bussiness loan you can get. These things are costly--think like high "end car" all the way to "first home" costly.

 

Then contact a sales rep from each of the companies. As long as you come across as being serious about this, they will be more than happy to help you.

I am getting ready to purchase a new machine and am looking for

recommendations on a company to go with. Im fed up with the "big box", Dell,

HP, etc. due to their lack of flexibility on processors, OS, options I want

(RAID) only available on "super" systems, only a few graphics card options,

etc.

 

I am looking for something like the old alienware (before they went big box,

and not specializing in gaming machines), where you have more flexibility, but

they will take care of compatibility issues, actual assembly, etc.

 

PC USA (http://www.pcusa.com/) looks promising and sort of what I am looking

for but I have not been able to find anything pro or con on them. If any one

has any recommendations, I would appreciate it.

 

Dave

Radiant vista is great, especially if you are an auditory/visual learner:

 

http://www.radiantvista.com/

Prehaps the OP is giving it away as a gift. Or is selling it. Or it is a large print on expensive paper (well Canon photo paper plus isn't a super expensive paper relative to some fine art ones).

Ugh they should really use realistic situations in the ND sample pictures. Like a waterfall with REALLY blurred water in BRIGHT sun. Not some dog in the snow where dialing in some EC would fix it.

It depends on how much DR you need. If you shoot raw @ iso 100, you can get _very_ nice (and "believable") HDR. I do a fair amount of HDR but more than half the time I am only working with one raw as opposed to many jpgs.