lenny_purdie

<p>Tim,<br>

I registered and will post some questions today.</p>

<p>Tom,<br>

I thought about using my d700 as a back but do to the sensor being so far back, I thought that the mirror box wold get in the way when doing extreme tilts/swing. Am I wrong? Plus some of my latest prints have been selling between 24" to 40" on the long end and figured the MF back might help a little. :)</p>

<p> I'm looking for better quality and more freedom than I currently have. I find that the 10 degrees of tilt just isn't enough sometimes. I do love being able to shift the lens when I need larger prints but that shift is 90 degrees to the tilt and sometimes (most times) that's not what I want. I keep hearing people talk about some of the older view cameras being to coarse with the adjustments for digital. How different would the toyo 45g (under $500) and a toyo vx23d ($2300) be? Or any newer "better" view camera. </p>

<p> One thing I really hate about the tilt/shift on the nikon is that it changes the framing when you adjust the tilt. Some view cameras are designed to stop this from happening. Do they all? Or just the "yaw-free" designs?</p>

<p> As far as $$$ goes, I don't what to spend a car. But accept that this wont be cheap. The fear is that because everything isn't cheap, I could plan on it costing $7000 and spend $14000 because I missed a couple of pieces. For example, focus. Lets say the back I buy doesn't have live video to focus with. Do you use the ground glass and then when you have it 99% install the back? Or do you NEED the sliding back adapter? If I need the adapter ($2000) I might be better off getting a back that has live video focus if it is cheaper than the cost of the adapter. Just things like that. </p>

<p> I live in a little town so no one really to talk to locally. Or even a store to test out options. That leaves buying things online, which I'm fine with. Just want to run options buy the collective brain on here to help me find my pitfalls before I make my purchases.</p>

 

<p>I've decided that I want to start shooting with a view camera. I'm finding myself doing a lot of product/tabletop photography lately and currently using a full frame dslr with a tilt/shift lens. Just looking to take it up a notch. :) I'v spent way to many hours searching online to try and figure this out, but I've succumb to the pressure and need to ask for some help.<br>

So here is my problem, I have this sinking suspicion that I might be missing some critical info. So far this is the game plan: Plan on buying as much as I can used to help make this practical. For a camera, I've been looking for a Sinar P2 4x5. Adorama currently has a P2 with 90, 150 and 210mm lenses, wide angle bellows and db shutter for $2500. Then I found someone selling a Leaf Aptus 65 AFD for $2800. So my question is twofold. What's the proper adaptor to attach the back to the camera? And (I know this is so stupid) how do you focus with this setup? <br>

I've seen the sliding back adapter from Kapture group. I assume this is so you can focus with the ground glass, right? Is there a cheaper option than $2000? I think the leaf has "live view" but I'm a little confused on its usage. I might need a dongle to get it to work? Then I thought I read somewhere that in the new capture one (ver 6) you don't. In a studio environment, would the ground glass be better or the live view on a PC? <br>

Also, can anyone see any major shortcomings of this setup? Besides a tripod and geared head, what else would I need to get started? </p>

<p>Here you go. Never used it.<br>

<a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/contents/DNG-Recover-Edges.shtml">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/contents/DNG-Recover-Edges.shtml</a><br /><br /></p>

<p>Doesn't really work. If you put 2 polarizers on top of each other the colors just change when you rotate them. (This is assuming they are both circular polarizers.) Now if you turn one around so it's facing the wrong way it will work but now the threads don't line up. In theory you could get a male to male adapter but adjusting it just unscrews it. :( But if you have 2 filters and money is tight, a little tape and creativity might make it work.<br>

Has anyone tried with a circular and linear polarizer? I have a feeling that might work. Or get 2 linear (cheap) but you won't be able to auto-focus.</p>

<p>Take a photo (jpeg) and use Opanda IExif viewer to view the exif info (google it, it's free). The number of actuations should be in there. </p>

<p>Aperture priority mode if your camera has built in bracketing. If not, manual and adjust the shutter speed. I'm shooting Nikon and shoot in manual, but have the camera settings set so it changes the shutter speed when bracketing. If Shooting RAW you can bracket every 2 stops. If you're shooting jpeg bracket every stop. Obviously try and keep the camera as still as possible (tripod, cable release, etc..) and if there's moving objects (clouds), shoot as fast as possible. As far as good tutorials, check out Pete Carr, Robert Correll, "HDR Photography Photo Workshop." Good book on the subject. If nothing else, worth going to the bookstore to look through. </p>

<p>I recently did a stupid thing and lost a D300 and lens to a watery grave. Made a claim the next morning (in person at the local office) got a call that afternoon from the corp office and retold my story of woe. 2 days later had a check in the mail. Couldn't be happier. I have Statefarm. They have 2 insurance options. One is like 1.5% and one is 2.5% of the total being insured per year. The higher amount being for pros. Don't know if it matters but I'm paying the "pro" price. On a side note. They will play the lower amount between what it's insured for and what they can get it for. So my D300 was insured for $1500. They said they could get it new for $1600, so I got the $1500. Had I insured it for $2000, I could of gotten a new one mailed to me or a check for $1600. Hope that helps.</p>

<p>It almost looks like a halo from sharpening? As the others have asked, does it show up in your untouched raw file? Either way, I'll take a stab at trying to fix it.</p>

<p>In photoshop copy the image to a new layer. Go to "channels" and select the blue channel. Select the channel (ctrl+a on pc) and then create a new channel. Paste the blue channel in this new channel. Select levels (ctrl+l on pc) and adust so that the sky is white and the ground is black. I have 144/1.77/180 on my monitor but it could be very different on the high res version. Take the brush and paint in white on any parts of the sky that are grey and black over the rest of the landscape. Now we have a mask of the sky. Select that mask, and go back to "RGB" in channels. Then "filter ---> blur --> average." Adjust the opacity of this layer to taste. Try 40ish% I'm sure there are better ways but this is fairly quick. You do loose a little of the color gradient so adding a curves level with a little gradient can fix that.<br>

Below is what it looks like. If you would like I'll gladly remove the image. Good luck.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Here is the link to the features with chdk. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures I'm running it on my G9 and I can say that the motion detection does work. The A570 can be had for around $100 used. I'm curious what you want to photograph. If it's bever and you have the camera far away they might not trip the sensor. They also make camera for hunters to do the same thing. I have no experience with these but I'm guessing them to be MUCH more weather resistant. Walmart has a bunch at http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2618827 If you find that the objects you want won't trip the sensor and you need to be farther away, maybe one of the cannon p&s running chdk taking time lapse photos might work.</p>

<p>On my calibrated monitor the picture looks "correct." The issue your having has nothing to do with your ISO. First off, your focus is off. I know that wasn't the question but be careful. The focus looks like it's on the trees in the BG. As far as your sister being overexposed, there are a couple of possible reasons. </p>

<ol>

<li>Is your monitor calibrated? If not, this would be the first step. You really don't know what your looking at if it's not.</li>

<li>Taking photos in the sun will almost always result in images with harsh shadows and hot spots. You can correct this by dialing down the exposure slightly and then using fill flash or a reflector to bring up the shadows. But the best way: SHOOT IN THE SHADE!</li>

<li>Your sister is a small portion of the image. If you want the camera's meter to focus more on her, make her a larger part of the image and/or use center weight metering. </li>

</ol>

 

<p>what do you plan on using the QTVRs for? The single shot lens will suffer from a serious decrease in image quality because of two things. The first being the distortion of the mirror and the second being that your stuck with very low resolutions of the VR (single image resolution divided by 360 degrees). As far software, I recommend PTGUI and I use the nodal ninja for a tripod head. For the record, with a good tripod head (set up properly) and a reletively static subject, stiching is quick.</p>

<p>From the adobe site:<br>

<strong>NOTE:</strong> If generic camera thumbnails appear in Adobe Bridge, follow these steps: <br /> 1. Check to make sure the plug-in was installed in the correct directory in step 4 above. <br /> 2. Start Bridge. <br /> 3. Choose Tools > Cache > Purge Central Cache. <br /> <br /> <strong>Important:</strong> Purging the Central Cache deletes cached thumbnail information for all folders. It also deletes labels, ratings, and rotation settings for read-only files (for example, files on a CD or locked files) or file formats that don't have XMP support.<br>

Taken from this page:<br>

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4365</p>

 

<p> Trying to isolate the issue. One of two things can happen. First is it's a color space issue. If you export them and they look okay in photoshop but not in the software you are currently using it can point to the color space. The reasoning is that photoshop is able to read profiles but the program your using might not be able to. I see this a lot when people shoot in AdobeRGB. The prints or images on a non color managed program (most web browsers) get "dull" with a green hint to them. The second but least likely possibility is that the colors are actually changing during the export. You can see this sometimes switching between CYMK and RGB but not usually during export with in the RGB catigory.<br>

If you can post a screen shot of the export it will help. Also posting an exported image will allow us to see what profile is being assigned to it.<br>

Last thing to try is in CS4 go to "FILE" then "Save for Web and Devices..." Select "JPEG", a quality of 90, check "Embed Color Profile" and also check "Convert to sRGB". Select the size you want and save that. That should work. If not, I'm very interested. :) If that comes out fine, let us know and we'll walk you through the export process in Lightroom and saving in CS4. <br>

Good Luck!</p>

 

<p>Just realized my last post kind of sounded like I'm trying to sell a service. Didn't mean it like that. I really was trying to say: I have a profiler and don't mind spending a little time to create a custom profile (for free) in an attemp to put a little in the "karma bank." </p>

<p>If you open that same image in Photoshop does it still show the shift? Can you post a picture of your export screen from Lightroom?</p>

<p>Don't know where to get any but if you want, I'll profile yours for you. Just email me if interested.</p>

 

<p>assuming its getting dark (sunset ish), try putting your camera on it's lowest iso (100; but might be labled L1.0), set the aperture to F22 and camera on aperture priority (AV). Attach your ND filter. Your shutter speeds should be 1/2 to 4+ secondes depending on your ND filter and lighting. That should do it. In a perfect world, you'd keep the aperture closer to F11 to help with defration but first things first: just getting the shot.</p>

<p>there's a program called "wincs3clean". Try downloading and running that. Reboot and then try a reinstall.</p>

<p>Is it possible you need to update Adobe Camera Raw? If you have an older version that could explain it... Also I remember there being some issue with the NEF codec but don't remember what they where ( I know a lot of good that last statement was.) </p>

<p>Make sure your autofocus is on "single" and not "continuious." (lever in the front next to the lens) And your Focus points might have to be on single and not dynamic.</p>

<p>Had a cat pee on my old sofa. Tried everything to get rid of the smell. And every time I thought I got it, as soon as it got humid, the smell came back. About that time Mythbusters did a show on skunk smell removal. In the end only one commercial product and one homemade product worked. So, I tried the homemade verson on the sofa and have been using it on all cat "issues" ever since. <br>

So in short try:</p>

<ul>

<li>1 quart of 3% hydrogen peroxide</li>

<li>1/4 cup baking soda</li>

<li>1 teaspoon of liquid soap</li>

</ul>

<p>Mix it together and soak your bag. Then run it through the wash to clean it out. </p>

<p>I'd assume the 2 lights used to light the background are at 45 degree angles. It's probally just an issue of needing more light on the background. Are you using a hand held meter or the meter in the D200? If your using the camera meter, the background should be 1.5(ish) stops overexposed. Also, your white balance is a little off.</p>

<p>Tyler, I'd be willing to take a swing at it.</p>

<p>My best gues is this: When you view an image at anything other than 100%, the computer has to interpolate the image so it fits on the screen. If the percentage your viewing isn't 50%, 25% or 12.5% the interpolation isn't as "clean" resulting in jagged lines and softness. Open up photoshop and adjust the size of the image to 33% vs 50% or 25% to see what I mean. Is that what you're seeing?</p>

<p>I find that when I try do do a HDR pano, if I stich first it doesn't always work. Sometimes the stiches are just a little diffrent in length(1-5 px) and it screws up the whole thing. Try taking each bracket and merge ito an HDR first. Pay attention to the settings and make sure you use the same settings for each bracket. Then photomerge the 3 HDR images. I bet it comes out MUCH better.</p>