gabriel_afana

What I am tryign to do is create an online uploader that will batch process photos through photoshop. Right now I have people upload photos online, I download them from my server, batch them locally on my computer, then re-upload them to teh website. I would rather develope an API that will allow the webserver to process the photos through photoshop either on-the-fly or by batching them.

I'll check out that photoshop scripting link

I batch thousands of photos each week for a website. I have a custom made action script which does a lot of nice

stuff just the way I like it. However, it is become too much work to batch all the photos and wanted to see if

there was a way where I can install photoshop on a webserver (probably windows-based) and run some webserver

scripts that would integrate with photoshop to batch all the photos directly on the server.

Anybody have any ideas?

I just looked at their latest firmware update and it still doesn't fix the AF illuminator bug where the AF light

on the speedflash will not light up at anything wider than 17mm. They fixed this on the D3 at the beginning of

the year! what about the D300 :-(

What the proper way to inform Nikon of a customers desire to have something updates or report of a bug?

- Gabe

I have to shoot with a high ISO....yes, there are many times when I can reduce the ISO and get away with it, however most times I really really need all the speed I can get to avoid motion blur.

About the WB, I was thinking that it wont work to set it to 2500k because I do use the flash intensely...and many times switch between flash and no flash constantly trying to achieve that perfect DJ shot....So I think I am going to shoot with WB on flash and then just adjust it away from the red color spectrum...I'll see if that works. Typically the most problems I have are with orange and red....only once did I have problems with blue.

Again, I take 1,000+ photos/event and there is simply no way I can spend the time to edit each photo so even if I could batch RAW files, I would still need to give attention to each photo. And when there is a problem...it usually affects most of the pictures and not just some so I think its a camera thing I have to figure out.

Im going to give this a try at the next event I shoot (November 29th).

1) Try Active D-Lighting (low, normal, high)

2) Try all various white-balance settings

3) change to adobe RGB

I'll let you know what seemed to work best

Im goign to try the WB thing....What temp are typical event lights at? So maybe setting it to manual at 3500K with the color balance away from red should help. Im shooting an event tonight - ill give this all a try.

Shooting in raw is not an option :-( Im taking 1k+ photos at each event and not only would it be space-prohibitive to shoot in raw, there is no way I could manually edit each photo. I just drop it into th CS3 and batch it. So my only practical solution is to do something to the camera while shooting.

I was thinking about teh whole whitebalance thing but if I skewed it away from the red, how would that effect the other colors? (yellow, white, blue, green lights...etc)

About overexposed...nice eye. Yes, I shoot in aperture priority and sometimes bump it up 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop to pull out the ambient lighting. Since im dragging my shutter and the subjects are primarily lit by the flash, this typically works out very nicely (strong background colors with well-exposed subjects) The thing I just realized is for wide-angle shots of distant objects, the flash becomes useless (many times not even used) and all im doing is overexposing my subjects! Duh! haha, Seriously, you learn something every day. The more I figure out what the heck im doing, the more im realizing that photography is serious business!!!!!

I took about 50 photos like this....testing all different combinations of metering modes and shooting mode (M, A, S...etc). All yielded the exact same result.

The lighting was exactly the same. There was no wind to possibly create variations of shadows on the parking lot or anything.

Think this could be a lens thing? Its on a Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 that I just got (bought it used).

Here is a full rundown of details:

Camera: D300

Lens: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8

Shooting mode: Aperture priority

White balance: Auto

Picture control: Standard (Never vivid)

Active-D lighting: off

ISO: 3200

Aperture: 99% of the time at f/2.8

Shutter: variable

Focal range: variable

Metering: 3D matrix

I have thousands of photos that look like this:<BR><BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/3.jpg"><BR><BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/4.jpg"><BR><BR>

I use flash to help overpower the saturated colors, but that doesn't always work...many times it just messes up

the entire photo. Also, many times I am far away or taking large crowd shots and there is no way I can use my

flash for that

<BR><BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/5.jpg"><BR><BR>

Now thats a picture that shows the problem, and I might be able to get away with using the flash to help with

that, but many times the crowd is not that small. That was from a small-outdoors stage. Typically there is 50x

more people (no exaggeration!!!)

<BR><BR>

This photo below is an example of a type of picture (my distance from the crowd and the size of the crowd) that

many times over-saturates. This one came out ok, but many dont and they come out completely saturated like

the one above<BR><BR>

<img src="http://www.plurlife.com/gallery/5/54/542/5429/54294/3/9/1/0/2/8/391028.jpg">

<BR><BR>

I typically shoot in Aperture priority at f/2.8 and let the camera handle the shutter. Any ideas on how to

address this issue?

Sorry everybody, that was my mistake. While shooting I tried it in all 3 weighing modes and I uploaded the wrong two.

I replace both photos above...those are both the exact same metering...exact same everything. You can see that the camera still didn't expose the picture the same. In manual mode, I discovered that at f/22, the camera was about 1 stop under-exposed compared to what it did at f/2.8

I just got a 17-55mm f/2.8 lens today :-)

<BR><BR>

So I was out playing around shooting pictures at my office and I noticed something that I dont understand. I was

taking several pictures outside on a balcony and they looked ok. Then I closed down the aperture and I noticed the

pictures were getting darker. I was shooting in aperture priority so I would imagine that the exposure of the picture

would look the same regardless of the aperture....no?

<BR><BR>

Well I tried shooting on manual and I discovered that at f/22, the meter was off by 1 stop (under exposed). Is this a

settings thing, a lens thing, or a I-dont-know-what-the-hell-im-doing thing?

<BR><BR>

Shutter: 1/2500 Aperture: f/2.8<BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/1.JPG">

<BR><BR><BR>

Shutter: 1/30 Aperture: f/22 <BR>

<img src="http://web1.plurlife.com/temp/2.JPG">

<BR><BR>

Ideas?

I just got a 17-55mm f/2.8 lens from someone online. The zoom feels strange...in the middle of the zoom range, its very

easy to rotate the zoom ring. As it gets to teh extremes (55mm and 17mm), it becomes harder to rotate.

I assume this is because the 17-55 does one of those in-and-out zoom moves (where the end of the lens protrudes out, then

as you zoom in, the lens comes in then goes back out). However, I had a Quantitary (spelling?) that did the same thing and

the zoom ring on that one felt consistant the whole way - then again it also was a huge enormous 17-55.

thoughts?

I just bought a 17-55mm f/2.8 today...amazing lens..and heavy as hell. but I do rave photography and need the fast f/2.8 through the focal range due to low lighting and I need the solid build - I went through two tamron 17-55mm f/2.8 (they both couldn't hold up - both physically failed).

I didnt want to buy this lens, but I had to. So if you dont really need to buy this lens, dont. Its expensive and very heavy.

A lot of the D90 featuers wouldn't really help you any. Having higher ISO performance isn't really needed for landscape photography. The Liveview mode isn't really needed either...it might be nice if you are using a tripod, but not worth $1200. The MP doesn't reallly matter unless you are doing large prints. High FPS doesn't really matter either unless there is some high-speed action you need to capture in nature (which most of the time I suspect isn't the case).

REally the biggest advantage i can see for you in upgrading to the D90 is the bigger screen....and that isn't work $1200.

As everyone else says, I would opt for a better lens...maybe a ultra-wide-angle lens from the 3rd party people like sigma or tamron (like a 12-24mm)...you can get incredible wide-angel landscape shots....amazing!

Then when the prices of the D90 drop then pick one up. I bought my D300 6 months ago for $1800. I could totally pick up a used one on craigs list or on this forum for like $1200-$1300.

Wow, you guys sure are pretty damn smart! I can post the pics here, but you all already know what Im talking about.

Yes, I was taking pictures in my office (flourescent lights) with no flash...I will try shooting outdoors and see if that works (Sounds like it will be ok).

That is an interesting thing....so its basically the frequency of the light-wave that is not fully hitting the camera sensor that is causing that? Does anybody know what the frequency is of flourescent lights?

Has anybody ever heard of this? I was messing around with my 50mm f/1.4 and I noticed that if I take several pictures one

after the other, each photo will look slightly different. Some will have this brownish shadow/overcast on random locations

(sometimes on the right of the pictures, sometimes on the left of the picture....top corner, bottom corner...etc).

This happened on a D300 and a D80. I thought it was the 50mm f/1.4 lens, but it happened with a 17-50mm as well.

I did many tests and concluded that the determining factor was the shutter speed. Anything faster than ~1/300 it becomes

noticable. slower than that it looks perfect. I can take 10 pictures in a row and they all look the same. At 1/500 or 1/1000,

if I took 10 pictures in a row, each picture will look completely different with this crazy brown shadow/overcast.

Does anybody know what this is?

For me I originally bought the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. It was smaller, lighter, and less expensive than the Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8. I do rave photography and am running around in crowds of tens of thousands of people for 8 hours at a time shooting 1,000+ photos/night. There was NO way I was gonna drag that huuuuge nikon lens.

HOWEVER, the Tamron lens could not stand up. I am on my second one and this one is falling apart. Those lenses are smaller, lighter, and cheaper for a reason...they are no professional quality - they are consumer-grade equipment. By no means am I a professional, but I sure do put my equipment to work.

So tomorrow I will be waiting by the door patiently for the FedEx truck to drop off my Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8. I dont want to crazy that huge lens around because it will be a workout....but I have too...I need the nikon build.

So here is an example of how I let size and price select the lens over quality and I ended up paying the price

I was thinking strongly about the tokina, but I have that 24-85 nikon lens and its worked like a champ. I've had it for 3 years and the rest of the team uses that lens every weekend so its goign through the same hard work as the tamron and the nikon one has held up with NO problems....im approaching my 3rd tamron :-P

So I thinkim going to caugh up the extra money and just buy the Nikon lens....but im gonna look for it used. However everybody on ebay is selling it new and the few that are really used are not cheap. Would be happy to find it around $800-$900

I've never actually tried shooting at 6400 ISO on the D300...I might give it a try when I ahve hard shots I cant get.

Kent, your response was very persuasive to me...you made a good point about losing value on the body and not so much on the lens.

Plus, I read a bunch about the 17-55mm f/2.8 being a real champ in terms of quality. anybody want to sell me one for $800? :-P gabe@plurlife.com

I need a good wide-angle zooming lens. The Nikon 24-85 is not a kit lens...paid almost $700 it.

As for shooting with a prime, I have a 50mm f/1.4 which is great...but most of our shots are of groups of people and wide-angle is so very important. Plus, since many times we are packed in crowds, I dont usually have the luxury of moving around to get it framed right with a prime - hense the zoom is very important. This is why I was thinking to use my nikon 24-85 I already have on a newer body to achive the same end-result. Plus I would have a better camera and my 16mm fisheye would actually look like a fisheye :-P

But you really recommend getting the DX 17-55 nikon lens instead?

You guys have posed some food for thought.....I just feel bad putting so much money in a DX lens. However, if I ever do get a full-frame camera, it will still work right on the FX? just act teh same as on a DX sensor...yes?