vegard_nervik

<p>By the way, there is a rumour circulating that there is a LBA-SJCBS bail-out package before Congress. However, the chances for it passing is said to be slim. For some obscure reason it looks like the Federal Government doesn't have enough cash left.</p>

<p>B, with a DSLR what you need to watch out for is Lens Buying Addiction, also popularily known as LBA. It is a very serious disease, and there are many carriers of it here at Photo.Net. Extremely contagious, so caution is advised.</p>

<p>Regular check-ups are recommended to stay clear of it. It manifests itself by serious lust for bankrupting yourself whenever you pass a photographic store, and look at lenses. Please note that this also includes browsing webshops.</p>

<p>A common effect of LBA is that it overrides the brain's normal breaks when it comes to the fact that you really don't need the lens at all. LBA also possesses another subtle but highly effective protonein that attacks the credit card limit neurons inside your brain, tricking it to believe that your credit card bills never need to be paid back. As you can understand, the disease can, in its severest form, send you to a mental institution for dysfunctional previous DSLR owners. </p>

<p>The good news is that there are home-made remedies available to keep the disease under control. Unfortunately, if you have attracted it, it can't be permanently cured, but as I said you can control it.</p>

<p>When you experience the symptons, count to 100, then go to your wife and tell her that you need a lens that is 1 stop faster than the one you have and produces slightly better bokeh which will make her beautiful face stand out nicer against the background. The last part of the explanation is a common excuse LBA carriers believe works. Then you tell her it costs $500 and that there won't be any food for the kids this month. It is critical to remember the last sentence to get the cure. She will bring out your old golf driver and smash your head in (the excuse never actually works, because the wife is not stupid enough to believe an LBA carrier). This shakes your protoneins so severly that the credit card limit neurons inside your brain gets reestablished. You also lose the craving for new lenses for a month or two. </p>

<p>That being said, in extreme cases of LBA it is known that it can develop into SJCBS. The home-remedy usually keeps it in check but if you get Secondary Jewellery Compensation Buying Syndrome be aware that it is non-negotiable, non-refundable and will within short time send you and your family the way of Lehman Brothers. </p>

<p>Welcome to the world of DSLRs :-)</p>

<p>I think you've got a great deal there B. And I wouldn't worry too much about not getting the two year warranty. Look at it this way, you got it for $400 vs $800 locally (you could probably find it cheaper in the US than that). Anyway, $400 (800-400) is a pretty expensive insurance, and remember warranty is basically just an insurance. If they asked you to pay $400 in insurance for one year, would you? No, you rather buy a new camera if something went wrong. In my opinion I would waiver any warranty if I got 30% or more off standard price, because that is a risk I am willing to take. 30% insurance premium is not worth it.</p>

<p>A note on customs, I do not know the regulations and tariffs between Canada and the US, but I guess it is free trade, so the only charge would probably be customs clearance handling, which shouldn't be too much. The laptop Brendan referred to in France is probably mostly VAT, a European tax levied on all imports and sales. Works very differently than the US Sales Tax. The rate in France is somewhere between 15 and 20% I guess, which means that on import they would charge 15-20% VAT on the invoice price. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>John-Paul, great series and story. I have three distinct favourites:</p>

<p>Ducky, yes I do get something from it. The ambience. She seems happy and I get a feeling that she is content. But what is she thinking about? Something to do with the duck, or is she simply reminiscing. The lighting works, the slight noise works. It is a picture I would stop in front of and ask myself some questions. Great capture, not only for the person in the picture.</p>

<p>Hands is nice. A crop of love and togetherness.</p>

<p>Till death do us part. The picture of reality. I agree with Scott, I don't care that the foot is cut. The whole picture is action, and not set up. Not for the picture wall though, it will annoy him immensely when she starts to actually put her teeth into him (after his first 100 days in office).</p>

 

<p>I forgot to mention Gary's first Apocalypse Hotel. Cool composition. And while posting myself, Javiers first, resting after some hard protesting... She seems a bit sceptical about you.</p>

<p>Lastly a few zebras discussing todays grass quality.</p><div></div>

<p>Then a couple of Safari Pictures. We went on a short trip to a game reserve about 30 minutes from Durban. There are no predators in this park, so you get quite close to the animals. I think they believe us humans to be quite stupid...<br>

The sky was a bit grey that day so the light wasn't the best, but it was a great day anyway.</p><div></div>

<p>Some of my favourites:<br>

@Haigs first two landscapes, perfect lighting and a really like the colours and composition<br>

@Justins panorama, stunning as always, but I prefer the notebook writer.<br>

Bobs skier was really an interesting pic, and the vivid colours of Geysir Brook is stunning. Serene and cold. Nice.<br>

@Markus, all are nice but I prefer the composition and light in the house and mouse. Good shadows, maybe a tad to strong but that is being very picky (had to find something). Looks like natural light, so if it is achieved by flash I need your tutorial as well.<br>

@Steve, your pics show how different the ceiling can look just by shooting in different directions. Like them both for different reasons, first one for the peopel and particularily the two kids, the second for the ceiling<br>

@Michael, the abandoned house/store is really nice. Days gone by. Would have been perfect with an old weathered man with pipe sitting on the porch.<br>

@Hin, I think we are at the same stage in the learning curve on using flash. It is something I find quite hard, and I need much more practice to master it. I think your results are quite good, especially the lighting on the daddy looks natural. I agree the daughter pic is a bit flat, but it is all about trying and trying.<br>

Here follows my pics. The first is me trying out some flash portraits of my daughter, experimenting also with bounce, PTTL and opening up for ambient light. This one turned out to be one of the most interesting, and it was when the flash did not fire (did not wait long enough for the recharge). Obviously the picture is quite underexposed and therfore noisy, probably about 3 stops, so the levels have been adjusted. I was sure it was for the recycle bin, when I initially looked at the thumbnails, because it was almost black. <br>

So a malfunction is my POW. (and I really like the SR, it is 1/15th handheld with AF540 mounted)</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Laboratory and Photobrowser: The developers where high on LSD when they developed the User Interface. That is why the windows and panels and everything is all over the place. So take a shot of the good old 70ies drug, and you will probably understand it. If that is not tempting, buy Lightroom (or Aperture (mac) which I don't now but probably is just as good). Get PSE or Paint Shop Pro XII if you need to do much local adjustments (however, stay away from Paint Shop Pro if you want to convert PEF, I found it to be awful converting Pentax Raw files)</p>

<p>In other words, Laboratory is crap.</p>

<p>Slight correction, the results may be good if you learn the software, I just never had the patience, or drugs available.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I think Patrick is right about the exposure, but your options were limited since you can't open up more, the shutter speed can't go down much and hardly no more ISO to be had.</p>

<p>The white-balance seems a bit off also in my opinion. </p>

<p>You could try to convert to Black and White. I usually don't like noise that much in colour, but I think noise in B&W is very nice sometimes. </p>

<p>I hope you don't mind, but I had a quick try. Adjusted the levels slightly and boosted the contrast a bit and played slightly with the shadows and the highlights. I am not very good at it, so the results should be much better if you try different options and spend a bit time on it (and get someone knowing PP to help, in other words not me).</p>

<p>With B&W noise works with you and not against you, but that is just my personal preference. Cropped it a bit tighter, but that was mostly because parts of the wall got burned out. That could have been fixed if I were more careful with my adjustments.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Marvellous. Impossible to pick a favourite. The school is lucky having you taking the pictures for them. Chinese determination captured.</p>

<p>Hi Steve<br>

Unfortunately not. It is a Fossil, couple of years old. Good to hear that it looks like an Accutron though, because it just cost about $100, and I don't think you get any Accutron at those prices :-) <br>

I guess Fossil copied the design.</p>

<p>Nice work, Javier. I really like your street shooting threads. It gives me inspiration to try myself, just need to find time.</p>

<p>Point taken Douglas, and 'mocking' was maybe a bit too strong a word from my side, and playful not mean was my intention. Tongue-in-cheek is more what I meant. My lack of understanding the subtle differences in the English language. </p>

<p>Personally I have nothing against any brand, and get along perfectly well with anyone using any type of cameras. I don't see much difference between the brands quality wise actually, and wouldn't be able to see which camera or lens brand a picture was taken with.</p>

<p>To everyone</p>

<p>Thank's for all the response to this thread, I am glad most of you enjoyed it. And some real true info came out too...</p>

<p>I do not really suggest that Canikonites take less pictures than Pentaxians, or that we are Pornstars... But I do believe that Luca's point number 11 is actually true. I know a few that have Canons or Nikons because of that reason.</p>

<p>And congratulations to Justin. I agree with Justin's last post too, we have a nice balance on this forum presently, but it can get out of hand. But hey, that's what the excellent Pentax moderators are here for. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>One of the great advantages of using Pentax is that we can look at a lot of great photos on the Pentax forum. It is one of the nice things about this forum, in my opinion, that a lot of pictures is posted and it is nice to look through them and comment now and again.<br>

Being tired and having nothing else to do I ventured into some other brand forums to look at their pictures as well. But... there wasn't much too look at, except for Sony. Since I am not particularily interested in reading about equipment I don't have, I did not pay much attention to the discussions, so I figured I would do a bit of absolutely meaningless comparison. I opened the last 20 topics on the different brands and counted the number of pictures. Yes, I know I am mentally challenged...<br>

Here are the results (pictures of equipment excluded):<br /> Canon EOS 11 pictures<br /> Nikon 15 pictures<br /> Olympus 17 pictures<br /> Sony 43 pictures<br /> Pentax 119 pictures, including 47 in our lovely POW, which to my astonishment nobody else has.<br>

So, my friendly conclusion must be that they post all their pics in the galleries and critique forum, because they can't be just petting their IS / VR lenses, those canikonites.<br>

However, having nothing else important on my mind I started thinking, so here are my top 10 explanations to this phenomenon:<br>

1) Pentaxians are deviant pornstars, we like to use our equipment to the fullest of its capabilities.<br>

2) Pentaxians likes to show how we use our equipment.<br>

3) Pentaxians know that short equipment can work just as well as long equipment, it is about where and how you use it.<br>

4) Pentaxians bring their equipment everywhere and use it even in wide open territory and in the narrowest alleys.<br>

5) Pentaxians don't have the most famous equipment but we are proud of what we can do with it.<br>

6) Canikonites like mostly to look at their equipment.<br>

7) Canikonites have used so much money on their equipment that they have to eat at McDonalds, therefore many have become so fat that they cannot find their equipment any more.<br>

8) Canikonites have to stabilise their equipment before shooting because they don't have in-body shake reduction at shooting time. Thus, they get all blury when they have shot a quick series and need to rest.<br>

9) Canikonites believe that by having famous equipment everybody thinks they can use it properly. Therefore they need not actually use it.<br>

10) Canikonites are very worried about their equipment getting a bit wet while shooting.<br>

Any alternative explanations are most welcome, since I am not sure if I got it 100% right. A bit of mocking is allowed in this thread...</p>

<div></div>

<p>Beautiful!! Composition, lighting everything. It shows that low ISO and long exposure gives such nice atmosphere to the images. Need to get out and do something similar myself, but it will be difficult to copy this.</p>

 

<p>Beautiful!! Composition, lighting everything. It shows that low ISO and long exposure gives such nice atmosphere to the images. Need to get out and do something similar myself, but it will be difficult to copy this.</p>

 

<p>By the way, her pic has not been cropped. It is her original composition.</p>

<p>Thank's Haig<br>

I like the Coolpix 990, and the image quality that camera produces is still today very very good. As far as I remember it is 2.something megapixels, but I can still print nice A4 from it. Using the top quality setting it save TIFF files :-) I prefer it vastly over some later Point and Shoots I got (megapixel bombs on fingernail sensors). </p>

<p>She has a sense for composition and I am trying to teach her different things slowly step-by-step. Then we'll see if she still likes it when she gets older. It is actually fun to see the pictures, because she has the oddest compositions and subjects sometimes. Just takes you into the world of what a little girl thinks is interesting. Barbie posters photographed on the floor, and if a sister gets a tiny, but bloody, scratch she is close-up on documenting the "terrible" pain.</p>

<p>Lastly a picture of the photographer herself, without the camera covering her face.</p><div></div>

<p>The result...</p><div></div>

<p>Shooting...</p><div></div>

<p>My daughter of 5, Ida, is becoming an enthusiastic photographer after getting her hands on my old Nikon Coolpix 990. When we go somewhere she usually likes to bring her camera with. The other night we were playing around taking pictures of each other taking pictures. </p>

<p>First composing the picture. Its not so easy because she still struggles reaching the shutter release button while holding the camera...</p><div></div>

<p>Too many nice pictures make it hard to choose a favourite. Enjoy all, but maybe especially Javiers second shot of LA, Scot's harbour, James' Icing, Jeff Lillies (very nice lighting), Roberts New Year (don't usually fancy firework pics but you got some nice colours in this) and as always Nick's kids.<br>

Then my pic</p><div></div>