anat1

January 25, 2013

Andrew - Thank you for your input about the CCFL's effectiveness. The article on the RGB LED NEC display was interesting reading. Sadly, even if it were offered today, it would be way out of my budget range.

As for buying the PA241w_BK without the "SV" and then 1) buying only SpectraView software from NEC and 2) buying a separate calibration puck supported by SpectraView -

Do you anticipate any downsides to this approach as opposed to buying the PA241w_BK_SV kit?

Any specific make/model calibration tool you would recommend?

I really appreciate you chiming in. Thank you.

January 25, 2013

I posted some incorrect information in my last post. The Multisync monitor without calibration is only $779 ($300 less than the one with the bundled setup) link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/676418-REG/NEC_PA241W_BK_MultiSync_PA241W_BK_24_Widescreen.html.

So it does make sense to buy that monitor by itself (PA241w_BK) and the color calibration hardware/software separately.

I understand that if I buy the right hardware calibration hardware direct (as opposed to doing so from NEC) and then buy just the SpectraView software from NEC, I can then have a system that I can use on both NEC and non-NEC monitors, while still maintianing the advantages of the SpectraView based calibration on the NEC systems.

Is that correct? If so, what 3rd party hardware calibration should I buy that works best with the NEC SpectraView system?

Many thanks for ll your help and advise.

January 25, 2013

Thanks for all the input guys, much appreciated. The consensus seems to be that this isn't a great deal.

- the 4 year warranty, if non-transferable as BeBu says, is lost

- the actual number of hours used is the important metric (which maybe be hard to find out with a big firm like B&H, but I can try)

- the $250 isn't such a big savings given the warranty loss

Bebu, I think the $999 price is for the version without the SpectraView + calibration puck.

Howard - thanks for bringing up the point about the puck not being usable on other monitors. I was somewhat aware of this issue, but had read on other threads here in PN, that there are advantages to the NEC locked calibrator too. Also, the puck+software seems to be "only" $100 more when bought with the monitor (presumably locked to it). Specifically, this thread: http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00afWD

If I wanted to have the exact same setup but without the calibration puck/software locked to the single NEC monitor, how would I go about it? Buy the monitor separate and buy the SpectraView + puck separate?

The SpectraView+Puck (NEC SVII Pro Kit) is about $300 (link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/613707-REG/NEC_SVII_PRO_KIT_Color_Sensor_and_SpectraView.html). $200 more than the locked version. I don't have any other monitor now (other than a couple of laptop screens).

January 24, 2013

I'm looking to buy a NEC PA241W-BK-SV 24.1" with SpectraView II. It goes for $1099 new, but B&H have a used model for $849. A $250 savings seems pretty good to me. But I'm uncertain about the risks involved in buying a used monitor - esp. quite an expensive one such as this.

Here is B&H's link:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/800915880-USE/NEC_MultiSync_PA241W_BK_SV_24_1_Widescreen.html

Have any of you bought used from B&H? Esp. monitors?

What have your experiences been?

What do the monitor/calibration experts suggest regarding downsides to buying such a used monitor?

What specific issues should I be on the lookout for?

Also - would NECs warranty still apply (assuming the monitor isnt too old)?

Thank you for your advice!

January 5, 2013

Ah I see, Thank you Fred. It is a useful listing and I don't mind visiting that page.

But would it be possible to implement a global notification?

Sometimes people comment on the portfolio page at the bottom. Sometimes you engage in a forum discussion and forget to click "notify".

Wouldn't be useful (atleast to some people) to be notified via email with a digest of comments? Or even just telling them there has been new comments so that they can then go and look at the "Photo Critiques" -> "View" page?

January 5, 2013

Is there a way to be notified of *any new comment* on *any picture*?

I am aware that each image has a "notify" setup option. I often turn that on (if I remember) when I submit an image for Critique/Ratings. But sometimes I find that people have commented on images that I have not submitted for ratings or critiques. I would like to respond to the comments / interact in a timely fashion where possible. But to do so I would have to look through every image to check for comments.

A global switch to notify me on any new comments on images or on the portfolio page will be very useful to me (and I should think easy to implement).

I can understand some of the very popular people on PN will get many comments and may not want to be notified. This switch can by default be "Off", so people who do not want it will see no change from current behavior.

I apologize if this already exists - please point me to it. If not, could you tell me if you can add this?

Thank you.

November 15, 2012

f_stop gear Loka Backpack or other backpacks from them. Loka is generally within carry-on dimensions. Not inexpensive though.

September 27, 2012

Can anyone suggest a book that provides advise on shooting locations in New Zealand (specifically the south Island)?

Ideally the book should provide location information, some inspiring images from each location, ideal season for that location, best times of day / light conditions, examples of compositions one could look for in each location and other practical advise regarding traveling to each location and so forth.

I'm looking for something similar to "How to Photograph the Canadian Rockies" by Darwin Wiggett, but for locations in New Zealand.

I have searched Amazon and have drawn a blank.

September 12, 2012

I am planning a trip to the Banff / Jasper area starting around the September 17 (for about a week). Could you tell me what my chances of seeing good fall colors are?

I am aware that the fall colors in that area will be different from the typical New England colors.

Could somebody who is currently in the area (or been there very recently) give some advise about current conditions?

Based on your feedback I can decide to either go or not go. I haven't made firm travel plans as yet.

I would love to go there though - I have loved being in that area in the summer and early winter months.

Thank you!

July 25, 2012

Bear catching salmon at Brooks Falls - OMD EM5 with Pany 100-300:

June 19, 2012

Hi Steve,

Thank you for the information. I had also thought that staying overnight would allow me to target better light. Its good that you can confirm from your first hand experience.

Thank you for the tip regarding the Silver Salmon Creek Lodge in the Lake Clark area. That actually looks great! But unfortunately I have already made plans for the Brooks Falls area. But next time I would be really interested in the Lake Clark area.

I decided against also including a trip to Hallo Bay as it was very weather-dependent, complicated (and expensive) to arrange a fly-in charter from Brooks Falls to Hallo Bay. It seems most of "arranged" tours start from Homer.

I was also hoping somebody would point me to some added opportunities for shooting in the Brooks Falls area, apart from the Falls platform. You did mention that wading up the river maybe possible. Given the popularity of Brooks Falls, I'm surprised more folks don't have recommendations for more specific shooting opportunities in the area.

Thank you again for your advise - much appreciated!

June 10, 2012

Hi PNers,

My wife and I are planning a trip to photograph the brown bears in Katmai National Park in mid-July 2012.

I was looking into Brooks Falls (and even have a couple of nights of campsite reservation there). But after doing some initial research I am finding that a) Brooks Falls can be very crowded during this time and b) the range of compositions of bear shots maybe limited to a few great shots of the bear catching a salmon on the falls.

My questions:

1. Am I mistaken, or are there a wider variety of shots to be had apart from the bear-on-falls-shot in Brooks Falls?

2. Would Hallo Bay make for a good alternative (albeit without the "falls" shot)? I am told there is more scenery for landscape shooting too. Its supposed to be much less crowded as well (back-country camping after all).

3. Would there be a similar concentration of bears in the Hallo Bay area as there is in the Brooks Falls area in mid-July?

4. Lastly, I would be very interested if any of you have tried guided back-country trips with ArcticWild.com (based out of Fairbanks, AK and co-owned by Micheal Wald, Bill Mohrwinkel and David van den Berg). They seem to have some great multi-day bear watching trips, but I am unable to find reviews online.

Thank you for any information / advise.

February 15, 2012

Have any of you used "<a href="http://www.insuremyrentals.com">InsureMyRentals.com</a>" or (their parent) "<a href="http://www.heffins.com/">Heffernans Insurance</a>" to insure your photo equipment?

In particular, have you insured equipment that you rented temporarily (i.e. you rented from a place like LensRentals, for example).

Have you filed claims with them and what was your experience?

Would you recommend them for insuring rented photo equipment while on overseas travel?

Thank you!

February 15, 2012

Thanks for the responses.

I checked with my renter's insurance (Traveler's) and they say that they can only insure *$1500* of "rental equipment", not more. The rental equipment apparently cannot be considered my own equipment and insured like normal (since I do not own it).

I'm not sure which insurance carriers I should try. My insurance broker (AAA) didn't have any suggestions other than to try "google" :).

Google brought up: insuremyrentals.com. It seems to be an online arm of "Heffernen Insurance".

Has any one here used or heard of "insuremyrentals.com" or Heffernen Insurance?

February 7, 2012

Dear PNers,

I will be traveling to Tanzania (Northern circuit) for 2 weeks starting end of Feb'12. I am from the US.

I will be renting several lenses & a couple of camera bodies (and other accessories). These will be insured by the rental company for damage, but *not* for loss / theft etc.The total value of the rented equipment maybe around 15K-18K.

I am *not* a professional (i.e. photography is not my business) and so may not be eligible to use "professional" insurance services.

Could you recommend options for comprehensively insuring this rental gear during my travel to Africa (as an amateur)?

Will this type of insurance cover all eventualities, including theft / loss of gear with replacement-value coverage?

Which companies have you used and have they provided replacement cost (or close) without problems when you have had gear broken, stolen or lost during international travel?

Also, I rent (and do not own my home - so I do not have home-owners' insurance). My renters insurance doesn't seem to cover this *comprehensively esp. during my travel*.

In general, how much of problem is theft in Tanzania, on the safari circuits / lodges / tented camps?

Thank you in advance!

January 21, 2012

Dear PNers,

Have any of you used the services of a tour operator named "Awaken To Africa" that arranges tours (including private tours) in Tanzania? They are based out of New Jersey but also have a partner on the ground in Tanzania.

http://www.awakentoafrica.com/

I couldn't find any reviews through google (except just one review on tripadvisor). I got their contact from the "Frommer's" guide.

I would really appreciate it if you could tell me if you have had direct dealings with them (or have heard of them or know of them) and whether you have had positive / negative experiences.

They claim to specialize in arranging photography based tours, so I thought PN is the best place to ask about them.

Thank you in advance!

November 22, 2011

Dear PNers,

I just received my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 (for Canon, I have a 7D). I have started to check if I got a decent copy of the lens and have been performing some preliminary focus tests at short distances (8 ft, indoors) as its too dark to do so at longer distances outdoors now.

I find that my copy front-focuses (i.e. it focuses closer instead of on the subject which is farther away).

I find that I need to add (what I think is) significant amount of micro-adjustment to correct for this front-focusing. I also find that a slightly different amount of adjustment is needed based on whether I am shooting at 11mm or 16mm (I have not tried intermediate focal lengths).

I am attaching the results of the tests, which are also here: <a href="../photo/14668955&size=lg">Images from focus tests</a>

I am providing a key below to the test images, but first my questions:

1). Is adding +18 micro-adjustment "too much"? I have never used micro-adjustment before and hence am not sure what is generally acceptable (or is generally encountered in terms of micro-adjust amounts). Would this indicate a bad copy?

2). As you can see from the test images, different amounts of micro-adjust result in accurate focusing at 11mm and 16mm. For 11mm its about +20 and for 16mm its about +15. Its possible that the sweet-spot maybe between +15 and +20 - where it is the same for both focal-lengths - I am not sure, need to continue to test. Is it "normal" (or atleast not unusual) for zoom lenses to require different levels of micro-adjust at different focal-lengths or again, does it signal a bad copy?

3). I have not tested the other focal lengths in between (from 12 to 15mm). I also have not as yet tested longer subject distances (will do so tomorrow in day-light). I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time on this. Before that I wanted to get some feedback from you experts on these issues I am noticing. Any advise on improving test methodology will be appreciated.

4). If you own a Tokina 11-16mm, what have your experiences been with auto-focusing and micro-adjustment?

Thank you for your advice.

Test setup:

Tripod. 7D. ISO 1600 (sorry about high ISO, I don't believe it affects the results), F2.8 aperture. Indoors. Subject at 8 ft away. Images shown at around 100% crop.

Key to the test images:

Manual - means I focussed manually so as to be able to have a reference.

11mm - the lens was kept at 11mm wide

16mm - the lens was zoomed out to 16mm

Examples:

11mm, Manual : means, lens was at 11mm and focusing was done manually.

16mm, +8 Adjust: means lens was at 16mm, +8 micro-adjustment was added and the lens was auto-focused.

September 12, 2011

Josh,

I see. I wasn't aware that size was not the biggest concern.

I think my fundamental issue is the quality of the medium-size images that are automatically generated by PN. I'm hard pressed to understand how people cannot notice the artifacts (along the top edge of the mountains) in the re-sized image link above (caused most likely from poor/over-sharpening).

It is not clear why PN cannot produce a resized image at the same quality as that produced by LR or PS (for instance). It may be that doing so is (in aggregate) computationally intensive for the site? Or it may be because PN is starting (in most cases) with an already re-sized (i.e. not full-resolution) image that has been submitted (i.e. not very large, but larger than 680px).

If the quality level of the re-size cannot be improved, then would it be easy to provide an extra option in the "edit image info" page where a field allows uploading a medium-size image if the submitter wishes? In case this is not done by the user, then PN would simply keep doing what it does and generate the medium-image itself. If the user wishes to submit one, then the option is available in the "edit image info" link/page.

From an outsider's perspective, all it would seem to take is a simple interface change and the updating of the already (generated and) stored medium-sized image with one the user uploads. Obviously, you will know what is really involved and whether priorities allow this. The only downside I can see is if by mistake users sometimes upload the "wrong" medium sized image (i.e. a smaller image of a different scene).

September 12, 2011

Jeff,

Thanks for your detailed description of the workflow. Much appreciated.

Neither you nor Josh see much difference in the two samples I posted. Maybe, I'm peeping too closely at the image. I don't know. Maybe this particular sample is the problem.

Also, I think I am wrong about PN not re-sharpening after re-sizing (I think that it does do it - so thats not the issue).

One solution is to maybe make a simple change that would allow images with a "total summed dimension" being less than 1360 (680*2). I.e. instead of looking at the long-edge, just look at the "length+width" metric. If you keep "lenght+width" less than (680*2), then:

a) it will still be somewhat backward compatible with the current policy of looking at long-edge < 680 and

b) it will allow somewhat larger panorama images to be displayed without resizing - e.g 1000px : 333px (3:1 aspect ratio) or 900px : 450px (2:1 aspect ratio).

Ofcourse you can choose to do the above *and* increase the px size limit before resizing is done.

Somehow I feel this won't go anywhere :D. Sorry for the skepticism, but I assume this has have come up earlier in PN threads and probably didn't go anywhere.

September 12, 2011

Hi Josh,

I'm not sure what the solution is - I wanted to see if other PN members had better success with specific export settings. From a PN site perspective either: a) allowing for a larger image when aspect ratio is above some threshold (say when an image is 2x wide 1x high) or b) somehow re-sharpening after resizing the medium. I'm no expert in these matters and both "solutions" may not really be good ideas.

As to whether there is a percievable difference between 1000px large and 679px medium, I think the difference is clearly seen. To see the difference - you can look at the two image links above (one medium and the other large). The problem is largely with sharpness in my opinion - after it resizes, there is no re-sharpening done. This produces a somewhat unclear / fuzzy picture. In the samples above, this is evident in the edges of the mountain tops. In an image such as this, that sharp edge makes the image (in my opinion).

As for my export settings - I generally export from Lightroom. In the past just doing File->Export with settings - sRGB, JPEG, 100% quality, output sharpening "standard, screen" and so forth. More recently, I have been using the "Slideshow" module in Lightroom and exporting from there with "best" quality as a jpeg. In terms of how the medium image is worse off than the large - in both the above export procedures the problem remains similar.

Is it possible, to move this post to a more trafficked forum so more PN users may provide their settings? Ofcourse, if it is off-topic for any where else, then I understand it cannot be moved.

Thank you for any help / advise on this Josh.

September 12, 2011

Dear PNers,

I see beautiful images from many of you everyday in PN. I find sometimes (not always) even the "medium" sized image that PN creates is nice (without too many artifacts etc).

I find that, just like for everybody else, when I upload images larger than 679px (on the long edge) PN produces a smaller "medium" size version that is displayed by default.

But in my case this image, very often, seems to be of a rather poor quality (in terms of how the compression / down-rez) was done.

As an example see:

http://www.photo.net/photo/14196272

vs

http://www.photo.net/photo/14196272&size=lg

Because of this I try to only upload images 679px wide. But in some case (e.g. panoramas, or when I want to show greater detail) I upload larger images. In those cases I get hit with a bad "medium" image.

I am aware that users can always click on the "medium" image to see the large version. I'm not so sure they always do. And I would prefer a cleaner image to be displayed by default.

My question:

Are there any settings / tips that you could tell me about so that I can produce a jpeg that interacts better with PN's image-resizing? Those of you who get good results in terms of the medium image created - what settings do you use in either LR or PS?

Thank you.

August 14, 2011

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August 14, 2011

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May 8, 2011

Thanks Pasi. If we do Lofoten, we will spend more time in the southern areas as you suggest.

Could one of you tell me how rough the seas generally are during the Bodo-Lofoten(Moskenes) car-ferry crossing in May-June? We are slightly prone to getting sea-sick.

Also, how calm/rough are the waters within the fjords in the south - such as in Sognefjord, Geirangerfjord etc? We have some plans to go kayaking in one of the fjords - but aren't sure how choppy the waters will be. also is there a lot of boat / larger vessel traffic in the fjords?

Thanks again!

May 6, 2011

Dear Per-Christian, Ingemar and Pasi,

Thank you very much for your thoughts and advise!! I'm very sorry for the late reply as I was away and wasn't able to login and reply on PN. But I did get all your very helpful replies through email.

Per-Christian, I did Google the images for the various places and they are truly breath-taking as well as being different. Apart from flowers, I also like taking landscape pics so all these places would be ideal. We have decided not to pursue Svalbard for now, as making a short visit to that area seems like it does not do justice. Plus, given its probably rare to see Polar bears, we may need to stay there for several days to actually see them.

Ingemar and Pasi, thank you for your recommendations regarding the Lofotens and your advise about driving. I too would very much like to visit the Lofotens and had the same idea of flying to Bodo, renting a car, taking the Bodo-Moskenes car ferry and then driving the National Tourist route starting from A (in the south) upto the Melbu ferry. Is it worth driving all the way upto Svolvaer in terms of better scenery / activities?

We have kind of settled on one of the three following itineraries:

Trip 1. Fjord Norway (Bergen, Geirangerfjord, Jotunheimen, Sognedal, Naeroyfjord areas) + Lofoten Islands.

or

Trip 2. Fjord Norway (same as above) + Stavanger's Pulpit Rock hike and surrounding area including Lysefjord.

or

Trip 3. Fjord Norway (Same as above) + Hardangerfjord area.

In case of Trip 2, I am aware that Stavanger is again part of Fjord Norway area. But Pulpit Rock seems to be such an iconic natural attraction that I am finding it difficult to forgo hiking and seeing it :). Trip 3, is not so important unless you folks think Hardanfjord area should not be missed in Spring because of all the blooms.

So my dilemma comes down to choosing one of the following:

- Lofotens

- Pulpit Rock (and Lysefjord)

- Hardangerfjord region

It may sound silly, but unfortunately there is only limited time. I'm also not sure if I will come back to Norway in the near future as there are other places to go to as well (plus who knows how circumstances will change). So if I had to pick one of these (in addition to the other places I wrote), which one should I not miss?

Again thank you for your patience, thoughtfulness and help. Much appreciated.

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