paddler4

As someone who has taught at almost every level from elementary school to graduate programs and who has taught a fair number of photography classes, I find this stereotyping extremely annoying. It certainly is true that teaching requires skills that photography doesn't require. But this blanket assertion that one can teach a skill one doesn't have is baseless nonsense. If you actually watch good teaching of photography online, you should notice that the teachers are actually doing in real time what they are teaching you to do. Hard to do that if you don't have the skills in the first place.

Irfanview is a viewer, not an editing program. It's not designed to do what you want. There are a number of good editing programs, but be prepared to spend some serious time learning to use them. I personally use the Adobe package, Lightroom and Photoshop, but others I know use On1 or other options. One advantage of Adobe is that it is very widely used, so there is an almost endless supply of tutorials and videos available for free, some of which are very good. I use online resources when I want to learn new Photoshop techniques. If you use out of date software, expect problems, particularly if you are using a camera newer than the software.

Rubbish. Field macro requires very different skills from studio macro, and both require very different skills from night photography, and all three require very different skills from candid portrait photography.... and those are just a few of of the types of photography I do. One reason I don't do studio portaits is that in learning all of these other genres, I never learned enough about studio lighting to be a competent studio portrait photographer. And, I can tell you from personal experience, none of the genres I've learned reasonably well have prepared me to photograph athletic events. I've photographed a number of marathons, and I suck at it. I've done one wedding, and I'll never do another. I don't compose and set up fast enough, and I find the tension of having to do it right very unpleasant. and so on.

There are a lot of additional settings (which you may not use) in a modern camera even just for stills, e.g., metering mode, selection of AF points, parameters for AF tracking. There are also options to store combinations. For example, my main camera can store three custom combinations. I use one of them as a default for candids of kids. It's just a combination of your three parameters, but it is quicker when in a rush to simply select C1. A minor convenience. Then there are options to customize the interface, which I find very valuable. E.g., to take a simple example, I usually turn AF off on the shutter button and use BBF, but there are circumstances where it's more convenient to have AF on the shutter. When I got my last camera, I spent several hours with the manual deciding how to customize the camera to work most easily for me. Worth every minute.

Great shot of the fly. I had no idea that camera is capable of macro like this.

The raw file conversion is just a starting point, and with many software programs, it's not a fixed characteristic of the program. There is no one initial saturation or contrast level in Lightroom, for example. Those depend on the profile one uses. Lightroom has 6 profiles on its basic menu (also called "favorites") and over 50 more that you can get to by picking "browse". You can also build your own. I like to use a profile that doesn't impose much saturation or contrast, as I find it easier to add those to taste when editing than to remove them (particularly contrast). However, if you want a punchier initial conversion, you can certainly pick a profile that gives you that. I do use Adobe color, the new default, even though it's a tad punchier than the old Adobe standard, which I used for years.

as de-bakker said, you only need something as large as your lens--assuming the light is in a position where you can shade the lens. This doesn't appear to be that situation. It's hard to tell precisely, but it appears that the sun is only a few degrees over the roof ridge. There may not be any way to shade the lens sufficiently, given the position of the sun.

I haven't with my 5D IV--I rarely shoot video, so I almost never come close to filling up my 64GB cards before I upload and back up my images. I'm guessing that 400 GB CF cards didn't exist when Canon wrote the specs for the 5D IV some years ago. However, the site you found appears to be wrong. The 5D IV manual includes this on p. 74: "CF cards exceeing 128 GB and SDXC cards witll be formatted in exFAT" [as opposed to FAT]. I have no idea whether my card reader and computer can handle xFAT. I agree with Jochen--if I had any use for cards that big, I'd write Canon first.

Randomly distributed white spots in scans of old prints are very common. In many cases, you can see the flaws in the original photos if you look closely enough, but magnifying them on the computer screen makes them more apparent. I've been doing some restorations recently, and this is one of the major chores. One suggestion is not to get too carried away by what you see when you blow the image up. What matters is the spots you can see when you display or print at the intended size. There is a technique for removing lots of these at once without using the clone or healing brush. It doesn't always work, and you have to be prepared to tinker with it, but when it works, it saves a huge amount of tedious work. You can find the original description here: Quickly Remove Many Small Spots/Speckles Without Healing Brush or Clone Stamp - Robert Bryll (robertb). My slightly modified procedure is this: Create a duplicate of the background layer. This layer will be used solely to produce the mask Select the duplicate layer. I’ll call this min/max. Use the minimize filter to eliminate spots, setting the pixel width as small as you can. Then use the maximize filter with the same pixel setting. 1 px is often sufficient.. Set the blend mode of min/max to difference. Select the first two layers and create a composite, alt-ctrl-shift E or the mac equivalent. Label the resulting layer Mask. Clip a levels adjustment to Mask and brighten and expand the white spots. Select Mask and the levels adjustment and create another composite. Call this Mask 2. Create another copy of the background layer, label it blur, and move it to the top of the stack. Turn off everything but the background layer and Blur. Add a mask to blur, and copy Mask 2 to the mask on this layer.

No reason for an argument. No one was suggeting that you can. My points were simply that their current advertising makes it hard for regular people (including me) to see what is what and that the discontinuance of one of the few PA models is worrisome. That's all.

If only they explained the difference clearlym whgich they certainly don't, labeling the EA as "color critical" and "Spectraview II". More important, it's not clear that the PA and P series will be maintained, at least in their original variety. If you go to their main monitor page, Displays | NEC LCD Sizes 32, 40, 42, 46, 52, 55, 70, 82 | NEC MultiSync Monitor | Desktop Monitor | Widescreen Computer Monitor | Direct View LED Displays | LED Walls | LED Display Module by NEC Display, and select on "PA series" near the bottom, it takes you to a page that displays 4: 24" in black or white, 27", and 31". The 27" is the PA271Q that both you and I use. B&H list that as discontinued. Searching Adorama brings up only one used one in poor condition. It leaves me concerned that Sharp may not be intending to maintain these lines. I hope that's not the case.

Got it. But as I noted, they have made it harder to see which ones have the engine, and from all appearances, very few of their monitors now do.

Good point. They just say: and they have a Spectraview logo across the top. So perhaps they mean only compatible with Spectraview software. That would make sense, but it's not clear marketing, and it makes it all the harder to find the actual color-critical monitors. As I mentioned, I used their site to select on "color critical", and that yielded mostly EA models, but if you follow their link for "color critical", it shows only P and PA models. Those should be consistent. I hope that this doesn't signal that Sharp is gradually cutting back on the truly color critical displays. They were in my view a very good choice, and I've been entirely satisfied with mine.

Sad to say, Sharp/NEC now explicitly advertises that some EA series have the Spectraview II engine, for example, the EA241F, which covers only 73.6% of Adobe RGB. See EA241F-BK-SV, 24" Full HD Business-Class Widescreen Desktop Monitor w/ Ultra-Narrow Bezel with SpectraViewII Color Calibration Solution - Highlights & Specifications | Sharp NEC Display Solutions. That page has a link to their color-critical page, which doesn't list the EA series.

I agree that a 250 GB SSD is potentially too small. I have two computers, and the one with the most software on it has a 500 GB SSD with 217 GB used. My laptop has a 1 TB SSD but considerably less space used.

I agree, but I'd say that the learning curve for Photoshop is far steeper than for Lightroom. For example, to be very skilled in Lightroom, you don't need to learn about things like layers, blending modes, adjustment vs. pixel layers, opacity, flow, etc.

Russell, I also use the NEC PA271. However, I just did a quick search, and it looks like NEC has eliminated the PA line other than 24" and 31". The latter is very expensive. I haven't looked to see whether they have any other wide-gamut lines now, but the EA line certainly isn't that, even though it comes up on their website when you search for "color critical". I wonder if this type of product is on the way out now that Sharp has bought NEC. I hope not. Re JPDupre's post, I think the first decision is whether you are content with 100% sRGB or want something with a wide gamut. If you want just sRGB, there are lots of choices. The choices get much less numerous and more expensive if you want wide-gamut. Dan

Even if feasible, a lot of development cost for a very small market.

For Adobe's explanation of video card requirements, see this.

thanks

The time between backups in LR can be set in the "Catalog Settings" menu. You can set it to back up only once a month, although I would never do that. Even once a week, which is how I have it set up, is infrequent; I back up the rest of my files daily. In LR, once you import your photos, you don't have to do anything more with the catalog than you want. By default, it will open the most recent catalog when you start the program, although you can change that also, I believe.

Karim, I'm not familiar with those. if you have a link you could point to, I'd be interested in checking it out. The diffuser in my photo above is a common DIY type among macro photographers. Google "coke can diffuser". It gives very good results and is essentially free but has two disadvantages. One is physical: it's impossible to avoid residue from the tape used to hold it to the flash. The other is more important: it's not possible to shift it to the other side of the lens. I've done a good bit of experimenting with diffusing materials, including both stuff sold for that purpose and things around the house. The fact is that baking parchment paper does a very good job. q.d._de_bakker: I'm not going to respond to you further. It's pointless. It's clear that your goal is a chance to argue and gratuitously insult people. No reason to reinforce that behavior. You're welcome to the last word.

Indeed. I said that in posts 7 and 15. Read more, argue less.

No, the advantage is more pixels on the subject. Perhaps you could post some examples taken with a larger format to illustrate your point. I'm done.

I should have been clearer: I was referring to field macro, chasing bugs, which I assumed Karim was talking about. Studio macro, which I do also, is an entirely different issue, and I use a larger sensor for that much of the time. I have followed quite a number of superb bug chasing macro photographers, and I haven't encountered any who use more than FF. Another issue in chasing bugs is physical: once you add a diffused flash, the rig is both heavy and awkward. For example: When you combine this with the fact that minute errors in placement will ruing a shot, it's very hard to manage this even with the weight of an APS-C camera. This is one reason why I chase bugs with a 100mm macro rather than a longer macro lens. BTW, the common use of diffused flash is another reason why dense sensors are fine: the lighting is bright. I do mine with ISO between 100 and 400, and I only go to 400 if I need to brighten the background. Assuming you aren't reversing the lens, I know of only two ways to increase the magnification of the capture beyond what the lens provides and MFD: extensions and close up lenses. If you read post 7, you'll see that all of those photos were taken with 36mm of extension. If you know of something else, be specific. The primary practical limit to extension in field macro is the photographer. The more extension, the dimmer the view and the narrower the DOF, so the more difficult it is to achieve focus. 36mm is the most I can usually manage unless the bug is chilled or dead. In studio macro it's a whole other ball game: the camera is stably situated on a tripod, and the photographer has complete control over lighting. That's why use a larger sensor in studio work. So, getting back to practicalities: Karim, it is absolutely clear that going as small as APS-C allows for very good macro photographs; I think the more or less random assortment of photos I posted show that. And depending on pixel density, a smaller sensor gives you the advantage over many larger-sensor cameras of more pixels on the subject. As a practical matter, I can't say anything about MFT, as my MFT camera is fairly low-end and isn't MILC, so I haven't used it for this purpose.