pete_su

I checked the web site, its the Slik Compact 450.

 

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Goes up to 840mm = 84cm = a bit more than 3ft.

 

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Weighs 490g.

 

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They have a couple of other models too. Check

<A href="http://www.slik.com/lwse.html">here</a>.

The Slik talking about is NOT the 444. I don't remember the exact model number, and was just typing randomly.

 

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It might not reach 4ft, but it does reach 3ft, I'm pretty sure. You can use it on your knees fairly easily. :)

oh. the thing weighs about a pound.

I bought a Slik Compact 440 something or other for $30 in DC.

 

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It goes up to about 4ft high, has a 2 way pan head that sucks. Its hard to tighten down, a pain to point, generally plastic in construction, and probably pretty sucky.

 

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But, I look 1/2 to 4sec exposures with it with my Nikon 8008s, the Nikon 75-150 zoom lens (maybe 3-4lbs total weight), with the camera pointing down at plants, and the slides are tack sharp.

 

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For various reasons, its almost as easy for me to carry a Bogen 3001 around, so I do that a bit more these days, esp. for the ball head. But, the Slik works.

 

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Pete

IMHO, the answer to the question "do you need a tripod to take good pictures" is one of these issues of style and compromise. It is certainly *possible* to take great, sharp, landscape photos, in low light, at small apetures and long shutter speeds without a tripod. It just takes a lot of practice.

My feeling about this is split into two areas:

 

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1) As far as artistic images are concerned, it doesn't seem to me that digital images are any less compelling as "art" than current high art photography, painting, or any of the other visual media that artists can work in. The fact that a great image was created in Photoshop on a PC shouldn't make it any less a work of art than if was created in the darkroom or created on a canvas. Certainly modern painting often deals with images that "don't occur in reality" with no great loss to their artistic value (arguably). This is more of a general comment about all visual images, not just nature images.

 

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2) On the other hand, for *editorial* content, or in situations when claims are being made about documenting "facts", digital composites that look like actual photographs are very dangerous if misrepresented.

 

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I'm not sure why the existence of composited images should make the act of creating real life ones any less joyous. Some people like to create and look at manipulated images, others do not. Art in general, and Photography in particular is the act of trying to translate an image you have in your head onto some phyiscal medium. The great nature photographers love to visualize the image, and then go find it in nature. Other photographers find their images in other ways. I can't escape the unsatisfying conclusion that either style of working can produce images that are just as compelling, and artistic.

 

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Oh, and finally, digital imaging software is NOT easy to use, and good graphic design skills are not easy to come by. Both are much less easy than the average SLR camera in fact. So I seriously doubt that the average shutterbug can fire up Photoshop and composite together something that would take Galen Rowell a lifetime to find. Said shutterbug would need the talents of both a computer software type and a good background in art and painting, I would think.

I don't, and probably don't plan to ever submit pictures to anyone for money...

 

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I stuff all my slides into slide files, and there are enough marginal or just plain bad pictures to throw away enough to make each roll fit into one page. I keep track of the pages in a simple database.

 

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Since I don't like to have mutiple rolls on a slide page, I generally fill out some of the space with marginal shots, snapshots that aren't all that good but important (I do mostly travel photos right now) or things that might teach me something later. But, I mark all the best ones, and write the roll number on the slide mount. This way, I can pick them out to get a photoCD made or something, and then get them back into the right slide page.

 

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The throways go into a big ziplock, so I can look at them later in case I want to change my mind. This hasn't happened yet.

 

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I suppose eventually I'll stop doing the one-page-per-roll thing. Sometimes one or two pages per set of rolls is really enough.

The problem with most point and shoot lenses that go out to 85 or 90 is that by the time they get there you are at something f8 or worse.

 

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I don't think you can make a fast-ish 80mm lens and fit it into a tiny point and shoot.

 

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I bet a Canon Rebel G or the Pentax ZX-whatever with the and 85mm lens would be pretty small and light. Alternatively, an Olympus OM-1 with the Oly 85 or 100mm lens is pretty tiny too. A bit heavy though.

I like the two Galen Rowell books mentioned.

 

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I have also got John Shaw's Landscape and Closeups books.

 

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I find that these books are also very instructive for general photography, not just nature work. I don't even do a lot of nature work, but the books have helped a lot.

I've sat my camera on my camera bag, and used it as sort of a bean bag. It worked OK for wide angles but not so well with my 75-150 zoom.

 

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I've also used a 3-legged EMS portable stool that we were carrying along on vacation to make 8 second time exposures with the camera on the bag and the bag on the stool. This worked very well, but is hard to set up.

 

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I think the question of whether or not to use a tripod is often one of finding the right compromise, what Rowell calls the "limiting factor technique." It also depends a lot on your shooting style. I know for certain kinds of pictures (macro) you absolutely need to use one, but a lot of the time I find its easier to handhold and experiment with different looks if you can get away with it. Most of my photography has been related to travel... and I just can't carry a tripod while on trips. I got nice pictures anyway. Like most things in photography, there are no rules, only guidelines.

1. I have no vested interest in digital imaging. I don't even know how to use Photoshop for anything more than simple scans.

 

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2. The claim that "nature photographs must be 'natural'" seems to me to based on the flawed notion that photographs objectively record "reality" (the implication being that digital images are somehow "fake"), when in fact this has never and will never be the case.

 

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In the public's eye, Ansel Adam's photos were some of the most "natural" ever... and yet they were in fact heavily manipulated using filtering and darkroom techniques. Does this make Adams a charlatan?

 

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Find me a "natural" photo, and I'll be more willing to agree with your point of view.

 

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3. So, this gets back to my original question, what is the difference betweem using an ND grad filter, and using Photoshop to get *exactly* the same effect?

I thought about things a bit more... and to veer off topic even more...it also seems to me that we are walking a pretty thin line when talking about

 

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"wild setting" vs. "man made setting"

"real" vs. "manipulated" or "fake"

 

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and so on. I have a hard time with people who try to convince me that there is much difference between the "natural world" and the "man made world". Is not man part of nature?

 

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Also, no photograph is an objective portrayal "reality"... fancy post processing should be marked off as such, but I don't think we should delude ourselves into believing that we are recording the "real world"... what goes onto the film is a particular interpretation of the world at a particular time. Not more, not less.

The discussion seems have veered away from my intended question (no surprise).

 

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I don't think anyone disagrees that passing off heavily edited or retouched images as "real" somewhat less than noble.

 

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My question was more along the lines of: if I digitally compose two photos of the same scene in order to more realistically portray the scene, is like using a filter, or is this like grafting Opra's head onto Kim Bassinger's legs?

 

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I was also curious as to exactly how practical such a thing would be using today's technology, and if the result would be comparable (in quality, and in time, and energy required) to taking the same photo with a filter).

I was riding my bike yesterday, and feeling really bad, so to get my mind off of what lousy shape I'm in, I had a few idle thoughts about pictures.

 

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It occured to me that it would be pretty easy to use Photoshop in situations where one might use a ND Grad filter... take two exposures, one for shadow and one for highlights and compose them digitally.

 

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I then wondered how the "ethics in nature photography" types (e.g. Galen Rowell) would react to this sort of manipulation.

 

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Has anyone actually tried to do this? Can it work well?