chrismitchell

"Why?" I was learnig how my new camera works. I found a button that said "Diffraction compensation." I wanted to find out how it works. "over the weekend you want to take pictures using the flash outdoors, when exactly " "WIthout the flash either cloud or shade will work. " I guess I did not explain myself. I want to take portraits in the mountains, 6515.75 feet ·above sea level. The kind of a village where 70% of old people dont speak Spanish or English. A place where it is common to see people walking around with a bundle of sticks tied to their back. When was the last time you saw women weaving their own fabric to make their shirt. No bus up the hill today. Must be a religous holiday of some sort. Tomorrow I will try again. The last bus back is at 4pm. Why does it matter, " when exactly "? Do you think I am only going to use the flash at 3pm for the next ten years or something? I am attempting to figure out how to take a better portrait.

Z5 Nikon. 25 - 200 f4 - 6.3 "Go and practice . . . " That is what I did last night. I set a globe on the floor about 15 feet from the camera. First I took Shoots at about every other aperature setting with Diffraction compensation on and also off. I was surprised that f20 gave the best picture. f36 was not very clear, f32 just a tad better. I zoomed in all the way and focused on Lima Peru, (on the globe.) Miami was only completly clear at f20. Does that count as practice? Z5 was in manual focus and I used a remote. I also took so many flash photos that I might find out how much imported batteries cost. Reflected was not the best. I first tried a white plastic bag, then a stainless bowl then the plastic bag in the bowl. Flash pointed straight ahead worked better. The bath room light was on but not the room light. 2 and 3 second exposure at f13. I think I will try Diffraction compensation out side this afternoon. Maybe f36 will work better on on the hills, instead of a globe.

Over the weekend I want to take photos of people with a Nikon SB-600 flash. WIthout the flash either cloud or shade will work. As luck would have it, all of a sudden I have a flash. I paid q40 to get it. $5.11 = 40 Quatzales. People send their trucks to Guatemala to buy fabric or bananas or tomatoes. Rather than send their truck down here empty they sometimes fill it with pallets from the Good Will store. Pallets of things that were never sold, like my SB-600. The battery door was temperamental. the flash did not want to flash. Until I cleaned the little metal strip that conects the batteries when the door is closed. I fixed it. I have never had a big flash before. If I gues right? Should I point the lash behind the camera and try to reflect the flash back onto people with a pillow case or something?

Maybe a few people will give me ideas on things to read about taking better portraits. Street photography, not studio.

I found some help. https://nps.nikonimaging.com/technical_solutions/z7_z6_tips/sharpening_and_softening/ If anybody has ideas for portrait photos, best settings, share them.

The Z5 picture control has a quick adjust drop down menue. Under portrait, one of the choices is smoothing. Perhaps someone will help me guess the best setting. I am in Guatemala, up above 6,000 feet. I rarely take pictures of people. I could use some advice on how to take better pictures of Mayan children, and grandmothers. This is the dry season. Most photos will be in the shade, no flash. There are a few places in the Americas where 70% of old people do not speak spanish. 7 out of 12 school age children speak only thier native language. I had a school teacher who speaks Spanish, English and the local language asking for that info.

The Z5 picture control has a quick adjust drop down menue. Under portrait, one of the choices is smoothing. Perhaps someone will help me guess the best setting. I am in Guatemala, up above 6,000 feet. I rarely take pictures of people. I could use some advice on how to take better pictures of Mayan children, and grandmothers. This is the dry season. Most photos will be in the shade, no flash. There are a few places in the Americas where 70% of old people do not speak spanish. 7 out of 12 school age children speak only thier native language. I had a school teacher who speaks Spanish, English and the local language asking for that info.

Homemade Wanderlust my how times have changed.

sequator. starstax. anyone tried this one?

"YouTube channel called Homemade Wanderlust" I Can carry ten days worth of food in a bear can. Most of my hiking is in the Pacific northwest. Also Yellowstone I took a Four day bicycle trip in the mountains of Baja around the dark of the moon last month. If you look at a moon rise chart, you might notice that towards the end of this month there will be many opportunities to shoot star photos. Maybe traveling by bicycle in Baja California Sur. About a weeks worth. Some birds showed me where there is a fresh water spring about 50 miles south of Bahia de Los Angeles. (Hows that for dark skies?) The gents above are saying that a tablet isn't good enough.

Looks like he used sequator for the stars and light room for the car in the first video.

* Sorry for Mac/Linux users, Sequator only supports Windows currently. Linux users may try to run via wine+ vcrun2015." Thanks Joe. Must have been one of his other videos where he demonstrated light room.

In camera I can combine 10 photos. Z5. Now that I finally have a FX I am trying to follow my obsession. Photos with star trails. Like the video I posted above. Raw files are 6014 x 4014. The video says it's better to combine a lot of short shorts instead of one long shot. Ten 600 second shots combined in camera leave room for improvement. A few dozen to hundreds of raw shots. It's new. I don't have an exact answer. I did find a moon rise chart. There will many opportunities later in December to practice.

I need to stress the hiking part. It can only be so big. I don't know the stats for computers . If you pay more it's faster. Clearly I have no expertise on the subject. Can something smaller and more affordable get the job done? Something les desirable to thieves if I travel in central America?

M2 chip MacBook Air From $1199 is there a more affordable option?

Does it have to be an ipad? Computer wizard I am not. I took couple of Photoshop classes twenty years ago. so I could probably get by with tutorials. As far as cloud storage, I don't trust it. I only want to combine photos, then save the finished product on my own card. "Light Pollution Map - DarkSiteFinder.com" https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html#7/23.483/-109.764 If the dark skies map shows up, you will see why I said offline.

A portable device for people that travel a lot? In this video, he goes home and combines photos in light room. But what about people who traveling in isolated areas with no wifi connection? Is there a tablet, something portable that could be used to combine it few hundred star photos into one photo with star trails. Is light room online only? I'm looking for offline. If I was shooting half the night, and needed to recharge my batteries with a solar panel during the day. I would need something to do all day. Work on the previous nights photos perhaps. I do a lot of hiking in the Backcountry. On a dark and moonless night, I might like to sit in the same place for a few days.

This is Interesting. My first couple of tries aren't the best. I finally have a camera that works for night shooting. https://youtu.be/A-4suqRMdO0

"educated speculation." No more questions about the teleconverter. I have 10,000 questions about my shiny new z5. Dark skies and interval shooting are near the top of my list.

This is an outstanding answer. So clear that I have no questions. If you know all that, might you answer another question? Is Nikon coming out with an 85mm f\1.4 lens? Have you any guess as to when and how much it might cost? Other than an 800mm lens that I can't afford, 85mm f-1.4 sounds like the best most desirable lens.

I didn't see that, thanks. Nikon only lists four lenses on their compatibility page. Why would it be compatible with a 600mm f/4. Built-in 1.4x teleconverter lens? Interesting. At $15,000 I don't expect to find out why?

"could not compare to Z 2X.." new and improved.

My 24-200/4-6.3 might work well with the z 2x converter? Honestly, I didn't fully understand all of this on the first read. I will be reading all of this a second and third time. I spent the last two nights out in the dark skies of the Baja desert. Attempting to learn how to take star trail photos in camera. Z5 can combine ten photos in camera. I bought a 14mm manual focus Rokinon for that purpose. Last night it was in the thirties before moon set. My current plan is for the next two or three years to buy one or two high quality s line lenses. When Nikon comes out with their 60 megapixel camera I will spend the money to get a good camera. Hopefully they will have a model for people who really don't care about video, but want to take the best still photos they can. Well anyway, next August, when I go to Yellowstone park, I will want either a 2x converter or a longer lens. Hopefully some people who actually have the z 2x will pipe in.

Mayan people want you to ask for permission before you take their photo. Semana Santa, the week before Easter might be a very interesting time to go to Guatemala. You won't be able to get a room in Antigua. I think the capital has more interesting parades than Antigua. One evening after a heavy rain I was taking photos of the reflection of the presidential palace in pools of water in the cobel stones. 8pm ish. A scruffy drug attic looked like he was getting ready to steal my camera. A plain clothes police man jumped out of the bushes and beat him up.

He didn't say where in Latin America he was going. You have to take the crime rate into consideration when traveling. In Barranquilla Colombia I had a group of young men try to steal my rx100v out my hands. I still have it, but I got a few bruises while holding onto it with both hands. If I return to Medellin, I'm not going to take my z5. I will take my older Rx100v.