Digital Photography

[Zero260]

Here are the rest of those photos from ALMS.

Also, how do you make a clickable thumbnail from Photobucket?

Edit: Never mind, I think I found it.

HaZ, those train photos are amazing. And the 9 photos stitched together looks great, but I'm confused on how it's NINE photos.

[xHaZxMaTx]

HaZ, those train photos are amazing. And the 9 photos stitched together looks great, but I'm confused on how it's NINE photos.

Thanks, though what's confusing about it?

Anyway, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, before (I remember Stereo saying he was an old film camera lens in addition to his DSLR lens to create a super-macro lens), but if you remove the lens (the lower the mm-zoom, the better, I've noticed), and turn it around, you can get a super-macro lens. Like, ridiculously close. I'll get a pic up, soon - just gotta charge mah batteries. Those long exposures are murder. x.x

Edit:
Full-res to show that the image wasn't cropped, at all. That's an extremely close up shot of my laptop screen.

[boganbusman]

Jeez, wipe your screen or something

[xHaZxMaTx]

Those dirt specks and pits are pretty much invisible to the naked eye, being smaller than a single pixel, and all.

Also, while being able to focus so closely, you get a very shallow depth-of-field. It's so shallow, in fact, that in that photo, you can see that when the actual pixels are in focus, the plastic screen and all it's imperfections are not, and vice-versa.

[Stereo]

My friend went skating today and I took some pics. 18mm ftw!



The weather wasn't ideal but I could get 1/500 or 1/350 nicely enough. I could have set my ISO to 400 instead of 200, though.

[xHaZxMaTx]

This was about an hour's worth of work, including setting up, exposure time, manual stitching, etc.
(Photoshop CS's photomerge fails, by the way.)

Nice shots, Stereo. I like the wide-angle of the first shot and the action of the second. If you go to take more photos like that, you should bring along your tripod. Set your camera up on the tripod and take a succession of photos of the same scene with a skateboarder moving through the field of vision, then combine them all into one photo. Not exactly uncommon in 'street' sport photoshoots, but a cool effect, nonetheless.

Edit:
Rightio, went back, tonight, and spent a helluva lot more time making sure my tripod was steady and panning straight and that each photo to be stitched came out as clear and sharp as possible. With a little bit of cropping (and removing lens flares), this is the result:



It's straight and vertically symmetrical, now, and at full-resolution at 300 PPI, I can print this at 5x1 feet.

[Stereo]

What focal length did you use?

[xHaZxMaTx]

Used my 18-55mm lens zoomed to 55mm. Eight stitched 30" exposures at f/10, ISO 100 with no noise reduction.

[xHaZxMaTx]

So I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and say either I did something incredibly stupid and obvious that I didn't catch, or I've rendered you all speechless with my amazing photo-taking skillz, yo.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Hmm... Triple-post.

Canon has a 18-200mm 3.5/5.6L (average speed) lens with optical image stabilization for $650. Looks pretty promising - being Canon, I can expect decent quality - and I'm debating on whether I should get that or spend more than twice that on the 200-400mm lens.

[xHaZxMaTx]

[t3ice]

Sorry to interrupt ur post-spree..but what exactly is that?...a light from plane or something?

[xHaZxMaTx]

Check the file name in the URL.

[t3ice]

:O.....NiCE!!....luv how its perfectly centered

[xHaZxMaTx]

It's actually three photos stitched together and cropped in Photoshop, so centering wasn't really an issue.

[GT3x24x7]

Canon has a 18-200mm 3.5/5.6L (average speed) lens with optical image stabilization for $650. Looks pretty promising - being Canon, I can expect decent quality - and I'm debating on whether I should get that or spend more than twice that on the 200-400mm lens.

Those two lenses are for completely different purposes. You need them both if you're serious. If it's a choice of which to get now, the 18-200 is the more general purpose of the two and the natural first buy. Definitely need a tele after that and something out to 400mm will serve you very well for all but the longest work. Make sure to get IS on longer lenses to minimise camera shake.

In the end it's easy to choose lenses by focal length, but lens (glass) quality is what really counts, and that's where the real costs creep in. Spend as much as you can afford or expect to upgrade often.

[xHaZxMaTx]

I already have an 18-55mm lens and a 55-250mm lens, so the only real reason to buy the 18-200mm lens would be for convenience. I've heard that zoom lenses with a greater zoom range than ~5x aren't usually worth the money as the the quality isn't so great, but from what I've read, the 18-200mm's quality is surprisingly good for an 11x zoom lens. However, the 100-400mm (not 200-400mm, as previously indicated ) is a Canon L-Series lens, which is, like, teh shiznit and definitely worth the money. The answer seems pretty obvious, now.

[GT3x24x7]

The answer seems pretty obvious, now.

L-Series FTMFW

[xHaZxMaTx]

Well poo, I just saw that Canon has a 28-300mm (~10x) f/3.5-5.6 lens that is also an L-Series. So that's, like, the best of both worlds. It's a tad more expensive than the 100-400mm lens ($1,400 vs. $2,100). I'll be having to save up for a while for that...

Research, ho!

[GT3x24x7]

You'd still find the 400mm far more useful coz you can just get closer with it. Plus you already have the lower end well covered.

I have a Canon 75-300 btw and while it's a decent lens, mostly I just wish it was longer.

[xHaZxMaTx]

...I just wish it was longer.

That's what she said. :U

*Cough.* Anywho, I realise the extra 100mm would be a very nice plus, but the 28-300mm has convenience and quality in one package. Though I'm still doing research and, as I said, I'll be having to save up for quite a while before I can afford either of these, so I have plenty of time to mull it over.

[GT3x24x7]

Be my guest, mull away. My $0.02 is spent.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Being able to get this and this with the same lens... There are so many instances where such a wide focal length could be useful.

Edit:
On the other hand, looking at comparisons of ISO12233 crops between the 28-300mm and the 100-400mm, the latter is considerably sharper, has better contrast and has less chromatic aberration throughout the focal range and despite the 28-300mm lens being as fast as f/3.5 in the wide end, the 100-400mm is actually faster throughout the two lens' common focal ranges (except at 300mm, where each lens is f/5.6). There also appears to be generally less distortion throughout the focal range.

So the 100-400mm is cheaper, faster and has better overall quality and, though it lacks the focal range of the 28-300mm, it has a longer focal length. Leaning towards the 100-400mm...

[GT3x24x7]

Yup, focal range = compromise. It's no surprise then that in general the best quality lenses are 'prime', having no focal length adjustment at all.

Lens 'speed' as you put it should be less of a consideration - technologies like IS, camera mounts such as tripods, even a steady hand and controlled breathing can overcome this perceived limitation.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Lens 'speed' as you put it should be less of a consideration - technologies like IS, camera mounts such as tripods, even a steady hand and controlled breathing can overcome this perceived limitation.

Eh, true, but it's always nice to have a faster lens, just in case. A faster lens lets you use a quicker shutter speed without raising the ISO.

As for fixed focal length lenses, I've never even really considered getting one. They just seem so constricting, but I suppose if you get the right set of fixed-length lenses, you can just crop, though I've never really been a fan of cropping, either.