Hi Andrew,

A couple of pointers on your mtb-guiding website, hope you don't mind.

First, there's no mention of where you are (unless I missed it), so people wouldn't necessarily know what region you guide in.

Secondly, the links on the right hand side open up within that tiny frame, so are, to be honest, useless. They need to be pointing to 'parent', at the end of each link, so they should have target="_parent" after each hyperlink, but still within the brackets. Then, they will change the whole page, not just the frame.

If that doesn't make sense, just say!

Off to have a look at your other site now.

Dan

Yep, we had some snow, and as Gwyn said, everything ground to a halt. Schools shut because presumably it's too much of a problem to get there (in the 4x4 ).

Doesn't stop them all getting to the park though, and spoiling my attempt at getting some scenic shots!

4 years ago, I went to the same park in January when we had snow, and practically had the place to myself - saw 4 other people in the 6 hours I was there. Today, couldn't even get in the carpark, absolutely heaving with people (kids and parents).

No chance of a shot like this today.




Dan

P.S. Actually curbed my rant somewhat here too, in the car on the way home it had got somewhat more convoluted and wide-ranging.

Thank you Spidey! That was six images I think, have done them up to 13 or 14 - one ended up over 18,000 pixels long (5 foot long at 300ppi ).

Dan

I think Ialex has misunderstood the term 'panning'. He's reading it as panoramic, and specifically stitching several images together to make a wide one, like this:




Hence "...arranged to horizon by bubble on tripod. In this case the result is good and compilation process is easy".


Ialex, the discussion relates to the technique 'panning', which is when you follow a moving subject, for example a flying bird, so you try to keep the subject (bird) sharp, but blur the background.

Hope that helps,
Dan

Now the cynic's coming out in me - just looking at the ephotozine page, and the example shot there, and while I've no doubt they used one of these ringflash devices for that shot, they also used another lightsource left of camera (no shadows on left hand side of model - hips and outside edge of arm).

It just makes me think 'why?'. Just show us a straight sample, and we can make our minds up, fiddle with the lighting, and I immediately think something's up...

Of course, if the lens wasn't centralised in the ring, then that might have the same effect.

Dan

Hmmm, I'd be a bit dubious as at least some of the 'example' photos they show haven't been taken with this ring-light - look at the shadows on the M&Ms, and frog, and I think the flower - just not right for a ringlight. Teeth might have been, but I'm not sure.

3000K seems awfully 'warm' to me for LED's too, but I may well stand corrected on that one.

And when they say "shooting distance of up to approximately 2.5cm ( 1.0 in. )", do they mean "as close as", or "not further than"?

Might be fine, but I can be a bit of a pessimist sometimes.

Dan

I recently did some product shots for a customer, using my studio flash and aperture of f/16, with a white background. Should have given the sensor a quick blow first and saved myself having to clone out numerous spots and a line (a small fibre) from every shot. Stupidly I packed everything away before I processed the shots, so didn't notice until too late - probably would have been as quick to reshoot them all.

I'd been happily using the camera the day before, and there's virtually no sign of the dust of these, as most were taken with an aperture of F/4 to F/8 with a mixed background.

Don - you crack me up!

Dan

When I was using film, 'available light' was all I used - hated flash. But now I can see the results instantly, I'm much more flash friendly.

It does depend on the subject though, and I do usually use a diffuser with my flashgun. I don't like the harsh flash you can get, but if it looks natural, then I'm all for it. Macro is the time I use flash most, but often it's to fill in shadows, rather than light the whole subject.

I'm very happy with the look of this one (I know I've posted it before, I promise I won't again):




Dan

Hi Graham,

I don't think the lens this guy was using was a mirror lens, can't see that it says so - he just calls it an "Mint/Used Manual Focus 500mm/1000mm Prime Lense (Came with 2x Doubler)". The moon pic, and the clock ones look quite good on screen, but obviously we're looking at much reduced resolutions, and things always look sharper when they've been downsized.

The American Robin doesn't look so good in my opinion (the glowing, multicoloured background is a little off-putting for me, and there's colour fringing round the top of the birds head - thought it might have been taken at 800ISO too, but just checked the EXIF and it's 100). However, for $56 incl delivery, I guess it's not bad!

I would say that it's a good way to find out whether you want to invest in a better lens - if you take lots of pictures that you wish looked better, then upgrade, if not, you haven't wasted your money on a good lens.

Dan

Hi Viewfinder,

I'm interested to know what you consider these to be.

Cheers,
Dan