Hi niblue,

Hence the . I did try to lighten it up a bit, but it then looked too washed out. Matt kept the contrast level up and it works.. of course. I'm still playing with post processing.

I'll try that.. to be honest, it never occurred to me to use flash. A point in favour of the expert intervention for the theme idea..

Seriously though, that's exactly the sort of input that I feel certain would be provided by those in the know. I'm a long time photographer [sic] but not a particularly successful one. Of course some of you earn your living with this, so I wouldn't necessarily expect every trade secret to be proffered to us happy snappers.. that's why you've put in the years of graft. I do know though that with the same equipment provided in an identical setting, whereas I could (should) come away with a reasonable piccy that I'm happy(ish) with, the pro will produce an image that just jumps off the screen. There may be not that much difference in technique, but there is the bit that counts.

Matt,

regarding file size, if it was kept to say 600x400 *.jpg the images would be around the 50-80kb mark. That should keep the speed up, even for dialup.. in theory at least.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Matt,

that's better..

The theme thing was really just an idea as this group tends to be a small and friendly gathering of like minded Pentax enthusiasts. Keeping it in-house, seemed to be a natural way to go.

I'll check out the link after Casualty..

Still never mind..

Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

a few things, so you may want to grab a cuppa..

Firstly, the theme last week seemed to revolve around closeups of a pencil tip, and this week it's looking like British waterbirds.. so I thought I'd go to my local lake yesterday.. Dinton Pastures; near Reading in Berkshire. I took a couple of hundred photos and this one seemd to be one of the better ones, although, for once I only had a dozen or so complete failures..




1/90th sec @ f9.5 ISO 400; Pentax SMC-A 100-300mm @ 155mm (232mm Equiv) saved as *.JPG




1/90th sec @ f9.5 ISO 400; Pentax SMC-A 100-300mm @ 155mm (232mm Equiv) saved as *.PNG

A few things as I mentioned. You'll notice that I've posted it as both a JPG and a PNG, as there was some discussion about which was better for web presentation. I prefer, and have always used PNG.. rightly or wrongly, and at 600x400 I think that the PNG version packs a little more punch, but it could be just me wanting it to be that way. If I knew I was catering to largely a dialup audience for a website though, then I 'd certainly consider JPGs due to the smaller file size, around an 1/8th in this case.

The next thing I thought about was themes, as mentioned above. Perhaps Matt or John, as the governers; could nominate a theme each week, taking into account the demographics of the board (I think finding a black cab in Manitoba could be difficult ) that whoever chooses to can go out and photograph, and present to the board for advice critique etc.

The experts, of which there are many here can give us snappers a few tips on how to improve the shot, processing (both wet and digital) and any other tips that could make us into better photographers..

It's what is done anyway, but this way would possibly organise it in a more formal manner..

Just a thought or three..

Cheers

Liam

Stunning shot Fernando..

Cheers

Liam

It came in handy yesterday Mat,

We paid a visit to the Black Mountains for a photo shoot (I make that sound too grand with regards to my photography, but you get the idea.. )

There was six inches of snow on the higher ground, and I was trying to get some nice shots of buzzards, or whatever particular brand of bird of prey turned up.. and I grabbed this one of a crow, well, it's a bird anyway..




.. it flew past me about 15 feet away, as I'd just finished the obligatory tourist photo of Mrs L. It's not going to win any prizes.. no really.. but as a grab shot I quite like it, which wouldn't have happened had it focussed first.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

I don't know how many of you are aware of this, but on the DL, and I'm assuming all the *ist D range, you can change the autofocus control from the shutter release button to the OK button on the rear control dial. I found this out a few days ago, and it helps a great deal when focussing on flying birds for instance, or I guess when shooting track days, where the point of focus is going to be the same for a few shots at a time.

If you go into the Menu settings, and go to Custom Menu settings, scroll to the second page and look for "OK button when shooting" and set it to option 3. Now you can set the autofocus using the OK button, which saves the lens hunting in and out to infinity for each shot when using the shutter release button; especially useful if you want to take shots in quick succession.

You probably knew this anyway, but just in case..

Hope that helps..

Cheers

Liam

Hi Ammonyte,

nice photos.. I like #12. The lack of sharpness could be due to using ISO 3200. I'm going to have to look it up, but I think that digitals must somehow use less pixels to increase the ISO rating and therefore decrease exposure time. In which case, you are using 1/32 of the available pixels in the sensor (my brain is hurting now, so correction/conformation is welcome) and therefore will sacrifice a lot of sharpness in the process, but eitherway, they're nice, especially the way you've managed to capture the invisible (to the naked eye) part of the moon, and getting the eclipse like halo effect with the visible.

Cheers

Liam

Post a link when you do, and I may even do the same.. depending on the results of course..

Cheers

Liam

Nope, I must have deleted it in camera.. oh well, I'll give it a go tomorrow and show you what I can get,

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

I've never used one, and would hardly be qualified to comment on anything really..

but if you have a longish prime, say a 300, then that equates to a FOV of a 450 35mm lens. Stick either one or two 2x converters on it and you have either a 900 or 1800 lens. I think you lose two stops with each???? That would turn my 300 f5.6 into a 900 f11 or an 1800 f22.

As you can open up the aperture to focus and then close down manually once set, you don't get the initial dimness in the view finder; and for instance, even though not ideal, my Vivitar 2x is going to be probably far better optically when coupled with my 300 than a cheaply made 900.

Of course I'm probably wrong, but if you have a long prime to start with, you're only looking at a fiver each for the 2x converters. I did try this just after I got my DL, and somewhere on this machine is a shot of a roof top. I'll try and find it and post it up..

Cheers

Liam