The Photography Thread

[MartyG]

Again, this was what I loved about my Exilim; hitting left/right on the directional ring adjusted the exposure compensation without having to go into a menu, and the EX button brought up a quick menu with Size, ISO, White Balance and AF Area (and if you left it on custom WB, all you had to do was press EX then shutter to set a new one) it was by far the quickest compact I've used in terms of responsiveness, and menu design

You can assign the Exilim a function of your chosing on the left/right cursor keys, at least you can on my Z-850, I also have it set to EV compensation, but you can choose white balance, iso, metering or self-timer speed.

It's a great little camera, really solidly built and oozes quality; I have a case with a belt hook on it, so I can take it everywhere with me, but I wouldn't want it in place of my D-SLR, more a compliment to it.

[Gareth C]

The Panasonic LX2 seems a superb little camera, full manual shooting, widescreen CCD, 28mm equivalent stabilised lens etc. but sadly rubbish ISO performance and an over the top noise reduction system. Rather than try and fix the noise problems with the LX1, they instead made it a whole lot worse and whacked in two more megapixels then forced a smeary noise reduction system on.

I picked up a second hand LX1 recently (and my other half has the Leica version) and they are great cameras. The much talked about noise issue isn't a big deal at all. I shoot Raw with it sometimes and the results are amazing. Even now I would recommend a second hand LX1 over just about any other compact out there.

[JohnMcL7]

I'm looking for a camera specifically for low light scenes such as pubs and so forth, the noise on the Panasonics is very much an issue there especially when there's cameras like the F30 out there. If I was looking for an all round camera I'd probably go with one of the LX's but it's just not for me.

John

[andrewfee]

It's a great little camera, really solidly built and oozes quality; I have a case with a belt hook on it, so I can take it everywhere with me, but I wouldn't want it in place of my D-SLR, more a compliment to it.

Oh, the Exilim is nowhere near a replacement for an SLR, I'm just pointing out that it's probably the quickest and best thought-out P&S in terms of menu design / functions / button layout.

The F20/30/31 are the only P&S cameras I'd recommend to anyone these days, despite lacking some pretty important features, purely because the sensor in them is so damn good. I hear the F20 is only ?99 at Argos now which is a bargain, though it's a very stripped down version of the F30. (It is only point and shoot or video, there's no manual control etc)

[Alastair]

Boring, who wants more pics!!

Had a day out today where I was glad of the 300mm









Was also next to a guy who had the 300mm IS L on a 30D, I was so jealous.

[MartyG]

Oh, the Exilim is nowhere near a replacement for an SLR, I'm just pointing out that it's probably the quickest and best thought-out P&S in terms of menu design / functions / button layout.

Yup absolutely - I wasn't quoting you to say it was a replacement ( was the function bit I was quoting ). I personally wouldn't want to do without either

P&S cameras are great, anyone who says otherwise is a SLR snob tbh

[Ginger Tosser]

Photo Organisation, how do you do yours?

For a long time i just used to use a combination of Adobe Bridge and Directories. But for the last few months i've been testing out Adobe Lightroom. It's mainly an organsiation tool, but it has some basic editting built in (spot removal, colour correction and cropping). Also as part of the develop/editting feature it includes the ability to adjust curves.

It's just been released and is available for a 30 day trial from Adobe (Retail at amazon is around £130 - but personally if you've got several thousand images the ability to search via metadata is worthwhile).

Agreed Marty et al, point and shoot are great! Some people get it into their head that the more expensive a camera is the better the shot. It's easy to take crap pictures with anything. Great pictures require skill and any camera can take them.

Cracking shots Alastair, my nature seems have disappeared lately. Must try harder. (oh btw the 300mm F4 IS for £690 - US import from a bloke in Scotland if your interested! He's an ebay seller, but does a lot of business outside ebay which is a bit cheaper. I got about £30 off my 15mm Fisheye by dealing direct. He's very well respected on the Eos forums. I'll be ordering a 300mm off him soon. He ships from the US to his sister in scotland so no import duty to pay)

Btw, Focus at the NEC tomorrow! Might see some of you there!

[Alastair]

Thanks GT, Kerso right? Too expensive for me

Say hello to my Dad if you see him, tallish balding Scots man almost undoubtedly wearing golfing gear!!

Photos are organised in Picassa really, I used to use it loads but now have gone to a structured folder system really.

[Ginger Tosser]

Aye, Kerso. I'll keep an eye out for baldies!

[MartyG]

Photo Organisation, how do you do yours?

I use Picassa, archive every shot I make to DVD-R when I have enough, and upload the best to flickr and the not so best but stuff I'd like to share to picassa web albums.

[Ginger Tosser]

Watching them watching us



TNT 737 - Slowly being scrapped



8 Months Earlier!

[Richard.John]

I have a a question about polarisers and filters in general. Firstly, I want to buy a circular polariser for my 17-40, but, from what I have read, as it's considered a wide angle I need a slim type to avoid banding. Is this true? Also, I am interested to know if you guys use protective filters on your lenses?

I use Canon ones on mine as, to me, my lenses are like my babies. I consider them too expensive to risk damage by clunking them against a lampost,etc. Some claim that filters degrade IQ but I cannot tell the difference when pixel peeping in Photoshop.

[bangaio]

I used Raw Shooter Premium which is now owned by adobe with some tech gone into lightroom.

I am still coming to terms with some changes in lightroom and am not 100% convinced yet but it is beyond an organisation tool, it is primarily a raw editing tool and as such as more control then say just curves.

The way it works with shadows and highlites is a bit strange though compared to RSP.

[Gareth C]

Canon US Press Statement
EOS-1D Mark III Digital SLR, the world's fastest digital SLR camera. At 10 frames per second, the 10.1 megapixel EOS-1D Mark III digital SLR can fire huge motor-driven bursts of 110 Large JPEGs or 30 RAW files because it employs the new Dual DIGIC III image processor engine

Sorry to be so far behind. I just noticed that the new 1D-mIII has a 1.3x crop due to the sensor. I don't see how this is a good move...maybe just me being picky.

[Richard.John]

From what I have read from Canon's white paper, FF sensors are hideously expensive to make as they only get about twenty from a wafer compared to about 200 APS-C and 45 APS-H sized versions. Factor in spoilage and that's the reason why they are so expensive. I may be wrong, but I assume that a full frame Mk III would break the bank, considering it is, in its current state, a technical tour de force. I am still betting on FF becoming the standard within less than a decade considering the fact that the fabrication process will inevitably improve.