The Photography Thread

[Ish]

I quite like the second one with the railings. Though, and don't take this the wrong way, looking at it makes me feel sick!!

[Rossco]

I think I'm going to have to take that the wrong way!

Here's another shot, took this at The Racontuers gig on Saturday. Jack White on the Right, Brendan Benson on the left.

Really like this one, think it works really well and the poses are great.

[Richard.John]

Another






One more

[Alastair]

105mm + macro perchance? Nice shots

I'm off to a butterfly farm on Saturday with my camera. Hope to post some good shots when I get back.

The owl shots were taken with my macro. It makes a fantastic portrait lens but getting far enough back from subjects can be a nightmare!

Not quite Ish, much longer. It's the Tamron 70-300mm with Macro mode. Picked it up half price in Jessops as they had a promo on. Unusual to get something new in the high street cheaper than I would anywhere new online

It's only a budget zoom but is significantly better than the canon equivalent (without macro or any of the new canon gadgets). Macro mode is great and pretty easy to use. It'll take some getting used to the 300mm reach though and getting the light conditions right so I don't shake all over the place.

Good luck with the butterflies. I'll give the macro mode a go as a portrait lens too now then, good tip.

Peanuts, I like that shot, just a shame his face is a little over exposed.

Rossco - I like the railings shot too, it is a little dizzying though! The first one is a good idea but maybe not so well executed. Have you been adding blur to those? Gig one's not bad either

[Crimson Day]

Thought id add a few of my recent concert photos ive added motion blur to a few of them but not really edited alot of them. Still waiting for my proper camera from collage ordering it through them is becoming more hastle than the ?50 i saved is worth.

[Rossco]

Rossco - I like the railings shot too, it is a little dizzying though! The first one is a good idea but maybe not so well executed. Have you been adding blur to those? Gig one's not bad either

See, I took them using my 3.2MP phone and where the railing shot was ok an just needed a bit tidying up and blurring on the parts I wanted to look out of focus and some lighting effects to brighten up the horizon, the sky shot was awful and didnt look good, the phone didnt pick up the detail well at all and it was really noisy and dirty so I put a bit of Gaussian blur afew times and tinkled around with the colour levels to make the kind of fantasy/cartoon effect.

I prefer editing pictures instead of leaving them as is as I can rarely get something that looks good without editing, which I suppose would help if I had a proper camera though! Helps with my uni though by doing all the editing though so thats why I do it.

[Tirian]

Buying a camera

My old camera is kinda on its last legs, so I am about to get a new one - trying to decide what to go for. MY budget is about ?200. I've had a Fuji M603 for several years, been pretty pleased with it on the whole, although recently I've had "zoom error" difficulties with it, and the lense often doesn't retract fully when I switch it off. From my research online, this seems to be a problem that crops up with a fair few other Fuji models ... which is a shame, as I would quite like to keep with a Fuji if possible (means I can carry over my Euro power adapter, use my g/f's charger when I visit, as she also has a Fuji, keep using my old xD cards etc. etc.)

Anyway, I've been looking things over, and am quite inclined to go for the Fuji F30 (?190 from Amazon). Is there any outstanding reason not to get it? Looks pretty decent by all accounts. Am I likely to run into this zoom error and / or lense retraction problem with the F30 model?

Is there anything else I should look at first? I would also like to get a decent case for the new camera, whatever it may be - any tips on that front too?

Tirian

[revlob]

I've got a Fuji F11, and I love it to bits. The Fujis seems to offer higher ISO ratings, which can translate into better performance in low-light environments (indoors, evenings, etc). The only real drawback I can immediately think of is that you'll be stuck with XD memory cards if you go with the F30. While not the end of the world, they are not the most accessible/inexpensive media.

Other ~?200 cameras I'd consider:

• Canon IXUS 65
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W100

EDIT: Oh yeah, and as for cases, check out Crumpler. It's expensive, but I love their stuff and it makes a nice change from boring leather cases.

[Ish]

On the bag front - I don't have one of there camera cases but my laptop travels in a Crumbler rucksack. It spent all last winter on my back while I was on my bike in all kinds of weather and it kept it dry and secure and is still in good nick now. Was well worth the money - and it looks funky too.

[MartyG]

Anyway, I've been looking things over, and am quite inclined to go for the Fuji F30 (?190 from Amazon). Is there any outstanding reason not to get it? Looks pretty decent by all accounts. Am I likely to run into this zoom error and / or lense retraction problem with the F30 model?

DPReview have details on the camera here along with a picture gallery, which might help. Their reviews can be a little too tech sometimes, but they seem to know what they're talking about most of the time. Higher ISOs mentioned above can be useful in low light, but you start getting a lot of grain as shown in this ISO 3200 pic from the camera - I wouldn't let that put you off though if you want the camera, as most sensors get noisy the higher up the ISO rating you go. My D50 SLR works well at ISO 1600, but you can still see the grain.

New Olympus cameras also use xD cards, but then 1 GB SD cards can be had for ?20-30 now and they have loads and loads of uses all over the place. I recently bought a Casio Exilim Z850 to compliment my D-SLR and it's a great little camera which I take everywhere. You can't really go wrong with Casio, Nikon or Canon compacts, and I hear good things about the Panasonic range too, not used and Fujifilm units though.

[Alastair]

[Richard.John]

Superb shot, Alastair!

[PeteJ]

Any meaning behind the numbers, other than it adds up to 10(/10)?

[Alastair]

Thanks Peanuts. What's your second shot of? I like it.

Pete, wish I'd thought of that, maybe I should add it to a Flickr score group and see if that works subliminally!! That's the way they fell is all, I didn't position them nor choose the numbers, just rolled em and shot em!

Here's another take on the same scene.

[Richard.John]

It's just an ordinary tap with a hose attached. Nothing special but the DOF does the magic for me!