SpecPix - My Photogramatic Thread

[Spectere]

HAY, no need to be so honest.

i h8 u nao

[Spectere]

I GOT MY F4!  And awww, they look so cute together:



(D40 has a AF-S Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G attached, the F4 has an AF Nikkor 70-210mm f/4-5.6G VR attached, and my AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G II is sitting on the side; picture taken with my cell phone, obviously)

This camera is badass, not to mention quite large and heavy (it dwarfs the D40).  It's obviously built like a tank.

Here's a better shot of the F4, taken with my D40:



I LIKE IT.

And finally, here's a shot I took of my roommate's Tomb Spyder a couple of weeks ago:



brb, playing with big heavy camera

[Spectere]

Cristian posted a "sun shining through trees" shot, so I have to do the same:



Taken on 5/10/2008 with the tank F4 with 400 speed Fuji film and was dumped onto a CD by Ritz when I had it developed.

I need to get a film scanner...I'm not too impressed with the quality of the CDs that they produce, and my scanner (a Visioneer OneTouch 8100) doesn't do too hot of a job when it comes to scanning anything with detail (though it awesome for what I paid for it -- $0.00).

I'm still on my discovery phase when it comes to the F4 and, for that matter, film in general.  The shots seem to be a touch overexposed with the Fuji 400 film (you can't really tell with this scan, since I already color-corrected it, but the original shot is on the washy side), so I'm playing with the fun exposure compensation dial to try and tone it down a bit.

Also, I have to say, Photoshop's "auto levels" feature does a mighty fine job on photos. :>

[Sqthreer!]

Hey if you want some REAL good retouching tools on Photoshop, go the options and in the File Handling section, check Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for JPEG Files. I don't know if you knew that already, but it's some good stuff either way.

[Spectere]

I shoot nothing but RAW on my D40*, so I use Camera RAW a ton.   It certainly wouldn't replace a full RAW workflow.  From what I've used of the Capture Pro 4.0 evaluation, it totally blows Photoshop completely out of the water when it comes to working with RAW files.  That said, it is a highly specialized tool.

The only real advantage of using Camera RAW with JPEGs and other 8 bits per channel formats is that it combines all of the major balance tools in one place (which is a major advantage, don't get me wrong ).  The real advantage that RAW has over JPEG is increased color depth (12 bits per channel for most cameras), giving you a chance to save a slightly under- or over-exposed shot.


*The only JPEG that came out of that camera was the one that I posted yesterday in the Lame Replies thread showing the F4's knobs.  The original shot even was RAW, but it was processed, cropped, and saved to JPEG on-camera, then pulled onto the compy with a mini-USB cable, then resized with Irfanview, then uploaded.  The things I do to post pictures while I'm sitting at a gas station (it was Sheetz, so it's okay) using a system without Photoshop (my work laptop).

[Bobbias]

And one major disadvantage is that unless you have a high speed card, those things can take forever to save

[Spectere]

They save at roughly two shots per second on a 155x SD card.  Those cards aren't much more expensive than the slower ones, so they're definitely worth grabbing if you want to shoot RAW.

That said, the D40 has enough of a buffer for four RAW exposures before you have to wait so it's not too bad.  If you shoot JPEG it's extremely unlikely that the camera will ever have to wait for the card to catch up (I think the buffer can hold something like 40 full resolution, fine JPEGs).  Modern dSLRs don't completely lock up during saves like a lot of point-and-shoots do.

[Zakamiro]

I absolutely love my 2 GB 200x SD card.. Think it was only $30 when I got it. Card is faster than my camera. ( A Canon PowerShot A550 ) :>>

Love the pics, Spec. Sheetz and Irfanview ftw.