User talk:Fir0002/Guild

Welcome!

Welcome to the Photographic Masters' Guild Forum. Sorry I can't make it look prettier, but that' just the way it is :) If you can think of a way to do this so that the Guild style is retained and users can still use the "+" edit please contact me I'd love to hear from you! --Fir0002 00:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello, can you notice the French fr:WP:AP (Photographic Workshop)... it's a beta version, but it introduce the idea. I think your "Guild" is a close idea, and it may be welcome that you take a look at the French project [which aim to give the basics advices to "how to take good encyclopedic photo"], and consider to make a english one. I noticed that, on the English wikipedia, they are several skilled macro photographers, and their skills to shoot every-days objects/animals/etc. may be great. Y_g 07:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi Yug, I don't think that kind of stuff is within the scope of this project - the primary goal of the Guild is to recognize and honor the best photographers on the English Wikipedia. --Fir0002 09:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Although having said that I guess this forum my become populated with photographic tips and tricks --Fir0002 22:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just looking at the list of equipment people are brandishing here, most people may become intimidated by only the fixed costs (let alone the years of experience using it!) and simply return to cut-n-paste operations from the mainstream media (argh!). Encouraging and training people to use whatever they have may go along way to getting people off their butts and into the real world. Emulating something like Strobist would not be a bad thing at all. mdf (talk) 03:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Oki -> this forum is primary to recognize and honor the best photographers : that's good too ! I think both skilled graphists and skilled photographers are under recognize and encouraged !

Anyway, keep in mind the Photographic Lab project -> when you talk with other skilled photographers, try to make summaries into a /FAQ page for beginners. Few have your level (photographers to recognize and honor), but many are interesting to learn tips. Just by doing so, you will really help the project. Y_g 12:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

No 5D Mk II at PMA

Disappointing - I was hoping it might be announced at the 2008 PMA but doesn't look like it [1]. Anyone else eagerly waiting for its release? --Fir0002 09:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Nah, but from that link it looks like my 400D may be about to go 'out of date'. :-( Having the most recent model was my saving grace. --jjron (talk) 08:57, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm usually an eager early-adopter (got the 10D when it first came out and likewise with the 5D), but at the moment, there isn't really anything I'm left wanting with my 5D... Well, except 5 and 7 frame exposure bracketing, with +/- 3 or 4 stops rather than just 2, and faster burst shooting. Ok, well I'd like a few things, but not the sort of thing that will likely be high on Canon's priority list. :-) The 5D is indeed a pretty good piece of kit! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 01:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah the 5D is extremely impressive - the main reason I'm holding back is dust cleaning. With dust cleaning the 5D would be perfect! --Fir0002 12:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but I don't find dust cleaning THAT much of a problem. I just give the sensor a bit of a wipe down every 3-6 months and its usually good to go. But yeah, given that the 5D is probably near the end of its product life, you're best off waiting for the next-gen. But as always, you'll get the camera quite a bit cheaper at this point, so if the 5D is (well almost) everything you need in a camera, it might be a good time to get it. I bought mine for AUD$4700 (then again, it was two and a half years ago now.. time does fly), and now you can get it for AUD2700ish, but partly due to the strong Aussie dollar at the moment I'd say. Still, you can get it for USD$2200 in the US and we're almost at parity with them now! :-(. Ah well, the good news is the next -gen 5D will probably be a great bit of kit, now that Nikon is punishing them for standing still. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah the 5D is steal... but I'd be kicking myself when the new one comes out with some in-your-face-nikon!-specs :) What do you use for dust cleaning? --Fir0002 23:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Just some eclipse fluid (high purity ethanol) and swaps as per the Copper Hill Method. It does the job although it never does first time. When I do clean it, I end up swabbing 5-10 times at least, before I'm happy I got rid of most of the big particles. Half the time I make it worse rather than better. Definitely trial and error. You? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a pretty good method - mine is pretty bad really. More or less it involves the vacuum cleaner and an adapted nozzle head. Yeah I know I can year you laughing already!

Latest Rumour/specs

This sounds pretty good - hopefully it's well founded. --Fir0002 11:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Venue Reviews

Add a review of a photographic venue you've visited! Please describe how you would rate in photographic potential and which subjects/which location has the most photogenic attributes!

Melbourne F1 GP

To be brutally honest the GP is poor in terms of photographer-friendliness (well assuming you like me can only afford a general admission ticket!). Most of the interesting sections are fenced off for corporates or you can't penetrate the heavy fencing - ie it's too far away from your lens and so the lens locks onto the fence instead of the cars beyond it or the fence is too prominent in the photo (doesn't blur out enough). Some corners they seem to have extended the fencing and in one case erected a sheet of black plastic simply to spite photographers!! The best location that I found after trekking around 3/4 of the track (I didn't walk around the turn 13/14 end - it was a really hot day!) was on corner 6. That said they had a massive jutting out section fencing off the general admission (check out the official circuit map on grandprix.com.au) from getting to good a view so the closest you got to the cars was approx 80m. Image:Heidfeld and Rosberg - 2008 Melb GP.jpg was taken from this location. It's not 1:1 of what I got, this is probably what you'd see zoomed in to 66.67% of the original (ie 2/3).
So overall I'd rate it 2 out of 5 - only go if you happen to be an F1 fan as well and even then I wouldn't really recommend it due to the excessive restrictions placed on a general admission ticket. --Fir0002 12:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yah. A lot of these places seem to be working to discourage amateur photographers. I spose they're scared of you cutting into their revenue or something if you can get photos you can sell or use yourself, instead of buying the professional's ones. Was the Heidfeld/Rosberg photo the best one you got all day? --jjron (talk) 07:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to the air-show 2009 tho - no fences! :) :) Probably overall it's the best because it shows quite an interesting scene, but I got a fair few which were similar to that one and the one of Lewis on my userpage. --Fir0002 23:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Be nice to see how the 400 goes at the air show; could get some decent shots. --jjron (talk) 07:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Fir0002: Just a FYI on HDR imaging

I haven't seen you working on any tone mapped HDR images lately, but I've stumbled across a new program called Tufuse that on first inspection does a brilliant job of merging HDR. It isn't quite as snazzy to use as Photomatix (it runs via command line, but you can drag and drop images onto it in Windows which makes it easy if you just want to use the default settings), but the results are almost always cleaner and more presentable/realistic looking - sometimes lacking in contrast, but you can always adjust that in Photoshop without losing quality, if you're working with 16bit TIFF files. I've always found Photomatix extremely fussy, half the time outputting something quite nice, and other half the time out completely rubbish looking, with bizarre aliased artifacts in the highlights, particularly when things like branches and anything else mobile is concerned. Tufuse isn't perfect either, as it doesn't align images if you've handheld, but when it does work, it just seems to do a better job. Oh and it can focus blend as well as exposure blend. Worth a look at anyway. At the very least, try running some of your old HDR projects through it and see what you think. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the link - I've noticed some pretty nice HDR's appearing on wiki and istock from you, are you using Photomatix or this to do them? I had a shot with it and although it runs through the algorithm it doesn't produce the output tiff for some strange reason. Any suggestions? The way I did it was get my three exposure in folder, copy in tufuse.exe (and the bat - don't think you need that tho) and drag the images (saved as jpgs) onto the tufuse.exe icon and then it runs through. It says it's saving the output but it never seems to do so - I even searched my HDD for it in case it was saving to an obscure output folder and it hasn't... dw realized you're meant to drop on the .bat. My initial test seemed to work pretty well, when I get some spare time (not looking likely for a while yet!) I'll do some proper test. But thanks again for the link as it looks pretty good --Fir0002 06:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

As an addendum, it is now available with a GUI with more control. I haven't installed it yet and it appears a bit buggy judging by the discussion in the forum, but another tool to add to the arsenal nonetheless. Available here. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Image search/detection

Diliff posted this on my user talk which was pretty interesting... --Fir0002 01:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Just thought you might be interested in a free site I stumbled across called TinEye. Its currently a low-key private beta and doesn't catch everything as they're still in the process of scouring the web, but it is extremely easy to use. Theres even a firefox/IE add-in available that lets you right click an image in the browser and it'll automatically find all uses of the image its aware of. Even if theres a watermark, or it has been cropped or edited subtly! Very clever and worth checking out. You need to apply and they'll send you an email when you've been accepted though as its still in beta. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure with your admin tools you already know this but I have your talk/user page watched, Fir. ;) So I took the liberty of requesting an invite for TinEye. It took like 10 min to get the invite and then another 5 to install the add-on. The compilation is pretty minimal at this point as far as I can tell. Once the number of images in the database increases, I can see it being a very useful tool but it doesn't catch much at this point. The most uses I could find for any of my images was 9 even though I know of several more uses of that image. I'm very glad that it is being offered as a beta at this point and I hope if they fix a price in the future it wont be prohibitively high. Anyway, its unbelievably easy to use and very fast as well. The right clicking interface is amazing. Maybe we are getting to a point where copyright owners are striking back. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 02:02, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Fcb, I was going to put it on your talk page too but didn't get a chance. You were in my thoughts anyway. ;-) Good to see you stalking with success! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha ha, I hope you'll trust me when I say this; but I'm less of a weirdo than this makes me look! =) -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 12:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Canon 50D

Well it's not the 5D mk II but given the specs of the new 50D it looks like Canon have taken notice of Nikon and we can expect big things for the Mk II! :) --Fir0002 07:47, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

• Hmm.. There is talk of the 50D being the successor to the 5D, as Canon usually announce all their new cameras in one go... That said, it doesn't make sense to go full frame to crop factor. ;-) So we'll see. The one thing that I really like about the Nikons at the moment is +-5EV and 2 to 9 frame bracketing. That would really make HDR/enfused images a breeze. As it stands, the only automated/fast way to bracket is -2, 0 and +2 EV on the Canon, which isn't always enough for the full dynamic range of a scene. Having to do it manually means potentially moving the camera on the tripod and that makes enfuse fail, as well as introducing more movement within the frame as you fiddle with the settings on the camera... Given that the 50D hasn't got this feature, I don't hold much hope for it on the 5D, and the frustrating thing is that surely it is just a software feature. A firmware upgrade could provide it! Fingers crossed though hey? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • And while I'm complaining, I'm not sure that I acutally want 21mp from the next 5D (as it has been rumoured to have for quite some time)... A lot of lenses would struggle to resolve that sort of resolution, my cards/hard drive would fill up much faster, and so would the internal buffer. With the 5D, if I'm doing 3 bracket HDR panoramas, quite often I hit the buffer limit while trying to shoot it as fast as possible. Obviously the 5D II will have a bigger buffer, but the card write speeds haven't changed much. Anyway, I know I'm being picky, but megapixels isn't everything. 12-15 is plenty! :-) Why not make the 5D cheaper and more agile instead? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I can't imagine the 50D supersedes the 5D. Really, the 5d was/is one of canon's best selling bodies ever. This is especially true considering that buyers of the 5d are more likely to drop another $4,000 on glass than a buyer of a rebel. Really, the 50D is a "speed" camera shooting at 6fps and I would be very surprised if Canon drops the FF sensor that served it so well. I think we'll see the 5D mkII next PMA with a new sensor etc. but as you said, diliff, it isn't really obsolete until canon releases another. As far as nikon goes, I will probably upgrade my D40 to the new D90. I have been puling in some good money with license sales and that should finance it. As far as I know the D90 has the D300 sensor in it so noise performance should be pretty good. The object with the upgrade is mainly so that I will have use of some of nikons best lenses that don't happen to be af-s. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I agree with you there. Either we'll be surprised by another announcement shortly, or the 5D will probably be announced at the next trade fair (PMA) instead. Shame that it has taken this long already to announce a 5D replacement but as you said, it is testimony to the longevity and competitiveness of the 5D. It isn't so much that I need an upgrade (I don't) but rather that I have a wishlist of features (as per above) and I'm hoping they're implemented in the replacement. :-) Mainly: Faster shooting FPS (nice but not necessary), bigger buffer/faster write speed (partially CF card limited), more bracketing/exposure compensation variability and slightly more friendly control layout/display (I think Nikon has the edge here - the new 640x480 3" screen might help though). None of these things are likely to be high on Canon's marketing checklist as they're subtle improvements rather than sales pitches. Canon used to absolutely rule the roost when I got my first DSLR (2003 - Canon 10D), but I really think Nikon is running away with it at the moment and Canon is at best matching Nikon 6-12 months late. If I didn't have so much glass invested in Canon, I would be tempted to jump ship. In fact I checked just the other day what it would cost to buy the equivalent Nikon lens/body combinations that I currently have - AUD$8000/USD$7000 or so. Ouch, and that was with a yum-cha photographic dealer in Hong Kong where I bought a bunch of stuff about a year ago. Would be similarly priced on B&H though, I'm guessing. I think I'll wait and see... ;-)
      • For the record though, congrats that you're making good money from your photography. Where are you getting your sales? I'm always looking to expand, although I still get 95% of my income from iStockPhoto. I've signed up with another 4 microstocks and uploaded quite a lot of photos, but I'm seeing at best a tiny trickle come in. Like $5-10 a month from each. Almost not worth my time spent uploading/categorising them all! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
        • God, don't get me started on iStock! I've had three files accepted and had 6 downloads, my acceptance rate is like 15%. I think the inspectors don't really look at pictures under 6mp and maybe metadata from a D40 is also hurting. I mean I've had files taken in RAW and saved at 12 quality through the whole workflow and they have been denied based on "compression artifacts". So basically I've stopped trying with iStock until I get some more resolution! No, my sales have been companies and such approaching me via email for use of images on web pages, in brochures and on advertisements. In the last 3 months I've had maybe 8 people who have contacted me and of those 6 decided to accept the terms I offered. Those brought in on average about $160 USD each. Much better than a dollar from iStock. I've also sold a few prints and such and that about rounds it out. The problem is that most of that money doesn't go back into photo stuff. I shelled out for a new set of golf irons, new soccer shoes and the like as well as gas for the car I'm allowed to use ($4USD a gallon)! What is encouraging though is that the majority of the people who are buying photo licenses find them here on wikipedia. Honestly, (this is corny but true) I started on wiki with no photo knowledge what-so-ever and started reviewing pics on FPC after I saw one of your photos, diliff, on the mainpage. I then bought a second hand Nikon n6006 and eventually a D40. I never thought that wikipedia would end up being a prime source of income for me. As far as switching to Nikon goes, I think the grass is always greener on the other side. I mean I've been tempted to sell everything (certainly not the investment you have) and go with canon but in the end i realize I'm happy with what I've got. Out of curiosity, what body would you have gotten/will get? D700? That certainly has the burst speed (8fps w/ grip). For me right now the question is to get the sigma 10-20mm ultra wide for newspaper season or sell the D40 and get the D90. Right now I'm leaning to the latter. Anyway, I'm glad iStock is working for you at least! ;-). -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 02:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
          • Yeah, that is my experience with iStockphoto too. My acceptance is more like 50-60%, but sometimes I have to submit the same photo over and over before they'll accept it. As a lot of my better photos are cityscapes, they tend to include random signs, corporate logos etc, and iStock won't accept anything with a logo in it, no matter how obscure or irrelevent to the composition (ie they'll still reject it, even if there is a 4 to 5 pixel wide, barely visible and largely identifiable logo in the background of an image that is 10000 pixels wide!). Sometimes I get the same reason that you do - "compression artifacts" or "noise" which the image I've submitted is a downsampled, ISO 100, noise reduced jpeg saved at the highest possible quality! I've just gone back and found a few more gems... "This file contains an excess of pixel discoloration when viewed at 100%, which we felt too severe and would affect the quality of print production." for my Houses of Parliament photo, which I resubmitted without any changes at all and it is now my second best seller, with almost $800 in sales. "This is nice, but it's a bit over-sharpened." for my Big Ben photo, which is downsampled, and not sharpened at all. In other words, far sharper than the average photo taken with any digital camera in existence, and still higher resolution. "This file contains artifacting when viewed at full size. This technical issue is commonly created by the quality settings in-camera or in post-processing." This one is from the Colosseum pano, which after resubmitting, again with no changes, is now my best selling photo! "Please indicate how image was taken (ex: 4 pictures taken with 20D stitched together)." I don't really see how that is relevant, and isn't something that a potential buyer is going to care about. Then when I resubmitted with the explanation of how I took it, it was rejected with this "We found this file over filtered from its original appearance/quality.". How the hell would they know what its original appearance looked like?? Argh! I'm sure that the editors there are paid to be pedantic arseholes and make life difficult for us all. ;-) Its funny, but I've only very occasionally had people contact me to purchase photos from Wikipedia. It might be because a lot of my better photos are also on stock sites, but it might also be because I haven't been as forthright as you with the terms. Yeah, if I were to get a Nikon, it would almost definitely be the D700. The D3 is just too big and bulky for my needs, and the others are slightly below the specs I would like. Not to say they're bad cameras, though. You're right though, the grass is always greener on the other side, but I have noticed that Nikon seems a bit more thoughtful about camera design, whereas Canon is more of an engineering/marketing company that doesn't necessarily always build what a photographer wants. More flexible bracketing options is a case in point. The fact that Dpreview.com, the foremost reviewer of digital cameras online, has been requesting that opening the CF slot not turn the Canon cameras off and lose all photos still writing to the card has been falling on to deaf ears since the first DSLRs were introduced around 8 years ago. Nikon apparently has fixed it, but Canon seems to refuse, or ignore the request, at least. Anyway, enough bitching for now. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
          • And for the record, fuel is almost twice as expensive here in Europe! 08:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
            • (now that we've hijacked this forum completely) Yeah, I noticed fuel cost when I was there in June, I don't envy that! Its really encouraging (or not) that you too are having trouble with the file inspectors at iStockphoto. Here I thought it was only me since Fir manages to have 200+ photos on there. Really impressive that you have 2000 downloads from 40 files! How'd this go? (your talk page is on my watch list from some past communications, in case you were wondering if this was my stalking hobby, btw) The first time I got approached for a license I was stumbling through the process trying to make a letterhead and invoice template and license template. I don't know if you went that route but I'd be interested in what your license looks like, out of curiosity... -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 18:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
              • Yeah, luckily I don't need to drive too often, as I live relatively central to London and the tube gets me almost everywhere I need to go. I don't actually own a car here in the UK. I do miss the freedom of having one though. Yeah, I've managed to get quite a lot of downloads but to be honest, almost half of my 2000 downloads are from two photos - The Houses of Parliament one and the Colosseum one. Lately, the Big Ben and Thames panorama one have started doing quite well, but I'd still be making peanuts if it weren't for those two photos. Have to admit, I'm slightly jealous that Fir has managed to get that many sales, particularly since most of them have been from his collection of background abstract images! Actually, the whole invoicing/custom license thing is what stopped me from pursuing sales outside of the stock sites as it was just a bit time consuming. I did actually sell about 5 of my photos to a US game development company for use in some sort of 'puzzle game' recently. They originally tried to purchase them on iStock but the license didn't allow unlimited reproductions on 'electronic media' so they contacted me directly. Instead of making around $5 from commissions on the images, I made $600. ;-) But it was such a hassle. It was a constant back and forth, determining what met their legal department's requirements for the license, mailing a signed copy to the US express as the deadline for acceptance was almost up due to all the previous dithering, and then it took me a good 3 months of chasing to actually receive payment, as I can't accept US cheques here in the UK, so I had to get them to pay by Paypal. So as you can see, iStock doesn't pay much, but it saves you all that hassle. I suppose $600 was probably worth the hassle in the end and it is more satisfying to get a real direct sale though. And I will always wonder what could have happened if I had been bothered to pursue Apple misusing my Colosseum image for their OSX Leopard advertisements! The potential there seems limitless. Or at least, it would have been, because at the time they first used it, I hadn't submitted the image to iStock. But then once I had, I suppose a damages claim would be somewhat limited since they're available for sale so cheaply... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
• Yeah, it must make it tough to have to deal with overseas checks (cheques?) and such. I have to admit that all my buyers have been from the united states. Maybe because of that, I find the hassle of licensing personally much less per dollar. I figure I spend about 30min per upload on iStock and if I've uploaded 20+ files thats at least 10 hours of work for $6.50. On the other hand total time spend emailing a buyer and driving to the bank, etc. Comes to two hours total. $150/2 $75 an hour. Obviously that doesn't count the time it takes to actually make the picture and process it but I'd be making the image anyway and an added benefit is that buyers who find the images here, usually already have the file, go figure. As for having to mail the paper license via registered mail, when I email the PDF of the invoice I also include a PDF of the license so the buyer can review the terms. Since I actually have a digitized version of my signature I include a "signed" PDF license and then, technically, paper ones aren't needed. If the client requests a paper version I give it but it saves $25 for Fedex otherwise. Then, when I receive the check I scan it into my computer to have a copy of the buyer's sig and official address (address is included on the license anyway). As far as I can tell this method is as airtight as any. As for going after infringements, I have been inspired, and by Mbz1 no less. Essentially what she did (and what I am in the process of trying with Time Werner who misused a photo of mine) is asked for what would have been the price of the license had the company bought it legitimately. This seems perfect to me. You or I don't have to get a lawyer involved and therefor save money; the company doesn't get bleed for more than they deserve; generally, we don't have to even register the copyright with the applicable authorities, and the company gets to keep using the image depending on the terms of the license you give them. Win, win, win the only people that lose are the lawyers, but I can live with that ;-). Perhaps you should try that with apple. It couldn't hurt. Anyway, now that I've had something of a month long break from taking photos I'll certainly be upload as much as ever. Why wouldn't I, now that wikipedia has been so profitable! On that subject it hasn't been profitable enough for me to afford the computing power I'd like (not even close) or a new tripod, or for the initial investment for on-sight-printing event photography (a nice printer and boatload of ink). Anyway, I digress. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 02:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Thats probably true that per dollar, organising an appropriate license and invoice is cheaper than the loss through taking the 'easy' route of microstock. ;-) If I hammered home the point that my images are for sale on the Wiki image pages, I might get a few more sales. I generally only get people contacting me to use my images for free. If its a non-profit use, I'll generally allow it. A few of my images have been used in low-volume academic books which have been, in theory, commercial, but I haven't had the heart to say no to that. As for infringements, that is a pretty good way to go, but I suppose the nasty side of me thinks that they shouldn't get away with paying the going-rate for the photo when they have deliberately misused the images (at least a lot of the time) and attempted to get away with it. Even if they haven't done it deliberately, a law suit might make them read the fine print more carefully next time! >;-) And as I said, technically the going rate for my Colosseum image is a paltry $10 or something for the highest res version of iStock, although I think they sometimes have to pay for the extended license for unlimited reproductions (Not sure how that works for electronic downloads though? Does it have to be a physical print or is it any delivery of the contact?) which does bring it up to about $100-120, I think. In any case, the trouble with this action toward Apple is that I can't easily prove they actually misused my image anymore, as the video they used it in is no longer on their website, so there is nothing to 'cite' if I email their legal department - I'd have to refer back to it and describe it verbally, which is messy. Oh, and I've been looking at the Canon 50D vs Nikon D90, and I have to say, the Canon looks the better camera there. Slightly higher res (no big deal) but much better FPS and buffer. Movie mode sounds intriguing but it remains to be seen just how good the video is. If it is truely HD quality, it'll probably struggle to write to the card fast enough, I'm guessing. Anyway Fir0002, where are you? We've well and truely hijacked your thread here. What are your thoughts on all this? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree that malignant infringers, (who try to hide where they got the picture) should pay more than the going rate for a license. The problem is though, is that those infringements are the hardest to find. The ones I find are the ones where the site doesn't change the file name significantly and thus usually they didn't read the fine print (or understand it). For instance Time Werner actually made an effort by adding a photo credit that simply said: "wikipedia". So, should I really get some low-level graphic designer there fired because he/she isn't a legal expert? Nah, I should get the money I deserve for the photo. On the other hand, if they had stamped a time werner logo across it or something, sure I would feel like they'd deserve to pay many times the going rate. The problem is I think it would be hard to make them do that without the enormous hassle of an attorney, a registered copyright, a federal suit, etc. And for you it'd be even worse if the infringement was in the US. Also, you don't have to tell the infringer the photo is available at iStock. I probably wouldn't hold that info from an email buyer though, at the risk of them finding it later and being very displeased. As to the D90 - 50D I think you are right about the edge being for the canon, but the canon is $300 more expensive and I have 5 nikkor lenses and a film body in the Nikon system. Also, the video mode may be more useful than you'd think. The quality, I can only assume, will be pretty high. Coupled with some nikon glass and the low-noise sensor I'm thinking I could open up that side of iStock, perhaps =). And for sports (which I don't focus on anyway) I could still have 24FPS with a five-minute (7200 frame) buffer =P (unfortunately only 720 px tall by 1300(?) wide). Although that should be big enough for small print sizes. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 16:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Yeah, you're right about them being harder to find. I suppose that's where TinEye is useful. I haven't done a search using it in a while but with any luck, it has a more complete image database these days. By the way, I assume you meant Time Warner? You spelt it with an e once or twice and I assumed it was a typo, but you kept spelling it the same way. :-) In any case, I'm sure they can afford to pay for the image. The thing is, with regards to telling or not telling a prospective buyer about iStock, that a photographer can have many sales channels. They have their own 'premium' channel, and then they can have a number of reseller channels (ie microstock). The reason why a photographer is willing to accept less payment for microstock sales is that they are delegating the marketing and invoicing of the images to a third party which deals with greater volume. A photographer doesn't want to sell through these channels by preference, but sees the financial sense of doing it as they cannot reach every possible buyer themselves. Therefore, I don't think it is wrong for a photographer that is contacted through his own channels to expect payment on the his terms, rather than his reseller's terms. Basic business sense, really. Any salesman may be prepared to discount an item if absolutely necessary to get a sale, but won't usually offer the discount unprompted! Anyway, you may be right about the video after all. DPReview now has sample videos up, and they look pretty clean. The swan looks rather overexposed though, so I'm hoping it was just poor exposure choice rather than diminished dynamic range. Hard to tell. The other thing is that even though the frames are reduced in size, they don't look like they're downsampled from full res (possibly averaging surrounding pixels which might help with noise in low-light situations), and video compression would mean they aren't nearly as good as a single captured frame, even at that res. In short, you'd get lots of frames if you extracted them from the video, but they would be the equivalent of a severely overcompressed jpeg in terms of image quality.
      • Yeah, video on iStock might be a good niche to find, but subjects are a bit more limited. I've dabbled in time lapse photography in the past which probaly does have demand on iStock, but there are a few inherent problems with it on a DSLR. The biggest one is the limited shutter life! I killed my old 10D's shutter doing a time lapse! ;-) Luckily it was shortly after getting the 5D so it was a backup camera at the time. Also, the shutter/aperture doesn't perform absolutely identically with each exposure, resulting in darker/brighter frames. This is no problem for still photography as it wouldn't be noticable, but it does result in a slight flicker when you animate the frames. There are tools available that can attempt to correct this flicker but it all gets a bit messy. And then there is the issue of controlling the rate of capture. My old 10D was awful in that respect. I have a remote shutter timer but it can only take at most one frame every second, which is fine for most uses, but not when you want say 2-5 frames per second. You can set the timer to continually shoot at max fps indefinitely but of course then you run into buffer problems where it slows down to a crawl and not only slows down, but shoots at an irregular speed, eg 1 fps, then wait 1 second, then 2 fps, then wait 1.5 seconds, etc. It makes for pretty poor animation! The 5D is better in that respect, but still not ideal. Once it hits the buffer limit with JPG, it will shoot fairly regularly, particularly if you don't shoot highest quality as I think it then becomes card-limited. Anyway, I don't want to kill the shutter just yet! I'm only mentioning this because it would be awesome if the 5D II did come with video (as it is rumoured to), and with the ability to shoot time lapse at a predefined frame rate. You'd eliminate all of the problems I mentioned above. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
• Woah guys how am I ever going to get a chance to read all this and write back! I'm almost through "hump week" where homework reaches an excruciating level (I reckon I've put in close to 12 hours a day for the last week or so!) so I might have a chance to chip in sometime next week! If not I'll see you in November :) --Fir0002 13:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• Ok I've had a chance to read (most) of the above and here are my thoughts:
  • 5D Mk II: I see what you're saying Diliff about the limited need for more MPs, but there'll be plenty times that you won't have the luxury of multi segment pano and then 21MP will come in handy. It'll also be handy to downsample-out noise when shooting at high ISOs. Which brings me to my wish-list for the Mk II. Stunning low noise performance (I value this above all else): ie ISO 1600 will be like ISO400 on my 20D and ISO 6400 will be useable. Also I'd like a significant improvement in AF: ideally >20% faster than 20D). And finally >16MP resolution (21 would be impressive). HD video capabilities could also be useful and I feel reasonably confident that the CF card and buffer would be able to handle at least a minute of video (if not continuous) since it will only be processing low res images and the live view works pretty well on the 40D.
  • Photographic Sales: It's been great reading about your experiences in photographic sales - certainly a topic of interest to one and all. Fcb, you mentioned you did some newspaper work yeah? I'd be interested to know how you got onto that and what kind of work it is (pay/frequency etc). Anyway my experience is pretty similar to what's already been mentioned. I get one or two emails a month from wikipedia requesting rights to my photos and usually charge about US$50 - they're mainly book publishers. You said you charge $160 Fcb - that seems quite a bit, what kind of people are contacting you? And do you have problems with "lost fish" as a result of asking too much? Outside of Wiki-requests I've got istockphoto which has been quite good but is steadily dwindling as a money maker since uni started and I stopped having time to upload (that and the mysterious drop in popularity of my best seller). I've had similar experiences with moronic file inspectors (my pet theory is that they have a quota of non-exclusive uploads they have to reject every day) and have an acceptance rate of 50.36%. My type of photography (macro etc) doesn't seem to fare that well on istock- it's mainly my abstracts. But that's also good because it means I don't end up in the awkward position of telling someone that's emailed me they can get my photo on istock for $2! :) One avenue which you guys might have missed is photography comps. My best earn so far came from winning the macro section in this comp. I also won a vicphysics comp last year. They're not steady earners obviously, but definitely worth keeping an eye out for. --Fir0002 08:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    • First let me say, Diliff, impressive time lapse and with a DSLR no less! The frame rate I think would be the biggest problem, and in time lapses such as the one you did with high frames per minute it is even worse. I think perhaps a advanced HD 1080p digital video camera with automatic exposure controls would be better suited to such a seen. The SLR might fare as well for time lapses with one frame every hour or something like that (as with flowers growing or the like) though I'm not sure there'd be much use for the extra resolution gained with full DSLR files. I personally have never tried one but with an SLR I can see how it would be cumbersome. Fir, by newspaper I was referring to my school newspaper, which is definitely not a source of income. I have done one freelance job for a small local paper and that was fine but the pay was very low and the jobs aren't really consistent. As such, I got summer a job not relating to photography. Maybe later this year I'll put more effort into getting news assignments but they aren't easy; what with getting all the subjects' names, writing caption info, taking some quotes and getting to locations. As for personal stock sales, pricing is very tricky I have found ;-). I remember the first time I had a business wanting to use an image, first I did what I usually do (and at that point had done a few times) which is basically tell them that they can use the photo under GFDL and if that is too restrictive that they can buy a license. Before that time I had only licensed a few things to schools and stuff for free. Anyway, the guy writes back that they want to buy a license and gives the essentials (size, print run, duration). I had no idea what to charge but me, not wanting to sound inexperienced went onto this websites forums and got the price suggestion of something like US$950 (I have to mentally laugh here). What is surprising is that the buy didn't just walk away and we negotiated it down to US$200. I likewise get two or three emails a month and yes, I have lost a few but I still manage to close the majority (close to 75% I would guess). It all depends. Photo contests would be great... Obviously, you, Fir, have a number of macro shots (of insects) that are easily world class. My landscapes and architecture shots on wiki are useful for selling stock but are not really top notch artistically. With that said, there are a few fields in which I would be interested in submitting material for contests I just cant seem to find good contests. It seems like the majority of contests are ploys to get a large number of photos that the contest organizers get some rights to. Other ones are only for pros. How do you find good contests? -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 22:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
      • My own dabble into time lapse involved using the TC-80N self timer and a tripod. It's not bad method but the TC-80N is limited to 99 shots for what seems like no reason! Fair enough about the newspaper - wish you luck for the summer. $950 - wow I think you achieved the opposite effect then you wanted asking for that much! But good that you managed to get a decent sale out of it. With photo comps I just did a few google searches. But you're right its hard to find one which isn't too high level and also isn't a scam. Worth searching for though! :) --Fir0002 13:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Likewise, I've got a lot of reading to do now.. I've been on holiday on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain since last week. Pretty relaxing and uneventful though so probably not much in the way of exciting FPCs. ;-) Yeah, I have the same frustration with the TC-80N. Great little remote shutter release/timer but the 99 shots is extremely limiting when it gives you almost complete flexibility in all other respects (up to 99 hour delays between shots??). I suppose it dates back to film bodies where most cameras could only hold 36 exposures, so 99 probably seemed unrealistically high. Shame it can't be fixed with firmware or something, but again, that was probably the stuff of fantasy when it was designed. You can take more than 99 shots with it, but you're then limited to continuous shooting which has the issues I described above. Fcb, you're right that a good HD video camera would be better suited to time lapse, particularly as you can use all the captured frames to create an 'average' which allows the time lapse to be less 'stuttery' and more fluid. A good example of this is the headlight trails on roads at night. A DSLR will capture them, but there will be significant gaps between frames as it is not continuously capturing (shutter lag, time writing the frame to card etc). I actually have an old Canon S3 IS point n shoot which I can hook up to my laptop and do time lapse with, but it'll run the AA batteries flat in 300-400 frames, which isn't really enough for a good time lapse. I could hook it up to AC power as I have an adapter, but then to do a time lapse away from the house, I'd need a car battery and AC inverter, which all gets a bit messy! Will be back from holiday on the Thursday, talk to you then. Hopefully we'll have some DSLR news by then. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

17th

Put a big circle around the 17th on your calendar guys coz apparently that's the date! And the latest MP estimate is a whopping 24! --Fir0002 06:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Booo! As if most of our lenses are going to resolve 24mp anyway! ;-) If they kept the mp around the 15-18 range, they'd end up with far better low light sensitivity... I suppose you're right though that you can downsample slightly to improve noise. I'm just annoyed that 24mp will most likely push the price of the camera up more than is necessary. Depends how aggressively they price it I suppose. I just want all the extra features mentioned above too. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't envy anyone having to work with 24mp 14bit RAW files. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 03:06, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
    • I do have a 3.4ghz quad core PC with 8gb of RAM. ;-) and a 30 inch 2560x1600 resolution monitor. Does make procesing them fairly easy. But yeah, 24mp still means more storage, slower processing, filling up cards faster, etc. 24mp does seem to be what everyone expects from the 5D II now. I just wish they'd announce it already. I don't think I'm going to buy it immediately anyway though, so Fir0002, you might have to let me know what you think of it! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
      • That's a pretty nice system you've got there Diliff! What OS are you running? I've only got 4gig coz XP doesn't recognize more than 3gig. Yeah there are downsides to 24MP - but let me put it this way, given the option would you take the extra MPs? And with 1TB now selling for ~$160 storage shouldn't be too much of an issue ;-) What is a bit crazy is that now the 5D will actually be higher res than the 1Ds - although there are of course rumours of a Mark IV with enormous resolution. That said I'd trade 6MP (bring it down to 18MP) for a $400-500 saving. Hehe fair enough - I'll certainly let you know how good it is! :P --Fir0002 01:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Yeah, I'm running 64 bit Vista, which does see all 8gb. 4gb was probably going to be sufficient but I always tend to be doing a thousand things at once so I thought I'd give Vista a bit extra. Besides, Vista does a better job of using all the memory you feed it than XP. I'd trade 6mp for ~$500 too, but ah well, the megapixel race is still on it seems. Just 2 days to go til we (should) know for sure anyway! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 05:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's here

Well guys the wait is over --Fir0002 05:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

• And no surprises either. The 21mp specs were exactly right. It looks bloody identical to my 5D in every respect! Physically, I mean. Still only +/- 2EV too, and presumably still limited to 3 frame exposure bracketing. :-( Why, Canon, why? Its such a simple thing to change, but makes such a difference to photographic possibilities! Oh well. I did say I wasn't planning to upgrade immediately anyway! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 05:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Yup no surprises (except maybe 1080i) - and I'm happy with the price tag! Apparently it's got +/- 3.0EV but not sure about the bracketing. Only problem is now I'll have to wait till November before I can buy one! Oh well. I'll let you know when I get it what it's like --Fir0002 05:32, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
    • It definitely does look more like evolution than revolution. A good camera, but the same camera as the original 5D, with electronics for 2008 rather than 2005, which I suppose is not a major criticism, as the original 5D is still a damn good camera too. Think you're wrong about +/- 3EV. The top LCD only has room for 2EV, and Dpreview's specs say +/- 2EV anyway. It doesn't say how many frames you can take in the exposure bracketing but that doesn't matter anyway if you can only get +/- 2EV, since 3 frames will easily cover that. What I want is a larger range. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 05:36, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Also, its 1080p, even better than interlaced. But as with my scepticism of the Nikon SLR movie mode, it remains to be seen whether it really is pixel-sharp video (ie, how does it take the signal from the sensor? Does it downsample the full 21mp, or just take roughly every fourth pixel and process them with the bayer algorithm? The latter would probably be faster and easier (and use less power) but would result in much worse video quality... As with the debate over megapixels, 1080p doesn't define the quality, just the resolution) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:30, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Yeah you're right about the EV - this source was where I got that figure from. I'm not saying I'm disappointed in the Mk II, but it is a bit of a shame that the AF isn't better than it is, especially given the AF on the D700. Maybe another body is still to come? The 3D/7D perhaps? --Fir0002 07:57, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Yeah, no doubt decent AF is important for macro shots. My 100mm f/2.8 macro lens hunts like a mofo sometimes which is a bit frustrating. I haven't got experience with any better AF than the 5D though, so I don't know how it compares. That said, how do you know the AF on the D700 is better? I don't think the specs can really tell the story at all, you need to test it in the field to know how good or bad it is. Maybe another body is still to come, or maybe they're protecting sales of the 1 series. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
          • Yup high speed AF would be extremely welcome for macro photography, but also I've really started getting into bird photography with my 400mm and when taking mid air shots I often find the AF on the 20D is too slow. I see what you're saying - actual field tests are the only way to judge AF - but 51 AF points (15 cross type) looks pretty good on paper! But like you say I'm pretty sure they've limited the Mk II to keep the 1D selling. --Fir0002 08:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
            • True, it does sound good on paper.. but... I've for a long time now only used the centre AF point on my 5D. Obviously I'd switch to use all of them it if I was doing action photography, but I find that my prefered method of using AF is simply to centre the frame on the exact point I want to be in focus and then re-frame to suit the composition I want, or in the case of panoramas, I usually AF once and then set to manual focus for the sequence. As I said, it wouldn't work so well for other types of photography, but I find it the most reliable method of ensuring the correct focus given the photography I usually do. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
            • Come back Canon, all is forgiven! They did listen to me after all! I just read the detailed preview and I quote: "Exposure bracketing now provides a range up to +/- 4 EV (when combined with exposure compensation)." See, that wasn't so hard was it? Its all in the firmware. :-) Still, it could have been +/- 5EV like Nikon. Also not sure exactly what they mean by 'when combined with', but hopefully it isn't too illogical and complicated. Bit annoyed it takes different batteries though. I've got a stock of about six BP-511 batteries. Handy when you're travelling and don't always have access to power. Only have that many of them because they're common to so many Canon cameras and are therefore bootlegged by plenty of other manufacturers cheaply.. With a new battery used only by the 5D so far (bizarre considering the 50D just came out and still uses the old battery), it'll probably take some time for cheap replacement batteries to filter down, especially since its a 'smart' battery that may be harder to reverse engineer.
            • By the way, if you're at all interested, I finally got around to getting a second monitor. Not strictly just for photography but now that Lightroom can handle two monitors, it does make it nice to work with. Thats a 30" (2560x1600 res) 3007WFP-HC on the left, and a 2007FP (1600x1200 res) on the right. Works out nicely because when vertical, the 20" has a vertical res of 1600, the same as the 30" has, and the 20" height is vertically identical too. It is very uncommon to get both the res and the size to align so nicely. And no, my desk isn't usually that clean. I figured that since I had to make room for the monitor, I might as well clean it up too! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 19:01, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
              • Great set up, dual monitors are definitely fun. I had two pretty minimal ones set up awhile ago but the graphics card I was running didn't like the extra work. Speaking of which, is this at your job? It looks like this is in the back of a closet or something. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 23:37, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
                • No, not my job (my desk at work is far more boring and unimpressive), my bedroom. :-) Its a loft, so the layout is a bit funny. Almost a squarish C shape, with the door in the middle of the room:

    =
 __ =   _
|  |= _| |
|  |_| <-+- PC is here
|        |
|        |
|________|  Equals character is stairs leading to loft

• • • • • • • • • But anyway, yeah, dual monitors is pretty cool. I'm a bit of a multitasker and it makes things pretty easy when you essentially have 3 equally sized separate screens if you divide the 30" monitor into two halves (I've also got a little memory resident program that will auto-send the window into that half when you press ctrl-alt-<left arrow> or <right arrow>). Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
                  • Well hopefully the battery will make up for that by being a lot better! ;-) I think the reason why the Mk II has it and the 50D doesn't is that video recording will drain the battery (from what I've heard the LCD screen stays on when recording as viewfinder doesn't display the scene). And yes that is a pretty nice set up you've got there Diliff! But such insane res screen must make most video playback (Blu ray excepted) pretty average yeah? And good job on the ASCII diagram too! Anyway check out the amazing quality at ISO1600 on the Mk II! --Fir0002 09:00, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
                    • The battery is only very slightly more capacious than the old one though. 1800MaH vs 1400MaH (and my non Canon replacement batteries were 1600MaH anyway), so I don't know if that is really a genuine reason for it. Given that a 14 minute movie will fill a 4GB card anyway, it isn't likely to be restricted by lack of power. As for the screens/resolution, no, it doesn't really make video playback awful. Only as awful as it is to begin with, anyway. If I'm going to watch a video full screen, I'd likely do it from my bed so its just like a big TV. If I'm going to watch it as a window when I'm at my desk, then I'll have plenty more screen real estate to multi task with at the same time. :-)
                    • Yeah, that ISO1600 is pretty damn good. It'll make ultra fast glass less important which is nice given how expensive it can be. Or at least, shooting wide open will be less important too, allowing you to stop down and still maintain a good shutter speed. It could also make doing night shot panoramas/HDR images easier, because I find a very limiting factor of them is that a 3 frame bracket +/- 2EV often results in 8 second, 2 second and 30 second exposures, and there is sometimes going to be a lot of movement between frames (ie in my HK pano, you can see a particular pattern made by the blurred boats that almost looks like morse code) Thats the 3 frame bracket. Shooting it at ISO 400+ would have helped to minimise it. And then there is the problem where the correct exposure at ISO 100 may actually be 30 seconds in a particularly dark scene. Being able to raise the ISO to 400 would mean it would then be reduced to 8 seconds and the +2 EV exposure would be 30 seconds, whereas at ISO 100, you wouldn't be able to get the +2 EV exposure since there is a 30 second limit to exposures... So yeah, obviously plenty of reasons to want good high ISO ability. Are you going to order it from the US or pay Australian prices? Last I looked, the UK price in pounds was pretty ridiculous, so I may have to make a trip out to New York or something at some point. I'd save more money by flying there for a long weekend than buying it locally. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
                      • Yeah 1800 is not too great an improvement - but apparently it has more detailed capacity info (ie it's not just full to low as in the 20D). I think it's actually only 12mins at full HD, but you can record 29minutes at 640x480, and with a 3" LCD this could be quite draining (not to mention the mechanism required for recording). Fair enough about video playback on your screen - I only brought it up because at uni they've got 21" screens running at 1600x1200 and everything (icons etc) looks tiny on the screens, and youtube-grade video is a mess at full screen whereas on my humble 17" they're not too bad.
                      • I found an even more wowy photo: check this out! EXIF is ISO 3200, 1/15 sec, F10.0, +0.3 EV, EF 100 mm F2.8 Macro, Standard NR. Yup - I can definitely see how it would be helpful with night time HDR! For me it's going to make life a lot easier with my 400mm - handheld I'd like 1/640s and no less than 1/400s which makes shade (and the benefit of soft lighting) a bit of a non starter. Even with a monopod I need to keep above 1/320s and ideally at 1/400s. So being able to move from ISO400 to IS01600 will be open up a lot of opportunities. Similarly with macro work, shooting at f/11 you need quite a bit of light (which typically means you need to flash) - with the excellent low light performance I'll be able to make more frequent use of softer natural light. So yeah it's all looking very good! As for buying it, BH, where I've bought all my camera gear so far, already has it listed for the RRP of $ 2,699.95 which is quite acceptable for me. However, I'm quite annoyed with the Aussie dollar, which 3 months ago was at USD$0.94+ but now is down to USD$0.83 which is going to make the conversion hurt. Hopefully by November it will have recovered to around $0.90.--Fir0002 23:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
                        • I don't think it is strictly defined as limited in minutes. Apparently it is the 4GB filesize limit of FAT32 that forces the video to stop at that point. Because the video codec compression varies depending on what you're shooting, it won't be exactly 12 or 14 minutes but it is fair to guess that it will around that point. Nah, honestly, video playback quality isn't resolution dependent at all. It all depends on the ratio of resolution to viewing distance. If the screen is bigger, you just gotta sit further back to expect the same acuity at a given video resolution.
                        • I don't know if that example image really is that much better though. I'm not saying it isn't good, but I think the true test of high ISO is how it deals with shadows and shadow detail, and there isn't much in this one. Particularly when shooting with JPEG, you get some pretty ugly banding and colour noise in shadows. This one is pretty good, and I'm willing to bet you will be able to comfortable shoot at ISO 800-1600, but I've seen a few ISO 3200 images from the 5D II that weren't quite as good as that one, so I think it'll depend what you're shooting. Also, not surprisingly, I think that image shows that the 5D II is pushing the boundaries of the resolving power of the 100mm macro lens, which is disturbing because it is extremely sharp. Probably my sharpest lens after the 85mm f/1.8. Ah well, even if it isn't razor sharp at 100%, you'll still have plenty of room to downsample if necessary, which will, as you mentioned above somewhere, make noise even less visible! Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
                          • Ah yeah that'd make sense - bring on NTFS!! I found the sample gallery of Mk II videos and I'm dumbstruck - it's absolutely phenomenal. Way better than I expected. To get full size videos do this search in google and you'll find a link to a site which I probably shouldn't directly link to! ;-)
                          • Yeah I'd agree with that - ISO1600 would be as high as I'd be comfortable to go based on the limited sample photos available. And as you say it does look like it's hitting the limit of the resolution of the 100mm - but I much of that can be attributed to the high ISO and the "standard NR" setting. But down sampling will indeed fix it (as well as further improve noise!). --Fir0002 09:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
• <reset indent>Just wanted to mention that I'm not overly impressed by the quality of 1080p video out of the camera. Not to say its bad by any means, but as I mentioned above, when it first came out, it looks like they've sorta cheated and not used all 21mp to generate the frames. I took a screen capture] of one of Canon's sample videos and it isn't anything like pixel-sharp. And it looks well over-sharpened too. Obviously this is something that isn't going to be a major issue on a tv screen and animated at 30fps, but I can't help but think it doesn't look truly amazing. My time lapses (don't click it, right click it and save as.. its 40mb) look better at 1080p. ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 20:03, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Did you see the motorbike/roadway one at full res? It's better. But anyway I guess I just had lower expectations - and I've seen an episode of Blue Planet in High Def and it isn't anywhere near as clear as that motorbike/roadway clip so it is pretty good IMO. Realistically I don't think you'd get perfect sharpness per frame unless you spent $50k on professional video equipment. That timelapse you did was very good - I assume it was just left going in burst mode? Coz the movement is very smooth! And yes in answer to Michael's question below yeah I've seen Reverie, and although it is again a good demonstration of the Mk II's capabilities the video itself I dislke - it attempts to be artistic and IMO comes across as a mish-mash mess! --Fir0002 21:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I thought that of Reverie too... I've noticed a lot of the sample videos are showing off the shallow DOF/bokeh a lot too, at the expense of actually showing meaningful in focus detail, but I guess given that the DOF is one of the things people are excited about, it could be forgiven. For the record, if you're interested, (weighing in at a hefty 56mb), here's my Oxford st time lapse in 1080p. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 06:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you see this video? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah, I did, and although it is admittedly quite impressive, it is significantly downsampled from the original 1080p video straight out of the camera. I was refering to 100% pixel sharpness on the video. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 21:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Off camera flash

I suppose that for small subjects fir is pretty close with the MT24EX, but does anyone else use radio triggers etc to get flashes off camera? I been getting some pretty good results with some dirt cheap ebay radio triggers. Noodle snacks (talk) 11:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah I've been meaning to ask you about your setup - what kind of umbrellas are you using? And where did you buy it from? Because I've been quite impressed with the lighting you've achieved on many of your macros... --Fir0002 05:11, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• • I am using triggers from here with an extra reciever or two with this bracket and umbrella. The radio triggers are fairly cheap in construction but they do seem reliable apart from the odd random pop. 33in isn't huge as far as umbrellas go, but as its the shoot through type it can be inches from your subject and give an extremely soft light. The silver type eats less power but you can't get as close so the angular size is typically smaller from a subject perspective. My light stands are entirely DIYed from old tripods i found from the tip shop (as i am cheap and the current exchange rate is unfavourable). I often find for macros that the one umbrella works out pretty well, I occasionally use a second manual flash I have for fill. More lights could be used to control the level of background and so on but more than 2 or 3 is overkill for macro and probably more suited to glamour shots etc. Noodle snacks (talk) 05:30, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• • • Yeah the triggers could be handy, but I'm more interested in the shoot through umbrella - why did you choose that rather than a silvery reflective type? Does it give softer light? Coz I have been thinking of getting a silvery umbrella (mainly for portraiture but also for product shot stuff) but to be honest I don't know very much on umbrellas so would appreciate any pointers! The MT-24EX is very good for out door macros, but not 100% ideal for the product shots in which you need to pump out a fair bit of light because it starts casting double shadows --Fir0002 08:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• • • • Well the softness of the light is really dependant on the size of the light source relative to the object. So a larger umbrella will be softer generally, however small flashes are typically limited to smaller umbrellas due to power output limitations. A shoot through umbrella can be softer than a silver reflective one since you can have it really close to the subject; the silver type needs a stand between it and the subject. I've heard of both types being sucessfully used for portraiture. A silver one wouldn't get quite as soft, but arguably would eat less power too. Quite a few places sell convertable umbrellas that have a removable silver layer, these are probably the way to go if you are unsure. I'd recommend having a look at strobist if you haven't already, it is pretty informative as far as using small flashes for off camera light goes, the primary focus there is on portraiture and photojournalism. Noodle snacks (talk) 12:14, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

• • • • • Thanks for the advice - at the moment I'm thinking of going with the shoot through but I'll do a bit more research first --Fir0002 12:48, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Behind the Shot

This is a shameless rip off a series The Age is running on interesting photos where the photographer tells a little about the background of a photo. So if you've taken a shot with an interesting/unusual technique please share here!

Butterfly Midflight

Butterfly midflight

To kick start here's one I prepared earlier ;) Butterflies are well know for their erratic flight behaviour. Macro lenses are well know for their slow focussing. Fact 1 + Fact 2 = not so easy to get a butterfly in flight! So this was my attempt at this problem. First I had to find a butterfly which had very fast reflexes and was also skittish. This, after several candidates, ended up in the form of Geitoneura klugii. Obviously the easiest time to get a butterfly was just after take off because then at least you've got time to prefocus (more or less). So what I planned to do was prefocus on a feeding Geitoneura and then take a photo with the following settings: 1/250s, f/11 ISO400, flash. Shutter and aperture are pretty straightforward in terms of macro shots but it is important that they underexposed the scene by 2 stops. Being a skittish butterfly it would take off as soon as you made some noise (shutter). It was so skittish that it was in the air before the flash kicked in and froze it in midflight with a rapid (much faster than 1/250s) flash burst and got me my shot. There was some motion blur to the image - you'd probably need to shoot at over 1/1000s to properly freeze it - but it's not bad in giving it a dynamic quality. Other cons were that being a skittish butterfly it was very difficult to approach and get into position to and occasionally it would fly at an awkward angle and be out of focus. But otherwise not a bad effort - be happy to know any other experiences in this area! --Fir0002 03:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Pool Cue Being Chalked

Cue chalk (view at 800px at least)

Cool idea, Fir. Here is one: My family has a pool table in our finished basement, (note: I use the word "pool" to refer to billiards, ie. snooker, 9-ball, 8-ball) and I play pretty frequently and well. As a result, it had been on my mind to take some pictures of pool related things. One such thing was cue chalk. My first idea was to have a picture of the cue tip striking a cue ball and show the resulting trail of chalk dust. I tried this, with a friend hitting the balls and hoping to catch the right moment. It became apparent that it wouldn't work because there was minimal chalk dispersion. So, a few days later, I decided to try the method shown in the photo here. It was ridiculously challenging. How was I going to hold the cue steady enough for it to remain in the frame and not exhibit motion blur; apply the chalk; and trip the shutter all in a very small period. It made matters worse that I was in my fairly dark basement. I had some halogen work lights with me, and that allowed a paltry 1/160s at ISO 200 with flash. So, I had to hold the cue very steady and hope the flash stopped most of the motion. I tried a vise but didn't want to damage my cue and it was hard to chalk a cue held entirely by a vise. So I put the back of the top section of the cue (it screws into two pieces) into a pocket on the table with some balls in there to stabilize then I had the camera on a tripod pointed at it. I held the cue with three fingers from my right hand and the remote shutter release with the other two fingers on that hand. then I would strike the chalk across the cue and try to press the remote release at the same time. What was worse, I also had to deal with focus problems, as I couldn't see the viewfinder and couldn't rely on the autofocus to pick out the cue tip as it moved some. Personally, I thought it was a good way of showing such a mundane subject in a dynamic photo. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 01:44, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• Good work - definitely some interesting improvisations there! --Fir0002 03:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Lighting

I suppose its a bit different to the above, but it is relevant to previous discussion on the subject of off camera flash. I took some more flower pictures yesterday and have attached the lighting set-ups. I haven't gotten around to identifying any of them yet though. The hanging manfrotto tripod is to stabilise the (home made) stand as it was pretty windy.

• 
  Unidentified Flower 1
• 
  Hypericum calycinum lighting setup
• 
  Calendula officinalis
• 
  Calendula officinalis
• 
  Calendula officinalis
• 
  Calendula officinalis lighting setup
• 
  Sprekelia formosissima
• 
  Sprekelia formosissima
• 
  Sprekelia formosissima lighting setup
• Lilium longiflorum
  Lilium longiflorum
• 
  Lilium longiflorum
• 
  Lilium longiflorum lighting setup
• 
  Noodle snacks' ugly mug

I do have another flash but I don't usually find it necessary for flowers. I vary the softness of the light by adjusting the zoom head on my flash. Flower one had the zoom head at 105mm, so wasn't so soft, whilst flower 2 had it at 24mm for example. Altering the distance of the shoot through umbrella will also alter the softness. Flower 2 probably isn't that useful for an encyclopaedia (narrow depth of field), I haven't gotten around to uploading one that would be. I got the shadows in Lily 1 by placing the shoot through umbrella above, the centre is naturally darker though. I am fairly sure that the nearby wall had an effect on the lighting of Lily 2. I haven't got around to posting the extended details on the image pages, but most of them were at fairly low magnification. Noodle snacks (talk) 04:57, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Nicely done. I don't usually do too much flash photography as it isn't of much use in landscape/cityscape work, but I have always appreciated how much of a black art it is to get right from my limited experimentation. How exactly does that radio trigger work? You just put the transmitter where the flash normally goes and connect a receiver to the flash itself? Does it still expose correctly, etc? I'm a bit of a flash novice. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Yep, the transmitter goes into the flash hotshoe. The reciever is connected to the flash (and has a hotshoe on it). E-TTL doesn't work with radio triggers, so you have to manually dial in the flash power which is easily done with a test pop at 1/16th power and then dialing it in from the histogram. A consequence of this is that cheap manual flashes are more than adequate. Canon do have a wireless system that works with infared (vs radio), which probably has pros and cons. I don't see any major benefit to E-TTL for off camera flash as you'd still have to dial in the FEC anyway. I did a self portrait the other day and was pretty successful with the shoot through umbrella, iirc fir was asking about that usage, I may upload a limited resolution copy of it at some point. Noodle snacks (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
    • Nice - I was sitting on the fence a bit with the umbrella but this series has convinced me and I splurged out the enormous $30  :-) and bought it yesterday. Can you also upload a closer up view on how you've connected the mount to the tripod? And yeah would be great to see a sample portrait using this kind of lighting. Speaking of self portraits its high time I did a new one... --Fir0002 03:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I added a low resolution version of the portrait, basically underexposed the background (a willow tree) by a stop or so, then placed shoot through umbrella on my right and about 2 feet away and slightly in front of me. I got my mum to pop the trigger on the camera. If you got the umbrella from the same place then the umbrella mount would be included. There is basically a thumb screw and a hole for a 5/8in bit of rod, in my case I just modified a tip shop tripod for the mount, but you could easily just pay the $30 or so for a light stand :P. I'll take a photograph of the mount a bit later. Noodle snacks (talk) 04:06, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
        • That's looking good - no harsh flash highlights and overall pretty good brightness. And yeah I did get it from the same spot - seems a pretty good price and the free postage was very attractive! --Fir0002 04:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The Gentlemen's Club and our Next Big Conspiracy

What evil should we involve ourselves in next, now that we've successfully stonewalled the latest proposal by those mischievous meddlers to alter our precious status quo on FPC? ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 08:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• I say we change our name to something way more conspiracy theory friendly... Noodle snacks (talk) 09:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
• Alternatively we can begin implementing the "Final Solution" whereby only members of the Evil Gentleman's Club are elgible to vote on FPC! :D --Fir0002 10:07, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Sounds good, I suppose we should start with a bit of Blitzkrieg Kristallnacht and ransack their user pages to shake them up a bit. As for a new name, I was thinking along the lines of "The Masonic Skull & Bones Workers Trade Union of Black Knights for the Protection of Status Quo (FPC Chapter)"? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
    • ... or the TMSBWTUOBKFTPOSQ(FPCC) for short! Hmm we might need something more catchy for our propaganda slogans! ;) --Fir0002 03:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
    • It looks like there is a rival Gentleman's Club :D Noodle snacks (talk) 02:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible FP

Guys, just wanted to run this by you for a second opinion. I have three very similar photos, all of which I think are of suitable quality to be a FP, but I'm not entirely sure which I should nominate. Obviously not all three, and as I've noticed when Fir0002 has nominated multiple images as alternatives, it has often only confused things. Anyway, the three images are from the suburb of Watsons Bay in Sydney:

Camp Cove beach from the distance on a cliff - Used as the lead image in Watsons Bay, New South Wales

Camp Cove beach up close and wide angle, also showing the Sydney skyline in the background - Used in Tourism in Sydney

Watsons Bay itself, also used in Watsons Bay, New South Wales.

Have you guys got an opinion on which is the best image? I like each of them for different reasons and all of them are very high res, high quality and technically pretty good, but I can't decide. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• 3 has the least area shown of the three, so is the least useful for an encyclopaedia. 2 is probably the prettiest, and does give good context to the location but I'd pick 1 from a pure EV point of view. I think there are other locations probably more representative of tourism in Sydney. I haven't looked at the technical quality of the images since thats probably not going to be an issue. Noodle snacks (talk) 00:11, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

• • No. 1 IMO struck me the most when I first saw it and is my favourite. Nice series! --Fir0002 03:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

• • • I prefer number 2. I think the wide-angle compo is not only the best executed, but also the most visually appealing. Awesome that you have Sydney in the background too. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 06:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
• Ok, so we've essentially eliminated number 3. Extreme ratio panoramic images are a bit awkward anyway. I'm leaning towards 1 as well. I do like 2 and think it would probably make a nice print on a wall or something, and actually, looking at it compared to the other two, it seems to be lacking a bit of contrast, possibly as a result of lifting shadows a bit too much. It's a shame actually, as I can't imagine that either 1 or 2 would probably make much money as stock photography, but might actually sell in markets or on a postcard or something. Trouble is, I don't really have the contacts, location or inclination to pursue it. Every time I pass a crafts market, I tell myself I could do better than many of the photographers there, but I can't think of anything worse than sitting in one every sunday, hoping for a sale or two! ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

iStockphoto

I was talking to Fir0002 a while ago about this, but I figured I'd bring it here seeing as a number of us are selling stock. I've noticed a big drop off in sales from iStock since around August/September. As in, I used to be steady at around $170-200 a month for the last year or more, increasing slowly as I added new images to it, and then suddenly its dropped off significantly to at most $70-100, and in that time I've added quite a few new images that have been selling okay, but the old faithful images (my Colosseum and Palace of Westminster photos probably accounted for 80% of the sales previously) have just fallen off a cliff. I have no idea what has caused it, possibly the economic situation. Anyway, just thought I'd bring it up for your comments/thoughts. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 20:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah my graph is even worse - I've been losing pretty steadily from Feb which I peaked at $480 and now in Nov I hit $110 :( --Fir0002 20:58, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I haven't had a file sale from iStock in the last two months... although, my independent license sales have actually been increasing. :-P -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 23:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Lucky you, the only independent approaches I've received lately have only been asking me if they can use my photos for free! Charity Christmas cards, etc. I've decided to start wording my licensing terms a little more clearly and strongly (as mentioned on Noodle Snack's talk page), so that people can't assume they can use my photos as they wish. There does seem to be an assumption that because Wiki has information available to the public at no cost, all their content must be free to take too. At no cost, yes, but not free. Grr! It isn't that I won't consider allowing it, I just want the choice to decide based on their needs and how commercial the use is. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 00:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

A new level of overkill for detail freaks

Well, I was shooting a Gaillardia in my garden and for some reason decided to shoot a panorama. The light was off camera and hence consistent between shots. The result was surprisingly good I thought. The only catch is that I think I moved away slightly for the top right shot but the full resolution photograph is 5046x4656! Next is 6x6x6 shot focus stack HDR time lapse movie... Noodle snacks (talk) 10:03, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• Haha, yeah, it did turn out pretty well. How did you avoid parallax error on a shot up this close? I assume you don't have a panoramic head? I wouldn't call it stitched overkill just yet. I've shot many 50+ segment panoramas, which, even allowing for 50% overlap on each image, means 150 megapixels. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Licensing and permission for images

I've just updated my 'licensing permission' spiel and brought it out of the dark ages in the form of a proper template (previously I was just manually entering a primative version of it into the default upload template each time), and wanted to bounce it off you guys to see if you can think of anything to add/change/remove. It seems to be filtering through to the image pages a bit slowly at the moment, and it's right now hit-and-miss as to whether I get an older version of it or the most up to date version, but this one seems to be working at the moment. If not, the template is here. Thoughts? How does it read? If you were an ignorant first time visitor who didn't know the licensing works here, would you 'get it'? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 01:50, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's pretty good - do you mind if I beef up my own notice along similar lines to yours? --Fir0002 08:04, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

No problem. Just as long as you attribute me ;-) Kidding.. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Does CC-BY-SA require a link to the licence text? I thought that was only a GDFL requirement. Noodle snacks (talk) 10:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

No, I believe CC-BY-SA does too. From the Creative Commons page on the licence: "For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.". Basically it requires some sort of reference to the licence. Either you link to the licence or you spend even more time and space on the page explaining the licence terms!

While we're on the topic of licences though, I have a major grumble with GFDL. I've never paid much attention to GFDL before as I'm reasonably happy to release my images on CC-BY-SA (as long as the terms are adhered to correctly), but I've recently been enlightened to the fact that GFDL 1.3 has been released which essentially provides the ability to jump over to CC-BY-SA's licence at the discretion of the individual using the image, even if the image was not dual licenced with CC!! This is all well and good if you choose to release your image under GFDL 1.3, but noooo, it doesn't matter, because the GFDL 1.2 licence states that you can use it or any later version!!! Meaning if you've used GFDL 1.2, you've essentially released your image on terms you didn't actually know or control at the time of release, because they could be (and have been significantly) changed in any newer version of the licence!!! I think that is extremely sly. I agree and understand Wiki's need to migrate to a more image-friendly licence than GFDL, but that doesn't mean you should be able to migrate images already released whether the authors don't agree to the terms of CC-BY-SA. It should be the author's right to choose. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:37, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I agree (re:GFDL 1.3) - that is done right wrong. I'll have to wait until I do contract and stuff in my law course but surely you can't add in a clause which means that the photographer effectively has no control over their license once they've released under the GFDL!! Because theoretically this would allow GFDL 1.4 to say that the a person can choose a PD license and then the photographer would lose all rights --Fir0002 04:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything (logically speaking) in law that would prohibit you from doing it BUT there are usually statutes that override common law, if I understand it correctly. In other words, if it were merely an Australian license contract, in theory there may be a statute that overrides that license (for example, after doing a bit of research on this myself, I found that a landlord may write whatever he wants into a tenant's rental contract, but it might not hold up in court if it contravened statutory law as they are higher laws than anything written into a contract). Who knows how it works internationally. The laws of individual countries are complicated enough, but trying to apply them in a global community does my head in. Thats partly why I never bothered pursuing Apple over their use of my Colosseum image. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, you should know that some of us fought hard to keep the GFDL and fix it's wiki-related problems. In the end, however, the FSF didn't want to substantially change their license, and since the WMF wasn't interested in arguing with them for another 3 years, the only real solution was migrating to CC. Nobody's entirely happy with this kludge (except maybe Creative Commons), but given the alternatives, it's the best solution we have to getting Wikipedia off of its licensing island. I don't expect everyone to go along with it happily, but I hope people understand that several years of hard work and negotiation got us to this point. It wasn't just some crazy whim that the WMF came up and dictated from on high. Kaldari (talk) 03:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The Gentlemans Club?

Janke's recent comments do make me wonder precisely how it is that the photography guild benefits the encyclopaedia. Wikipedia:NOTMYSPACE is quite relevant. Personally I enjoy the intelligant level of discussion here, however the rather exclusive nature of this "gentlemans club" is fueling an increasing sentiment that there is a "self-nominated elite" at FPC, which causes problems. Perhaps this group should be dissolved altogether and discussions should continue on user talk pages. What do you think? Noodle snacks (talk) 13:10, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I think it's unfortunate if it does make people think that. Joking about conspiracies aside, nothing actually goes on here that would make people think that. I just find it a neutral, convenient place to discuss photographic news, techniques and issues that would otherwise clog up project pages and decentralise the discussion. The fact that it is a sub-page of Fir0002's page is not important (IMO). Perhaps the fact that there is actually an 'entry requirement' makes it a bit exclusive, but really, the only requirements are activity on FPC and good photographic abilities. Yes, that makes us a sub-set of the FPC community, but probably slightly more qualified to speak on technical photographic issues too. In any case, are we going to ask someone to leave if they invite themselves into the discussion? Of course not. Therefore I don't think it is really as exclusive as some allege. But yeah, if it genuinely is causing problems, we could just as easily talk elsewhere. I'm not fussed. I just think if it does come to that then it is due to other people's overreactions rather than ours. We're hardly a united front anyway, as we frequently disagree on various topics. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:24, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
• Just as another aside, I have to say, just as you wonder how this guild benefits the encyclopaedia, I also wonder how this guild in actual terms hinders the encyclopaedia. Obviously it fuels sentiment, but I do think the sentiment is unfounded, particularly where blame of the guild is concerned. PLW is the only one who has actually named the guild in relation to elitism, and I think it is fairly obvious to most that PLW is to put it bluntly, a shit-shirrer (Disclaimer: This is my opinion and is not necessarily the opinion of any group of which I am a member! ;-) ). Whether there is elitism or not, I think it would be fair to say that it stems from the FPC process itself, rather than from this page. If I'm perfectly honest, I don't think there is actually any particular elitism. There is just a number of contributors who happen to have an opinion and will debate the issue with other contributors. I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all, and it has always happened, and for that matter has always been a necessary part of the process. That said, FPC has become far more picky lately than it used to be, particularly in regards to EV and technical faults. Most of our images are picked apart as a matter of course - something which never used to happen to the same extent, unless there was something genuinely and obviously wrong with it. This is both unfortunate and but IMO necessary if we're to increase the standards of featured pictures. It just happens to create more conflict too, and I think that may be what Janke is upset by. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Aye, I suspect it might also be the greater number of people with too much free time due to the holiday season :D Noodle snacks (talk) 14:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm actually really surprised by Janke's reaction because lets face it he was more a commentator then a nominator/photographer. I could maybe understand photographers getting frustrated by escalating technical demands, but I really can't see how it could effect people who primarily review images. Regardless I think branding the guild as an elitist group is a bit misguided - all the guild is is an award I decided wikipedia could use to recognise our best photographers. There's nothing to it but a name I guess and an award. This talkpage is, as Diliff mentioned, merely a convenient place to "talk shop" - something I remember getting told off for when the FPC talkpage was the venue. So I certainly can't see a problem with this page - although I did deliberately take the precaution of creating this in my userspace where it should be safe from deletionists (I think anyway!). --Fir0002 04:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Thats true. And I kind of see leaving the project as counterproductive if you see a problem with the direction it is heading. Everyone has the ability to shape the future of FPC if they have a good idea and can convince others of its merit, so I sort of see leaving suddenly as taking the easy way out. Especially for someone who is one probably considered one of the elder statesmen among us, it was a bit of a surprise. Ah well,such is life. As I said, apart from PLW, I don't think anyone ever made an issue of this guild, and besides, shutting it down would only move the discussion elsewhere rather than silence it. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
        • I think that is only sometimes true. If one becomes disenchanted with the direction something is headed or the people who are taking it that way, leaving is a logical step. Personally, I think the conversations here are interesting and very informative beyond that, the personalities are really easy to deal with. That combinations makes participating in these discussions a pleasure. At WT:FPC I feel more like I am fending off attacks by a handful of users on behalf of reason. That feeling really does not make it enjoyable to spend time there. Sure, its fun to stick it to someone like PWL but it isn't the reason I'm here. So, if it weren't for the guild I might have already left. I probably wouldn't leave a goodbye message like Janke simply because I would want to have the option of returning... anyway, leaving is sometimes a good course of action I think. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 23:48, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
          • But if you really think FPC could be better, surely sticking around and helping to shape the project is the right way to do it, rather than leaving it to its own devices. I can't help but think Janke left a goodbye message to stir us into action somehow, but it would have been better if he had stayed and helped, I think. Anyway, my opinion is still that this 'guild' has nothing to do with any problems in FPC. Any association of ours is purely coincidental as I don't feel we have any 'common agenda'. If we agree on certain topics, it is just coincidence. Perhaps the voice of reason, on occasion though. :-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 01:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Ballhead Maintainence

Didn't stitch well

I'm not particularly anal about keeping my tripod clean and out of the water/dirt. I've been swimming with it a few times and dropped it in dirt/sand many times. Recently the ball started getting a bit "grabby". Whilst Manfrotto don't recommend lubricants (there is a graphite grease already present) I sprayed it with a small amount of WD40, sure enough a bunch of crud came out and it is much smoother in operation (important with a long telephoto), the lubricant didn't have any effect on the locked down tightness. What do you do to maintain your tripod ballhead(s)? Noodle snacks (talk) 09:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• I guess I don't tend to get mine as dirty as I've had a little Gitzo one for a good 3 or 4 years and never needed to clean it. My relatively new Markins Q3 head is a bit over a year old and again hasn't needed a clean, but the instructions that came with it suggested WD40. I definitely recommend the Q3 though - it's smooth as silk as-is. Not cheap (particularly with the poor Aussie dollar/pound, although I was lucky to get it when the pound was worth $2.. now I'm lucky to get $1 :-( ah well..), but by far the cheapest of the high end ball heads, from what I found. What head is the 488RC2 anyway? A Google search doesn't reveal much. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 11:58, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
  • The 488RC2 is basically a fairly decent midrange ballhead. It is more than adequate for work with shorter focal lengths in my view but it droops and drags a bit with my 400mm (particularly noticeable when using the teleconverter) If I were to upgrade my head, I'd probably just get one of those gimbal types for a big telephoto, ballheads become impractical with heavy gear anyway. The current exchange rate is unfortunate, I am not spending any money on camera gear whilst it is so poor. When the exchange rate recovers I should have enough cash together for a 500mm F/4L Noodle snacks (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
  • On another note, have you ever found the need for a panorama head (of the type which rotates around the lense's nodal point to get rid of parallax error)? I took a panorama of the attached shot the other day, but the stitching failed pretty miserably, so did one at Adventure Bay with a lot of rocks in the foreground. I'd make one for myself but I'm not sure how I'd do it allowing it to compensate for multiple lenses. Fortunately I had my UWA for the beautiful sunrise. Noodle snacks (talk) 12:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Yeah, definitely, for big lenses a gimbal would be the best bet although by design it is a bit restricted to shooting fairly horizontally. You're getting into some fairly big and expensive gear by that stage, but I guess that hasn't stopped you so far. :-) My Gitzo ball head drooped a bit even with the 70-200mm f/2.8L on the tripod collar. And yeah, I do occasionally get parallax problems with my panoramas. It is usually only noticible/difficult to correct with scenes of geometric patterns and straight lines, where the stitcher is unable to 'fudge' it. I've ummed and ahhed about a panoramic head for a while now, but the cost (they are quite expensive for what they are), size and fiddlyness of them has stopped me pulling the trigger on them. That said, countless interiors (usually churches with big pillars seem to be worst affected) have been ruined as a result. I do wonder how exactly though, as the error I get seems to be worse than would be expected given the focal point movement and distance to subject, and I do occasionally wonder if lens distortion also plays a factor. I've tried a few utilities that correct for a given lens' distortions, and still get the stitching errors, so without using a panoramic head I can't eliminate all possibilities... Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 13:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Well, I have just about DIYed one. I just need a T-nut from the hardware store to allow the mounting of a manfrotto quick release plate, then I should be able to post some tests. I am expecting hugely improved results with panoramas that might not stitch otherwise (the inside of buildings etc mostly). Noodle snacks (talk) 11:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
        • I finished it off today and tried it in my garage, very successful with subjects from a foot away from the camera in a 360 degree panorama. I don't think wikipedia really needs a huge panorama of my garage, so I will have to find a subject that'd fail normal stitching to pano. Noodle snacks (talk) 06:24, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
          • Well Wiki might not need the photo of your garage, but I'd like to see a photo of the actual panoramic head that you made. I assume that you'd need to find the positions of the entrance pupil of all your lenses relative to the head, given that you're not working with a tried and tested head? Can you upload to Flickr or something instead? (or even just email me) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
            • I was able to find a few tiny stitching errors, but they are extremely minor. Here is the garage (low quality and small due to image shack limits):
              • [2]
            • Here are some 100% crops of the above. Note that the sharpness isn't anything special since it was set to manual focus, the first image is about 4 meters away, whilst the first is around 0.6m.
              • [3]
              • [4]
            • Here are some images of the rig, Pardon the DIY speakers in the background:
              • [5]
              • [6]
            • I have currently just drilled a hole and recess to match the sigma 10-20mm (since that is the most likely lens I'd be using which would cause stitching problems). I will later rout out a slot to make it adjustable (and mark for different lenses). It would also be easy to make a different mounting plate for each lens. Considering that the front of the table saw is about 30cm out from the tripod mount point I think the results are extremely good. I am pretty sure you can use some free VR software to view images like this in a movable rectilinear projection, but wiki doesn't support such things through a java applet unfortunately. Noodle snacks (talk) 10:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
              • I'd recommend trying FSPViewer on the panorama. The quality isn't as good as using the original, but its still pretty cool. Noodle snacks (talk) 11:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Website

Hey all, I was thinking of getting myself a website to display my pictures and this was the cheapest thing I could find. I don't know about others, but Fir and Diliff, you guys have websites, do you think it is legit? Could you provide any better alternatives? Help from any other guild member is also appreciated. Thanks --Muhammad(talk) 20:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• My dad has many websites as a wholesale customer with siteground no idea on how good they are for a single account though. Noodle snacks (talk) 10:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I use webcity which is relatively cheap (more expensive than the one you found) and gives pretty good hosting. Can't say for sure but 2gb hosting looks legit and does seem to have pretty attractive plans --Fir0002 12:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Thanks for all your help. In the end I decided to go with vexxhost. My website is http://www.micro2macro.net . Not much done yet :) --Muhammad(talk) 05:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Crappy Cardboard Creations Continue (Lightbox)

My next project will be an optical and/or sound flash trigger I reckon, for getting photos of balloons exploding and water drops (with precision) etc. But today I built a light box, to see what it was like compared to my umbrella. The results were quite reasonable, I need to crop the image and my 10-20 is a bit filthy. I had to clone out the glass edges. Annoying thing is the double reflection (one for each edge of the glass). here is a shot of the setup. Noodle snacks (talk) 11:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Crickets chirping...

Has seemed a bit dead in here lately, with Fir being a little too studious and Fcb missing in action... Anyway, just thought I'd mention that I recently decided to splash out on a panoramic head - the Nodal Ninja. First impression is that it is actually more unwieldly than I would have thought and takes a bit of time to set up - solidly built though. Not the sort of thing you can easily whip out at short notice, before the local rent-a-cops decide to interrogate you because you look a bit 'too professional'. ;-) NS, what happened to your makeshift pano head? Any use of it since the 360 in your garage? Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 16:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Missing in action? Ok, thats fair, but I'm actually planning on uploading some photos sometime this month (if I get around to it) ;). Nice to hear you got a panohead, its hard to imagine panoramics better than you can already take, but I guess we'll see what comes from it. I'm moving rapidly into video/film production as a new hobby/source of income and I fear photography is somehow falling by the wayside. Anyway, I'm not gone, just not particularly active. (Not the case with you, diliff, it seems, just looking over recent FPs of yours.) -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 19:26, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Heh, within a week after I made it I went for a bushwalk and it dropped out of my bag somewhere on the way back. In the days before I realised, it rained pretty much continuously. I didn't bother going back and trying to find it for that reason. Pretty annoying, and I am not sure how exactly it happened, but better that than an expensive bit of camera gear. I will just have to build another when I get the time. I'd be interested to see what you do with it. Noodle snacks (talk) 23:52, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Density Filters

Anticlimactic sunrise, wasn't really worth getting up at 5am, though the result is alright. No ND due to time of day.

Just wondering if someone could recommend ND filters for me - I'm aiming for 5-8 stops. NS, you've taken quite a few waterfalls? --Fir0002 09:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• I got an ND8 (only 3 stops though) very cheaply (£8-10 or so) on Ebay. I was a little worried about it being crap as it is plexiglass, not glass, but I've had no problems with it at all optically. 8 stops would require 2 or 3 which isn't at all ideal though. I've shot through both the ND8 and my polariser before, although not at all recommended at the 17mm end of the 17-40mm. Vignette galore! You lose the vignette by about 24-30mm. ND8 filters are usually the limit of what is commonly available cheaply though. You'd be wanting an ND64 which gives you 6 stops. NS has used a good HK based site apparently: http://maxsaver.net/ I don't know if they sell ND64 filters though - they're a bit rarer. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Having just looked through Ns's waterfall shots it seems as though a ND4+CP should do me fine. If not I guess I'll go for this later (thanks for the link). I'm not too concerned about vignette as the long exposures I'd be doing would be for aesthetic rather than encyclopaedic images and vignetting doesn't hurt there (unless you're doing panos of course in which case 24mm should be OK) --Fir0002 10:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I agree that ND8 + CP should be enough for most waterfall sort of images, but it of course depends whether you're under deep shadows or bright sunlight. I took a number of waterfall panoramas with that combo on my Lake District trip, but haven't got around to uploading yet. They have limited EV anyway though, as they're just of cute, little streams, not major waterfalls with articles. As for the vignetting at 17mm though, you might be surprised by how bad it is. It's not the sort of vignetting you get when you shoot wide open - it's pretty extreme and harsh with the corners sliced away to black. ;-) Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 12:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
      • The other reason I wanted the ND filters for (aside from waterfalls) was to do some motion blurred streetscapes - in which case the N8 might not be enough. We'll see. And I guess I'll also just have to wait and see how bad the vignette is! --Fir0002 12:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
        • I have an ND4x. An ND4 or ND8 is going to be the most useful for shaded waterfalls and seascapes. Combine with a polariser for stronger effects. I want an ND1000, which will give you smooth water in sunlight. Of course, at the right time of day you don't need anything at all. You can shoot seascapes well after the sun goes down (like 9pm in summer). My 10-20 doesn't vignette at all with two filters fortunately, I can't speak for a 17-40 though. A cokin Z-pro filter holder and filters will let you use a bunch without vignetting. It might be worth asking benh about File:Champs_Elysees_Paris_Wikimedia_Commons.jpg regarding street scapes. Noodle snacks (talk) 13:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
          • With sunlight on water, wouldn't you just end up with lots of streaky blown highlights, even with a badass-strong ND filter? I don't know if I've ever seen exactly that sort of image before so I'm only guessing, but with a specular reflection from such a bright and small light source, it could be messy. Of course I could also be wrong. I guess it depends exactly how long you let it expose for. 30 seconds is probably enough to blur the hell out of anything. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
            • Going to flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/corica/2347391485/ is the type of thing you will get with a fairly strong swell. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasenz/249646527/ is what I'd expect from something fairly calm. I don't usually like the cloud streaking so much though. So long as the water has some motion then highlights are averaged over an area, so blown highlights is less likely. Long exposure is the perfect way to ensure a good stitch with moving water though. My own shot above had a moderate swell, and 10 seconds was more than ample to blur that out. Noodle snacks (talk) 03:05, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
        • True. All depends on how much money you want to spend. An N64 would be enough for waterfalls but probably not broad daylight exposures of say 15 seconds. That ND64 is also a lot more expensive than a cheap ebay ND8 + existing CP. One other possibility is getting 2 x cheap ND8s (equivalent to ND64) which would be slightly better than ND8 + CP because they're thinner than a CP (less vignetting). In fact I think I'd much prefer to go down this route than paying $77 for the B+W one. I honestly have no complaints about my cheapo filter. Actually this is the exact one I got. Even cheaper than I thought. Get two of these and you'd save yourself a lot of money over the B+W one, as well as then having the flexibility of using just one at a time, or both stacked. You probably will still get vignetting, but less than with an ND8 + CP. Just a thought. Up to you. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 14:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
          • In my opinion the main difference between cheap and expensive filters is likely to be flare. Flare isn't an issue at all for waterfalls, but can be a problem with the sun or at night. Because they are flat they can't really cause chromatic aberration for example. Most of my front elements are filthy and it doesn't effect the image (though it can cause flare). http://www.lensrentals.com/news/2008.10.30/front-element-scratches is worth a look. Noodle snacks (talk) 03:06, 8 July 2009 (UTC)