Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Posted on August 25, 2008 - by Patrick
Boatload of Traffic
So much so the site went down for a spell. Now it’s back.
It’s interesting, I have woopra to track stats LIVE, and at one point 67 people were on at once, then the site went down. What are folks interested in?
- Canon 50D
- Nikon D90
- The Panasonic LX3
- anything “versus”
So the Canon 50D versus Nikon D90 is looking like an excellent post idea. Anyway I’d like to welcome the thousands of new viewers coming in, and ask you to kindly subscribe to the site if ya like it. For regular readers I’m about to finalize the layout of the site, so it’s all nice and tidy, and user friendly in addition to some other things that I think you guys will like, so again please subscribe/or bookmark, and thanks for coming by.
Oh, I might need to upgrade my hosting plan too.
Posted on August 25, 2008 - by Patrick
Good Morning…
Apparently Olympus has launched some new compacts, one for each color of skittles, at least that’s what 100 different feeds are telling me as I try to get this coffee down. I’m sure Noisy has this covered…
Posted on August 21, 2008 - by Patrick
Canon Lens Review: EF 200mm f/2L IS USM
Canon shooters in need of a fast, low light, pro lens will want to check out CameraReview’s review of the Canon EF 200mm f/2L IS USM lens. Featuring some hearty IS good for 4 stops the EF 200mm f/2L IS USM doesn’t have to be relegated just to the tripod:
Although most photographers will attach a tripod or monopod to get the most from this lens, it is actually quite usable hand-held (although the tripod mount does get in the way at times). This is largely thanks to the stabilisation system and the overall balance of the lens on the 5D
-CameraReview
It isn’t the most discrete lens (huge for 200mm), but if you shoot available light events, and have the roughly $5500 sitting around, the Canon EF 200mm f2L IS USM brings you amazing sharpness from center to corner, with very fast AF, very little vignetting, and overall excellent image quality.
Posted on August 21, 2008 - by Patrick
PopPhoto review of the Nikon Digital SLR D700 Camera
Find yourself dreaming of the resolving power and noise management of the Nikon D3, but could never justify charging the $5000 to ol’ credit card. Well as you know Nikon was kind enough to give photographers something very close to a dream camera in the D700 and today PopPhoto has posted their review of the 12 megapixel, full frame, little brother of the D3. And either there is very liberal D700 bias in the mainstream (camera) media or the D700 really is a great camera. The typical critique of the D700 comes in the form of:
We are, however, disappointed that the D700’s AF system doesn’t match the breakneck speeds of the D3. This means that photographers will have to settle for just blazingly fast. In bright and moderate light from EV 12 to EV 6, it’s faster than Canon’s EOS 40D and 5D, but not as quick as Sony’s Alpha 700 or the Olympus E-3.
-PopPhoto
That’s right the D700 is unfortunately just blazingly fast. Other flaws include shutter sound, 95% viewfinder coverage, ony 5 FPS, and no second CF card slot. If you can find somekind of way to live with those “flaws”, then it is very likely that the Nikon D700 digital SLR camera will fullfill your dreams.
Posted on August 17, 2008 - by Patrick
Canon 5D Replacement
Updated (for clarity)
The New York Herald is running this story which points to a “leak” rumor in the DPR forums. The post featured the following specifications:
- Will be announced Monday, September 8, 2008
- MSRP: $2,399.95 (SSP: $2,199.95), body only
- 16MP FF sensor
- 6 FPS
- Max ISO 25,600 (for what it’s worth…it’s more for marketing)
- Full weather sealing
- VGA-resolution display (from same supplier Sony uses for their new Handycams, except in 4:3 aspect ratio here)
- Pop-up flash
- Anti-dust features
- NO Live View
- NO pro AF from 1D (although all points are cross-type)
- NO video mode whatsoever (silliest rumor I’ve ever heard)
- NO compatibility with EF-S lenses (physically impossible anyway)
- NO electronic crop mode for faster shot rate
- NO HDMI-out
- NO UDMA CF suppor
and guaranteed by the original poster at DPR at “105%” .
An alert commenter pointed out to the Herald that these specs were just rumors from a forum to which the Herald “admin” replies:
Thank you for your comment. While we are not a tech blog, we do take our cameras seriously, and our sources confirm the information that dpreview released regarding the Canon 5D Mark II. We also consider dpreview.com a reliable source in this regard. Thank you.
One can only wonder who their sources maybe, but interesting none the less.
Posted on August 15, 2008 - by Patrick
Back from NYC
{ © Me }
Managed to get a few shots here and there. This one on the West Side Hwy next to the new Gehry ICA building. If you’ve seen the ICA building, then you’ll understand the lighting on this building. Anyway, trying to integrate my new Flickr here, so there might be a few hiccups along the way…
Posted on August 13, 2008 - by Patrick
Morning Round Up
A few little things here and there….
First I’m just a little behind on putting up the image examples of the different processing done in Lightroom 2, Aperture 2, and Capture NX2. It seemed easy at first, but now I’m not sure as how to fairly present it on the web…Maybe just putting it all in a downloadable .pdf might be the best thing….ideas? (keeping in mind there’s several comparisons of several settings of several applications.)
Second, I’ve been working on getting up a little walkthrough of Nik’s Silver Efex…
Third, I’ll be in Manhattan Thursday-Friday, so posting might be a little light, but still possible via iPhone.
Round the nets…
Eric (of Photography Bay) has a review of ColorRight, a utility for setting WB that looks very effective.
The Nikon D90 has hit the Best Buy inventory, so we’re all but sure to see lots of it at Photokina.
Mike at TOP shares some thoughts on the Micro Four Thirds format, and points out what I’d been thinking…”is there an abbreviation for that yet?” (I’ll agree with the commenter that M43 works for me.)
Finally Nik has an update for the above mentioned and much loved Silver Efex which fixes a number of bugs and stability issues.
Posted on July 26, 2008 - by Patrick
Panorama
{ Berkshires }
Loyal readers will know, I love panoramas. Shoot them frequently. I think a big part of it just the fascination with CS3’s ability to stitch them togeather more than anything else. But also I love being able to crop into a much larger scene, there’s always a “nice” section somewhere in a pano. The above done this evening, and yes I’m getting software crazy. The recipe as follows:
- Handheld pano comprised of 6 photos
- Import into Lightroom 2 (beta!)
- Export to CS3 (new in Lightroom 2, export to photomerge!)
- Remove noise with Nik DFine
- Save and back to lightroom for adjustments
- Export 3 versions of +1, 0, -1 exposures for “fake” HDR
- Generate HDR and tone map in Photomatix. (I go subtle, or at least try to)
- Back to lightroom with new file and export out copy to CS3 for Silver Efex
- Back to lightroom with finished tif, export out above JPEG.
And finished. Not so bad is it? Ok, yeah it is pretty crazy.
Posted on July 26, 2008 - by Patrick
Per Volquartz
Interesting movie in which Per Volquartz (well known for his breathtaking black and white landscape photography) discusses his methodology and background, as well as providing some experienced insight on photography in general.
Volquartz’s site is www.pervolquartz.com.
For further photography related entertainment, the digital photography show has a new podcast up with some discussion on Nikon’s D700. Their site is here. But you can listen to the stream below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Posted on July 25, 2008 - by admin
Weekend’s here
{ Dinner }
Friday photoblogging via iPhone.
AKA green beans on the grill.
