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01/26/2008 10:33:45 AM · #1126 |
| Jeb - huge congrats on your 'real life' photo success as of late! I'm really happy for you!!! |
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01/26/2008 12:50:24 PM · #1127 |
| As you will notice, I have returned to the fold of the Canon Family. The offer was too good to miss:) |
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01/26/2008 01:19:17 PM · #1128 |
Steve, congrats on the new camera, very cool. (although not as cool as a Nikon...)
Jeb, way to go with all the print sales...great to see you having success!
My No Children is sucking along just below 5, but has 9 nice comments and one fav.
My Best of 2007 is rocking along...will be my 3rd highest rated photo. It is still rising in score, but will run out of time before matching my second highest. It is also my 3rd highest in comments received, and has 2 favs, so that is a nice rush.
The bird feeder I bought a couple weeks ago is doing well. I have seen lots of Chickadees, a pair of Cardinals, a Blue Jay, some Pine Grosbeaks, and today a few Dark Eyed Juncos! Unfortunately it would likely do better if my backyard was not totally open, so the birds have no cover, making them wary of going to the feeder. I am looking into buying a portable blind so I can get out there and hopefully take some photos of them. (but not in time for the Birds II) To get them in a more natural looking environment and help their lack of cover, I might use one of my neighbours discarded Christmas trees.
Does anyone have any secrets to taking good pics of feeder birds?
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01/26/2008 01:28:25 PM · #1129 |
Mostly cause I had no other choice, I put my birdfeeder right near my house and basically it hangs about 4ft up from where I park my car. So I hung my feeder in the afternoon with car parked so the birdies got used to it. Then I sat in car with the window open and took pix of birdies, this lets them hear shutter and realize it's ntothing to be alarmed about.
Finally (I should mention it's car's butt under bird feeder, not hood) I casually leant on the roof of the car and took pix of birdies. Also too of course the car itself could serve as a blind.
So something like that, a blind of some sort just put up in the vicinity of feeder by itself at first, then maybe even let birds see it's you filling feeder. Then just sit quietly in blind for awhile (if not too cold) and come and go from blind slowly, without even looking at birds. that's important cause they'll see eye contact as you wanting to eat them and will vanish. Take pix from inside blind so they hear the shutter and realize it's nothing harmful. Needless to say don't use any kind of flash!!! Everyone hates a flash going off, animals and birds in particular! Only look at the bird through the viewfinder once in the blind.
This is basically the technique I use to acclimatize horses to new equipment etc so it seems to work with birds too. Let me know if it works!
Message edited by author 2008-01-26 13:31:22. |
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01/26/2008 02:45:45 PM · #1130 |
Originally posted by Greetmir:
Best Of 2007
Votes: 209
Views: 272
Avg Vote: 5.8947
Comments: 11
Favorites: 1
Wish Lists: 0
Updated: 01/25/08 07:59 pm
... creeping ... creeping ... creeping towards that 6 ... |
Best Of 2007
Votes: 218
Views: 286
Avg Vote: 5.9128
Comments: 11
Favorites: 1
Wish Lists: 0
Updated: 01/26/08 02:41 pm
... closer and closer ... creeping ... creeping ...
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01/26/2008 02:48:58 PM · #1131 |
Originally posted by Greetmir:
... closer and closer ... creeping ... creeping ... |
Good luck, Greetmir!
Just got back from the zoo - now my problem is choosing which shot to enter in Birds (a very nice problem to have, I know).
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01/26/2008 02:54:33 PM · #1132 |
Originally posted by Greetmir:
Originally posted by Greetmir:
Best Of 2007
Votes: 209
Views: 272
Avg Vote: 5.8947
Comments: 11
Favorites: 1
Wish Lists: 0
Updated: 01/25/08 07:59 pm
... creeping ... creeping ... creeping towards that 6 ... |
Best Of 2007
Votes: 218
Views: 286
Avg Vote: 5.9128
Comments: 11
Favorites: 1
Wish Lists: 0
Updated: 01/26/08 02:41 pm
... closer and closer ... creeping ... creeping ... |
Best Of 2007
Votes: 202
Views: 277
Avg Vote: 6.0050
Comments: 9
creeped past it..... |
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01/26/2008 02:57:06 PM · #1133 |
| I like a bit of cod liver on toast, so I set the camera up on a tripod taking shots at thirty second intervals of a table up on the roof garden, then placed the remains of the tin of cod liver there as seagull bait. A couple of hours later I downloaded 125 shots of a tin can on a table, so no entry from here :-) Worth a try... (?) |
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01/26/2008 02:58:09 PM · #1134 |
Nice score, FLIE. Great advice on the birds, Susan! And congrats on the new toy, Steve. I took my 400D out to play today because I've forgotten how to use my 30D! The one feature of the Rebel I've become used to is all the info on the screen on the back. At first I hated that, but now I'm quite fond of it. Helps us old farts because the numbers and such are all bigger. :-)
That's not to say I don't still love my 30D - I do. But I have one lens on it, and another on the Rebel, and I wanted to play with the new lens (which is on the Rebel at the moment). I realize it's terribly decadent, but I do like having two bodies. |
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01/26/2008 02:59:22 PM · #1135 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
Best Of 2007
Votes: 202
Views: 277
Avg Vote: 6.0050
Comments: 9
creeped past it..... |
Grats, Don!
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01/26/2008 03:01:33 PM · #1136 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
That's not to say I don't still love my 30D - I do. But I have one lens on it, and another on the Rebel, and I wanted to play with the new lens (which is on the Rebel at the moment). I realize it's terribly decadent, but I do like having two bodies. |
I wouldn't mind having two bodies either! ... especially if one of them was a lot younger than this one!
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01/26/2008 03:11:14 PM · #1137 |
Originally posted by raish:
I like a bit of cod liver on toast, so I set the camera up on a tripod taking shots at thirty second intervals of a table up on the roof garden, then placed the remains of the tin of cod liver there as seagull bait. A couple of hours later I downloaded 125 shots of a tin can on a table, so no entry from here :-) Worth a try... (?) |
Sounds like me today - my bird feeder is usually overrun with all avian sorts, but not today with tripod and camera in place. I do have some shots of squirrels, though.
And around noon on Friday I had the thought to go to the Zoo and get some bird pics, but then opted instead for sitting Feeder Watch - I could have joined you, Jeffrey. Maybe I'll try for the Zoo tomorrow...
Congrats to Jeb and Steve, and anyone else I may have missed... |
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01/26/2008 03:19:19 PM · #1138 |
Originally posted by raish:
I like a bit of cod liver on toast, so I set the camera up on a tripod taking shots at thirty second intervals of a table up on the roof garden, then placed the remains of the tin of cod liver there as seagull bait. A couple of hours later I downloaded 125 shots of a tin can on a table, so no entry from here :-) Worth a try... (?) |
Ah, but you have an excellent series of tin can shots you could use in a gallery showing someday. :) |
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01/26/2008 03:28:17 PM · #1139 |
excellent series of tin can shots you could use in a gallery showing someday
dumped 'em all . . . 125 RAW files at 8MB a throw? . . . |
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01/26/2008 03:33:38 PM · #1140 |
| Yes, the whole storage thing is getting to be a bit much, isn't it? There are days I go out and shoot all day, then simply delete the card. :-) It's not that I don't think I have anything worth processing - sometimes I just like to shoot and realize if I dump the card to the computer, I'll end up keeping a whole bunch of data that I'll never use again. Which reminds me, I really do need to do some housecleaning on files.... maybe next week. |
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01/26/2008 03:35:07 PM · #1141 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
I realize it's terribly decadent, but I do like having two bodies. |
Um, well, hm. Hm.
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Peter, come on, say something witty, quick (I would, but I can't think of anything I'm allowed to post here).
Bruce
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01/26/2008 03:38:01 PM · #1142 |
LOL!
Apparently I'm too old and have been single for too long to have noted the, umm, insinuation of that remark prior to posting. |
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01/26/2008 03:39:22 PM · #1143 |
It's nice once you get around to clearing them out though...
a) you end up feeling like the world is a tidy, orderly place by the end of it, and
b) it brings back all sorts of memories.
I did some file housecleaning at Christmas, and I couldn't believe the number of things I've shot and completely forgotten about almost immediately afterwards. I can barely remember all my challenge entries, let alone all the other stuff...
Then again, I shot over 30,000 photos in 2007... Maybe that's why... :) Bloody addictions, eh? |
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01/26/2008 03:44:14 PM · #1144 |
The title of the second slim volume may yet be "Hermaphroditic Humour in the Barn".
It's no easy trick, but some of us do have two names already, eh Bruce?
Steve. |
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01/26/2008 03:44:56 PM · #1145 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
And congrats on the new toy, Steve...I realize it's terribly decadent, but I do like having two bodies. |
Thanks Deb:) Had a 30D last year but couldn't get on with it too well, now I realise it was me, not the camera at fault. Must have learnt something in the past 12 months.
The shop only had two left, one was the display item, so I wouldn't buy it. The other was boxed and brand new, with 17-85mm IS USM lens as kit. It was sale offer at £150 less, but still £150 more than display model. Oh, and I got the Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro to go with it.
I was a bad boy spending all that money, but you only live once...in your case twice with your two bodies!!
+ Made them throw in a 2GB CF card for free!
Message edited by author 2008-01-26 15:46:10. |
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01/26/2008 04:27:45 PM · #1146 |
I just got myself a new external hard drive for more storage of photographic suckiness, I was doing the delete one load one thing for weeks, at least that cleared out a lot of the rubbish. And I went out yesterday to shoot a bird and realized I couldn't get a decent bird shot if my life depended on it, I'm thinking of shoehorning a cute bird in bikini, they move slower.
Woo Deb two bodies, you're all set to shoot weddings now! :P
SteveJ congrats on the 30D, go you :D
Message edited by author 2008-01-26 16:29:14. |
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01/26/2008 04:46:02 PM · #1147 |
Originally posted by Melethia:
Yes, the whole storage thing is getting to be a bit much, isn't it? There are days I go out and shoot all day, then simply delete the card. :-) It's not that I don't think I have anything worth processing - sometimes I just like to shoot and realize if I dump the card to the computer, I'll end up keeping a whole bunch of data that I'll never use again. Which reminds me, I really do need to do some housecleaning on files.... maybe next week. |
I recently had a friend convince me to try Adobe Lightroom. I had played with it before, but not really liked it. I always sorted in ACDSee Pro, but it took forever to load RAW files. So when I finally got around to sorting through my images, here were my steps:
1. Set to shoot in raw+jpg (reason will be clearer in a moment);
2. Shoot :)
3. Move folders (using windows explorer) to a "date" folder, with subfolder for the jpgs and another subfolder for the RAW files.
4. Look at the JPGs in ACDSee Pro to see what I like, what I want to play with, etc.
5. Using file numbers, open the relevant files in PSCS3.
When I finally decided to start to sort through the files, use ACDSee Pro to look at the JPGs; identify the ones I wanted to delete and "marked" them; moved those chosen for deletion to the RAW folder for that date; using windows explorer, sort by name, so that any RAW that had a "same name" JPG next to it, select both and delete.
Man, what a pain. I just didn't do it, and my drive space showed it.
My friend talked me into trying Lightroom, and giving it enough time to get used to it. Here's my "workflow" now (I'm not a pro, maybe I should call it "playflow"):
1. Set to shoot RAW only;
2. Shoot :) [haven't found a way around this]
3. Start lightroom, import photos
4. Look at the thumbnails, switching between thumbnail mode and full, marking as "rejected" photos that aren't worth keeping
5. At the end of the "import" session, hit "delete rejected photos"
I'm already running a lot faster. I started important old folders and doing the same thing to each of them (but being a bit tougher about what I keep; I like to look at "possibles" a bunch of times before I delete them).
Not sure that that helps you with your upcoming "pruning" but hey, what does everyone else do?
Bruce
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01/26/2008 04:54:59 PM · #1148 |
Hey Bruce!! Just started playing with Lightroom, it is pretty cool. I still have a lot to learn, but it does cut out alot of Photoshop in the initial stages. I am impressed how it rescued some of my river shots that were full of deep shadow. Juat a touch of Fill light and I had a photo again.
Need more practice tho:) |
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01/26/2008 05:04:18 PM · #1149 |
Lightroom rocks, it's so good! The workflow is fast and intuitive, and there's a load of adjustments you can make so much faster by tweaking with the dials in the right-hand menu than you would by opening and performing each individual adjustment in Photoshop. No need to save the same shot a hundred times either, since none of the underlying image data is ever actually changed. And Lightroom automatically saves settings as you're applying them. And makes it really easy to apply the same adjustments to a bunch of different photos (no need for recording actions, etc).
As I said, Lightroom rocks!
I do find Neat Image and Photoshop are still required if you want real perfect results, but Lightroom saves you so much time either way. |
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01/26/2008 05:08:40 PM · #1150 |
Originally posted by purpleflutterby13:
Lightroom rocks, it's so good! The workflow is fast and intuitive, and there's a load of adjustments you can make so much faster by tweaking with the dials in the right-hand menu than you would by opening and performing each individual adjustment in Photoshop. No need to save the same shot a hundred times either, since none of the underlying image data is ever actually changed. And Lightroom automatically saves settings as you're applying them. And makes it really easy to apply the same adjustments to a bunch of different photos (no need for recording actions, etc).
As I said, Lightroom rocks!
I do find Neat Image and Photoshop are still required if you want real perfect results, but Lightroom saves you so much time either way. |
I agree, I think? It seems too good to be true at the moment. Tomorrow, I will go Canon again and see the results, perhaps in a challenge :)) |
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