[Curious]

well phooey, just realized that tonight isn’t fish. the up side is i have a week for better fish pictures but for tonight i’ve got [strike]crap[/strike] nothing good. and little desire to run to the store, get ingredients, bake, shoot, reshoot …… well you get the idea. i might post the crap just to enter but … no my stats are bad enough recently as it is.

found a way to make two not completely suck and will enter them. if nothing else no one will have shots like mine.

[Curious]

The ufraw package is free, runs on every platform, and can read just about any native camera RAW format. So you can install that and use it as a bridge to convert RAW files from any software into a format PS7 (or other mangling software) can read. Here’s a link to the page where you can get ufraw.

http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/Install.html

that’s what the Gimp tutorial i found was saying. thanks.

got a lot to do today including scanning stuff for tonight but will shoot some NEF this weekend and play with it.

[Curious]

FWIW I thought the pics turned out good. The one of Erin Wassname was my fave.
RE the cloudy day shooting – isn’t that supposed to be better shooting conditions than bright sun? More diffuse light = less harsh shadows, no?

i thought they were good too. also Erin. and yes slight clouds do temper shadows.

re action shots, i’m not able to see the EXIF data so it’s hard to tell what you might want to do differently. but as you know bumping up the ISO setting will get you faster shutter speeds. your DOF looks ok to me. actually i’m not seeing blur either so unless you have a bunch you couldn’t use ……

[Curious]

You can also use the D-Lighting feature in Capture NX2. I prefer that over doing it in-camera since you can do fine adjustments, opacity changes, etc..

a bit of googling tells me that costs money. and the NEF codex just let’s you see the photo from RAW. and i have PS7 which won’t work either.

i may shoot some NEF/jpeg to check write times and play with the NEF is i can find something free to use. more googling finds a site that explains how to use the Gimp with NEF. guess i’ll try that.

[Curious]

unfortunately the EV+/- is menu driven unlike the 7D which has a convenient knob.

It should also work with the +/- compensation button & command dial, assuming it’s like most other nikons

i’ll look into that also. thanks.

[Curious]

Have you messed around with the Active-D lighting feature? I haven’t had an opportunity to play with it much but it should help with the shadows.

no. and so far i haven’t even looked into what Active-D lighting is. the camera has it but i’ve been concentrating on those features i know how to use.

but i will get the manual out soon and check it out.

[Curious]

well i took some photos of minnows today but except that they are fish the photos aren’t worth entering.

[Curious]

clouddancer, what the? You were supposed to be jealous of me, not the other way round 😉 No fair, I haven’t even laid my grubby paws on Curious‘ old Minolta yet, and you’re already playing with yours 😥

In all seriousness, I am very glad for you. Happy shooting!

i took the D3000 to the nature center swamp walk place today and shot 263 images in an hour+. it’s nice but the exposure meter doesn’t deal well with bright sun and deep shadows. i’ll need to learn how to compensate for that. unfortunately the EV+/- is menu driven unlike the 7D which has a convenient knob.

[Curious]

I just got a new canon brand battery for mine from Adorama for 40 bucks last week. I also bought a Propower brand battery for 40 bucks at a camera shop a month or 2 ago because the store wanted 80 bucks for the cannon brand one.

i bought a Opteka battery for the D3000 from amazon but shipped by adorama 47th st photo for $13. it had good reviews on amazon and seems to work fine. it was 1/3 of buying nikon from amazon.

my boss bought a 1.5GB toshiba external and couldn’t use it. he sold it to me for what he paid …$40. beat that suckers 🙂

[Curious]

the 7D had a red blinking line if no CF card was inserted. but since there is no live view i didn’t always look at the LCD right away. the D3000 just has an [E] where the number of shots remaining is.

since i don’t usually do a lot of post processing i shoot fine jpg instead of RAW due to write time. that gives me 550 shots on a 4GB card with the D3000. i’m going to buy more cards (one extra isn’t enough) but have decided that 4GB cards are large enough.

with either the CF or SD cards i have spares in my camera bag and i don’t leave the driveway without the bag.

[Curious]

Plus, having a second card in your bag is always nice for when you leave your main one in the card reader…

Oh, and *do* have fun with it 😉
/also, throw your P&S in your purse, or your car. It’s never a bad idea to have one around

when shooting tests i have gone outside more than once with the card in the reader. and even occasionally taken a few shots before realizing that they wouldn’t be coming out as anticipated.

i keep a camera in the car and it has been handy. haven’t got the space alien photo i want yet but useful anyway.

[Curious]

The nearest aquarium is 90 miles away. So, I have to go with alternate plans. And, a little luck 😛

the nearest aquarium is in new orleans and it’s ok but (to my mind) darned expensive. the best one for price and variety was at point cadet in biloxi but katrina wiped it out and it wasn’t been rebuilt. damn shame that.

i do have some good shots of fish store aquariums but i’ll have to find the negatives and scan them. they were shot in the mid 70s. fortunately i have contact sheets of all that stuff.

[Curious]

that’s really great news. the price looks good too. my sam’s had these but they have sold out now.

i’m not one for bundles as a rule but that one will cover you for some time. you might want to look into more cards. these are a good buy. http://www.adorama.com/IDSSDHC4G.html

[Curious]

slightly off topic post. my sister was a teacher for many years and taught photography in an alternative program at the high school where she worked. ten or twelve years into teaching she burned out and took a year long sabbatical to work for a commercial photographer. one of many things that drove her back to teaching was the guy was a complete hack. successful in that he made a decent living and could afford assistants but his work was pretty lame. the lesson here is that IMO most commercial photographers aren’t fine art photographers. but their clients are fine art buyers so it works out ok.

[Curious]

Oh. “Photographer / Producer / Dancer / Actor…..” Kit Lens

Uh, ok, let me see, trying to be nice…some of her compositions were interesting, and she knows how to pose her subjects.

The colors were flat, the lighting almost universally bad, the kit lens shows up in a lot of photos (Hey, I LIKE lens flare, but seriously) most of the models were simply lifeless in their representation and much of the subject matter rather cliche.

I’m not a master photographer and I’ve more to learn than I can think of, but if she is getting paid for her work, I really need to rethink my concept that the competition in NYC is to tough.

i won’t be nice. for a “pro” that was [strike]crap[/strike] pretty bad. only looked at two galleries. the jewelry gallery (which did nothing to highlight and/or sell the jewelry) and had some bad lens flare. and by bad i mean it totally detracted from the jewelry. the ceramics gallery (which again did nothing to show it to it’s best potential) was a studio setup with bad lighting. how do you do that? i do better with my $25 “studio”. well not all the time but still.

and FWIW and IMO the home page is god awful.

but i too am not a pro and have never done a wedding or any commercial photography. i know my limits and while i have shot events for friends and brochure shots for work it was always gratis. and the brochure stuff was as a backup.

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