[Yoyo]

That 2nd one, imtheonlylp is WAY tool cool. Reminds me of an undersea creature from the deep!

Exactly what I thought… that one really stood out for me.

That’s exactly what I though, to both of you.

Is it just me, or is blue anyone else’s favorite color of light?

[Yoyo]

Nice shots, all. I don’t understand why everyone rags on the kit lenses. While not the fastest or bestest lenses out there, I’m typically happy as a clam with the shots I get from mine.

Perhaps I should have phrased my comment differently.
“Check out this awsome bokeh from my kit lens!”

Exposing for the Electric Light Parade was an excercise in futility. Eventually, I decided on Tv mode at about 1/15 sec. duration and center-weighted-averaging (since I like to put my subject in the center of the frame, rule of thirds be damned)(also, the center auto-focus point works better than the others) with the ISO cranked up to 6400.

I can only imagine how depressing the iThingy pics are going to be when people get them home and look at them on a screen larger than 2″.

I’m not one to complain about a kit lens, least of all the Canon EF-S 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 IS II. People ask me what I think of it, and my response is, “It takes nice pictures.” Several reasons:
1. The aperture doesn’t open up terribly wide to where focusing is hard due to the narrow sharp focus range.
2. Streets for about $150 new, and you can save 15% off that getting a good used one. (Perhaps only the 50/1.8 is cheaper?) (Compare to the 17-55 IS USM at $1,000+.)
3. Image stabilization for ~3 stops of exposure.
4. “Normal” focal length for APS-C, not too narrow, not too wide.
5. Lightweight and narrow body.
6. It’s the II version, so it must have been good enough to modernize / upgrade / reengineer / optimize-for-even-cheaper-manufacturing-cost.

When you get deeper into it however, the frugality of it becomes apparent, as will all consumer grade kit lenses: aberations, focal length dependent aperture, only 6 aperture blades, tiny focus ring, no distance scale, vignetting, blurry corners wide open, slow for a normal zoom, etc…

(Should we take this discussion to the Hardware section?)

[Yoyo]

Mods, could you please zap evulc‘s comment?

Yeah. I agree. Totally uncalled for and inappropriate.

Even the quality of haters has gone down hill. He missed the fact that I’m No Big Deal also marks his pics.

On the positive side of things, it’s nice to know that some non-photographers visit the contest threads.

And finally, holy moley! This week has some awsome entries.

[Yoyo]

I always find it interesting how in the flat states the city limit signs will list population while here in the mountain states we list elevation. Of course, on more than one occasion I’ve needed to pull off the road to adjust the carburrettor and ignition due to elevation changes.

[Yoyo]

I brought my 85/1.8 as I didn’t know how far from ground-zero I was going to be, but it turned out that I was so close I needed to go back to the 18-55/3.5-5.6 and keep that at the wide end of things. I did a little experimentation with the bulb setting and baseball cap trick as well as panning and zooming. The evening’s musical accompanyment was provided by John Williams and John Phillip Souza, among others that I couldn’t hear. You know it’s the finale when Stars and Stripes Forever starts to play.

Crop of a panning exposure:

Embiggened at my SkyDrive:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=8ac1f8ceb42319b5#cid=8AC1F8CEB42319B5&id=8AC1F8CEB42319B5!940

Zoom exposure:

Multiple exposure (baseball cap trick):

Electric Light Parade (July 3) Crappy low-light auto-focus versus creative bokeh. (Not bad bokeh for the kit lens.)

I like how the curtains of white light give the impression of motion right-to-left and it seems like the red light is bursting out.

[Yoyo]

I didn’t know pimping was an Olympic sport.

[Yoyo]

For Fellow Canonites, the 2X EF is only five hundred, full autofocus and metering. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/732111-USA/Canon_4410B002_Extender_EF_2X_III.html

Not bad considering at all compared the 400mm

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/239654-USA/Canon_7034A002_Telephoto_EF_400mm_f_4_0.html

at seven grand

of the 600mm
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/754508-REG/Canon_5125B002_EF_600mm_f_4L_IS.html
clocking in at 13 grand!

I have to warn people that the Canon 1.4x and 2x extenders don’t work with all lenses since they have protrusions on their front ends. “White lenses only,” is the simple advice I was told. And in the above comparison, an extender w/ the 400 f/4 would bring it to 560mm f/5.6 or 800mm f/8. You get what you pay for.

[Yoyo]

I love me some Irfanview. Easy install, efficient use of resources, opens Canon CR2 raw files. (And now that I’ve got the PDF plug-in thingy, it’s even more awesome. My forgery, er, um, I mean, image editing has gone to a whole ‘nother level.) I haven’t got the RIOT plug-in, but typically 90% quality on jpgs gets things down to the size needed for Fark. I might need to look into installing it.

As for any exif data, I’m using “exiftool”. Only to read exif data presently, but it will edit as well.
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

[Yoyo]

I would caution anyone not to confuse DPI with PPI. The color space conversion algorithms used by printers are closely guarded industry secrets. Also, paper has a good deal to do with the quality of prints on a given printer. On my Canon MP280 (cheap, almost disposable, inkjet), there is a noticible difference between the Canon Pixma GP-502 Photo Paper Glossy ($0.10 per 4×6 sheet) and the Fujifilm Premium Plus Glossy Photo Inkjet Paper ($0.05 per 4×6 sheet). Ultimately however, both papers are good enough for refrigerator worthy prints of family and friends. If you’re aiming for a gallary show, YMMV.

[Yoyo]

“The connection has timed out

The server at http://www.colormunki.com is taking too long to respond.

The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network
connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.“

Somehow we’ve managed to fark a website about color.

Ok, it loaded when I went to Color Munki. 22 for me. Not too bad. I was imagining it would be like the color blindness test with the spots and numbers. None of the scales seem to test for red-green colorblindness, the most common deficiency in males.

Furthermore, I refuse to get any color calibration software for my laptop, as too many things effect the color rendition on it, like vertical viewing angle.

[Yoyo]

Generally speaking, yes.

I guess I’ll need to turn the knob to the picture of the sprinter instead of the picture of the movie camera.

Second question, can flash be used to freeze the motion as well, or is it just shutter speed that is allowed for this one?

[Yoyo]

Ummm… are stills from motion pictures out of bounds for Farktography?
Not that I have any idea how well they might turn out.

[Yoyo]

I was considering taking a picture of a cattle crossing sign along a rural highway. You know, big yellow diamond, black border, black sillouhette of a cow. That’s one of my ideas. Stuffed animals were another thing that came to mind when I read this theme. I’m just saying.

[Yoyo]

Two questions:
1. Do I get a bit part or at least a cameo?
2. How does Fark and Farktography come up with such great ideas while Hollywood can only produce crap? (Anyone catch the zombie movie plot we hashed out in a thread a few years back?)

[Yoyo]

Okay, it would suck among the voters; but just to qualify, if it’s called the “Wild Duck Cluster”, and I don’t see the duck, is it okay?

Looks more like a rabbit to me.

[Author]

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