the photo you see on your dslr screen is deceptive because (i) a slightly blurry/oof shot when zoomed out to the 3" size on your dslr will look perfectly sharp; and (ii) the actual brightness you perceive on your dslr screen is relative to the brightness settings and whether you are in a dark room or bright sunshine.

for (i) you need to zoom in all the way to check sharpness; for (ii) ... learn to use histogram i guess.

[edit] your PC screen is uncalibrated (i assume). so when you print the photo, what looks good on your pc screen could well turn out to be over/under on the print too

This post has been edited by deodorant: Oct 8 2010, 03:22 PM

Greetings from Nairobi!



Question ... why my 360deg panorama the lines all curvy and not straight? did i do something wrong? i'm guessing cos i was on top of a building and shooting down ... this kind of pano camera must be level?

Click here for full size shot.

I also went for safari!



Only had time for Nairobi National Park though, which is near the city. You can see Nairobi in the background.



Again, click here for full size pano.

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Added on October 14, 2010, 1:46 am@sniper i don't dare bring my camera around lah. I'm here for work, so daytime hours (when it's safe) i'm in the office. at night i don't dare to even walk far ... hell, the security guards at the hotel i'm in, once they see me walk out they will insist on escorting me wherever i walk so that "i don't get attacked and robbed" ... how to dare to bring huge dslr out like that?

This post has been edited by deodorant: Oct 14 2010, 01:52 AM

@comradez my 8gb toshiba corrupted on me during a shoot a while ago. previews in-cam were fine but the raws half of them corrupted. just saying ... changed to sandisk already after that.

Haha but the warranty doesn't cover the lost data. My shoots are all unpaid casual ones so it isn't a big deal, but I can't imagine what kind hell would have broken loose if it was like ... a wedding reception ...

@Sarbath pp is a general term for doing any sorts of adjustments to a photo out of cam.

Normal pp would be standard stuff like contrast, exposure, white balance. Heavy pp is where you start doing things like playing with color tones, selective lightening/darkening, etc.

@uncle lol i don't have many nice pics lah. too chicken to bring cam out with me most of the time, and i don't have $$ to buy a compact.

anyway here's a pic from nairobi, lots of people walking in the middle of the roads selling stuff. including kittens, puppies, and rabbits.


and here are two random and poorly composed pics of flic en flac (beach on the west coast of mauritius).




Bigger pano shot here.

This post has been edited by deodorant: Oct 20 2010, 07:11 PM

there's no such thing as "enough" or "not enough," it's all subjective and depends on what you want to achieve.

basically you should at least know how to adjust exposure, contrast, white/color balance, and maybe levels/curves. this doesn't mean that you MUST do these adjustments - example if the cam got the exposure spot-on then you no need to adjust exposure. i'd say these are the 'basic' pp.

the rest of the stuff is all going into 'creative' territory, where there is way too many different ways to pp to list down. think of a 'look' you want to achieve, google how to do and then experiment lor ... haha.

just go to youtube search for any random video and switch between 1080/720/SD resolutions and compare for yourself lor.

it's not a complete shot, it's just 1/3'rd of it cos he hasn't merged yet.

Hmm, on flashguns, you can (through the menus) disable flash firing but still get the red AF assist beam to fire. No idea if this works with the pop-up, could try.

But in any case I hate using pop-up flash as AF Assist. cos 99.9% of people will think that's the flash that took the shot and then stop smiling/walk/move/whatever when the cam actually snaps.

Di622 is a good flash for the money but has several noticeable cons.

1)The recycle rate is damn long - this may or may not be an issue for you depending on what you shoot.
2) For my gun it also was very poor on the ETTL accuracy - relatively high %'age of shots either under fire or super over fire.
3) And when you do decide to upgrade in the future, you can't even use it as a slave flash cos it isn't trigger'able by any of the 'cheap' radio triggers (the phottix'es and etc), and it's built-in optical trigger needs your main flashgun to be on ETTL.

even taking food pictures also annoying cos gotta stretch and sometimes even gotta stand up, lol.

what talking you? canon bodies don't have screwdriver AF lar, only nikon bodies do.

I know for a FACT that all modern EOS bodies do NOT have a screw drive. Any 3rd party lens made for EF mount must have its AF motor in the lens or it will be MF only.

Thanks for the tidbit on sony having screw drive though, I thought that being a the 'new kid' it would have gone all electronic ... but I guess the screw is there for legacy minolta lenses?

Photo spam!

er I don't understand the function. Assuming you put f/4, the body will never go past whatever you set as minimum (e.g. 1/60), and to maintain proper exposure will bump iso instead?

@eyedeal the cam lcd itself isn't 100% accurate. and some more depends a lot on what you set your brightness at vs what light levels (i.e. indoor/outdoor/bright sunlight) you're viewing at.

and then some more laptop lcd screens can be super inaccurate. my dell inspiron 13r, before and after calibration can see SO MUCH difference.

random panorama!

the hill is poorly positioned, I'll admit that. Wasn't thinking about the "end product" at the time, just shoot from edge to edge only. I guess not experienced enough in panoramas to "visualize" the framing of the shot before shooting.

hehe in mauritius - i'm standing on a ... something like a piece of rock sticking out on the coast, with the beaches/islands to the left and right.