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Post by Admin on May 11, 2014 18:55:57 GMT
Shoulder Brace for steadying camera and pints of ale. Thanks to a nice gift from me laddo Doggi, I now have one of the thingies that he described - that he uses with success. I tried it out and it has easily helped eliminate the slight tremble in my right arm, due banging elbow on the ground as described to members in the past. So, that will now be a permanent (sort-of) attachment to whatever camera I go out with. Unfortunately, have checked and it will not be allowed (nor was the monopod) in flight hand luggage, so will have to find some way to replicate the technology when in the UK. Anyway - I shall be using throughout my shooting outing on Wednesday to Alhama de Granada - a very interesting village about an hour's drive away. Did pop through there a few years ago but not for picture taking on that occasion. If you wish, take a quick shuftie: www.panoramio.com/user/332835 Plenty of pickies to view .... but, of course .... mine will be much better!
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Post by jflavin on May 13, 2014 19:49:54 GMT
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Post by Charles Hart on May 13, 2014 20:57:33 GMT
I think your pink flower is some kind of clematis, Jim. I have only seen them in the wild in the mountains in Austria: those had small blue flowers. If yours was anywhere near civilisation it could be a garden escape. If you only fly with hand luggage, these days you will certainly have to do without your monopod. However, with hold luggage there is no problem. An advantage of the combination monopod-walking poles which I have previously mentioned is that they can be dismantled into separate sections, which will fit in a small and light case, so no need to retrain to be Superman. It should be noted, however, that when reassembling you might discover vocabulary that you never knew you had --mainly because the ability to take apart is intended for maintenancerather than for compact transport. The Trekpod, also mentioned before, is designed to be taken apart for travel and easily reassembled, but the longest of the sections is quite a bit longer than any section of a pole-monopod.
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Post by Admin on May 15, 2014 7:53:18 GMT
Hold luggage is not necessary for me Charles and in any event, costs a fortune and requires queuing up in airport from 2 hours before check in desk requirement time, instead of just going through the Security with hand luggage half an hour before the flight check-in desk. Also hardy relevant to cheep cheep flights. So, can do without support for my UK trips, unless of course anyone wants to donate!
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Post by jflavin on May 15, 2014 10:59:14 GMT
Thanks Charles - yes I have been informed that it is in fact Clematis Nelly Moser - looks quite well - and was growing in total shade .
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Post by jflavin on May 15, 2014 11:16:06 GMT
PS - forgot to mention that the new Nikon 400mm 2.8 lens is available now - . Ideal for those random moments - and at £ 11,000 + - a steal
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Post by Charles on May 15, 2014 20:10:13 GMT
At £11000 it very probably would be stolen by some light-fingered person. Just think how many pints of Guinness you could buy for that.
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Post by Admin on May 16, 2014 8:51:59 GMT
Many old film-camera lenses of a make not considered as good as the lenses from the main named producers will (mostly, with a few exceptions) actually perform better on a digital sensor than they ever managed on film. The main restriction on film was the granular structure of the emulsion (emulsion being an incorrect description as that refers to a liquid form but Hey Ho - like many thingies - just became the way to refer to the coating on films - so who are we to complain?) so in scientific explanations, the lines per millimetre capabilities of the emulsion, coupled to the lpm offered by the lens resulted in an actual resolution lower than either. Somewhere (see below quote) is a formula to calculate the end result when lpm of a lens and lpm of an emulsion are coupled - to give the end practical resolution. As a guestimate, based on memory (HarHar) if the emulsion had capability of say 100 lpm and the lens 100 lpm the end result would be about 80 lpm. Don't quote me on the exact figure - use the formula if you have nothing better to do. Sensors have no such restrictions - well exceeding the lens lpm by many, many times, so in effect, the end result is more or less the lpm result of just the lens alone, which can make the performance of many older film camera lenses superb when used on a sensor. In studying results from lenses (and in the past I have published examples for members!) a tiny dot on the sensor as recorded by the lens can result in getting a detailed part of an image (say from a 20" long-side enlargement) so detailed that one would need, in the normal world without monitors and such as Photoshop's Image Resizing facility, a microscope to view the detail on such as the size of a pinhead in the recorded image. Amazing really. No need for such an expensive 400mm - just get an older, say, Vivitar or Tamron (Adaptall) 400mm (will need to use in manual mode and with an appropriate adapter for Vivitar - the Tamron just needs its own) and for probably about £20 you can have superb end results of high definition. I have an old 300mm preset aperture lens, with adapter for 42mm Pentax mount to fit on my Sigma, that only has three elements and performs superbly. Think I paid about a fiver for it years ago in a club auction at the Exmouth Photo Group in Devon. Have rarely used it but no point in selling it - it is always there if needed. Having so little glass, it is also very light and it is easy to leave at f11 or f16 and due the long focal length, even with the smaller apertures left for shooting, easy to focus quickly and accurately. However, regarding getting old lenses with 42mm screw mounts and adapters to fit your camera model (without any electronic coupling - so must have aperture setting on lens, which most will have) needs care. On such as ebay, there are loads of lenses of dubious quality - the sort that no one in their right mind would have bothered with on their film cameras that are advertised at ludicrously high prices. If it ain't say Vivitar, Sigma, Tamron or Soligor - forget it. If you should be tempted - use the Members Free Advice facility = contact me for advice - always available for free to members. Here's the info on the formula: According to Kodak the resolution of a system is a little more complex.
The maximum resolution obtainable in practical photographic work is limited both by the camera lens and by the film. The formula often used to predict the resolution of a camera original is:
1/Rt2 = 1/Rs2 + 1/RL2 (Higgins, G.C.Appl. Opt. 3, v.1, 9, Jan 1964)
Rt = Resolution of the system (lens + sensor)
Rs = Resolution of the sensor
RL = Resolution of the lens
In practice, other external factors, such as camera movement, focus, aerial haze, etc., also decrease the resolution from the possible maximum (Ref. Kodak)
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Post by Admin on May 16, 2014 15:20:51 GMT
Tripped out on Wednesday 14th May 2014 to nearby Alhama de Granada (well, it is near Granada) as it's a nice little town, set above a deep gorge and only about an hour's easy drive away. Here's a selection for you to enjoy. www.pbase.com/zps/alhama_de_granada__may_2014 I used the shoulder brace for first real time and found it worked well. However, will have to ease up as tended to tension a bit too much, so came back with a slight left shoulder (used for verticals) ache due unfamiliarity of using that - right shoulder (used when taking landscape format shots) was fine. Certainly removed any slight tremors! Didn't help with the beer glass raising though!
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Post by Charles on May 16, 2014 20:15:55 GMT
In the end, the resolution you need depends on whether you are printing for ordinary folk who view at something like proper viewing distance, or for the sort of club judge who does use a microscope, or at least a magnifying glass. In the former case, someone with perfect eyesight can resolve about 10 lpm at a distance of about 10 inches, which is about as close as anyone with normal vision can focus. A short-sighted person could focus closer, but would probably not have perfect sight in terms of resolving power. Taking the print diagonal as a normal viewing distance, because that is about the closest at which the viewer can see it all at once in his /her central field of vision, a viewing distance of 10 inches would therefore near enough suit a 9 x 6 inch print (its diagonal is actually 10.8 inches, but only the aforementioned judge would be likely to measure his viewing distance to 1/10 th inch). The enlargement from 35mm film or a full-frame sensor is thus 6 times, so the resolution required on the sensor/neg is 60 lpm. All this assumes, apart from the perfect eyesight, that the viewing lighting is optimum and the subject has high-contrast edges or details. For most situations--average eyesight and adequate rather than optimum lighting--the viewer will probably not do better than 5 lpm on the print, so requiring 30 lpm on the neg. So long as appropriate viewing distance is maintained, going to larger print sizes makes no difference--eg: if the print is 18 x 12 inches, the viewing distance increases to 20-22 inches and since the eye's ability to resolve detail falls off in inverse proportion to the distance, depending on the viewer and the conditions the print resolution will fall to somewhere in the 2.5 to 5 lpm range. Leaving sensors aside, there are high resolution films which can resolve over 800 lpm--but not if put in a real camera with a real lens, because no lens comes anywhere near that. In short, whatever you have on the back and front of your camera, unless you want to crop out small parts of the original image, anything over 60 lpm or thereabouts is just wasted information.
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Post by dsallen on May 17, 2014 8:18:22 GMT
Tripped out on Wednesday 14th May 2014 to nearby Alhama de Granada (well, it is near Granada) as it's a nice little town, set above a deep gorge and only about an hour's easy drive away. Here's a selection for you to enjoy. www.pbase.com/zps/alhama_de_granada__may_2014 I used the shoulder brace for first real time and found it worked well. However, will have to ease up as tended to tension a bit too much, so came back with a slight left shoulder (used for verticals) ache due unfamiliarity of using that - right shoulder (used when taking landscape format shots) was fine. Certainly removed any slight tremors! Didn't help with the beer glass raising though!
Yes I forgot to mention that you do not need to use tension with the brace - I also made this mistake at first. Now I hold the camera still in the normal manner (as you would without a shoulder brace) and then bring it gently backwards until it is resting against my shoulder next to the strap of my rucksack. No real tension but considerable increase in steadiness.
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Post by Admin on May 17, 2014 8:31:19 GMT
New TIL No:56 - Image(s) resizing (basics) using Faststone Image Resizer - free - this has options to change ppi, add borders, etc. Regarding resolution and print sizes (= enlargements of course) the main point is digital sensors resolve a far higher amount of detail than film so it is thus possible to make bigger enlargements - as a simple example, a "good" lens on a (in effect) half-frame sensor can produce about 3-4X the size obtainable on the highest possible quality 35mm film because one gets the full lens definition. I have posted one image (full size) (not mine) taken with one of the later fixed-lens DP Merrill cameras with newly computed lens that gives outstanding - and astounding - definition that could never have been achieved, no matter what lens/film combination, on the much larger 35mm film format. In the real world, of course, all one needs is definition to be able to make the size print wanted - it is only really those pixel-peeping on monitors with greatly enlarged image sizes that want more - the daft idjits! Here's the link to the Sigma DP shot I mentioned. Truly incredibubble, Innit! www.photosnowdonia.co.uk/Z8NFPS/DP2.jpg (Is a big file of 18MB so allow time to appear - will depend on your broadband download speed). I do apologise to the author (as forget who it was) but take note that since that early DP camera, Sigma have produced new models with greatly improved (Yeah - I know - seems impossible but is true) lenses for the updated Merrill models and for their SD1M DSLR with interchangeable lenses. I cannot afford one but my existing Sigma DSLRs produce excellent quality anyway and certainly, as I have found, can easily permit an A3 print from just half the image size on the small sensor. Most members using digital cameras will have found the same applies. Whether one uses film or sensor technology is totally irrelevant, of course, as that is a definite personal choice to suit one's own image producing requirements. The main thing is - make pictures! (Between drinking sessions, of course!).
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Post by Admin on May 18, 2014 8:59:04 GMT
Fan Queue Doggi! I shall obey! Meantime - check my Calendar (link on HomePage) as you will see I'm "Booked" until 29th. From morning 19th until afternoon 28th contact OK via e-mails or UK mobile - which all members have on NLs and on HomePage, etc.
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Post by jflavin on May 18, 2014 18:47:06 GMT
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Post by jflavin on May 23, 2014 19:25:20 GMT
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