Photography technical advice, questions, tips and techniques.

Started by Tank, July 30, 2018, 10:37:09 AM

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Bad Penny II

Quote from: jumbojak on July 11, 2019, 03:43:39 PM
I'd personally rather have a variety than a hoard of duplicates. If one dies on you then you will be out the cost of a replacement, this is true. But you might be able to justify a better piece of glass in the same focal range if and when that time comes if you have to find a replacement.

Think about it, if you wear out a lens - unlikely, I know - then that lens and its capabilities are important to the work you do. Hell, if you damage it at the beach because that's the lens you always have with you it comes out to the same thing. It gives the opportunity to upgrade the workhorses should something bad happen.

You've convinced me, I'll sell my third set of 18-55 & 55-250 kit lenses for a pittance.
I'm not buying nothing though.
Take my advice, don't listen to me.

hermes2015

I've decided to try the technique of back button focusing, since a lot of photographers swear by it. I will keep my camera set up to do it for a week or two, then report back on my experience.

"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

jumbojak


"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

hermes2015

Quote from: jumbojak on August 04, 2019, 02:40:47 PM
What's the advantage of that method?

It separates focusing and shutter release into two separate operations, instead of the usual half-press on the shutter release button to focus. That means you can put the focusing point on the object of interest, press the back button to focus, release the back button, and then you can point the camera anywhere to recompose the shot without losing the desired focus when you press the shutter release button to take the shot. You also don't have to do the operation of moving your focus point around with the multi selector on the back of the camera, which I always find fiddly to do and hate it.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

hermes2015

Oh, I forgot to mention that it also eliminates having to use the AE/AF lock button on the back of the camera, which I also hate doing.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

jumbojak

I'm going to have to try this out. Half press can be annoying when the camera decides to hunt for focus. 

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

Bluenose

Hmm...  maybe it's my photographic beginning with a Minolta 35 mm SLR, but I'm sure with my Canon DSLR I can focus using the focus ring on the lens, which seems most natural to me.  I'l  have to check now, when I get home, to see if I remember this correctly...  LOL
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


hermes2015

Quote from: Bluenose on August 05, 2019, 03:04:07 AM
Hmm...  maybe it's my photographic beginning with a Minolta 35 mm SLR, but I'm sure with my Canon DSLR I can focus using the focus ring on the lens, which seems most natural to me.  I'l  have to check now, when I get home, to see if I remember this correctly...  LOL

That is a feature of some lenses; some do it, some don't. The lens I use most often allows one to focus manually as well, but these days I rarely do that, unless I have to for some reason.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

Bluenose

Quote from: hermes2015 on August 05, 2019, 04:59:58 AM
Quote from: Bluenose on August 05, 2019, 03:04:07 AM
Hmm...  maybe it's my photographic beginning with a Minolta 35 mm SLR, but I'm sure with my Canon DSLR I can focus using the focus ring on the lens, which seems most natural to me.  I'l  have to check now, when I get home, to see if I remember this correctly...  LOL

That is a feature of some lenses; some do it, some don't. The lens I use most often allows one to focus manually as well, but these days I rarely do that, unless I have to for some reason.


Fair enough, I guess it's whatever you're used to. I would never think to use the back panel for focus.  As I said, just ingrained habit from decades of doing it that way.
+++ Divide by cucumber error: please reinstall universe and reboot.  +++

GNU Terry Pratchett


jumbojak

I've developed a bit of a workflow now. With the camera, I get multiple exposures of whatever subject I'm working with. I genuinely prefer manual to the shutter and aperture priority modes, aside from special circumstances. The only time I use either priority modes is shutter priority at the gym to capture motion, and that's only because the constant ISO adjustment due to lighting makes manual too slow.

For editing I drop the RAW images into dated subfolders and import them into Darktable for viewing and assessment. Any one off shots get their first adjustment here and then I go into Photomatix for any HDR image processing. Sometimes Photomatix does a better job with single photos too so that's always an option.

From there, each second draft is loaded into Gimp 2 for touchups and rotations. I've found that the color picker tool and brush in Gimp can be used to remove motion artifacts in HDR drafts. This photo required that treatment:



That final image is composed of six different shots which took a little over a minute to take. In that time the crescent moon moved a lot. It's amazing just how quickly the moon and the sun trace their arc across the sky.

So, with the color picker and brush in Gimp I was able to "erase" the fainter, ghost crescents leaving a single, relatively sharp moon and its light cast onto the water. Once the horizon has been adjusted - the angular changes are much finer in Gimp than either Darktable or Photomatix - the final image is ready for export as a PNG file.

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

hermes2015

Quote from: jumbojak on September 01, 2019, 07:29:33 PM
I've developed a bit of a workflow now. With the camera, I get multiple exposures of whatever subject I'm working with. I genuinely prefer manual to the shutter and aperture priority modes, aside from special circumstances. The only time I use either priority modes is shutter priority at the gym to capture motion, and that's only because the constant ISO adjustment due to lighting makes manual too slow.

For editing I drop the RAW images into dated subfolders and import them into Darktable for viewing and assessment. Any one off shots get their first adjustment here and then I go into Photomatix for any HDR image processing. Sometimes Photomatix does a better job with single photos too so that's always an option.

From there, each second draft is loaded into Gimp 2 for touchups and rotations. I've found that the color picker tool and brush in Gimp can be used to remove motion artifacts in HDR drafts. This photo required that treatment:



That final image is composed of six different shots which took a little over a minute to take. In that time the crescent moon moved a lot. It's amazing just how quickly the moon and the sun trace their arc across the sky.

So, with the color picker and brush in Gimp I was able to "erase" the fainter, ghost crescents leaving a single, relatively sharp moon and its light cast onto the water. Once the horizon has been adjusted - the angular changes are much finer in Gimp than either Darktable or Photomatix - the final image is ready for export as a PNG file.

That is pretty much my work flow as well, except that I open the NEF files in Lightroom for initial developing. I can do almost everything I need in Lightroom and very rarely need any further manipulations in other software, but if any photos need something more, I use Photoshop. I don't do much HDR, so don't use Photomatix often. This time we spend developing is the price we pay for all be benefits of shooting raw.

For my own purposes, I export the final versions to TIF; to give them to others, I compress to smaller JPG files, because the TIFs can easily be up to around 120MB.

I really like back button focusing and I'm going to keep using it.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

jumbojak

I keep forgetting to switch to back button. Better do that now...

"Amazing what chimney sweeping can teach us, no? Keep your fire hot and
your flue clean."  - Ecurb Noselrub

"I'd be incensed by your impudence were I not so impressed by your memory." - Siz

hermes2015

Quote from: jumbojak on September 02, 2019, 02:28:54 PM
I keep forgetting to switch to back button. Better do that now...

It may feel awkward at the beginning, but after a few shots it will become comfortable and you should like it as much as I do. It took me a few days to get used to it.
"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

hermes2015

"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames

hermes2015

"Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the connections is the key to quality per se."
― Charles Eames