New and proud owner of a Olympus E-510. Owned it for about 48 hrs.

Nothing to brag about, really, but I figure to show you my 2nd attempt.

(No editing at all)

3-30-2008

About 5:00 PM































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More:

 

last pic, the guy in the red looks kinda pissed you might be taking pics of his woman...

by the way, have you been using your continuous shooting buffer much? those dogs jumping in the air would have been a great chance...

 

As for Mr. MoHawk, I was pretty far up. I doubt he really even seen me



I'm working on all this $$$$. I plan to take the free courses that Wolf is offering me when I purchased my Dslr. I plan to take advantage of it here really shortly.

Thankjs

 

is this dude washing his asshole through his jeans?

 

Pretty good start, but you should crop your pictures to get rid of the riff raff.
Like the legs in the first picture. They're a distraction.

Also, assuming your focus on the second picture is the dog jumping, it'd be a lot better imho, if you crop it to:


You don't need THAT much wet rock & water. It's redundant.
Tighten up on the good stuff.

Just my two cents.

- Frank

 

~Frank,

Thanks for the tip. Here is the all new updated crop version of some of the pics.


What'cha think?

 

HAHAHHA!!

Well...

I had to find out why, my guess is good as yours:

Original picture:



Crop picture:





ZOOM.... ZOOM:

 

No, that's not weed.

Don't be afraid to force your onboard flash (or external) for pics within range, even in full sun or outdoors. Try out somewhere around -2 flash compensation for fill in flash.

 

I did have my internal flash on when shooting at the bridge.

I think I will + my exposure to give it more brightness also.

 

Cool dog pics.

 

I like this one, good composition



By the looks of it, I'd say you're having fun.

 

Thanks!! And most DEF having so much fun.

I been trigger happy. I am starting to get the feel of this little Dslr.

Here are two more I made, did some color correction and cropping. Let me know what you all think?

 

Bunny pic is VERY cute!

Good job not overexposing the white fur. I can still see detail in the fur.

I need the Holy Hand Grenade!

 

And thou count to three, not one, or two, nor 4, but three.

 

Yay! I knew you would get the reference.

 

Hell yea!!

I posted these same pictures on a photography forum and he's what they told me about the little chic and Bunny:

A forum member said this:

If you noticed perhaps that your photos look sharper more colorful in your editing program than here, then it's probably that you don't have them in srgb mode. Aside from that they both need levels adjustment and sharpening.


I said this on that forum:

Unless it’s my eyes and I am going blind, these pictures look original and pure real color and high in detail. Maybe I am not making it look artificial? I see lots of pictures on here that looks really nice, but also very fake and not ordinary but more artsy to catch the eye and to me it not real.
I got a camera to image the real thing, not to edit it and do little color splash. Its not my style. I guess I am just a classic / original picture type of guy when it come to photos.

I was not trying to be an ass-hat, but WTF??!?!?!

 

I think you're overreacting, because their advice was sound. You're posting images to the web in the AdobeRGB color space, but nobody will be able to see them accurately unless you convert them to sRGB. AdobeRGB is a much larger color space than sRGB, so when you view an AdobeRGB image in a sRGB browser, everything will appear desaturated and with reduced contrast.

Levels adjustment and sharpening is standard workflow, especially if you shoot RAW. The anti-aliasing filter on your sensor blurs the image (by design). If you want to recover that detail, sharpening has to be applied after the image has been captured. When you shoot JPG, the camera does the sharpening for you, but if you shoot RAW, it's up to you to sharpen to taste in post processing.

Levels adjustment is just a matter of setting the white point and black point of the image. You don't have to do it, but it will definitely increase the POP in your images.

Frankly, if you're not going to spend time processing your images, you probably wasted money on a DSLR. The output from DSLR's has less sharpening and less contrast than a point and shoot, and this is by design! These cameras were designed to put the creative aspect of processing your images back in your hands. You don't have to make everything look like a cartoon. Just do a subtle tweak here and there until the recorded image matches what your eyes saw at that time. Photography doesn't stop when you press the shutter.

 

I like this.
You'll notice one of the disadvantages of an SLR - greatly reduced depth of field.
In closeup photography, depth of field is a lot smaller, and you you need to use a smaller aperture (higher aperture number) to increase DOF.

- Frank

 

Yea, chill out there, he said 'if', after all.


I won't go quite as extreme as Dan, as there are lots of advantages of an SLR over a point and shoot, but you will get a fair amount of higher detail if you
run a simple sharpening batch job on your pics.

The nature of SLR sensors mean running a general sharpening 'batch job' on all your pics will help them. That's generally what I do, and then just tweak it a bit more if I really want to for particular pics.

 

Speaking of which... How do I calculate the total DOF for a given focal length at a particular aperture? Any programs for the Treo I can use to calculate in the field?

I would have liked all the digits in this picture to come out in focus, but wanted to keep the foreground out of focus.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jefford_e/2372536959/" title="080329_McDMtnCntr_069u by Jefford_E, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2383/2372536959_b6936c0e55.jpg" width="500" height="456" alt="080329_McDMtnCntr_069u" /></a>

 

Yea, better I think. Be careful you don't crop too tight - it can make for a cramped picture. But you're getting into the 'do whatever makes you happy' territory where you just play with the picture till you like it. Photography is art, after all, and art is style.

Take this picture - you could have cropped this picture a few different ways, leaving a few different pictures. Like you could also leave the other dog in, and then you have this line of dogs heading for the jump. Is it a better picture? not necessarily. Just different. The original picture is good in its own right, too.

- Frank

 

I had one for my old palm, i'll be damned if I can remember the name though.

 

so in the first post those are straight out of your cam and unaltered. right? if so, dang that must be the only dslr that uses 4:3 aspect ratio.. just an observation.

 

+1

 

Hi Dan - see that’s what I didn't know about sRBG and AdobeRBG.

I am just taking it from "My eye" point of view. I honestly don't know anything about Adobe and never used any type of editing software to a major extreme and probably won’t care to.

Now that you said maybe Dslr is not for me if I don't want to take time in processing.
In this case however I don't think my two pictures about (bunny & chicken) really looks all that bad or needs sharpening. I have been really thinking hard though if Dslr is for me anyways. It’s been very enjoyable and I love the option to have more zoom on the lens but if I remember correct my old A85 Powershot (canon) has optional zoom lens that’s available for it, of course that camera is only 4mp, though.

Would you think maybe something like a Canon G9 would suite me better for what I am trying to accomplish?
Yes - I don't want to spend crazy hours on 5 pictures and crap load of editing. I don't mind giving little bit of my time though. Maybe my pictures and POV (point of view) is lacking and the Dslr is not for me? As for my pictures and what I am trying to accomplish; do you think a Dslr is little bit an "over-kill"? What do you think?

 

I know you weren't asking me, lol, but you can get a 'decent' dSLR for what you are talking about and it not be over the top. You could get a Nikon D40 or a Canon XT...something like that. I'm not sure if that is still over your budget but it is something that is vrey reasonable for being a dSLR. Of course it won't have some of the features more expensive ones will, but if you are just looking to wet your feet in photography instead of being dumped in the ocean, those would be probably be a good match up for you.

 

surf4fun0418 - I have the Olympus Evolt 510 / which is comparable to both Nikon D40 or more towards the D60 and Canon XTi and also same price range of about $700.00.

The Canon G9 is $499.00. Price is really not the concern , but maybe what I am seeing in my pictures is not needed in the Dslr world ?

 

Fair enough. I'm just a strong advocate for the dSLR's for their ease of use.
One can make them very in depth with all the capable settings, but it also has to ability really to "point and shoot" and produce really decent pictures. That's all.

 

Word! I will keep it and keep practicing @ it!! I already have the FX50 and that to me prob be very comparable to he G9. Thanks

 

What was the workflow then?
You shot in jpeg mode, and then cropped it with ______?
I think (but am not sure) most non-adobe programs save jpegs in srgb.

[/QUOTE]

See this link: http://digital-photography-school.co...igital-camera/
It's a pretty decent comparison.

Pictures without post processing can (usually) look better with post processing. How much varies.
Nobody said your bunny picture looked bad, but it could probably be a (little bit) better with level tweaking.

Megapixels, imho, are highly overrated. A higher res original gives you more room to crop later
though. (free 'zoom'). 99.99% of my pictures just end up on my web site, and 'high res' there is 1024x768.
That's a 0.7 meg picture.

The biggest reasons I use a DSLR:
1) optical viewfinder - You can watch and wait for 'the shot' without bleeding your batteries on the LCD.
2) The ability to use high ISOs without color noise.
3) lens flexibility. My current lens set goes from 16mm-320mm. You can get Point and shoots with zoom, but not ultra wide.
4) Focus speed, especially for moving subjects.
5) Higher dynamic range (less blown out skys)

Note for your typical 'go stand in front of that statue' travel picture, None of those are needed. Would a G9 suit you better? From a photographic standpoint, almost impossible. But it would be cheaper and more convenient.
I keep a SD800 on me 24x7. I'd never do that with the SLR.

- Frank

 

Dude, the processing that Dan mentioned takes all of 30 seconds per photo. Seriously. It is not a major undertaking, but it can make a world of difference in how photos turn out. If you're going to shoot digital, you need to get comfortable with at least some basic post processing, whether you shoot with an SLR or a compact.

 

Any tips? Which software do you recommend that will only take about 30 seconds of process?


I do shoot in RAW and Jpeg. I have ADOBE CS3 extended that a friend let me install and it seems that shooting in RAW then upload to CS3, it seems that I am able to adjust more of the picture. I know even the two above did not take 30 seconds. I would love to know what tool you use and what exact options and features you use on it. I would not mind try using a different kind of software. Please don't say you recommend Google Picasa

 

Photoshop CS3 is the 800 pound gorilla of the photo editing world. It will do anything you can ever imagine to a photo, but it's got a very steep learning curve. It's really more of a pixel editor than it is a photo editor, but that's another discussion...

What I highly recommend you look into is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Its an all-in-one package that lets you catalog, edit, print, and share your photos. The edits you do are non-destructive, so you can always go back and change things. The exporting capabilities are also very handy if you're going to be sending pics to your friends or uploading them to a site like Flickr. Editing is a snap. Like waTSX said, it really doesn't take more than 30 seconds to make quick adjustments to a photo. Better yet, if you find yourself making similar adjustments on a regular basis, you can just save them as a preset and apply those settings to as many photos as you'd like in a batch.

 

Be sure you have plenty of memory, and a fast hard disk helps when you batch process. CS2 was quite the hog, I can't imagine CS3.

See this page: http://mediadesigner.digitalmedianet...e.jsp?id=27784

When I used photoshop, my workflow was such:
1) First scan through in Camera RAW, and toss any pictures I didn't even want to bother with. These were out of focus ones, or similar pictures (take the best ones), etc.

2) Go through (still in camera raw) and adjust WB and brightness/shadows/etc.

3) Run a batch job to mass-save to JPEG, and apply a generic sharpening to all pics. Remember to save as sRGB if you are posting pics online.

4) Look at the final pics, go back and fine tune any if i so desire.

Step 1/2 shouldn't really be much more than 30 seconds per picture.
How long photoshop takes to load/save/etc is going to add to that.
But that's a different sort of overhead.

I eventually switched to Lightroom, for most of the reasons Dan said.
I still need PS for wide angle Lens distortion correction, but that's almost all I use it for now.

- Frank

 

x2 for Lightroom Shift_it. It's a straightforward program and not nearly as intimidating as CS3. In addition to being a good image editor, it's also an excellent image organizer, and it has a nice interface to boot.

And once you get the hang of it, it will take only a short time to process each photo. Like anything, you'll have to become familiar with it, but it's a heck of a lot easier than full-blown Photoshop. I'd try the free 30 day trial and see what you think. Plenty of folks here can help with tips.

You can d/l it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

 

Nothing for the Treo, but this site can be very useful.

 

THANK YOU!!! Awesome.

 

Yeah Srika, it's called 4/3's. Oly, I believe, started it figuring smaller sensor....smaller lenses. There are others that subscribe to it, though not many.

This might help

 

If you go with lightroom, I highly recommend downloading the Lightroom training videos at http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/LR-V1.shtml

You'll learn so much more from these videos than you ever would just trying to figure out the program yourself. It's not a hard program by any means, but there are some really good shortcuts and tricks in that video.

 

good to know, I had no idea.