Lou FCD
Posts: 5455
Joined: Jan. 2006
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| Quote (carlsonjok @ Dec. 14 2009,20:24) | | Quote (Lou FCD @ Dec. 14 2009,18:58) | | Quote (carlsonjok @ Dec. 13 2009,16:25) | | I finally got a digital camera as an early Christmas gift and I took some pictures at a eventing clinic my wife participated in. Most of the pictures were only fair to middling, and no small number sucked. But, I did rather like this one of my wife going over the duck jump. |
Not bad, Carlson. It's a neat shot and I like it, too. You'll be an addict by the end of the week!
What did you end up getting? |
Canon EOS Rebel XS (10 Megapixel), which came with a 18-55mm image stabilizing lens. I already had a 70-300mm lens, so I didn't bother with the package deal that Best Buy was offering. I am hooked already. It is nice not to have to plan your shots in increments of 24, if you know what I mean.
I took the full resolution version of that shot, uploaded it to Kodak Gallery, had it sent to the CVS pharmacy a few miles away, and within 20 minutes I had 2 8x10s waiting for me. How freaking cool is that?
I have a long way to go to improve my technique, but at least with a digital camera I can take buttloads of shots and be assured at least one or two come out. |
That's the camera I'm using, and this project I did for my World Lit II class (probably NSFW ETA: boobies!) is hanging on my instructor's office wall as we speak, and another copy of one of them is on display in the school library.
It's a pretty sweet camera for a n00b like me, and my oft-mentioned Theory of Photography is right up your alley. Stick an 8 gig memory card in the thing and take a crapload of shots. Some of them will turn out good.
If you get used to shooting in RAW mode (.CR2), the software that comes with the camera (Digital Photo Pro) can handle those inevitable "Damnit, I left the white-balance on fluorescent!" moments with one click. It's fairly simple to fix the saturation and brightness and whatnot, too. It takes time to then convert them to .jpg, but it's worth the hassle.
After that, you'd probably best take the advice of those more knowledgeable about compression. All I have is a pre-Correl version of Paint Shop Pro that dates from sometime around the K/T Extinction Event. I don't know what the hell's going on under the hood, but just re-saving the image in Paint Shop reduces the filesize from about 5 megs to around 100k. (I have a script set up to do that, and I just run a whole folder before I do anything else to the photos, like soften the focus or re-size). I've zoomed all the way in, looking for the difference in the pixels at a given spot between the pre and post-save versions of images, and I'll be damned if I can see it.
Of course, all the textbook reading I do may have caused blindness and/or loss of sanity...
Edited by Lou FCD on Dec. 15 2009,06:26
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“Why do creationists have such a hard time with commas?
Linky“. ~ Steve Story, Legend
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