Question... I have a Canon 28-135 IS lens and I think I might have some dust in the inner lens. Is there a way to clean that out? I am not certain it's dust but there are some light specks in the inner lens that I can't clean. it doesn't appear to affect the pictures...however I am nto a professional and can't really tell.

6/4/2008 4:08:58 PM

post a picture of the lens and no you can't clean the internal elements yourself.

6/4/2008 5:30:32 PM

so yeah i can't figure out how to turn the flash intensity down.

I have a canon 450D.

under flash control --> built-in flash settings all I see is:

Shutter sync.
Flash exp. compensation
E-TTL II:

and then Flash Mode is grayed out and E-TTL II is selected.

6/4/2008 6:00:49 PM

you have to use the metering compensation to alter exposure. Looks like a +/- button, hold it down and move your main dial left or right to brighten or darken. It also depends on what metering mode you have your camera setup to. Usually, I find it best to keep it on P or the green box if I'm using builtin flash for quick shots, then again, if I want quick shots, I'd just use a p&s.

Consider to get a 430ex flash as your next piece of toy.

6/4/2008 6:09:59 PM

Make sure you've got in in one of the M,A,S,P settings...the preset modes probably won't let you alter the flash intensity. Then again, I have a Nikon so I'm only speaking from my experience with that. Mine is a D40x and your 450d is comparable to that, if not better, so I'd be surprised if there wasn't some intensity setting somewhere other than exposure compensation.

[Edited on June 4, 2008 at 7:01 PM. Reason : sdfasfd]

6/4/2008 7:00:00 PM

^^^Use the flash exposure compensation option. Turn it to -1 or -2 and you should see a noticeable drop in the intensity of the flash.

You can also affect the effect of the flash if you're in full manual mode by adjusting your aperture. When your only light source is the flash, changing your shutter speed usually has a minimal effect the exposure.

^^Exposure compensation isn't what he was asking about. He was wanting to control his flash's intensity more precisely, not make his whole picture darker or brighter by altering the exposure metering.

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 1:14 AM. Reason : ]

6/5/2008 1:07:02 AM

dffdfsdfd sdf]

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 2:20 AM. Reason : fdsfd]

6/5/2008 2:13:01 AM

YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVING FEELIN...

6/5/2008 2:17:27 AM

god dammit are they red X's

6/5/2008 2:20:30 AM

let's try this again

I like how his ear is lopsided


messing around w/ DOF




this one is heavily edited, probably to the point of just being silly?




[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 2:26 AM. Reason : jhfsdfd]

6/5/2008 2:21:22 AM

anyone tried shooting in HDR with a D40 or any setup? prefer to hear from some D40 folks that may have tried it.

what software are you using to combine the pictures?

have you had any trouble since the D40 lacks Auto Exposure Bracketing?

6/5/2008 4:41:00 PM

^ manually set the exposure stepping by shoot in manual mode and varying the shutter speed
use a tripod
photomatix rocks for HDR

6/5/2008 4:59:58 PM

seems to me that manually setting your exposure settings for HDR would be better anyway, so you can bring out exactly the exposures you want (in which case a D40 would be fine).


unless you can independently set the exposure differences on each side of the bracket shot?


I've never tried this though, and I REALLY want to. I still don't have a tripod

6/5/2008 5:48:06 PM

that's actually a yellow-bellied slider. same species, different subspecies as the red-eared slider. wont have the red ear, and shouldnt have any black spots on its plastron.

6/5/2008 5:49:46 PM

we figured it was some sort of map turtle

6/5/2008 6:43:42 PM

Quote :

"^^^Use the flash exposure compensation option. Turn it to -1 or -2 and you should see a noticeable drop in the intensity of the flash."

ok thanks, I wasn't sure if that "compensation" adjusted the image or the actual flash. cool

6/5/2008 8:00:15 PM

yeah, auto bracketing is a nifty feature I guess, but I rarely use it.

I tend to like mine a little underexposed when bracketing so it doesn't help to have an under and over at equal steps.

6/5/2008 10:22:02 PM

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 10:48 PM. Reason : l]

6/5/2008 10:47:40 PM

I haven't posted here in a pretty long time. I really haven't taken many pictures lately. Found a few I took in Wilmington back in August that I figured I'd put up.

6/5/2008 10:54:59 PM

Quote :

""

Take a stroll near the pier at Olympus?

6/5/2008 11:51:20 PM

Quote :

""

SHE'S YELLING INTO HER SHELL PHONE, YUK YUK YUK!

[Edited on June 5, 2008 at 11:53 PM. Reason : fsdf]

6/5/2008 11:53:12 PM

Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 DG HSM for sale. Nikon Mount. This has it's own focusing motor inside the lens so it WILL work on the D40/D40x/D60. $520.

6/6/2008 12:33:00 AM

This girl I work with has a sports lense, she has a degree in photography and her camera is fucking huge.

Anyway she let me take some pics and just touching the capture button made it snap like thirty times. Shit was hot. aka I'm such a photo newb.

6/6/2008 12:40:13 AM

The Canon EOS 1D Mark III can shoot 10fps. That would probably be fun.
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EOS-1D-Mark-III-Digital-SLR-Camera-Review.aspx
Guy's got mp3s and videos of it.

6/6/2008 12:44:08 AM

It's not that you're a photo newb. Even I get giddy when playing with my friend's Mk III. That shit's amazing.

6/6/2008 12:46:07 AM

yeah, they are pretty fun to play with. I might pick either a 1Ds mkIII or regular 1D mkIII by the end of the year. Depends if my commercial and wedding photography business really picks up to warrant the cost. I'm really leaning towards the 1D mkIII for the much bigger frame buffer than my 1D mkIIn considering I do a lot sports. I do wish the LCD's were the same off of the D3/D300 for preview purposes, but not really necessary.

Not sure yet either if I want to get a nice pro video camera too. I have my eye on a nice sony hd 1/2" ccd video cam system.

[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 3:57 AM. Reason : ]

6/6/2008 3:54:08 AM

if anyone wants to see a fantastic pool of HDR picks, i just joined this group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/pool/

6/6/2008 8:55:36 AM

I tried my first HDR a few weeks ago...I think it turned out ok. I used CS3 with 3 bracketed images.



[Edited on June 6, 2008 at 11:04 AM. Reason : pic]

6/6/2008 11:04:02 AM

photoshoppage attempt, eh

6/7/2008 1:50:30 AM

was that an HDR attempt? if so, how many images did you take and what were your exposure increments, if you remember? do you have the original composite without the color changes? can I think of any more questions?

6/7/2008 6:08:03 AM

was that question for me or statefan? I assume statefan?

6/7/2008 7:58:19 AM

JSnail. that doesn't look like an HDR picture. Sky and foreground aren't even exposed properly. Bracket images for the shadows and the highlights.

6/7/2008 8:27:27 AM

Well sorry to burst your bubble but it is. and if you read my post I noted that I bracketed the images. But to clarify, 3 RAW files +2, 0, -2 combined in Photoshop. This image looks much better than a single exposure. I'm not saying its perfect (good lord its my first try), just that its better. In the original the sky blows out if you expose properly for the shadows (duh) and the shadows don't have enough detail if you expose for the sky.

ETA: I don't like the overly processed HDR images. My goal is to make the image look as real as possible.

[Edited on June 7, 2008 at 5:21 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2008 5:20:20 PM

WHOA WHOA WHOA... you better watch who you talk to with that tone...


That's Jbaz, and he knows way more than you do because he has a 300mm and a Mark II.

6/7/2008 6:34:23 PM

lol, that or he's just got more money to spend. I'd have a D300 or D3 and a 400 f/2.8, if I had the money.

6/7/2008 6:51:57 PM

yeah mine wasn't hdr, i just felt like contrasting and saturating the shit out of something. My only HDR attempt so far was a miserable failure and I'm not going to post it.

6/7/2008 8:58:12 PM

yes I can read. I saw that you said 3 images, but you should bracket with one exposure to the sky and one for the shadows. Yes, if you do this, you will over expose parts and underexpose parts, that's the idea. While your attempt is much better than one single picture, I'm just saying that maybe next time, just meter the sky, take a shot, meter the shadow, take a shot, then do one that's in between.

I think the picture is really good and if your point was to make it look subtle, realistic but retain some detail in the light house, job well done sir. I'd probably settle with a regular exposure of the scene, then recover the sky and add fill light. I'd probably have a little less detail and IQ at 100% crop in areas.

Honestly Ronny, a tone really isn't necessary. I don't know everything but I'm blessed to be able to afford such an expensive hobby and to continue to learn.

6/7/2008 9:50:07 PM

I'm not a sir...grrrr!

and that's what I did. I used spot meter. maybe I should try something diff next time.

6/7/2008 10:16:13 PM

opps... :p. You can always just shoot manually and look at the histogram. I know that canon's spot metering zones are around the center so if you are trying to meter something, you meter it, do an exposure lock, move the camera to what you are shooting at with proper framing, then take the picture.

If you spot metered that picture in that frame, you would have just spot metered the sky for every shot, but just used exposure compensation. So essentially you would get proper exposure of the sky as your middle, -2 for the shadows, then +2 (over exposure) for the sky again. Assuming that you just kept the camera on top of the tripod.

6/7/2008 11:19:25 PM

60

6/8/2008 6:20:54 PM

6/9/2008 12:41:06 AM

brackets





the sky looks almost painted because the clouds were moving quickly during sunrise.

6/9/2008 2:43:42 PM

the story behind these is better than the pictures themselves.. long story short, we were all pissed off that our truck broke down on the way to a show we were headlining.




This was the sun setting over our broken truck, in a gas station parking lot. Had to crop most of the picture out because of something on the lens I didn't notice till I uploaded the pic, but it's still purty




some cool weeds on the gas station property...yes we spent the night in the truck



[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 5:41 PM. Reason : jfsdf]

6/9/2008 5:40:14 PM

Cool frog at the zoo...

6/9/2008 8:34:29 PM

NC State Capitol Building -HDR. I might have posted it before, but oh well.

6/9/2008 10:48:30 PM

using a nikon d80 + photoshop cs3







[Edited on June 9, 2008 at 11:02 PM. Reason : resize]

6/9/2008 11:00:07 PM

Quote :

""

That's a great image! nice

6/9/2008 11:04:31 PM

Quote :

"That's a great image! nice"

indeed.. nice work

6/9/2008 11:14:58 PM

New lens! The Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L that I got secondhand. Unfortunately the UV filter that came with it was all smudged up and I went through 200+ photos before I noticed. What do people recommend for cleaning optics? I was thinking of a methonal wash and air drying it or maybe Kim Wipes.

Both these photos I had to edit to fix from the filter. But as a first L-series lens I'm impressed by the quality.






[Edited on June 10, 2008 at 1:26 AM. Reason : x]

6/10/2008 1:23:30 AM

Quote :

""

that's a great shot, drew...you should show me some HDR technique



[Edited on June 10, 2008 at 4:46 AM. Reason : .]

6/10/2008 4:42:24 AM