muikabochi 208 Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 Don't know, amazon I think it worked out at about 10%, or so it seemed. I've started learning Lightroom this week and I am also going to be taking pics RAW+Jpeg from now on and get to grips with that. Really neglected work big time this week - so much to learn! Work is just getting in the way. Just wish the new macs would come out soon so I can get everything set up properly and settled. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 What you waiting for muika, an iMac or Macbook Pro? I think I'm going to go for an iMac. Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 I'm thinking the same, though I haven't totally made up my mind yet. I kind of want it now though. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 Yahoo Auctions is just a monthly fee of 300 yen if I'm not mistaken. I've been tiding up outside a bit this week, and trying to photograph birds in the garden when I get a chance. It's much more difficult that shooting kids! Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 I paid 300 yen to join yahoo auction and buy.... not sure what/if they charge different if you are actually selling. MrWiggles, get this - should help with the birds Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 As it happens, I've got a zoom that goes to 300mm and its just about long enough, but that's on DX. Its the cheap kit lens off an old film SLR and is proving to be very soft wide open at 300mm. I've got a 200mm DX lens too, so I'll see if that's any sharper at the long end. Oh for a money tree! Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 Oh come on, it's only 500,000 yen (and the rest!) Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 15, 2012 Author Share Posted April 15, 2012 Gave my camera and lenses their first real workout today in Gunma. Found a lovely temple that had sakura in full bloom, beautiful it was. Loading into computer now. I'll probably post some tomorrow - if they're no good, I'll blame the settings. Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Look forward to seeing them. How big are the files? Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Extremely large. Actually my computer was almost in locked-up conditions for a few hours yesterday as they downloaded and imported into Photoshop. Hmmm. The sooner I can get that new "photos" computer the better. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 I'll probably post some tomorrow - if they're no good, I'll blame the settings. Well you can't blame the lenses you've got now! I've had a go on my 200mm VR and its much sharper at the long end than the old 300 one, even cropped to the same size. I might try and upgrade to something a bit better, but I think the littel burdies in my garden are worth closer to 5,000 yen than 500,000. Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Definitely will have to be the settings on the camera. Almost done looking through them now, I'll get some up in the next hour or so, you can take a look. What camera do you have Mr Wiggles? Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 OK here is my first proper go with the camera http://www.snowjapanforums.com/index.php/topic/21655-the-mt-akagi-region-of-gunma-15th-april-2012/ Just fyi, these are all jpegs - not really up on RAW yet and don't have enough time right now - and the only changes I have made, apart from sizing them down of course, is to some brightness and contrast where needed. Which wasn't much actually. Otherwise they are pretty much as per from the camera. It feels bad resizing them right down to 750 pixels as they generally look really sharp at much bigger sizes than that and really come to life big. Focus (ie. where to) is definitely something that needs some study and practice with this camera, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. (If you want to see any of them much larger let me know which one and I'll upload a big version). Had a blast yesterday as it was just so pretty out there and I'm quite satisfied with the results. Gambarimasu! Link to post Share on other sites
miller 1 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Wonderful photos muikabochi. What lenses did you use yesterday? Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Nikkor 24-70mm Nikkor 14-24mm Nikkor 16mm fisheye and.....special appearance by 70-200mm, on a weekend rental from my friend. Some of my faves from yesterday were taken with this one actually, really loved it. I noticed that I definitely need more than 70mm and I think I might put this one to the top of my wish list. It's just rather expensive. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Thanks for upping the photos. You've got some great depth of field in some of them, which I guess is your lenses fully open or close to it. It's great to see what they can do. I like the horizontal crop of the frozen lake best though. It looks like an old woodblock! Short of getting someone to hug them, its hard to show how big sugi trees can be. I've got a D70 and a D40,. I bought the D70 when it came out, but it broke after about three years when one of the pins off the compact flash slot snapped. Rather than pay a lot for the repair, I just bought the D40, I later managed to source a new CF interface part for the D70 from the USA, so I ended up fixing it myself on the cheap. So I've now got two old Nikon bodies. In good light they are still good cameras and 6 megapixels is still a lot of resolution. The biggest problem with them is the ISO. Even 800 is borderline. Aside from indoors, high iso is also good for anything with a zoom because it lets you shoot with a really fast shutter and avoid camera shake. I'll get a newer body sometime, but there's no big rush. The main thing I take photos of is my kids, and the little Fuji camera I have is great for that. Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Cool, how many years ago are the D40 and D70 from now? I think I'm going to keep my DX just for the moment, I don't feel a real rush to get rid and as I'm still extremely protective of Mr NewGear, I might want it for when I don't need to be as careful. That probably doesn't make any sense at all! Depth of field cool shots is something that I really wanted to try to get - basically I was just getting close and selectively focusing. Going to be working on that I think because they can be really effective. Other than wide panoramas of course I often find the wide angle lenses produce good results when you get really close to something. Oftentimes if it's just a wide shot I'm trying to get it ends up being a kind of featureless image and not as good as what I saw with my eyes. Doh! Link to post Share on other sites
xxx 2 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Very sharp looking images. Would be interested to see a larger version of on or two muika if you can. Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 D70 is 2004, the other one a couple of years later. It was the entry one, so no AF motor in the body, no bracketing, and only one dial, so its confusing how to set it up in manual. Only three AF spots too. The D70 has a tiny LCD, but the D40's is quite good. If you could borrow a Nikon body and projector off someone, it might be nice to use your lenses to shoot some slides and get them up big on the wall. You could shoot normally on digital and then only retake the best ones on film, giving a high rate of keepers for the ones that cost you money. Color slide film can be very very good.Check out these medium format propaganda shots from WWII. Some masterful lighting on them. http://pavelkosenko.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/4x5-kodachromes/ Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 Interesting for sure, Mr Wiggles. I'll try and upload some much larger samples somewhere tomorrow. Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 17, 2012 Author Share Posted April 17, 2012 Here's a few larger sizes. All I did was here was cut the original jpeg to 3000 pixels which is less than half the size of the original. I just don't know where to upload such huge original files though! I don't think this service alters the uploaded images at all (?) http://www.picturesh...s/71802_one.jpg http://www.picturesh...s/48904_two.jpg http://www.picturesh...64921_three.jpg I need them to update Photoshop for RAW and then I will start getting on RAW files and see what magic tricks they allow! Link to post Share on other sites
miller 1 Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Nikkor 24-70mm Nikkor 14-24mm Nikkor 16mm fisheye and.....special appearance by 70-200mm, on a weekend rental from my friend. Some of my faves from yesterday were taken with this one actually, really loved it. I noticed that I definitely need more than 70mm and I think I might put this one to the top of my wish list. It's just rather expensive. Nice. That 70-200mm seems to be a cracker of a lens. Well actually all of them do that you listed. Thanks for the larger versions as well. Nice and sharp. RAW files not ok in Photoshop yet? Link to post Share on other sites
NoFakie 45 Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Thanks for the photos muika! If that is half each way (i.e., quarter size), the one of the stone lantern is going to be close to life size viewed at 100% on twenty-odd inch monitor! That's like a macro photo! Link to post Share on other sites
brit-gob 9 Posted April 17, 2012 Share Posted April 17, 2012 Wow those big shots are fab. Explosion of sakura! Link to post Share on other sites
muikabochi 208 Posted April 18, 2012 Author Share Posted April 18, 2012 It's pretty wild isn't it. I see that some D800E's have been turning up, it will be interesting to see how it compares with the normal D800 and if you really can tell much of a difference. Link to post Share on other sites
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