The TPU Darkroom - Digital SLR and Photography Club

[Chomiq]

Can't really do narrow aperture landscape unless light is fantastic. You need high shutter speeds to freeze movement, so aperture makes the light worse. End up with crazy iso and grain, unless the sensor is superb.

So focus stacking it is then?

 

[tabascosauz]

So focus stacking it is then?

Just read something on it, imma have to check that out. I was using the manual focus knob at the time so I should have a stack that I can use that doesn't vary too much from wind/movement.

 

[tabascosauz]

Not the kind of light I was hoping for, but practice is practice

 

[Chomiq]

Not the kind of light I was hoping for, but practice is practice

View attachment 248116

Keep up, you're not hoarding gear as long as you're actually using it!

 

[the54thvoid]

Focus stacking is @grunt_408's speciality. For uncontrolled subjects, you require very little movement, otherwise the moving parts will blur, unless controlled in post

 

[grunt_408]

Focus stacking is @grunt_408's speciality. For uncontrolled subjects, you require very little movement, otherwise the moving parts will blur, unless controlled in post

Thank you , the majority of the stacks I do are with flash. The spiders I photograph move very quickly and often only sit still for a second or so. For Handheld stacking I use burst mode and move my focal point by moving the camera while in continuous burst until buffer runs out or subject moves. Photoshop does a great job of small stacks handheld allowing for movement that just cannot be avoided while handholding.

 

[Aquinus]

Not the kind of light I was hoping for, but practice is practice

View attachment 248116

I know what you mean, but using my 100-400mm not-so-fast lens makes it pretty hard. I would have loved the 100mm RF macro lens for this.

 

[tabascosauz]

I set a goal to get one usable bee pic a day, but it's slow going. Gave up on trying to use AF-D in lower light (the flower colors I have just suck in bright daylight), and completely resorted to manual focus. It's very draining chasing them around for 40 minutes, still, not bad for a 27 year old lens

I guess bumbles take weekends off too cause they weren't too happy to see me today

Still got a couple of days until I get my 80-200 2.8D ED (N). We'll see if it can help me out a bit or is totally unsuited

 

[Aquinus]

Still got a couple of days until I get my 80-200 2.8D ED (N). We'll see if it can help me out a bit or is totally unsuited

I need to find a way to justify the 70-200 ƒ2.8 Canon RF. 2.8k USD is a hard pill to swallow though.

 

[tabascosauz]

I need to find a way to justify the 70-200 ƒ2.8 Canon RF. 2.8k USD is a hard pill to swallow though.

How's used prices?

New the 2.8D (N) was $1500, and its successors are all $2000-2500. No way I'd pay that - I got one on ebay for $500, same for the $270 ancient macro. Actually out of 4 lenses only 1 I actually bought new lol, my workhorse 50 1.8G like 6 years ago for $250

I don't usually use zooms but sometimes am sorely missing one, so I thought instead of paying more for a 28-300 or something I'd just get a used 2.8 zoom and tick both boxes (zoom and small tele).

 

[Aquinus]

I don't usually use zooms but sometimes am sorely missing one, so I thought instead of paying more for a 28-300 or something I'd just get a used 2.8 zoom and tick both boxes (zoom and small tele).

The main reason that I'll use a prime is because of the wide aperture. The 70-200mm ƒ2.8 on the Canon RF is kind of the top of the top and is probably more of a reach goal than a practical one. The ƒ4 variant is $1.1k USD less. It's smaller, weighs less, and performs similarly (sans the extra stop of aperture.) At $1.7k USD, it's a bit of an easier pill to swallow.

Edit: The kicker for me is that I'd hate to spend that much and wish I had that extra stop, particularly if I decide to ever go with a higher res camera body.

How's used prices?

I haven't looked. I'm not sure if I should trust used or not. It's one of those YMMV things.

 

[the54thvoid]

The main reason that I'll use a prime is because of the wide aperture. The 70-200mm ƒ2.8 on the Canon RF is kind of the top of the top and is probably more of a reach goal than a practical one. The ƒ4 variant is $1.1k USD less. It's smaller, weighs less, and performs similarly (sans the extra stop of aperture.) At $1.7k USD, it's a bit of an easier pill to swallow.

Edit: The kicker for me is that I'd hate to spend that much and wish I had that extra stop, particularly if I decide to ever go with a higher res camera body.


I haven't looked. I'm not sure if I should trust used or not. It's one of those YMMV things.

I've bought plenty of trade-in lenses. No issues. I use MPB quite a lot. For the RF mount you can use an older EF lens (trade-ins are pretty decent on price) with the EF-RF adaptor. I use the EF100-440 Mkii on my RF camera.

 

[tabascosauz]

The main reason that I'll use a prime is because of the wide aperture. The 70-200mm ƒ2.8 on the Canon RF is kind of the top of the top and is probably more of a reach goal than a practical one. The ƒ4 variant is $1.1k USD less. It's smaller, weighs less, and performs similarly (sans the extra stop of aperture.) At $1.7k USD, it's a bit of an easier pill to swallow.

Edit: The kicker for me is that I'd hate to spend that much and wish I had that extra stop, particularly if I decide to ever go with a higher res camera body.


I haven't looked. I'm not sure if I should trust used or not. It's one of those YMMV things.

Yeah same. Last zoom I used was the kit 18-200 VR2 on my dad's D7000 I used to use before I bought the 50 1.8, and before I got my own D610 so returned the D7k to him. But it's nice to have when needed.

Just have to set your expectations high to protect yourself - e.g. 99.6%+ rating with lots of transactions, high res photos, communicative seller willing to answer questions, preferably photo with flashlight test or just very clear picture of the insides, no fungus/haze/bubbles/damage, no broken functionality, etc. Once they satisfy those conditions I find most of the Japanese sellers are pretty good (they seem to have a big 2nd hand Nikon market over there). I don't go the extra mile to participate in bids, so I just do Buy Now prices which are a bit higher.

Also, the prolific sellers usually accept paypal and ebay's 30 day guarantee, so it's basically impossible to go wrong.

I'm not familiar with canon though, cool thing about nikon is that pretty much all lenses ever will work on any midrange+ body with an AF motor, lots of 2nd hand deals out there

 

[Steevo]

Yeah same. Last zoom I used was the kit 18-200 VR2 on my dad's D7000 I used to use before I bought the 50 1.8, and before I got my own D610 so returned the D7k to him. But it's nice to have when needed.

Just have to set your expectations high to protect yourself - e.g. 99.6%+ rating with lots of transactions, high res photos, communicative seller willing to answer questions, preferably photo with flashlight test or just very clear picture of the insides, no fungus/haze/bubbles/damage, no broken functionality, etc. Once they satisfy those conditions I find most of the Japanese sellers are pretty good (they seem to have a big 2nd hand Nikon market over there). I don't go the extra mile to participate in bids, so I just do Buy Now prices which are a bit higher.

I'm not familiar with canon though, cool thing about nikon is that pretty much all lenses ever will work on any midrange+ body with an AF motor, lots of 2nd hand deals out there

This explains more of the Nikon craze to me, Canon has always been my camera of choice for most stuff I want to have great photos of, my old T1i and lenses are overdue for a deep cleaning and a body replacement due to failing pixels.

A few more years of kids to pay for then the thousands I can put back into some of my other hobbies!!

 

[Jetster]

Poured for 10 min than the sun came out

 

[tabascosauz]

 

[tabascosauz]

 

[mouks]

While looking for a red dot sight mount for an air rifle, I found some pics showing these mounted on cameras. It looks like a great idea to quickly get a moving subject in the frame with a telephoto lens! Has anyone tried this technique?

 

[Jetster]

Took it with my phone, nice day for a ride

 

[Aquinus]

While looking for a red dot sight mount for an air rifle, I found some pics showing these mounted on cameras. It looks like a great idea to quickly get a moving subject in the frame with a telephoto lens! Has anyone tried this technique?

You know, I haven't felt the need for something like this with my mirrorless camera at 400mm ƒ8. The live view through the OLED viewfinder is actually pretty good on my Canon, even on the lowly EOS RP. The bigger issue is trying to crank the shutter speed on a narrow aperture lens, not so much finding the target.

 

[Aquinus]

Quick question for everyone. Do you shoot with RAW, JPEG, or both? I started with both, then I realized that I was filling the SSD on my laptop really fast. I don't always want to post process everything myself, so things like Canon's high ISO NR is nice to have, but the original is something I could use if I really wanted it. I feel like I'd need a RAID of fairly large drives if I wanted to capture both for everything though, maybe as a NAS or a TB3 RAID enclosure.

Side note, I'm still really wanting the RF 100mm ƒ2.8 Macro lens. My 100-400mm isn't really appropriate for such shots, but still not all that bad.
300mm, ƒ16, 1/400s, ISO 1600. I scaled it down for Facebook @ 2048px wide and using it here because apparently 8.5MB is too big for TPU. Erhmm. @W1zzard.

 

[tabascosauz]

Quick question for everyone. Do you shoot with RAW, JPEG, or both? I started with both, then I realized that I was filling the SSD on my laptop really fast. I don't always want to post process everything myself, so things like Canon's high ISO NR is nice to have, but the original is something I could use if I really wanted it. I feel like I'd need a RAID of fairly large drives if I wanted to capture both for everything though, maybe as a NAS or a TB3 RAID enclosure.

Side note, I'm still really wanting the RF 100mm ƒ2.8 Macro lens. My 100-400mm isn't really appropriate for such shots, but still not all that bad.
300mm, ƒ16, 1/400s, ISO 1600. I scaled it down for Facebook @ 2048px wide and using it here because apparently 8.5MB is too big for TPU. Erhmm. @W1zzard.
View attachment 249903

I shoot raw only. The + jpeg I tried but it was redundant. On my drive is a folder full of .nef, I think I've been only cleaned it like once in years. 24MP raw, it's mostly the .psds that kill my space (some are 300MB+)

My 105 2.8D is the sharpest lens I've ever used, but the tele length is really not something I find useful for walkabout purposes. AF is also slow as a macro, Canon might be better

TPU limits is I think like 10MB and/or 4000x4000? don't quote me on that. I just save a crop .psd for web posting and resize to below 4000px before making a jpeg, always works

 

[Jetster]

I just shoot .jpg. I don't need to do a bunch of processing. There are so many other things I need to work on

 

[the54thvoid]

A few pics from pics from Glencoe. Processed from RAW (necessarily to retain the dynamic range the eye can see).

View North from Ballachulish Hotel at sunset

Same again

Beach Cows at Cuil

The Fairy Bridge (hard to find).

Boring Forestry land

 

[Nuckles56]

That last picture reminds me of a place that was lovely to visit before the 2019-2020 bushfires that ripped through the east coast of Aus, where there were massive sugar pines that formed this living arch that you could walk through which felt magical on the right day. But alas the bushfires killed all the trees and then they were cut down to make it safe.