Canon SD850 IS Price Drop

Here’s a quick update. Back in August, I researched compact digital cameras and concluded that the Canon SD850 IS was the best camera for my needs. My key camera requirements were image stabilization and an ultra-compact form factor.

At the end of August, the Canon SD850 was approximately $340. Today, the price has dropped below $260, which is great value for a camera with 8.0 megapixels, 4x optical zoom and image stabilization (IS). If IS is not a requirement, a bigger bargain is the Canon SD1000 for under $170. It was around $215 in August. The SD1000 is a fantastic ultra-compact camera with 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom.

I’m sure the prices will continue to drop, as we approach the holiday/Christmas shopping season. I’ll keep an eye out for any deals or rebates on these cameras. In the meantime, I’ll have more time to research cameras, as I’m now considering getting an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know I shouldn’t spend the extra money, but the superior image quality of a DSLR is really appealing to me.

If you are in the process of buying a DSLR, check out this article — How to Choose a DSLR Camera. And if you are torn between a compact camera and a DSLR, take a look at — Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?  Decisions, decisions, decisions… I have more research to do.

Diopter Adjustment for Cameras

If you wear glasses, you may find that using the viewfinder on you digital camera is difficult. They lenses in the view finder are made to focus at a certain point, and often glasses may interfere with this.

Read More…

Source: PCIN via ImagingInsider.com

Canon SD850 IS Price Drop

Here’s a quick update. Back in August, I researched compact digital cameras and concluded that the Canon SD850 IS was the best camera for my needs. My key camera requirements were image stabilization and an ultra-compact form factor.

At the end of August, the Canon SD850 was approximately $340. Today, the price has dropped below $260, which is great value for a camera with 8.0 megapixels, 4x optical zoom and image stabilization (IS). If IS is not a requirement, a bigger bargain is the Canon SD1000 for under $170. It was around $215 in August. The SD1000 is a fantastic ultra-compact camera with 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom.

I’m sure the prices will continue to drop, as we approach the holiday/Christmas shopping season. I’ll keep an eye out for any deals or rebates on these cameras. In the meantime, I’ll have more time to research cameras, as I’m now considering getting an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know I shouldn’t spend the extra money, but the superior image quality of a DSLR is really appealing to me.

If you are in the process of buying a DSLR, check out this article — How to Choose a DSLR Camera. And if you are torn between a compact camera and a DSLR, take a look at — Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?  Decisions, decisions, decisions… I have more research to do.

Diopter Adjustment for Cameras

If you wear glasses, you may find that using the viewfinder on you digital camera is difficult. They lenses in the view finder are made to focus at a certain point, and often glasses may interfere with this.

Read More…

Source: PCIN via ImagingInsider.com

Canon SD850 IS Price Drop

Here’s a quick update. Back in August, I researched compact digital cameras and concluded that the Canon SD850 IS was the best camera for my needs. My key camera requirements were image stabilization and an ultra-compact form factor.

At the end of August, the Canon SD850 was approximately $340. Today, the price has dropped below $260, which is great value for a camera with 8.0 megapixels, 4x optical zoom and image stabilization (IS). If IS is not a requirement, a bigger bargain is the Canon SD1000 for under $170. It was around $215 in August. The SD1000 is a fantastic ultra-compact camera with 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom.

I’m sure the prices will continue to drop, as we approach the holiday/Christmas shopping season. I’ll keep an eye out for any deals or rebates on these cameras. In the meantime, I’ll have more time to research cameras, as I’m now considering getting an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know I shouldn’t spend the extra money, but the superior image quality of a DSLR is really appealing to me.

If you are in the process of buying a DSLR, check out this article — How to Choose a DSLR Camera. And if you are torn between a compact camera and a DSLR, take a look at — Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?  Decisions, decisions, decisions… I have more research to do.

Diopter Adjustment for Cameras

If you wear glasses, you may find that using the viewfinder on you digital camera is difficult. They lenses in the view finder are made to focus at a certain point, and often glasses may interfere with this.

Read More…

Source: PCIN via ImagingInsider.com

Canon SD850 IS Price Drop

Here’s a quick update. Back in August, I researched compact digital cameras and concluded that the Canon SD850 IS was the best camera for my needs. My key camera requirements were image stabilization and an ultra-compact form factor.

At the end of August, the Canon SD850 was approximately $340. Today, the price has dropped below $260, which is great value for a camera with 8.0 megapixels, 4x optical zoom and image stabilization (IS). If IS is not a requirement, a bigger bargain is the Canon SD1000 for under $170. It was around $215 in August. The SD1000 is a fantastic ultra-compact camera with 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom.

I’m sure the prices will continue to drop, as we approach the holiday/Christmas shopping season. I’ll keep an eye out for any deals or rebates on these cameras. In the meantime, I’ll have more time to research cameras, as I’m now considering getting an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know I shouldn’t spend the extra money, but the superior image quality of a DSLR is really appealing to me.

If you are in the process of buying a DSLR, check out this article — How to Choose a DSLR Camera. And if you are torn between a compact camera and a DSLR, take a look at — Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?  Decisions, decisions, decisions… I have more research to do.

Diopter Adjustment for Cameras

If you wear glasses, you may find that using the viewfinder on you digital camera is difficult. They lenses in the view finder are made to focus at a certain point, and often glasses may interfere with this.

Read More…

Source: PCIN via ImagingInsider.com

Canon SD850 IS Price Drop

Here’s a quick update. Back in August, I researched compact digital cameras and concluded that the Canon SD850 IS was the best camera for my needs. My key camera requirements were image stabilization and an ultra-compact form factor.

At the end of August, the Canon SD850 was approximately $340. Today, the price has dropped below $260, which is great value for a camera with 8.0 megapixels, 4x optical zoom and image stabilization (IS). If IS is not a requirement, a bigger bargain is the Canon SD1000 for under $170. It was around $215 in August. The SD1000 is a fantastic ultra-compact camera with 7.1 megapixels and 3x optical zoom.

I’m sure the prices will continue to drop, as we approach the holiday/Christmas shopping season. I’ll keep an eye out for any deals or rebates on these cameras. In the meantime, I’ll have more time to research cameras, as I’m now considering getting an entry level DSLR, like the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. I know I shouldn’t spend the extra money, but the superior image quality of a DSLR is really appealing to me.

If you are in the process of buying a DSLR, check out this article — How to Choose a DSLR Camera. And if you are torn between a compact camera and a DSLR, take a look at — Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?  Decisions, decisions, decisions… I have more research to do.

Reply to Low-Light Settings / HDR

Fried Toast posted a reply:

In low-light conditions, you want to have a fast lens and/or a high ISO setting.



Since you're new, I assume you have a kit lens, which is generally considered slow (f3.5~). This will limit your low-light shooting because the aperture will have to stay open longer to let more light in to get the photo you want. If you're using a tripod shooting immobile objects, then that's fine. If not, you're going to need to bump up your ISO setting up to compensate.



You'll have to shoot off a few test shots to get familiar with how the ISO will work in each setting. Once you get a feel for it, you'll be able to do it rather quickly, I think. If you're not careful, too high of an ISO will make the dark areas of your photos very grainy. While this might be ok for occasional shots, I doubt it's what you're going to be aiming for all the time. Therefore, you'll need to play around with it a lot and get a feeling for what your tolerance limit for noise is.



Be sure to understand how the meter works in the viewfinder if you're not shooting in the Auto-Mode. I'd suggest hitting the manual for that one.



Low-Light Photography





HDR is a completely different beast. You might want to get a basic grip on your camera's functions before tackling HDR. For more information, Google's probably your best friend- there are tons of tutorials out there. Stuck in Customs has a tutorial up. He's got some fantastic HDR work here on Flickr. Might want to look him up.



Click on this shot and it'll give you a breakdown of my HDR workflow:

Reply to Lens help!

mikefranklin posted a reply:

sigma tend to be hit or miss in a complete sense (either it works fine, or is bad), and there's also tamron and tokina. those three tend to the ones I've heard of most often. I have a sigma 10-20mm and I rather like it :)



EF: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF_lens_mount

EF-S: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF-S_lens_mount



gosh, what fun. Nikons have the same mount, but here are some strange little oddities with some older lenses...

Canon Powershot S5 IS

Canon PowerShot S3 IS, a 6 megapixel point-and-shoot with an SLR design has been updated. The new camera—a Canon S5 IS—is a bit heavier, has a hot-shoe for adding an external flash unit and, best of all, is 8 megapixels. The camera was reviewed yesterday by Theano Nikitas who says, “The Canon S5 IS is one of the better megazooms on the market, but image quality issues may take it down a notch.”

And, I might add, another drawback is that the camera doesn’t shoot in Raw format.

Here’s some specs:

Resolution: 8 megapixels

Hot-shoe takes Canon Speedlite flash units

Focal Range: 36-432mm (35mm equivalent)

ISO: 80-1600

Shutter Speed: 15-1/3200 seconds

Max Aperture: 2.7

Shutter Lag (pre-focused): .074 sec

Lens knock Monaco out of French League Cup (Reuters)

Ligue 1 strugglers Racing Lens

received a welcome morale boost from a 2-1 win at Monaco in the

fourth round of the League Cup on Wednesday.

Reply to RadioPopper: Jr., Website, New Models

iaincaradoc posted a reply:

One thing to remember - the RP1 may only have one radio frequency, but at least on the Nikon AWL/CLS systems you'd still end up with four channels.



The RadioPopper is simply going to reproduce the IR signal after radio relay, so the four seperate IR channels (encoded in the flash sequence) are still applicable.



So you might get some *radio* interference, but unless the other shooters (for Nikon - I can't speak to Canon) are also on the same CLS channel, they're not going to be firing your strobes.

Reply to Canon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 or Canon 17-40mm f/4L

Hooks Pix posted a reply:

I think you can't go wrong with the 17-40L it is a good lens. I have not used the other lens but have used similar, with the L glass it seems that I have more keepers. Just a good lens all around.

Reply to RadioPopper: Jr., Website, New Models

iaincaradoc posted a reply:

One thing to remember - the RP1 may only have one radio frequency, but at least on the Nikon AWL/CLS systems you'd still end up with four channels.



The RadioPopper is simply going to reproduce the IR signal after radio relay, so the four seperate IR channels (encoded in the flash sequence) are still applicable.



So you might get some *radio* interference, but unless the other shooters (for Nikon - I can't speak to Canon) are also on the same CLS channel, they're not going to be firing your strobes.

Reply to Canon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 or Canon 17-40mm f/4L

Richard- posted a reply:

I'm going to get killed for this and I'm not necessarily referring to any particular photographer but everyone posting lens comparison questions on flickr should know this:



The types of people who buy and use lens X may have more skills, both with camera and computer than the types of people who buy lens Y.



The only real comparison is for the same person to test the lenses on a single body with a single skill set, etc.



There maybe technical rationales for lenses but the images that people post to "prove" things about them are not great indicators of anything as we all have different skills with our gear.



And, let me beat this drum again for those of you who don't get it. If you are concerned with aperture a zoom lens with fixed aperture through the zoom range, f/2.8 or f/4 may be more useful to you as aperture will not change in zooming.



There is a reason why most L zooms have fixed aperture.

Reply to 5D+85 1.2 = Awesome

zackojones posted a reply:

Kevin: Tell me about it. All of these pictures being posted with L lenses that I don't have is giving me a serious case of lens envy.

Reply to Canon EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM

MarcoBer posted a reply:

as soon as possible i will post two images: one fot canon 75-300 and one for sigma 70-300... the problem is i can not post image in full size... maybe i will post a link to my website... so you can fell the great difference between the two lenses.

Top Digital Cameras Reviewed to Date:

	Best New All-Round Digital Camera:
	Fujifilm FinePix F30 / F31fd- "Excellent all round digital camera, fast, fun, easy to use and produces great results in daylight and low-light!" - Full Review - Buy now from £120! (Previously: Fuji FinePix F10)
Best Budget	Best Zoom	Best Compact	Best DSLR
Fujifilm F20	Panasonic FZ8	Canon 850 IS	Olympus E-510
Panasonic LS2	Olympus SP550	Panasonic FX30	Pentax K100D
Canon A550	Panasonic TZ1	Olympus 770SW	Olympus E-400

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask me!

My New Canon Digital Camera (Plus Obit to My Old DigiCam)

camden hackworth posted a reply:

inate,


I'm comparing for the price. Obviously the L is a lot better but it's also twice the amount of money. With someone who has a limited amount would you go for the cheaper lens and also get something else or just buy the 17-40mm.


It's pretty obvious the 17-40mm is well worth the extra cash to me now though.

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Canon New LV-7365 Projector

Canon has recently unveiled its new compact business projectors. Dubbed as the LV-7365, the projector can project a 100″ image from a distance of 9.2 feet, and comes with a 1.6x zoom lens that has been multicoated to reduce reflections, flare and ghosting. Brightness is rated at 3,000 ANSI lumens, with a contrast ratio of [...]

Reply to Edge to Edge Sharpness

peterjaena posted a reply:

Take shots using the lens you want to be tested. Look at 100% crops at center, top left-right, bottom left-right. Compare the sharpness. All lenses are softer at the edges, but the good ones will have better sharpness compared to others. The easiest way is just to read the reviews at photozone.de . They include MTF sharpness scores of lenses center border and extreme borders. :)

Reply to night shooting

John_Zhang posted a reply:

50mm 1.4 is your fastest lens and you have more distance to work with otherwise I would have choosen the 85. But anyway. It'll be dark out so I say the following.



50mm 1.4 - 2.8f

Speed 50-100

ISO 800+



I usually use those with my fast lenses and D80 in dark settings. Hope this helps.

canon

we live where we grow wine and honey. our mothers collect porcelain saints and, to pass days between seasons, we sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor and make alphabet saints spell the dirty words we know: seraphim of sarov (beat with his own axe), elpis (holy virgin), xanthippe (saved by jesus as a beautiful youth). sometimes we roll the small saints in our palms and spill them out to divine the name of our future husband, the father who will bring us dull, fat children. our mothers tipped honey into our milk and so we are all of us rolling and round like our mothers and our mothers' mothers and our mothers' mothers' mothers. as children of vineyards, we will never be more than our terroir allows. as children of honeycomb, we know we are all that is holy. a counting: the bible counts honey sixty-one times. john the baptist survived on honey and locusts. samson found swarming bees and their pride buzzing in the belly of a lion. when the honey makes us sick our mothers call upon saint ambrose, the patron saint of bees, of honeyed tongues. a bad batch, tainted with rhododendrons or mountain laurel, a bad batch makes us sweat and weaken; a bad batch makes our hearts skip beats. tainted with tutu bush, the honey makes us giddy, then convulsive. our mothers pray to ambrose, mouths languid with sweets and hands ticking rosaries. wine also makes us ill as it mixes in our blood. if we close our eyes and try hard enough we can feel christ form inside us; we can hear two heartbeats, each a half count off. communion dyes our mouths purple and we pretend we are our fathers, gulping after sunday study from invisible jugs. when christ grows too strong in our fathers our mothers pray to never-martyred saint martin, the saint of vintners and beggars and change: our mothers know there is no patron saint of bruised fruit. if i were a girl not in god i would wish to see past what i can. to wander the breadth of our lands, to see the vines as pregnant with grapes are the hives are with sound, makes my knees sore and my thighs ache from the climb. to fully explore is impossible and so we have given up and instead spend our time memorizing verse and putting things inside of each other. i confess: sometimes i wish to be simon, to see our stretch of wine and honey from above. sometimes i think i would break my knees and accept the stones: to fall from the air is to have flown. tarasios, hallvard, ides, simplicius
ignatius loyola, sabbas the goth
abanoub, linus, luke the evangelist
timothy, hildegard, abundius, teath
wilfrid of ripon, ephrem the syrian
willibrord, innocent, lazarus, luke
eligius, veronica, emmeram, romuald
brendan the navigator, eucherius of lyon.

Reply to Canon EF75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM

Oscar Colorado posted a reply:

My 75-300 seems to be sharp enough. Maybe stopping down the aperture may help. Here are some of my photos with this lens:

UK Recall of Canon EOS-1D Mark III

Crangulabford posted a reply:

I've been trying to shoot indoor rec. soccer with the 70-300VR.



Check the results here.

The lights inside are bright of course, but all of them are along the perimeter of the dome, bouncing off the walls - there's no light coming directly off the ceiling which makes things difficult. No flash obviously - didn't want to be a distraction.



I shot wide open (f/3.5-4.5 I believe), but I had to shoot at ISO800 just to get a decent exposure at 1/100 shutter speed. Even then I still got fairly substantial motion blur in some shots. A lot of those shots are cropped and edited in Photoshop - just for noise reduction and exposure/brightness.



I'd say go for it if you're in a better-lit venue than I was in.

Obviously, I'm open to anyone's suggestions

Reply to 50mm f/1.8 or 30mm f/1.4

Austin Russie posted a reply:

Yeah the Sigma 1.4 and the Canon 1.8. I was looking at some shots with the various lenses, and I like the bokeh of the Sigma, but again the price on the Canon is a steal.

Canon rolls out two new XGA projectors for business and education

Filed under: Displays

Canon let out word of a pair new XGA projectors today, although they’ll each be more at home in a boardroom or classroom than your home theater, unless you’ve got some very particular needs. On the high-end, the LV-7585 boasts an impressive 6.500 ANSI lumens, along with a more than adequate 1,600:1 contrast ratio, and even your choice of four different lenses depending on your needs. You will need to set aside a full $10,000 to light up your PowerPoint presentation with one of these, however, although you’ll at least have ’till the middle of November to save up (or convince the higher-ups). On the considerably lower-end of the spectrum, the $1,500 LV-7365 model will only give you one standard issue lens, although you will get a decent 3,000 ANSI lumens, and a passable 500:1 contrast ratio. Look for it to land around the middle of next month as well.

 

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

---

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Reply to Canon 40D with which lens combination, help please?

Andreas Helke posted a reply:

The sensor quality of the 40D is good but not better than that of the 350D. With about everything else than image quality the 40 is a much better camera than the 350D. But Canon did not make much progress with the quality of 1.6 crop factor sensors. With its current 10 MPixel sensors the only progress is that the noise performance is not worse than that of the 8 Megapixel sensors.



The 5D delivers a lot better image quality than the 40D for every ISO setting above 400.

Reply to Lens Reviews

can0n posted a reply:

You could try lens-reviews.com, it looks like a new startup to me, so still has a few rough edges, but might get there in the end.

Canon IXUS 960 IS review and ratings

jim_three_uk posted a reply:

thanks for the replies!

Jim

Reply to Lens Reviews

jim_three_uk posted a reply:

thanks for the replies!

Jim

Reply to Nikon vs. Canon

tlpacheco posted a reply:

I hate to be the one to point out the obvious, but this is a NIKON Digital Learning Center group. I suspect that the results of your poll might be skewed the other way if you asked the question in a CANON group.



That said, Nikon rocks.

Reply to TIPS For Macro Tunnelvision Lens??

artemis the phoenix posted a reply:

Try having a look at the Lomo microsite for the tunnel vision lens



shop.lomography.com/tunnelvision/

Reply to EF 17-40 F/4 Lens

jeremey posted a reply:

I have the 17-40 and love it. 17mm on the 40D isn't an ultra wide, but it is quite wide enough (technical term) for my taste, if I had to pick a wide zoom (which I did). I may get the 10-22 at some point too, but the 17-40 is more versatile and produces outstanding images. Here are a couple taken at 17mm (with my old 10D, but same crop factor):

Canon TX1 mod

I have a wide angle lens that works ok when held up to the Canon TX1 - but instead of manually holding up I made a couple rings which are now a sort of makeshift adapter.

Laser cut circle.

2 rings.

Super glue.

Two rings.

Done!

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Reply to speedlight vs studio strobe

eduardo_frances posted a reply:

IIf you are going to buy a studio strobe you may want to buy also lightmeter, in the studio you may want to have one of this fellas since they will give you accurate readings and save you time from chimping, after all you are used to the output power of your little strobes so the guesstimation won't be the same. the Sekonic L308s is a great starter lightmeter unit.



Studio strobes are recommended if you are shooting for long periods of time -they are fan cooled your hotshoe strobes aren't and heat is their bane-, if you need more DOF -product shots are one area that require this trait or macro shots too (not necessarily a rule though)- they aren't much portable though but you can mix your studio lights with your little strobes. As their name implies studio strobes are made to be used at a studio and they aren't quite portable AB have the advantage of being light, but not as light as say a Vivitar 285HV or Canon EX speedlite or whatever brand hot shoe strobe, if you are thinking of a portable power unit for studio units, many people prefer the innovatronix explorer 1200 :) www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-7883-7908





Now which one small hot shoe strobes or studio strobes? that depend on your needs, IMHO there are horses for courses.



Continuous lighting mixed with strobes can lead to nasty WB mix problems and mixed K temperature isn't easily fixable -if it is depending on the case-



Asa recommendation also if you are going to buy studio strobes, buy extra flash and modeling light bulbs, you won't be happy to wait two weeks or have to spend on uber fast shipping rates if you need one in an emergency.



As for how to fire them Most monolights come with an optical Slave so no worries in that dept.

My DIY Fun Foam Ring Light

swilton posted a new topic:

This is my first post so go easy on me...



Inspired by this DIY funfoam diffuser: super.nova.org/DPR/DIY01/ and the many different ring lights I've seen here and elsewhere on the web I decided to try to create one myself. I think this is somewhat orginal but I really don't know. I made a few cardboard ones but found them kind of flimsy and the other ones were too complicated or heavy. I wanted something lightweight but durable.



I really didn't know how this would turn out so I didn't document it as I went but I created this artist's rendering of the parts involved:





You will need:

Fun Foam

Plastic craft stitching type mesh (available anywhere you can find fun foam - click on my inspiration link at the top for some pictures of this stuff)

Aluminum Foil

Spray Adhesive

Hot Glue

A tube or stick of some sort



1. Draw a circle (size of your choice, probably dictated by your sheet of foam) on you funfoam and draw a smaller circle in the middle of this one for you lens to fit through. Now draw tabs (dimensions aren't really important) around the outside of your large circle and the inside of your small circle as shown in the top right of the picture.

2. To save time and energy staple another sheet of funfoam under this one and then cut out the circle with tabs.

3. On one of your tabbed circles cut all the tabs off leaving you with a plain old doughnut like that shown in the top left of the picture.

4. Cut your mesh into a smaller doughnut such that it will fit within your doughnut shown in the top left of the picture.

5. Using spary adhesive glue these three pieces together sandwhich style. You know have a light weight yet rigid base.

6. Using a similar sandwhich approach make rectangular strips for the sides of your light. The important part is to leave one level of fun foam hanging lower than the other by about an inch. You will have a sandwhich with a 1" piece of fun foam on the lower part of the sandwich without mesh or a top piece of foam.

7. Those tabs on your circle piece are what holds it to the sides. Starting with one tab slice a hole through that piece of foam on the side hanging down. Make the slice right where the top piece of foam stops. Then slip your tab through and keep going. You don't need to be exact so just wrap it around to see where you need to cut and then move on to the next tab.

8. When you get to the ends you can use a piece of scrap foam and cover the gap and hot glue it in place (hot glue can be hot through fun foam so be carefull)

9. Repeate step 8 for the inner circle

10. Using hot glue glue all of the tabs up to lock everything into place

11. Throw a fit that you forgot to cut a hole in the side piece for your flash to stick into (you may want to move this up somewhere before step 7)

12. Line the whole thing with foil using spray adhesive

13. You need some way to diffuse the light. I couldn't come up with much and I ended up glueing an old (therefore thin) white T-shirt over the front of the ring.

14. Glue a tube or stick or something to the back in line with your flash hole. Let it hang down (see pictures below). This will give you something to bungie your flash to and improves the stability.







There is a definite hot spot where the flash goes in but it's not too bad. I think the T-shirt sucks a lot of power out of it but I can't think of a better diffuser that I can stretch and glue. I think a wire wrap around the outside and inside circle may also improve their circleness.



I hope this is helpfull and I'd love to see what other people can come up. Unfortunatly I haven't had any subjects around to try this out on yet so I don't have any pictures posted yet.



Oh yeah...

Total cost $5 (I had everything except funfoam and mesh)

Reply to OT: Lens/hood Wizwow was using

quackator2000 posted a reply:

Dang, I just missed an ebay auction with one that I monitored - it went for 25 bucks. Argh!



Yes, compendium shades rule. You can learn a lot from movie people, they generally have a much better understanding of light.



That comes from the fact that actors usually are not frozen in films,

and all those movie people need to create lights and position gobos

and flags in a way that allows to get more than one angle at a time.



They are much more predictive about lighting and changes in positions

than most still photography people are.

Klaus Kinski's Comedy Canon (10/29/07)

Todd Barry is easily one of the greatest comedians in existence. Period. On November 1, 2007 at Union Hall Todd celebrates his 20th year in comedy on the exact date he first went on stage. Also on the bill are David Cross, Sarah Vowell, Michael Showalter, Heather Lawless, Slovin and Allen, and some surprises. Or maybe just one surprise. Probably more than one. There are a hand full of tickets left online and a few will be available at the door so buy now or get to the venue EARLY (doors are at 7:30pm). All proceeds go to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

While others were bouncing from JENS Lekman to Danzig on Saturday night, I was bouncing from (Fred Armisen's) JENS Hannemann show at Sound Fix to Comedians of Comedy at Irving Plaza. Jens came out at around 8:00pm to a comfortably crowded room . His stage was flanked with two drum kits and he began with a drum solo that was a pitch perfect chariciture of every instructional drum video solo I've ever seen. From there he spoke for a short time and challenged anyone who was willing to a drum-off. Shortly after that, the wig came off and Fred was Fred which is what I hoped would eventually happen; it isn't often that Fred Armisen does an appearance like this. He covered topics such as SNL (2 years left on his contract), Trenchmouth (don't expect a reunion EVER), and TV he likes (I couldn't agree more). He even played some melodies on the piano. He was extremely funny, gracious, and a real joy to hear talk.

From Sound Fix, I hopped on the L-Train to check out the second of two Comedians of Comedy shows at Irving Plaza. Comedians of Comedy is the one show I look forward to more than any other on the planet. And with the fear in the back of my head that this might be the last CoC tour, I enjoyed this show with maximum relish. It was one of those shows that made me feel so lucky to live in NYC as we were treated to easily the best line-up of the entire tour. The line-up included Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford, Eugene Mirman, David Cross, Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney, Jon Glaser and Jon Benjamin, and Heather Lawless. From start to finish, the show was absolutely rock-solid. Even when some douche-nozzle had the balls to heckle Maria Bamford, the show never lost its momentum. As a matter of fact, that heckler probably added to the show's velocity as the subsequent comedians worked destroying said heckler into their routines. Every single comedian commanded the room, but I have to say the highlight of the show was John Mulaney. Sure, I've seen all of his material before, but he is such an amazing performer that his bits are always funny to me. Come to think of it, if there's one comedian out there who needs to make a CD ASAP, it's Mulaney. Sadly, no Zach Galifianakis this time around.

More comedy & NYC show listings, below....

10/29 - Rififi: TOTALLY JK with Joe and Noah!: Featuring Greg Johnson, Gabe & Jenny, and Max Silvestri, the highlight of this show, really, is Brett Gelman's performance of his opus 1000 Cats. You have to see this. I am not kidding

10/30 - Heathers: CAVALCADE!: Featuring Todd Barry, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Christian Finnegan, Pete Holmes & More! And it's FREE! Heathers is located at 506 E.13th St. (btwn A & B).

10/31 - Union Hall: UNION HALL-O-WEEN: I can't believe I am going to miss this. Spend Halloween with the cast of Lucy, Daughter of the Devil, Cheeseburger, Cassettes Won't Listen, and more., Only $5 to get in! Thanks Onion!

11/7- Carnegie Hall: Sarah Silverman

With Special Guests Doug Benson and Todd Barry : No more tickets left on line, but try your luck by calling 212-247-7800

11/11 - Irving Plaza: ASSSSCAT: Featuring Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, & Matt Walsh plus special guests including Chad Carter & Horatio Sanz. RAD!

-Klaus

Reply to Does anyone use this lens ?

jay_wilkie351971 posted a reply:

thanks a lot guys , really helpful.

and those are some amazingly beautiful images you have taken there pinoy . stunning.

seeing as i just spent around 3,500$ im not going to be able to get any more lens' for a while but i do already own the 70-200mm L f/4usm and the 50mm f/2.5 macro ,so that should be good to be getting on with .

thanks again people ,its appreciated .

jay

Reply to favorite Lens

nick_11 posted a reply:

Like TheBeel and tango_28, the minolta 28-135. Incredible lens, quite heavy, but so beautiful colors.







And the macro mode is usefull to.

Reply to Portrait Lens

de|me|tris: posted a reply:

I think you need to post some more examples Andreas! ;-)

Reply to Macro lens?

Shot by Scott ("ALPHA MALE":) ) posted a reply:

I use a sigma 50mm 2.8 macro and love it.

flickr.com/photos/dynax7/sets/72157594251768841/

Reply to Canon 40D with which lens combination, help please?

Suebbb posted a reply:

@heretakis do you have an EF 24-50 f2.8 L?

Reply to Macro lens?

Shot by Scott ("ALPHA MALE":) ) posted a reply:

I use a sigma 50mm 2.8 macro and love it.

flickr.com/photos/dynax7/sets/72157594251768841/

Reply to Attention all Canon DSLR users

T1 Photo posted a reply:

No problem Jacob, sorry for the misunderstanding. Thanks for the reply and I'm right there with you.... I don't agree with everything that goes on or know why it goes on for that matter, but I support my brother's 100% and what a lot of people that protest don't understand is, what that protest does to the moral of the men they may actually be trying to protect..... If that makes any sense?



At any rate.... Thanks and like I said, I like your work!

More of ‘Jimmy Canon’

So for a while I was alluding to a project I was working on that was a lot less hardcore than other stuff. Basically it’s a site for a guy with a huge ass library of hot looking chicks posing naked. At the end of the day, what more do you need?

Today’s freebie is this hottie. Let me set the shoot up, here’s today’s theme — we took a super hot hottie back in time to the 80’s to buy some Jordache panties. Then we found an 80’s beach cabana to shoot her in. In between takes she drank a TAB.

For some reason, despite the 80’s panties, I find this chick insanely hot. First off the huge smile (now usually when I say ’smile’, I mean ‘tits’) but in this case I really mean smile…AND tits. And I’m mad about the freckles.

So if you want to see more of Penny you know what to do — click here to check this bad ass shit out.

Oh and un-limber that credit card.

Reply to Ultra zoom lens?

atkinsondp posted a reply:

I have the IS version. You will NOT regret it! I promise you!

Reply to Portrait Lens

JP Williams posted a reply:

Canon 50mm 1.4

Reply to Lens prices

Shane-o posted a reply:

The only thing you're missing is that Canon Australia are screwing the local retailers in the rear end. This has always been the case.

I guarantee you there wouldn't be more than a 10-15% markup on the lenses that the local retailers are selling.



Unfortunately with the AUD being so strong against the USD it just further screws the local retailers. I've just bought a flash from the US because it was about $100 cheaper than what I could buy it for wholesale over here. Complete with international warranty.



I suspect more and more people will be buying accessories from the US, and when Canon Australia's sales drop they'll have no one to blame but themselves. I could care less, but unfortunately it also means our local retailers get shafted in the process.

Reply to Upgrade help - flash vs lens

Crantastic posted a reply:

There was a thread earlier about how to not make your images look like snap shots. I think that is the first thing to look into to get into commercial photography.

Most non-photography folks cannot tell good photography from bad. Depending on your photographic career I would hit the points of what they can "see".



The most ordinary consumer can see expression, sharpness and colour. If you get their kid to have a gleaming smile they'll pay happily. Any person with decent eyes can see an ultrasharp picture.



Above this is another level of sophistication. DOF, vignetting and ambient light photography are indicitave of more advanced tools (and probably a more advanced photographer). Most camera owners can sense it but probably couldn't say what it was that makes the images good.



The next tier is probably interior/product shots who's clients can see different lighting because they are familiar with the products.



I'm not a pro so I don't know how the markets work. However if you're getting paid you need the equipment that gives your clients the confidence that you are worth the money you are getting paid. Much of this is superficial, there is worth to just having a big flashy lens and body. We here realize otherwise but the layman only has so many cues as to what constitutes a "pro". As a business you need to hit all of those cues.

Reply to New lens

flapshots posted a reply:

Had that lense when I was with Canon and loved it.



When I switched to Nikon, I instead picked up the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8.

Runs at about the same price and I figured it was easier to compensate at the long end by simply moving closer to my subject than going backwards in tight spots.



Both are very good glass considering the price.

Disadvantages compared to the much more expensive Nikon equivalent?

- Focus a little noisier and slower but I've shot concerts with both and never had a problem.

- Build quality is not as good.



Other than those two, both are very sharp.

Canon GL2 MiniDV Digital Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom

Canon GL2 MiniDV Digital Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom

Product Description

The Canon GL2 (like its predecessor, the GL1, and its big brother, the XL1) is helping to blur the line between consumer and professional video equipment. This camcorder borrows most of those cameras’ professional-quality components and puts them into a more compact, affordable camera. Though it’s small enough to carry around and doesn’t cost much more than a top-of-the-line consumer camcorder, the GL2 produces such high-quality results that it could be used as a broadcast video camera.