Ripley

Thanks, kja. Is it much different from elements raw converter I wonder? I have so many holiday snaps to convert from raw. I havent' started as it's going to take an entire day or all weekend. Maybe next weekend.

You can buy the 50mm Canon 1.8 for under $150. It's a fixed focal length but fast and sharp.

Just tried that here on this old silver lady (recent holiday snap) - very easy, thanks ashanali. eta: damn upload is failing for some reason. have reduced size

I was wondering how you are going, chezzyr. I uploaded the trial of Lightroom, looked at it, but it all looks so confusing. I think I'll give it a miss as I don't have time to read a book or anything on it. It also takes up HEAPS of memory on my computer! I taught myself raw conversions from a great camera magazine article that had the elements 5 one, so I know what each slider does. So I don't think it's for me and I might just stick to elements 5's converter which still has clarity, vibrancy the same as lightroom. Hey, I also think Canon's new raw converter that came with the 30D I bought this year from BH New York is pretty good too.

It's very confusing. I'm convering all my holiday snaps and some (most) are raw. I've found elements 5's raw conversion better than CS2 which I also have. Elements 5 has vibrancy, clarity. I don't want to do anything to the shots in PS other than crop as they are mainly all landscape/wildlife/city photos so not looking for any arty look.

I've just downloaded a trial of Lightroom as I took a lot of my photos in RAW mode in Scotland and the UK. OK, now to get the motivation to start converting them within the 30 day trial, some of the functions are similar to my Elements 5 raw conversion software which is a relief. What do others think of Lightroom? Seems I can convert them all there (they are mostly landscapes and city shots, some taken at night as well) and then that's it, no PS work required. ETA: I wish i had the money to just pay someone to do it.

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Camera 350D, lens Sigma 17-70 f/7 at 1/10 ISO 400, natural light through windows, tripod, indoors, no flash. Crop, channel mix, blackened the wall at the back of her head and added a vignette. Looking at this now, I can see other things I can do to improve it, I had a go at this a few months back. I originally gave my unedited photo to ashanali to PS for me and she returned it looking amazing, no idea what she did, but it looked great. I printed both a (cropped with back wall cloned out and vignette added) colour one and the b/w one that ashanali ps'd for me and gave them to my friend who was over the moon.

I only know basic PS and I'm amazed at what other people can do - in awe actually. I was at OH's office this morning and had breakfast with a graphics artist who leases an office next to him. She also has a photography degree. She gave me a PS book on loan so I'll have to start reading up on it. Surprisingly, she still shoots her hobby shots with film as she prefers it and was telling me about pushing and pulling film which was a big ?? to me. So here are a few beginner efforts. The subject is very handsome and needs no introduction. Oh ok, monelite's perfect looking Dobe, Rex, retired Aust Champion. The dog who made me love dobes. totally untouched. Camera 30D Lens Canon 70-200. Aperture f/4; shutter speed 1/125, hand held. white balance: auto. Shot in jpg. Sepia toned using Canon software that came with the 30D; sharpened using unsharp mask in PS, vignette applied using marquee lassoo tool to select, inverted it, layer via copy and then darkened using levels. I think that's how I did it.

We bought the lens you wanted today. It's purdy. It was the Sigma 10-20mm. Hmm, that would make for some interesting wedding photography. So you mean the one I want with IS? The 70-200 L?

This is a great topic, ashanali. I'm processing some RAW files of what I took on our trip but will just do straight RAW conversions and a little sharpening as with landscapes, I like them to still look natural and as I saw them. Just a personal opinion, I don't like chocolate box looking landscapes. However, portraits and other stuff look great with PS and it's amazing what can be done. I love the black background and would love to know how to cut out and do similar. I have a shot of a wild eagle on a telegraph pole in silhouette as it was early evening but my sky is bland grey so I'm going to google PS to see how I can give the sky some punch.

I'd love to slap that David Kochie, cannot stand the man and his reptilian smirk. I went into OH's office today and noticed he had an ad for a lens I wanted for my birthday pinned to his corkboard. I said don't bother as it will cost him too much now. Ah well.

Wish that worked for me even with shorter lenses, no such luck. My hands/shoulder are not super-steady. So I rely on a monopod or tripod rather than anti-shake lenses. But you can get caught out: at the Buckskin Show at the weekend I was on my own and moving back and forth between two rings and the tripod made it a tad slow to move around so I hand-held quite a bit. And here's the result until fixed in photoshop: horizons so off level, one of my total pet pet hates. Back to the tripod for me. ETA: And Ripley, did you get the shot I ordered of Greyfriars Bobby statue?? Enjoying your shots and trip reports. The statue? Is that near the pub? Got the pub shot and Bobby's grave stone which has lots of fluffy dog toys in front of it people have put there - how sweet. I'll put them up when I copy the shots from OH's laptop to our home computer. My horizons are always wonky. I think it's my eyesight. I were my prescription sunnies when outside so when I look through the viewfinder things aren't clear as up close I don't need glasses, so I change the diopeter thingy but still, they are wonky. I have a photo of the leaning tower of Big Ben.

Here's a prediction from a Macquarie bank advisor: ''Stephen Koukoulas has been watching the Australian currency fall from his vantage point in London, working as a strategist for TD Securities. He told Radio National this morning, a lot of the drop in value is down to profit taking from overseas investors in the wake of big changes to Australian interest rates. STEPHEN KOUKOULAS: Banks that have got liquid assets, that have made the money, they're selling them and taking their money back home, so for an investor based in Boston or Tokyo or Frankfurt or London, and if they've been holding Aussie dollar positions in the bond or the stock market, they're selling them, getting their cash, taking it home and that's just forced the dollar down quite massively in the last couple of weeks. SIMON SANTOW: Steven Koukoulas is also convinced that lower global commodity prices are also driving the dollar down sharply. And he's not alone. RORY ROBERTSON: The global economy is weakening dramatically and therefore there's been a big down trend in commodity prices and one of the reasons that the Australian dollar has been strong is that the commodity prices have been buoyant. Now commodity prices are falling, global growth is decelerating and so the Australian dollar has been down shifting. SIMON SANTOW: Macquarie Bank's Rory Robertson agrees the Australian economy is fundamentally sound and better off than many others. Still, he's not necessarily predicting the same rebound for the currency. RORY ROBERTSON: The Australian dollar is at its lifetime average, since the Australian dollar was floated in the early 1980s, the average against the US dollar has been pretty well 70 US cents. Now that the Australian dollar is around its long-term average, I think everyone should be a bit more modest about, you know, anyone's ability to forecast that the next big move. It could be either way. I, you know, because it's come so far, so fast, there's probably a reasonable chance that it will bounce. Lots of people still see value in owning the Australian dollar at these levels. However, if the global credit crunch keeps intensifying, the global panic continues, then there'll be some investors who had themselves set with the Australian dollars for the past several years who will be forced to dump their position, and that would put downward pressure on the currency." "SIMON SANTOW: So is this the end for the climbing Aussie dollar. STEPHEN KOUKOULAS: The Australian economy is still, despite the problems that we've got, superior to that of the US, the Euro, to the UK, to Japan, to Canada, the list goes on, and yet we weakened even ten per cent against those currencies. Look I think we're probably going to move back into the high 70s, or even we could see 80 cents again and that's probably fair value level for the Aussie dollar.

You might be waiting a while. It's dropped dramatically, just in the last fornight apparently (saw the conversation on a board at the post office today and was shocked). I'm dreading my Visa statement coming in, when I left for our hols, the AUD was very strong against the British pound, god knows what the conversion will be now - I'm too scared to look on line at my statement. Eek! Thank goodness I bought that Canon lens from B&H way back in April when the dollar was up around 90. ETA: I got my Canon 70-200 f/4 for a song from BH NY as I got my boss to pick it up for me when he was on business in NY. I thought I'd get the same lens (as it's great) with IS and just looked on BH, did a conversion and it's going to be not $AUD600 more than my non IS like I thought (I'd sell my lens here in Aust first to upgrade) but $1,000 more! Stuff that, I'll stick with a monopod I think. edited for clarification

The shot of the chaffinch above I posted was hand holding in low light. Can't remember the shutter speed as I copied that file to my FB page so the details were lost. It hasn't been sharpened as it's straight out of the camera. Didn't have the teleconverter affixed, this little fella was wild but allowed me to get close enough with my 200mm, he's a well fed wild bird

Haven't truly viewed the shots, Luke. Just uploaded them while o/s and they are all still on OH's laptop. His laptop is at work . I was taking some shots of seals lying on a rock just offshore and tried my best to handhold, had a high shutter speed and all. To be honest, I shoot in AV mode when photographing wildlife and then make sure the shutter speed is fast enough, but it usually is if the light is good. My husband was getting annoyed at my constant, "Stop the car!" as on this particular island, there was a raptor or seal or heron on just about every drive we did and a single track road meant no room to stop anywhere, so I had to jump out, grab a shot and jump back in the car before another car came. No time for a tripod. So viewed most of the wildlife through my fantastic Nikon binoculars. Maybe sometimes the best shots are in your memory and not on file? Nah, that's a load of crap. Just looked at the price of the lens like mine but with IS. Oops, more expensive than I thought. Maybe next year.

After a month using the lens I got in May, I'm thinking of selling the Canon 70-200 and getting the exact same lens - Canon L 70-200 f/4 again, but with IS so when I attach the teleconverter I can still hand hold it. Even using a fast shutter speed, I can't hold it still enough with the teleconverter attached as it's heavy and my hands are narrow. My 70-200 has a 3 year international warranty and I think I can get good money for it now the AUD has plummeted (not so cheap to buy them in the US now) and then I can pay a few hundred dollars and get the one with IS without breaking the bank. Plus, OH owes me a birthday present from Aug which I haven't got yet. Thoughts? I'm very happy with the 70-200 L and can hand hold it fine without the converter, but with the converter I can't do it and not a fan of carting tripods on hikes.

Motion sickness is how I felt with a 200mm and 1.4 teleconverter attached, chezzyr. I think I saw that lens you mention. I was taking a photo the other week of the guards at Buck Palace and eased it through the bars of the gates and this American guy had to stand right next to me (when there was space on either side of the gate) and put his longer lens through. It was the same Canon lens, but longer and looked heavier. He then turned to me, looked at my shorter lens and smiled. I thought, "Why must men compare sizes, even with women?"

OK, here's a hand holding 200mm lens example. I haven't even looked at all my trip photos yet, but this I posted on my facebook while on hols where I was putting up photos as I uploaded my memory card every few days, just to show friends. So this shot is unaltered in PS - hasn't been sharpened or anything yet. Day was rainy, light was low, hand held the 200 mm, can't remember shutter speed, photos are on OH's laptop and he's at work. The lens only stops to f/4, it's not a fast lens. This little guy is a male chaffinch - the woman at the roadside cafe leaves seed out for the wild birds. I wanted to stay longer but OH got impatient and I missed a woodpecker shot as it started to rain and had no plastic camera cover, dammit. After that, I used a hotel shower cap - handy hints for photography: a plastic shower cap makes a great wet weather cover for your camera. :rolleyes: I do remember I had the ISO to 400 though for all birdie shots. edited for typos, I'm jetlagged

Ah, thanks. I can't help but think that some of the bird shots I took would be sharper had I not hand held the lens. Who carts a tripod around when they are stopping off for coffee somewhere and there happens to be wild birds around though?

At 100%? My raw converter (have Elements) defaults photos to 33%.

What ashanali sead re histograms is the best way (I think) of seeing if you've got your exposure right. I used my histogam info to view shots I took on holiday, that and if the highlights starting buzzing at me, I dialed in some exposure comp.

Not sure about this, hoping PS experts or RAW conversion experts can help. Last week I shot some wild ospreys in Scotland but I only had my 200mm lens with me, so they aren't close ups. I shot in RAW. Can I sort of digitally zoom as it's such a large file to make them appear closer without losing image quality? The lens I used is a very good lens - a Canon L series but it doesn't have IS, however I kept the shutter speed fast. A DOL photographer here told me something about a 100% crop once but I didn't fully understand how you do it. The ospreys aren't specks on the photo, when I zoom in 100% they appear much larger in the frame. I have realised two things from my trip. I need an IS 200mm. With the 1.4 teleconverter attached and hand holding it, I was wavering about the place like a night coming home for the pub. My shots of seals on rocks aren't the sharpest as a result and wasn't going to cart a tripod down to slippery seaweed covered rocks in a changing tide. So when I pay off my trip (!) I will maybe sell the Canon L 200mm and upgrade to one with IS in it.