TR: North Cornwall Coast Path

On 11 Oct 2005 16:33:21 -0700, "Anth" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Wow! Fantastic photos! Thanks for posting them, I'll look forward to
walking that bit of the path!

I'd have to agree with everyone who recommends walking the Dorset
section. Make sure you don't miss the Isle of Portland, which is
probably my favourite bit to date (although that might have something
to do with walking it on a nice sunny day!).

Our Dorset photos & TR's are here if you fancy a look:

http://www.wheresthepath.com/SWCP/swcp_1_poole_weymouth_intro.htm

Brilliant report and pics, thanks! Only had time for a glance just
now, but will return this evening.

Wet fishes,
--
,,
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \ pee AT [guessthisbit].co.uk

"Is our children learning?"
g.w.AT [guessthisbit].com

On 11/10/05 21:31, in article [email hidden],

Chris Townsend said:

I'm also very surprised at people I meet (including those who publish
their photos) who have expensive DSLRs yet shoot JPEGs rather than raw
files.

Agreed. I have Photoshop but, in the main, use it quite sparingly. The nice
thing about it is that you can apply subtle finishes, but I've seen it
kill-off many photographs.

I shoot exclusively in RAW now, but I guess if I was pressed for speed I
might use JPEG. I often end up keeping several versions of the same file!

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

On 11/10/05 21:54, in article [email hidden],

Richard G. said:

Of course if PS were still here this thread would eventually turn into a
Photoshop discussion, so in his abscence.... anyone played with the High
Dynamic Range feature in CS2 yet?

I've been meaning to play with this feature. I'll have a look this weekend
and report back.

Digital can be more tolerant than film but only where you desperately need
to get some result out of a badly exposed shot. Playing with saturation and
contrast can, at least, give you something that you can use. But there is no
substitute for proper exposure; this was my original point of course.

Manual (once you are confident with it) allows you to make more informed
choices about exposure, particularly when faced with scenes that combine
dramatic light and shade combinations.

The best metering system I have ever used was that in the Olympus OM4. This
allowed you to average up to 8 spot meter readings. You could decide to -
say - give 2 spots to the wall in the sun and one spot to the wall in the
shade. I felt this was wonderful, especially with landscape. My D70 has a
good spot mode but can't average multiple readings. It was surprising how
'intuitive' the Olympus system was. Now, if someone introduced this in a
digital SLR I might even think of changing systems.

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

On 11/10/05 22:04, in article [email hidden],

Judith said:

My......... brain.......... is ........MELTING.

Don't panic. I shall restrain myself on this subject for at least the next 6
months!

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

On 11/10/05 23:41, in article [email hidden],

Peewiglet said:

Surely she can't kill as many people as that??

I'd be wary about tempting her too far !!!

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

On 11/10/05 23:43, in article [email hidden],

Judith said:

Don't

tempt

me.

Ah hah, what did I say :-)

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

In Article <BF726BAE.463F7%andy.howellNOSPAM@ecotrendDOTorgDOTuk>,Andy

Howell andy.howellNOSPAM@ecotrendDOTorgDOTuk said:

I've been meaning to play with this feature. I'll have a look this weekend
and report back.

I've done a little experimenting. The DR does work well and the blending
seems pretty good. However, the Automatic Image Alignment seems poor, so you
need to be using a tripod to make it useful I think. I don't see a way of
manually aligning the images either, but I might be missing something?

I was hoping that auto-bracketing handheld would make it useable, but from
the small amount of testing so far, I'm not convinced.

Quoted message said:

Digital can be more tolerant than film but only where you desperately need
to get some result out of a badly exposed shot. Playing with saturation and
contrast can, at least, give you something that you can use. But there is no
substitute for proper exposure; this was my original point of course.

Are you talking about a manipulated digital image versus a straight trannie?
If so, then I agree, but I'm quite confident that a scanned trannie has more
DR than an image from my DSLR. It's amazing what I can get out of a scanned
slide with a bit of work.

Quoted message said:

Manual (once you are confident with it) allows you to make more informed
choices about exposure, particularly when faced with scenes that combine
dramatic light and shade combinations.

Agreed, but there is still the issue that in many situations a landscape has
more contrast than can be captured in a single image unless filters are used
to balance the exposure and with these wide-angle digital lenses even this
is now a problem. So it seems the only option is blending or features like
HDR.

Quoted message said:

My D70 has a good spot mode but can't average multiple readings. It was
surprising how 'intuitive' the Olympus system was. Now, if someone
introduced this in a digital SLR I might even think of changing systems.

When I bought the D70 I thought it would last me around 3-4 years before
DSLR's had advanced to a point where I could no longer resist upgrading.
Have to say that I am mildly dissapointed with the D70, but it is serving
it's pupose, in that I'm probably taking more pictures and hopefully
improving both my photography and my Photoshop skills.

I agree with Chris that I'd much rather spend time behind the camera than in
front of the computer, but to be honest there's not a single image comes out
of the DLSR that doesn't need some manipulation. Maybe there is a tendancy
to look for perfection in every image and constantly fiddle until it's
completely ruined though!

An example
Original image straight from the camera and converted using Photoshop RAW
plugin.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_1.jpg

Final image.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_2.jpg

Regards,
Richard G.

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Townsend
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I'm also very surprised at people I meet (including those who publish
their photos) who have expensive DSLRs yet shoot JPEGs rather than raw
files.

A pal of mine (not a poster to this NG) has a Canon D10 and only ever
shoots in high quality jpegs.

If he was interested in selling his stuff he'd better think again.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <BF726A43.463F5%andy.howellNOSPAM@ecotrendDOTorgDOTuk>, Andy
Howell <andy.howellNOSPAM@ecotrendDOTorgDOTuk.?.invalid> writes

Quoted message said:

I shoot exclusively in RAW now, but I guess if I was pressed for speed I
might use JPEG. I often end up keeping several versions of the same file!

Agreed that Raw will yield the better final image as a 16 bit TIFF, but
for "general" use high quality JPEGS will be fine especially when
processing the image and time is important
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Townsend
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Should be enough for Judith the kill this thread I think...

And anyone else not interested in photography :-)

Interested in photography - yes, but in all the technospeak -
definitely not :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In message <[email hidden]>, W. D. Grey
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Townsend
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I'm also very surprised at people I meet (including those who publish
their photos) who have expensive DSLRs yet shoot JPEGs rather than raw
files.

A pal of mine (not a poster to this NG) has a Canon D10 and only ever
shoots in high quality jpegs.

If he was interested in selling his stuff he'd better think again.

Not necessarily. Magazines will often accept high res JPEGS, because the
quality is adequate.

However he won't be getting the best quality his camera is capable of
and if he ever makes large prints the quality won't be anything like as
good as if he shot raw and then converted the file.

The 300D raw files are around 3x the size of the high res JPEGs ones.

On 12/10/05 11:31, in article [email hidden],

Richard G. said:

I agree with Chris that I'd much rather spend time behind the camera than in
front of the computer, but to be honest there's not a single image comes out
of the DLSR that doesn't need some manipulation. Maybe there is a tendancy
to look for perfection in every image and constantly fiddle until it's
completely ruined though!

Agree completely. But I can get as much fun out of PS processing as I used
to get out of my old Black and White darkroom!

--
Andy Howell
Birmingham, UK

To mail simply put back the dots ...

Woollyzone said:

I have to underexpose every shot by at least one f stop to get it right.

Have you tried switching the metering mode to centre-weighted? I've a
350D and find that mode much more consistent on the hills than the
oh-so-clever "evaluative" system.

Al
--
[This space intentionally left blank]

"Alan Bremner" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Woollyzone said:

I have to underexpose every shot by at least one f stop to get it right.

Have you tried switching the metering mode to centre-weighted? I've a
350D and find that mode much more consistent on the hills than the
oh-so-clever "evaluative" system.

Al
--

That's a good idea Alan, I hadn't thought of that, I will try it and see how
it goes.

In article <[email hidden]>, Richard G.
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

An example
Original image straight from the camera and converted using Photoshop RAW
plugin.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_1.jpg

Final image.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_2.jpg

An impressive difference. How did you achieve it - more than just
fiddling with levels/curves?

--

Russ Clare

Richard G. said:

Final image.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_2.jpg

I confess I would never choose to push the colours quite
that far. It's starting to look like a set from Star
Trek :-)

Chris

Chris Gilbert said:

Richard G. said:

Final image.
www.gosney.plus.com/Worm_Stones_2.jpg

I confess I would never choose to push the colours quite
that far. It's starting to look like a set from Star
Trek :-)

Or one of those Cameracolour postcards >:-)
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

Alan Bremner said:

Woollyzone said:

I have to underexpose every shot by at least one f stop to get it right.

Have you tried switching the metering mode to centre-weighted? I've a
350D and find that mode much more consistent on the hills than the
oh-so-clever "evaluative" system.

It is about time that they switched from a film based metering system
using a light meter to one where you select how many pixels are at the
white point. You can do this now by a round about method of evaluating
the shot on the review screen and then adjusting the exposure, but it
wouldn't take too much thought to program the camera to adjust the
exposure on auto to ensure that the number of blown pixels never went
above a certain percentage - which would of course be customisable.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

In message <[email hidden]>, Phil Cook
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Alan Bremner said:

Woollyzone said:

I have to underexpose every shot by at least one f stop to get it right.

Have you tried switching the metering mode to centre-weighted? I've a
350D and find that mode much more consistent on the hills than the
oh-so-clever "evaluative" system.

It is about time that they switched from a film based metering system
using a light meter to one where you select how many pixels are at the
white point. You can do this now by a round about method of evaluating
the shot on the review screen and then adjusting the exposure, but it
wouldn't take too much thought to program the camera to adjust the
exposure on auto to ensure that the number of blown pixels never went
above a certain percentage - which would of course be customisable.

I agree. I think the problem is that camera makers think that the more
like film cameras digital cameras are the more people will accept them -
hence ISO film speeds and clicking shutters.

In Article <[email hidden]>,Russ Clare

Quoted message said:

An impressive difference. How did you achieve it - more than just
fiddling with levels/curves?

Never been able to master curves, always seem to make a hash of it.

I used Shadows and Highlights along with Contrast to balance the exposure.
Colour Balance, only on selected areas using layer masks, to remove casts
and distortion due to brightening the shadow areas. Saturation and Unsharp
mask. That's about it really. I also use Auto Colour occassionally if I'm
struggling to get what I want, sometimes it's rubbish, other times it
achieves exactly what I wanted and was failing to find.

Regards,
Richard G.