Photography General Chat Thread

Still waiting for it to arrive but it'll be for my sigma 30mm walkaround lens so no landscapes or ultra wide shooting.

I picked up these bags from amazon, for the occasions when I want to go shooting in the rain, came this morning. I ordered the 18inch. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B000PTFDYO?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image

Its way too big for the a6000 but you can just cut the excess.
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Having a quick play the string pull at the front will work its way down from the lens hood if you're not careful. But if it does work its way down, it does sit tight where the hood screws onto the thread of the front element so no water should enter. A rubber band over a plastic food bag will be more secure if not better to be honest. But at least now no excuses to not go shooting in the wet.
 
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Interesting reading...


I feel at this point phone cameras are in a pretty good place and it largely comes down to which platform you prefer and what your budget is.

Speaking of phones I've been toying with the idea of buying a new mobile phone (Note 20 Ultra) vs buying an ultrawide lens. I don't have one in E-mount and been looking at the Sony 12-24mm F4 which is pricey and I feel a bit reluctant having bought three ultrawide lenses already (4/3, m4/3 and F-mount), there were rumours Sigma or Tamron were going to offer a cheaper ultrawide but that doesn't seem to have happened.

My thinking is at wider angles I find there's less of an advantage with a proper camera for the type of shots I take and I've found myself leaving the 100-400mm on the camera and grabbing a wide angle shot off the phone to save switching lenses. If I need better shots then I still have the Nikon option and would still use it for the likes of real estate photography even if I had a Sony UWA lens since I have a flash system for the Nikon but not the Sony. What's partially driving this is that I was out with just a 28-200mm at the start of the week in the snow and the 28mm shots from the phone and camera aren't that different because the shots were quite straightforward whereas when I was getting close up shots of the dog, the camera could easily outdo a phone with the longer zoom, better dynamic range, fast tracking AF etc. I was walking back from work today and took a shot I'd have liked to have gone wider on and wouldn't normally take a camera with me so it would have been handy on the phone.

My main concern is that I find with some ultrawide shots because you're getting a lot of sky and ground in that can really push the dynamic range which is where phone cameras struggle and I'm certainly not claiming there's not much advantage to an UWA lens just that for limited use I'd get more out of it on a phone. There's also the irritating downgrades on phones with the notification LED light and headphone socket both removed.

I'm curious for those that use the UWA on their phones whether they think it's worth it or this is an entirely stupid train of thought.
 
I feel at this point phone cameras are in a pretty good place and it largely comes down to which platform you prefer and what your budget is.

Speaking of phones I've been toying with the idea of buying a new mobile phone (Note 20 Ultra) vs buying an ultrawide lens.

I haven't had much chance to play with the wide angle lens on my wifes Note Ultra, but am so impressed with its camera suite am almost certainly going to order the S21 Ultra when it comes out in a few weeks, the f 2.4 70mm lens with 1.22µm sensor should be very good and even better than the 120mm f3.0 zoom lens with 1.0µm sensor on the Note. The £1000+ price am justifying for its photography potential :)


This is how versatile the lens are on the Note ultra are.....

Standard:

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UW - bare in mind the contrast in dark of the garage/car interior with exterior light, ISO up to 800.

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This is UW going to x5 optical zoom....am 100% going to be getting the S21 Ultra :).

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x5 optical is impressive
 
Still waiting for it to arrive but it'll be for my sigma 30mm walkaround lens so no landscapes or ultra wide shooting.

I picked up these bags from amazon, for the occasions when I want to go shooting in the rain, came this morning. I ordered the 18inch. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B000PTFDYO?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image

Its way too big for the a6000 but you can just cut the excess.
View attachment 1435612

Having a quick play the string pull at the front will work its way down from the lens hood if you're not careful. But if it does work its way down, it does sit tight where the hood screws onto the thread of the front element so no water should enter. A rubber band over a plastic food bag will be more secure if not better to be honest. But at least now no excuses to not go shooting in the wet.
I've found any plastic bag with a hole cut for the lens and an elastic band to secure around the hood works well.
 
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Trying to organise my photographs. They've just been sat on the SD cards for years. I want to get them all onto a drive and then scroll through them with lightroom selecting the keepers.

But there are a number of folders on the SD card, one with the year and one DCIM with two folders inside :confused:

I'll copy everything for now into seperate folders for each of my SD cards but got to be an easier way.

EDIT: Got it figured. For future reference, the image files in the DCIM folders will do!

OK so right now I have a ''PHOTOGRAPHY'' folder and then created individual sub folders for each shoot/location with date. Thats made it a lot easier now!

Just had a play with the polarising filter at home. Can see why you wouldn't want to keep it on. But on a bright sunny day definitely useful.
 
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I've had my new S21 Ultra for just over 24hrs now......Here are some random shots I've go on it.

I think the photo quality speaks for it self, if you do wildlife/sports photography you still need a 300mm+ lens and DSLR, but for everyone and everything else this is the future.

No more carrying around lens/chargers, no more worrying about getting dust on sensors, no more waiting to get home to upload/edit RAW photos, and everything can back up instantly to the cloud.

This is what photography should be about, framing shots, getting to random places at random times to get 'the' shot, having fun, all the gear you ever need can now fit in the jacket pocket, its fantastic :).

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Can do it BokEH!???
 
I've had my new S21 Ultra for just over 24hrs now......Here are some random shots I've go on it.

I think the photo quality speaks for it self, if you do wildlife/sports photography you still need a 300mm+ lens and DSLR, but for everyone and everything else this is the future.

No more carrying around lens/chargers, no more worrying about getting dust on sensors, no more waiting to get home to upload/edit RAW photos, and everything can back up instantly to the cloud.

This is what photography should be about, framing shots, getting to random places at random times to get 'the' shot, having fun, all the gear you ever need can now fit in the jacket pocket, its fantastic :).

50886575723_32a369dd22_k_d.jpg


50887296686_5febed6a2d_c_d.jpg


50884952192_a91e406819_k_d.jpg


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Mobiles have their place for sure and image quality is getting very good. They’re still a way off for many enthusiasts and pros though. I do wonder how they’ll compensate for the physical sensor size but I’m sure they’ll do it at some point.
 
Can do it BokEH!???

Yes, real and fake.

It'll also let me view, edit, upload than back up the photos whilst chilling on the sofa enjoying a quite Sunday tea and listening to some tunes via wireless noise cancelling ear pods......

Its a far cry when I use to process black and white film in the dark room, and the anxious 30 second wait to find out if the shot you took 1 week ago was actually in focus or not, I don't miss that :).

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Mobiles have their place for sure and image quality is getting very good. They’re still a way off for many enthusiasts and pros though. I do wonder how they’ll compensate for the physical sensor size but I’m sure they’ll do it at some point.

They're already compensating for the physical sensor size through computational photography such as the fake shallow depth of field effects and stacking shots for HDR/high iso. There's obviously limits to this especially when it comes to movement in the frame and when it comes to doing any post processing, what I like about bigger sensors is there's a huge amount of information there to process the image as you want whereas with the phone you have to take the picture as is.

Small sensors also have the advantage that they can get new technologies quicker, stacked sensors are relatively new and still rare in FF (only the A9, A9 II and A1 have them) but they've been available in small sensors for much longer and widely available. However when it does get there the big cameras can also enjoy the benefits while still offering their usual advantages, I find the A9 is an incredible camera for its silent, blackout free high speed shooting and now the A1 looks stunning.

I'm going cold on the phone idea at the moment and moreso having seen the A1 release.
 
They're already compensating for the physical sensor size through computational photography such as the fake shallow depth of field effects and stacking shots for HDR/high iso. There's obviously limits to this especially when it comes to movement in the frame and when it comes to doing any post processing, what I like about bigger sensors is there's a huge amount of information there to process the image as you want whereas with the phone you have to take the picture as is.

Small sensors also have the advantage that they can get new technologies quicker, stacked sensors are relatively new and still rare in FF (only the A9, A9 II and A1 have them) but they've been available in small sensors for much longer and widely available. However when it does get there the big cameras can also enjoy the benefits while still offering their usual advantages, I find the A9 is an incredible camera for its silent, blackout free high speed shooting and now the A1 looks stunning.

I'm going cold on the phone idea at the moment and moreso having seen the A1 release.
Yeah, those are the limitations I'm referring to. I do wonder if they'll be able to have multiple small sensors all capturing different bits of data and then combining them to make one image, or whether they're waiting for those nano lenses or whatever they're called?

I REALLY want the A1, but I really can't justify (or afford) £6500 on a camera.
 
Not particularly new I don't think but my latest Magnum email linked this article.
Nostalgia was never so futuristic :)

 
Not particularly new I don't think but my latest Magnum email linked this article.
Nostalgia was never so futuristic :)

Such a wonderful design and creation. I'm lucky enough to have flown on this :love:
 
Yeah, those are the limitations I'm referring to. I do wonder if they'll be able to have multiple small sensors all capturing different bits of data and then combining them to make one image, or whether they're waiting for those nano lenses or whatever they're called?

I REALLY want the A1, but I really can't justify (or afford) £6500 on a camera.

This is the idea behind the high MP stacked sensors with four physical pixels making up one pixel in the image and can supposedly improve dynamic range by exposing each of the four pixels differently to widen dynamic range or to compare noise levels and produce a better image. Like a lot of these designs though it doesn't really seem to make that much of a difference in practice.

I've been impressed with the results you've been getting with the A9 so I've been going cold on the A1 idea, there's clearly a lot more I can get from the A9 so really need to make an effort to switch away from LR6.

I've only seen the Concorde on display in the Imperial Duxford museum and it's such a stunning plane it's hard to understand it's so old and long retired. I also saw the Blackbird which is one of my favourite planes and if that plane came out today it would look futuristic and sleek, it's strange seeing the cockpit with all the old dials that remind you it's actually a very old plane. I was reading a Skunkworks book while on a trip to the US and looking at the dumpy, ugly airplane it's hard to believe that was the future.
 
This is the idea behind the high MP stacked sensors with four physical pixels making up one pixel in the image and can supposedly improve dynamic range by exposing each of the four pixels differently to widen dynamic range or to compare noise levels and produce a better image. Like a lot of these designs though it doesn't really seem to make that much of a difference in practice.

I've been impressed with the results you've been getting with the A9 so I've been going cold on the A1 idea, there's clearly a lot more I can get from the A9 so really need to make an effort to switch away from LR6.

I've only seen the Concorde on display in the Imperial Duxford museum and it's such a stunning plane it's hard to understand it's so old and long retired. I also saw the Blackbird which is one of my favourite planes and if that plane came out today it would look futuristic and sleek, it's strange seeing the cockpit with all the old dials that remind you it's actually a very old plane. I was reading a Skunkworks book while on a trip to the US and looking at the dumpy, ugly airplane it's hard to believe that was the future.
The Blackbird was/is a beauty. Unfortunately I've never actually seen it, but it was my favourite in the Aeroplane pack of Top Trumps ;)

Thanks for the compliments, although I've not really been out to take 'proper' pics yet. That being said from the pics I have managed to take I've been very impressed by the A9ii and since getting it I've no real interest in the A1. I'm sure on tests the A1 will prove to be faster but honestly how you could want, need, or even be able to tell that something is faster in the real world is beyond me. Bird eye-AF is a nice addition but I'm not a big bird shooter and manage fine without, and it my yet filter down via firmware. The only thing the A1 offers is 20fps uncompressed rather than compressed, lossless compression (why it's taken Sony this long is beyond me) and the resolution. Keeping the 1,440,000 dot LCD on a £6.5 camera is a bit of a disgrace though, there's not excuse for that imo.

With regards to the resolution, I'm surprised just how much I can crop the A9ii, plus after having 3 high MP cameras I'm not getting another until I upgrade my computer as they just get bogged down in lightroom. I don't think it's the file size as it makes no difference if I used lossless compression with Nikon, or change the Sony files to DNG which makes them smaller. I think it's probably just having to process all those pixels. I've got to say I'm really really happy with the A9ii, and for £2940 it's a relative bargain.
 
Just received a 60×40cm print of a photo I took with the phone camera. Its the first time I have ever printed a camera phone photo beyond A5 size, and the results are fantastic.

Looks like I'll be printed alot more of my camera phone photos going fowards:).

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At first glance the out of focus trees and grass didn't look right. But overall I really love the picture. Great job
 
At first glance the out of focus trees and grass didn't look right. But overall I really love the picture. Great job

This is the original shot, I did some post processing on Photoshop Express, than 'sent it' to print via the PhotoBox app.

From shooting to printing all was done on the smartphone, wanted to try it, quite pleased.

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Interesting. On reflection I like the Photoshop one. The “blurs” work well
 
My Smugmug subscription is up for renewal and I've been giving serious thought to cancelling it for some time. It's not huge amount per year but it feels a complete waste to share a few odd files on forums and part of the problem is I've been with them 15 years or so which means it will break every link I've posted in that time. However I doubt many people are looking at these posts in the past and it's going to have to end at some point.

I've been looking at alternatives but most paid sites are similar costs and using free sites seems a bit of a gamble, I do have a server and NAS at home which I'm thinking I might look into since the amounts are small. Any recommendations for others with similar use to mine?
 
My Smugmug subscription is up for renewal and I've been giving serious thought to cancelling it for some time. It's not huge amount per year but it feels a complete waste to share a few odd files on forums and part of the problem is I've been with them 15 years or so which means it will break every link I've posted in that time. However I doubt many people are looking at these posts in the past and it's going to have to end at some point.

I've been looking at alternatives but most paid sites are similar costs and using free sites seems a bit of a gamble, I do have a server and NAS at home which I'm thinking I might look into since the amounts are small. Any recommendations for others with similar use to mine?
I just use Flickr but there’s an annual fee now :rolleyes:
 
I just use Flickr but there’s an annual fee now :rolleyes:
There is still a free option with Flickr, it's just limited in numbers of images you can host
 

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