Introduce Yourself & Welcome Other Members (archive)

[Dave Humphries]

[QUOTE=Dave Humphries;16840]I may be back later to put the pic somewhere better for comment (and give feedback)QUOTE]

Puyoungtea,

You can find the first bit of feedback here

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Ricko,

Good to have another member, (from the UK midlands I presume?)

I might want to compare notes with you on lenses in due course, I have a Sigma too, but not that one.

For now, welcome to CiC from ...

[Dave Humphries]

The class I take in January requires a minimum 7 megapixles. the camera I have is 4. Just starting out and having a very limited budget to work with some feedback would be a great help starting out. The first semester is becoming aware of how digital cameras work, and so on. I search the internet to prepare me for the upcoming classes and it all seems to be a bit overwheming.

Hi Mrknmocean,

It would be nice to know what to call you, so could I request a first name please?

It does sound like you will need another camera for the classes

Not knowing where you are also doesn´t help, as any advice on where to look for cheap cameras could be very mis-guided. Also an idea of what you consider your budget to be would help, I´m sure something 7 - 8MP secondhand could be obtained quite reasonably, possibly from a dealer that accepts trade-ins, so you´d have somewhere to go for advice and, perish the thought, if you encountered any problems with it.

Hope to here more from you soon.
If you have any questions, no matter how silly or basic you may think they are, do ask them here.

oh, and of course, welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[shankali]

Hello, your all welcome to make my aquaintance.....I am here to learn more and offend lots of peeps along the way
My work can be found quite easy by typing shank_ali into the google search engine.Enjoy.

[Sean]

Hello all,

My name is Sean and I'm originally from Victoria in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. I currently live in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada's version of Texas). I love the prairies and the Rocky Mountains here, but I'm still more fond of my warmer home-town.

I'm most likely one of the younger members of these forums, only being nineteen as of May. I've been a photo enthusiast since I got my very first camera at the age of eight. I remember going through the first two rolls of film my dad gave me in a week or so. He quickly informed me that film costs money to be developed and that it might be in my best interest to take more quality photos instead of just more photos.

Ever since I've loved taking photos, and have since upgraded to the Canon Rebel XS. My current kit includes the 18-55mm that came with the kit, a 50-250mmf.4-f5.6, and a few filters... While I don't find this gear to be exceptional, it's currently fine for what I'm doing. However, I'm becoming more and more serious about my photography and thus I'm in the process of saving up for :
1) 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM
2) 50D
3) 1.4x extender
4) 24-70mm f2.8 USM
5) 2x extender

(In that order - I don't expect to have this all any time soon; but I would like to get the 70-200mm before Oct.)

I hope to become a bit more professional with my photography, so I'm also looking at taking a course or two through NAIT (North Alberta Institute of Technology). I've done a bit of reading through a few books, but I find that I learn more if it's hands-on and/or I'm hearing it from an instructor rather than via reading.

I'm kind of thinking about going into the two year photography course available at NAIT so that I could gain more professional experience and (hopefully) get into a sports photography and / or photojournalism career.

Well, this turned out to be a longer post than I intended. So let me just finish with saying hello, and I look forward to posting with you all.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Sean,

Good intro post

The only thing on your shopping list I´d be wary of is the 70-200, I know it´s an "L" of a good bit of glass, but do you really find the 50 - 250 that bad?

I´m interested as much as having any great wisdom.

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Sean]

Hello Dave,

To answer your question, no. But...

The main reason I'm going to the 70-200mm is simply the stop gain, and the quality gain. The 250 loses sharpness by a staggering amount at its maximum focal range, and I'm finding it's pretty hard to stop the action (at sports games) with that narrow of an aperture.

Edit: Also, because if I throw on a 1.4x extender (paired with the 1.6x from my Rebel / future 50D) it would equate to a 140mm-400mm f4.0 which seems pretty tempting. If I was to use an extender on the current lens that I have I would lose the auto-focus ability with either camera. I believe only 1D/1DS models can auto-focus up to f8. I could be mistaken there, though.

[Ricko]

Hi Ricko,

Great to have you with us What kind of budget do you have for a portrait lens?

As a rule I suggest that people stick to zooms initially because their image quality ("IQ") is (in practical terms) indistinguishable from most primes, but they're a while lot more versatile.

Sorry I've taken so long to reply, went paintballing last weekend and still suffering !!

Well realistically around the £500 pound mark, so i was thinking of something like this > Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens. If i had more I'd opted for this> Canon EF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM Lens at £900. But I'm open to suggestions!

How important is IS ? or can you do without it ?

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Ricko,

I'm sure those with more experience will also chip in, but my thoughts are I wouldn't want to be without IS unless you knew you were ALWAYS going to shoot your portraits with flash.

Having said that, both those lenses go a bit wider than necessary for just portraiture, so they are bound to get used for other stuff, so again IS is likely to be of benefit if shooting with available light below say 1/125 or 1/160 at the telephoto end.

Cheers,

[sammua]

Hello everone,
I thought I just want to stroll along first. I have just register myself and learning what HDR is all about.
I have just bought this new toy Canon EOSD50 which I have just started to enjoy.

My flicker photostream is at.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sammua/

I need to understand what is HDR and how to create HDR images.
I hope by going through the discussion I could learn.

Cheers
sammua

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Sammua,

I assume you have found our forum on HDR:
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/forum4.htm

Anyway, welcome to the CiC forums from ....

[JamesButts]

Over the years I have worked with 4X5 Grover, and have 6 35mm film cameras and 1 21/4, one underwater system good to 150 feet digital plus a number of snapshot digitals wanting relief from larger systems.

Recently I purchased and Nikon D60 so light weight with the standard AF-S NIKKOR 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G lens, which fits many of my film systems filters love it!

Looking to purchase the 70-300mm zoom with stabilization system built into the lens like the 18-55mm has.

8GB SD card-love it. I strongly stand by this all-purpose DSLR system. More bang for your dollar. I would say 4.5 stars out of 5 rating.

[bobcom]

Hello Forum,

I've been an incidental photographer for almost 40 years know - starting out with a Zenith 3M with Helios 44 - 58 mm (still to be found ont the net) and a Tair 4,5 - 300 mm (rare, but available). Went though Praktica and Exacta outfits, Canon FD and Nikon, and now I'm with Canon again - 40d and some glass. Still in the process of getting my final setup, which currently comprises anything from Sigma (17-70) to Canon (70 -210, 70 - 300 IS) and mf lenses (Kiron, Jupiter 21M, Tokina). I hope to end up with an all-purpose lens (something 18 - 200 ish with IS, OS or VC), a sharp and fast wide to normal, a ditto telezoom plus 1.4 converter and a macro). I'll be dreaming for another few years, but playing the photography gear game is fun, too.

In the meantime I want to get my focus back on what it this gear should be all about: photography. I finally want to shoot the pictures I never did - mostly because I didn't invest enough time and effort in them. Time is still in short supply, but the effort I shlould be able to muster. A good forum is a source of inspiration and comments are oh, so useful.

At the same time, I want to get familiar with the Digital Dark Room, and your tutorials already have been a great help. I've been messing around with PSE 6.0, PP X and CS 1, ACDSee, Rawtherapee, UFRaw and The Gimp, plus some other software, but here, too, I would like to get settled with a proper workflow. Another thing I hope (and expect) to learn from you.

Hope to see you digitally soon!

Bob

[Dave Humphries]

Hi James,

Sounds like a reasonable wish-list to me
I "went Nikon" myself in May, with a D5000 (ouch for the extra price over a D60, eh), but I put all my eggs in the one (Sigma) basket with an 18 - 250mm lens that focuses down to about 0.5m even at 250mm. One size fits all.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing some of your photos, either for critique, or in the challenges.
Any questions or problems, just holler.

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Bob,

By all means post some pics for critique in the appropriate forum, it is the best way to learn and you get great feedback here.

It certainly sounds like you 'done the rounds' with PP software there!
I have PSE and could help with a workflow for that if you're interested - I shoot RAW, so I effectively have ACR 5.4 bolted on the front of PSE6.

Or if any other questions, just start a thread and (usually) within a few hours, you'll have some answers.

I've not heard of Terontola, tell me, is the "(I)" for Italy?

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...

[Alje]

Hello everybody. I am from the Netherlands. I have been doing photography in the late fifties and in the sixties of the last century,
Six years ago I bought a digital camera and started taking pictures again.
I now use a nikon D700 and a nikon D200.

Regards,

Ad de leeuw

[bobcom]

Hello Dave,

Thanks for your welcome and your offer for workflow help. I'm still in the experimenting stage (wonder if I'll ever grow out of it), and found new material in your remark that you have ACR 5.4 as a front-end for PSE. Never thought of downloading a newer version of ACR, so that's next. After I get the hang of Tony Kuyper's "luminosity masks" for PS, mentioned in the "Making Images Pop"-topic. Fascinating stuff!

Regarding your question: Yep, (I) stands for Italy. And a question of mine: from your gallery I get the impression you know a family member of my avatar - our bracco and pacifist hunting dog (shooting scares him s...less). Kindly ask "DSC_2881_N-D5k_ed1_H1000.jpg" if he knows an Italian called "Mazzel".

Cheers,

Bob

[Tom Robbins]

Hello Folks,

I'm a newbie to this forum, but not necessarily to photography. I hope to explore the threads here as time allows, and will post when I get a feel for the place and its culture.

Most of my recent Midwest North America photos are here - http://www.pbase.com/salty_one

It is an eclectic collection; please feel free to click around.

Thanks,

Tom Robbins
DeKalb, Illinois

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Tom,

Well, I've had a look around a few of your high quality galleries and decided, for bird shots at least, I need a 1000mm lens like yours! The detail you get by not having to crop (as I do) to get the image that big just blows me away.

The evidence certainly suggests you're no photo newbie.

Anyway, welcome to the CiC forums, we do have a fairly unique culture here, so I hope you like it and stick around.

Regards,

[Dave Humphries]

Hello everybody. I am from the Netherlands. I have been doing photography in the late fifties and in the sixties of the last century,
Six years ago I bought a digital camera and started taking pictures again.
I now use a nikon D700 and a nikon D200.

Regards,

Ad de leeuw

Hi Ad? Alje?

What sort of subjects make your index finger click on the Nikon's these days?

Although, given your history and experience, it would seem unlikely, if you do have any questions, just ask,
.. or share some pics maybe?

Welcome to the CiC forums from ...