waterrockets 

RAW+JPG will slow down your repeat rate, if that matters to you (usually with the buffer filling faster, so the first couple shots will be ok, then it will slow way down). Keep in mind that if the JPG is good enough, but all you have is raw, then all you have to do is start your processing with camera settings for all the files, then they look just like .jpg. If you want, you can just export them all blindly and you'll have what would have been an on-camera JPG.

Play around with all the options and don't make up your mind until you get the hang of it all.

ridethecliche

Do you ever find yourself wanting photoshop? Or are you more interested in getting the most out of your images instead of modifying them with layers or whatnot? I guess lightroom is more than adequate for the latter.

I think I'll get the larger card and shoot in both. I can do raw only if I'm trying to do artsy stuff or switch to jpeg for when I'm just shooting for fun. I can also future proof it because 32gb will carry a bunch of video on it too if I upgrade to a better DSLR in the future. I'd love to do that now, but I don't think the $$$$ would work out unless I get a killer killer deal on something used or refurbished. Like you, I'm not buying a new one. Just not worth the premium.

Does yours shoot video?

waterrockets 

I use photoshop on about 5 images/year. It's just not needed that often. The adjustment brush in LR4 is kind of a joke on RAW processing, because you can remove pimples, wrinkles, re-expose portions of images, etc. You just not doing it in TIFF or JPEG. There's a lot of capability in LR4. DPP is pretty awesome too, considering that it came with your camera.

My 1D MkIII does not shoot video, but I am not letting go of my T2i (which runs Magic Lantern) for video. Of course, 10 fps on the 1D looks about like video... that you could print to a billboard.

carpediemracing 

A sample shot from the finish line camcorder. 1080HD 60p, "MTS" file in MAC, MT2S in Windows, aka BluRay. Incidentally the guy at the bottom of the screen was 5th in the race. He was 6th when he entered the frame.

The road is 48 feet wide at that point, according to someone that checked it out.

ridethecliche

Looks great Aki! Glad it worked out so well!

I'm going to do a 'trial' of LR4, so if you have a shortcut for doing the jpg settings (and doing this in bulk) that would be awesome. I'll take a few pictures tomorrow in RAW and try to play with it then.

I'm really hoping to save and get either a 60D or a 7D as my next camera. That way, I'll be set for a long long time!

waterrockets 

JPEG settiings, I'm not familiar with. I don't take the camera settings ever though. I think they come in by default. Maybe you could set the white balance on your camera to a crazy custom value and see if the RAW file looks crazy too.

There are a lot of tutorials, and those are the fastest way to learn LR4. Briefly though, for pasting settings to multiple photos, in the Library view, you can select all the target images and click the "Paste" button. In the Develop view, you want to use the synchronize button. If you decide to shoot only in RAW, you can just fix up one photo from a given scene, the copy settings and paste them into all the other images.,

carpediemracing 

Oh, shutter speed is 1/2000 in that shot above, fixed. WR I used your thoughts in deciding on a setting and the camera worked even when the road was half shadow, all sun, etc.

I want to experiment with the super slow mo (240 fps? vs 60 fps). This would require a bit more care for the person doing the camera since the file would be so large. 1 min = 350+ MB at 60 fps so I expected 15 seconds to be a similar size at 240 fps.

waterrockets 

That's a great result cdr. I like it. I think camera capabilities are going up while price is going down, and you now can get this kind of quality for much cheaper than a FinishLynx. Granted, for very important events, the frame rate is just too slow.

Going to 240fps would be great, because you will have to make fewer tie-breaker decisions. I think you could make a standing tie-breaker rule, like whoever was going faster (looking at previous frames) wins, or the opposite (favor the early attack or the late one).

I would recommend you test video size on some vehicle traffic or something (changing scene). It's possible that the 240fps video will be lower quality (more lossy compression or lower resolution) just to move the data around fast enough.

Also, it's possible that you could go to a lower quality and not affect your ability to identify numbers. You could probably have 1/5 the resolution and still be able to make out those big numbers.

Another thing that may help: you can zoom in further if you mount the camera at 90 degrees. You don't need as much left/right road coverage, and the 16:9 ratio will be much more useful on end for this application. Otherwise, you are wasting a large portion of your sensor. You can point your tripod 90 degrees down and mount the camera sideways, then your altitude is controlled by rotating the camera on its bolt -- or you can get or make a cheap L-bracket.

carpediemracing 

Good point on mounting sideways. I was thinking of that when looking at the 16:9 label on the camcorder but decided to leave as is. The picture is actually cropped so the actual shot is much bigger, i.e. much wider.

I have some ideas on making the finish line setup much better, virtually automated. It's exciting in a geeky way.

waterrockets 

Good stuff. It is fun.

ridethecliche

Reading about the new intel chipsets has me pretty bummed that my laptop doesn't have one. Better iGPU and using half the power? Jeez. Ultrabooks are going to be awesome in the next year.

Enthalpic

I was going to tell you weeks ago that you will never be happy with your laptop, so just pick one and live with it. Over analysis of a decision always reduces satisfaction with the final choice...

waterrockets 

+1

I just pick a $XXX laptop with my desired screen size and don't look back. Good for 4-5 years.

carpediemracing 

+2

For me it's like bike components. Will I really be able to tell the difference between a Chorus and Record shifter/derailleur? I have a mix of both (10s) on my bikes. If I didn't look at the part I wouldn't know which one was on which bike. In fact the other day I realized I'd raced with Ultegra brakes on my Giant - I forgot about that. I panicked and bought some more Campy brakes. haha.

ridethecliche

Haha, no. This one's a keeper.

I have a few complaints, but they're minor. The biggest one is battery life and I'm sure I can get about 3-4 hrs out of it just browsing.

The biggest complaint is I have to hit the backspace key way harder than I'm used to get it to fire. So it goes. Just need to learn to hit it dead center.

The others had legit issues. Overheating and falling apart haha.

Ultraslide

Building reports on BIDS 2005. This is painful. Need more coffee ...

ridethecliche

My comment was more in awe of how rapidly processors are evolving.

I have an ivy bridge i7 with the intel 4000 gpu chip. The next step for intel will have similar performance for cpu, but way better gpu performance. It's capable of running games like skyrim on high/ultra which is nuts for a integrated chip!

All that with a decrease in size from 32 to 22 nm and the power consumption drops by 50% for the same performance. All I was saying was that the next gen of computers is going to be 'woah' given that same battery life will be achievable with less cells and that laptops with 10-12 hours of battery life will start becoming more feasible without sacrificing performance. Cool!

waterrockets 

This old camera is freaking amazing (1D Mark III). Holy crap it's fast.

2800 images in 4.5 hours of shooting. 70 action sessions, 60 portrait sessions, 1 huge-ass team portrait. Raised $2K for the swim team.

waterrockets 

Wow, different sports are a total thread killer, huh?

So, at work, we realized that one of the libraries we're using in some legacy technology for the military has ridiculous licensing costs (were rolled into a huge license for the Army, so we never saw it). So, we have less than a week to replace its features with our own technology. I'm a manager now, and haven't been coding at all this year, but now I get to write a heat-map overlay for our law enforcement product

An unexpected optical illusion threw me off track for a couple hours. Humans are very weird:

https://uxblog.idvsolutions.com/2011/02/mind-games.html (yes, I spent too much time eye-droppering myself)

ridethecliche

Woah neat stuff WR!

And awesome job with the pictures!

ridethecliche

Geeks, I need your help.

I have 2 year old samsung vibrant. Won't be getting a new smartphone for atleast a year. Should I root it?

I'm thinking of buying an extended battery and a battery pack charger which should make me way more mobile as well, but I want to save some battery life by streamlining everything as well. I've read a few rooting guides and pros/cons. My phone works fine and there's nothing on there or not on there that I'm totally disgusted by. Just hoping for it to become a little speedier and get a little better battery life/efficiency. I feel like it just eats battery right now.

The game boy advance emulator might have something to do with that too. I found a playstation one too, but I have no idea how the heck I'd manage to play something like that without a controller. OTOH, it'd be awesome for playing RPGs. But I digress...

Rooting, yay or nay?

waterrockets 

Rooting just gives you access to run as root on the system. So, it won't streamline anything. The question you should be asking is if you should install a new ROM.

I don't have the patience to mess with that, as you have to root, then install several root-level apps and utilities to backup your phone and inject the new ROM. A good place to start reading is Cyanogenmod. The problem is educating yourself on what the general steps are, then merging that into the specific quirks of your specific phone. I think if you can find 3-4 hours, you could come out with a working ROM on your phone and no lost data/apps. There's a chance things won't go as planned, and you'll be looking at 6-7 hours. Then you need to decide when to upgrade your ROM, as it will have bugs, probably rebooting every so often on its own (crashing). They'll fix those bugs, but the new version will have new features and new bugs... overall Cyanogenmod is quite stable, but it's not commercial.

Rooting is no big deal. I rooted my HTC Incredible just so I could run mobile hotspot w/out paying Verizon. I have not installed a new ROM. I was thinking about it recently, because my phone is starting to bog down a bit. Unfortunately, I think it's app updates that are causing that, and it's because my hardware is old vs. new software requiring more resources. I do not have a workday's worth of hours to throw at it though, so I won't.

merlinextraligh

I shoot Raw+JPG as a default, for easier workflow. Nail the shot in the camera and you've got the JPEG with no post production.

If its off a tad, then you've got the RAW file.

ridethecliche

Well, that's what I'm looking at. Just OC the processor a hair and being able to get rid of a ton of crappy software running in the background for no reason as well as bloatware. I think T-mobile hasn't disabled mobile broadband or tethering though my new laptop doesn't seem to like to tether...

waterrockets 

Yeah, I've been getting a lot closer straight out of camera these days, and just shot an event for work with straight JPG, and there was no editing needed at all. I have white balance problems outdoors though. AWB never gets it quite right, and gray card for custom WB doesn't seem to fix it. Of course WB is easy enough to fix in JPG, and I won't have to worry about my buffer filling up... which means 111 continuous shots if I want them, at 10 fps. In RAW, it's only 21, and I do run out of buffer sometimes --- and it's always when the action is getting closer!

I could use the dual media on my 1D too, and send RAW to CF and JPG to SD, but that won't help my buffer.