+1 for a great summary.

that is why I bought the Micro 4/3 system for traveling. Small enough that you can keep 3 lenses in your pockets, the glass is MUCH cheaper, but VERY high quality, and the sensors/processors have very little noise. The image quality is great for my purposes (enlargements up to 8.5x11 post crop) If I remember correctly, the most expensive lens for the micro 4/3 system is $1200. And that is for a f0.8 lens.

That makes a lot of sense.

Look, even if you buy a relatively inexpensive $450-$800 DSLR Nikon or Canon, you're getting a camera with image quality that rivals the old pricey pro 35mm SLR film cameras, and in most practical respects, exceed them. Low light shooting is WAY better. You can instantly review your results on the monitor, which is invaluable for experimenting, like the other night as I tried to get a decent moon photograph, I quickly realized I had to knock down the F stops to compensate. Didn't have to wait for the film to come back from processing to see that. Also, you don't have to worry about wasting film running out of it, processing it. I don't miss the old film days at all, and I started with 35mm SLRs in my early teens, doing my own darkroom stuff in my bathroom at home in high school in the early 1970s.

The one major area where digital sensors lag behind good film is in dynamic range, but serious photographers have long overcome this by shooting multiple exposures of the same scene (this usually is an issue with complex landscapes with complex light contrasts) and combining the images later in Photoshop to successfully mimi the dynamic range of film. Now more expensive DSLR cameras aimed at the serious amateur market like the new Canon EOS 6D (that's the body I would get if I go full frame) have such programs on-board to help you do it IN THE CAMERA.

This really is an issue on very few specialized shots, my pal Nick Zungoii, a local landscape photographer who is nationally known, has been dealing with this in the digital darkroom for years; he shot large format film for decades, he went all digital with a Canon EOS 5D Mk. II about 5 years ago and never looked back.

http://theexposuresgallery.com

Come up to Sugarloaf NY on any weekend and talk to Nick, nicest guy in the world, he'll talk photography with hobbyists all day long. I helped Nick buy his road bike from Bikes Direct, he's a friend of mine, we actually rode bicycles together once. I dropped him like the friggin fred he is of course.

Me, I'm not so nice.

Driving around yesterday evening, I was a little appalled at the slow response to restore service to the homes and businesses that lost power in the storm... maybe it's just expectations born of NYC's ever-vigilant state... Anywho, to put a cherry on top of my ill regard, there was a rather large transformer BANG! down the alley, and now we're blacked-out, too. Yay. Seeing as some people in the Twin Cities have been without power for more than two days, I'm not holding out too much hope of power being restored tonight.

HDR sucks.

I agree. My G+ feed is full of HDR shots because that is what "everyone" is doing. IMO it shows no imagination, and looks artificial. I loved the contrast and supersaturation of Velvia50, but HDR is like that X100

There was controversy a couple of weeks ago about, I think, the best news shot of the year. It showed a Palestinian funeral, with the crowd down a narrow street. It looked so artificial because of the HDR. There was considerable debate as to whether such processing was appropriate. The counter-argument was that pro photographers had been using masking and double exposures in the darkroom with paper, and this was little different. Which is true to a degree, but the result looks contrived, in my opinion.

It looks like a meeting of a bike club at our place, doesn't it?

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3746/9...f958f7e1_z.jpg


In the drawn out process of packing up, I move our bikes out of the garage temporarily. And they aren't all of them! There was a fixie, a tandem and an old postman's bike that adds to the collection. Some of the bikes are in various stages of rebuild.

But when we say we have 15 bikes between the two of us, we mean it. And there are four MTB frames, two bike trailers and plans for a couple of folders and a couple of high-wheel recumbent bikes.

We like our bikes.

blarg
 

HDR is WAY different than dodge and burn techniques.

Completely different. I have no issues with people photoshopping. But the HDR just looks like another planet. The hypercontrast just looks fake.

However, I don't use PS anymore (and never used it for that kind of stuff). I have been known to clone out a power line, or correct exposure, but I like my landscapes (and portraits/wildlife for that matter) to look like they occurred on Earth.

HDR is a tool, which can be used in many ways. You notice it when it's used purely for effect, but it can also be used very subtly to increase the realism of the photo. Camera sensors cannot capture the same dynamic range in one shot as the eye can. HDR was divised to compensate for that, but it also can be used, as with many other effects, to completely change the feel of the picture. Would you throw out all filters because hipsters like to overuse them on instagram?

I'm making a cake.

Did not know about HDR until last night when I down loaded an app to crop some of the moon pics. Wanted to sharpen them and found HDR. Didn't think it was a controversy won't do it again when posting pics here.

It's chocolate.

you guys get me wrong. I have no issues with using HDR for SOME exposure/dynamic range compensation. But what has come about is laziness. I'm a mediocre photographer. I aspire to be adequate. I save all of my mediocre photos so I can analyze what I did wrong. Whether it is composition, focus, exposure or depth of field. I then learn from my mistakes. But I could take a bunch of these mediocre photos and put them through those processors and come up with something that looks "cool". But it is still a mediocre photo at its core.

When I analyze my photos, I find that a majority of my mistakes are not composition. I make camera mistakes. This is fixable with LEARNING.

Nerull, you are right about the instagram filter thing. Because it is the same.

What is funny is that when I first started using PS 15 yrs ago, the rage was "Unsharpen". Now everyone wants crispness (since it pops on HD monitors). The pendulum will swing back some day.

damn. I was in OKC for the weekend. I should have come by to eat it. :)

Makel bakes a lot.

Best kind.

Its my aunts birthday tomorrow. I don't get to have any until tomorrow.:( I don't have to share the beaters with anyone though :)

Hey! I hope everyone had a good weekend.

If I get another real camera (which is unlikely) it's going to be a micro 4/3s with a pancake lens. I love the bigger cameras and sensors, but my D40 is too big to ever take with me to any place I'd want a shot, so it's useless. It'll get used on my Rails, and my bike after they're installed, and that's it.

I can't find the old pancake lens on dpreview that they loved for m4/3. I suppose one of you knows the one I'm talking about.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...C/thewire06-20

get this with a used body (With that lens I'd get a used Lumix body, although a OLY Pen body used is pretty cheap as well)

Yes, HDR can be tastefully used. The reality, though, is that it's used in a heavy-handed manner 98% of the time. Yeah, I'm okay with throwing out a tool when a) it's so frequently abused b) alternatives exist.

Also, just because the eye has a greater DR than any current sensor, and multiple exposures can have a greater DR than a single exposure, it does not mean that HDR more closely mimics the way eyes see... because it doesn't.

Skywire live. Don't think he is going to do it.

That's the one. You guys are better than a search engine. Thanks!