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Author Topic: advise 8 megapixel camera for landscape & nature  (Read 18589 times)

Jonathan Wienke

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advise 8 megapixel camera for landscape & nature
« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2004, 01:08:29 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']If your camera has no RAW capability, it may have badly-implemented TIFF/JPEG conversion firmware that can't handle highlights right. BUt if the firmware programmers are at all competent, exposing to the right will get you a better image. Sounds to me like you need a new camera.[/font]
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Krazy_Horse

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« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2004, 10:13:59 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']I have a Sony 828 and am now considering the purchase of the Nikon D70. My latest concern with the D70 though is that I have seen reviews stating the view finder is dim and not easy to use in manual focus situations. What is your experience with the view finder?[/font]
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Lisa Nikodym

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advise 8 megapixel camera for landscape & nature
« Reply #22 on: June 08, 2004, 12:23:37 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']Stef -

I don't like to carry much gear with me when I'm hiking or traveling either.  I use just the one lens that comes with the D70 kit, which has an effective 35mm-equivalent focal length range of about 27-105mm, which is plenty enough for me (except for wildlife shots).  I don't know how its total weight compares with the digicams (you can always look that up at dpreview or wherever), but it fits in one small purse-sized camera bag.  I'm a small person, but I have no problem carrying it around with me everywhere all day.

If you have a good camera store in your area, I'd recommend that you ask to look at and pick up one of the digicams you're considering along with a D70 or Canon Digital Rebel for comparison, and actually feel the difference in size & weight.

Lisa[/font]
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Krazy_Horse

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« Reply #23 on: June 08, 2004, 09:02:25 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']Stef,

I don't know if you have read Michael Reichmann's review of the Sony and Canon 8 megapixel cameras. It is a good summary of each cameras strenghts and faults. It is here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/...hoosing-8.shtml[/font]
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jwpmzijl

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« Reply #24 on: June 12, 2004, 12:16:06 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']
Quote
To get a 28-200 coverage you would need a 19-133 mm lens.  I don't think you're going to find one.
Sigma, has recently announced a new lense to cover this specific zoom range. See, see announcement[/font]
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Leej

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« Reply #25 on: July 29, 2004, 07:12:02 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']In the rarified air of pure speculation, what do you folks feel the odds are that Canon will upgrade the 10D with the 8meg sensor from the 1D Mark II in the next 6month or so (and at a greatly reduced price compared to the Mark II)?  I've been thinking about the 10D for some time but don't really like the 1.6 crop-- but feel the 1.3 crop might work out OK for me.  And - the 8meg sensor just might add a small bit to image quality over the 10D.[/font]
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Hawkeye

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« Reply #26 on: July 31, 2004, 04:20:27 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']One thing that hasn't been mentioned as yet - I find the DSLR very much easier to operate and get my head around than a digicam. Changes in the various fields (AV, TV, MF, aperture, speed, ISO, white base, quality etc etc) are all intuitively straightforward on the DSLR - I find the changes quite complicated on the menus of a digicam. This may not be the case with everyone - it may be a lot to do with my three score and 16 years, the last 50 or so with an SLR (my first was the pre-war Reflex Korelle) - but I would be comforted to hear that others think the same!!
I did go down the digicam route - thinking it would be a useful partner to my excellent D70 I bought a Nikon 8700 - for the reasons above I soon changed it for a second D70 and I am now a very happy and relaxed shooter!
As I have said above, I would like to know if others (bought up on SLR'S) find the digicams a mess to operate quickly, without the need for constant references to the manual!
Regards
Ken
PS - Stef, get a DSLR, the D70 will not disappoint you.[/font]
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Lisa Nikodym

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advise 8 megapixel camera for landscape & nature
« Reply #27 on: August 15, 2004, 11:58:10 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']Hi again Stefen -

A few quick comments before bedtime...

Quote
I guess ACR is Adobe Camera Raw ?

Yes, that's right.

Quote
You also said something about under and overexposing in RAW. Something I read in an article on this site might interest you.
It suggested that you should always take care that the highlights in the histogram are always nicely filled (which might not be the case if you're underexposing).

I've read the same article.  I do that whenever I can, but more often than not I'm struggling to get enough dynamic range out of the camera and don't have the luxury.  It's nice to be able to expose to the right, but it's a worse problem to blow out the highlights to pure white (which you can't fix later).  I find I'm often underexposing the landscape slightly in order to avoid blowing out the sky, and then using Curves in PS to get all the parts of the picture back where I want them brightness-wise.

One of the great things about shooting in RAW instead of TIFF or JPG is that the RAW file typically has more dynamic range, and you can use the RAW converter to use as much of that dynamic range as you want in the image you bring into PS.  In other words, if the JPG/TIFF image has moderately small blown-out areas, you can often restore some detail to them in the RAW conversion process.

Quote
Well, the piece of crap i'm shooting with now (it doesn't even
focus correctly anymore) can't deal with RAW, so actually I've never had the chance to work with RAW.

I hear ya.  The thing that finally pushed me to get a new digital SLR to replace my old film SLR earlier this year was that I realized my main lens had been pretty blurry in the corners to start with, and was getting worse and worse, and I was sick of it.  But now that I have a decent digital SLR, I find that the additional control I have over the photos (using post-shot histograms and RAW conversion) has vastly improved them technically.  I should have done it earlier.    

Lisa[/font]
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stef

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« Reply #28 on: August 18, 2004, 03:39:43 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']Thank Lisa for considering my needs.

But actually I do like some techtalk (I work in IT).
Maybe I won't understand everything completely in the beginning, but they certainly are interesting pointers to tackle.

One thing that is less interesting for me is photographer lingo and abbreviations though.

As I don't always know what "exposing to the right" or "ACR" means, these things make it more difficult for me.

But thanks for the advice Jonathan. From your many posts here on this forum I can see that you are a expert in photography, so any and all pointers are kindly appreciated.[/font]
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HowlingWind

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« Reply #29 on: August 19, 2004, 04:33:08 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']sorry for offtopicing, but is it possible to expose to the right with 12bit TIFFs as effectively as with RAW (my olympus doesn't have a RAW possibility)? I've tried to tweak the image with curves, but get heavy posterization and color shift and in most situations underexposed images look better than "right exposed" ones.[/font]
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Lisa Nikodym

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advise 8 megapixel camera for landscape & nature
« Reply #30 on: June 07, 2004, 11:20:54 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']My previous camera was a Canon EOS film camera, and, to tell the truth, it hadn't occurred to me that the D70's viewfinder might be any different from my old Canon's.  Not to say there aren't any differences, just nothing that I've noticed.  No complaints.

Then again, my far-distance eyesight isn't good enough to manually focus through *any* non-custom viewfinder, so I might not be the best person to ask.

Lisa[/font]
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Lin Evans

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« Reply #31 on: July 25, 2004, 02:17:28 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']
Quote
believe the 300D has a 1.5 'crop factor', a 200 mm lens is going to function like a 300 mm lens.  To get a 28-200 coverage you would need a 19-133 mm lens.  I don't think you're going to find one.

Hi Bob,

Just for the record, Nikons have the 1.5x crop, Kodak pro on the Nikon and Canon frames (older camera to DCS-760) have 1.3x crop, Canon Pro 1D and 1D Mark II have 1.3x crop, Canon D30/D60/10D/300D have 1.6x crop and of course the Kodak 14n/SLR14 and Canon 1DS are full frame.[/font]
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Lin

stef

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« Reply #32 on: August 12, 2004, 09:52:40 am »

Quote
[font color=\'#000000\']Stef -

I don't like to carry much gear with me when I'm hiking or traveling either.  I use just the one lens that comes with the D70 kit, which has an effective 35mm-equivalent focal length range of about 27-105mm, which is plenty enough for me (except for wildlife shots).  I don't know how its total weight compares with the digicams (you can always look that up at dpreview or wherever), but it fits in one small purse-sized camera bag.  I'm a small person, but I have no problem carrying it around with me everywhere all day.

If you have a good camera store in your area, I'd recommend that you ask to look at and pick up one of the digicams you're considering along with a D70 or Canon Digital Rebel for comparison, and actually feel the difference in size & weight.

Lisa[/font]
[font color=\'#000000\']Hey Lisa,

After quite some consideration I have come to almost exactely the same conclusions as you.

I'm looking to buy a DSLR and a 27-105 will do just fine (in the beginning). I also don't want to compromise to much in quality by buying a 28-200 mm lens (sigma).

I've had the opportunity to try a Nikon D70 for about an hour. Boy, is that an amazing piece of equipment. I felt like a kid who just had a box of candy for his birthday. Lightning fast, good grip, easy handling, good quality.

The only thing though : the D70 seems to take pictures that are quite cold, poorly saturated and a tad underexposed.
I like the sample images for the eos 300d a lot better.

This is the only thing I deplore and what could keep me from buying it. So, I wonder whether the experienced photographer
that you are, could give me some pointers regarding how to deal with that in a professional way.

This is what I tried : I set the custom postprocessing to saturation + 1, contrast + 1 and sharpening +1 and used that throughout. I also often used some exposure compensation.
I always used a manual set white balance preset (never auto).
That does improve the jpgs but I can imagine there are better ways.

Also I don't think that will fix the problem when I'm shooting RAW. I can imagine that I should tweak every single picture in photoshop ( a lot of work). And can I überhaupt get the same warmth then as the - out of the box - pictures of the eos 300d.

Thanks in advance

Stefan

 ::[/font]
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