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Photography Photography Thread vs. BL Shutterbugs unite!

I was stalling big-time on buying a speedlight and Nikon discontinued the sb-800. I would just get the 600 but the d40s won't remote trigger it without an 800 or 900. I suck and dropping a lot of money on anything so it's hard to justify buying the 900 when it's so expensive, not to mention huge! Argh, still debating.

BA, do you still have the sb-600?
 
Hey, i'm looking for tips on what sort of (inexpensive) camera i can use to photograph my drawings. right now, the little point and shoot older canon I have fisheyes or vignettes the images, also makes all the whites seem sort of yellow or brown.

i'll be using some lamps to light the drawings from both sides, or natural light, just looking for what kind of camera will get a nice flat, clean photo of intricate line drawings.
 
chrissie said:
I was stalling big-time on buying a speedlight and Nikon discontinued the sb-800. I would just get the 600 but the d40s won't remote trigger it without an 800 or 900. I suck and dropping a lot of money on anything so it's hard to justify buying the 900 when it's so expensive, not to mention huge! Argh, still debating.

BA, do you still have the sb-600?
Click to expand...
The SB400 is a great little compact bounce flash. It's small, very compact, and you can adjust your flash output (1/32, 1/8, 1/2 power, etc) through your camera. It will swivel up, but NOT to the side. I eventually returned it for the 600.

Yep. I still have the SB600. And the D40 can trigger it remotely with the help of a little gizmo called the V2 Cactus trigger.

I got mine here
http://gadgetinfinity.com/product.php?productid=16766&cat=274&page=1

Works surprisingly well for $30. It will open up a lot more opportunities for lighting. You can probably find them cheaper on ebay or froogle. :) Thankfully the little trigger works on the D300 too. Neat thing about the D300, I can use the onboard flash to trigger the SB600 in CLS mode. It's not a full-blown on board flash, it's a quick burst of infa red light that it uses to trigger it.
 
justsomeguy said:
Hey, i'm looking for tips on what sort of (inexpensive) camera i can use to photograph my drawings. right now, the little point and shoot older canon I have fisheyes or vignettes the images, also makes all the whites seem sort of yellow or brown.

i'll be using some lamps to light the drawings from both sides, or natural light, just looking for what kind of camera will get a nice flat, clean photo of intricate line drawings.
Click to expand...

The yellow or brown is caused by incorrect white balance settings. I dont know what you're using now, but if you can change the white balance, try flourescent, tungsten, or "indoor" settings. These should drastically change the coloring.

As far as inexpensive recommendations for point and shoots, I dont think you can go wrong with Panasonic or Canon. The Canon Elph series is still a top seller around the world, I played around with the new SD1200 IS the other day and really liked it. Whatever you get, make sure it has some kind of image stabilizer or vibration reduction mechanism. It sounds like you're shooting in a lot of low light scenarios so IS/VR will allow you to use good shutter speeds, without having to go up in ISO (and introduce lots of grain to your images).
 
BA said:
The yellow or brown is caused by incorrect white balance settings. I dont know what you're using now, but if you can change the white balance, try flourescent, tungsten, or "indoor" settings. These should drastically change the coloring.
Click to expand...

this is the camera i'm using now:

g6-2.jpg


so i googled how to set the white balance lol, i had no idea where it was. i'll fool around with that to try and fix the colors. any notion on how to avoid the 'vignetting'. here i'll post an exampe

IMG_2344.jpg


this image was taken outdoors so the color / white is fine. its just really warped and goofy. the notebook is flat but the image sucks.

----

edit: it looks like i might be conflating 'vignetting' for 'barrel distortion'
 
Your G6 should be able to take that photo no problem and have it turn out great. First of all, are you using a tripod? This would be very helpful, although you'd have to get one that could angle where you want it to go.

Second, don't get up close with the lens set to a wide angle setting. Try setting the lens to various focal lengths (i.e., zooming it) and taking test photos. You should find one that doesn't distort the drawing. But you might have to get farther away, hence the possible need for the tripod.
 
yeah i'm using a tripod and i've tested really close up and further away, with zoom at various lengths. problem if i back too far up, i lose detail. :\ the distortion is slightly less further back but its always there.
 
from reading some reviews it seems that zooming in to about 140mm focal length creates the least amount of distortion. i'll try it out again, but alas, since moving my roommate took his tripod back.
 
I had a G9 and found the barrel distortion pretty irritating - but mainly at wider apertures like 2.8. Lenses exhibit the least distortion in the middle of their range, try using f/5.6. You'll need to use Av or manual mode, and if you're shooting in low light on auto the camera will probably choose f/2.8 as it lets in the most light, but produces the most distortion. This could be the source of your problem.
 
5919_L.jpg


This little gem should be here in 2 days, according to UPS. Can't wait to get my hands on it. :)

I had the Tokina 100mm f2.8 Macro in the shopping cart at the same time but chickened out at the last second. :\ KEH.com is selling the Tokina for only $325 in EX condition.
 
BA, if you use the Cactus trigger, will the camera still automatically adjust the strength of the flash?
 
Nope, you have to set the output manually. :\

There are more expensive options like pocket wizards and radio poppers that WILL do that (I'm 98% sure) but you'll be paying hundreds...

Or, buy a cable like the SC-29 and you can use TTL (Through The Lens) technology and the flash will change along with your camera. The SC-29 gives all the functionality as if the flash was right in the hot shoe. :)
 
bah, now i have no idea what i want to do! i do have 500 in gift cards from work so it isn't like i'll be paying out of pocket for anything but i'm still so damn indecisive.
 
SB-600 $225 on adorama.com (new)
V2 trigger $35 on gadget infinity (new)
___________
$260

For that kind of play money, you can buy the SC-29 cable also!
What lenses are you using these days?
 
chrissie - I dont know what you like to shoot (or ranges you wish you could shoot; wide, tele, etc) but have you considered the new Nikon 35mm f1.8 AF-S? It will auto focus on your D40/x. If you've never played with a fast lens like f1.8, you'll really love it in low light especially.

Because it's still "new" it's sort of hard to get, but the normal price is $200 which is a steal.
Check around at B&H, Adorama, J&R, Amazon, etc.
 
My dad always had a SLR Camera, and always took the most amazing pictures of me when I was growing up. I want to get a DSLR (going with the new times) just because it seems more convienant.

This wouldn't be my first camera, but I never had that much experience previously. I was reading a website, and I want to get a camera with image stabalization, but that's pretty much all I got so far.

Would you recommoend any good cameras? I am looking to be taking mostly pictures out in our backyard, of our birds, people, on our boat, like family things. I just dunno which one that's good to get. Any and all suggestions are appreciated :)<3
 
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