SWriverstone Posted January 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 It's cool so many folks here are Photoshop gurus. :) I use it all the time too in my work (along with Flash, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, FrontPage, FreeHand, etc. ad infinitum, ad nausea...) FYI (in case anyone's in the camera market) I recently picked up a great all-purpose camera...it's a Canon Optura 40 miniDV video/still camera. I chose the Optura 40 because I wanted a prosumer camera that offered manual exposure control and manual focus (which the Optura 40 does). It also shoots real (not bogus "stretched") 16:9 video. What I didn't realize were the camera's still-image strengths...it will shoot at 2-megapixel res (I know, not awesome, but it beats every other video/still camera combo)...and will shoot 5fps at 640x480. Again, those aren't professional-quality resolutions...but that's not what I need (and it's good for a DVcam!) Finally, the Optura also shoots video direct-to-SD-card in motion JPEG format. The results are amazingly good AVI files, and handy if you don't want to take the time to dump to disc and output compressed video from Premiere, Final Cut Pro, etc. So again, if you're looking for an all-around camera, this one's hard to beat! Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eos4life Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 Hi, Scott! Funny, you should talked about DVcam. I saw some ad in a magazine about the Everio. In a nutshell, this is a totaly digital camcorder with a 2 mpix picture camera. It write on a included 4 gig micro-drive. Maybe not perfect but interesting nevertheless. Have a look http://www.jvc.com/presentations/everio/ Some more toys, I have stopped dreaming about the Lamborghini.;) By the way Gecko, Thanks for not making this a flaming thread about Canon vs Nikon. I'm so invested in Canon glass that switching would probably ruin my relationship..... Back to work now! Thanks, Francois Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eos4life Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 I meant Gecko on my post! Sorry, Francois Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagen Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 ...if I want a canon/nikon flame war I go to dpreview and start a thread on which camera to buy - the D70 or dig. rebel... But I must say that I probably wouldn't even take my D70 on the slopes... And I think for analyzing carving my video camera might work better anyway. I'm also impressed with the quality of the video that some of those little point and shoot cameras produce... Hagen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eos4life Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 Originally posted by Hagen ...if I want a canon/nikon flame war I go to dpreview and start a thread on which camera to buy - the D70 or dig. rebel... But I must say that I probably wouldn't even take my D70 on the slopes... And I think for analyzing carving my video camera might work better anyway. I'm also impressed with the quality of the video that some of those little point and shoot cameras produce... Hagen. Hey, Hagen! Dpreview was exactly what I had in mind... Not enough time for me to waste it on a flame thread at dpreview. The only time I use my Mark II on the slopes is when I walk up the hill on foot. The problem with a great camera is that you never get as good a shot of you as oppose to the one you take of others.:( Take care, Francois. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagen Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 ...that's why I'm trying to convince one of my friends who has a D2h to join me on a trip to Tahoe. He is talking about wanting to take snowboarding pictures, but it's hard to find a weekend that works for him... Hagen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWriverstone Posted January 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 Has anyone ever attempted to carve with a Steadicam? <grin> I have one (a Glidecam, actually) and would try it if I didn't fall as often! Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gecko Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 I used to carry a Nikon F3 with a MD4 and a 105mm that was the only lens I cared for as it captured all that I was comfortable shooting...I carried a 4MP digital Elph last year and while the images were good I hated the interface...I have a MountainSmith Aurora camera fanny pack that I am debating on carrying my D70 in next year. I can move it around a comforably place my camera just about anywhere on/around my waist with that...This year I'm not gonna have enough days to bother with anything more than the Elph... Nikon-Canon flame wars :D I was a diehard Canon guy until the Birth of the EOS...Canon Abandoned the FD and shortly afterwards I sold all my Canon stuff and invested in an F3 it took me a while to get everything Nikon I had in Canon...I carried up to 3 F3's for many many years before switching to my present D70. My last two jobs have given me great access to new camera gear (ever been to the Nikon/Canon Factory? both in the last year). I've gotten my hands on plenty of equipment month before the public ever more than here's about it. If I could start over I'd probably go Canon since their lenses are better (though not as tough) but I own too much Nikon to consider it now. Between the two it's really 6 of one half a dozen of the other. I'm still certified to repair both SLR/DSLR's (Nikons are easier to work on, Canons are easier the get parts for) but I get so little practice I'd rather send them to the factory. The US Navy shifted to Nikon because of it's durablity initially but now we have such a catalog of lenses that it's just cost efficient to stay Nikon...I have again started selling camera gear to fund my next upgrade though I refure to part with my 180mmF2.8 (manual) it's just too usedful. But for day to day stuff I make do with a 12-24mm and a 18-70mm and my newest toy a Nikon SB800 flash...my poor Vivitars are now enslaved for the rest of their lives... On a seperate note BTW if you are looking at MiniDV/still camera's another to check out is the Sony PC350 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bschurman Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 And I carry it in <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=248123&is=REG">this</a> Worked out great and you can carve fine with it on your back. I can understand being apprehensive about carving with a $1200 camera on your back but what's point of having a camera that you don't take pictures with? You need to take some chances and when was the last time that you crashed on your back on a carving board? ->Ben Pictures should be on the site later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagen Posted January 27, 2005 Report Share Posted January 27, 2005 I have a similar bag from lowepro - but I'm still hesitant to take my D70 on the slopes. ...working on my heel side and loosing my edge quite a bit - translates into falling on my back, I guess. I prefer to bring something smaller/more compact - and even though my camcorder (little Sony DV) was more expensive I prefer to take that one. The more compact body makes it seem more sturdy, I guess... Hagen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MozzMann Posted January 28, 2005 Report Share Posted January 28, 2005 I use this when boarding now rather than Backpack I used to use , it really depends on wether I'm shooting an event or just out grabbing action shots in the terrain park or on the slopes. Top stuff this Lowrepro Gear Cheer's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chubz Posted January 29, 2005 Report Share Posted January 29, 2005 Bump good info that I do not want to forget about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chubz Posted February 12, 2005 Report Share Posted February 12, 2005 Bump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpalka Posted March 7, 2005 Report Share Posted March 7, 2005 Very cool thread -- I finally managed to get some better results at merging frames from a movie shot with my Optio 43WR, had a lot to learn about Photoshop and layers and all that. Fun stuff! I'm still having a hard time with those frames where the background changed from the original shot -- the transitions are quite visible. I guess there's really no way around it... I used the levels feature to try to match the snow colors, but between the low-ish quality of the original frames (extracted from Quicktime), JPG encoding, etc, it seems like there's a limit. I got some merges of kayaking shots that were from actual photographs, and those turned out better. They're at: http://www.slackerdom.com/2005/photoshop_photomerge/ Any tips on how to improve the results would be much appreciated. tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vahur Posted March 16, 2005 Report Share Posted March 16, 2005 My try on composition: Oppdal carving camp I used Nikon D70 with 24-120 lens @120 mm. All the settings (WB, exposure) were automatic, matrix metering, continuous shooting, AF-C with single (center) area focusing. Shot JPEGs. This automatic setting caused image lightness changes in some occassions (especially when shooting "angle" was big) and it could be seen in composition (though I tried to adjust them). Images were taken hand-held, so in some cases I had to rotate images in order to align them. Used PaintShopPro for composition, one image took quite long (1 hour +) but I as amateur can allow it :D And this was my first attempt to try something more elaborated than crop/adjust WB-contrast-lightness/resize/sharpen.... One bottleneck seems to be my computer ( 1 GHz Athlon with 1 GB memory) which was very slooow with 10+ image layers with masks (e.g. switching layer on-off took 5-10 seconds sometimes). Of course this could be PSP fault as well (from reviews seems like Adobe PS is better in this regard, but it costs 10 x more). And now I finally had use for my Wacom's Intuos tablet, pressure-sensitive pen is really good for merging photos with masks :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tpalka Posted March 16, 2005 Report Share Posted March 16, 2005 Vahur, those are great -- good job! I can tell that you had nice high quality sources -- and I can only imagine that the people you shot will be pretty happy to be able to analyze their technique. Nice frame speed, and they all overlaid well. I changed my approach of playing around with these -- I just DELETE all the stuff I don't want from the non-background layers, and that way I don't have to deal with masks, for the most part. Perhaps that'll make your computer run faster too? tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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