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  1. #46
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    Battery life has so much to do with quality of digital as well even today speed of shutter, stall, memory chip speed, its not just the camera setting the fuller the memory chip the slower things are. Less battery power and a snail can move quicker.
    BUT there isn't just one power source there is an internal power supply in many digital.

    My shed camera is one LOML won in a raffle little Fujifilm 16mp, 3x zoom, f=5.7-17 1m 1.29 - 5.2, HDM bells and whistles

    It hates macro.

    I'd prefer to use the old EOS 100 but film is becoming hrader to get and process, I still have 4 rolls left and 3 to get developed.

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  3. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by Avery View Post
    Geez. offensive without substance.

    By your own words , your knowledge of digital photography is poor, perhaps your knowledge of digital displays is even less comprehensive.

    I really don't understand why you would think that what I wrote is laughable. I thought that you had a fairly good grip on the subject, perhaps not... I will be more than happy to experiment with you. I'll show you mine...
    Nah Avery, you misunderstand me. It was just the very last line that cracked me up (which is why I quoted only that).

    The rest of the info looks excellent, but I need to digest it this morning now that I'm fresh again. What I mean about experimenting is that I want to follow your guidelines, and fool around with that a bit to see what i get, and then post the results for your review.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  4. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by FenceFurniture View Post
    Unfortunately not Peter, those settings are to internally correct the different colour biases from those light sources (effectively changing them into almost normal daylight)
    Well... Yes and no.
    this is where going beyond simple auto shoot can be helpful even on the most basic of cameras but knowing what the electronics are actually trying to do is needed.

    For instance, the night scene and indoors shooting most likely does do some colour correction. But they probably also change aperture, shutter speeds and maybe "film" speeds (ASA) to match the lower light levels as well.
    The sport settings will assume a normal bright scene, so won't vary the colour but will set the shutter speeds faster (to capture "action") and aperture to match that.
    Portrait will open the aperture to (try to) get the blurry backgrounds.
    Snow and Beach modes usually assume that the scene is excessively bright and set a shutter speed slightly faster than it normally would with a particular aperture.
    etc

    So these modes can help if you know what they do, but are still a mostly auto mode with a bit of a bias in one the automatics.

    Also another thing to bear in mind is that in digital photography, we talk about the cameras as if they worked exactly the same as film cameras, but once the photons hit the sensor (not film) they are radically different. And different manufacturers may have different ways of dealing with the image between that time the light hits the sensor and the image is stored inside the camera. A lot of these extra modes can have differences in detail, depend on eg. the maths the manufacturer uses to process the data. EG I think I have read that some recent P&S cameras are using anti shake technology on the night scenes to take multiple exposures and somehow amalgamate them into one image to remove blur. (Anti shake is a whole other topic on its own which seems to be trickling down to even the cheapest of cameras).

    Regards
    SWK

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    Wow Cliff - I think you have the teenage model camera. Knows everything and won't listen.

    Perhaps you need the pre-teen version - ever curious for new things

    Just don't go for the old ones - they have loads of options but will only do it their way.
    Can you imagine what I would do if I could do all I can? -- Sun Tzu

  6. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by swk View Post
    Well... Yes and no.
    this is where going beyond simple auto shoot can be helpful even on the most basic of cameras but knowing what the electronics are actually trying to do is needed.
    .......etc
    Quite right SWK. I gave the short compressed answer, and didn't go into the detail (coz at 10.30 I was pretty keen to have some dinner).

    All of those different modes are still automatic, and they will put a bias (or Priority) to suit that mode as SWK has described. Any exposure is a simple combination of shutter speed (how long the sensor or film is exposed for) and aperture (how big the hole is that the light passes through). So, for any given exposure there are many combinations that will give the same result. If you choose a fast shutter speed then the aperture will have to be bigger than when using a long shutter speed.

    To put that out as an analogy, think about running a bead of glue down a board, and we want a fixed and constant amount of glue (say 1cc per inch, for arguments sake). If we have a very small hole in the nozzle then we will have to run the glue line very slowly (the hole in the nozzle represents the aperture in the camera lens, and the speed of application represents the shutter speed). If we make a bigger hole in the nozzle then we can run the glue line much faster to get the same glue bead quantity. The volume of the glue bead (thick or thin) represents the "total exposure", of which there are many different ways of arriving at.

    APERTURE PRIORITY and SHUTTER PRIORITY
    So, to bring this relative to the different auto-exposure modes, let's look at two of them "Aperture Priority" (Av) and "Shutter Prority" (Tv). We know that the correct exposure for any given scene is a combination of how big the hole is verses how long it is open for. In Av you are telling the camera that your main concern (or "Priority") is the Aperture and it can select whatever shutter speed is required to give the correct exposure. In other words, you can set a wide aperture because you only want to focus on the eyes (this is the Depth Of Field again, in this case shallow), and the camera will select the right shutter speed which will be faster in this case. Or you can set a narrow aperture because you want a deeper DOF, and the camera will set a longer shutter speed.

    In Shutter Priority, it is exactly the opposite, and this mode is used mainly for when you want to freeze the action.

    I regard these two modes as semi-auto, because at least I still have some control. "Program" mode will set everything for you, and it will usually go for the middle ground (i.e. a shutter speed that is not too slow, not too fast, with an aperture that is not too wide, not too narrow).

    In the vast majority of cases, for photos of woodwork you would use Av (and the "v" stands for "value") because you are wanting to control how much is in focus (DOF), and this will usually​ be a narrow aperture, or higher number.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  7. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by wheelinround View Post
    Battery life has so much to do with quality of digital as well even today speed of shutter, stall, memory chip speed, its not just the camera setting the fuller the memory chip the slower things are. Less battery power and a snail can move quicker.
    BUT there isn't just one power source there is an internal power supply in many digital.

    My shed camera is one LOML won in a raffle little Fujifilm 16mp, 3x zoom, f=5.7-17 1m 1.29 - 5.2, HDM bells and whistles

    It hates macro.

    I'd prefer to use the old EOS 100 but film is becoming hrader to get and process, I still have 4 rolls left and 3 to get developed.
    You are dead right Ray. Although battery life has improved out of sight in the last couple of years. My first DSLR a Fujifilm S2 Pro, chewed trough batteries at an alarming rate. it used to seem that i would go out with two camera bags, one with the camera gear , the other with rechargeable AAcells. The one with the batteries was the heavier.



    My current Nikon D7000 is a totally different story. It goes for weeks between recharges and I never turn it off.
    ____________________________________________________________
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  8. #52
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    Quote Originally Posted by FenceFurniture View Post
    ...So, to bring this relative to the different auto-exposure modes, let's look at two of them "Aperture Priority" (Av) and "Shutter Prority" (Tv)...
    The point I was trying to make and what I think is Peter's "problem" is that his camera, and many P&S cameras, is that he doesn't have Av or Tv modes. They are effectively fully automatic and _only_ automatic cameras. Now, understanding the relationship between shutter speed, aperture, film speed etc is sort of basic camera stuff and once you get this _and_ work out how your own particular camera behaves under these non standard (eg sport/night/snow) modes you can then twiddle the "autoness"* to get some minor control over the shots. But these cameras were never meant to work in a way that gave the user any meaningful control. They are "point and shoot" and built to stop (or at least greatly minimise) people changing settings.
    If you only own a P&S the pictures you take will be 90% there without knowing anything about cameras much at all. If photography _for its own sake_ is not your thing, why would you need more? To get more** out of a P&S camera you have to understand how to drive a more complex one and have a fair understanding of what and how the manufacturers were trying to achieve with their extra modes (the how info is never in the camera manual and the what sometimes isn't either).

    *Technical talk
    ** more _technically_ that is, there's still a raft of stuff about picture aesthetics etc which we aren't even touching on here

    Maybe part of the kerfuffle this thread caused (I don't know, I didn't see till it was all over) is that Fence Furniture came with a wealth of good info from his experience which was in a professional context. That's still somewhat/largely applicable to DSLRs and mid and high range compact digitals but there is an awful big market out there for the fully auto P&S and phones and tablets (or whatever comes next) which falls out the bottom of this discussion. If a person can only afford (or only wants) the simplest level of camera, that's their choice and within the limitations of that device shouldn't be seen as a criticism of the photographer themselves.

    And yes, I do use my work phone (which takes truly horrendous quality pictures) to illustrate work emails etc. Even a bad picture is worth at least 950 words ) I treat eg project pictures on this forum in the same way. They aren't for sales brochures etc they are to give a better idea than words, they have their place in the spectrum of the achievable.

    Bottom line I think, and partly paraphrasing what FF said in earlier posts, if you want to improve your picture quality or we are talking about documents aimed to entice customers etc there is some good info in these posts. If you are happy enough with what you do now, no sweat, don't read 'em.


    Regards
    SWK

    PS. I think the series of posts have been good so far. I hope I haven't rambled and please take this in the constructive spirit in which it is intended.

  9. #53
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    May be we are now spoiled.
    My first camera (1948) was an Ansco it took 2.25" x 2.25" on 120 film and the only thing adjustable was you could get different speed film, it took pictures if you followed the instructions (6ft from the subject, outside with the sun behind you). I still have some of those photos.
    I don't know if this has any bearing on this thread but there it is for what it's worth ($0.00).
    Regards
    PS I agree there are pictures & pictures posted here but the ones that niggle more than the one you can hardly make out are the ones when I go to all the trouble of clicking the thumbnail open a picture the same size as the thumbnail. (I doubt the poster can do any thing about it though.)
    Thanks for your efforts to help Guys
    H
    Hugh

    Enough is enough, more than enough is too much.

  10. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by A Duke View Post
    May be we are now spoiled.


    Having taught photography on and off over a period of 40 years this comes out more and more. In the 1970s we used to issue a fixed lens camera and 1 B&W roll of 12 shots per pair of students for an 80 minute class and the looks on the kids faces in the darkroom as an image appeared were priceless. Compare this with the sullen looks I saw on a pair of students faces last semester when they took 500 photos with two DSLRs over about half an hour and really didn't take one decent shot (one had the auto focus turned off and the other had his on manual but thought it was on auto) and then of course they blamed the camera.

    What I tell students is that although you can get lucky most people only have a specific number of good photos in them within a given period. A pro has a high hit rate because they are experienced in thinking about what they are doing. A ning nong with a DSLR is still a ning nong and taking more photos per unit time doesn't make much of a difference in the hit rate as there is less time to think about composition , lighting etc in between shots. Water off a ducks (or many students) back of course and they continued to snap like there is no tomorrow. At work we keep a sample of student work from year to year and have seen no overall difference in quality of images produced.

    In some cases I reckon that current students are prepared to accept less quality than they have in the past even though they have the ability to correct mistakes quickly. The student that took the couple of hundred "out of focus" photos tried to take the best ones and sharpen them in photoshop and present these in his assignment. When I told them he were still out of focus and he needed to take them again he said he was happy enough with them and was prepared to accept a C grade. Maybe it's the plethora of phone cameras and crappy fbook images that pervade the web?

    Shall we talk about the millions of crappy Youtube videos?

  11. #55
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    Default Why the aperture numbers are what they are (1.4, 2.8 etc)

    Caveat: this part will only be of interest to some people

    Why the aperture numbers are what they are (1.4, 2.8 etc)

    Ever wondered? It's not too difficult really, so I'm going to indulge in a wee bit of tech talk which will hopefully give some understanding.

    The aperture numbers that many will be familiar with are:
    f1.4 which lets in double the light of
    f2 which lets in double the light of
    f2.8 which lets in double the light of
    f4 which lets in double the light of
    f5.6
    f8
    f11
    f16
    f22


    So, each time we close the aperture down to the next number (or "stop") we are letting in half the light. To compare two different surface areas, where one is twice the area of the other one:
    one of the circles (aperture) is 1 square unit (and what the unit is doesn't matter), and it has a radius of 0.564 units
    and the other circle is 2 sq.units, and it has a radius of 0.79 units

    We want to compare these two radii, as a ratio:
    0.79 divided by 0.564 = 1.4 and this is our magic number. This tells us that if we want to double the surface area of a circle, then we multiply the radius by 1.4

    1.4 x 1 = 1.4
    1.4 x 1.4 = 2
    1.4 x 2 = 2.8
    1.4 x 2.8 = 4
    1.4 x 4 = 5.6
    and so on.

    "Hang on" I can hear you saying, "if f1.4 is twice as bright as f2, why do the numbers increase with diminishing brightness, instead of the other way around????"

    And quite right too. I'll defer to any better explanation that BobL can give, but as near as I can tell this is just a convention to make the number comparisons more human friendly. After all, who wants to work with apertures (in diminishing brightness) of:
    f1, f0.7, f0.5, f0.36, f0.26 etc
    which is what they logically should be. So they decided that to express the numbers in a friendly way they would multiply by 1.4 rather than divide by 1.4. After all, it's only a reference comparison.

    EDIT: Ok, I'm off to take some pics to demonstrate Depth of Field.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  12. #56
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    Default The Pomeroy roulette system

    Ever since starting reading this thread I keep remembering this.
    In the 1950s to 70s, there was a motoring journalist, Laurence Pomeroy who used to do road tests (before the UK 70MPH limit) and when he tested a really exiting car there was only enough luggage space for a tooth brush and change of jocks, so he couldn't take a camera man as well as his equipment, so he had to do his own location shots. He claimed he just gave each of the numerous dials a spin before taking the shot and that gave him a 75% better chance of getting it right than by deliberately setting them with his limited knowledge of the black art.
    It was probably a bit of journalistic licence as his pictures weren't that bad and Photo-shop hadn't even been thought about, let alone been invented.
    Just for a bit of light relief
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  13. #57
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    Default Depth of Field comparison

    DEPTH OF FIELD COMPARISON

    Here we have two pics taken with the widest aperture my camera has (f3.5) and the narrowest (f8).
    The focusing point has not changed (the little timber stop on the rule)
    The camera position has not changed
    The zoom lens is set for the same focal length


    The pic on the left is at f8, and has a reasonably good (large in this case) DOF, whereas the pic on the left is a much shallower DOF. On the left you can quite easily read the 200 mm mark (although it's not properly sharp), but on the right the 200 mm is just a blur (smear).

    However, at the top they are both reasonably similar, even though the right is a little more out of focus.




    In this next picture, the aperture is still wide open at f3.5 (like on the right, above), but I have gone to a wide angle zoom position (and that is the ONLY thing that has changed)
    The focusing point has not changed (the little timber stop on the rule)
    The camera position has not changed

    But unlike the picture on the right (at the same wide aperture) everything in the whole room is in pretty good focus (not critically sharp)

    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  14. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by swk View Post
    The point I was trying to make and what I think is Peter's "problem" is that his camera, and many P&S cameras, is that he doesn't have Av or Tv modes. They are effectively fully automatic and _only_ automatic cameras. .............
    If you only own a P&S the pictures you take will be 90% there without knowing anything about cameras much at all.

    That's why I couldn't follow some of it as my cameras are all P&S.


    Quote Originally Posted by swk View Post
    If photography _for its own sake_ is not your thing, why would you need more? ).

    True, as I said, I only post photos on this forum to save me typing 1000's of words. But within the limitations of the cameras I would like to post the best I can, hence my interest.


    Peter.

  15. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sturdee View Post
    That's why I couldn't follow some of it as my cameras are all P&S.
    Peter, I'd rather have your P&S than my POS.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  16. #60
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    Default Background

    This is a useful thread and even if you are able to come away with one bit of helpful advice it is worth it.

    Something FenceFurniture has I think not touched on is the background. To use his images in reply above, post 57; the first two are cropped and only show what is important. The background is very plain. The last shot is wide angled and shows more of the room and makes the background busy. Yes we may be interested to see the dust extractor and sander, but I am not sure about the powerboard. If it was cropped, or a plain screen put up behind the (saw?)bench top it would high light the subject and still show the detail.
    This is what people have been doing for years, having a plain background by putting up a plain screen whether it is to sell a large machine, or a small ruler or square. I have achieved the same effect by using a sheet or blanket (to hide the background).

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