DSLR shopping list

DXO looks important for me cos I have noisy pictures. However it only recognises the E620 not the E600 even though the files are the same. I tried changing the EXIF and it didn’t work, so some more hacking is required when I have time.

Afaik Lightroom is for batch processing large numbers of images. Not really an issue for me. Plus it’s expensive. PS Elements is not just about cutting your pictures up – it fixes levels and colours, it’s a RAW editor, you can remove crap from the background etc. Just bear it in mind, and once you get a few pictures where you think ‘oh this would be ace if I could just do X or Y’ then you can consider it.

One of my fave candid snaps was taken many years ago on my first 2mp camera that had a 128mb smartmedia card or something, so I had to really compress the images to be able to take many. I ended up with this lovely shot with some really jarring JPEG blocks around a silhouetted figure. Even as a noob it was easy to smooth them out, picture massively improved.

As for picture organisers, you’re swamped really. I’ve been using the Elements 8 one just because it was there. Not that great but it does. I understand the Elements 9 one is better.

I use DXO. It is very good. Unfortunately I use two systems, one of them being an Olympus e-p2 which isn’t supported (but judging by the routemap they have e-p1, e-pl1 and e-pl2 in the pipeline so hopefully e-p2 is coming). Hopefully they’ll explicitly support my lenses too as m4/3 lenses are optically crap and need software correction!

The user interface approach is a little different to most but once you get used to it you wonder what the problem was. It is very slow to process but the workflow pushes you to make all your changes then process the lot in batch at the end (which for me is often a couple of hours). Not a problem – go eat or sleep.

I always use DXO to remove vignetting and lens distortion and betterise my pics, though I’ve noticed it tends to make skies less blue 🙁

Lightroom has replaced the majority of our Photoshop / Phase one RAW workflow including Temperature balance, Curves, Levels and Exposure correction and even cropping. Its heading more down the line as a single point of use bar actual retouching. Prices start from £60 for Student / Teacher through to £200 for the un-subsidised versions. Worth downloading the 30 day trial to see if the investment is justified. Only gripe about Adobe is the constant requirement to upgrade and lack of support for previous versions.

The library function also goes along way to keeping the inevitable thousands of images in some semblance of order.

Another workaround for unsupported raw formats is to use an intermediary software to convert to DNG. Adobe offer “Digital Negative” which is a free software works for the majority of industry RAW formats, and is constantly updated. Phase one software which you can sometimes pick up as a free download will also do similar.

Also, if you are a mac user, have a look at the App store as they were offering Aperture for £40 which was a huge saving over the initial release cost.

I always use DXO to remove vignetting and lens distortion and betterise my pics, though I’ve noticed it tends to make skies less blue

A curve should fix that.

MM – you are a pro though 🙂

Oh btw I tried converting my RAWs to DNG but DXO wouldn’t open them either. Seems its DNG support is limited to saving them..?

Seems you can request support (though how much difference it’ll make, who knows).

http://www.dxo.com/intl/photo/support/modules/availability/pb_availability

Oh btw I tried converting my RAWs to DNG but DXO wouldn’t open them either

it IS supposed to be a raw processor, and goodness knows what liberties Adobe may take in writing a DNG…

They shouldn’t be taking any. The point of DNG is simply a common RAW standard, isn’t it?

The point of DNG is simply a common RAW standard, isn’t it?

as invented by Adobe…

Yes. Adobe who are not a camera manufacturer.

They have good form in this respect – making industry standards.

Re UV/Skylight filter for “protecting the lens”.

Big waste of money IMO. It just adds an extra layer of glass on top of all your pictures, degrading the picture quality for no very good reason. If you use your lens hood you will protect the lens from most sources of damage and avoid reducing your image quality.

I read a waffly article yesterday that said much the same thing. In summary; it was good advice ten years ago. These days lenses are made of pretty strong stuff, filters can introduce ghosting, and a small blemish on the lens will be unnoticeable anyway (the example cited here was to put a bit of Post-it the size of a pea on the lens and then look through it).

I did a quick test last time this came up (I use filters on some of my lenses):

Full images:

100% crops:

The only way you can see the difference with a decent filter is to print poster size and view from 6″.

Apologies in advance if this is incorrect as I’m simply a newbie with Google, but,

I don’t believe those shots would demonstrate the problem. The issue comes with shots with hot-spots of bright light, you can get a diametrically opposite ghost ‘flare’ effect (eg, if you have a street lamp at 11 o’clock in the image, you’ll see a flare at 5 o’clock equidistant from the centre).

Ah, here, this is the article I’m referring to (with example pictures).

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-feb-05.shtml

There’s a couple of possible problems. One is degradation because there’s an extra layer of glass. The other is extra layer causing flare.

The above image gives you an idea of the size of the first problem.

As far as flare goes a decent filter will be a similar order of magnitude. I don’t have any back-to-back tests but I don’t have flare as a problem when I use filters.

Without a doubt filters degrade image quality but unless you print poster size and the look for problems you won’t find any.* Even then other factors are far more likely to be a problem.

Don’t forget that you’ll get flare without a filter too. Everything is relative (no filter on this one):

*with good filter, the vast majority of the time

Without a doubt filters degrade image quality but unless you print poster size and the look for problems you won’t find any.

Well quite. You can take things too far, the audiophile world is similar.

You can take things too far, the audiophile world is similar

But the point is that an audiophile spends cash for a (perceived) better sound, whereas here the photographer spends cash for a (perceived) degraded image.

The OP was short of money – so I suggest that using resources on buying a filter is not a good idea.

Not quite where I was going.

There’s an argument in the audio world that every piece of equipment, every circuit, every process that the signal goes through, degrades the sound. It’s probably true, but the question is, does it degrade it perceptibly? (and how about cumulatively?)

Same thing. You’re shooting through an extra pane of glass. Does it degrade the image? Almost certainly, yes, but is that of any consequence whatsoever?

The OP was short of money – so I suggest that using resources on buying a filter is not a good idea.

Yeah, that’s a good point. I could buy a pretty good used lens for the price of a decent filter.

Consequence to whom? Probably not to the majority of people. But to restate my point:

Filters:
negative – cost a lot of money for a good one, degrade image (with caveat as above)
positive – provide marginal protection to something that probably doesn’t need protecting

I’m not disagreeing.

I’m also, oddly, well versed as to where the OP was coming from. (-:

A handy hint I thought about today: consider a wrist strap instead of the lanyard you get with your camera. I tend to walk around with my camera in a shoulder case or small bag (like the one I am sending you). Getting the camera out and untangling the strap and then retangling it was a bit of a pain, but also walking around with the camera around my neck was annoying me since I then had two thigns around my neck. So I realised that a wrist strap would be much more convenient and still protect my camera against being dropped. €8 later and my ‘workflow’ is significantly improved, faffage is reduced.

Plus (this relates to the previous topic) when my camera is not around my neck it doesn’t swing forward and hit things when I bend over, which was a major risk of smacking the lens.

Re flare once taking pics indoors I noticed horrible ghosting and flare. Holy crap my lens is rubbish I thought, until I took off the filter.

I had another great tip but I’ve forgotten it 🙁

I’ve never used a neck strap before, and I am finding it horribly, uh, horrible. Room for improvement certainly. I can’t seem to work out which part of of my torso it should be bouncing around uncomfortably against.

Yeah with mine I put one arm through it and put on my hip, but then it’s not long enough to comfortably swing round the front to use. Definitely try a wrist strap, big improvement for me.

Now what else was I gonna say? Dammit.

These days lenses are made of pretty strong stuff, filters can introduce ghosting, and a small blemish on the lens will be unnoticeable anyway (the example cited here was to put a bit of Post-it the size of a pea on the lens and then look through it).

So a pea-sized piece of paper is unnoticeable, but a clear filter will degrade the image?

Just bought one of these for about a tenner posted, looks good for the money

QuickStrap

reviewed here

(preview doesn’t seem to be working)

So a pea-sized piece of paper is unnoticeable, but a clear filter will degrade the image?

Good point. I’m going to replace the mirror in my shaving kit with a Post-it, just as effective and takes up far less room.

This is quite interesting (crap/scratches on lens experiment).

There’s one where they show some pictures. One looking basically fine, another with a few blemishes, then they show you the lens which has the front element completely smashed.

That’s the one.

No, it’s not – it was a different one. I found that when trying to search for the original article 🙂