UCC Photo Scrapbook

[Paul]

My wife got a new camera for her birthday and has been messing around with it. She took this picture of my almost 2 year old last night. It's his big brothers airsoft he is holding, but man I thought this picture was absolutely awesome. Hope you guys enjoy.

[GeneticsDave]

Wallpaper!!! Sweet pic

[rdoggsilva]

Great pic. I agree with Dave would make great wallpaper.

[Jeff Johnson]

That's a great pic!!

[ndavis2008]

Got this from a co-worker and thought it was hilarious.

Smile, Wait for flash!

Smile.JPG (42.91 KiB) Viewed 2009 times

[Mazellan]

Got this from a co-worker and thought it was hilarious.

Smile.JPG

[divegeek]

My wife got a new camera for her birthday and has been messing around with it. She took this picture of my almost 2 year old last night. It's his big brothers airsoft he is holding, but man I thought this picture was absolutely awesome. Hope you guys enjoy.

I tweaked it a little to make it pop (contrast boost, simulated B&W film (Fomopan 100 on Afga Multicontrast Premium paper) and some selective gaussian filtering to smooth it). Oh, and I cropped it some. I think the crop tightens and strengthens the image.



After I looked at the EXIF data to see what your wife's camera is I was really surprised at how noisy the image is. I'd have expected much better from a Nikon D80. Either it was shot at high ISO (that's not in the EXIF data for some reason), or the lens isn't very good. Without the noise I wouldn't have had to apply the smoothing.

If she's using the kit lens, I suggest getting her a better one for Christmas or something. I have one of these that I really like, and it's pretty cheap. I've also heard great things about this, and it's still not too expensive, as good glass goes. Of course, then there's this one, but it's a little beyond most budgets.

[Jeff Johnson]

[Paul]

swilden,
Thanks for the pointers. I would bet it was shot at high ISO because she was messing with both ISO and shutter speed that evening. We (her mostly) are trying to figure out everything that camera will do. She is very much a novice when it comes to cameras. But i do know for a fact that she was mostly messing with ISO and shutter speed that night, because I had to explain ISO and shutter speed about 15 times to her that night. The glass was Nikon 15-55mm or 55-200mm Nikon autofocus and VR. I would guess it was the 55-200mm zoomed in. I bet I can get on the camera and check the ISO if I can remember. They are good lenses, at least they are Nikons and I think they are good. They cost enough they better be! She doesn't have a good photo editing program yet, but thats something for the future. Right now she has a high end camera, but has no real clue how to use it. I must say she is loving it though and is getting better. She takes it everywhere with her.

[divegeek]

swilden,
Thanks for the pointers. I would bet it was shot at high ISO because she was messing with both ISO and shutter speed that evening. We (her mostly) are trying to figure out everything that camera will do. She is very much a novice when it comes to cameras. But i do know for a fact that she was mostly messing with ISO and shutter speed that night, because I had to explain ISO and shutter speed about 15 times to her that night. The glass was Nikon 15-55mm or 55-200mm Nikon autofocus and VR. I would guess it was the 55-200mm zoomed in. I bet I can get on the camera and check the ISO if I can remember. They are good lenses, at least they are Nikons and I think they are good. They cost enough they better be! She doesn't have a good photo editing program yet, but thats something for the future. Right now she has a high end camera, but has no real clue how to use it. I must say she is loving it though and is getting better. She takes it everywhere with her.

Sounds like she's got some fun times ahead of her. A good resource for tutorials on how cameras work, including ISO, shutter speed, aperture, exposure control, DOF, white balance, etc., etc., etc. is http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm.

Is that first lens an 18-55mm, maybe? I can't find a 15-55 from Nikon. If so, I hate to break it to you but those are both cheap lenses. They're fine while she's learning, but she'll probably be bumping up against their limitations pretty soon, so you might want to budget for some upgrades in a year or two. Yes, they're Nikons, but Nikon and Canon both make some cheap stuff that's not very good. Their high-end glass is spectacular, of course, but for pretty much anything under $500-700, the third-party manufacturers (Tamron and Sigma, mainly) are better. My walking-around lens is a $350 Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, and it matches my friend's $1K+ Canon L-series glass for sharpness, color control, distortion and speed. It doesn't focus as fast, isn't built as rugged, and doesn't look nearly as cool, but for the cost difference I can deal with that.

If the prices of better lenses seem exorbitant to you, consider that the general recommendation is that you should spend at least two to three times as much on glass as you do on the camera body. If your camera is worth more than your lenses, then you mis-allocated your photography budget; should have gotten less camera and more glass. Common mistake, though. I see lots of people walking around with a $800 camera and a $100 lens, not realizing they could take the same pictures with a $100 camera, because their lens is holding them back.

It's like mounting a $1000 scope on one of the lower-quality AK-47s -- the scope is capable of phenomenal precision, has all sorts of adjustments for windage and elevation, but at 400 yards the gun sprays bullets in yard-wide groups. With cameras, the lens IS the camera -- the body is just the thing that aims it and catches the images.

As for a photo editing program, I highly recommend GIMP. It's got a funny name and some people think the user interface is klunky compared to Photoshop (after using GIMP for years, I find Photoshop's interface cumbersome), but Photoshop costs $600 and GIMP is free. Featurewise, GIMP is now where Photoshop was four or five years ago, but given that Photoshop was already very mature four or five years ago, the difference is smaller than you might think. I use GIMP for all of my editing and I've never felt limited by it.

Either tool has a major learning curve associated with it. Photo editing is arguably harder than photography.

Anyway, your wife is going to have a lot of fun, I'm sure. I'm a Canon afficionado, but Nikon makes some great cameras and the D80 is a powerful platform.

[eddified]

As for a photo editing program, I highly recommend GIMP. It's got a funny name and some people think the user interface is klunky compared to Photoshop (after using GIMP for years, I find Photoshop's interface cumbersome), but Photoshop costs $600 and GIMP is free. Featurewise, GIMP is now where Photoshop was four or five years ago, but given that Photoshop was already very mature four or five years ago, the difference is smaller than you might think. I use GIMP for all of my editing and I've never felt limited by it.

Either tool has a major learning curve associated with it. Photo editing is arguably harder than photography.

I had told swillden that I thought GIMP's interface was klunky. I think the multiple windows thing is hard to use. You see, last time I tried GIMP, it had multiple windows (not sure about it now)..

http://mmmaybe.gimp.org/screenshots/windowsxp_screenshot2.png

Two windows have their own menus (The tools window has a menu, and so does each image window). That really confused me. In the first image, the image window menus are hidden ....see this http://floss.silicontao.com/screenshots/gimp_screenshot1.png

I suppose those were the main reasons I found it difficult to use. a) many windows, and b) more than one menu system.

That said, I must admit that I didn't work as hard at learning to use GIMP as I did Photoshop. Swill is right on the money when he says there are MAJOR learning curves with using photo editing tools.


Edit: It's hard to beat free, though, and I admit the GIMP is pretty powerful. I also admit that photoshop is so mature that now they're sticking in all these crazy features that the average person would never use. (not to say the features aren't useful -- they are just very advanced features). If you don't want to spring the $600, by all means, try GIMP.

[eddified]

One of the photoshop features that I happen to have used, but isn't really a "photo editing" feature, is Zoomify. It's a fairly new feature that really could be a stand alone program outside of photoshop, because it doesnt really help edit photos, rather it's just an export option. What zoomify does is it exports your photo to a flash object with a bunch of tiles that lets you zoom in and out. Here is a couple of images that I zoomified:

http://bishops.sytes.net/f/files/zoomify/Zion_BigBend_Panorama.html

http://bishops.sytes.net/f/files/zoomify/Bear_lake_panorama_ea.html

[Mazellan]

I use gimp and one called photo tool kit. I use photo tool kit for resizing, cropping and basic color editing.

[Paul]

swillden,
Yes 15-55mm (I can't remember all those numbers when i don't really care too much about it. LOL)
I tried to go the "get a cheaper camera, spend good money on the lense, learn how to take pictures, then upgrade to a nicer camera" route, but she didn't like that. She is happy now with the lenses, but once she hears she has a low quality lense, well I know what that leads to also.
Now I know exactly who to go to for advise on future birthday gifts, etc. Thanks for the links and especially thanks for the GIMP recommendation. I will edit out parts of your post and send them to my wife.......send her the parts I like. LOL.

Now for the best part. I bought her the camera a few months ago. It became an early birthday present (early by about 2 months). I was going to wait til her birthday until she spoke these words "But you just go buy a gun whenever you want it. I should be able to get the camera early." I couldn't argue with those words.....guess that means I can go buy another gun. Yeeehaaaa

[divegeek]

swillden,
Yes 15-55mm (I can't remember all those numbers when i don't really care too much about it. LOL)
I tried to go the "get a cheaper camera, spend good money on the lense, learn how to take pictures, then upgrade to a nicer camera" route, but she didn't like that. She is happy now with the lenses, but once she hears she has a low quality lense, well I know what that leads to also.

Oops... I hope she doesn't read UCC...

Now I know exactly who to go to for advise on future birthday gifts, etc. Thanks for the links and especially thanks for the GIMP recommendation. I will edit out parts of your post and send them to my wife.......send her the parts I like. LOL.

There ya go!

Now for the best part. I bought her the camera a few months ago. It became an early birthday present (early by about 2 months). I was going to wait til her birthday until she spoke these words "But you just go buy a gun whenever you want it. I should be able to get the camera early." I couldn't argue with those words.....guess that means I can go buy another gun. Yeeehaaaa

Makes perfect sense to me!

Every time you get a hankering for a new gun, just go buy her a lens.