Photography

Fungo - I sure hope I meet you at the HSBBWEB convention someday...probably an insult to you, but sometimes I think we're 'brothers' based on what you write on here. I do (well...almost...no dark room) everything you said here as well. I have the Canon 10D. Each Christmas I try to add a new lens to my repertoire.

I had a great time this year taking photos of a lot of the Stanford players and emailing them to their parents...many of them live out of state and only get to a few games. Almost nothing is appreciated more than a photo of their son pitching or at the plate. I was really happy to do it.

I'm currently driving my wife nuts because I've been hanging 8x10 prints that I took this year all around the family room, hallways, and kitchen. She loves baseball too, but I think its getting to be a bit much for her...so my office wall is getting filled up fast too.

Have you got going on photoshop yet? I just started with that and can come up with some pretty cool effects. My avatar is a photo I took of my younger (12-year old) son. I love this stuff too.

I'm more of a digital video guy. Was able to put together a 35 minute team highlight video of last season's team. For me, it's more of a hobby, as it was quite time consuming, but the players loved it--especially put to music. One of the other dads put together a photo slide show of all the *** he did--and worked it up with "Photoshop". Photog is great if you don't have the time or talent for the video work (just kidding about the talent part).

Fungo -

Nice camera, I have the Olympus equivalent and you are right, one of the best ways to hold on to those memories.

I am rarely seen without a camera in my hands (ask Hokie1 about that)and thru digital I have been able to take my hobby so much further..

I have created screensavers, DVD's with audio, digitally scrapbook thousands of photo's and just this past weekend photographed my nieces wedding. Thanks to a great husband who knows how much I enjoy this hobby, I am able to get all the latest and greatest toys. My newest suggestion for anyone that is looking to buy a new printer, spend the money and get the Canon i990 wide format, its a bit on the expensive side (between $400-$500) BUT the ink lasts forever, the photos are ridiculously clear, many have commented that the felt my prints were professional prints and it prints from 4 x 6 up to 13 x 19. GREAT PRINTER!!

justbaseball,
"Brother", the feeling is mutual on meeting at the HSBBW convention. I used to work with the digital images but haven't done so in a few years. I need to get back into it and will check out Photoshop. Where do you store your online images if I might ask?
JT, you're absolutely right about the video being more complex. I tried it and had my Sony computer all firewired to my mini-DV camcorder had all the "movie shaker" and "giga pocket" programs running full speed but after one week and a short video that consisted of nothing more than my dog tilting his head giving me one of those "what are you doing stupid?" looks, I decided to stick with the stills.
Thanks,
Fungo

There was a wonderful thread on baseball photography here about 9 months ago. Mainly dealt with equipment, both still and movie. Many tips on lenses.

Fungo,

I use Shutterfly. http://www.shutterfly.com. Its an online service...can order prints, etc... and also send online slideshows to family/friends for free. Its been pretty convenient.

JBB

Baseball turned me on to photography. Two summers ago after each tourney I would put together a slide show w/music with a theme (something about the tourney/location/fun times) and distribute it to the parents, it was fun to do, cheap, easy and I hope years down the road the boys will look back at these and remember "that summer".....since doing that I have been putting together Senior/Graduation DVD's (slideshows w/music and words) as graduation gifts, the parents provide me with the pics (most are from youth to now), an idea of songs and any special messages/sayings/poems and I put it together with Pinnacle, it is easy to do and comes out really nice.

Another great thing to do with digital photo. is a photo collage. We have done it as a team thank you with a team picture in the middle surrounded by individual pics and are even thinking of doing this as a Senior Baseball Gift for the players. Again very easy to do, very reasonable and QUICK you can find this at:

http://www.bigphotohelp.com

Digital Bound Books also make a nice gift for a coach, team mom or graduating senior, lots of websites out there that offer this with quick turnaround, I have used: http://www.mypublisher.com

Another easy software to produce DVD slideshows is MYDVD. Nice to produce on a DVD then they can view it on a personal DVD player or their computer.

oldbat - Thanks for the links. I really like the mypublisher one. Gonna have to try that.

My Publisher does an outstanding job and it makes such a nice gift, the turnaround time is just a day or two. We did it as a Coach's gift and it was just beautiful. I think it would make such a nice graduation gift as well and something a son wouldn't mind taking to his dorm. Another idea is when you go for a family reunion, vacation, class reunion, birthday celebration, wedding it makes a nice gift using the pictures from the function.

quote:

I had fun doing it and I wonder what they will do with such a large picture.

They will frame it and show it off proudly!

I bought a 20D this spring and have probably taken about 2000 pictures since then. I love the 5 FPS feature of the 20D.

Nice thing is you can take 200 pictures during a game and throw 199 away and it doesn't cost you anything.

I am STILL trying to learn all the different features and controls.

I am just starting to play with Photoshop, what a amazing tool!

quote:

Originally posted by BigWI:
Nice thing is you can take 200 pictures during a game and throw 199 away and it doesn't cost you anything.

I'm still finding it hard to "throw away" pictures. I think I'm printing more now than when I used film since its so much easier.

My friend recently upgraded to the 1D...making me very jealous. Trying to figure out a justification to move "up" again. I don't think this is getting any cheaper.

I recently bought a Nikon D70. Here are my thoughts:

-A dvd burner is a must!!
-A Dsl or cable connection for uploading or emailing pictures is another must.
-Get the e-mail address of the kids parents at the begining of the year. Everyone except the local professional photographer appreciates a free high quality jpeg
-Don't buy the digital only lens, buy the film lens version. I question how long the current chip size will be around.
-Buy your lens off of ebay. However you must be patient/careful so that you don't overpay or buy a damaged item. You can buy older lens made of actual glass and metal rather then the current all plastic models, I bought a Nikon 75-300(?) lens in pristine condition for $155 (new it was $600) Its made of glass and metal and survied my car driving over it. The current "new version" of this lens sells for about the same price ($150), isn't bad optically, but don't drop it!
-Don't spend too much money on a printer because you can mail order or download your prints at various places that all use the latest Kodak or Fuji development equipment. i.e. take your DVD to costco for 19 cents you can get great prints. I aslo use Adorama http://www1.adoramapix.com to process my prints and share. I like the quality of their service and the online edit tools are much better then costco etc. For what its worth, I often read professional photograghers will take their images to costco for processing.
-You generally won't get great photos from your new camera instantly. i found that it took 500+ photos to get a feel for the options and abiltiy of the equipment. I.e. my 70-300 lens is not very sharp at 300mm but is very sharp at 270mm.
-Make sure you tweek your camera settings before taking photos. There's nothing worse then a really bad white balance or ISO setting requiring you to edit every single photo on your computer!
-Buy at least a 1 gigabyte card.

Digital is definitely the way to go. Photoshop is one great program.
There is a learning curve though. For best quality shoot in RAW and save as a tiff (Canon). I can do pretty good during the day not so good at night. Just like another poster said if you don’t like, delete. No wasted film.

Now look what you've all gone and done. You've got me all ready to head down to the store, whip out the plastic, and go for the bigtime. Mrs. Krakatoa isn't going to like this one bit.

I read a little on the RAW format when I bought my camera. For those that don't know what RAW is, that is a format that is somewhat unfinished an will need additional computer manipulation to obtain top quality prints...Is that right Base92??

What is RAW?:http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm

I sure am glad y'all like your digital cameras.

Me, I still like my old Nikon 8008S and my miniature Pentax. It's like hitting with wood instead of metal.

Justbaseball

quote:

I'm still finding it hard to "throw away" pictures. I think I'm printing more now than when I used film since its so much easier.

With the burst mode I will get about 7 or 8 photos almost idendentical pictures. I pick out 1 or 2 I like and delete the rest.

Aparent,

I loved my old film SLR, but it got old and died. To me it just didn't make sense to reinvest in a film camera with the quality of digital cameras these days.

I would love to have one of the Canon Digital Rebels and a 90-300mm lens, but the cost by the time you add all the accessories... Dang.

Texan, I agree. It is a tough decision to plunk down that kind of funds (dangerously close to $2,000.00) for a camera when after all a disposable camera will take pictures. But this is really more than just taking pictures. It’s about preserving a little piece of our personal history. I’m a little emotional and sentimental right now .... because just a few hours ago I accidentally ran over and killed my pet dog "Smokie". I called my wife and explained the tragedy and her first comment after a long silence and though her sobs were, “I’m so glad you took pictures of him”.
I also got some satisfaction when I took a cardboard box containing four 35mm cameras and a 120 Yashica”D” and donated them to the local college. The professor was ecstatic over the donation and met me in the parking lot to accept the freebies. Colleges still use film to teach photography. AParent, a good 35mm like the Nikon is a great camera no argument there, but imagine being able to do everything you can with your Nikon, double that, immediately assess your work, and then, as you normally do, take those “undeveloped” pictures to wherever you do and enjoy as you have over the years....or.... you can go back to your computer and explore a whole new world of photography while preserving those things in a manner that will bring joy and memories to you and your loved ones for years to come.
Fungo

I use 35mm now. But unfortunately I don't have an autowinder. So the action shots are hit or miss, as you know. This is the real factor that has me wishing for digital. That five shot burst would really do the trick.

But then, we can live for quite a while on $2k, so...

Maybe I'll strike oil sometime soon.

Has anyon ever converted a VHS tape to DVD?

Fungo - Did you really run over your dog? Geez, I'm really sorry.

oldbat - I played around with 'mypublisher' last night. Pretty nice. It seemed to have a few bugs? A friend demo'd the 'iphoto' program on Macs for me...seemed more refined.

Another nice tool for free download under the "more" section of Google...Picassa.

And someone earlier in this thread said they ran over their zoom lens.

I tell ya', if there is a HSBW convention I'm getting out of the parking lot before any of these folks get into their cars...

Guy in our local pro photo store told me he hadn't sold a film camera to a pro in about 5 years. The store had dozens of used
top-of-the-line film cameras...Nikons, Canons, even Leicas for about $250 for a flawless body that had sold for thousands not long ago.

Who bought them, I asked? Film students and art photographers. A few collectors.

He thought that a used film camera was a smarter way to go for some purposes.

I carted by old 35 mm film relic to a few games and had a shop crop and enlarge a few of the best pics. Not a bad way to go. At least I know the pictures won't fade in 5 years.

Fungo,

I agree that digital cameras have improved dramatically over the past few years. Just like metal bats - they make it much easier to get great results. Nothing wrong with that, and a lot of folks can now enjoy great photos because of them.

I have nothing against them, I am simply quite content with what I have now.

Especially when printer ink cost about $4,992 per gallon. Not to mention the cost of truly archival quality printer photo paper.

Justbaseball,
Very true!

Fungo,
So sorry as well

Justbaseball:
I haven't tried iphoto yet, but get their emails all the time, will have to give them a try.........thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by micdsguy:
At least I know the pictures won't fade in 5 years.

HP is marketing it's newest photo printer with a garantee that the pics won't fade for 99 years!

Fungo yes you have to convert a RAW file with some software that I'm sure came with your camera. I use the Canon Raw image converter. I only have 4 mp Canon. After converted usually comes out to around 3-4mb. You can make some adjustments with the image converter such as white balance, contrast, sharpness and color saturation. I usually I make some adjustments in Photoshop and save to a Tiff. With RAW and Tiff files you don't lose any information. Usually end up with file size of around 12mb. If you save them to jpeg you will lose some of that info.

I don't print many at home. You can burn them to a disk and take them to you local photo printer.They print them on the same paper they print film photos on. You can get some great 8x10 or larger prints with only a 4mp camera. Yours could do much better I'm sure.

quote:

They print them on the same paper they print film photos on.

I too have most of mine printed elsewhere.

However I question this statement. Prints from negatives are produced by a chemical process, prints from digital a produced by a print process (as far as I know). I think that the paper is different. Film Photo paper has a ton of chemicals on it, which is why it has to be kept in the dark.

All photos (film or digital) will fade depending on several factors. We have a wedding photo hanging on our family room wall. It is out of direct sunlight but has been hanging there for 30 years, it has faded significantly. I don't think we know how long a printed digital picture will last, it depends on the quality of processing, and paper/ink, as well as how it is displayed.

But if you save the orginal file...like the negative...you can always reprint it 10/20/30 years later.

I doubt I'll ever take a film photograph again.

BigWI yes you are right about a different kind of paper.I left out a couple of words I should have inserted. I meant to say " the same quality of paper that film photos are printed on". I do believe digital photos printed on quality paper will last as long as others. Most pros must think the same, they mostly use digital now in my area. I do have a film camera now also but wouldn't buy another one.

quote:

But if you save the orginal file...like the negative...you can always reprint it 10/20/30 years later.

And hopefully, the 30yr old CD is not as brittle as my 30 yr old negatives.

Seriously, it is important NOT to buy cheap media. I have a couple of 5 yr old Data disks that cannot be read anymore. I am guessing they were not good quality disks to start with.

I doubt if I will ever take a film picture again either, but I won't say never. Who knows!

I just bought 2 - 100 sheet packs of Epson 4x6 glossy paper ( 2packs for $17) . They claim 100 years without faiding, but will not gaurantee it. That's about 9 cents a picture + ink cost.

Base92, my film SLR is still working (barely) but I decided it was time to replace it. I went to the Canon 20D and am not looking back.

quote:

Originally posted by rz1:
Has anyone ever converted a VHS tape to DVD?

rz1
I haven't tried it yet but I have been playing with a software made by Pinnacle called Dazzle designed for movies but can do stills as well. It is SO EASY to use and the results have been very good.
It claims that it can capture analogue as well as digital.
It uses USB connections as well as video ports (the red, white, yellow....don't know the official label )
In time, I plan to hook up my video recorder and "capture" my old VHS movies from 18 years ago when the kid was a baby to move them into the DVD format a little less cheaply than through the drug stores ($49 for 2 hours or something like that....)

I have been very happy with the product so far and it was very reasonable...under $100....for all the features.

Had to add a DVD burner for what I wanted to do but you can make CD-ROM format as well.

I hung another 3 prints around the house tonight...1 more ready to go up when I locate some bare wall space. Wife is starting to lose patience with me.

You are all partly to blame as this thread has sent me off on a frenzy again.

Bluesky:

Capture those VHS movies sooner rather than later - I recently got a DVD recorder and converted mine - and anything older than 10 years had significant dropouts even though for the most part they were top of the line media to start with.

When I asked a friend of mine about this (he is a professional photographer), he advocated making a copy every 5 years.

CD ROMS also have significant issues - I work in the software industry and we find that backup copies from the mid 90s are starting to have fail - and when they fail it is often complete failure - e.g. the entire disk is a writeoff.

As for me, for photos, I have remained with film. Negatives, properly cared for, can last for 50 plus years - I have reprinted pictures from when my parents were in college as part of planning for their 50th wedding anniversary - and the prints were sharp. (B&W).

I continue to be intrigued with digital - and am considering switching - but still find that my Canon Eos 3 with a powerbooster meets all of my needs. I get 7 FPS of high quality images. I can always get them developed with a CD and get a reasonable digital image (some loss).

I've started shopping digitial. Is anyone using fixed focal length lenses? Seems to me that the telephoto lens to 300mm is still too small.

I just stepped out of my office and took some pics. Here are 3 pictures: the smallest at 75mm, the middle sized at 300mm and the largest is 300mm digitally enhanced on the computer. If you have a 6 or 8 megapixel camera, you can do a lot with 300mm.