Be Excellent To Each Other

Neutral density filter for long exposures (haven't bought one yet though) & a cheap fisheye adapter for the skatepark
Was Mimi & then Kalmar rebirthed it IIRC. I had an idea for it a while back & did heehaw about it...

I'm crap at it because I can't do photos on demand. I just get lucky in beautiful places.

UV to keep the lens from scratches and on occasion a polarising filter if it's really bright and if there are loads of reflections. There supposed to make the sky more blue but I've only noticed that when I went to LA, never noticed it here. But they are really are quite cool on a sunny day while taking pictures of naked ladies through glass. It's what some of the speed \ tax disc cameras use to look through the windscreen... I think.

Oh and other people I know use colour filters just for fun.

I'd be lost without my ND grad filter #9 and attachable toast-rack to hold it. It's what enables me to get a properly exposed sky and foreground. Though I could do with a lighter one around #6 too, come to think of it.

I've found the PMs I sent about it, I'll have a go at a rebirth shortly The idea we discussed was to make it a personal challenge, that way you don't get the whole competitive shite that was causing a bit of angst among some folk. Just come up with a weekly/bi-weekly/monthly theme* & see what we all come up with. That way even folk who just use a camera phone can join in & not feel as if they're pissing into the wind.
*A word or phrase to give everyone a world of possibilities.

Yeah that's pretty much it but also sometimes covering staff events and suchlike so good low light performance would be helpful. So given that bulkiness isn't really a consideration I think an SLR is going to be the best choice.

There's actually a photography course run by one of the lecturers from the local college starting in our education centre next week. I'm not sure whether to go along or not or whether I can teach myself just as effectively.

When I did a course, 7 of the 10 weeks were about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. If you reckon you've a good grasp of the fundamentals there, I wouldn't bother.

Mrs P has taken hold of her new camera, the Fuji HS10.

I think she wants to marry it.

I'd find out a little more about the course and then decide if it's suitable for you or not Mark. Or sign up then bunk off if it's shite. Would they pull out cadavers for nudey stuff?

Yeah, I want something that covers the theory and technical bits really. I'll have a word with the learning coordinator tomorrow, he's a keen photographer himself so he should know what it's all about.

I signed up for an evening photography course at a local college and it was shit. After 3 weeks I asked for my money back and gave up on it. Shame, as I was really hoping it'd be good.

I'm sure there are good ones out there though.

Got my 35mm lens yesterday and I must say it's bloody great for portraits. Glad I bought this, will be lovely to take on hols and for a particular Wedding next year.



I bought it from Jessops as they were the cheapest but I must say AVOID ORDERING THEIR VOUCHERS. You can only get them online and they required a PIN when I used them, which wasn't sent with them

I must say again though that the Jessops staff were very pleasant in the Blackpool store (normally go to the Preston branch) and the guy who served me was very helpful, even explaining the differences between the Hoya and their own brand (but made by Hoya) filters.

We got chatting about what camera I had and for how long and I said I ummed and arred between my D5000 and a Canon 450d. He said the biggest difference is in the feel of the camera itself and I agreed, it was the deciding factor for my choice in the end. As I left he said that most women choose the Canons and men chose Nikons. Just saying, like.

Scanned and retouched a few photos for a work mate over the weekend, and he's very kindly just bought me a Hoya UV filter. Shame it wasn't a Polarisor though you tight cunt.

TAKE THAT SHIT BACK AND GET ME A TIFFEN.

Ahem.

This is no time for snacks!

Wow! Fab photo! The bokeh is amazing. I like saying bokeh. Bokeh bokeh bokeh.

Also 'smock'.

Aw man, really want that lens now.

I have some Hoya filters that I no longer use - one of which may be a polariser. They're all too small to fit on my lenses...

[edit] they're actually Cokin filters and I have a toast rack holder as well.

Cock.

I take my camera out on an evening when I walk the dog in case an opportunity for a good pic presents itself and as the camera is so wee you hardly notice it is there. Somehow last night I lost the bloody lens cap off it and only realised today. A search this morning proved fruitless.

So any of you chaps know the best / cheapest place to get a lens cap for my Panasonic 20mm pancake lens?

edit : Please ignore - the wife just found it under some paperwork on my printer. So I just spent my last walk with the dog staring at the ground like a deranged goth for no reason. I say again - cock.

I'm interested if they're 52mm, Snappa. If they are let me know how much you'd want mate.

*escorts Trousers back to his fireside chair*

*unwraps him a Werthers*

Hmm, I was about to let you have them for peanuts and then looked at how fucking expensive they are to buy new. Go and have a look at the cokin site - but they're all 83mm square filters that fit into a toast rack holder than you slide onto adaptors which are screwed onto the lens. I have 52mm and 67mm adaptors.

Thanks for looking through, Snappa.

TBH I think I'll just get the 52mm Hoya polariser from Amazon then, can't see me getting much use out of anything else.

Do you have any Nikon Macro lenses that you don't want?

I lost mine the first night I took it out in San Francisco, just a few days after DBSnappa telling me he's never lost a lens cap. You can buy cheap replacements from ebay for pennies, any 46mm cap will fit.

Won't be the same though. Won't be the special one.

I did have a 105mm macro but my brother borrowed it off me a couple of years ago and never gave it back. Along with my 50mm F1.2 as well.

Cheers chap - although I found mine I can see me losing it at some point so knowing I can pick a replacement up for next to nothing is reassuring.

105mm Macro? Do you have to stand on the other side of the street to do close-up shots?

The perfect lens for perving on Gaywood.

Not at all - 105mm is only fractionally over 2x magnification and it focuses really closely, so it's ideal as a macro lens. I can't remember exactly how close it will focus but I think it's down to about 8cm.

As I understand it tele-macros are preferred because they make it easier to get the shot without having the camera itself intrude on your scene lighting.

Polarising filters are made of voodoo shit.

Mine turned up yesterday and when I was tinkering about with it I noticed it could take out the TV picture when I panned around the room. I thought they worked by cutting out light frequencies off reflected surfaces so it kinda surprised me.

No, LCD light is plane polarised, which is in fact how LCD works in the first place.

Like I said. Voodoo shit.

I'm beginning to chafe with my 20mm (40mm equiv) prime lens.

What should my second lens be? There's a kit 14-45mm (28-90 equiv) that would let me play around a little. There's a more expensive 14-150 too, that would give me quite a lot of telephoto, but it's physically quite big and I'm not sure about balance on the weenie GF1 body. On the other hand, there's a rather nice looking 9-18mm Olympus lens I find myself drawn to. I often shoot pictures and think "some wide-angle on that would look good" and Craster won't shut up about the superwide he had on his SLR in America.

You'd be supporting it with your other hand though.

You need to decide on what you like taking pictures of and what your current set up is stopping you from shooting... ...buy... themmm... aaaaaaalll!

Oh yeah, my big puff rocket is ace.

Baba Z bought me it for my birthday and used it yesterday to clean up (and out) my gubbins. Dead handy.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Giottos-GTAA1900-Rocket-Air-Blower/dp/B00017LSPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1276174425&sr=8-1

Having seen a lot of the stuff you typically shoot you'll use the WA zoom more. It's nice to have telephoto lenses, but unless you're a wildlife/sports/camped in a bush pap you won't use it very much. It would be nice to have lens equivalent to say 85mm on a 35mm camera for portraits so I'd get the WA zoom and think about buying a longer prime later. Everything else, rent as you need it.

This is essential kit IMO

Aye, they're quite highly regarded, those.

I've got one of those Arctic Butterfly thingies, as a free subscription gift with a magazine, but I've never had reason to use it. They're supposed to be quite good, too, though significantly more expensive.

Please post your eventual decision, reasoning and subsequent review in here to save me thinking about it myself ta.

I was looking at the Vario 45-200mm as a potential next lens when I sell my FZ28 but like you I'm concerned about how it sits on the GF1.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-9-18mm- ... KO-Digital

That's the wide angle zoom. The Panasonic equivalent is quite a bit wider (7-14) and has image stabilisation[1], but is twice the price, so that's not happening.

[1] Olympus put IS in the body and Panasonic put it in the lens, so if you mate an Olympus lens with a Panasonic body you don't have any. Darn.

Obv. How are you liking the GF1 anyway?

I don't think I'd want wider than my 12 (which on my 1.6x is a 19.2 equivalent, so I guess that would equate to a 9-10mm on a 2x). That was enough to get really nice effect without having to worry about over-distortion.

The DPReview article on the 7-14mm Panasonic lens makes the same point; it's so wide it can be very hard to compose photos.


That's a lot of foreground!

I've just noticed how small the Olympus lens is; it has a collapsing barrel so when stored it's 56mm across, 49mm long, and weighs 155 grams. It's half the size of the Panasonic.

Yep, and look at the photographer's shadow. They can be a right arse to compose with at times.

That's easy, just tilt the lens up....ARGH! What the hell has happened to my perspective!

Ah, good ol' converging verticals!

Love it to bits. I take it out a hell of a lot more than I did the FZ-28 (or the Finepix S9600) before that just because it's so convenient to have about your person.

I miss a zoom lens and the lack of a macro function is a niggle but for taking pictures of people (which is what I primarily use it for) it's way beyond anything I have used before.

I tend to go with Aperture Priority for most shots and go to manual focus when it gets below f/2.0 because unless the autofocus gets it bang on the depth of field is such that if it picks up the wrong thing to focus on your shot's fucked.

Overall I couldn't be happier with it.

Yeah, same here. I manually focus on it quite a lot, in fact.

Can't you half hold down the shutter button to focus on the area you want then adjust your composition before fully pressing?