Be Excellent To Each Other

Not if it's trying to be smart about what it's picking up to focus on, rather than just doing single-point AF.

Yeah, just saying I can.

What focus options are on the GF1?

Face detection, AF Tracking (Although not with the 20mm lens), area focusing and single area. You can set the single area to be smaller and shift it around the screen if you want but once you start faffing like that you may as well just use the manual focus.

In my experience it's only really when you start opening up the aperture to the top end that the auto focus tends to get flaky. Most of the time it's fine and I leave it on auto focus for grabbing a lot of shots.

Also if I'm honest twisting the manual focus makes me feel big and hard.

My 17-35mm Nikkor is too wide for a lot of landscape pictures at 17mm. It is, however, dead handy for interiors shots.

The thing is, that lens would be dead handy if you were shooting video as most movie lenses are very wideangle.

You're presumably on a 1x body? So that 17mm is probably about the same as an 11mm on a 1.6x or a 9mm on a 2x. So that's pretty wide, yes.

I use this, gives good results. Easy to use. http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/white-balance-lens-cap

Holy shit, that white balance cap is fucking genius.

That's a fuckin' paddlin'.

Those white balance lens caps. Cheaper here from £28:
http://www.dorrfoto.co.uk/productdetail.kmod?Productid=8224

Denied. They don't go down to the 46mm I need for the GF1.

Anyone got any experience with Sigma's f/2.8 50mm 1:1 DG Macro lens?

Got any scissors?

The reviews all say it's great for the money but AF is a little hit and miss and the bokeh isn't that great. I've been looking at Macros too lately, ideally I'd like to save for a Nikon lens but there's a 90mm Tamron that's tempting for the (still spendy) price.

For wide I quite like the tokina 11-16 or the nikon 10.5 fisheye

For macro I still use the old nikkor 60mm micro/macro

I'm a nikon user, feel free to ask away if you have any questions.

Assuming that 1 is a prime, is every greater than 2 the sum of three primes?

That explains the view in that shot of the bar :0)

She only bought it as it resembles a Dalek eyeball.

As I said, if you shoot raw it doesn't matter about white balance.

Ahem. Any camera related questions. I am not doing your homework for you!

Thank fuck.

Still using Aperture btw, Snappa. Might give Lightroom a whirl at some point though.

sure it does. I find its easier to fine tune in LR after using the proper wb in camera.
especially under indoor lighting, as I do quite a bit of shooting in lowlight situations in pubs etc.

I would advise against it. Either program is a fine choice in isolation. Spend time with both, however, and the small things each does that the other doesn't will start to bother you until you aren't happy with either.

This is also why I have kept my distance from Android phones.

You're probably right there. Aperture is doing everything I want atm anyway.

It might be easier, but it still doesn't matter really. Get the exposure right and the colour balance can be adjusted easily afterward.

LR3 is very good.
Properly 64bit so it's fast. The noise reduction filters are excellent and the added lens distortion corrections are very handy too.

you can have it if you really want

I will say this though, none of that shit might be important. You have to remember I favour speed over all else as I'm routinely editing and processing hundreds of shots and don't usually spend a great deal of time archiving or transferring stuff to iPhoto. I edit the job, do the processing, which can involve anything from simply selecting a few shots and retouching them or grading and processing hundreds of shots as quickly as possible. Usually a week after every job I delete all of the work out of LR and dump it the edited highlights to HDD and DVD. Frequently never to be looked at again or, worse, deleted completely a year later.

Aperture 3 is 64 bit too.

Shit, just realised I'm actually not running Snow Leopard yet!

Are you a photomechanic user too? I mean I edit hundreds of shots very quickly as well.
But I still prefer to start with at least a close WB setting.

I'm not - I pretty much use LR for workflow and any retouching obviously I use PS. I am a pro but I don't pretend to be an expert on any or all of the various software options out there. I've heard of photomechanic but have never used it though some of my clients have done in the past. I have tried Capture Pro (which I hated, but haven't tried since V1 or 2) and I have tried Aperture v1 as well, which basically was too unstable IMO to carry on with though I did like some of it's features. I quickly became comfortable with LR and have stuck with it since.

Oh I don't doubt that - it's a preference thing really it's just ultimately on digital, colour temperature really isn't a worry so I rarely if ever give it any thought at all when working and that's a luxury compared to what it was like 5-10 years ago. Hell, >10 years ago pretty much everything colour I shot was on E6 (transparency) where you had to get the exposure pretty close to what you wanted and it was also very important to understand colour temps and balances. Now? Not an issue.

Yeah, I know. And I'll say this: LR2 was definitely faster than Aperture 3 on my hardware, by more than a bit. But I wants my seamless syncing to iPhone and iPad, so to Apple I go.

I love you, man.

EDIT - err, crap. That was in response to Z's 'Face detection' pic. Which I've now buried in stuff from the pics thread.

I've only been shooting pro digital since 99. I guess it's a different world if you are used to film/darkroom which I am. It's hard to teach most people about LR because of that. I taught photoshop for years.

PhotoMechanic has really rounded out my workflow, I like it. Was not expecting to. I still think the better photographers are those who actually understand colour temp and balance etc.

Macro photography.

I'm really enjoying taking bug pics and would love to get better results as I'm pretty much at the limit at what I can take with my 18-55 kit lens.

It's going to be pricey for me to get a decent Macro (or Micro as the Nikkor lenses are called) lens especially as I'd want something between 85 and 105mm, but there are lesser alternatives out there. Extension tubes and close up filters are things I've been looking into, but I'm thinking if I'm going to drop around £100 on something like that would I regret not putting it towards a dedicated lens?

Anyone able to offer advice on the matter? TBH I already know what I really want and should do, just interested to hear what others think.

Ta.

http://flash.popphoto.com/blog/2010/04/ ... -lens.html

There's some trick where you mount a kit zoom in reverse. I'm not sure I understand it. It seems to work though.

Yeah, looked at that too but you loose aperture control through the camera.

BUT! It's just dawned on me I could get the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Lens (£109) which has an aperture ring.

Hmmm...

Been looking into cheaper options for macro shots and I like the sound of a Nikon 4T Close up filter.

But it seems that no one in the UK wants to sell me one!

WTF

Save up, Z. The shots you're doing now are excellent, and you're not going to get better shots without a proper dedicated macro lens.

Find bigger insects.

Both excellent points.

You could always try HDR insect photography. Can't see you having any problems pulling that off, oh no...

Yeah... I suppose I could manage HDR stuff if I killed them and stapled them to leaves first.

I like the shallow depth of field tbh, Snappa. I just want to get all up in their grills and shits.

Anyone want to buy a kidney? Part worn.

Yesterday, I bought myself the 35mm f/1.8 Nikon prime that has been much vaunted here. Hopefully i'll get the chance to go out and have a play with it soon. Got it for £159 from Jessops

It's a great lens, lets loads of light in and pretty cheap.

Not been out very much due to weather at the weekends so all I've been snapping is paintings I've been working on and Baba Z having fun in the house.

If only we had a new Photography challenge to spur us on again.

I can already see it being much more useful than the 50mm f/1.8 I've got, so I might sell that. I've lost count of the situations where I've not been able to use it because I just can't get far enough away from the subject for it to be of any use.

D80, DX sensor.

Mods, please pacify Propeller Head.

Also: Amended my posts for bloody mindedness.