Any photographers in the house?

Chaz wrote:

Anyone have recommendations for a good (hopefully free) program for batch converting .raw to .jpg. Doesn't have to be fantastic, I just want smaller files that can be uploaded to facebook or wherever.

Google's Picasa ought to be able to do that.

Well taking photos of a newborn is quite fun
IMAGE(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BLuE8f0cWqU/ToBxJUHPqnI/AAAAAAAAqu0/foWPHB6esf8/s800/11-09-21-6078-Leland.jpg)

Edit: copy and paste fail...

IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6157/6138477465_8ee9d71579_z.jpg)
costumed by Daniel MacGibbon, on Flickr

hunting through some stuff and thought I'd share. I bit over dramatic I know

B&H Photo & Video has Adobe Lightroom for 50% off the regular $300 price for 24 hours for anyone who's interested and doesn't already own Lightroom.

Haha... Even if i could buy from that store... $150 is still on the expensive side of the scale for me. :/

Dang. Missed it.

Woot! I won second place in a photo contest for a Nantucket tourist paper! What will I do with $135 in prize money?

IMAGE(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CO5nuslMm3k/ThuV5az5l4I/AAAAAAAAAx8/7ZNqwp1bMbI/s720/ACK2011-28.jpg)

Woo! Grats, Richy!

That's an awesome pic, Richy, and congrats on the prize! Did you do much post-processing on it?

RichyRambo wrote:

Woot! I won second place in a photo contest for a Nantucket tourist paper! What will I do with $135 in prize money?

Knowing you, you'll spend it on WoW gold.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
RichyRambo wrote:

Woot! I won second place in a photo contest for a Nantucket tourist paper! What will I do with $135 in prize money?

Knowing you, you'll spend it on WoW gold.

I... Don't think he plays anymore.

I think you probably should have won that. I wasn't impressed with first place.

NSMike wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
RichyRambo wrote:

Woot! I won second place in a photo contest for a Nantucket tourist paper! What will I do with $135 in prize money?

Knowing you, you'll spend it on WoW gold.

I... Don't think he plays anymore.

He always goes back.

Always.

So the Panasonic 25mm (50mm equivalent) f/1.4 is finally in stock in the US and mine shipped Friday, should arrive tomorrow. Woot! I'll post some pics when I get the chance to take it for a spin.

Ooh. You do that. I really enjoy my 20mm Panny prime, so I'd be up for hearing what you think.

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Here is the first real smile I caught in a photo of my boy. I like it a lot as is but was wondering what recommendations you guys may have for touching up his skin that is breaking out on his cheeks? At this point I am only using Lightroom and have not gotten deep enough to find a touch up tool if there is one in the software.

Honestly i think it looks great. I didn't even notice the skin breaking out thing and still barely do now you mentioned it. I wouldn't worry about it.

Usually the only things i do are colour correction and contrast on my pics.

I was curious what the best route to go on touching up is, so I put it in lightroom and tried some stuff. I think the best way to do it is to use the adjustment brush. You can click on effect and choose "soften skin." That seemed to work pretty well, and it would look more like this:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/nsqgj.jpg)

I didn't realize there were all those effects for the adjustment brush. I learned something today!

Thanks Tuffalo, I'll have to try it when I get home. I would generally agree that I don't plan to touch up too much but do think the ones I might put on the wall I will touch up so they look nice and slick on the wall. I usually only do cropping and color balancing but am working my way through learning Lightroom more.

I have also come to the conclusion that I think I need to get a lens that lets me focus closer to my subject. The Canon 50 1.4 I have been shooting is great but I just always seem to be hitting my focal point limit by being to close to my subject (small children lately) and end up having to back up and then cropping in post. I have always liked to try and hit the frame in the camera so I have less to do later. I have been going back and forth on what I need to do that. I was thinking either the Canon 85mm 1.8 or the Canon 100mm Macro. I have a 5D mk2 so I need to stick with the EF lenses and don't have to think about sensor crop. I tend to prefer primes over zooms because I like to shoot wide open most of the time... I am a recent convert to Canon from my old film Konica collection and only started with the kit lens EF 28-135mm f3.5-4.5 and the 50mm. I'm open to any ideas/personal experience.

MonoCheli wrote:

Thanks Tuffalo, I'll have to try it when I get home. I would generally agree that I don't plan to touch up too much but do think the ones I might put on the wall I will touch up so they look nice and slick on the wall. I usually only do cropping and color balancing but am working my way through learning Lightroom more.

I have also come to the conclusion that I think I need to get a lens that lets me focus closer to my subject. The Canon 50 1.4 I have been shooting is great but I just always seem to be hitting my focal point limit by being to close to my subject (small children lately) and end up having to back up and then cropping in post. I have always liked to try and hit the frame in the camera so I have less to do later. I have been going back and forth on what I need to do that. I was thinking either the Canon 85mm 1.8 or the Canon 100mm Macro. I have a 5D mk2 so I need to stick with the EF lenses and don't have to think about sensor crop. I tend to prefer primes over zooms because I like to shoot wide open most of the time... I am a recent convert to Canon from my old film Konica collection and only started with the kit lens EF 28-135mm f3.5-4.5 and the 50mm. I'm open to any ideas/personal experience.

I was lazy and didn't end up editing my post on one thing. Before I used the adjustment brush, I had messed around with the clone tool. I used that to remove the redish parts which didn't look quite right and THEN used the soften skin to smooth everything out. I didn't mention that because I would assume that the adjustment brush w/ smooth skin would do everything for you, but I didn't actually test that.

I would agree with Duoae that it isn't a big deal and isn't noticeable. I just felt like goofing around with lightroom at the time. As far as lenses go, you have WAY more experience than me, so I can't offer any advice on that.

In keeping with little kid photos, my sister in law just sent me a few that melted me:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/CRKMgl.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Obnnyl.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/0VL9nl.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/32cK4l.jpg)
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ZaKQsl.jpg)

I can't believe how fast they grown up... My nephew was so tiny about 2 seconds ago (what felt like 2 seconds). Yeah, so they aren't my photos, but I'm proud of my sister in law for taking the above.

MonoCheli wrote:

IMAGE(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-C93Dfz6zlmw/TppbCdmFHCI/AAAAAAAAq1I/Ll1k2C6w7CQ/s1152/img_7074.jpg)
Here is the first real smile I caught in a photo of my boy. I like it a lot as is but was wondering what recommendations you guys may have for touching up his skin that is breaking out on his cheeks? At this point I am only using Lightroom and have not gotten deep enough to find a touch up tool if there is one in the software.

I agree. I like the look as you shot it- it's part of his young life, no point in getting too stressed out about a little bit of rash on his face. Great pic, by the way. I love the smile :).

Landshrk83 wrote:

I agree. I like the look as you shot it- it's part of his young life, no point in getting too stressed out about a little bit of rash on his face. Great pic, by the way. I love the smile :).

Crap! I forgot to mention that I loved the picture as is, as well. You should be proud of your awesome kid and your photography skills as well MonoCheli. I know you're at least proud of your rad son.

Tuffalo being a new dad, I now get how these photos of kids hit the heart so hard . Those are some nice shots of your nephew, they bring home the point that they don't stay small long...

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Here is my newly adapted niece showing how much focus is need to be a master pianist.

I may steal some of those arcade shots for my desktop.

I've never used anything but manual adjustment on the adjustment brush. Didn't even see that Effect dropdown preset. Thanks.

I am trying to decide which I like more of these two shots.
IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QSAlSDVLtpI/Tp1XEj-_TyI/AAAAAAAAq2w/VkhGzcRm4ZE/s912/11-10-15-7118-Leland%252520Arlene.jpg)

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pzoqJL-nR5U/Tp1XEhevyvI/AAAAAAAAq2s/JEoWKohf0TY/s1440/11-10-15-7122-Leland%252520Arlene.jpg)

Let me know which you like more.

I like the top picture better. In the bottom one, my eye is drawn to the thumb fingernail first, as it is pretty close to the point of focus and the rest of the picture fades away due to the depth of field.

In the top picture, the focus point is right on the hands and includes young and old, with really nothing else to grab attention away from this.

I also think it works better with the hand coming from bottom left rather than behind the frame.

Landshrk83 wrote:

That's an awesome pic, Richy, and congrats on the prize! Did you do much post-processing on it?

Sorry for the delay. Color corrected, a bit of saturation and sharpening, and played with the gradient filter in Lightroom to get the sky more polarized.

And of course I spent the money on more camera stuff, backdrops, stands and some simple lights for portrait work (maybe someday...)

I did have some time to take a few pictures with the Panasonic 25mm (50 equivalent) f/1.4 between hockey games and traveling to the midwest to pick up some furniture. Since it's not telephoto, it's no good for shooting during the hockey games, but it was awesome for going down to the glass during warmups. Lots of detail, and crisp. I get better shots with it (even though I had to crop) than I do trying to stay in the sweet spot of my 14-150mm zoom:

IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6056/6239419053_5a58be510a.jpg) IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6042/6239422153_b215cc5e67.jpg) IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6091/6241701710_9e96d2c66d.jpg) IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6164/6241185913_3effc410d2.jpg)

This was taken at probably something like 20k feet, through crappy airplane glass:

IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6097/6258452944_108f737fd8.jpg)

My wife took a bunch of shots out of the U-Haul window while we were driving back, pretty much in point-and-shoot mode:

IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/6258473522_7b114f8e83.jpg) IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6257946063_433d416ca4.jpg) IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6051/6258474590_6406354479.jpg)

In short: this lens ROCKS!

Also, if you didn't see my posts elsewhere, the point of this trip was to go pick up furniture from my mom's house in Illinois. In the process of going through the attic, she also found my old Olympus OM-1 I used when I was probably 10-ish, and her Nikon FM and some lenses.

IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6177/6258183842_e7797c9a4b.jpg)
Olympus OM-1 with F.Zuiko Auto-S 50mm f/1.8 lens.
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An original Nikon FM (1979-1982) plus lenses that were rescued from mom's attic. On the camera is a Soligor 28mm f/2.8.
IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6258184982_3e6f2365a4.jpg)
Vivitar closed focusing auto zoom lens 75-205MM f/1:3.8
IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6106/6258185644_689d8ef09f.jpg)
Soligor lens 135mm f/1:2.8
IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6094/6257659011_0a5e04f13d.jpg)
Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8
IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6216/6257659609_f726caf904.jpg)
Nikon FM (back)
IMAGE(http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6169/6258176852_dafe726d29.jpg)
Minox 35 EL

In all, a productive trip.

I have one of those little Minox 35mm cameras too, I loved the heck out of that camera! It was my backpacking camera. It took great photos. They really need to make a digital film mod type thing that could be used in place of a roll of film and shoot digital so you could use old film cameras without spending a fortune on film and processing.