Little Miss WRX

Wow. Awesome pictures Andy!!!!!

Looks like I have a lot to learn.

mattstant

try this site LMWRX
http://caldwellphotographic.com/MosaicTutorial.html
thought its claims were a bit dubious at first and the software is hardly user freindly but it WORKS and its very impressive stuff.
You have to follow the tutorial fathfully and the shots you take are fine without a tripod.
try it.

Leslie

I dont think the 4 Mb setting would improve the printed picture unless you have an extremely high resolution printer Michelle. But I stand to be corrected!

Les

Little Miss WRX

Les,

I am hoping to start printing off my photos and framing them to put around the house - cheaper than pictures (of which I have enough anyway) and also very personalised.
I need to look for decent printers now...

Little Miss WRX

Matt, great site, another one to add to my favourites.

This will be fantastic for me doing the Sydney skyline and the Harbour Bridge.......this is what I am getting so far within reason of angle, distance and camera zoom/options......

mattstant

hey nice pictures LMWRX i climbed that very bridge in dec 1999 but the rotten swines wouldnt let me take my EOS 100 up there with me

Little Miss WRX

So you would have been standing where those mad bar stewards up there are then?



My brother is trying to con me into doing it, trouble is I am **** scared of deep water and heights.
How much was it btw? Apparently you still can't take anything up there, but you do get a complimentary photo. Mine will be with my eyes shut and white knuckles clinging to the rails ready to burst!!!

mattstant

cant remember how much it was friends booked it for us and knowing them they probably didnt tell us the full cost when we insisted on paying for it !!

did it on christmas eve and didnt find it too frightening but then again i spend quite a bit of time wandering about high scaffolding at work.
FWIW i didnt think it was too scary the talk beforehand hyped it up a bit but it is quite gentle climb and a fairly wide area that you walk on ivegot our complimentary photos at home i will scan and post them for you plus a few of my oz photos if you want??

ozzy

'chelle,

get your @rse up that bridge. You can't go all the way there and not do it; just wouldn't be right.

My brother was up it last year - luck begger. Have you been on the Red Baron yet. That'll be great for your fear of heights

Someone told me that the higher the resolution, the longer it takes to capture the image so will be more prone to blurring. Don't know if this is true or not

Were all those pics taken with your digi-camera? I want to buy a better camera for some serious hill walking over the next month or so and thinking of investing in a Canon or Nikon SLR. I've an old 2 mega-pixel camera that I'm using but the quality just isn't that special.

I can see my CC taking a big hit

Stefan

Little Miss WRX

Matt, please do!!!

Ozzy, yessir , I guess I should really. Yet another step towards conquering my fears. <jelly leg mode on>
I haven't yet been on the Red Baron.

All of the piccies were taken with the digital camera mostly on the 4mb setting with the aid of a tripod when I found I was blurring the photos - especially the night shots. I have been fiddling around with the settings and slowly getting used to the options.
To be honest, the 2mb piccies are perfectly fine to use, it's just I want to do large prints for framing hence why I am using 4mb setting.

I am going to start taking a few with the SLR and see if I have improved with that. I have some piccies I took from the Canadian rally I went on a couple of years ago and the quality is absolutely superb, I am just needing to work on my framing and subject material.

Little Miss WRX

I will check that out on the Canon SLR, thanks for the tip!

There are three tripods of varying sizes I can use. I tend to use the largest one. Most of my recent shots have been taken with a tripod whether night or day because on maximum zoom on teh digital, any slight motion will cause the image to blur.

Here are a couple of close ups I managed without a tripod....

Little Miss WRX

Aye, friggin' insomnia sucks.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

This isn't true, although it can appear so at first. Here's why:

There are a couple of effects at work. The first is simply that, all other things being equal, a higher resolution picture will make it possible to spot smaller features - including small amounts of blur. If you display a 4MP image at 1:1 size, it'll be bigger than a 2MP image - so slight blur is more noticeable. However, if the images are printed at the same size then this effect cancels out completely - there's no difference.

There's another effect too. At 4MP, each pixel is collecting light from a smaller area, so it does need longer to collect the same amount of light. To achieve an adequately bright image, the camera therefore needs to either use a longer exposure (which really does lead to a more blurred image), or to brighten the resulting image which leads to more noise. However, that's only more noise per pixel - and if you downsample the image back to 2MP then the noise averages out and it's no worse than if the pic were taken at 2MP originally. Print them out at the same size and the noise level is again the same.

So, the only reason the 4MP image ever looks worse than a 2MP is because it's often viewed at twice the size, which naturally reveals more defects as well as details.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

ps. it's worth noting that although SLRs are flexible and yield excellent image quality, they are also very big and heavy. I spent a couple of weeks touring the American southwest with a backpack full of gear, and by the end of it I was all ready to just take a little pocket digicam next time.

Then, I got to download the results. Highlights here for those intrested

Mr.Cookie

Chelle i'm may get totally dis'd for saying this but don't bother printing your own pics, i use photobox who do mine in exactly the same way a normal film one would get printed (regards paper printing) and quality is suberb. The main thing to consider is the size of print my camera minolta dimage 7, 640 by 480 pointless cept for web pics, 1280 by 1024 good for medium quality constant shooting i.e shutter button constantly down (built in memory can only store so much data whilst it writes to media, so smaller file more shots) 1600 by 1200 very good quality and 2560 by 1920 excelent a4 prints not tried bigger yet.
I use photobox because they print in digial camera sizes 4:3 fomat 6 inch by 4.5 inch as opposed to standard 6 by 4 prints which boots and the like do.
I also use a plain uv filter just incase i drop it i possibly may only break filter glass rather than lense glass, plus i also have a polarising filter for taking shot though water.

Si

Little Miss WRX

Andy,

Yet again awesome shots, I am definitely going to switch to using the SLR as soon as I feel confident enough with my images.

Mr C,

How much does it cost to do that? I might trial a local place to see what I think before making a big purchase on a printer.

Cheers,

Chelle.

David_Wallis

AndyC...

I hate you.. im nearly pursuading myself to buy a new camera.. really dont use my slr anymore... as it got expensive to develop pics of car parts

David

Mr.Cookie

Chelle if you pre pay for some photo's i.e pay £10 or so now and use this as an account it works out at 19p each plus postage

photobox

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

David: chill

Some people are great drivers, some can dismantle a car AND get it back together again afterwards - others just fly 5500 miles, get up at 4 in the morning and point a camera at some rocks. Like all things it just takes a bit of practise and determination.

For what it's worth, I took nearly 2000 digital frames and 10 rolls of good old-fashioned film on that trip...

Andy.

ChrisB

Join the club David

Every time I come into this thread, I go into Homer mode and start thinking... mmmmmm - Canon digital SLR - mmmmm!

Little Miss WRX

Si,

For the cost of postage from the UK to Aus, that will work out at around $12 on top of the 10 squid prepay which will work out at around $30, so it is probably best if I find an Australian based company to compare prices first.

ozzy

Andy,

How did you get that squirrel to yawn on cue? or were you jagging it in the @rse with a sharp stick

Thanks for explaining the blurring question for me. Out of interest which digicam and SLR do you use?

Stefan

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Ozzy: Actually I was using a spare lens to focus the sun onto the tip of his tail*

I use a Canon EOS D30 digital SLR and its closest film equivalent, the EOS 33.

Andy

* that's a joke, by the way - a squirrel's fur is far too thick for that to work. Darn.

mattstant

lmwrx dont know if you have tried this but night shots are notorously hard to get spot on you need a good solid tripod and use the remote control and or shutter delay if you have it to trigger the shutter.
just by holding the camera as you press the shutter will disturb the camera and give you a touch of blurr on the shot.

On most top slr's there is normally a feature to lift the mirror to the viewfinder as this will also slightly shake the camera as the heavy mirror swings up out of the way of the shutter.

[Edited by mattstant - 7/8/2003 5:39:01 PM]

mattstant

just checked out the specs on your fujifilm 4800z and itlooks like you are pushing it to its limits it still goes to show what good shots you are getting from it though well done!!.

It shows that you can buy the most expensive kit in the world but if you aint got an eye for a good pic its a complete waste of money.
Which is why i stick to the cheaper end of the market

oh and get to bad it must be about 3in the mornin over there

[Edited by mattstant - 7/8/2003 6:31:45 PM]