@fluf Hello

@dpollitt I got a local pizzeria to sell me imported italian flour for my pizzas :D

@fluf its a good lens with great reach, you'll love it

a bit heavy for long time shooting though, you should consider taking a monopod

@fluf Careful with a lens like that. Note the maximum apertures...that is going to slow down AF tracking a lot. Might make getting action shots of wildlife, birds and sports difficult (and if the rumors are true about newer Canon cameras with that 61pt AF system...AF may not even work past f/5.6, in case you ever consider getting one of those.)

@jrista ya, i just don't think i can bring myself to buy a lens with thats that slow

it worked with my 550D

and a 7D

Canon also has extra capabilities for AF built into their lenses that is often utilized by newer cameras. Third-party lenses like Sigma's usually don't work with those extra capabilities, and sometimes they can't function properly.

@ShutterBug: Not saying it won't work. Just saying it will get pretty slow, and may make it more difficult to focus or track.

Even with my 100-400 L, which does f/4.5-5.6, has a hard time at f/5.6 on the 7D at times

I can't imagine what f/6.3 might do

@jrista Sigma will usually rechip for free, once they reverse engineer the newer cameras

yeah. You still don't get the extra benefits that Canon's better AF systems support, though

@fluf: BTW, if you ever want to get a better AF system, you should look into getting a second-hand Canon 1D series body. The 1D IV's are starting to sell like hotcakes. Once the second-hand market is completely flooded with them as people move up to the 1D X and 5D III, their price should get pretty cheap. I'm considering getting one of those myself if the price gets low enough.

@jrista lol 'pretty cheap'

@jrista its neck and neck for the PotW

I have not yet voted, so if there is a tie, I could break it.

@rfusca well, relative to its normal price anyway. If I could pick one up for $2700 or $3000 I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

@jrista cool

I've already seen second-hand prices as low a $3500

and I don't think the real flood of them has hit the market quite yet

ya, thats not 'pretty cheap' to me, in a general sense

I think a lot of 1D X preorders will hold onto theirs until they have the 1D X in-hand...then a TON should hit the market

I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them selling for less than $3000 after that.

@rfusca true...I guess I have a rather warped sense of money and cost being a single, well-paid software engineer...

lol, indeed

I'm debt free outside of my house now, though! :D

March is my big payday month

:P

three checks, yearly bonus, usually a small first quarter bonus, and tax return

i'm not even close, nor will I be for a long, long, long, LONG time

you making any headway on that front?

you restructured a lot a while back...

ya, i mean restructuring some stuff made it possible to actually pay everything, not really make headway

ah, I gocha

oh, hey! Baby yet?

i want to go back in time and punch my father-in-law in the face for insisting that my wife take out 100k+ of school debt for an English Lit degree

@jrista nope, nothing yet

bummer

@rfusca no kidding!

my uncle did something similar

I think he built up about $120k of debt learning how to act....like hollywood movies type of acting

@jrista he convinced a 17 year old kid that the Navy would like the degree for 'code breaking'....wtf

@jrista wow

He was a fool....he has no contacts, knows no one, and doesn't really have a true knack for it.

ouch

And of course, he's never really acted in anything. And the stuff he's done barely put a dent in his loans.

@rfusca wow...

heh

but photo business has been well, so that looks promising.

and I got some clients for some baked goods too

its just standard family portrait stuff though

see, this is my problem. I think about that crap. There are certain types of women I like, and when I see one, I think about asking them out on a date. But I think things through WAY too thouroughly...whats her mother like? Is she insane? Does she have a decent father? Is he a douche? Are they diligent and hard working, or lazy slobs?

Makes it really tough to actually get anywhere with a woman...

hahaha

-.-

well, when you meet the right woman, you'll care less about that stuff

at least relative to her

@rfusca I bet your excited about that. :)

yup

@rfusca yeah....the right woman....

I wonder if that still exists.

Most women around here in Colorado...

Well, they all have the LOOKS, but thats usually about where it stops.

highlight of my day today was finding a source for caputo flour - at about 30% of what it would cost me online to order

move to AR ;)

Denver has become a very "high life" town...lots of glamor and gloss, LOTS of clubs...not a lot of substance though :(

@rfusca caputo flour...

italian?

@jrista imported Italian flour for pizza

ooooh..

its very different, we don't have anything close to it in the US

dude, if I ever head out to arkansas, you mind if I stop by for a bite and some bread?

lol, come on over

:D

Ever since you started baking bread, I've been thinking about it.

I realized I have not eaten any bread, especially a GOOD bread, for a LONG time.

online I can buy caputo for about 7 dollars a lb on average..or more depending on shipping

they're selling it to me at less than $2 / lb

Not since shortly after I went vegetarian. I found a 2/3rds of a loaf of Ezekial 4:9 bread in my fridge...it must have been there for far too long (although it held up well, only a couple pieces were mouldy. I didn't eat any though...you never know.)

i just about fell outta my chair when he told me the price tonight. He offered to sell me a 55 lb bag if I wanted even - thats very very generous considering how hard it is to get ahold of over here

@rfusca nice!

what kind of pizzas are you making with it?

@rfusca Did you actually take the 55lb bag?

WOW: andy-j-s.deviantart.com/art/Mute-Swan-In-Evening-Sun-286703674

i've been working on neapolitan pizza, thicker edge, thin in the middle. High heat, a bit of char - its the most difficult to get right

especially at home

@jrista I didn't have the 100$ for it

or the space for it at home

its HUGE

lol

I just bought 3 lbs off him for now...but thats a lot of pizza for us

@rfusca hmm, "original original pizza"?

@jrista pretty much

sounds tasty :)

it is

what kind of toppings?

the other night I did arugula and cashews with fontina cheese

spinach and prosciutto is good

oooh, that sounds awesome

cashews turned out really well

I'd skip the prosciutto though

obviously

hmm

there's a potato-rosemary-feta thats on my list to try

so, if you are shooting portraits in sunlight, and want to use fill flash to mitigate harsh shadows

how exactly do you do that? My brother is here on spring break, and he brought his girlfriend by to introduce her. I tried to take some portraits, but I really botched a lot of them.

the first thing you do is don't shoot portraits in sunlight ;)

When I threw on my flash, I couldn't get the exposure right.

@rfusca yeah....that was all we had :\

it was the middle of the day

eek

wellllll

can you show any examples of 'botched'? there's a few things that can go wrong

yeah...

is your flash TTL?

these are a bit soft...I was trying to keep DOF thinner, but I apparently made it too thin, as they were just barely outside of the focal plane

But the real problem is the shading of their eyes

@jrista ya, this is why I tell people, I own a 1.4 - but I rarely shoot portraits at 1.4 - its very unreliable

I was at 1.8 I think

same diff

oh, 2.2

well, on some of them

and they were still out of focus...

I always stay in the 2.2-2.5-2.8 for 90% of portraits

I think I may have actually had an AF miss...

ya, thats definitely possible

This one is ok. I had to bump up fill a lot in post.

Their eyes are still shaded though, and my brother had a hard time with the sun...he kept squinting :P

ouch

This one I missed focus by a bit...their eyes are distinctly not sharp, and the shading is terrible.

focus is somewhere around her ear I think

anyway, in regards to the eyes

yeah

her hair behind her head is sharp

odd, I had the focus point right on her eye

a couple of options

it just backfocused a bit, it happens

This one HAD flash...and I kept cranking it up, and it never really worked.

The bummer is, those were the best shots from a pose and smile standpoint. Her face is totally blown out. :(

And my brother managed to get in a decent smile. ;)

ya, shooting under a tree with 'splotches' is about the worst thing you can do

apparently

you'll never get good stuff there in a tradional sense

so, on the others you've got two options

k

flash is TTL, btw

Crank the flash more being the main one. You flash wasn't firing near enough. Its a common thing to happen around noon'ish. Everything is soooo bright, the flash doesn't fire much, even on fill.

so, +3 EV FF?

i couldn't tell you for sure +3, but definitely more than you had.

I think at most I went +1....but I'm not really sure what happened on those last shots.

Flash barely registered...

The other one that will help the most, especially for eyes in this case, is a reflector positioned below them and reflecting the sun up into the face from below.

hmm, and LR says it did not fire, although they said they saw it

if you don't have a reflector, a piece of white posterboard works

@rfusca yeah, I figured a reflector would help.

I should probably grab one off of amazon.

@jrista now that you say that about LR - I don't think it did. There's no catchlight.

I may even have enough points on my amazon card to get one for free or really cheap.

cool

it was probably so bright that it couldn't fire without overexposing the shot

@rfusca yeah...bah. I wonder what went wrong. It was pulsing at some point...they said they saw it. But for whatever reason TTL didn't actually fire it during the shot.

well, that explains why those shots didn't come out.

well the TTL prefire is probably what they saw. It determined it couldn't be used and then didn't fire.

I see

Well, I'll have to see if they can come by again in a week, when they go back home.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some better shots.

nod

if you can, bring along somebody else

and then can either hold a reflector of some kind under them or something above them to shade

That was before I put on the flash. Funky shadows, but its better exposed.

I kept trying to get my brother to bring his head forward a bit, but he interpreted that as tilting it down more. Oh well.

lol

tell him to lean forward a bit instead of just his head and its probably what you want

ah

That one wasn't too bad.

Still really bright.

and your brother's expression kinda kills it

@jrista - btw, if you ever want to read a chat log of somebody who just totally doesn't understand how science, food, the human body, psychology, and reality work - check out chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/2611/health-salt-absorption-etc

@jrista yeah I wont be buying a new camera anytime soon and I do dislike the canon af limitation wrt aperture

hey @rfusca @jrista

@fluf hola

hi @fluf

@rfusca aye. I have the same problem. I don't smile well...must be genetic

@jrista lol, nah, its not that. he should be looking at her

how is the weekend so far?

@rfusca salt...?

@jrista the guy is convinced that salt + meat cooked in some magic way 'heals him' - he can 'feel the healing 20 minutes later' but everytime we suggest real experiments, he does dumb stuff lol

hmm

he should try some veggies every once in a while

man, I got a juicer

started juicing

he's convinced that cooking chicken in salty soup in some very specific, but unknown, but sometimes hit by accident method is magic for him...its just so absurd

dumb thing would make about 1 glass, and stop putting out more than a couple drops

nod I juice

so I checked it out

the grater and sive

completely clogged

A. what did you juice b. what juicer do you have

the waste bin was working fine, but fine particles clogged up the grater

I juiced some kale, celery, apples, bit of ginger, and a couple other things

it was a GE juicer

if was fairly expensive, like $100

but damn, thing is a cheap piece of crap

oh, ya there's the issue lol ;)

ya, no kidding

I already returned it

good

whats a good brand?

i bought a serious juicer - omega 8004

breville or omega

amazon.com/Omega-J8004-Nutrition-Commercial-Masticating/dp/…

wow..

$250

you are one serious cook :D

yes, i am

but it does more than juice

thats like half an 85/1.4 man!

er...1,8

also does nut butters and purees

stuff like that

nice

and its been part of the process thats led me to lose over 50 lbs now

so its worth it

yeah

oh, believe me, I know its worth it

I've lost about 5 pounds the last week on the stuff I was able to juice

wow...$380: amazon.com/Omega-VRT350-Dual-Stage-Vertical-Single/dp/…

seems that one doesn't handle greens well, though

ya

the 8004...ever had any problems with kale and the like?

does kale quite well

hrm wrong one

but has trouble if you just wanted a pitcher of plain OJ or plain apple juice

its a lot slower than the 'other' kind of juicer though

ah

@fluf nice shot

but cleanup is super simple

I need to be able to puree kale...that stuff is a nutrient powerhouse

thanks :)

lol, you watched Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, right?

@jrista ya, it does kale well. very dry pulp

nice

fresh though, that stuff tastes (as somebody in the cooking chat put it) 'like death'

how about foam and goo?

man, this one I had foamed like a sun of a gun

and after a while, it would eject fruit and veggie "goo" rather than juice

ya, I've never gotten 'goo'

@rfusca most of it, yeah

and it foams some, they all do

what juicer did the guy from FSND use?

@jrista breville

ah

oh, yup...thats it

what is breville ?

those as good as yours?

@jrista they're just different. They're faster and they sound like a jet engine, whereas mine is slower and quiet. The omegas are supposed to be the best at juicing greens though.

@fluf juicer

ahh ok

the breville chops finely and then spins to 'fling' the juice out.

the omega masticates and 'chews' it out

I see

supposedly the breville can get hot enough to 'cook' the juice a bit and lose nutrients, but it would be extremely trivial amounts

the one I had did what the breville does.

ya, anything under 200 does that

gocha

well, juicing greens is an important part

and I want the pulp dry...the one I had left far too much juice in it

and the omega cleans easy which is important too

yup

but its definitely slower to make

speed isn't a factor

I juice a bunch, put it in a jug, and drink it over the next few days

so it can take as long as it needs to

you're not really supposed to do that. A lot the nutrients don't last past the first 12 hours on fresh juice

juicing say, a gallon, on the omega would take awhile

its a commercial juicer though, its built to last - 15 year warranty

k

I can't juice that frequently

I still have to work

even refrigerated it doesn't last?

i juice a couple of times a week, after work

@jrista nope

hmm

oxidation is a big killer

yeah

well, I only have enough left for tomorrow, and I made it not long ago

I guess I'll just drink it all in the morning

ya

speaking of which, I've lost track of time, and it IS tomorrow :]

I should have gone to bed a couple hours ago

trying desperately to shift the hours I sleep before the robins get here

I figure if I can get to bed by 8:30-9:00pm every night, I'll get enough sketchy sleep in before the robins start at 3:15 am

and I just delt my efforts a big blow tonight :\

so night all

night

wow that was unexpected nice big jump over the weekend in votes @rfusca :)

@fluf hm, very cool

I'm skipping water week :) didn't get close to anything water this weekend