ok @AJHenderson

if i am getting both camera D3100 & 1200D at same price; i am confused to choose.

i have an offer of either of 3 at half the price.

either one

is it worth to invest in additional lens?

which is more user friendly(Just click & take photo without setting; for non-enthusiast of photography) D3100 or 1200D or any other equivalent camera?

How can i find the age of any camera (Nikon/canon/sony)? is it possible based on serial number?

when it was manufactured & how much time it has been used? kind of details

...

@jackopen lens choice depends on the type of photography you want to do, the 55-200mm is only really particularly useful if you need to be able to zoom in a long way, that's quite a small field of view, 35mm and 50mm 1.8 primes are both nice choices and would depend on how if you are focusing on landscapes or portraits

@jackopen if you are going to cover multiple types of photography regularly, then it is probably worth multiple lenses yes

@jackopen the user friendliness is about the same but different. People will prefer one over the other when they use them generally, but there are people who prefer each. The cameras are so close to comparable that it is really best to go to a store where you can try both of them

decide based on which one you like the feel of and control layout better

one may fit better in your hands

@jackopen the age of the camera doesn't particularly matter, they last a long time, what matters a little bit more is the shutter actuations, because shutters are the part that has a shelf life, but that doesn't matter particularly much either as the shutter can be replaced and is a relatively small portion of the overall cost of the camera (probably around $100 to replace on an entry level mode)

and still goes to somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 actuations probably.

it is possible to access the number of actuations from plugging it in to a computer or looking at the meta data on a photo sometimes

but not on every camera model

@AJHenderson To understand what you mean, I think you should define "random statue".

and I'm back home, bytheway :)

@EsaPaulasto just that it is kind of hanging out there with nothing around it

The little mermaid is the symbol of the whole Copenhagen, and in my mind it is far from random. When you take a selfie with the Little Mermaid in background, everybody will know where you are without further notice ;)

ok, I see, yes in that sense it is random.

but maybe it is just that the photo doesn't give the context of where it is

but like you think of many famous monuments and they are built in big elaborate setups around them in the middle of a park that is built around them

ahem, it is in Copenhagen, everybody knows that ;)

that one looks like they setup a few boulders, threw the status on top and left

it is the same as if you take a "random" selfie with a Statue of Liberty in the background...

So everybody knows you are in Boston, right ;)

@EsaPaulasto nice...

personally, I'd rather go to Boston for the aquarium than down to NYC to go to the statue of liberty

np, I get what you mean, it was a bit of anticlimax to see it in person. I thought the statue would be a little bit further off the waterline, like 100 yards off , or suchlike.

but yeah, like comparing to the statue of liberty, it has it's own island with an elaborate facility and boats to take people out to it and tours, etc, etc

there's all kinds of stuff around it

there, it's just a famous status apparently hanging out by itself

Eh, comparing in the sense of a symbol status of the statue in question.

so by random, I just mean it is there without fan faire

like, hey there's a rock, oh, and there's a famous statue, and oh, there's another rock

but, that's a smartphone selfie, here's a shot from the tourist street (restaurants, and more restaurants, all stuffed onto one waterfront street:

yeah, there still seems to be far less around it than most famous land marks

like it's just kind of wedged along the beach near the marina

off the side of the road

I don't like to go to tourist attractions, but we wanted to see it, and the restaurant street.. so you read my lips: i'm being shoehorned by my wife's willpower

I'd rather go to a lunch bar that the local working class uses.

there's the real Copenhagen, not on the restaurant street for tourists.

@AJH - ElendilTheTall been around lately?

Edited the crane and the radio mast away, and thought what @ElendilTheTall once said.. ;)

@EsaPaulasto probably better prices and better food too

I much prefer traveling on business to visiting places as a tourist. Anywhere I go to visit is home for someone

it isn't any more special than wherever I left

even if there are different things to see and do

@EsaPaulasto not sure

@AJHenderson At least his name did not auto-suggest when started to type with @...

I've got so much baby on the brain at this point

Yeah, that's the funny part. We go to places like tourists and there's people who live in there their everyday life.

under 5 weeks...

ahh, sweet :)

yeah, going to Paris was one of my favorite travel experiences

I was working during the day for 8 hours and then going out at night with locals to see what was interesting

it was fantastic

I believe it was :)

My best trip was to Munich, where I had my sister's German hubby to walk with me

but then again, normally when I travel, I learn a lot about the area and go as native as I can reasonably, though I do that less so for cruises when I'm only in for a few hours

Got to see some tourist attractions too, but a lot of "not your average tourist guide" stuff :)

@AJHenderson That's the right way to do it, yeah

And then you have your family with you, and that pretty much ruins it. Though I got a wise woman for a wife, and a clever daughter, so they did not complain too much when I dragged them around :D

Ella is 11 years old now.

@EsaPaulasto my wife likes that kind of experience

she isn't very good at doing it herself, but she likes that I can do it

and sh follows along

Lucky you :)

when her family went out for her uncles wedding in deleware, we all stopped by NYC on the way back. Her mother and sister went around 3 blocks of stores for the entire afternoon, her brothers and father went to a baseball game, her and I got subway passes and went from one side of the city to the other

ate in a random pizza place that seemed popular

had a couple places we wanted to visit, but mostly looked at what people were doing and what looked interesting

Copenhagen Tivoli in the evening. That was the major reason why we went to Copenhagen. Ella loves these fun parks and zoos, and there's both of them in Copenhagen, so we visited them both :)

nice, that seems like a pretty decent amusement park

is that Ella on the right in the photo?

@AJHenderson Yes she is, I wondered if you'd spot her, but I thought no you would not.. surprised that you did :)

@EsaPaulasto you've put enough photos of your family that I have a pretty good idea what they look like at this point

hard to tell from behind, but you've posted other photos with the headband before I think

:D

and I have a very visual memory

I'll forget someone's name 5 seconds after they say it (literally)

cig time.. brb

but I'm really good with faces

or apparently backs of people's heads

I really like the lighting of the park

the decoration is a bit basic and sparse, but the lighting seems fantastic

@AJHenderson Yeah, staying late enough to see the lighting was recommended by my friend who has visited the Tivoli before.

@AJHenderson Are you sure you are really a citizen of the USA? >:)

/jk ;)

@EsaPaulasto confused...

Thinking about the famous trait of US citizens to readily memorize every name they hear, err, the name of every person they are introduced to.

@EsaPaulasto oh.. I wasn't even aware that was considered a famous US trait

^ 1 second handheld exposure. It is a bit blurry, but I'd say not too much :)

@EsaPaulasto not bad

@AJHenderson That's an admired trait, you know, worldwide famous thing I'd think.

I would however not object to being called an atypical American

:)

I need to quit chat now, got things to do.. cya AJ :)

@EsaPaulasto k, well, good talking with you, see you around

glad you had a good trip

hmm

@JamWheel hmm...

hmm indeed

@JamWheel indeed

teetering on the edge of pulling the trigger on a new camera

@JamWheel wouldn't it be pulling the shutter on a new camera ;)

just sayin

not until i have pulled the trigger on it... then I will be able to pull the shutter... so to speak :)

what you thinking about

1dx

selling my 1ds mkii

which is lovely

but the high iso performance is woeful and the buffer is a bit small

that would certainly be a step up

i have a 1d mkiv as my main camera, which would still serve a purpose

so basically rotate out the secondary and sub in a new primary

yup

the price has come down a chunk since it was released and it seems capable of great things at higher ISOs

slightly larger files

but i can live with that :)

that's what slightly larger HDDs are for :)

heh

indeed

i run 2 x 1TB drives, which i use software to mirror one to the other. when they fill up, I type up an index, and put them in boxes. One goes off site and the other stays here and I pop in two new drives

1TB you mean?

that's what I said (cough)

:)

I use 5 3TB drives in a raid 5 array and backup client release images on my server

(my server is offsite in a data center)

I just keep mine external and keep the drives boxed. Found it the easiest. My stuff, I don't have clients I can neatly store images for and I often get asked for images a couple of years after they are taken

i used to use RAIDed drives but the transferral to shelve-able media was a pain in the backside so i didn't do it often enough

@JamWheel that's why I use the 12TB external array

it should hold probably about a decade of shoots

even at 30MB per shutter click

@JamWheel I normally just swap out the entire array

enclosure and all

indeed, although I would worry about that much in an array

it is an awful lot to lose at once

true, but the dual failure rates on a RAID 5 array with separately sourced drives is pretty low

and I'm also an IT type, so I am also really good at data recovery

(which is why I didn't go with a Drobo)

I am also an IT type and I have seen a few arrays go south that we couldn't get back due to weird failures, albeit over 15 years or so... lol

back on the 1Dx though, I did look at it awfully closely before going with a 5D Mark iii

what pulled you to the 5d?

@JamWheel yeah, I've seen 3 raid 5s dual fail

but they were all same source drives

which is why I avoid sequential drives now

I sourced same model from 5 different vendors

mostly cost, size and resolution

you lose burst rate and some AF speed since you no longer have the dedicated AF processor

what do you shoot?

weddings

ah

fair enough

you don't need the speed so much then

i guess

yeah, it's nice to have, but non-critical

size on the other hand is quite key, though I still slap a battery grip on it which makes it closer in size

but still a hair smaller

yeh - and the smaller body is useful to get into smaller gaps, hold at slightly strange positions

probably less intimidating too (to the subject)

if it was equal price to equal price, I would probably have still 1Dx'd it

but resolution was also a non-trivial concern

22MP gives you a lot more data to work with than 18.1

yeh, although I haven't had any issues with the 1dmkiv on that front

the big thing that makes it big for weddings is being able to get a usable crop shot on the fly

my only concern is that I will end up changing my main lens if it seems too short :)

if you are caught with the wrong lens on at the wrong moment

what is the 1Ds mark 4's resolution?

to be honest, you can get perfectly printable crop shots with less than 22mp. depends how big you are printing i suppose but I imagine most wedding stuff will be photo book size

16.1

@JamWheel yeah, you just never know though. I'm more likely to miss something with the 4 fewer MP than with the 7 less FPS

and then you throw in a $3500 price difference...

do you work two bodies at weddings?

I have a really low end backup

k

upgrading the backup is on my todo list

my stuff is aviation and wildlife so i end up cropping as a matter of course

most of my shots are printed in programmes though so never that big really

probably mostly primes too then?

i have a 300mm f.2,8 IS

which I am worried will need to become a 400 :)

yeah, where as I shoot exclusively on zooms

i use a 100-400 for formation work which mostly gets the job done

(24-70 f/2.8 II and 70-200 f/2.8 IS II)

although I would like a 70-200 is ii

yeh , sounds about right

ironically, I was initially disappointed with mine

i might know someone selling a 1ds mkii ;) lol

mostly because I started with the 24-70

which is a cracking lens

@JamWheel that thought had actually crossed my mind :)

haha - well, i'll let you know - it takes lovely photos

yeah, my warning when I talk about the 24-70 f/2.8 II is that it will make you want more of them

lol

because it is just too amazing of a lens

no zoom lens has any business being that gorgeous

haha

I mean, it almost beats the 1.4 primes

(in some tests, it has been reported as actually beating one of them at some aperture values)

is it an IS lens now?

no

no IS

ah good

but at 24-70 you don't really need IS

my friend uses the mki

for air to air

IS is bad for air to air

unless it is the external type

yeah, the 2 makes the 1 look kind of embarasing from what I recall

(attachable gyro stabiliser)

@JamWheel yeah, I know what you mean

blimey, the 1 was great

IS in the lens means moving elements

yeah

even switched off, aircraft vibration meddles with it

I'm aware. I'm also a video guy :)

hopefully not in your SLR

(I have a thing about SLRs and video)

lol

o'rly? Have you tried a 5d mark iii with ML and raw footage?

no - i haven't tried them at all and I am not a video guy. it is more the principal that the firms are spending R&D time on stuff that isn't to do with my still photography :)

ah

gotcha

also

I thought maybe it was the rolling shutter issue

i am paying for stuff i don't need or want or will ever use

well, if it makes you feel better, look at how much canon gets for cinema lenses

i'd rather see a better sensor or something :)

this is true

and some high profile stuff has been shot with their DSLRs

it just annoys me for some reason

and video does push forward the low noise bar

:)

which does impact your stills

if they can make low noise video, it means you can do even lower noise for photos or long exposures

transferable technology is fine - but keep the tools distinct

have you seen canon's experimental .001 lux sensor?

that and bloody angled screens

no i haven't

angled screens and people holding SLRs at arms length, looking at their angled screens, on auto mode...

grr

yeah

was about to say, look at the bright side, it gives you a noob detector

BUY A COMPACT

hahaha

that is a good way of looking at it

I actually screwed up the ceramony photos I was casually taking at my sister's wedding (thankfully I wasn't the photographer) because I tried using live view shooting and had never used it prior

i am sure it is mostly unjustified - but we all have those things that annoy us for some principle

lol :)

nah, shooting at arms length is bad technique, period

you can't hold it steady without 3 points of contact

it's ok if they are using the viewfinder to check while it is on a tripod

but if they are holding it at arms length, it is flat out doing it objectively wrong

quite

unless it is an over the head shot or something similar

where the third point of contact is simply not possible

I - entirely by accident - took one of my favourite people photos at my cousins wedding

well

not entirely by accident. I was pointing the camera at them and pressed the shutter

the flash didn't fire though and they happened to be stood under a spotlight, so I ended up with this

flic.kr/p/8GGzen

better viewed in lightbox I think

flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/5055073483/lightbox

that is the super low light video sensor

oh I guess it was .01 lux

not .001

heh, cool

nice footage of the firefly, incredibly dark still

but yeah, I do shoot video on my DSLR, but I have distinct setting modes for video vs stills

yeh - it isn't a perfect shot and I darkened the edges a bit but it was a nice effect and they loved it (i was just shooting incidental shots, not the tog on the day)

fair enough, I will let you off :)

@JamWheel yeah, I think I got the favorite shot for my sister's wedding too

but that shouldn't be surprising

being comfortable with your photographer is key to good photos for portraits

no

that is something I am not good with

people... :)

this was taken ad-hoc in a trade tent with available light

if you can put people at ease then you get far better photos of them and family is always the most comfortable

flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/14652973394

fortunately she was just good in front of a camera... i was mostly feeling awkward

@JamWheel she was feeling a little awkward too, the smile is a bit forced from the cheeklines

arms aren't quite relaxed either

indeed, but she is more relaxed than I was :)

candid shots are much easier lol

candid shots suffer with light though

especially on airfields

that's probably one of the most relaxed shots I have online at the moment

hah, very

the real trick is to capture when they are making each other comfortable though

those are the best shots

that's how you get shots like

or

nice

yeh

@JamWheel yeah, exactly

i need to re-visit this and re-take, but this is my Dad, feeling ill at ease as he doesn't like his photo being taken

flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/5995067415

nice black and white conversion on that one btw

will have to look at it when I'm at home on my actual accurate color display

but it looks like the tone mapping is really nice even on my crappy display at work

can't even look comfortable for myself! :) flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/5985704854/in/photostream

thanks

@JamWheel wow, his entire face is clenched up isn't it

in the second shot? that's me lol

@JamWheel your jaw is pretty relaxed, but you have an intensity in your eyes

yeh

which actually can work alright for a portrait I think

especially a self portrait

my avatar is from same day, flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/5985143389/in/photostream

I'd have given your chin a bit more down angle to accentuate the hoody and give your eyes a bit more of an upangle though

to give it a kind of dark, intense, scruff feel

yeh, the shadow is hard too - i don't really have the lighting for it

yeah

I was gonna say, just a touch of softening from bottom right would be great too

just enough to grey it

not much

might have a play with that at some point

most self portraits I end up looking like this dude: flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/14729623996

hehe

haha

I'm trying to think if I have any photos of me I particularly like

i'd much rather take stuff like this though flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/14468501210/in/photostream

or flickr.com/photos/jameswheeler/14468543699/in/photostream

yeah, I like going to museums and shooting artifacts. I also enjoy shooting people playing sports

it's much more relaxing than shooting weddings :)

I love shooting weddings, but weddings are also hard work

weddings would be too stressful for me

a: i hate going to weddings, people are there

they aren't bad once you develop the confidence and experience

b: people are there

just noticed time - need to go and knock up some food! back on a bit later

but I do enjoy memorials a lot too

Did I ever post this photo here? A memorial for the bravest soldiers of our war against USSR in 1940-1944 ?

Notice the name on the frontmost stone, Lauri Törni. Also known as Larry Thorne.

Hmm, I think I posted it already some time ago...

@EsaPaulasto yeah, you posted that here

yeh, just forgot about it, but when you said "memorials"... :)

There's a memorials for our wars on almost every graveyard here, listing the names of men and youngsters from that particular village/town who died in the war.

^ for the dead in our civil war 1918, men from a small town called Humppila.

Those were the men from the "wrong" side, the losing side, the Reds.

The Whites won the match, mostly by killing every Red they could find :P

It says "The victims of white arbitrariness" on the top. And then the long list of names.

thefreedictionary.com/arbitrariness

Could I make a living with my Iphone 4s?

@LCIII is it possible for someone to make a living with an iPhone 4s, probably

is it likely, not so much

So... I've been thinking about optics

let's assume we have an object in focus at distance d_O, and that there's a background at distance d_B > d_O

now, every point of the background object is projected as a disc whose diameter approaches some finite number as d_O approaches infinity

so no matter how far the background is, the amount of blur is limited

however, the "amount" of background visible in the projected image is proportional to d_B

so this implies there's some optimum d_B (as a function of d_O) which maximizes the amount of blur relative to the size of the background details

intuitively, gives the "blurriest" background

maybe I should just create a question

hmm, image inlining doesn't work… oh well

@AntonStrogonoff straighten

@JamWheel thanks! Thought so as well when picking a version for 500px (there it is). On Flickr though the unstraightened version got slightly more attention for some reason, so decided to double-check :)