Some new photos...

[W3MIV]

Uploaded a few new images today.

View them at http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=779122

Here are "thumbnails:"

3967396839693970

[W3MIV]

Unfortunately, I cannot post the originals -- even as jpegs, they run to 16MB files. The ones I put up on the photo site at level 3 and 4 jpegs, and they are 3+MB files. I don't think the site will permit viewing the actual images, but will substitute a smaller version.

[W3MIV]

This is a genuine Bell 47 APU in somewhat used condition. Came out of a black helo with Tex-Mex markings that was found in the Negev Desert.

3971

[kc7jty]

i don't like the loud speaker on the homestead dormer.

[NQ6U]

This is a genuine Bell 47 APU in somewhat used condition. Came out of a black helo with Tex-Mex markings that was found in the Negev Desert.

3971

Is that a Motorola radio in the lower right foreground?

[W3MIV]

i don't like the loud speaker on the homestead dormer.

I don't either, Billhelm. There were several other examples of that sort of anachronism, not the least of which were ever-present "protected-by" shields from an alarm company. Seems every place I looked. They had the decency to put the parking lot down in back of all the buildings near the mill, but some schmuck on staff parked a bright red F-150 right in front of the old mill building making it all but impossible to shoot the front cramping it in the frame or including the forkin' truck. The site is privately owned, and not a state facility.

[KG4CGC]

I like the pictures. You mentioned elsewhere that the lenses are being pushed to the max. What grade of glass is Canon offering with your camera.
For example, Nikon's ED lenses are pretty much the best you can get for their bodies. The "G" version of some lenses are not all that great and the price reflects it. Chromatic aberration is noticeable in their 300mm G zoom lens. The lower grade glass is reflected in the price at about $189. The ED version is about $450.

I guess the question is, is Canon offering lesser lenses with the Rebel format?

[W3MIV]

I guess the question is, is Canon offering lesser lenses with the Rebel format?

Canon offers a very wide range of lenses. The lenses offered as part of a "kit" with the Rebel cameras is a "budget" lens. It is usually the one that I bought in the package -- EF-S 18-55mm f3.5/5.6 IS zoom. It is the very same lens, with some optical improvements and, of course, the new Image Stabilization systems that I bought with the original Rebel 300D back in 2003. It is not a first-rated lens, by any means, but it is not a bad lens either (and there are some dogs out there in just about every mount there is).

I should also mention that this lens only adds $100 to the price of the body-only package; at that price, it is too much a bargain not to buy. If you want to buy one later, it will set you back about $160 -- $190 or so at the cut=throats.
Canon's EF-S lenses are designed for the smaller image sensor cameras, and they will not fit a full-size sensor body (or a 35mm film camera) -- the mirror would strike the back of the lens, since it seats more deeply into the body. Canon's EF lenses, however, are the full-size lenses, and they will fit any body, including the Rebels. Canon's top-of-the-line -- the Taj Mahal, the Coliseum, the Lourve Museum -- are the EF L series, which demand some serious money and deliver some incredible performance.

There is an advantage to Adobe Camera Raw 6.3 in that nearly all of the popular lenses on the market are listed with their peculiar parameters in the lens adjustment menu. You can automatically correct for optical distortion and chromatic aberrations with a single click, and fine tune the result with sliders. It works. Almost all lower-priced zooms display purple fringing at the corners and edges of the frame. One click pretty much makes them go away.

The most disappointing lens with this new camera is a 12-24 Tokina zoom I added to the 300D a few years back. A frame 5,184 x 3,240 pixels produces stunning detail -- but it also shows every wart and nose hair, bit of dust, and fingerprint. Worse, any smearing or aberrations at the edges of the frame -- tree branches show them at their worst -- are made brutally apparent.

Although the AF points (nine of them in this camera) register when manually focusing the lens, I sure miss the old split prism!

[kf0rt]

Unfortunately, I cannot post the originals -- even as jpegs, they run to 16MB files. The ones I put up on the photo site at level 3 and 4 jpegs, and they are 3+MB files. I don't think the site will permit viewing the actual images, but will substitute a smaller version.

WTF, Albi...

A typical web representation of ANY photo shouldn't run much over 100-200 K. I run 1440x900 widescreen monitors here, and that's only about 1.3 megapixels if you bitmap every single pixel. 1080P Hi-Def video doesn't even hit 2 megapixels.

What are you doing that generates a 16MB jpeg file? I can guarantee that your camera isn't generating this. The SX-30 and D7000 here don't generate jpegs anywhere near this size, and I have to reduce them by a LOT to make them usable for web stuff.

Stats for the tripod (bolt and washer) shot I posted:

Taken with the SX-30:

Original was 4320x3240 (14 MP). Jpeg was 2.69 megabytes.

Cropped it and reduced the crop to 600x384. Added a bit of sharpening. Result was 70.9 KB.

Just wondering what you're doing to produce a 16MB jpeg...

[WV6Z]

Is that a Motorola radio in the lower right foreground?

You ass! Thank God that was DIET Dr. Pepper that just hit the screen and keyboard. Funny how diet or not, it all feels the same when it exits the nostrils.

Nice snaps Albi!

[W3MIV]

I apolize for having misspoken. I am now not sure of what I was thinking when I posted that. The raw files are 22MB and the "best" jpeg is 5.6MB (frame size is 5184 x 3456 pixels). Native resolution in the camera is 240dpi for raw files and 72dpi for jpeg.


WTF, Albi...

A typical web representation of ANY photo shouldn't run much over 100-200 K. I run 1440x900 widescreen monitors here, and that's only about 1.3 megapixels if you bitmap every single pixel. 1080P Hi-Def video doesn't even hit 2 megapixels.

What are you doing that generates a 16MB jpeg file? I can guarantee that your camera isn't generating this. The SX-30 and D7000 here don't generate jpegs anywhere near this size, and I have to reduce them by a LOT to make them usable for web stuff.

Stats for the tripod (bolt and washer) shot I posted:

Taken with the SX-30:

Original was 4320x3240 (14 MP). Jpeg was 2.69 megabytes.

Cropped it and reduced the crop to 600x384. Added a bit of sharpening. Result was 70.9 KB.

Just wondering what you're doing to produce a 16MB jpeg...

[W3MIV]

No Tokina lenses are listed among the bazillion lenses in the Adobe Camera Raw 6.3 lens distortion and chromatic aberration drop-down. Curious. Sigmas and Tamrons are represented extensively, along with all the camera mfrs' offerings, as one might expect. No mention of Tokina at all.

I should be fair to the lens and state that its worst aspects are at the extremes of its exposure range. At about f5.6 things sharpen up and they are pretty good at f8 and f11, though no one is going to be fooled into thinking it is a Canon L series lens. ;)

[kf0rt]

I apolize for having misspoken. I am now not sure of what I was thinking when I posted that. The raw files are 22MB and the "best" jpeg is 5.6MB (frame size is 5184 x 3456 pixels). Native resolution in the camera is 240dpi for raw files and 72dpi for jpeg.

Ah, that makes perfect sense. Great shots, too!

[W4RLR]

Great pictures....