The Photo Snob Thread

Xplor

Likes Dirt
Hahaha Heavyp deletes all his comments and apologises... Gayyyyyyyy there goes my entertainment.

Lack of VSCO recently, here we go.





 

wombat

Lives in a hole
Hahaha Heavyp deletes all his comments and apologises... Gayyyyyyyy there goes my entertainment.
Give it a rest mate, it's a bigger move to suck it up and apologise than it is to keep an online slinging match going. On the upside, kinda nice to see a run of photos!

Also, for those who were interested, I just ordered a set of the Yongnuo triggers to test with my gear. $85 a pair is pretty much too cheap not to try; I think I prefer the idea of the Kings, with the control screen on the back, but they'd be pretty much twice the price and from what I can see I wouldn't be able to use the controls with my current gear anyway. I'll let everyone know how the 622c's work.

Anyone in need of a cheap strobist kit? I'll get rid of the V2s, and I've got a couple of Cactus flashes (vivitar knockoffs) sitting here too, and maybe an older Nissin flash too.
 

wombat

Lives in a hole
Where'd you end up getting them from in the end, Shayne?
This ebay store. Gadget infinity weren't that cheap, and with the exchange rate the HK/China stores on ebay weren't notably better either, so I thought an Australian supplier wouldn't be a bad idea.

Since they're tranceivers, I figure if they work for me I just grab another pair and I can drive all three flashes, cost around $170. Looked like Pixels would be about twice as much, and Odins / PW closer to $5-600.
 

Brooksy007

Likes Dirt
Tip please from those with more knowldge please

Just wondering if anyone here is willing to offer a bit of a noob some advice please?

When you're doing night shots like Unlearn's recent one where 2 images of the same scene are merged, how do you merge them? Is that done by your camera, or do you do it in post processing? Is it merged as HDR?

Also, to get really clear stars like that - without the long streaks from a long exposure - would I be able to do anything close to that with my 700D? Obviously I'd at least need a better lens (only have the standard kit one at present) - what specs are we talking?

Apologise if this sounds stupid, but I'm willing to admit I don't know sh!t...
 

CraigS

Likes Dirt
Just wondering if anyone here is willing to offer a bit of a noob some advice please?

When you're doing night shots like Unlearn's recent one where 2 images of the same scene are merged, how do you merge them? Is that done by your camera, or do you do it in post processing? Is it merged as HDR?

Also, to get really clear stars like that - without the long streaks from a long exposure - would I be able to do anything close to that with my 700D? Obviously I'd at least need a better lens (only have the standard kit one at present) - what specs are we talking?

Apologise if this sounds stupid, but I'm willing to admit I don't know sh!t...
There are a number of ways to merge the shots together but HDR isn't one of them in this case.
One way is to select the two images and run an exposure blend in PS or to stack the images.
The other way is to stack the images in PS and mask in which part of each image you want.

These are the two ways I go about it anyway, others may have other ideas they might like to share.
Your 700D can shoot stars even with the kit lens.
When shooting the milky way you want to try and keep the exposure below 20-25secs so the higher f stop you can go the better and you'll need to be using an iso setting of at least 1600 but depending on the camera's noise handling capabilities you can push it to 6400 for the stars as the noise will often blend with the stars and add to them.
Keep the iso lower and the exposure longer for the foreground shot though as the noise will be much more noticeable.

I got back behind the camera on Saturday for the first time in a while so here's a pic

9704905850_66de57cca5_c.jpg
 

Brooksy007

Likes Dirt
There are a number of ways to merge the shots together but HDR isn't one of them in this case.
One way is to select the two images and run an exposure blend in PS or to stack the images.
The other way is to stack the images in PS and mask in which part of each image you want.

These are the two ways I go about it anyway, others may have other ideas they might like to share.
Your 700D can shoot stars even with the kit lens.
When shooting the milky way you want to try and keep the exposure below 20-25secs so the higher f stop you can go the better and you'll need to be using an iso setting of at least 1600 but depending on the camera's noise handling capabilities you can push it to 6400 for the stars as the noise will often blend with the stars and add to them.
Keep the iso lower and the exposure longer for the foreground shot though as the noise will be much more noticeable...
Thanks man - I guess I'll give all that a try when I'm next outside the city lights and have a clear night. Not too often in Vic. in winter though, especially with my "day job"...

I've done some various photo-merges in PS - mainly landscapes - but haven't really gotten into the masking side of things yet.
 

wombat

Lives in a hole
Definitely interested to here how they go man.
The Yongnuos showed up yesterday, pretty quick postage from the ebay seller.

First impression: fuck, these things are big! Like big big. "I'm gonna need to actually consider them when I pack my bag, and I don't know if I'd take them travelling unless I had good reason" big. Not a deal breaker or anything, but worth considering if space in your bag is at a premium.

Second impression: they don't seem terribly useful with EX (non-II) flashes. Even with the 40D, which has a flash control menu, I don't seem to be getting ETTL or HSS functions. Gonna play some more now, will report back.


Edit: Mmmkay, now I'm really fucking confused. I moved the setup from one camera to another, and I got ttl and hss working. Then I put it back on the 5d and it seemed to work there as well. I switched the triggers around and now I don't seem to have ttl working. I am getting HSS working right up to 1/8000th though, which is pretty impressive, even though I couldn't get anything above 1/250th initially.

So the only thing I know right now is that there's 'limited' functionality with EX series flashes.


Edit II: I did a reset on the triggers and reset the sppedlight too, and now I seem to have ETTL operating just as expected, as well as HSS up to 1/8000th. No remote control of flash settings with the gear I have at the moment and only newer gen flashes will give that control. I did get a moment of weird behaviour once after the flash went to sleep, and didn't seem to want to be woken by the camera, but that just seems to be a one off.

I found this guide that someone has put together too, and it seems pretty damn good. Worth a read if you're keen on these.

If they keep behaving themselves now I think I'll be very happy with them. No sensor interference, remote ETTL (with on cam FEC) and good HSS at this price is pretty damn hard to beat. If you have EXII flashes and want to shoot with manual levels, I'd probably buy the King Pros, purely for the direct controls on the back of the trigger; canons on-cam menu is a bit of a shit to navigate through, at least the version on my 40D is; if I had to use that all the time I'd probably just start walking around to the flashes.

If anyone wants specific things checked, let me know, just bear in mind I haven't got any EXII speedlights. I'll probably order another set of triggers though so I can play with multiple lights and see how ratio control works with the on-cam menu of the 40D.
 
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wombat

Lives in a hole
Freaked out for a bit after tilting the flash head and finding that the setup wouldn't fire, no matter what I did. Seems it was totally down to user error though, as in the process of tilting the head, I'd held the trigger and accidently bumped the channel button, derrrrrr. In my defence, it does seem to be a weakness of these things, those buttons are kind of hard to find when you're looking for them, but prominent enough that you can bump them when handling the triggers.
 

24alpha

mtbpicsonline.com
Thanks for the feedback Shayne, when you say big.........any chance you can take an image with it attach to the flash for comparisson?

Edit: I can't download that file either.
 
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wombat

Lives in a hole
Thanks for the feedback Shayne, when you say big.........any chance you can take an image with it attach to the flash for comparisson?

Edit: I can't download that file either.
Really? The link works fine for me, it opens in google docs and then I can save it from there. Anyone else having dramas? I can try uploading the guide here, not sure if it's over the attachment limit though.

Apologies for the crappy pic, I forgot my phone has a flash:

622.jpg

It's mounted to a 580, and that's a Cactus V2 receiver sitting in front. On the speedlight the size isn't really that noticable, it just feels big to me on top of the cam; admittedly not as big as having a flash on the shoe, but still bigger than I'm used to.
 

Capone

Likes Dirt
Here is a couple from a recent trip to Bali. Shot using a D700 with a 35mm 1.8

Editing done in LR4. Comments and feedback greatly appreciated, im a noob.

_DSC5428.jpg_DSC5431.jpg
 

wombat

Lives in a hole
Since I've got some new triggers, time to move some of the old gear:

V2_set.jpg

That's:
2 x Cactus KF36 manual flashes
1 x Nissin PZ 400 flash
1 x Cactus V2 transmitter
3 x Cactus V2 receiver

First of all, if you have a 5d classic, you don't want these, the transmitter causes sensor interference. Otherwise, this would be a great little kit for anyone who wants to have a play with off-cam flash. The PZ 400 is apparently a TTL flash, but I never got it to pick up TTL info from my cameras. It definately works with manual zoom and power controls though (1 - 1/64, no missed steps); maybe you can make TTL work, but I'd just think of it as a manual strobe.
Aside from that TTL issue, everything is in great working order.

$100 for the lot, if anyone wants it.
 

24alpha

mtbpicsonline.com
Really? The link works fine for me, it opens in google docs and then I can save it from there. Anyone else having dramas? I can try uploading the guide here, not sure if it's over the attachment limit though.

Apologies for the crappy pic, I forgot my phone has a flash:

**snip**

It's mounted to a 580, and that's a Cactus V2 receiver sitting in front. On the speedlight the size isn't really that noticable, it just feels big to me on top of the cam; admittedly not as big as having a flash on the shoe, but still bigger than I'm used to.
Wow, that is big. Thanks for doing that.
 

CraigS

Likes Dirt
Went to the zoo. Saw a lion. Took a photo.

Again, calling for any crit.
Nice, I really like this. Was this at Taronga?
I took the wife and kids there 3 weeks ago and the lions were in that exact same place.
I got one shot of what I assume is this one staring straight at me, the rest were all asleep.
 

alexx23

Likes Dirt






Both just shoots with friends, hence the imperfections in lighting/powerlines in sky..

Also just got a some new stuff! 5d3 with grip, the new 24-70, 70-200 f/2.8 ISII, 2X600RT, and a few 32gb cards. Thinking of selling my 16 month old mk2 and getting another mk3 if anyone would be interested, perfect condition.
 
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