New camera?

[iomegajaz]

Originally Posted by swingdjted

It looks like I need a micro hdmi to regular hdmi wire, not mini. I didn't realize until doing some googling that there was indeed a difference. Why couldn't they just start with the micro and stick with it?

Mini and micro USB, you say? If they didn't constantly release new standards, forcing us all to constantly buy new connectors, cables and readers, how would the poor hardware developers ever make any money?

[gaekwad2]

Originally Posted by swingdjted

I took a couple pics of a poured beer beside it's empty bottle with and without flash. I don't seem to have to be careful like I used to when it comes to nasty flash reflection off the glass, bottle, bottle cap, and glossy label. It's minimal. Is there something I can rig to minimize it further? Maybe make a wire frame for a bedsheet or facial tissue to make the flash softer? The camera will be used a lot for product photography.

Build your own lightbox.

Originally Posted by swingdjted

I'm still in the market for maybe a filter or two. What filters would I need that this camera lacks internally? Polarizer? Also, is there a filter that acts like sunglasses so that I can use a slower shutter speed (or open shutter for waterfalls)? This thing is labeled as a 62mm fitting for screw-ons. Any suggestions?

A polarizer for outdoor shooting and reducing reflections, with some trial and error to find the right setting it might even help with flash shots as above. It cuts light by 1-2 stops but that probably won't be enough for those cliche waterfall pics or shooting wide open in full sunlight, for those purposes you'll need an nd (neutral density) filter (or even more than one since eg. 3 stops may be too weak and 10 too strong). Btw, strong nd filters generally have to be used with custom white balance since they cause a red tint in the image (except these that have just been announced apparently, which are pretty expensive though and usually adjusting wb works well enough).

Good filters aren't cheap (the most expensive ones aren't necessarily great either though), but unless damaged they'll outlive several cameras so I'd still go with high quality ones, especially for the polarizer (some reviews here and here). Just hope your next camera won't have a larger filter diameter (smaller is no problem, step up rings are cheap).

[SSJ4 Gogitta]

A circular polarizer (for glare and reflections) and a UV filter (mainly to protect your lens) and your set. For longer exposures there are a couple things you can do. Lowering the ISO will lower the light sensitivity (and decreasing noise). You'll need longer exposures to get the picture to have "normal" looking brightness. Decrease your aperture (the size of the hole in the lens letting light through). You do this by increasing your f-stop number. f-16 with ISO100 would mean you'd need quite a long exposure. I think I used f-16 and ISO400 with 20 second exposures for my astrophotography.

[swingdjted]

@ SSJ4 - I hate noise and graininess. I know that there were other choices for cameras to reduce noise further than this one, but I still needed an all-in-one package since my wife and I will often be using this for a lot of no-time-for-details shooting. I will try to keep iso as low as possible as often as possible.

I have the camera, wireless remote (just showed up today), extra battery, and memory card. It's mostly a good camera, although... my first big complaint about the camera is the very noticeable constant sound of what I'm guessing is the optical image stabilization and/or auto-focusing. When I shoot video in a quiet place, that noise is more than evident in playback. I'll end up having to buy an external microphone, something that still might pick up that sound, even if not hard mounted.

On my first day of shooting, I broke my old tripod before I ever even attached it to the camera. Bad for me, but good for the camera in the sense that it didn't happen while it was attached. Now I need to research tripods, and research ways to recover from the financial hit that this is becoming.

I have watched a lot of tutorials about long-exposure photography and white balance calibration (and when and when not to do it)

Honestly, well, brutally honestly, before the last couple weeks, I didn't really understand (at least not on a worthwhile and usable level) the concepts of depth-of-field, white balance, and polarizers. I always knew polarized sunglasses helped see better through haze when driving while also helping me see through the glare while fishing, but never applied that in photography.

I would like to buy a couple ND filters (maybe 10-stop and variable?), a polarizer, a fl-w filter, and a tripod, mostly for longer-exposure photography. Hopefully after all that I'll be done. Any brand or feature suggestions?

Do different brands agree on the screw-on threading? In other words, if a filter or lens says 62mm, it'll screw onto my camera, right?

Thanks for all the help so far.

[gaekwad2]

Filter threads are standardized (unless you're dealing with very old and exotic lenses). Still some filters don't fit on certain lenses either because the thread is recessed and the filter mount is too thick or (which is more problematic since it might actually damage the lens) the front element bulges out too much. Those problems are fairly rare though.

Variable nd filters consist of two polarizers, so at least in theory you could a) use it as a polarizer too (it'll probably be darker though even in its minimum setting, plus you'll have two filters in front of the lens) or b) put a linear polarizer in front of a circular one and make your own variable "nd" (the problem here is that its darkest setting probably won't be neutral, instead you'll get the good old "hollywood night" effect meaning everything will be deep blue).

As for brands, Marumi DHG filters seem to offer the best price/performance ratio right now.

Dpreview did some tripod comparisons, but those were aimed more at getting high quality with long tele lenses. For long exposures (except in very windy conditions), since your camera has a leaf shutter inside the lens which causes virtually no vibrations, you only need a tripod that can safely hold the camera. Just remember to always use the remote or self timer.

[swingdjted]

The ghosts of cameras past...



Silver = Canon A540, sand makes the camera shut off if you try to zoom.
Black digital = Canon S5-IS, sensor puts nasty streaks on still images, but still takes up to 640x480 30fps video without sensor issue
Black 35mm = my first camera, probably the best that I've had, Minolta X-700, which used to include a huge bag of nearly a dozen mid to high end lenses, all bought used, but in new condition when bought.

I found an old tripod at my parents' house. It doesn't have a fast release, but it works as designed; this will hold me over until I decide to spend money on a newer one with a fast release.



Box says Vivitar 1240, tripod says 1220. Looks like my parents were slightly ripped off many decades ago. A little google image research shows that the upgrade would have been an extra brace per leg leading to the center pole. Here's the Canon tripod that broke; it did have a fast release and those extra braces on the legs, but was still somewhat low-end. I'm actually releived that it broke before putting the new camera on it, at least better than breaking while the camera was on it.



And, the new camera, pics coming soon; I have to find batteries for one of the old ones.

[swingdjted]

Bad image quality, thanks to that old A540 not knowing what to do with the flash half the time; too lazy to set manual settings. The extra SLR lens in there is just for size comparison. The included strap was ok, but I switched to my old strap because I think it is more comfortable. I stole my lens cap cover string from the S5-IS. This new camera has a tiny hidden spot where I can attach it. Not pictured are the SD card and original battery which were inside the camera at the time.

By the way, how do I cut/paste edit my video without turning it into a bowl of suck? Windows Movie Maker begins to transcode it as soon as you open your clips to be edited. This takes some time in HD, even more in 4K format). Then, you put it on Youtube or whatever video site and it processes again, and by the time an end-viewer sees it, it looks like it was taken by a cellular phone.

How do I cut and paste video clips in original format, and have them play that way online too?

[iomegajaz]

We have the Canon PS A590. It's a great little P&S unit; Shy Jr. uses it to take photos of her artwork for uploading to facebook.

Originally Posted by swingdjted

By the way, how do I cut/paste edit my video without turning it into a bowl of suck? Windows Movie Maker begins to transcode it as soon as you open your clips to be edited. This takes some time in HD, even more in 4K format). Then, you put it on Youtube or whatever video site and it processes again, and by the time an end-viewer sees it, it looks like it was taken by a cellular phone.

How do I cut and paste video clips in original format, and have them play that way online too?

SUPER lets you convert any video container/format to any other; you can also "clip" a video in its existing format without decoding/re-endcoding, by using "direct copy" for both the audio and video. You can cut you video into clips by "omitting X" leading seconds, and by "copying only Y" seconds. For example, to get the 30-second clip between 0:20 and 0:50 from a 60-second clip, you'd omit the first 20 seconds, and copy a total of 30 seconds.

SUPER's developers have a shitty website which makes it really fucking difficult to locate and download the installer. Also, newer versions suck more than older versions; I have had success in using version 19. So... here it is. http://hughhh.com/hosted/SUPER%2019.exe

Once you have all the clips, and if you want to you want to stitch them together, there are a number of free tools (even some basic command prompts) which you can use to do that.

I believe Vimeo is a good HD video sharing option, though I think YouTube has that facility now as well.

[Addison1993]

No,I'm fairly sure thats wrong.

[iomegajaz]

Originally Posted by Addison1993

No,I'm fairly sure thats wrong.

I'm fairly sure your intentions are impure, Addison of 1993. GTFO

[gaekwad2]

Originally Posted by iomegajaz

I believe Vimeo is a good HD video sharing option, though I think YouTube has that facility now as well.

Vimeo uses less heavy compression than Youtube, it often looks better in 720 than Youtube in 1080.

And Windows Movie Maker is just horrible.

[Addison1993]

I just bought a Panasonic DMC-LZ5.

[sgtfuzzbubble011]

I posted this in the Latest Purchase thread already, but it fits in this thread as well. I just ordered myself this for my camera: Neewer NW-985C Camera Flash

I've never owned a dedicated flash before, but I've wanted one for a while. This one seems to have a good features/price ratio. Never seen a flash with a color screen before, either, which is pretty cool. Can't wait to play around with it.

Anyone else have dedicated flash units for their cameras? If so, what kinds?

[swingdjted]

I used to have an old flash for my old Minolta X-700 SLR 35mm film camera, but for the life of me, I don't know where it is. It could swivel and had an adjustable angle, but despite a lot of experimentation, I had a lot of trouble with shadows in the pictures, either in the form of hard outline shadows of the subjects or in the form of a really bright top half of the picture and really dark bottom half when reflecting off the ceiling. It's probably a matter of me not doing enough research to use it properly.

My new Lumix camera already has a problem, or maybe the wire I bought does. When I try to hook it up to an HDTV via HDMI, it won't send signal. I have tried this with two TVs that do get good signal when I hook up a laptop. This camera used to work on those TVs, but now does not. The micro male to regular female HDMI dongle might be at fault, or the camera itself may have stopped working for that feature. The regular HDMI cable that does from the dongle to the TV still works with the laptop. I don't have any other devices that could test the dongle. Any suggestions? Would a place like RadioShack be able to test the dongle and camera to see which is at fault?

[iomegajaz]

Ted, did you end up trying SUPER for clip editing?

Originally Posted by iomegajaz

SUPER lets you convert any video container/format to any other; you can also "clip" a video in its existing format without decoding/re-endcoding, by using "direct copy" for both the audio and video. You can cut you video into clips by "omitting X" leading seconds, and by "copying only Y" seconds. For example, to get the 30-second clip between 0:20 and 0:50 from a 60-second clip, you'd omit the first 20 seconds, and copy a total of 30 seconds.

SUPER's developers have a shitty website which makes it really fucking difficult to locate and download the installer. Also, newer versions suck more than older versions; I have had success in using version 19. So... here it is. http://hughhh.com/hosted/SUPER%2019.exe

[swingdjted]

I think I need something that is more tailored for cutting/pasting/editing. This looks to be a quite useful tool for cutting and transcoding, so I'm very thankful for your recommendation and will likely use it for some jobs, but I'm hoping to get something that does what Windows Movie Maker (or iMovie, or whatever) does, but without the unwanted transcoding and degradation. I mentioned iMovie, but I don't know if it has those problems or not, and I don't have a Mac (can't justify the expense just for this), but I do remember the program being pretty fully featured and relatively easy to use.

[gaekwad2]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=166037

note: I never used any of them, and the threads are 3+ years old so there may be something new and better now

[webthing]

7 a.m.

[gaekwad2]

you know you want to

[webthing]

I want to put it back together and have it work like new.

[swingdjted]

What the? That's my camera!

Perhaps if it ever goes bad or gets obsolete and needs replacement I'll give disassembly a go, but for now, that really scares me. I'm good with desktop and laptop computers, but that's about as small and intricate as I have gone so far in terms of taking apart and putting back together. I bookmarked the page just in case.

Off topic, but still pictures; I'll be posting some pictures from a pretty big experience (for me at least) within the next week or two if I remember to do so.

[gaekwad2]

I like how they go from explaining how to remove battery and memory card to pulling out delicate ribbon connectors and unscrewing the sensor.
That spring loaded assembly makes me wonder if it isn't designed to adjust the focal plane, meaning if you do it wrong you'll end up with a permanent tilt.