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Forum: Pentax KP
04-17-2020, 03:52 AM
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I use a Sigma 50-500 regularly, handheld, without a battery grip. I'm a small guy. You just need to learn how to properly hold a camera. Holding a system up by the body with a heavy lens also risks bending the mount. Battery grips are nice for many things, especially if you take a lot of portrait shots. But needing it to "balance" a camera with a long lens is a specious argument: it mainly just adds weight.
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Forum: Photo Critique
01-25-2020, 01:55 PM
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Well I played some using on RawTherapee and managed this:
Attachment 485276
A brief rundown of what I did:
- Demosaicing
- method: LMMSE
- Flase color supression steps = 5
- LMMSE enhancement steps = 6
- chomatic abberation correction
- Auto-correction Iterations 5
- Impulse Noise Reduction = 75
- Noise Reduction
- Chrominance
- Method = Manual
- Chrominance - Master = 4.79
- Chrominance - Red-Gree = 74.7
- Chrominance - Blue-Yellow = 27.9
- Median Filter:
- Median method: Weighted L*(little) +a*b*(normal)
- Median type = 5x5 soft
- Median iterations = 3
- Contrast by Detail Levels
- 0 (finest) = 2.45
- 1 = 2.14
- 2 = .67
- 3 = 1.82
- 4 = 150
- 5 (coarsest) = 1.19
- Threshold = .26
Most of the noise reduction was done in the noise reduction settings but another place to work with it is in contrast by detail levels area. Editing here is basically a very simplified form of wavelet editing which is a really useful tool but has a really steep learning curve. Here it looked like most of the noise was showing up at level 2 so I reduced the contrast there until I felt I started losing detail. With high ISO shots like this I find that the LMMSE method of demosaicing with lots of processing helps get as much usable detail out as possible as the other noise reduction methods will start eating it. If I wanted to go further I would probably load the image into an image editor and do some masking and do a 5 to 7 pixel gaussian blur to the background as well as tone the green channel down some. The Gaussian blur will take some of the harshness introduced from the median filter out of the background bokeh and the green seems a bit too saturated. Then I would probably invert the mask and on the macaw and branch hit with an unsharp mask to give it some more pop
Below is a link to the sidecar file that RawTherapee creates to store all of the development settings so you can download it and see what else I played with and if you want have a place to start from. You will find that there are lots of settings and knobs to play with in that program:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S6oSqkNXurj4FV8M681X6eb9wg3ypagF |
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Forum: Photo Critique
01-24-2020, 12:00 PM
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My advise is to find a nice comfy chair in your home and sit there with the camera and manual and get everything figured out and set how you want. I spent a lot of time figuring my K2000 and later K-3 out sitting in a chair in my living room taking pictures of my kid's lego mess. I do this with every camera now.
I have played around a bit with darktable but personally like RawTherapee more for development. There are lots more knobs to turn and does a lot to deal with noise but it has a much higher learning curve than other tools. Also it is really only a raw development tool so cataloging or metadata management aren't it's strong points or really even doable.
If you are up for posting the raw image to download I would be willing to see what I could do and provide the exact steps and settings I used. In looking at the meta data it would appear that the whole area was fairly dark which is some what surprising although I would assume your winter up in B.C. looks much like mine so it shouldn't be too surprising.
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Forum: Photo Critique
01-24-2020, 02:08 PM
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Don't change anything. Well, you could have underexposed by a stop and taken the picture at ISO 6400, but there isn't that much more dynamic room in the RAW file at ISO 6400 instead of 12,800, so boosting the exposure in post-processing isn't going to recover a lot of detail. If you had blown out highlights somewhere in the picture, I would suggest underexposing, but I don't see that here. At 200mm, you don't want a slower shutter speed than 1/100 second (unless you can convince the bird to sit still for you in the same pose). Short of getting a faster lens, like a D FA * 70-200 f2.8 or DA * 200 f2.8, for a much higher cost, you can't use a wider aperture (nor will the 55-300 PLM give you a wider aperture at this focal length).Computer aided noise reduction can help a lot, especially if you don't need a full sized reproduction of the picture. The advantage of working with a RAW file is that the image data isn't compressed and you can manipulate all the data captured by the camera sensor, whereas with JPEG files you can get noticeable artifacts (blotchy spots) every time the image is edited, because compression has averaged out or combined some of the data to get a smaller filesize. I don't use Darktable, but I would look for ways to reduce noise (the graininess you see), such as smoothing or blending. The grainy bits probably had the same colour and brightness as the not-so-noisy bits surrounding them and noise reduction software will try to calculate what those grainy bits should look like. If you blow the picture up to fit a 60" screen, the noise reduction will look unnatural, but on a tablet screen, it will look much better.
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Forum: Pentax KP
01-14-2020, 04:31 AM
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And from Iguazu Falls on the same trip....
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Forum: Pentax KP
01-14-2020, 04:28 AM
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Did I mention that I took the KP to Antarctica?
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
01-12-2020, 03:09 PM
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I am happy to announce the winners, courtesy of our random number generator!
The first drawn number was 114, and our 114th entry corresponds to @womble , who is our grand prize winner and future recipient of the new K-mount flagship!
The second number was 254, which makes @gatorguy the winner of a 2-year Loyal Site Supporter forum account upgrade.
Finally, at 301, our third place winner and recipient of a PF T-shirt is @Kevin B123;
I'd like to congratulate our winners and thank everyone who participated in this incredible event. Please stay tuned for more giveaways and contests in the future, and don't forget to nominate your favorites in our December photo contest, whose winner will receive a K-70!
Monthly Contest Nominations - PentaxForums.com |
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
01-10-2020, 04:48 PM
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Alright guys, here are the final entry counts for everyone in this thread:
barondla 2
stevebrot 3
Kunzite 2
Vmax911 4
Mike L 2
Canada_Rockies 1
lesmore49 1
mlt 2
Photogoof 7
Matthew 2
monochrome 1
7.62lew 1
manishved 1
bdery 2
fs999 1
Kerrowdown 15
Class A 1
Hemppo 1
RobA_Oz 1
edri 2
eaglem 2
Mistral75 3
Rondec 2
troenaas 1
ramseybuckeye 2
Jonathan Mac 1
photolady95 2
jhaji 1
noelcmn 13
Urs 3
Mikesul 2
RobG 1
kiwi_jono 1
boriscleto 1
simple1 4
tvdtvdtvd 1
ToddK 7
Lab 1
northcoastgreg 1
James also 2
dcpropilot 1
BigMackCam 3
aitrus3 3
womble 4
rod_grant 2
dbs 4
fsge 4
Racer X 69 6
pbancr 1
BigDave 5
paulh 3
MetteHHH 1
grog85361 2
sergysergy 1
robtcorl 2
WillWeaverRVA 2
pentaxshooter89 1
savoche 8
vinni 1
Snapppy 2
luftfluss 2
Pentikonian 1
microlight 1
swip 2
veato 1
-JW- 1
Madaboutpix 1
TedH42 1
y0chang 1
Sandy Hancock 1
Gorgarath 2
gaweidert 1
Not a Number 1
timb64 4
MarkJerling 2
PJ1 6
ivanvernon 1
robgski 1
Liney 2
Deesquared 2
ChristianRock 2
Archimedes the Dog 1
Jorgario 2
redpit 1
totsmuyco 1
beachgardener 2
RGlasel 2
pichaser 2
08amczb 1
steamloco76 2
agukha 1
SirTomster 1
othar 1
Larrymc 1
Thagomizer 1
ZombieArmy 1
UncleVanya 2
bladerunner6 1
reh321 13
Imp 2
pepperberry farm 4
The Squirrel Mafia 2
jquill 1
Aaron28 12
brewmaster15 1
gatorguy 1
Vaskebjorn 4
Fenwoodian 2
swanlefitte 1
house 1
bertwert 11
Sir Nameless 1
KC0PET 4
dlh 1
Charlie Victor 1
ffking 1
TwoUptons 1
Apet-Sure 2
rubenr 2
DW58 2
FozzFoster 1
redmenace 1
Robin 1
aaacb 1
clickclick 2
cartesio 1
GRB 3
henrikpedersen33 1
blues_hawk 1
Kevin B123 1
Leumas 1
HoutHans 1
subsea 2
iheiramo 1
Wasp 6
Qman 1
ginnyfoos 1
MikeyBugs95 2
foxandcrow 1
torashi 19
Cerebum 1
edom31 2
MossyRocks 1
ecostigny 1
StiffLegged 1
ThomSirveaux 3
CharLac 1
WorksAsIntended 1
ignath 2
hypermodern 3
Chris_K 2
tokyoscape 1
jmacias 1
K2 to K50 1
VILLAINofOZ 3
Bertrand3000 5
Benz3ne 2
STARHUNTER94 1
Varunvg85 1
nonpigliounoshoot 1
SpottyReputation 1
sasastro 2
Sight1 1
NotMyFatDog 1
mkgd1 1
Please shoot me a PM if you believe there is an inconsistency. I will otherwise draw the winner around this time tomorrow.
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Forum: General Talk
01-10-2020, 04:48 PM
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Not watched him but just suddenly had flashbacks of watching This Old House as a kid with my grandfather. Watched a couple other similar shows with him as well.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-10-2020, 12:08 AM
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As an FYI guys, only one hour remains to claim your entries in either giveaway!
Tomorrow, I will draw the winners of the general giveaway and post the final grand prize giveaway entry count for each member.
Then, in two days, I will draw and announce the winners of the grand prize giveway. Please shoot me a PM beforehand if you believe your entry count is incorrect.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
01-07-2020, 07:59 PM
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Forum: Photographic Technique
12-30-2019, 02:40 PM
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Long enough not to get my feet wet. ;)
:lol::lol::lol:
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Forum: Photographic Technique
02-11-2019, 02:56 PM
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According to this poll, 90% of the forum believe I should white blanch my blue light images, so I'm guessing for 90% or the forum, it isn't a thing.
Raw or JPEG - PentaxForums.com
But I tend to ignore such attempts to ignore reality and impose one's own sense of what's right. I tend to go with what the camera tells me was there, and with what I saw.
Here's some more...
 2019-01-18-LoTR-island by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-y12-15-AP-afternoon-11 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-y12-15-AP-afternoon-7 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-12-08-Whitney-6 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-07-26-Whitney-sunset-4 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-01-Callander-8 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-02-22-Whitney-sunset-5 by Norm Head, on Flickr
 2018-01-Kingsbridge-park-11 by Norm Head, on Flickr
People are free to have whatever preference they want artistically. My choice is to not white balance blue light images.
White balance Schmite Schmalence.
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Forum: Photo Critique
12-26-2019, 08:08 PM
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Nice image. the only suggestion would be to lighten it up just a hair to bring out more detail in the building and trees. Not too much or the snow gets washed out...
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-30-2019, 10:05 AM
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I am going to be out in that area in August, on a kayak fishing expedition out of Tofino (just a few miles away). I’m pretty sure that I’ll take a phot or two, and pretty sure I will get wet enough to report back on the water temperature. �� If there’s any kayak surfing, it will be unintentional though!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-29-2019, 06:26 PM
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Ah okay, I didn't know that! Wetsuits and hot chocolate after I think.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-29-2019, 02:07 PM
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Forum: Pentax KP
12-29-2019, 06:17 PM
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Agree with this. The KP has excellent autofocus and this method works a charm.
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Forum: General Talk
12-26-2019, 05:41 PM
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I would like to have more free time, the energy and motivation to use it more actively, and the wisdom to manage it prudently.
Chris
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Forum: Pentax KP
12-29-2019, 02:51 AM
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WRT = With regards to,sorry that's just an abbreviation I use!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-29-2019, 10:39 AM
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This part of the ocean, there’s really not that much difference between summer and winter as far as water temp. It’s wetsuits all year round... Winter might get the surfers better waves, even.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-29-2019, 10:33 AM
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Not exactly a great time of year for surfing?
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-28-2019, 01:17 PM
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I can feel the cold and wind! And hear the roar of the waves. Well done!
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
12-28-2019, 05:26 AM
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If you do, let me know. Might be able to join up and show you an area. Kamloops can be excellent as long as there are no fires.
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Forum: General Photography
12-25-2019, 08:10 AM
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+1000. I do not blame a dog for being a dog, but I do place the burden on pet owners to train their dogs to behave, or restrain them as necessary.
I know it is possible to train a dog to be out in public and have it behave in such a manner as to be a total joy to behold. When I lived in Germany, I was very impressed at how well behaved almost all the dogs were in parks, restaurants, and especially in the narrow streets of some cities. My German born friend trained her once incorrigible Husky to be a model for all dogs to attain for behavior as far as I am concerned.
Sadly, too many Americans seem to think they have no responsibility to train their dogs, but it makes those who do even more commendable in my opinion.
I do find that going out during the week is usually less fraught with interference of all sorts.
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