Real life photography/photo editing

[ralphwiggum 6]

My lunch at the aquarium

House salad(chicken, lettuce and few other stuff), clam chowder, and a piece of bread. cost was $14.95 or so, and was expensive, but I don't mind paying a bit more to support this place. I was lucky to land a very nice seat too.

same seals from above, but from dining area

Sea Otter exhibit. It took me a few minutes to get this shot of it walking

Jelly fish

[ralphwiggum 6]

View from aquarium's other wing

Shark

Some street deco on the Cannery row

Beach in Monterey

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Ralph I hate you for that. I had to cancel my summer holidays due to new job project, my girlfriend is realy realy anoyed about it and you post these sweet images of sand and sea! Great, Just Great!

[Supah 0]

that house in the last shot must cost an arm and a leg but what a view! Especially nice if you like yaughts (spelling?) You could moor a decent sized yaught in your backgarden.

[black dragon 0]

I love this screens

[FallenPaladin 0]

Really nice pictures! If I could I`d make a trip right now to some of these places

[iNeo 0]

Swans

Seagull

Raven

Elephant

[iNeo 0]

Texts from Bathory songs.

[mr burns 132]

I almost stepped on this one: Mr. Toad. He was a very unwilling subject for a while, but after I used the flash a couple of times he seemed paralyzed for quite a while.

lmao, gotta mind that trick

some shots i took this evening:

[ralphwiggum 6]

Albert, perhaps some other time you can take a vacation. I make sure I get a good vacation around June, and this was it. Try to make it up to her by giving her a plenty of chocolates and you sweet luving.

Supah, that builing seems to be a restaurant of some sort IIRC.

FallenPaladin! Nice to see you again!

And here are photos of USS Pampanito, a WW2 submarine in pacifics. $9 for self-guided tour and it was fun, albeit being a bit cramped.

Torpedo

Rear stairs. This is a very steep one and I almost fell down.(no I did not bend my wookie)

Control panel

Sleeping quarters

Mess hall

[ralphwiggum 6]

Main gun

Outside

6 Japanese flags on the left mean 6 sunken Japanese ships, and 4 on the right means 4 severe damage to Japanese ships. 73 at the bottom represnts 73 British and Austrailian soldiers it saved.

Winchester Mystery House is located in San Jose. It was built by Mrs. Winchester, after taking advice of a psychic that the ghost of those who were killed by Winchester guns and ammunitions were haunting the family. To stop the curse, she would have to build house continuously. So until her death, this house was continuously built by adding rooms and stairs 24/7. Some of the stairs were built with no exit, where the stairs would endup in a wall or a ceiling. Or, there would be stairs that were made so that it doesn't move the person that much in terms of height, such as this.

There are so many things that she related to number 13. A lot of stairs have 13 step, 13 windows are aplenty.

But of course, being a Winchester house, they do have museum of all winchester guns ever made.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Back to outdoors, Muir beach overlook. The fog was stil there at 12noon.

On the way to Muir Beach Overlook. If you look carefully, there is a black blob around place where left and right rocks meet. That is a California Condor, and I was lucky to see how it flew above the hill using upward wind.

Stinson Beach

North of Stinson beach, near Pacific Coast Highway

[ralphwiggum 6]

And some assortted photos.

San Francisco skyline

Transamerica building

A very humorous bumper sticker

And that concludes my trip's photo essay.

[cozza 24]

Overall, I think it might be worth waiting for when they synch the traditional digital camera technologies with the DSLR ones. The "live preview" on regular cams is an excellent feature that I'm really missing. Beyond that, I'd trade my Z3 for one of these any day.

Anyway, I'll continue shooting pics like a mad monkey for the rest of the week. If the novelty hasn't worn off, I'll probably buy one for myself.

Buh, it's contagious!!  I want one.

Is there not any kind of information displayed while you are taking the photo?  I've never looked at one, for fear I might actually buy it, but I expected live histograms overlayed/projected into an optical viewfinder.  I suppose professional simply don't need these things.

I'm trying to talk myself into (and also out of) buying an Olympus C8080.  But in the meantime I've been reunited with my old clunker SLR, the only thing mildy electronic about it is a light meter.  I think I'll put that to work and re-learn the fundamentals.

But now for some photos.  Some friends came to visit the other day.

Unfortunately, they couldn't stay long!

http://www.baconbomb.com/img/cr_2.jpg

Tut Tut Tut

Quote[/b] ]§5)No posting of explicit images

No posting of pictures containing porn, real killing, mutilations, wounds, carnage,  and other disgusting/explicit images. This also includes links to pages that contain such images.

   

[denoir 0]

I have a surefire cure for the 350D lust: the >800e pricetag.  

Heh, that's only for the camera house. Add to that a memory card, and lenses. The basic kit I bought for as a birthday present for my dad (350D+18-55mm lens + 1 Gb card) went for about €1100. If I'm going to buy one for myself, I'll probably buy a Sigma 18-22mm zoom lens as well and a 2 Gb card. That adds up to around €1500. And yeah, almost forgot, I bought a Sony DSC-T7 for my girlfriend the other day - she was going to Paris to visit some friends and her old camera stopped working - that's another €450.

>€3000 on digicams in a month is perhaps a bit over the top. It's not really a problem, but it seems a bit excessive.  

Here are some few shots of the DSC-T7 compared to the Minolta Z3 and the Canon 350D:

As you can see, a nice small camera. It produces ok pictures (although not good compared to the Z3 and extremely shitty compared to the 350D).

Anyway, as far as the 350D goes, I'm not yet 100% sure that I'll buy one for myself - but knowing me, I probably will. After all, the camera isn't relevant, it's the pictures, and the quality of those taken with the 350D more than justifies that.

Ralph: nice pictures!

Fallen: Long time no see. Welcome back!

[Supah 0]

I may be getting a 350D + 18 - 55 mm lense for 899 next month prices vary wildly in my experiences, atleast over here. Also its very possible to strike a nice bargain I have found

[raedor 8]

I may be getting a 350D + 18 - 55 mm lense for 899 next month prices vary wildly in my experiences, atleast over here. Also its very possible to strike a nice bargain I have found

wow, a 350D for 899 (€ i guess?) is a very good deal! over here you nearly can pay so much for a 300D...

[denoir 0]

You can get one here for ~€900 as well, if you get it from a low-price retailer. I chose however to order it from a company that I've had very good experiences in the past. They are slightly more expensive ~€950 for the house and the 18-55mm, but I feel more secure with them, so I think it is worth the slightly more expensive price.

supah: You will want to buy a zoom lens, because the 18-55 that comes with the kit is very weak as a telephoto. You might want to take a look at the Sigma 18-200mm - you can get it for €300-400, and that's a 11x zoom.

raedor:

http://www.pixmania.com/de/de/88638/art/canon/eos-350d.html

I bought my Z3 from these guys and I got it about 24h after I ordered it. You can order from anywhere in the EU. That's at least one that I know of - there are surely dozens of similar sellers.

From what I've seen, most prices for the house are around €800 +-€100, and for such a small difference, it's probably better buying it locally, should the damn thing break.

If you feel brave, you could order it from the US. Amazon had when I last looked some very untrustworthy looking sellers, offering it for as low as $600.

[raedor 8]

raedor:

http://www.pixmania.com/de/de/88638/art/canon/eos-350d.html

I bought my Z3 from these guys and I got it about 24h after I ordered it. You can order from anywhere in the EU. That's at least one that I know of - there are surely dozens of similar sellers.

From what I've seen, most prices for the house are around €800 +-€100, and for such a small difference, it's probably better buying it locally, should the damn thing break.

If you feel brave, you could order it from the US. Amazon had when I last looked some very untrustworthy looking sellers, offering it for as low as $600.

thx for the link, with "over here" i meant local stores. i'd never buy something like a SLR online, you already said why

it's very interesting that the EFS 18-55 II, which very much seems to be the same they sold last year with the 300D, only adds 15€...

for objectives i don't like zoomable ones, i know they are easier to handle, but from my experience (well, i don't have much experience, so...) they are less consistent than non-zoomable ones.

[Supah 0]

You can get one here for ~€900 as well, if you get it from a low-price retailer. I chose however to order it from a company that I've had very good experiences in the past. They are slightly more expensive ~€950 for the house and the 18-55mm, but I feel more secure with them, so I think it is worth the slightly more expensive price.

supah: You will want to buy a zoom lens, because the 18-55 that comes with the kit is very weak as a telephoto. You might want to take a look at the Sigma 18-200mm - you can get it for €300-400, and that's a 11x zoom.

I was looking at that lense, the guy from the shop said he'd throw in a free 2x teleconvertor with the lens after a bit of bargaining

[denoir 0]

for objectives i don't like zoomable ones, i know they are easier to handle, but from my experience (well, i don't have much experience, so...) they are less consistent than non-zoomable ones.

Yeah, fixed focal length tele lenses have usually more consistent properties - as zoom lenses usually have a varying aperture across the range.

If you have a limited budget and don't restrict yourself to a specific type of photography, you'll need a zoom lens. The fixed focal length are usually an order of magnitude more expensive (for equivalent quality) and they are utterly impractical for general purpose shooting, as you need to change the lens to get magnification. With the possible exception of macro-lenses, there is little choice but zoom lenses for an amateur photographer.

supah:

Quote[/b] ]I was looking at that lense, the guy from the shop said he'd throw in a free 2x teleconvertor with the lens after a bit of bargaining

A teleconverter is a start, but still, first of all it won't be enough (110mm =~ 170mm equivalent, which is 6x magnification) and second, it is very impractical as you have to unscrew/screw the converter on to switch between wide/normal angle and tele. For general purpose shooting, you really want to have a full good range in one lens.

Anyway, a few more pics taken with the 350D:

(Full Rez)

(Full Rez)

(Full Rez)

(Full Rez)

[Supah 0]

Sorry wasnt clear, the teleconvertor was with the something - 200 mm thingy

[Colossus 2]

Finally I got time to post the pictures from Prague.

Nah.. who am I kidding, I was just to lazy

From the hotel room

On the top you see the Prague Castle (Prazsky Hrad, I think)

The cathedral you see there is the Katedrála sv. Vita.

Most famous brigde in Prague, Charles Bridge or Karlúv Most

There were MANY churches around the Prague Castle

so I'm not sure what the name of this church is.

Kostel P. Marie Pred Tynem (Tyn Church)

[Colossus 2]

Best picture I think.

Taken from one of the side of the old Town Hall.

Prasná Brána (Powder Tower)  to the left

and Obecni Dum (The Municipal House) to the right.

My view over Prague from a small resturant

(resturace is the word in czech I think) right near the Prague Castle

[Colossus 2]

View over the city at the top of the hill where the castle is.

The cathedral you saw earlier, Katedrála sv. Vita.

Gold, gold and more gold

A bit bad quality since the camera got a auto-focus which I can't stear.

This was taken on one of the last days in Prague and I got wet from top to toe.

It was raining as if it was in the raining season in Thailand