Putting the G3 through it's paces

[pedlaruk]

Hi all

I have a reasonably large number of pictures posted at Photopoints that I think show the versatility of the G3 in a variety of situations.
There are macros, night shots, landscape and street shots.
Please take a look and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Roy

http://pedlar.photopoints.com

[twl845]

Great shots! You make me glad I bought my G3.

[pradeep1]

Very impressive gallery, Roy.

[cityboy_ca]

Excellent work! One of the nicest galleries I've seen.

[DocGeoff]

Amen to the previous comments! However, guys like you raise the bar pretty high for guys like me. I love my G3, but I can see I have very far to go to really realize the potential of this great camera...

Thank you for keeping me awake at night..........

DocGeoff

[phili1]

Roy super job. I Love the spider and fly shots and I am happy with my G3 as well. I have just started to put it through its paces.


Found the web sight hard to use. You had to view thumbs rather thenn scan forward and backward viewing but its presentaion is great.

[John_T]

You are an excellent photographer Roy, but I wonder about something. I had the G2, and now I have a couple of G5s. I know what they produce in the sense of color and sharpness. I calibrate my monitor with a colorimeter regularly and my system is professional, so I know I can trust what I see.

Somehow I don't have the feeling that your pix, as they are displayed on Photopoint, are coming accross with the full color and sharpness they should have. Could be it is your PC, your monitor calibration, the software downsize for the web or how Photopoint displays itself. Dunno, but maybe you want to check it out.

[Bascule]

Lovely photos. I'm a relative newbie. I actually like the fact that you haven't gone o.t.t. on the sharpness. I think we can get too obsessed with sharpness. I'd be interested to know what level of sharpness you used in the camera and what, if any sharpening you did in PS. These pics have just the right amount in my opinion and I'd love to know just how you did it.
Best Rgds,
B

[pedlaruk]

Bascule wrote:
Lovely photos. I'm a relative newbie. I actually like the fact that you haven't gone o.t.t. on the sharpness. I think we can get too obsessed with sharpness. I'd be interested to know what level of sharpness you used in the camera and what, if any sharpening you did in PS. These pics have just the right amount in my opinion and I'd love to know just how you did it.
Best Rgds,
B

Hiya and thanks for the feedback.

I use varying amounts of sharpness, all in PS and none at the camera though.
It really depends on the original - I don't usually apply Unsharp Mask straight to the photo though - I read somewhere that there is a better way so I tried it and preferred it as it gives you a bit better control:

Create a duplicate image and then change to Lab Colour mode instead of RGB. In the Channels pane choose the 'lightness' one. Apply USM to this now that it is b&w and really put a lot on there - about 80% on the top slider but only a litte on the second slider.

Then convert the image back to RGB, select all, copy and paste it over the original image.

Make sure that the oversharpened layer is on top and then change the opacity until it looks how you want it.

I hope you can follow this, I'm at work so haven't got PS in front of me. If you get stuck then just email me at pedlar99@yahoo.co.uk :-)

Regards,

Roy

[pedlaruk]

John_T wrote:
You are an excellent photographer Roy, but I wonder about something. I had the G2, and now I have a couple of G5s. I know what they produce in the sense of color and sharpness. I calibrate my monitor with a colorimeter regularly and my system is professional, so I know I can trust what I see.

Somehow I don't have the feeling that your pix, as they are displayed on Photopoint, are coming accross with the full color and sharpness they should have. Could be it is your PC, your monitor calibration, the software downsize for the web or how Photopoint displays itself. Dunno, but maybe you want to check it out.

hmm - I need to look into this - what do you use to calibrate your monitor?? I have a decent monitor (Iiyama 450 Pro).

Regards,

Roy

[photog4fun]

Great pics, Roy

[Default9]

just one comment from me, great looking pics m8.

[paulcobben]

Awesome pictures Roy !!!

[John_T]

Sorry Roy, I was away for a few days and got lost in several projects.

As for calibrating your monitor, I can only say don't waste your time on eyeball calibration with Adobe Gamma or the dozens of other software techniques. They are all subjective and "relative". Get a colorimeter such as Colorvision Spyder with PhotoCal or OptiCal and do it with that. Especially if you have a decent monitor and graphic card, you will know what you have is dependable and once you see your monitor properly calibrated and profiled you will never go back.

While we are at it, something that has become a major issue for me at the moment. After about the second save on a jpeg, your image goes downhill pretty quickly. I shoot RAW now and convert immediately to TIFF. But in the past, being a bit lazy-brained and in a hurry to play with images, I've fixed and fussed with the jpeg, maybe saved it a few times, and even come back later and done it again. Now when I go back to my favorite jpeg pix I see the error of my ways compared to the RAW > TIFF route now. Something to take a hard look at, especially for someone like you who really likes what you are doing and are good at it.

[benca1]

pedlaruk wrote:
Hi all

I have a reasonably large number of pictures posted at Photopoints that I think show the versatility of the G3 in a variety of situations.
There are macros, night shots, landscape and street shots.
Please take a look and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Roy

http://pedlar.photopoints.com

Outstanding! Would you mind sharing a little about your methods? How much post-picture processing? Filters? Favorite shooting mode? Lenses?

Your ability to capture color combinations and your composition is excellent, no doubt about it. I totally enjoyed looking through it all.

[pedlaruk]

Thanks for that feedback on the callibration. I have got a reasonable monitor (Iiyama visionmaster 450 Pro) and a high spec graphics card so it would be worth getting the most out of them! I will have a look into the products you mentioned.

On the other point you mentioned, as a web designer I am very familiar with the JPEG lossy problems. I have not started using RAW with the camera yet though I have tried it out a couple of times. I tend to use the top JPEG mode but once I move the image to the PC and start working on it I only then Save As or export what I have done. I always keep the original image that came from the camera intact for the very reason you described.
I think it's one of those things that people getting into manipulating images learn the hard way! If I ever make a mistake and while I'm working on a new image in Photoshop accidentally save instead as save as then I am so angry with myself as you can't get back the original!

Thanks again for your feedback. Do you have a gallery of your images online at all as I'm interested in viewing your work.

regards, Roy

John_T wrote:
Sorry Roy, I was away for a few days and got lost in several projects.

As for calibrating your monitor, I can only say don't waste your time on eyeball calibration with Adobe Gamma or the dozens of other software techniques. They are all subjective and "relative". Get a colorimeter such as Colorvision Spyder with PhotoCal or OptiCal and do it with that. Especially if you have a decent monitor and graphic card, you will know what you have is dependable and once you see your monitor properly calibrated and profiled you will never go back.

While we are at it, something that has become a major issue for me at the moment. After about the second save on a jpeg, your image goes downhill pretty quickly. I shoot RAW now and convert immediately to TIFF. But in the past, being a bit lazy-brained and in a hurry to play with images, I've fixed and fussed with the jpeg, maybe saved it a few times, and even come back later and done it again. Now when I go back to my favorite jpeg pix I see the error of my ways compared to the RAW > TIFF route now. Something to take a hard look at, especially for someone like you who really likes what you are doing and are good at it.

[pedlaruk]

Thanks for the feedback and I'm really glad that you enjoyed my gallery.
Obviously there are a lot of pictures on there (nearly 80 now) and so there is such a wide range of settings, PS work and effects in use.
Most of the images are from the G3 without any adaptors or lenses although some of the more recent closeups were taken using a +15 filter on the Canon 58mm adaptor.
I never use Auto mode on the camera, usally 'P' or depending on situations I'll use 'Tv' or 'Av'

The night shots of Valencia were all in 'Av' mode set to F8 to get the best Depth of Field and the camera was on a 6 inch tripod with the pictures taken at 1 or 2 seconds exposure.

I always try to stick to ISO 50 unless the situation really forces me to up the speed a bit - this would only really be for action shots to get a higher shutter speed.

Since I have got hold of the Canon filter adaptor,I leave a Skylight filter on at all times though I don't think that this makes a huge difference - it's mainly to keep the dust off the lens itself.

Other than that, if there are any specific images that you want more details about then I have the EXIF data for all the pictures which will show all of the settings I used.

Thanks again for your interest.

Please feel free to email me at pedlar99@yahoo.co.uk if you prefer.


benca1 wrote:
pedlaruk wrote:
Hi all

I have a reasonably large number of pictures posted at Photopoints that I think show the versatility of the G3 in a variety of situations.
There are macros, night shots, landscape and street shots.
Please take a look and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Roy

http://pedlar.photopoints.com

Outstanding! Would you mind sharing a little about your methods? How much post-picture processing? Filters? Favorite shooting mode? Lenses?

Your ability to capture color combinations and your composition is excellent, no doubt about it. I totally enjoyed looking through it all.

[astroman]

John,
I looked at Roy's gallery and I am at something of a loss about the color quality you are describing. The colors in his photos look every bit as vibrant as my own and I don't own a "professional" monitor (well, it says Professional Series Viewsonic PF790) and I use Adobe Gamma. In fact, all of the photos look great.

Just my $.02

Mike
John_T wrote:
Sorry Roy, I was away for a few days and got lost in several projects.

As for calibrating your monitor, I can only say don't waste your time on eyeball calibration with Adobe Gamma or the dozens of other software techniques. They are all subjective and "relative". Get a colorimeter such as Colorvision Spyder with PhotoCal or OptiCal and do it with that. Especially if you have a decent monitor and graphic card, you will know what you have is dependable and once you see your monitor properly calibrated and profiled you will never go back.

While we are at it, something that has become a major issue for me at the moment. After about the second save on a jpeg, your image goes downhill pretty quickly. I shoot RAW now and convert immediately to TIFF. But in the past, being a bit lazy-brained and in a hurry to play with images, I've fixed and fussed with the jpeg, maybe saved it a few times, and even come back later and done it again. Now when I go back to my favorite jpeg pix I see the error of my ways compared to the RAW > TIFF route now. Something to take a hard look at, especially for someone like you who really likes what you are doing and are good at it.