-=1DS Mark II Admirers, congregate!

And some more:

Went for a quality hike in Strathcona Park. 21km in 8 hours (2 hours worth of breaks and picture taking included) with a full load of camera gear, in 30C weather. I was pretty spent afterwards. These 4 were all with the 24TS

Playing with the reverse tilt.

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WOW!

Excellent series of photos, Shea!

That park looks like a wonderful place to get away from it all and you certainly got some great shots of it! The humming birds were nice too!

I think I'm going to do a similar trip, up north to Algonquin park, here in Ontario next week and get away from my sun set shots for a while!

The one I just posted was not an HDR, btw. Just caught the light at the right moment and processed it carefully afterward. The lens flare was actually there in the original and just helped along a bit in post.

Cheers!

Thanks Jeff! The park is a great place, especially once you get away from the well-travelled day-hike trails.

That's amazing that you were able to get that much detail out of the foreground and sky with one exposure. I thought for sure there was at least a 2 exposure blend going on there.

sheawyatt wrote in post #8230759
Thanks Jeff! The park is a great place, especially once you get away from the well-travelled day-hike trails.

That's amazing that you were able to get that much detail out of the foreground and sky with one exposure. I thought for sure there was at least a 2 exposure blend going on there.

I've been learning to shoot completely manually over the past few weeks and am getting better at working with and trusting the light meter in the camera to adjust my exposure settings. Prior to that, I was always shooting in the Av mode, paying almost no attention to the meter in the camera and blowing a ton of shots. Manual is truly the way to go when you have the time to set up your shots.

I've also been using the raw converter in my Photoshop Elements program to do the conversions as it seems to have more shadow extraction powers then DPP and that's also helped me to gt some truly HDR like results without the multiple exposures.

And back to your pictures;

I really liked the tilt shift pics you posted and the light trail through the trees was my favorite. You mentioned a reverse tilt setting for that shot. Was that to flatten out the tree-lined hill you were shooting? I was sort of puzzled by that one. Could you explain a bit more about that scene and why you chose to shoot it that way? I'm always interesting in learning!

Cheers!

I agree on the manual setting for shots that you have time to set up. I shoot 80-90% manual all the time, unless there is action or rapidly changing light.

As for the reverse tilt, it is basically using the tilt function to limit the DOF rather than extending it. If you look at the picture of the trees, the image is OOF to either side of the light, but sharp from foreground to background along a 'wedge' of focus. That was achieved by tilting the lens in the horizontal plane, rather than the vertical (which would be done if I wanted an infinite DOF). Here is an older shot where I used a similar technique:

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Cool!

So you used that adjustment more so to create a focus zone more so then to do perspective corrections! Very interesting!

About the mosquitoes, that's a huge problem here too at this time of year, especially with the cooler summer we've had so far, the black flies and mosquitoes are thick and hungry!

I remember going up north a couple of years ago and had to be covered from head to toe, even wearing gloves and netting over my head and still came back from the trip with hundreds of bites on my wrists, where there was a tiny gap for them to get in and bite me when I was shooting. It made it incredibly difficult to really concentrate on my shooting and ended up with a bunch of rotten pictures and the firm idea to never go back to the woods at that time of year again!

Kudos to you for surviving and coming away with some some very good shots!

Cheers!

sheawyatt wrote in post #8230693
Being mobbed by hummingbirds at the feeder -- there were up to 25 at the feeder at a time, which made for some great photo ops.

Excuse me...

Got lucky on this one. I prefocused on an area away from the feeder where they were hovering before going in, and got a couple sharp shots. This is the full frame with 300L + 1.4XTC. I could have used 8.5 fps here, but I only had my 1Ds with me.

Resting in the tree.

I need to get me a hummingbird feeder!

Oh, nice shots btw.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. The tilt is used to manipulate the focus zone, while the shift is for correcting perspective.

The worst part about the bugs was that I forgot to pack any sort of bug spray...I thought it was in my bag, but once I got out there it was definitely missing. Fortunately the breeze picked up a bit once I was out of the woods, so the bugs were blown away for most of the day. I just hightailed it through any wooded parts after the first few attempts to take pictures, as the bugs were unbearable.

To me, this camera pretty much defines "subtle". It doesn't pop or scream at you, it just renders things so... wonderfully.

Ping,

Really love that second shot!

Great composition!

Cheers!

My friend has a 1Ds2 with 12 (yes, a dozen) clicks. His dad (not a photographer) got it as a gift years ago and barely took it out of the box. Now he has it and is looking to sell.

Anyway, I've currently got a 5d2. I've never really used the video features and I'd love to have the better AF system. I'm going to have to read through this thread!

jvolkman wrote in post #8266562
My friend has a 1Ds2 with 12 (yes, a dozen) clicks. His dad (not a photographer) got it as a gift years ago and barely took it out of the box. Now he has it and is looking to sell.

Anyway, I've currently got a 5d2. I've never really used the video features and I'd love to have the better AF system. I'm going to have to read through this thread!

Who buys a 1Ds II for a non-photographer?

Jman13 wrote in post #8266660
Who buys a 1Ds II for a non-photographer?

At the time he was a PA state senator. I don't ask questions...

Even with unlimited funds, that's a silly purchase. No non-photographer wants a 1D body...for the non-photographer, they are too complicated, too big and WAY too heavy.