If you could have any kind of camera (even non-existant ones) what would you choose?

On 2015-07-27 03:16:15 +0000, Bill W said:

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 19:07:28 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2015-07-27 00:52:49 +0000, Bill W said:
I'll try again this year with a better lens, and with more knowledge of the
correct setup for the camera.

What camera? What are your current lenses?

Remember, I'm married to Pentax after all these years. I'm not
interested in the expense of switching at this stage. Anyway, it's a
K3, 24 MP, so I can do more cropping now, too. I was using Pentax kit
lenses, and a Sigma walk-around 18-250 more recently. I finally had my
Sigma 70-200 F2.8 repaired for focus issues, so I plan to try that,
and maybe add the Pentax teleconverter.

Forget teleconverters they do nothing for IQ. With a 25MP sensor you
have the room to more than compensate for any TC.

As far as correct setup goes, just ask.

This very issue came up here a few months ago, and I ran over to my
camera to set everything, and then saved it in one of the user slots.

In good light at air shows I find that shooting at ISO400-ISO500 set at
f/8 gives me good DoF and shutter speeds of 1/500 - 1/800. Others might
differ.

I am not familiar with the Pentax AF system or modes and if they have
something similar to Nikon's setup that is what I would be using. In my
case Continuous Focus (CF), 51 Point 3D-Tracking, and continuous
shutter release.

I might even head to an air race here in
town in October. Never been to one of those.

So you are in Reno, or at least nearby.

Las Vegas: http://www.redbullairrace.com/en_US/...las-vegas-2015

I'm also just a few miles down the road from Nellis AFB, and the Red
Flag exercises are going on now. I was hoping for some shots there,
but I haven't heard anything taking off. It seems it's mostly
classroom training for now. If I hear activity, I can race over there
in 10 or 15 minutes.

You could always rent something like this for one of the events.
http://www.cameralensrentals.com/Product/Pentax%20300mm%20f/4.0%20ED%20(IF)%20DA/

--


Regards,

Savageduck

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 20:46:21 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2015-07-27 03:16:15 +0000, Bill W said:

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 19:07:28 -0700, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2015-07-27 00:52:49 +0000, Bill W said:
I'll try again this year with a better lens, and with more knowledge of the
correct setup for the camera.

What camera? What are your current lenses?

Remember, I'm married to Pentax after all these years. I'm not
interested in the expense of switching at this stage. Anyway, it's a
K3, 24 MP, so I can do more cropping now, too. I was using Pentax kit
lenses, and a Sigma walk-around 18-250 more recently. I finally had my
Sigma 70-200 F2.8 repaired for focus issues, so I plan to try that,
and maybe add the Pentax teleconverter.

Forget teleconverters they do nothing for IQ. With a 25MP sensor you
have the room to more than compensate for any TC.

As far as correct setup goes, just ask.

This very issue came up here a few months ago, and I ran over to my
camera to set everything, and then saved it in one of the user slots.

In good light at air shows I find that shooting at ISO400-ISO500 set at
f/8 gives me good DoF and shutter speeds of 1/500 - 1/800. Others might
differ.

Looking over my photos, most of them are at about the same settings,
except for the ISO. I'm usually at 100 or 200.

I am not familiar with the Pentax AF system or modes and if they have
something similar to Nikon's setup that is what I would be using. In my
case Continuous Focus (CF), 51 Point 3D-Tracking, and continuous
shutter release.

I think I'm at 9 point to narrow the focus area some. There is too
much background from my location.

I might even head to an air race here in
town in October. Never been to one of those.

So you are in Reno, or at least nearby.

Las Vegas: http://www.redbullairrace.com/en_US/...las-vegas-2015

I'm also just a few miles down the road from Nellis AFB, and the Red
Flag exercises are going on now. I was hoping for some shots there,
but I haven't heard anything taking off. It seems it's mostly
classroom training for now. If I hear activity, I can race over there
in 10 or 15 minutes.

You could always rent something like this for one of the events.
http://www.cameralensrentals.com/Product/Pentax%20300mm%20f/4.0%20ED%20(IF)%20DA/

That's too long. I don't actually attend the shows, I set up on a side
street outside the base. The planes come very close, and they won't
fit in a 300mm frame (450 equivalent). The 70-200 Sigma has pretty
good quality, at least now that it's repaired.

In article , Tony Cooper
wrote:

As for the 'image sensor' in my camera, a very critical part of the
imaging chain, it has been updated frequently since 1964- every time the
film manufacturers introduce a new film, I get an updated image sensor.

and one that is nowhere near as good digital sensors.

you're living in the past.

Let me know when you are ready to compare enlargements (Let's say
16"x20" or more) of your photos against mine.

be careful for what you ask for.

No need to be careful. You will never meet that challenge. Probably
for very good reason.

nothing more than bashing.

it doesn't matter if i take the photo, if you take the photo or if
ansel adams came back from the dead and took the photo. digital
surpassed film long ago.

digital will smoke anything coming out of your 50 year old film camera.

"Smoke" has more substance than anything you've shown us.

more of your bashing.

now who is the one blowing smoke?

In article , Eric Stevens
wrote:

Let me know when you are ready to compare enlargements (Let's say
16"x20" or more) of your photos against mine.

be careful for what you ask for.

digital will smoke anything coming out of your 50 year old film camera.

It depends on the 50 year old camera.

no it doesn't.

In article , Andreas Skitsnack
wrote:

Andreas Skitsnack:
The more important point is that photographers were able to
accomplish things like in-focus shots of rapidly moving objects
before autofocus.

nospam:
actually they weren't.

Photographers were not able to photograph rapidly moving objects
before autofocus?

The line from nospam you replied to initially:

"good luck trying to maintain focus on a moving object without autofocus."

For someone fluent in English, this would be clear that "being able to
photograph rapidly moving objects" and "try to maintain focus on a moving
object" aren't the same thing.

I grew up in Indianapolis, and attended the Indianapolis 500 mile
race many times in the 1950s. Photographers were photographing race
cars speeding around the track then. Horse races were photographed
then. Track meets were photographed. All kinds of sports photos
were taken.

What wasn't taken, however, was a series of shots of a moving object that moved
out of the first photos focus range and was perfectly focused for the second,
third etc. With manual focus, continuous focusing is extremely hard, which is
why shots were mostly pre-focused back then.

nospam:
what they were able to do was wait for the subject to be in a
particular spot and then take a photo, hoping it will be a good
one.

Sure...we do that today. Most of my better baseball shots are
because I anticipated where the action would be. When I get the
ball in the photo when the catcher snags a pop-up or when the ball
is just in front of the mitt of the first baseman on a put-out, it
isn't because I track the ball.

No one takes pictures of the ball alone. You aim the camera towards the action,
or where the action is possibly going to occur, and then let continuous
autofocus handle the rest. I sure *hope* you're not using single autofocus and
prefocusing on where you think the action will be and then take pictures. Your
cameras AF-C is a lot smarter than you and when photographing action, should be
on at all times.

Anticipating the action is what any good sports action photographer
does. They don't track.

That's a big pile of horse ****. *EVERY* sports action photographer tracks the
action with their camera. These are the photographers that buys the Nikon D4,
which has top of the line AF-C and a high frame rate.

You might follow an eligible receiver in football and hope to get
that shot of him catching the ball, but you don't track the ball.
You can follow the player with manual focus.

Not really, no. Unless it's a really sunny day and you're using a very small
aperture.

nospam:
if something happened at a different spot, then they were out of
luck.

We still are. You don't track a football, baseball, tennis ball or
hockey puck.

But you DO track the action on the field. No one has talked about the football
or baseball.

You prepare the shot in anticipation of where the
object will be. Sometimes it doesn't work out right.

If you use a Nikon D4 and AF-C, most of the times it works perfectly. If you
manually prefocus, most of the times it will not work out. Simple as that.

nospam:
taking photos of rapidly moving subjects with tracking focus is
very different and something that was not possible back then.

Sometimes I wonder if you ever really photograph anything. You
obviously don't understand how action photos are taken if you think
tracking is the only way it's possible to get a good photo that
involves a rapidly moving person or object.

What nospam wrote above is true. You can't refute that, so you question his
competence and then change the subject to merely photographing a moving object,
instead of *tracking focus* on a moving object which is what nospam talked
about.

It's easier today to get the ball or the race car in the picture,
but it's ignorant to say that photographers weren't able to before
autofocus.

Since no one has said that, this is a non sequitur.

--
Sandman

On 7/26/15 10:14 PM, in article ,
"Eric Stevens" wrote:

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 20:27:36 -0400, nospam
wrote:

In article , Ken Hart
wrote:

As for the 'image sensor' in my camera, a very critical part of the
imaging chain, it has been updated frequently since 1964- every time the
film manufacturers introduce a new film, I get an updated image sensor.

and one that is nowhere near as good digital sensors.

you're living in the past.

Let me know when you are ready to compare enlargements (Let's say
16"x20" or more) of your photos against mine.

be careful for what you ask for.

digital will smoke anything coming out of your 50 year old film camera.

It depends on the 50 year old camera.

Forget it. Nospam knows all - so he thinks...

In article , Andreas Skitsnack wrote:

Savageduck:
Personally at air shows I don't listen for surprise targets, I
acquire the target visually. Then any aircraft making a low
pass is usually following a very predictable path, either from
left to right, or right to left, right in front of me. With a
manual focus camera, I could in days past, pan with the target
as it made its pass. Fortunately, these days I am blessed with
multi-AF points, 3D-Tracking, continuous AF, and a frame rate
of 8 fps.

nospam:
in other words, tracking autofocus lets you get photos you could
never have taken before.

Dropping a grenade in the water lets you get more fish that you'd
get learning how to cast a fly.

In photography, the goal of the amateur is better, not more.

It's funny you should make comments about nospam not being a real photographers
and then spew this nonsense.

With AF-C you get more *and* better shots, and for a sports photographer, this is
by far the ideal situation. Instead of having a manual focus camera and the
hassle with film rolls, you have a camera that can follow and maintain focus on
the subjects when taking 12 frames per second in burst shots, meaning that when
you get home, you probably have an order of magnitude more great photos than the
guy with the manual camera could ever hope to get in the same scenario.

Can you take a picture of a moving subject with a manual focus camera? Of course.

Can you track and maintain focus on a moving subjects with a manual focus camera?
Very unlikely, and not reliably. You can get lucky, but most of the time, you're
not going to succeed.

--
Sandman

In article , Eric Stevens wrote:

nospam:
they can also bias the automatic modes for specific situations,
such as shutter priority with a fast shutter speed for stopping
motion or choosing a specific autofocus mode for subject tracking.

good luck trying to maintain focus on a moving object without
autofocus.

Louis Klemantaski seemed to be able to manage it
http://tinyurl.com/nptnnqc

None of those photos are examples of a photographer *maintaining* focus on a
moving subject, they are all photos of moving subjects, taken at the right time,
i.e. when the subject was within the lens focusing distance. This is usually done
with pre-focusing, and sometimes with trap focus (which is a version of pre-
focusing).

Maintaining focus means that you take a series of photos of a subject that moves
out of the focusing distance between the shots, meaning that each photo needs to
be re-focused for the new distance to the subject. This is what nospam
(correctly) points out is very hard with a manual focus camera.

--
Sandman

On 7/26/2015 7:44 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , George Kerby
wrote:

It's called "skill": something that is not appreciated much these days,
sadly...

nonsense. there's just as much skill needed now if not more so than
there ever was in the old days because technology has opened up so many
more opportunities that were not possible before.

True


those stuck in the old school mindset don't have the skills to use the
new technology, which is why they like to bash it.


It looks to me that George is not doing any bashing. If anyone is
bashing, it's you. There is no question that the new technologies make
wildlife photography easier. But, one still need to anticipate what the
critter might do. e.g. You miss that shot of the osprey flying into his
nest. With a reasonable knowledge of osprey behavior you can anticipate
what he might do next. You see the bird flying with his catch. If its an
osprey you will wait in vain for that shot of him bringing the live fish
into his nest. If you want to shoot humming birds in the wild, you might
reasonably anticipate that species favorite plant. etc.



--
PeterN

Bill W wrote:
On Mon, 27 Jul 2015 01:40:57 +0000 (UTC), Peter Irwin
wrote:

Assuming that the UFO is the size of a small manned aircraft, and your
distance and focal length is such that the whole craft fits into
your field of view, then you will be fine with hyperfocal focussing
even as wide as f/4.

I'm surprised to see this. I'll assume that you are correct, but how
is it determined when this is true? Is it simply the fact that
something that size fits into the field of view, or is there a more
accurate way to determine this?

If you are using a 50mm lens with a 35mm camera, your field of view
at 50 feet is 24 feet by 36 feet. If you are using a 28mm lens then
your field of view at 28 feet will also be 24' x 36'. The same goes for
a 300mm lens at 300 feet. If you then set the focus to 100 feet for
the 50mm lens, a DOF calculator will show that everything from
50 feet to infinity will be in focus at f/3.6 for a circle
of confusion of 0.025mm. For the 28mm lens this will be true from
28 feet to infinity with the lens focussed at 56 feet.

Depth of field is strongly related to amount of reduction from object
to image. A reduction of 300 times (one foot to one mm) gives you
a lot of depth of field even at large relative apertures.

Peter.
--