Do we have any photographers?

[maniac]

No, for real! You can modify the standard firmware on Canon machines to let you save RAW images on compacts, do other processing, all sorts of fun stuff. I'll have to find the URL now...

 

--

David Hicks

 

I think this is what you're looking for, and it works brilliently!

 

CHDK in Brief - CHDK Wiki

 

Sorry if you've just spent the last ten minutes looking, but I happened to have it to hand.

 

Mike.

[Netman]

If I told you that, I'd have to kill you!

 

It's actually neither of the above, although I have used photomatix before until I discovered This - It's so much easier than photomatix, with pretty interesting results as you can see.

 

Mike.

 

Great - that's worth some rep... thanks. I was just about to pull the trigger and buy Photomatix but will definitely try that first...

[john]

Lots of good advice here:

Digital camera photo galleries, gallery database, info and forums

 

Would avoid Sony unless you are "budget restricted" - the range of lenses is poor compared to Nikon & Canon...

ouch Tom thats a bit harsh, (its like saying that smoothwall is budget constrained as its about £8K less than the equivalent Websense package - im joking btw yours is far better!!). As for your gripe with them, just buy the Minolta lenses and theres many many hundreds of them so plenty of choice and range of them

[DrummerBoy]

I have had my Nikon D70 (with the S firmware update) for a few years now, and I love it.

 

Ebay is you friend for lenses, and you don't have to buy the Nikon lenses, just 3rd party lenses with Nikon thread mounts.

 

I have the 55mm lens that came with the camera, but bought a fixed focus f1.8 50mm lens on eBay for £50, and also a 55-300mm Sigma lens which as been fantastic.

 

My top tip is, if you are thinking of shooting a lot of fast drive mode shots such as car races (or horse eventing if you are me) is to buy a more expensive high speed memory card (such as the San Disk Extreme and Ultra ranges). As what can happen is that your camera buffers the first few frames locally and then has to write them to the memory card. The faster the card the more shots you can take before the frame rate slows down.

[tom_newton]

ouch Tom thats a bit harsh, (its like saying that smoothwall is budget constrained as its about £8K less than the equivalent Websense package - im joking btw yours is far better!!). As for your gripe with them, just buy the Minolta lenses and theres many many hundreds of them so plenty of choice and range of them

 

I guess it might be a spot harsh I should admit now that I really don't like Sony kit of any type. Hmm... that reminds me - I need to re-image this bloody VAIO... we have only 3 left here, this one's going to live with those nice lads in tech support

 

Back OT... even with minolta lenses you are looking at a lesser range, and Canon & Nikon have more lively 2nd hand markets.

[tom_newton]

My top tip is, if you are thinking of shooting a lot of fast drive mode shots such as car races (or horse eventing if you are me) is to buy a more expensive high speed memory card (such as the San Disk Extreme and Ultra ranges). As what can happen is that your camera buffers the first few frames locally and then has to write them to the memory card. The faster the card the more shots you can take before the frame rate slows down.

 

My top tip is... follow this guy's top tip whatever - you should ALWAYS shoot in "burst" mode - even if you are taking weddings, it means you're less likely to get one with people blinking, and you have 3 or 4 subtly different shots to pick the best (great for that confetti-shot). You will never regret a high speed memory card.. unless you buy on ebay which is full of fakes I have found it OK for lenses tho, got my 75-300IS on eBay

[Little-Miss]

Oh, i learnt that tip for myself. My canon Ixus doesnt have any kind of anti-shake function on it and i haven't got the steadiest of hands so i find my canons "burst mode" helps a lot, especially with the Macros.

[cjturnpike]

Used both for over 20 Years, theres nothing in it, except the Nikon let me down on a Wedding shoot, and the Canons never have. L Series lenses are truely amazing....C

[beeswax]

saw this in Sunday's Observer

[mac_shinobi]

Oh, i learnt that tip for myself. My canon Ixus doesnt have any kind of anti-shake function on it and i haven't got the steadiest of hands so i find my canons "burst mode" helps a lot, especially with the Macros.

 

I've got an IXUS - wish I could have a digital SLR camera - I would most likely be in the same situation with regards to which camera to get lol.

 

I don't seem to have a problem when taking photos though - press the button down half way to zoom and then press the rest of the way to take the picture

[westleya]

I've got a Little Pentax K100D. Avoided the typical old CaNikon path as I've always liked Pentax kit and I can use some REALLY old lenses with this camera.

 

I've had some of the best pictures I've ever taken with this camera, have also used it to shoot two weddings...it's good money if you've got the balls to do it

 

Getting a K20D this year to go with it and am seriously thinking about some part time portrait work soon.

[SteveBentley]

Depending on what you'll be taking pictures of, you might find a tripod handy - just a cheap (£20) one will probably do fine.

 

The advice I've been given is that for things like long exposure work a cheapo tripod will probably not be sufficiently stable. Mine cost about £70 from Calumet and is rock solid.

[westleya]

I've done quite a bit of this. I bought some old projector screens (for £1 each ), kept a few white and painted the others with some poster paint and a sponge. They make very nice backgrounds and cost next to nothing.

 

For lighting, I bought two second-hand Jessops Portaflash studio lights (£50 each) and a wide angle background light (to light the background and stop nasty shadows on the background)....

 

Good idea for backgrounds - I've found some really good studio lighting kits for not too much money (including an infra red or radio trigger), but the cost of background frames seems a bit steep considering there's not much too it !

 

Where are you placing your wide andgle background light ?

[powdarrmonkey]

OR - and this is an excellent option if your budget is tight - a 50mm f1.8 non-zoom (prime) lens. You can pick these up for peanuts and the image quality will be as good as, or better than, ANY lens (apart from, say a 50mm f1.4 = ££££)

 

I have this and can't rave enough about it, especially considering it was £80. It's f/1.8, so it's perfect for getting a shallow depth of field for portraits, and for my low-light work in theatre.

[SteveBentley]

I've just got the Sony A200 and I'm loving it and playing with HDR.

 

Here's a couple of my HDR efforts

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/3013539032_86d89e65ae.jpg

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/3050801224_db151b55b8.jpg