General Craft & DIY discussion

Are you a picture taker? What do you use? How do you feel about film versus digital cameras?

I am so happy to have digital photography. I started out with a very nice Nikon 35mm & spent hours reading up on how to take photos. And then I took them by the roll. I agree with Foxtower about the 2 decent photos per roll, especially at horse shows. Rarely a decent one at an indoor arena, even with the help of a good camera shop. There doesn't seem to be any decent shops left, though.

My nifty new digital cameras can take multiple shots at the touch of a button & catch the horse perfectly coming over a jump or at the trot. I just delete the other dozen. They handle light excellently & even take video at the flip of switch. Simple software like Irfanview lets me crop & do simple manipulations quickly. It just doesn't get any better.

I have Leica's; a C-Lux 3 that I carry on my hip all the time & a V-Lux4 for better shots. I'm not as fond of the C-Lux 3 as I was of the C-Lux 2 I had before it. It has more bells & whistles (few of which I use) but isn't quite as fast as the v2 which is one of the big pluses compared to the cheaper digital cameras. The optics are the other huge difference. My wife's cheap Sony supposedly zooms as far, but the Leica's picture is almost twice as close & much better. I like the Sony for indoor automatic shots better, though.

I also have a Canon Rebel with several different lenses. It's close to a pro camera & more than I need. I'd like to sell it, but so far haven't had any luck. While it takes great pictures, it's too large to lug around. I'd rather be out doing stuff & take pictures as I get the chance rather than going out to take pictures.

I love photography and vintage film cameras are among my favorite things. I use both digital and film. Digital is handy for travel, since you don't need to worry about hauling around film, finding a place to develop it, or finding quality film to fit your budget at your travel destination. The drawback of the digital medium, though, is the fact that there is no archival evidence of a photograph having been taken. Sure, everyone thinks that their hard drive or flash drive will last forever - but what happens if you don't have a power source, if you encounter a strong magnetic field? Your data is inaccessible or completely wiped, that's what. This is not the case when you have a negative.

Old cameras are built to last. A machined metal camera body gives a comforting weight, reassuring you that if maintained properly, the equipment will undoubtedly outlast you. I have much more confidence in any of my Minolta SRTs, my Pentax K1000, and any of my mid-century German 35mm cameras (Zeiss Ikon, Voigtlander, Agfa, and Exacta) than in my Canon DSLR. With an all-mechanical camera, you don't have to worry about batteries. You do need to know some of the art and technique of true photography in order to get consistently good images, though - to me, this means that I am always learning something new, always have new secrets to discover. That's what keeps me ticking. And clicking.

It sounds like you're a pretty serious photographer, Mathew. How many cameras do you have? Where do you get your film processed now?

Backups are tricky for digital media. I keep pretty good backups, but still have lost a few pictures over the years. If they're kept on 2 drives, it's unlikely you'll lose any, but even then they need to be moved to a third drive every few years & checked. Backup software can have glitches, especially when a drive starts to go bad. I don't know what happened, but the last time I created a backup of my pictures, all of 2011 looked like it was there - a folder created for each group of pictures - but there weren't any pictures in the folders! Luckily, I had checked & still had the original drive, so got them all back.

Unless you have a good filing system, film can be there, but be about impossible to find. If you do find it, will you know what it is? It takes more dedication than I've ever been able to muster to really keep a good photographic record. I still haven't completed text files & annotations for all the pictures I took last year. There's quite a few of them.

Somewhere around I've buried my old Pentax, along with the electronic Nikon I bought just to do photo's of the murals I painted when I had my business. Also several old cameras hidden away in a drawer... built to last but you can't even buy 120 film anymore....

Add filters, flashes, meters, multiple lenses and with the loss of photo processing and my favorite Kodak film (they all went digital in 2003) even if I could figure out the darkroom I'll never be able to afford to purchase all that stuff again for a digital outfit that recreates all the flexibility and fun I had solving photo problems.

Progress I guess.

Now I use a cheap HP whatever that works just fine. I don't work so I don't need professinal quality photos, but the digital camera in the right light does a good job as I keep adding to my protfolio, with an 8x10 glossy costing pennies now. The rules I learned for film cameras still apply, such as lighting, exposure, etc., but it's much easier to create things like the banner for this forum when I can take seven photos, "filter", trim, adjust, resize, and overlay on multiple layers to align them before smushing them all together to create one photo that tells a story.

My favorite books about photography beyond the basic More Joy Of Photographyis the Time Life series Light and Film: Time Life Library of Photography that covers everything in seventeen volumes. ( a library book sale purchase... $5 for all but the book titled "the camera" which I found on ABEbooks to complete the set,).

I don't know how many cameras I have. I went on a vintage camera buying spree when I got out of the army, then was out of the country for a while and only used digital during that time. I've just gotten back into serious photography in the past few months. Back to scouring garage sales, thrift shops, pawn shops, and internet auctions for classic gear that interests me. It also helps that one of the nation's premier antique camera restoration experts has a shop 20 minutes from where I live. I've learned more about cameras and photography in a few trips to the man's shop than I have in 35 years of exploring photography as an amateur.

Though not available at Wal-Mart or any other big box stores, 120 film is still available via online vendors. Like anything else, it's cheaper if you buy in bulk. If you like black and white, buy expired film - as long as it's been kept cool (room temp or lower) it should be ok to use. I love using my Yashicamat 124 twin lens reflex. Tricky to get used to the viewfinder, since it's not parallax corrected, but fun all the same.

As for processing, there are two local places I go to: Mastercolor for color film processing, and Dalmatian Custom Black & White for b/w processing. I am looking into processing my own b/w negatives though. All you really need is the film tank, the chemicals, a dark room (I will use an interior bathroom with a towel stuffed under the door), and a little bit of time.

Serious photographer? Only so far as I'm serious about learning historical methods and using vintage equipment. I'm not a professional - professionals get paid to do what they do. I am a true amateur - I do it because I enjoy it. Though, truth be told, if someone wanted to give me money for pictures, I wouldn't turn it down.

I've heard B&W developing isn't too hard. Marg did some in college, but that color film is trickier & very temperature sensitive. I wonder how those machines in Walmart do it so fast & what they cost.

I sold my old Nikkormat with some lenses for $650 last year on Ebay. I also sold my first digital camera, an old Sony that could use a 3.5" floppy disk. I think I got $50 for that, but can't recall.

I should sell the Canon, but haven't gotten around to it & kind of hate to. I rarely use it, but it's the only one that has a remote. I got some great hummingbird pictures with it that way.

What do you use to edit your digital photos My computer came with Picasa.

For viewing & quick, simple editing, I use a free program called Irfanview
http://www.irfanview.com/

It views a ton of formats & also does batch conversions & re-sizing, so I can cut a bunch of 5mb pictures down to 500kb or so for posting on the web with a couple of clicks. The newer versions allow simple drawing & text. While viewing, it's easy to copy an area & copy it to a new picture, too. That's basically cropping it down, but it leaves the original alone, which I prefer. It will also do simple adjustments in colors, contrasts, & such with a click or two.

For actual editing... I try to avoid it, but use Paint Shop Pro when I must. I have a fancy Adobe product, but don't have a clue how to use it nor the interest to learn.

The Nikkormat is a true classic. I've got a Nikkorex and a couple lenses that I'm going to get rid of - just not a Nikon fan. Minolta made better cameras and lenses, but never captured the market share that Nikon and Canon did - much cheaper to buy vintage Minolta stuff because of that.

For many years, doing almost professional photography for commissioned portraits of dogs and horses and advertising photos for my horses, I used a Canon T50 with 75-200 zoom lens. Great camera and still have it, use it occasionally but difficult now to find developing.

I use a pretty basic digital camera now for almost everything but miss the telephoto lens and the auto-advance and shoot capacity of the Canon. They do have those options now on some of the higher end digital cameras but I simply don't use that enough to justify the considerable investment.

I do quite a lot of photoshopping for my horse advertising photos and have always used PaintShopPro. They do keep 'improving' and adding to it with new versions but it's a little easier to start from something I already know how to use than try to start with another program entirely.

Jim wrote: "For viewing & quick, simple editing, I use a free program called Irfanview
http://www.irfanview.com/

It views a ton of formats & also does batch conversions & re-sizing, so I can cut a bunch of 5m..."

Jim, thanks. I'll check it out.

Sharon wrote: "For many years, doing almost professional photography for commissioned portraits of dogs and horses and advertising photos for my horses, I used a Canon T50 with 75-200 zoom lens. Great camera and ..."

I'm a bird watcher and take many pictures of birds. Then need to crop a bit - as I capture the bird along with other objects I'm not interested in saving.

The ability to take video so easily now is fantastic. Marg & Erin went to look at a pony yesterday & they took a couple of videos as the pony was lunged. Last night they spent an hour going over them in detail, pausing to check out every action.

Of course, it has its downsides, too. I think they're talking themselves into getting it. We already have 5 on about 9 acres of pasture. The rule of thumb is an acre per horse, but we've found that 2 acres per horse is better. The soil here is pretty thin & the fields are pretty beat up now. We're going to have to over-seed a few places & close different fields off for a while.

If they would get rid of one, it would be OK, but this guy is only 3.5 years old & not even saddle-broke, so he's got a long way to go before Marg will be willing to give Cutter up. We might lose some, anyway. Blue (25) & Speedy (30+) are both pretty old, so one of them could go at any time. We might just put both down when the other one goes. Erin will be moving to Nashville soon. Depending on finances, she'd like to take Topaz. That's a pretty expensive proposition, though.

Good photos and good video have been a necessity in my life ever since I started breeding horses. I started out with warmbloods ... in MT ... where there weren't many close enough to go look at in person and very few buyers. With shipped semen available on stallions and most of my potential buyers on either the east coast or the west coast, most of my outside mares were booked to my stallions on the basis of video and most of my buyers bought from video as well.

As far as that goes, most of my foundation warmbloods and Connemara Ponies were purchased from videotapes as well.

That has been primarily true for all of the 20-plus years I've bred horses 'seriously', even in KY. I think in the 12+ years I've been here I've only had four buyers come to the farm to look at sale horses and just three outside mare owners bring mares here to be bred.

The photography club has a meeting on Thursday and we are all excited because we are taking portraits using a film camera. This is really big for us because we are all teenagers in a digital-centered world. Turns out my mother has an old film camera with exchangeable lens. I hope she lets me try using it this summer, maybe get some pictures of me and my friend, we don't have any recent ones.

I know a few good picture editing sites.
http://ipiccy.com/ is completely free.
http://www.picmonkey.com/ is partially free. Some of the better features you need to register for, but as to whether or not it's free I don't know.

What fun! I so enjoyed film and the challenge of creating a good photo that would never be "edited". I had to understand the film, the camera settings, the light and the composition.

Now I'm spoiled... regardless of the loss in quality (digital can't do diagonal lines worth a darn!) as long as a photo isn't too awful it can be easily transformed and printed at my desk inexpensively.

Gee, if you lived closer I'd give you my Pentax to play with...

Not being young I hate "modern" editing programs. It's like my new printer that rather than scanning what I put on it ,it often "decides" to crop and seperate the image into multiple files. It took me a while to find the setting to tell the thing to stop the nonsense (tech suport hadn't as clue!), and the so called editing software that came with the printer is a joke.

On the other hand excellent editing software takes a while to learn. Seven years on with ten year old software and I still haven't figured out all the tricks my editing program can do. For ten bucks you too can find Paint Shop Pro versions 5-9 online and have real control.. if you have the time to learn the program!

Have fun! (and don't forget to take the lens cover off!)

I still use my 35 mm Canon T-50, with the 70-210 zoom lens if I want *good* photos. I've had that camera since the early 80s and I would not exchange it for anything.

The digital camera is convenient ... but that quality is nothing like I can get with the Canon.

Lady Alexandra wrote: "The photography club has a meeting on Thursday and we are all excited because we are taking portraits using a film camera. This is really big for us because we are all teenagers in a digital-center..."

Fun! Check out #9 here for a great picture viewer/editor for free. It also does some editing & wonderful batch conversions. I don't do much editing, usually just lighten/darken & contrast, but most often crop. It's perfect for that.

While I agree with the other comments on digital photos, they're all I even want to use. For me, it's the difference between taking a picture & not. They make is so easy & if you crank them up, you can get very high quality. Still, that's not something we usually need today. A picture on FB doesn't need a lot of quality.

I've used Paint Shop Pro for years but every time they 'upgrade' I get further behind.

My biggest complaint about my digital camera is that it is not 'auto forward' ... I can't simply point it and keep my finger down for multiple images. It also doesn't have a zoom lens, which is something I really like with my Canon.

But, I'm not doing nearly as much with the horses, which is where I needed the really good action shots, so I guess it is all relative ... and I'm gradually learning to do the photo capture thing with the digital video camera I have. Again, it doesn't have the quality of the Canon 35 mm action shots but they are adequate for most Internet applications.

I stick with Paint Shop Pro 4 most of the time. All that other stuff is way beyond me. GIMP, which is free, is the same.

My Canon Rebel has a 'sports' setting where I can take 3 or 4 shots per second. That's not really fast enough to capture a horse right. My finger is still more accurate, so long as the camera responds immediately, which it does.

My Leica VLux4 has a burst mode that can take up to 32 (? 16?) pictures in a second. That can catch a a horse on a jump or at the trot just perfect. They're regular pictures, not video captures, so better quality.

Thanks for http://www.irfanview.com/
The camera that we have is about ten years old and isn't that great. Picture quality is okay, but the camera never takes the picture when you try to and it can't take multiple picture all at once. It serves it's purpose tough.

Some of the newer cameras aren't much faster. They do more megapixels & have lots of features. My C-Lux3 isn't as fast as my C-Lux2 was. More nifty gadgets at the expense of functionality. It's a pain, but the camera is small & easy to carry. It has good lenses & sometimes I can figure out the right settings to get it to move quicker.

While I couldn't figure out how to post a photo within a discussion, I see Jaye "liked" my hummingbird photo! Thank you!

Today I got some great photos of bugs doing it.... probably too racey for goodreads.....

Here you go. It is a good one.

Gee Jim, you make it look so easy. Lessee if I can "bug" you guys.....

< img scr="https://images.gr-assets.com/photos/1...

That doesn't work, but computers have no sense or sense of humor.
The basic formula is this:
< img src="hppts://largePhoto.jpg"/ >
Just remove the space after the < & the one before the > & change hppts to https. Actually, you want to select the large size photo & just copy the URL from the navigation bar at the top. That will automatically use https.

Remember, you can click the 'preview' button just to the right of the "Post" button to see if it actually works.

Does that make sense?

Here's your darter:



Great pic! What kind of camera & lens are you using?

Thanks Jim.... but I did copy the url.... I'll try again...

A few years ago I found a Minolta Dimage at Goodwill for $2. It needed a little work, It was my dream camera when it was new but too expensive at that time. Once I got it working I discovered it was great at zooming in and catching bugs! Then I wore it out...

I'm fortunate in that I'm better off financially now, and I use two cameras, A little Nikon Coolpix I found at Goodwill for $5 which does a good job for flowers and snapshots. I've never found a charging cable for it so I charge the battery with a constant voltage/constant current power supply.

My main camera is now a Nikon 3500 I bought on sale for $500. It had a great big telephoto zoom lens and is much better at focus, f-stop etc than I ever was when I used Pentax and Nikon slr film cameras. I never use the little tv screen and prefer the real view through the sight.

Digital rules! I can (and do) take lots of photos, nine out of ten are discarded and one in fifty turns out to be a great photo... but now I can guarantee that I only print out good photos (unlike the old days of seeing if anything came out after expensive processing)

I started with a Nikormat 35mm film camera & changed to a Canon Rebel, a gift from my uncle. Lots of lenses from fisheye to 300mm & it was fun, but I found I was only using it on automatic most of the time & it was too bulky for trail rides on the horses, so I gave it to my daughter-in-law who likes all the fancy settings & uses them properly. I bought a Leica V-Lux 40 for good picture taking. It's small & yet can zoom around almost as much & as well as the Rebel without the need to carry multiple lenses.

I used a Leica C-Lux 2 for a while, but it died. I bought a C-Lux 3, but didn't like it nearly as well. Too many bells & whistles, so it was slower to take a picture & most of mine are opportunistic shots of the animals doing something weird. Besides, it wasn't sealed well. I had to take it apart to clean it too often. I generally use my smart phone now for general purposes. The camera isn't great, but it's handy although it does take longer to initially use than a regular camera.

I got my new trail camera yesterday, a Toguard for $105 delivered. I set it up to take pics of the hummingbirds on one feeder & they came out pretty good. You can see them here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/v6oqJw2795Z...

I turned it to look into the backyard last night, but didn't get any decent photos. Some of that was due to fog & rain, but I guess the yard was empty all night & the horses are little too far away to trip the camera. I have it on its most sensitive setting since the hummingbirds wouldn't set it off otherwise.

There's an app to control the camera via my cell phone. It's a PITA. I couldn't find it on Google Play using their instructions, but did find it on their site which required more typing on my phone than I appreciated. To use it, the app turns on the bluetooth on the camera, then turns on the wifi. Supposedly I don't need to do that, but it doesn't let me access anything until I do. Once the wifi is on, it's a bit of wait until the controls come up, but then it's pretty easy to use.

Unfortunately, there's no way to test the settings while connected. It won't take pictures unless I tell it to. I have to disconnect & let it work for a while before reconnecting to see if it's working as planned. I guess once I figure it out, it will be easier, but I'm burning a lot of time doing that.

On the plus side, the pics are very good. All the ones you'll see if you click on the link are cut out of much larger ones. There's a little pixelation, but not too bad at all.

Trail camera? As in when you step on it it or drop it off a cliff it survives?

I don't even understand all the wifi phone gizmo stuff.... why bother?

ooh.. lots of hummingbirds there! (I don't feed birds.. sorry guys, it's a cruel world and you gotta make it without my help!)

A trail camera is one that can be set up to automatically take pictures on its own. Motion detection triggers it & it also has an IR light, so it gets pretty good pics at night. I got it because something was drinking the hummingbird feeder in front dry at night. Probably a bat since the feeder wasn't damaged which both coons & squirrels do. Whatever it was, it would only drop by about every 3 nights & it quit about the time I ordered the camera.

There have been other times I've wondered about night time visitors around the farm, so I've wanted a trail cam for a while. The good ones were pretty expensive & not all that great for a long time, but they've gotten a lot cheaper & better. The reaction time of 1/30 second for the first picture is great & will capture a good part of even fast moving animals plus I have it set to take a 10 second video after that.

Best of all, this one uses 940nm IR which is beyond the range most animals can see. Cheaper ones & older models had 850nm IR & that would scare many animals. The model I got is here:
https://www.toguard.cc/collections/tr...

The phone gizmo stuff is a PITA & needlessly complex, but it is the only way to see the exact camera field of vision which is important. It's a lot easier to use for changing the settings, too. It has controls & a small screen so I can do it manually, though. I rarely download the pictures to my phone, though. I might check them, but I just stop it, pull the SD card, & move all the photos to my computer.

Jim wrote: "A trail camera is one that can be set up to automatically take pictures on its own. Motion detection triggers it & it also has an IR light, so it gets pretty good pics at night. I got it because so..."

yay for sd cards... doesn't matter what brand camera you can load them on a computer... no "aps" needed!

While I still haven't figured out what was draining my hummingbird feeders over night, I did find out that we have a flying squirrel around, so that might be the culprit. It wasn't a very good picture since it was just a second in the video taken with IR at only 1080 resolution, but I saw a dark rectangle glide from one of the crab apple trees over to the porch. It changed enough that I could tell it wasn't a bat or a hummingbird, although I did catch one of the latter flying in the middle of the night once.

Anyway, it was kind of neat. I've only seen flying squirrels a few times in my life, usually because the tree they're living in falls in a storm or something. Once, I got lucky & camped out next to a tree they were nesting in during a full moon so I got a couple of quick glimpses.