Tried to take a photo of this coyote. Distance: 75m
Overcast w/rain
Camera: HV10 Canon
2X Digital Optics Lens w/full telephoto setting on HV10

How many things did I do WRONG? TIA! Don in CO

PS - I haven't changed camera settings so I can look those up if you think that was the problem.

The HV10 is a video camera, and video cameras are not known for their stellar performance when it comes to stills.

You have also aggravated the problems by using a digital zoom, which the camera was probably trying hard to set itself up well in bad visibility.

You probably would have had a better picture if you had taken the photo without any digital zoom.

Saeed, thanks for the advice!

I was trying to get as much magnification as possible due to the distance. I thought using both the 2X lens AND the maximum digital magnification would give me the best results. I guess I was WRONG!

Well, "the school of hard knocks" is the best learning experience.

daman; your camera skills are only riveled by your political knowledge. dr. c

DaMan wrote:

quote:

How many things did I do WRONG?

Only one...you didn't shoot on film...

quote:

Distance: 75m
Overcast w/rain

With a film movie camera you probably couldn't even see the Coyote.

When I say film, I am speaking of still photographs.

I am old school, and my studio is one of the few remaining to still shoot on film.

Digital capture, while close, just can't compare when it really counts and in images of 16x20 and larger.

Digital sensors can now be way higher res than film stock. Back in the day film had the edge but now things have changed.
As for convenience, flexibility, reliability and robustness of the media there is just no contest any more.

And with digital once I buy the gear I can just shoot and shoot and shoot and not even think of the cost. Bracket a shot, heck take 20 versions, see what you like.
Printing is still a pain but it's getting easier to do at home.

quote:

Originally posted by doccash:
daman; your camera skills are only riveled by your political knowledge. dr. c

Amen. if you had bothered to read the owners manual, you would know that the quickest way to degrade image quality is to switch from optical to digital zoom. the image will be larger but the sharpness will suffer. now i understand why your political posts are so far left- a basic lack of reading skills.

I am afraid, to me, there is absolutely no comparison between digital and film.

Digital wins hands down, especially with todays cameras.

I took the following photo in Sweden this summer.

Camera was a Nikon D300, with a Nikon 70-300 VR lense.

quote:

now i understand why your political posts are so far left- a basic lack of reading skills.

What happens on the PF stays on the PF.

More awesome pics Saeed but it's not just the camera. You need a real talent to consistently produce results like that.

The Specialist wrote:

quote:

Digital sensors can now be way higher res than film stock

That has minimal bearing on the final result when you are talking about exbibition-grade prints.

Digital capture is good and getting better -- that can't be denied -- but still falls short in critical areas, particularly in depth perception, rendition of shadow areas, maintaining detail in highlights and the reproduction of skin tones.

For the hobbyist who may have one or two 8x10s made per year, for someone who enjoys recording tons of images or for the business shooting kids on Santa's lap and school photos, digital is a great medium. For others, particularly those whose very livelihood and reputation rests on the outcome of a professional portriat, film still reigns supreme.

It that weren't true, many big-name operations who jumped on the digital bandwagon early on wouldn't have returned to film.

As an example, I had a customer set up an appointment to see what I could do with her wedding photos. She had them done by a competitor and was extremely unhappy with the outcome. She had pre-ordered a 5x7 album but then, after the wedding, decided she wanted 16x20s for the parents and a 24x30 for her home.

Thats when the pixels hit the fan...

Her images were saved at 5x7 size at 300 dpi.

Can you imagine how those images looked in a 24x30???

Granted, the images should have been saved at a higher resolution. But they weren't, and to make matters worse, they were heavily sharpened and appeared to have been taken without the aid of a tripod. She was really peeved when I told her the photographer had extensively "sharpened" the files. (My opinion: get the image RIGHT in the first place...)

She was so disappointed with the outcome that she secured the church, rented another tux for her husband and got dressed in her wedding gown again just so she could have some nice enlargements from her special day -- some 6 months removed.

As you can tell, I do not care for digital. A photograph, to me, is a moment in time that has been captured. That gives it historical significance.

But the endless array of special effects that some folks attempt -- not to mention the obvious editing -- diminish what the art of photography is all about.

Yea, I'm old school. Always have been and always will be.

I know lots of pro photographers and a couple of TV and Film cameramen.
Some of the younger ones couldn't even work a film camera.

This same thing happened in the music business when digital first started. We may live in an analog world but digital technology is the way to go.
Old records may be nice things to look at but a good digital CD has no clicks, scratches or rumble. Lasts a long time and holds more music.
And now with 5.1 or more sound, it's even better.

Just out of curiosity I looked at the prices for a Hasselblad 500C, with an 80mm Zeiss lens and film back. You can buy one in pristine condition for $900. This is definitely not a camera for shooting fast and on the run, but if you know how to operate one, you can take nature stills that even a $5,000 digital outfit can't come close to equaling. Enlarged to 16" X 20" most digital set-ups come up lacking.

Try a Hassleblad with the digital back.

The film backs are good cause you can change film type without losing frames.

I used to always find, even with 2or3 35mm bodies you still never had the right film in one, when that special opportunity came up.
With digi it's just a few button pushes.

quote:

Originally posted by The Specialist:
Try a Hassleblad with the digital back.

The low-end digital film back for Hasselblad H series cameras start at $20,000. And yet, a correctly exposed negative or slide from just about any 30 year old 6x6 camera will still yield a better enlargement. I rest my case. Doesn't mean I don't think digital meets the needs for 95% of photographers, just depends what you want to do. I only enlarge maybe one in five hundred of my photos, although my slides get projected on a large screen frequently. But for the once in a while exceptional photograph I want to have enlarged, or the slide show I want to project on a large screen, digital doesn't yet come close at any prices I can afford.

And a plate camera from 1910 will still beat the lot.

Wink-

Sounds like you and I think alike.

I had an interesting call at my shopt this morning. A fellow who owned a studio near Houston folded up and was trying to sell me his digital gear. I politely stopped him before he got too far along in details and noted that I had no interest in digital.

He said "I wish I didn't. It's part of the reason we went under."

Many of our customers still ask if we shoot film or digital -- and generally smile contentedly when I say "film."

quote:

Originally posted by Bobby Tomek:

Her images were saved at 5x7 size at 300 dpi.

Can you imagine how those images looked in a 24x30???

Yup. Like crap.

But that would be something akin to pushing KR64 to 3200 and expecting to get grainless enlargements. It ain't gonna happen.

The fact: a digital image shot in RAW format from one of today's high MP camera's will outdo any small format film still available. That's why Kodak is about ready to stop producing KR film. As it is, they are now doing one production run of KR per year.

Film will go the route of the dinosaur shortly. As it is now, most of the publications I sell to don't even want to mess with transparencies anymore.

So if I submit any images from the 100,000 KR64 slides in my files, I simply scan them to CDs as 300dpi TIF images. A 2-pg layout from one of them looks every bit as good as it would if done from a 35mm separation process of the 35mm slide.

See the "Digital vs Film -- DL Warning:big File" thread in this section.

Outdoor writer wrote:

quote:

As it is now, most of the publications I sell to don't even want to mess with transparencies anymore.

Tony-Most publications accept prints with reservation and do prefer digital files over transparencies.

But it is a no-brainer for a writer/photographer who uses film (or has images on file) to scan negs or slides and sell them with the manuscripts. It's done all the time...

Outdoor writer also wrote: "A 2-pg layout from one of them looks every bit as good as it would if done from a 35mm separation process of the 35mm slide."

Tony-Separations have been outdated for a long time. Even smaller newspapers printing on old presses no longer do them.

The days of the drum processor ended back in the early 90s for all except a few high-end commercial advertising and exbition/gallery outfits. But when you are talking about display quality prints or large Cibachromes, the word digital will never even enter the conversation.

Here is a low-rez scan of a Fujichrome 100 image (35mm). Sorry for the type across the image area, but even low-rez images of mine have been "stolen" lately. That same animal appears in a brochure/website of a retailer, and it was never sold to them. I've only sold one-time repro rights of that image to a couple of magazines and to no one else.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobby Tomek:
Tony-Most publications accept prints with reservation and do prefer digital files over transparencies.

But it is a no-brainer for a writer/photographer who uses film (or has images on file) to scan negs or slides and sell them with the manuscripts. It's done all the time...

Outdoor writer also wrote: "A 2-pg layout from one of them looks every bit as good as it would if done from a 35mm separation process of the 35mm slide."

Tony-Separations have been outdated for a long time. Even smaller newspapers printing on old presses no longer do them.

The days of the drum processor ended back in the early 90s for all except a few high-end commercial advertising and exbition/gallery outfits. But when you are talking about display quality prints or large Cibachromes, the word digital will never even enter the conversation.

Bobby,

I'm still sorta wet behind the ears with all this photo stuff. I didn't start selling photos for publication until 1969, and now more than 100 covers and about 2,300 other photo sales later, I find I still have lots to learn. Even having a B&W/color darkroom for 20 years didn't help much.

And yeah, I know they no longer use the separation process. I wonder why that is.

Anyway, thanks for updating me on how this publication stuff is all done now.

I'm kinda getting up to snuff on scanning my transparencies and making low-res ones that actually appear sharp. Maybe someday I'll have it down better.

Here are several.

Tony-

I simply stated the facts. I am not certain why you took my post so personal, but I've seen you get defensive like that on a couple other occasions.

But maybe go ahead and post a few dozen more photos from your personal portfolio so we all know what you do for a living. We never would have guessed it from your handle here on AR...

By the way, one more problem with the age of digital is the incessant array of corrections done to enhance images.

As such, a photograph is no longer a moment captured in time -- something that is actually historically significant and valid. It then becomes a rendition of what the photographer wants you to see.

I have nothing against all of these corrections, but I will flatly state that, in my humble opinion, an image undergoing these changes is no longer a photograph in the truest sense of the word. It is then a digital image and nothing more.

Outdoor writer wrote: "I'm kinda getting up to snuff on scanning my transparencies and making low-res ones that actually appear sharp. Maybe someday I'll have it down better."

Geez...once I wade through that sea of sarcasm, I'd better do something about my scans. They are obviously unusable in their current unretouched condition. This scan of a print of a coyote -- not even a scan of the original negative -- needs some serious sharpening, huh?

Maybe I'd better open Adobe and fix that as I see the lash detail fading away. Or maybe I should just delete them all and start all over...

quote:

Originally posted by Bobby Tomek:
Geez...once I wade through that sea of sarcasm, I'd better do something about my scans. They are obviously unusable in their current unretouched condition. This scan of a print of a coyote -- not even a scan of the original negative -- needs some serious sharpening, huh?

I simply stated a fact about MY scanning techniques. I am not certain why you took my post so personal, but I've seen you get defensive like that on a couple other occasions.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobby Tomek:
By the way, one more problem with the age of digital is the incessant array of corrections done to enhance images.

As such, a photograph is no longer a moment captured in time -- something that is actually historically significant and valid. It then becomes a rendition of what the photographer wants you to see.

I have nothing against all of these corrections, but I will flatly state that, in my humble opinion, an image undergoing these changes is no longer a photograph in the truest sense of the word. It is then a digital image and nothing more.

Enhancing images has been going on for eons. Even Ansel Adams did it when shooting and printing. AND...of course any B&W is a mispresentation of the actual scene in itself.

The difference is it's easily done now with software rather than on-camera filters, exposure compensations and manipulation in the darkroom or printing processes that include cropping, color filtration, burning/dodging, spotting, air brushing, etc.

While photos for the Smithsonian might have some valid historical value, the main aim of photography, especially in my situation, is to provide a pleasing image that folks can enjoy looking at. Whether it is enhanced is irrelevent; the viewers don't gives a rat's ass if the photgrapher did some minor sharpness, contrast or color corrections, or even if a magazine clones out a hat/shirt logo for a cover shot of a guy holding up a 20-lb, bass, as is often done whether the cover is the result of a digital image or from a slide.

Obviously altering an image to make it represent something it is not by pasting on heads, larger antlers, etc. is well beyond the scope of enhancing one, however; it amounts to creating a new image that too often mispresents something or someone. But that is something else altogether.

Most importantly, no one who shoots digital files is forced to make any enhancement to them.

Regardless of any of this, film will still be history soon, just as the typewriter, carbon paper, Whiteout and 8-track tapes are already history. Even CDs will soon go the way of the dodo bird.

As computers have over the last 25 years, digital equipment and the image quality it produces are changing daily. The IBM 8086 computer I bought in 1982-83 had two 256K 5 1/2" floppy drives, a 12" B&W monitor and a daisy-wheel printer for the bargain price of a mere $4,500 or so.

That daisy-wheel printer was barely equal to a typewriter. Today, one can buy an HP Photosmart or Canon for less than $50 that will print very nice photos up to 8"x10" for the everyday amateur types. In contrast, the big printing houses are using computer-generated processes to print poster size images from digital camera files that will rival any standard darkroom enlargements from 35 film. And the ability to easily enhance the digital files is one of the reasons.

BTW, just this week I had a new camera delivered to supplement my 30D SLR. I wanted something light and compact to use for in-boat fishing pix and to carry in my fanny pack for hunting. Yet I still wanted the ability to use all the "enhancements" available on my Canon SLR.

Sooo..to that end I settled on the just introduced Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which provides a 10mp image -- 2 mp more than my 30D. It has a 2.0/2.8 Leica lens that starts at the 35mm equivalent of 24mm -- a rarity among P&S cameras that generally are either 28 or 35mm at the WA end. It offers all the shooting options of A or S Priority, manual and a host of the program modes geared to the P&S crowd. Even has a flash hotshoe. Best of all, as I do with the 30D, I can shoot RAW images rather than TIFs or JPGs so I always have top-notch originals to work from. The camera is about $450.

I'll be testing it thoroughly starting next week when we make our annual 2-week trip to our time shares in Mazatlan.

Really great pictures in this thread.

Not to add to another digital vs. film "debate" but...

As much as I loved shooting film and resisted going to digital, I don't see how people can claim that digital quality won't stand up to large enlargements.





I have this one printed out on a plotter at about 3x5 feet. Yup you can see the pixels if you hold your nose up to it but small format film wouldn't hold up to the same scrutiny and large format would have made getting the shot impossible. 6.3 MP camera by the way.

In response to the original question...

You pushed your camera beyond what it was capable of handling and expected too much from the results. I tell everyone I know to at least read the owners manual very carefully. Get a few books on wildlife photography too. Use a tripod. It doesn't take much to make huge improvements in the quality of your photos.

Cheers and good luck.

And throw away the 2x lens. It is probably what is the cause of most of the discoloration in the photo. Those purple shades on the highlights are sort of a calling card of a poor lens.