Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Fri Jan 13, 2012 7:50 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

If you are paying £250 for a Manfrotto you are shopping in the wrong places.
A second hand one would be great value, they are built like tanks.

The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Fri Jan 13, 2012 9:24 pm  

rover49 wrote: The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600. You are looking at carbon fibre pods mate... Decent legs - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MANFROTTO-190 ... 1c1f961b32 Decent head - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Manfrotto ... 3cbd9daa47 If you shop around there are better deals to be had and there are some decent second hand ones around too.

rover49 wrote: The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600. You are looking at carbon fibre pods mate... Decent legs - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MANFROTTO-190 ... 1c1f961b32 Decent head - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Manfrotto ... 3cbd9daa47 If you shop around there are better deals to be had and there are some decent second hand ones around too.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:18 pm  

ND Filters. Individual filters or a single variable density filter?
Have read that with a variable one you need to be paying a fair amount of money to get a decent one yet i've seen them for around £8.99 on fleabay. Is it a case of you get what you pay for?
Cheers

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:27 pm  

RYAN 1 wrote: ND Filters. Individual filters or a single variable density filter? Have read that with a variable one you need to be paying a fair amount of money to get a decent one yet i've seen them for around £8.99 on fleabay. Is it a case of you get what you pay for? Cheers I paid about £15 for one from 7dayshop I have no complaints, right at the very dark end it distorts a bit (but then so do cheaper fixed ND filters) but I've paid about an 8th the price of a Lee big stopper.

RYAN 1 wrote: ND Filters. Individual filters or a single variable density filter? Have read that with a variable one you need to be paying a fair amount of money to get a decent one yet i've seen them for around £8.99 on fleabay. Is it a case of you get what you pay for? Cheers I paid about £15 for one from 7dayshop I have no complaints, right at the very dark end it distorts a bit (but then so do cheaper fixed ND filters) but I've paid about an 8th the price of a Lee big stopper.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:37 pm  

Big Graeme wrote: I paid about £15 for one from 7dayshop I have no complaints, right at the very dark end it distorts a bit (but then so do cheaper fixed ND filters) but I've paid about an 8th the price of a Lee big stopper. Thankyou for the quick response BG. Just ordered one and will use it to experiment with. I guess that's what photography is all about.

Big Graeme wrote: I paid about £15 for one from 7dayshop I have no complaints, right at the very dark end it distorts a bit (but then so do cheaper fixed ND filters) but I've paid about an 8th the price of a Lee big stopper. Thankyou for the quick response BG. Just ordered one and will use it to experiment with. I guess that's what photography is all about.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Fri Jan 27, 2012 6:22 pm  

I'm being sorely tempted by a very good offer to buy some image enlargement software called Benvista Photo Zoom Pro 4. When i read about this first, I assumed it must be largely BS, given that (you'd think) the ultimate resolution of an image is limited by the pixel size.

I was very sceptical but found that on the Benvista site you can download a free trial, and after just a first effort, i must say I'm pretty gobsmacked.
Here is an original image, an enlarged eye as best as my existing software can do it, and a Benvista enlargement. There are many fine tunes and I'm sure i could therefore do better.

I'm gonna have a play around this weekend but wondered if anyone has come across this, and is it as good as it seems? Or if not, anyoine fancy having a play and telling us what you think?

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:25 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

I'm being sorely tempted by a very good offer to buy some image enlargement software called Benvista Photo Zoom Pro 4. When i read about this first, I assumed it must be largely BS, given that (you'd think) the ultimate resolution of an image is limited by the pixel size.

I was very sceptical but found that on the Benvista site you can download a free trial, and after just a first effort, i must say I'm pretty gobsmacked.
Here is an original image, an enlarged eye as best as my existing software can do it, and a Benvista enlargement. There are many fine tunes and I'm sure i could therefore do better.

I'm gonna have a play around this weekend but wondered if anyone has come across this, and is it as good as it seems? Or if not, anyoine fancy having a play and telling us what you think?

Back in 2008 I got a copy of Benvista Photo Zoom Pro 2 free with some other bundle. I've used it on a number of occasions, mainly when I have wanted (very) large prints, and found it to be very good.
The only likely reason I haven't updated over the years is that I don't use it frequently enough to justify it.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:05 pm  

I'm looking for a simple (and free) photo template plug-in or whatever to give me three images on one canvas. I've got CS4 and ever after downloading the suggested plug-in, I keep getting an error message - 'Cannot find layout files in Presets/Layouts'

It appears I'm not alone in having these problems but I'm buggered if I can find a fix in CS4.

Basically what I'm after is the ability to place three images in one canvas: Imagine an A4 landscape, I want an A5 portrait image on the left and two A6 landscape images on the right (one on top of the other).

Any ideas guys?

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:16 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

I'm looking for a simple (and free) photo template plug-in or whatever to give me three images on one canvas. I've got CS4 and ever after downloading the suggested plug-in, I keep getting an error message - 'Cannot find layout files in Presets/Layouts'

It appears I'm not alone in having these problems but I'm buggered if I can find a fix in CS4.

Basically what I'm after is the ability to place three images in one canvas: Imagine an A4 landscape, I want an A5 portrait image on the left and two A6 landscape images on the right (one on top of the other).

Any ideas guys?

Can you not do it in PS?
Resize the two pics to A6 landscape, resize the other to A5 portrait, open a new file in PS with the sizes of A4, new layer, drag and image in and lock it, repeat with the other two.

Re: Photography thread 11.02 : Sun Jan 29, 2012 6:22 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

Can you not do it in PS?
Resize the two pics to A6 landscape, resize the other to A5 portrait, open a new file in PS with the sizes of A4, new layer, drag and image in and lock it, repeat with the other two.

TBH mate I find PS a friggin pain to use for anything relatively simple, I only tend to open it when I want to do something special. I was just looking for any easy work around. Sonething along the lines of:

1) Open template
2) Click insert in frame one, then two then three
3) Save as

I'll have a go at that though