Photography thread

I am surprised that the Democrats have not figured out a way to give Canadians the vote in US elections.

BTW, I shop a Walmart.

 

I have been looking at all the great pictures posted and I just want to say that in Texas the weather is good in the winter but the scenery is crap. I can find some twisty roads but when it comes to images of breathtaking horizons, awe-inspiring vistas and snow capped majestic peaks this part of Texas just doesn’t have them.

 

Oh yes this has bugged me for some time knowing this, thing is like 90% of us that use digital it has pretty much wiped out photo paper, and why not. But you are right those speacil works ned to be put on paper. I bought a side conversion scanner like 5 years ago to take all my colored slides and get em swapped over, which there are thousands of to like a CD , but that if I take it as a job a couple months through sorting and filing and the like. I've all ready seen the results of aging digital files with the first generation Sony camera from 92 I have. The Camera still works for a 3.5 floppy, but who uses those. In fact this gets me thinking even my current dinosaur of a computer I have a 3.5 drive installed just so I can retrieve those photos. But in that, I took a look a while back and man are they showing their age.

 

Not a good idea.. Randy could write himself in.. Randy as Canadian PM is a good idea.

Some Texas Walmarts are closing up. The story is that too many are in close proximity.

 

Mostly true but it saves us from an unedited vid of the road from San Antonio to El Paso.

 

Oh so true!!!

I live near two of the closing Walmart Express locations. One is in the town of Leonard, where I live and the other is in Whitewright, just down the road. They have both been in business about a year. Here is my take on this. Walmart knew full well where these stores were (in proximity to their other stores) when they were built. Walmart built purpose built structures at each location (not cheap) to compete against the expansion of the Dollar store chain. Walmart offered the same products as the locally established business like the Dollar Store and the Dollar General store offered. There was no variety and no incentive to shop at Walmart Express. The Walmart Express was set up like a small grocery store but with a checkout like a convenience store (there is always a chance of getting stuck behind a guy with a fist full of dollar scratch off lottery tickets.) I think the reason for the Walmart Express failure is Walmart itself. They thought they would go into these little towns, offer the same level of sub standard service and everyone would flock to their banner. It didn't happen. They did run the older grocery store out of business in Whitewright but it was a pretty sad affair to begin with. Leonard has an independent store called the B&B and it has been holding it's own. They are probably celebrating the news and breathing a sigh of relief that they won't have to paint, replace the 100 year old linoleum flooring or stop selling rotting produce.

 

The article I read didn't mention the "express" stores. That's a new one on me.. I seem to recall that Wallys had an alphabetical size system going probably based on square footage and some other factors..

The road from El Paso to San Antone is just as bad...

 

Is there some advantage to using BluRay discs over "normal" DVD discs in quality?

Same here.. I shoot RAW and store in 16 bit TIFF. Got a shitload of old stuff that I had done at Costco when they were still doing negs and slides to disc. Two compression formats were available for the asking. At the time all the hardware/software being used was Canon.

Lossy is relative to pixels. My first digital was a Nikon 950 with I think 3.2 . New cost was over a grand for that puppy. We are talking now in the "35mm" format in the 50 range.

Same here with the storage. A portable hard drive or discs I keep in small fire safe.

 

Images on the net are of course greater in number than prints. Relative to photography in general, photo prints are very much alive and well. There are more styles, types, formats ect., in the printing process than ever before including printing on ceramic and aluminum. Check oot one of the big online labs for more on this or check oot your local Wallystore. They by now have probably gone over from HP to Fuji gear and are doing prints on hardboard and two types of "canvas" as gallery wraps.

Ditch the Sony and maybe doing the wheel farkle boogie and buy a new computer. The bluescreen of death is lurking.. Your new vid system will love you for it.

On editing.. Same game as GIGO with photo stuff. If it's crap, dump it making up your own questions as to why or why not.

A great freebies chunk of software is PICASA from Google... for aboot 100 Pesos you can buy the latest version of Adobe's Photoshop Element + Lightroom.

There are also services that for not too many pesos, you send in negs and slides to an outfit in San Fran, they send your stuff to India where it's cleaned and digitized. Look it up..

One more tip in the BB style. Don't broadcast to your relatives that you can do photo things. This can be almost as bad as them finding oot you won some big pesos in the lottery..

 

BluRay holds near 50 gigs, so it takes up a lot less physical storage space. I have also read that high end name brands are of excellent quality and should last 200 years easily with proper storage. I use Sony. Back when you could first burn a CD disks were rediculous in price, I think I remember something like 15 a piece. But I have checked some of those and all is well. Shortly later(a few years) the price came down and bulk quantities were much cheaper but so was the quality of the CD, I have seen a few that had corrupted data. I only use higher end DVDs and blue ray disks these days.
Funny how thing about Raw formats, they are actually a compressed file that does not lose quality and carries a ton on metadata with the image. I use Canons Digital Pro for fast tweets to raw and conversions. There is a fair amount of control of raw in it and good at organizing. Photoshop has a lot more control but obviously takes a little more time.

 

I was in a big open field at sunrise, nothing around but dead grass and in the middle was a tree with a very very weathered old wood table next to it. This is a pic of the ragged edge.

 

A dark mood for a bright flower

 

Just for fun convert that shot to B&W...

 

He looks like a sad Robin. LOL. nice photo though.

 

Quack quack

 

These are off my Iphone so not great quality but i thought I would show what my son got me for Christmas, an X Products 50 round mag. I have used a lot of the 100 round Beta mags but this thing is so well designed and built that its my new favorite. Its also has a Cerakote treatment and fit and finish is superb. The weight loaded is half of a Beat C Mag and size is amazingly small. The rifle feels very balanced.

 

Hey guys, just traded for my first VFR about a week ago and joined the VFR world. Glad to see there are other people who love photography on here! I just took some shots of my new VFR. Check them out!

 

Very nice, why shots of only the right side? Like the paint scheme. Bet those Leo's sound sweet

 

Because the previous owner tipped it over on the left side while washing it :frown-new:
He tried to touch it up but it looks bad. Ill repaint it or something eventually, thinking about using that Plasti-dip stuff.
Thanks, they do. Deep and throaty and loud when you get on it.