Albedo

Thanks for the tips log hauler. I forgot to say in my haste that there is clearly a bit of talent in there as well as any tech info that you may have to offer. You have 'the eye' for a good shot thats for sure, look forward to seeing more. I find the built in flash on my LX5 (compact) does more harm than good, so have a way to go on use of flash, although Hama's had some good results with the flash on the same camera.

Too many good pics to pick one but I like the trametes? first pic second post, as they are hard to photograph well for some unknown, inexplicable reason, and you have managed it. Please feel free to post a bit of advice on what settings you use in the phototalk thread. Especially as you're using a high end compact and not a DSLR.

This is a good point and the post processing (PP) element is to be borne in mind these days. (I think thats the correct lingo but correct me if I'm wrong) My lX5 goes from ISO 80 to 12800. I know that the top end of this range is unusable for the reason that you state, but have to experiment to find the acceptable range without too much loss of quality. Will also have to experiment with how much can be fixed in PP to extend this range now that you have made this point. Its interesting hearing from DSLR users too as part of the reason for buying a high end compact for me was to see if I would get into it enough to justify going down that road. ps. Thanks to the mod who fixed the missing 'o' in the thread title:thumbup1:

I’ve had a few chats with Hama about using these high end compacts which offer control of shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc. I know that quite a few arbtalk members have the G10 or G11 and me and Hama have the Panasonic LX5. Hopefully others have gained from the ‘You’ve got me at it now Hama’ thread in the fungi section (It got over a thousand views so someone must be interested but few participated, probably because it looked like a private chat between the two of us). I know there are a few good ‘togs’ on this forum so I stress that the roll of advice asker, or giver is open to all. So here is a dedicated thread for us all to help each other with questions on how to improve our photography, regardless of what camera you are using. It might, however, help those who are giving the advice for us to say what camera we are using when we post. I’ll start where we left off in another thread. I was trying to catch this flutterby. Notice how only a narrow plane of the wing is in focus. Hamma spotted that it would have been hand held so recommended a higher ISO setting. Also a higher aperture number, which gives greater Depth of Field (DOF). Lets say the F stop (aperture setting) on this was number 2 (biggest hole). This gives the blurry background but shallow DOF. A higher F stop like 6 or 8(smaller hole) would give greater DOF and maybe the antennae would be in focus and the background less blurred. Distance from the subject is also a factor in this and focal length but I don’t fully understand the interactions of all the variables yet. I haven’t played around with ISO until today but the higher numbers I believe are like a faster film which gives a faster shutter speed so better for hand held and/or low light. The faster shutter speed selected by the camera (I could hear it was faster when I upped the ISO) suggests that the higher ISO is something to do with gathering more light to the sensor allowing the faster speed for the same aperture, therefore not reducing DOF but reducing shake? That is not a very clear question but comments on any part of it appreciated or just pitch in with your own and we’ll see where this goes.

So can anyone stick a fung in here?..... hope its ok, here's todays find. By the way Monkey D, your photography is getting to be quite amazing, all sharp - loads of DOF, focused and composed with a real talent. Just thought I'd say as its nice to be appreciated:thumbup1: I like the ones that you get with the flippy out screen thingy on the G11, real useful tool that.

Thanks H I've got one thats in better focus, but I thought you'd like all the lines in this one, and knew you'd have me on DOF and focus. Thanks for the tips though. I will try that ISO thing, I keep forgetting, but will have more time now for it as have finished the roof I was working on which was takeing up all the bits of dry weather.

I was wondering where to put this one, and here seems just the place:001_smile: Luv the newt H, I will try to get one of them.

:001_smile:I was just staring at it looking for the deadwood even though its a nice big sky thing, great place for sunsets. The second one with dead wood in is a peach, just lovely clear water. I wish that was the tee Monkey D, could make golf a bit more of an action sport, instead of a beer and rollup smoking activity:biggrin:

Thanks Sean, Actually I'd like to improve on this one, as the sun wasn't in the right direction or height and I realised afterwards I may have had the dial on the camera stuck between 2 modes. You may see this tree again, possibly in winter. I did par the hole though so got something right.

On the 5th hole this afternoon, the beauty of being the boss:biggrin:

Thanks Skyhuck. Bit hard to miss once you know where to look. And theres me scouring the fuel cap for a little hole. Me being me, I found said pipe and pulled the filter thingy on the end in half to see if I could blow it out from the inside. It hissed when I opened it. Inside is a diaphragm arrangement with little holes in, which all looked pretty clean. I prized off the white plastic bit to reveal a little foam filter and there are the holes from the inside. All blown out and clean now. Thanks again for the pointer, it was all quite clogged around the 7 little holes on the outside. By the way, this being an information exchange, i now know where my breather is, and you now know how to say 'where is it' in Spanish, ..... if you didn't already know that is:biggrin:

Getting a bit of a vacuum in my fuel tank so difficulty getting lid off and associated running problems. Just wondered if I should be able to see a breather hole in the lid or if it is elsewhere. Gave the whole lot a good blow today with the air hose but should really know where to find this wee thing. Any pointers appreciated.

Thanks for the ID H and glad it was worth posting, appologies for the cheeky joke, don't know what came over me. That's Sweet Chestnut litter around it which will give you the scale, one more showing the stipe while I'm here.

This thing so ugly, I only took a picture on the offchance it might get you all excited......I'm going to call it....Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......Hamadryad:lol:

Darren, have you started to feel an overwhelming desire to buy one of those jacket things with no sleeves and hundreds of pockets and pouches? I know I have.......then you know you have arrived:thumbup1:

Actually H, you will be mortified that I didn't take a shot of the whole thing, I was in arty farty mode rather than fung hunter, the most I can find of it is this. It was big though, just opened up today to the size of your hand, or my hand ... depending on how big your hand is:001_rolleyes: The above were heavily cropped in Silkypix by the way, and have lost some sharpness.

Thank you for your comments Hamma, our little camera lesson is paying off a bit now. That one was aided in composition by the magic grid. Here is todays arty shroom,.......By the way I am banned from winning the camera, as I have the LX5 and it should go to a young skint arb who will appreciate it. I hope you don't mind me posting as it gives me a reason to play with my new toy. I think I may be breaking comp rules but I see the shroom and nature in this way at the moment more as a thing of beauty than a thing of learning about arb stuff. This at the base of Quercus robur by the way, any ID's?

:biggrin:Me also, stealth hunting is the way forward, although the next trip to Delamere, flat out on the ground with me little tripod, and one of them silver reflector things, that Hama's on about, its gonna get some funny looks. I guess its one of the advantages of advancing years, that the careing what other people think gene seems to have less effect. Might as well throw in one of them little grow in the grass critters while I'm here.

Ta mate, I just had a bit of a go today just to take part, Like you said somewhere, its fun this shroom hunting and I don't know one from another either. But the process of looking, taking pics, and posting is cool.

Cheers Darren, thought I'd get short thrift on the win a camera front. You put it so well tho, I like a plain talker.......

Artyshroom:001_smile:

I did some work based on your posts 88 and 110. Unfortunately the pics got all mixed up so nearly didn’t bother to post it, will try sort out the pics but they are only bottles in various degrees of focus. Post 88 says play with various settings including focal lengths and Post 110 - the face in a crowd post which says select F2 and a long focal length Focusing on the middle bottle in the row (I wanted the middle bottle to be the face in the crowd)and on flexi tripod, at a bout 8 or 10 feet away so zoom can be used. At F2.8 on aperture priority using the step zoom at 50 mm (lowest F stop camera would allow at this focal length) (camera selected 1/160 shutter speed).Then at F5 using step zoom at 50mm (camera selected 1/80) The outer bottles were less in focus than the centre… which was the desired effect. I also did the exercise at 90mm to see if the effect would be more marked but the result was about the same. I set the camera on pinhole and took the same pick at 90mm then looked at the EXIF for this image. Interesting to see that the camera chose the same shutter speed and F stop to achieve the same type of thing. By looking at the exif info it was interesting for me that for the lower Fstop numbers (bigger hole) the speed is doubled from 1/60 to 1/125 (faster) and for F8 (smaller hole) the speed is halved from 1/60 to 1/30 (slower). This should mean that the same amount of light is reaching the sensor regardless of the Fstop. You made a post about lenses of different focal lengths being the same at different Fstops, this exercise is helping me to understand that. Then decided to set up the bottles more like a crowd with the face on the middle bottle being the target. Just repeated the above exercise and found that it leaned in the right direction but not any difference to speak of. Then thinking about what I could change next decided to take control of the shutter speed and aperture by going fully manual and repeated the exercise on F2 but kept the speed at 1/60 not allowing the camera to do what it wants to do, which is to slow it down for the larger aperture. Started to see more stuff going out of focus away from the face. At 1/125 (faster still) the camera would allow F2.7 as the biggest aperture, but again starting to see stuff dropping out of focus. So decided to take it all the way and stayed on manual F2 (or what camera would allow) and took a few at faster speeds until the little line that shows the exposure dropping started to click down as less and less light is reaching the sensor and of course the LCD started to darken. I would say that at F2.7 1/500 50mm I got my best result yet. (Bit dark but most marked focus on face in crowd) Now I’m sure that I’m still doing something wrong or dumb, but whatever you say in response, I feel that I will be more able to understand it than before. I have also found a good tutorial on the Rule of Thirds on t’internet and have experimented with this a bit. Although I feel that it should not be used as a hard and fast rule, again you are right Hama. I looked through a few of my pics and found that I tend to put the subject in the middle quite a lot, the ROT will improve this. The more I learn, the more I understand what you are on about and the more I realise that you know your onions on this. P.S. I did this work and wrote the post a few days ago and it sound a bit gobbledygook to me now, but it was a key bit of effort for me in understanding the effects of the basic variables that we can control on this beastie:001_smile:

Hi Hama. I already knew that one from reading the instructions mate:001_smile: but thanks anyway for takeing the time to share that with me. You can also enlarge the focus area by turning the wheel when the focus button has been pressed. I was busy this week and also did a complete system restore on the laptop, first time I ever did that so its technology overload for me. I have a long post already written about the exercises I was doing. I'm getting to grips with shutter speed, aperture, and even ISO. I've found our chat very useful and have also worked on the Rule of two thirds as well. Glad your'e so pleased with yours,... some stunning photos are appearing in the fungi bits of the forum

I'm just coppying all your posts into the hamma handbook at the moment mate, I like what you just said, I want to be steered onto the hands on approach and am so grateful for the effort. You will love the posh bottles of vino rojo I'm going to bung you for this. (I have a good local wine merchant and posh isn't too expensive, the first and the last in the row are quite decent) I know you don't want bribes, but I owe you a token of gratitude

I concur again H. I want to go back to your post about the box, and one or two others and get a grip on those things, I have my homework:001_smile: Am loppin an toppin tommorrow so may not get a chance to do the exercise till tuesday,. I am pleased again that you had such a good day out with the LX5 today, shame you gotta cut trees too, theres always lunch break, but I'm not takeing mine to work just yet, might get dirty.