[kartikk]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Anyone using an external flash unit that doesn't communicate with camera (no TTL) but just picks up the sync from hot-shoe and just fires?

I think your looking for a good book on flash photography ? If your Canon then its inevitably Sly Arena and his "Speedlighters Handbook". I forgot the Nikon guys name I think its "Deutschmann" and a similar book, but yes you need to and should get rid of the TTL/ETTL in order to learn better flash photography. Got my off-camera flash cable after reading the handbook. Its like shooting with the green box on the SLR

Originally Posted by R2D2

Nikon D4, D800. D800E have been launched in India.

Nikon India to spend Rs 150 crore on marketing next fiscal - The Economic Times

According to the press release the prices are:

1) Nikon D4 Rs 3,24,950 (approx US$ 6,499), approx 8.3% over US MSRP

2) Nikon D800 and Nikon D800E - Rs 1,49,950 and Rs 1,64,950 respectively (approx US$ 2,999 & 3,299), exactly as much as US MSRP.

Assuming Rs 50/US$, The prices very much in line with US retail prices and less than I expected (my expectations were the D4 @ Rs 4 lakhs and D800 at around 2 lakhs). Superb!!


If this well thought out pricing trend continues, we don't need to consider buying Nikon cameras in the US or EU. Obviously Nikon India is bent on maintaining or extending its lead in the DSLR segment in this country.

Cheers!

I'm sure they are exploring and its great for customers, Nikon I think leads overall in SLR sales in India but Canon leads in South and East. Atleast thats what a fellow friend from the industry mentioned about a year ago dont know how its changed now.

Sad part is that people who want to learn photography go buy an SLR, its almost like one wants to learn driving and then you go buy a Ferrari (just expressing my thoughts mean no offence to any reader)

[R2D2]

Originally Posted by kartikk

Nikon I think leads overall in SLR sales in India but Canon leads in South and East. Atleast thats what a fellow friend from the industry mentioned about a year ago dont know how its changed now.

Sad part is that people who want to learn photography go buy an SLR, its almost like one wants to learn driving and then you go buy a Ferrari (just expressing my thoughts mean no offence to any reader)

P.S. jumbled up the multi quote request a mod to merge my post.

As per the report Nikon has a 55% market share of DSLRs in India but regional distribution has not been mentioned. I am sure that with competitive pricing they will increase the lead.

About the Ferrari - look at it this way, if you learn how to drive with a Ferrari you would probably be able to handle any car. So the learning curve albeit steep, peppered with foolish errors, would be rewarding in the long run. :-)

Cheers!

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by kartikk

I think your looking for a good book on flash photography ? If your Canon then its inevitably Sly Arena and his "Speedlighters Handbook". I forgot the Nikon guys name I think its "Deutschmann" and a similar book, but yes you need to and should get rid of the TTL/ETTL in order to learn better flash photography. Got my off-camera flash cable after reading the handbook. Its like shooting with the green box on the SLR

I don't have TTL anyway, that's what I was saying in my previous post. So I will learn it the proper way ;-) I use Sony, not Canon or Nikon..

[manim]

Originally Posted by white-rabbit

Any good plase to learn basics of Dslr photoghraphy?
I am just a beginner,who wants to put some time in to this.

A great site on photography and then some more:
KenRockwell.com: Photography, Cameras and Taking Better Pictures

[clevermax]

Image averaging is an interesting technique to reduce noise. The idea is to average out each pixel from several shots. The noise is random in nature so it will average out to the actual value if there are enough samples. Some cameras like Sony Alpha SLRs & Nex series have this feature built-in. We can take pictures at any ISO level in the 'stacked' mode. What the camera actually does is to take 6 individual shots at the specified ISO and average the image to one.

For cameras which doesn't have this feature, you can very well do this in Photoshop.

Here are some high ISO samples from my A35. Noise is significantly less than a single shot from any of the DSLRs in entry and mid range. View the samples at actual size.

Ambient lighting within the room, ISO800. There is almost no noise.

Cleaner version in Flickr

cropped image portions at higher ISOs:

Cleaner version in Flickr

You can do away with a tripod and still get cool night shots with this feature. This allows you to use a high ISO and shoot with a quick shutter speed and still get less noisy images like the ones taken using lower ISOs.

[Ricci]

Originally Posted by white-rabbit

Any Idea on this?Anybody here from bangalore,who can help me with some basics of DSLR?

Try Mansurov's site for starters : Photography Tips for Beginners.

Look under the Understanding basics of photography section.


@Clevermax :

That looks very interesting. If I understand correctly, all the shots must have the same exposure, but varying shutter speed to compensate for ISO change while keeping aperture constant ? This technique won't work well for shots where the scene changes ( astrophotography , low light in general ) , or opportunistic shots that you cannot recompose exactly.
I suppose pixel binning might work better for that , though I haven't seen its effectiveness in reducing noise. Cameras with high pixel count like the D800 could use this technique, hope Nikon incorporates that in future releases.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by Ricci

@Clevermax :
That looks very interesting. If I understand correctly, all the shots must have the same exposure, but varying shutter speed to compensate for ISO change while keeping aperture constant ? This technique won't work well for shots where the scene changes ( astrophotography , low light in general ) , or opportunistic shots that you cannot recompose exactly.
I suppose pixel binning might work better for that , though I haven't seen its effectiveness in reducing noise. Cameras with high pixel count like the D800 could use this technique, hope Nikon incorporates that in future releases.

All shots are taken at f/8, so the shutter speed was varied. For ISO800 - 1/50s, for ISO3200 - 1/250s and so on.

This feature is useful when you want to take a steady shot of a low light scene without much people movement or any relative motion within the scene. For example, you want to photograph a building in low light without tripod, all you have to do is to select an ISO which will give you a good shutter speed, click the scene hand held. The algorithm is smart enough to cancel out image shifts across the shots and give you a final steady image with low noise. I have noticed that it even takes care of smaller movements of people, hands etc across the shots, as they won't appear from all the images in the merged one.

Pixel binning is better in the sense that it requires a single shot and the averaging takes place by combining adjacent pixels within the single image, hence resulting in a much lower resolution final image than what the sensor is capable of. In stacked mode, this is not the case, the resolution of the final image is same as the resolution of the individual shots. In my case, I get a 16MP image as the result from my 16MP sensor.

Nokia's 41MP camera phone has pixel binning and they recommend users to click take images at 5MP or so - pixel binning at work

Originally Posted by Ricci

That looks very interesting. If I understand correctly, all the shots must have the same exposure, but varying shutter speed to compensate for ISO change while keeping aperture constant ? This technique won't work well for shots where the scene changes ( astrophotography , low light in general ) , or opportunistic shots that you cannot recompose exactly.

I think there is a misunderstanding - so clarifying it more precisely.

Let's talk about the stacked ISO shot at IS0800. It was taken at f/8, 1/50s and stacked ISO800. This means, the camera took 6 shots with exactly the same settings as given above, and then averaged them to produce the final stacked ISO800 image. Similarly, for the ISO3200 image I gave, the settings were 1/250s, f/8 and IS3200 - the camera took 6 shots one by one with this same settings and merged them. This happens in a single click and since mine is an SLT, it has very good fps to take 6 shots quicker than similar DSLRs. So in the post above, the picture on top is NOT a resultant image of all the shots at various ISOs given below. Each of them are different stacked shots.

I gave samples at all ISOs just to give an idea about the amount of noise in those ISOs. Basically, user has the freedom to click stacked shots from ISO100 to ISO25600.

MODS: Please merge this post with the above post of mine. I added this after the time window for editing the previous one.

[benzinblut]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Sony stopped their DSLRs and moved onto DSLTs. They are very much like DSLRs so you can still consider a Sony, but the every level ones are bit expensive than similar models from Canikons, and yes they pack few more features and couple more mega pixels and yes, an LCD panel which is way better.

The entry level DSLT was A35, but now Sony UK site has listed that also as 'previous' model - something else is cooking. Heard about some A37. You can still buy A35 in India, i got mine for around 33K, with only the 18-55mm lens. Sony India lists the price as 36k or so. I presume this is out of your budget so i suggest Canon 1100D with 18-55mm lens for you.

I had a look at some DSLRs at TataCroma. They have some Fuji Film Cameras for 14K. Would this be a good buy?

[bhairavp]

No other Pentax shooters here? I use a K-x, with a DA16-45/4, FA28/2.8, FA50/1.4 and a DA35/2.4 as primes, and a bunch of older Taks and Vivitars in M42 mount.
Very cost effective, and results that are as good as those you get out of the Rebel T1/T2.

[Ricci]

Originally Posted by clevermax

I think there is a misunderstanding - so clarifying it more precisely.

Let's talk about the stacked ISO shot at IS0800. It was taken at f/8, 1/50s and stacked ISO800. This means, the camera took 6 shots with exactly the same settings as given above, and then averaged them to produce the final stacked ISO800 image.

Ah, thanks for clarifying - yes, that is exactly what I was thinking - did Sony implement that image combine for different ISOs or same. Still, I think this might not work so well for long exposures/very high ISO. Say an 8 sec exposure taken 6 times over at the same ISO, will raise sensor noise level as each exposure happens in quick succession, 8 sec fairly long , 6 exposures without gap to allow the sensor to cool, thus raising the noise level as opposed to a standalone shot ( the first one that is ). So do your stacked shots get a lower noise compared to standalone, for longer exposures of 1 sec or more ? 1/50 is fairly short , so sensor temperature may not rise much.

Originally Posted by clevermax

The feature is not for long exposures.

Alright, that's fine , does the manual also explicitly state so , or imply how slow you can use this feature ?
At least the border-line slow shutter speeds get a better chance of a reduced noise capture.

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by Ricci

Ah, thanks for clarifying - yes, that is exactly what I was thinking - did Sony implement that image combine for different ISOs or same. Still, I think this might not work so well for long exposures/very high ISO. Say an 8 sec exposure taken 6 times over at the same ISO, will raise sensor noise level as each exposure happens in quick succession, 8 sec fairly long , 6 exposures without gap to allow the sensor to cool, thus raising the noise level as opposed to a standalone shot ( the first one that is ). So do your stacked shots get a lower noise compared to standalone, for longer exposures of 1 sec or more ? 1/50 is fairly short , so sensor temperature may not rise much.

The feature is not for long exposures. It is actually for taking a quick shot and walk away in low light conditions. If you have the luxury and setup (tripod) to take a long exposure shot of 6 seconds, then why to use this feature at all? I would just click a normal picture at a lower ISO then..

Example - let's say one wants to get a low light shot with good quality, so he exposes the camera on a tripod for about 5 seconds in ISO100. (assume that was the metered value)

Another guy comes with a camera with this feature, does a handheld stacked shot with ISO1600 with a shutter speed of 1/10s and he also gets a decent picture with less noise, without a tripod.

EDIT: I just tried long exposures with this mode - the camera only took 4 shots instead of 6 when the individual exposure time was 2 seconds. Have to explore more with longer exposures. But this was in stacked mode ISO100..

[C300]

Originally Posted by bhairavp

No other Pentax shooters here? I use a K-x, with a DA16-45/4, FA28/2.8, FA50/1.4 and a DA35/2.4 as primes, and a bunch of older Taks and Vivitars in M42 mount.
Very cost effective, and results that are as good as those you get out of the Rebel T1/T2.

Good to see another Pentaxian here. We are a minority compared to Canikonians on the forum and the reason is simple - unavailability of Pentax through official channels in India.
Looks like you have built a really good prime kit. Is FA 28/2.8 still in production? Do share some pics on the non-auto image thread.

[benzinblut]

Im a newbie to DSLRs. I posted a query last week.

Just yesterday I visited TataCroma. They have some Fuji Cameras for 14K. Would this be a good buy? Please advise

All other Sony and Cannons are 30K onwards.

[SDP]

Originally Posted by benzinblut

Im a newbie to DSLRs. I posted a query last week.

Just yesterday I visited TataCroma. They have some Fuji Cameras for 14K. Would this be a good buy? Please advise

All other Sony and Cannons are 30K onwards.

If I were you, I would pick up a entry level Nikon DLSR or a entry level Canon. Places like Chroma would have very limited options. Check out a proper camera store.

Here's a comparison of all Nikon models on offer:
Nikon DSLR Body Comparison Chart - Nikonians.org

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by benzinblut

Im a newbie to DSLRs. I posted a query last week.

Just yesterday I visited TataCroma. They have some Fuji Cameras for 14K. Would this be a good buy? Please advise

All other Sony and Cannons are 30K onwards.

World you get a new dslr for 14K? What are the fuji models available for 14k? I think they are mostly prosumer ones. Fujifilm cameras are very good ones. The cheapest dslr you may get is Sony Alpha 290K, for just above 20K. Try if some shops still store it..

Otherwise just jump to Canon or Nikon entry level ones. There are no real entry level ones from Sony at the moment because they are promoting Nex series as the entry level interchangeable lens cameras.