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Love the Sony A200 kit lens! - (Fogo Island Scenery)
#1

Another shot taken this afternoon with my Sony A200 DSLR and 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens. The little boat is a very old traditional Fogo Island "punt", still in perfect condition and used regularly. This photo was taken directly in front of our home in Island Harbour, on the west side of Fogo Island. As you can see, the mighty North Atlantic is usually quite calm in our protected little bay.

Taken handheld, RAW, f/16, 1/60th sec, ISO 100.

The second photo was taken yesterday evening, just as the sun was dipping into the ocean. Wasn't much of a sunset for once, but I like the light in this shot. Taken handheld, again with the kit lens, at f/3.5, 1/320th sec, ISO100.

I still have yet to see any signs of corner/edge softness with this lens, contrary to what most people are saying about their copies. I find it incredibly clear and sharp, and it renders colors as accurately as the old Minolta Maxxum lenses.

Glen
http://www.focusonnewfoundland.com


[Image: DSC01277a750pix.jpg]



[Image: DSC01200a900pix.jpg]
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#2

Apart from it looking rather cool, (some like it hot, not the photo, the weather. Cool) it seems you have a beautiful part of the world to live in.
As for the photo's, I can't fault them really. Smile

Lumix LX5.
Canon 350 D.+ 18-55 Kit lens + Tamron 70-300 macro. + Canon 50mm f1.8 + Manfrotto tripod, in bag.
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#3

Thanks NT73, for your kind comments.
You mentioned that the climate looks cool; actually the summers here are quite hot and dry. Summer temperatures are in the high 20's, (celsius) even 30 degrees at times. And winters are not nearly as cold as one would think, with daytime temps of around the freezing mark, but with plenty of snow; great for skiers and snowmobilers! Even though we are now into the middle of September, the ocean temperature is still warm enough for swimming.
Glen
www.focusonnewfoundland.com
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#4

Hi, Glen!

These images do indeed ilustrate the quality of your camera/lens. I especially like the lighting in the foreground of the second photo. It looks like you really found the "golden hour" with that one.

Regards.....Dennis
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#5

Glen, It is hard for me to evaluate the photos you posted.

First, you talk of in-camera settings, but not about post-processing. Yet it is obvious that the photos were tweaked. Colors seem exaggerated and I am not sure why the parts of the horizon appear thick on both photo. My guess is that you may have applied a color mask to both in order to render blues differently from the rest of the photos. Does it mean you did not sharpen? The photos do not seem sharpened, but I would find it hard to tell, if sharpening is done gently enough.

My second and perhaps more important is what I see is apparent softness in the foreground towards the edges. This could of course bee due to shallow DOF. There is an interaction between the location of your focus, shallow DOF and the relative distance of edges and center of focus to the lens. I do not see this photos as proof of edge sharpness however, but perhaps rather the opposite.


However, it is unlikely that you will use this lens shooting wide open for most of your landscapes and furthermore you can improve apparent optical performance by processing through DXO, which corrects by default many of your lens potential limitations, using information about the lens performance. Further considerable improvement can be obtained using a dedicated sharpener (such as NIK). I use these two pieces of software routinely and I find little cause to worry about the optical performance of my lenses, including Nikon 18-200, which is clearly not a first class lens. You live in the enchanted part of Canada and your photos are generally a pleasure to look at, although the two you posted are not my favorites among yours, in part due to somewhat heavy color enhancement. Many of my photos suffer from the same thing and I find it hard to restrain myself. I visited Fogo and other parts of NL in the spring and posted some photos on Flickr and I hope to go to the western part of NL again, perhaps in the spring. Your photos are a constant reminder for my of the pleasure of my visit.

Pavel

Please see my photos at http://mullerpavel.smugmug.com (fewer, better image quality, not updated lately)
or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/ (all photos)
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#6

These are really remarkable photos.

Nikon D3100 with Tokina 28-70mm f3.5, (I like to use a Vivitar .43x aux on the 28-70mm Tokina), Nikkor 10.5 mm fisheye, Quanteray 70-300mm f4.5, ProOptic 500 mm f6.3 mirror lens. http://donschaefferphoto.blogspot.com/
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#7

Pavel,
Here are the stats to date (as of Sept 10/09) regarding the posting of these two photographs on the various forums that I regularly frequent:
Positive - 104 members
Negative - 1 member (you)

I personally love both of these images, and that's why I take pictures. I either like a picture or I don't. These two look very good to me. If others agree with me... well, that's just the icing on the cake. If someone comes along and doesn't like my work, that's OK too. Just because I like a photograph certainly doesn't mean that everyone needs to like it. It is interesting though, that over 100 people love it and only one doesn't. That speaks volumes to me.

I hardly think that I would need to explain to a photographer of your caliber the downside of drastically shrinking images for the web. To expect no degradation is absurd, as it is to blame said degradation on a lens, or substandard PP, when that clearly is not the case.

Any time that a posted picture can garner a 99.05% approval rating among photographers, I tend to believe I am on the right track!

Cheers.
Glen
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#8

Glen, my comments were very factual and specific and mostly dealt with an attempt to assess the optical performance of your lens. My conclusion was that I could not tell for sure how sharp (or not) the lens is based o the photos you posted.

I made a short comment about colors. I thought that I am being helpful. Like you, most of the comments I get are enthusiastic. I assume that when people do not like my photos, they just say nothing. Also if they say they like them, they do not need to go into trouble of explaining anything and they need not worry they may offend. I therefore specially value those that give me factual and constructive, actionable comments. I am not an expert and I certainly have no delusions about knowing more than you do. I am trying to improve and anybody who tries to help me is a friend. I try to give the kind of comments I like to receive. My sense of accomplishment does not depend on the enthusiastic comments I get.

In my defense, I stated that:

1) "your photos are generally a pleasure to look at"
2) "many of my photos suffer from the same thing and I find it hard to restrain myself "
3) "Your photos are a constant reminder for my of the pleasure of my visit."

I do not see these statements compatible with your perception that I do not like your work. If I did not respect you as a photographer, I would not bother to comment on your photos. Furthermore, I believe that if I post, I must be prepared for all sort of comments. Some comments I may end up agreeing and some not and some may be positive and some negative. I left groups which provided me with nothing but very positive comments, because I learned nothing there.

I hope that this clarifies the issue for you. However if it does not and you just wish to receive only positive comments, just ask I will not comment on your photos. Providing the kind of comments I provide take time and thought and I would rather provide them for those that appreciate them.

Take care

Pavel

Please see my photos at http://mullerpavel.smugmug.com (fewer, better image quality, not updated lately)
or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pavel_photophile2008/ (all photos)
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