Holiday snaps from last night. Traditional dancing from Ubud, Bali:

IMG_9841A by drjlo1, on Flickr

Hey Head-Case, it's time for a little role reversal. I need YOU to give ME some photography advice. Where is the best place to buy a Canon S95? Also, I've read in this thread about 3rd party grips for it. I have giant man paws, and it is my understanding the S95 is tough to use with big hands. How much does the grip help?

Here's a link to the grip for S95. http://www.lensmateo.../S95S90grip.php

From what I've been told and read, the grip helps a lot. I know there are couple of folks here with the grip.

As for where to buy one, Canon's a got a refurb one for $319.99. Of course, after shipping and sales tax, it's back up to ~$360, so you're probably better off buying a new one and have one-year warranty (vs. 90-day for a refurb). I've been looking at it on and off for a while and no one reputable is selling one for less than retail ($399) so I'd just pick a store that has a good return policy.

Are you going to IR the thing?

Edited April 27, 201115 yr by Salt Peanuts

Hey Head-Case, it's time for a little role reversal. I need YOU to give ME some photography advice. Where is the best place to buy a Canon S95? Also, I've read in this thread about 3rd party grips for it. I have giant man paws, and it is my understanding the S95 is tough to use with big hands. How much does the grip help?

You sure you want the S95? I have the Lumix LX5 and find it infinitely better to handle. Had the S90 previously (S95 is same size) which I thought was too small. The LX5 also has a rubber grip and is a lot easier to shoot in manual mode with.

Agreed, no one reputable is selling the S95 for less than MSRP, so might as well get it from either B&H or J&R since they have free shipping.

Edited April 27, 201115 yr by Asr

For those not yet in the know, i'm using this Lx-5 auto lens cap now and it works beautifully. No more worrying about the detachable cap.

Time for some old pictures to remind me that summer is indeed coming.

Edited April 28, 201115 yr by revolink24

A few more oldies I never got around to uploading.

Mardi Gras.

Friend shooting.

Also, the age old "bored taking pictures of random crap laying around" picture.

Edited April 28, 201115 yr by revolink24

You sure you want the S95? I have the Lumix LX5 and find it infinitely better to handle. Had the S90 previously (S95 is same size) which I thought was too small. The LX5 also has a rubber grip and is a lot easier to shoot in manual mode with.

Agreed, no one reputable is selling the S95 for less than MSRP, so might as well get it from either B&H or J&R since they have free shipping.

LX5, no. I have been looking quite closely at the Olympus XZ-1.

It has a faster lens and arguably better handling than the S95. It's also got a hot shoe, which is boon, especially as I have a hotshoe-to-PC adapter. It's bit more expensive at $500, but it just might be my next camera.

Hey Head-Case, it's time for a little role reversal. I need YOU to give ME some photography advice. Where is the best place to buy a Canon S95? Also, I've read in this thread about 3rd party grips for it. I have giant man paws, and it is my understanding the S95 is tough to use with big hands. How much does the grip help?

The grip helps immensely in making it easy to handle without adding any additional bulk. That being said it is a pretty small camera, which is what makes it great for me. I have it with me all the time and never really have to think about grabbing the camera. Just buy it at B&H.

Edited April 29, 201115 yr by morphsci

For those not yet in the know, i'm using this Lx-5 auto lens cap now and it works beautifully. No more worrying about the detachable cap.

Thanks for the link, I'm going to check that out.

Borrowing Canon 16-35mm f2.8L II..

IMG_9899 by drjlo1, on Flickr

Took the 85 f1.4 out for some wide open flower shooting.

That Sigma 85mm offers some serious background blur. I wish some of the top-line 85mm lenses would offer better macro ability, but even with Sigma 85's meager macro numbers (0.12X 0.85m min focus), it's better than even more meager numbers for my Canon 85L (0.11x 0.95m)! I usually have to attach an extesion tube on the 85 for getting close.

Why don't you just get a dedicated macro lens? It seems odd to gripe about lack of lens magnification of 85mm lenses when they are clearly not designed for such purpose. Also, at 85mm, you probably get higher magnification with close-up lens than with an extension tube.

Why don't you just get a dedicated macro lens? It seems odd to gripe about lack of lens magnification of 85mm lenses when they are clearly not designed for such purpose. Also, at 85mm, you probably get higher magnification with close-up lens than with an extension tube.

I did. After *extensive* research, I bought a Sigma 70mm f2.8 Macro, for exactly those reasons. Unfortunately, I found out that Sigma 70 simply does not autofocus in live view on my 550D body, a not-so-rare occurence with certain Sigma lenses and certain Canon bodies according to Sigma service center and the web, and there is no Sigma firmware update for this particular lens, so I sent it back.

So I've been looking at the Canon 100 f2.8 vs. Canon 100 f2.8L IS. I would really like the IS but the ludicrous jump in price over the non-IS version for same optics is holding me back..

I'm sure you know this, but IS is pretty useless for 95% of Macro work. You will likely be manual focusing on a tripod if you get serious with macro.

Here's a photo I took on my Washington DC trip.

I picked up a Minolta 28 - 135mm F4-4.5 lens which is heavy, but works very well.

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Nice shot, Zip. Good to see someone still using K/M gear.

Can someone briefly explain the differences between Adobe Photoshop vs. Lightroom, or why I'd want one or the other or both?

TIA.

Depends on what you're doing. Photoshop is for image editing. You can do layers, draw penises, etc.. while Lightroom is for photo editing and archiving like Picasa 3; Brightness, contrast, white balance, saturation, etc...

If you're a casual shooter, you will just need Lightroom. If you plan on doing serious editing, then you'll also need Photoshop.

Edited May 3, 201115 yr by falkon

Nice shot, Zip. Good to see someone still using K/M gear.

I bought the Sony A33 and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of inexpensive and very good Minolta lens available.

Can someone briefly explain the differences between Adobe Photoshop vs. Lightroom, or why I'd want one or the other or both?

TIA.

I'm not an expert in either, but Adobe Photoshop is for creating / updating images, while Lightroom is aimed at photographers to organize, touch up and share their photos.

I downloaded the trial of Lightroom and liked it, but am using Aperture on my MacBook Pro at home.

I'm sure others can chime in and give you more details on photoshop / lightroom.

Photoshop CS5 is also pretty expensive compared to Lightroom. But to put it simply, most people (i.e., even photographers for example) don't need CS5. CS5 is like a kitchen-sink image & graphics editor and packs a high learning curve to boot. Lightroom is more of a workflow-type app that will help organize your photo files and how you work with them while retaining some of the more-useful features from CS5. Lots of info to be found on the subject if you Google "photoshop vs lightroom".

Depends on what you're doing. Photoshop is for image editing. You can do layers, draw penises, etc.. while Lightroom is for photo editing and archiving like Picasa 3; Brightness, contrast, white balance, saturation, etc...

Heh, I almost didn't see that. But to correct that part on a technicality, Photoshop isn't really a drawing program. Adobe's other app Illustrator is a drawing program, as is the other main competitor, CorelDRAW. If you're looking for drawing programs the feature to look for is called "vector graphics" and CorelDRAW is actually better than Adobe's app in that aspect.

Edited May 3, 201115 yr by Asr

thanks y'all. you've given me enough info to springboard into more of my own research, along with a workday chuckle.