Coney Island Mermaid Parade Pictures

"John Turco" wrote in message
...
Atheist Chaplain wrote:

"Don Wiss" wrote in message

edited for brevity

OMG A Purvis Eureka http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/h0026.htm
I thought that Australia was the only country to be infested with these
heaps of ****e :-)

Oh. We were wondering today just what that little thing was.

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Yep, all fibreglass body on a VW chassis, in the rain when you open the
lid
you get a lap full of cold water :-{
I never owned one but a friend did, I always thought they looked ugly but
he
loved it :-)
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au...vis_eureka.htm


Hello, Atheist Chaplain:

Hmmm. That Aussie jalopy bears a strong resemblance to the USA's own,
fabled Chevrolet Corvette, no? g


Cordially,
John Turco

in passing, yes.
I know what one I would prefer to own though ;-)

--
"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
Don Hirschberg

In article , "Neil Harrington" wrote:

"Atheist Chaplain" wrote in message
...
"Don Wiss" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:06:08 +1000, Atheist Chaplain
wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
It was easy and fun to take 412 pictures. But then daunting to process
them. I finally buckled down and selected and cropped all of them. 270
of
them made it to the web. They are at:

http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/

While this is a family oriented parade, it gets a little fleshier each
year.

OMG A Purvis Eureka http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/h0026.htm
I thought that Australia was the only country to be infested with these
heaps of ****e :-)

Oh. We were wondering today just what that little thing was.

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Yep, all fibreglass body on a VW chassis, in the rain when you open the
lid you get a lap full of cold water :-{
I never owned one but a friend did, I always thought they looked ugly but
he loved it :-)
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au...vis_eureka.htm

Very interesting. I think it looks pretty snazzy when buttoned up. Never saw
one of those before.



All i can say is you guys in New York do some weird **** in front of your
kids. Arent there laws about nudity around children there?

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008, (GMAN) wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/

While this is a family oriented parade, it gets a little fleshier each
year.

All i can say is you guys in New York do some weird **** in front of your
kids. Arent there laws about nudity around children there?

Laws? This is Coney Island. They are very proud of their raunchy heritage.
Right now the city wants to develop Coney Island with hotels and condos,
and people are all afraid that the place will be cleaned up. There were
signs in the parade about a meeting in a few days later discussing the
rezoning and development plans.

Besides in many parts of the world topless beaches are common, and kids
aren't restricted.

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

"Don Wiss" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 3 Jul 2008 22:54:33 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
It was easy and fun to take 412 pictures. But then daunting to process
them. I finally buckled down and selected and cropped all of them. 270
of
them made it to the web. They are at:

http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/

While this is a family oriented parade, it gets a little fleshier each
year.

Really nice collection of shots, Don. What camera?

Hi Neil,

I used my D300 with the 18-200 lens.

D300! You've moved up quite a bit from your old 8400!

I still have my 8400 by the way, and am still very fond of it though I
rarely use it nowadays. My high-end camera is the D80. I've thought about
the D300 but really don't need that much camera yet. Probably I'll buy one
when they drop the price in anticipation of the D400 (assuming that's what
its successor will be called).


You will note that the pictures are
soft. That's the lens. Both the camera and lens were recently sent back to
Nikon, so I'm sure they are working to spec. Just spec is low for that
lens.

In a situation like this having the long zoom is real handy, though I
still
crop all to maximize the people or float in the picture.

Sure, I do the same. Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given, though I haven't looked at all of
them yet. My own feeling, frankly, is that photographers tend to obsess too
much about sharpness. I do myself, but ordinary people just looking at the
picture for its own sake don't even notice what we might call softness.


The boardwalk picture and the ones at the end were taken with the 12-24
lens. All pictures included the SB-800 flash set to back light.

I had been planning to upgrade to the D300's successor, figuring it would
be FX. But to me the D300 weight is at the max. So for the weight reason
alone I won't be upgrading to the D700.

The D700 is something I wouldn't even consider. I'm perfectly happy with the
DX cameras.

Neil

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 16:11:12 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

D300! You've moved up quite a bit from your old 8400!

There was a D200 in between. I got my D300 the day after it came out. The
problem I had with the 8400 is the abysmal performance in low light. I lost
pictures over it. And I could use more telephoto.

I still have my 8400 by the way, and am still very fond of it though I
rarely use it nowadays.

I was also keeping my 8400 around, until I discovered how much they sell
for on eBay. I got $585 for mine. This camera is the hot camera for
appraisers and others in the real estate industry. Sell it! Now!

My second camera is my Nikon 950. I need to keep it so I can take pictures
of my other camera, so I can sell it on eBay. No way am I going to sell a
camera there and use stock photos. I want the buyer to know exactly what I
have for sell. And the 950 is suburb at the macro shots needed for eBay. I
would even recommend to an eBay seller to get one just for eBay. A while
back I checked and you could get one new in box (that's all I would
recommend buying) for around $75-100.

Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,

The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.

Don www.donwiss.com/pictures/ (e-mail link at page bottoms).

Don Wiss wrote:
Neil Harrington wrote:

Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,

The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.

I checked a couple & the exif says it's at f/25 & ISO 800 which might
explain some softness (diffraction). Or maybe not at the 2.5 MP setting.
http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/0039.jpg

Fun set to look through as always Don.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008, Paul Furman wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
Neil Harrington wrote:

Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,

The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.

I checked a couple & the exif says it's at f/25 & ISO 800 which might
explain some softness (diffraction). Or maybe not at the 2.5 MP setting.
http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/0039.jpg

Oh ****. I wasn't paying attention to the ISO. I would not have used 800.
The problem is these cameras have too many settings for me. I did get the
ones on the back of the camera correct, and the ones visible on the LCD
top, but not that non-visible one. (Yea, it is visible in the view finder,
but not with my glasses on.)

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).

"Don Wiss" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 16:11:12 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

D300! You've moved up quite a bit from your old 8400!

There was a D200 in between. I got my D300 the day after it came out. The
problem I had with the 8400 is the abysmal performance in low light. I
lost
pictures over it. And I could use more telephoto.

I still have my 8400 by the way, and am still very fond of it though I
rarely use it nowadays.

I was also keeping my 8400 around, until I discovered how much they sell
for on eBay. I got $585 for mine. This camera is the hot camera for
appraisers and others in the real estate industry. Sell it! Now!

The 8400 is also said by some to be the best camera for IR conversion,
replacing the "hot mirror" filter over the CCD with an IR filter. I've been
tempted, but my interest in IR is not serious enough to want to spend $300
on a conversion. I do like the idea of using a Coolpix rather than a DSLR
for IR conversion though, since the EVF arrangement automatically gets
around focus problems.

I've noticed that as you say, 8400s bring very nice prices on eBay -- when
they show up at all.


My second camera is my Nikon 950. I need to keep it so I can take pictures
of my other camera, so I can sell it on eBay. No way am I going to sell a
camera there and use stock photos. I want the buyer to know exactly what I
have for sell. And the 950 is suburb at the macro shots needed for eBay. I
would even recommend to an eBay seller to get one just for eBay. A while
back I checked and you could get one new in box (that's all I would
recommend buying) for around $75-100.

That's interesting, and I'll keep an eye out for one. I'm always ready to
add something interesting to my Nikon collection. I do like the idea of
using older high-end Coolpixes for eBay stuff, plan to do that with my 8700
next time I sell something. The "macro" performance of those Nikons is so
good. Only shortcoming is that they don't have the Speedlight versatility of
the DSLRs.


Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,

The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.

I see what you mean, they do look a bit soft when full size.

I have the 18-200 VR also, haven't found mine at all soft but then I haven't
shot the same kind of subject matter so maybe that's the difference. Also I
haven't used that low a resolution. Of course 2.5 MP is more resolution than
most monitors so it might not matter, but I'm wondering if some resolution
isn't lost by what I'd call pixel splitting when you use something less than
max resolution in the camera. Have you tried comparing with a known sharp
lens also at 2.5 MP with all else being the same -- subject matter, cropping
etc.?

I've been meaning to do some experimenting with this, comparing different
resolutions for use on a monitor and also on prints. Generally I use 5 or 6
MP for casual stuff but haven't really done any serious comparison testing
yet.

Neil

Don Wiss wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jul 2008, Paul Furman wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
Neil Harrington wrote:

Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,
The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.
I checked a couple & the exif says it's at f/25 & ISO 800 which might
explain some softness (diffraction). Or maybe not at the 2.5 MP setting.
http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2008/0039.jpg

Oh ****. I wasn't paying attention to the ISO. I would not have used 800.

Yeah, it happens to me too. Actually those shots can use some
sharpening; a tiny 0.3 radius at 200% improves them a lot. Or turn up
the sharpening in-camera for this kind of thing. Reduced that much, I
don't think the lens is a problem.

The problem is these cameras have too many settings for me. I did get the
ones on the back of the camera correct, and the ones visible on the LCD
top, but not that non-visible one. (Yea, it is visible in the view finder,
but not with my glasses on.)

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).


--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 23:59:33 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

Don Wiss wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jul 2008 16:11:12 -0400, Neil Harrington wrote:

Generally speaking I don't think your pictures look
soft, at least not in the sizes given,

The full original size can be seen by clicking on the web-sized ones. They
were taken at the 2.5 MP setting. Anything bigger is just more cumbersome
for pictures that are intended for the web. All were rotated and cropped
losslessly.

I see what you mean, they do look a bit soft when full size.

I have the 18-200 VR also, haven't found mine at all soft but then I haven't
shot the same kind of subject matter so maybe that's the difference.

I didn't think them to be soft when I had the D200.

Also I
haven't used that low a resolution. Of course 2.5 MP is more resolution than
most monitors so it might not matter, but I'm wondering if some resolution
isn't lost by what I'd call pixel splitting when you use something less than
max resolution in the camera. Have you tried comparing with a known sharp
lens also at 2.5 MP with all else being the same -- subject matter, cropping
etc.?

No I have not. I could test on the screen. I do not have a color printer. I
take for the web. Taking full size, besides the more cumbersome processing,
means the original size behind the web size will be huge.

I've been meaning to do some experimenting with this, comparing different
resolutions for use on a monitor and also on prints. Generally I use 5 or 6
MP for casual stuff but haven't really done any serious comparison testing
yet.

I leave for a Netherlands holiday in a few days. But it really needs to me
that does the comparison. I am first upgrading the firmware, though it is
only updating B and not A, so I gotta make a call...

Don www.donwiss.com (e-mail link at home page bottom).