Newbie

[CT]

Hello everbody!

Just signed up. A quick few words about myself.

I bought my first SLR after saving up hard when I started work at around 16 years. A neighbour who was a chemist had showed me how to make black and white contact prints in the kitchen sink from old family box camera negatives. After that I was condemned to a lifetime of fascination with image taking which has never really diminished. I built my own enlarger from instructions in a library book the only bits I had to buy being the lens and two condensers. I owned much posher enlargers in the following years but I'm not sure any of them really did a better job than that first one.

Unfortunately I got sidetracked early on into semi -pro wedding photography and other stuff at the expense of wandering around photographing frost and stuff. After many years and a few hundred weddings, I finally packed it in about 2 years ago. I sold my Nikon kit at around that time also whch was a wrench, but I had to face the fact my interest lay with digital now.

I've been in love with the idea of digital photography from the very start and couldn't wait for the technology to advance to the stage where it was a realistic replacement for film. I've owned about half a dozen digital compacts, but I've held off on the full blown DSLR as I wasn't happy with the shutter lag, processing times, and image noise particularly. Well I just bought an Eos 20D, and I'm happy that those are all now problems in the past - the camera is a superb photgraphic tool and I look forward to doing some proper hobby photography instead of the endless stream of chocolate box wedding photos.

I still do a fair bit of photo restoration for my own customers and some for the trade, but other than that, I'm a hobbyist from here on in.

 

[Steep]

Hello there

photo restoration can be very rewarding can't it?

 

[CT]

Hello there

photo restoration can be very rewarding can't it?

Well, yes it can, but unfortunately everyone and his brother seems to be doing it these days and there are some pretty shocking examples around that people have paid good money for. It's had an inevitable effect on prices, with these people tending to undercut everyone.

If you're really interested, you'll find the biggest problem is you simply wont have access to enough damaged photos to get the practice you need. The only answer really is to let friends and relatives know you'll do them for free for the practice. Even then it doesn't really prepare you for when you 'go public ,for some of the slowly disintegrating tatty pics that people bring you! :shock:

There's a definite stage beyond which the restoration shouldn't really be attempted, and sometimes you simply have to advise people that that is the case. Unfortunately it's often the only pic they have of their Dad or whoever, and then I'm a bit of a soft touch, but you're on dodgy ground, if it works - great, if it doesn't, you're putting dodgy work out and your reputation suffers.

There isn't much that can't be done to be honest, but damage to faces where features are partly obliterated are very dodgy, you literally have to 'paint' the missing bits in. If it looks like Great Uncle Albert - fantastic! If it doesn't - you're a crap restorer.

 

[Matt]

Welcome CT, hope you enjoy the forums

 

[Steve]

Hello CT and welcome to the forums.

I was wondering after your introduction and change over from film to Digital how you are finding the workflow, which software you are using to process the images and are you shooting in Raw or Jpeg? As a professional film shooter I am interested to hear your opinion of this aspect of digital.

 

[CT]

I don't find the workflow a problem Steve, because I fairly mercilessly discard my rubbish shots which doesn' t leave me many to play with usually.

I shoot in Raw and jpeg. At moment I'm using Canons own Raw conversion software and then saving either as a Tiff or jpeg. I use PSP for the bulk of my retouching work so it's the package I'm most familiar with, and the retouching tools, (one in particular anyway) are superb. I don't have the Raw plug-in for PSP at the moment. I also have Photoshop and various other packages including Corel, but again I'm in need of Raw plug-ins for those.

White balance has never been particulary impressive with digital cameras I've used, particularly under tungsten light. Whilst the 20D is definitely better in that respect, there are huge advantages in using Raw to control WB. The images from the 20D tend to be a little soft for my tastes, so it's nice to be able deal with the sharpening too.

I'm still getting used to the 20D and it was a big decision to change over from Nikon, but one of the most impressive things about the 20D is the simplicity of the menus compared to Nikon - I find the menus very intuitive and user friendly.

 

[digitalfailure]

Glad to see you made it onto the forums m8.

Feel free to grab some gallery space and display some of the images you've created.

 

[Steve]

I don't find the workflow a problem Steve, because I fairly mercilessly discard my rubbish shots which doesn' t leave me many to play with usually.

I shoot in Raw and jpeg. At moment I'm using Canons own Raw conversion software and then saving either as a Tiff or jpeg. I use PSP for the bulk of my retouching work so it's the package I'm most familiar with, and the retouching tools, (one in particular anyway) are superb. I don't have the Raw plug-in for PSP at the moment. I also have Photoshop and various other packages including Corel, but again I'm in need of Raw plug-ins for those.

I am lucky enough to own a Photoshop CS and have upgraded to include the RAW file handler for the Canon 20D files. This is my tool of preference but I have also recently been playing around with a few other packages to get a feel of what else is available. From the ones that I have tried I have found a free package called Raw Shooter Essentials 2005 to be excellent. Its available from HERE if you are interested. As it is free it probably worth a few hours to have a play.

White balance has never been particulary impressive with digital cameras I've used, particularly under tungsten light. Whilst the 20D is definitely better in that respect, there are huge advantages in using Raw to control WB. The images from the 20D tend to be a little soft for my tastes, so it's nice to be able deal with the sharpening too.

I have recently also swapped over the 20D but unlike you I only upgraded from the 10D but did also notice that the images are substantially softer. The beauty is that images from the 20D do react very favourably to sharpening, giving much better results than the 10D ever did. This is not to say that the 10D was lacking but just that Canon have again moved the goal posts and set new standards.

I'm still getting used to the 20D and it was a big decision to change over from Nikon, but one of the most impressive things about the 20D is the simplicity of the menus compared to Nikon - I find the menus very intuitive and user friendly.

Here again I have to agree with you but find the small changes between the handling on the 10D to the 20D more awkward than I probably would have if I had changed from a completely different manufacturer. The 2 cameras look almost the same but reach quite differently, this has slowed my photography down somewhat causing me to think where I would normally select menus and functions intuitively.

 

[CT]

Thanks for the link Steve. I've just downloaded that. 8)

 

[Steve]

No problem. Hopefully it will be useful for you