Here is a pic of Shannon standing by her car just up from Summit Lake, near the top of Mt Evans. She let's me drive it... and I have to say it is a fun car to drive!

Ok, went up to Mt Evans today to try out the new Sigma 70-200mm 2.8. So far I can say that it seems to be a very nice lens. The biggest thing I was checking for today was focus, as Sigmas have a reputation for having back focus issues. As you will see, this one does not seem to have that issue. I have an old Sigma 400mm 5.6 APO that is an incredibly sharp lens, so I have a lot of trust in high end Sigma glass.

Like everyone else says, this lens is pretty heavy, but it is a 200mm 2.8... It is going to be heavy. That is the price you pay for a lens like this. At 3 lbs it is slightly heavier than the 2.8 lbs Canon (non IS) and the 2.5 lbs Tamron, but slightly lighter than the Nikon at 3.2 lbs. And I will say that after a half hour of shooting mountain goats at 14,000 ft, my arm did get a little tired, but seriously, it is so worth it! Really, any of these lenses are fantastic, and for those of us who really want a quality 2.8 lens, we expect the weight.

I went with the Sigma over the Tamron simply because of the reviews on the auto focus, and yes, the HSM is very fast and quiet. I haven't used the Tamron, so I don't know from personal experience, but I have read it is loud, and while still fairly quick, noticeably slower than the Sigma. But again, this is only what I have read; I have no personal experience with it.

At 200mm at f/2.8, it does tend to be a little soft, which is not unexpected, but after some sharpening it really isn't an issue.

This example is:

200mm
f/8
1/1000
ISO 100
Aperture Priority

This is a crop from the full size file, with no sharpening. As you can see, it is incredibly sharp at f/8.

I'll be adding to this post as I use the lens more.

David A Bliss

Well, I took a quick trip over to the fairgrounds today just to see how my 3 entries did. There were a fair number of pieces entered and I didn't hold out much hope for mine because, well I mean what the hell they weren't digital. There's good news and bad news. The good news is my three photos placed first, first and second. Now, the second place finish is my own fault. I entered two photos in the category of B+W exterior architecture. My second place photo finished behind my first place one. My other photo was a first place finish in B+W landscape.

Here's the bad news. There were no other entries for B+W (traditional) exterior architecture. My two were the only ones. There was one other entry for B+W (traditional) landscape. That person got second place and it wasn't a bad photo, just not good. So out of a total of 4 B+W traditional photos entered in two categories, I got 1st, 1st and 2nd. How sad is that?

There were some beautiful digital B+W photos. I got to see Toes' print of the boat, which is just phenominal. (I won't tell you what she placed ) And there was another beautiful one of a tree line and some reeds, which after admiring for a few minutes I noticed was also Elizabeth's. Very nice work there, toes. Your boat was definitely my favorite of the digital B+W stuff.

So there ya go. If you want first place in a photo contest and it has a category of B+W traditional, enter in that. You're sure to win.

Alright, I've been hanging out on the dpreview forums again lately. There are several posts arguing over RAW vs. JPEG and Post Processing vs. Straight out of the Camera.

As I'm reading the arguments, I pretty much see the same comments over and over:

Pro RAW & Post Processing - fix exposure and white balance mistakes and fix the images so they look like they "should".

Pro JPEG & Straight from the Camera - if you knew how to take photos, you wouldn't need to fix things.

Thinking back on my processing, I rarely touch the white balance in RAW. The only times I've done that is when I was shooting a work event under multiple light styles (daylight & flourescent, etc.). I've never adjusted the white balance to any shot taken outdoors. I'd figure I've used this ability 5% of the time tops.

Exposure correction I have done a bit more often. Usually for snow shots. More often than not, I expose for the sky and don't do anything more than a very subtle change to the exposure in RAW.

Usually, I drop down the sharpening to 0, the color correction down to under 10, and I upsize the image if I know I need to crop. That's really about it in the RAW processing.

After the RAW conversion, I may adjust levels (usually for a small portion of the image - ala Mark), and maybe utilize VelviaVision to enhance the colors. The only other things I usually do are re-size and unsharpen mask.

For me, just knowing I can enlarge the image to 16x24 is enough to shoot RAW, but I'm sure there are other reasons that don't involve having to have done something wrong in the first place.

So, what are the other "non-fix" uses in shooting RAW? What do you usually do in RAW that you can't do in JPEG?

What else should I be looking at in my RAW conversion? Are there other settings that I should be paying attention to that I'm not? I don't think I've ever gone near the Lens correction tab.

Share your wisdom!

Oh, and this is BBD...

Well, I finally pulled the trigger on the Sigma 70-200 2.8. It is quite a bit cheaper than the Canon version, and while the Canon version tests better for color and is slightly sharper, the Sigma isn't a slouch. It should be delivered on Friday, so hopefully I can let you know how it is after this weekend!

I made $500 shooting a non profit dinner event, and decided I would spend the money on a new lens. I'm still eyeing the Sigma 120-300 2.8, but at just over 3k, it's still just a dream... ;-)

http://www.photophilanthropy.org/awards_overview.html

Found this just posted on the Lightstalkers network. Seems to be open to all levels of shooters. If anyone helps out a non-profit or knows someone who does, this would be a good opportunity to put together a photo essay and make a little money to support the habit.

Paul

Link: http://opinepage.blogspot.com/

Well, since I've had plenty of time on my hands these last few months waiting for another job to come along, I decided to start a couple of blogs to help pass the time. I'm surprised that I forgot to post these up here when I started writing them, but this new forum format has me befuddled.

Anyway, you can read the musings of my mind as well as some new photos (and old photos).

http://exposeyourworld.blogspot.com/ is the photo blog and

http://opinepage.blogspot.com/ is where I bitch about things I see happening in the world today.

Dammit, somebody sign up as a follower so it doesn't seem like I'm standing in an empty room talking to myself...

Paul

Link: http://www.katu.com/news/local/45290487.html

You know summer has arrived in the Portland Metro Area when the first dumbass wanders too far out into the current of the Sandy river and drowns.

From now until mid-September, there will be roughly a drowning a week on this stretch of the Sandy. This has been going on for decades, and yet, the local gene pool continues to be culled year after year at this location.

You'd think that with so many drownings in one place that people would eventually get the message, "Stay the out of the water!" But nope, they just keep jumping into the current like a bunch of damn lemmings.

I've heard people say they should close the area to swimming, but that wouldn't stop them, it would just make them dead criminals.

Hi All,

sorry for disappearing again. when I have time and my knee permits, I always seem to end up working on the honey-do list. But friday Brian and I played hooky and drove east of the Gorge to The Dalles Mountain Road on the Washington side of the river. I posted a couple different versions of the keeper for the day in Photography.

Any of you guys out there?? Whatcha doin'? Got any food over there? Maybe a beer? Or a flask of scotch? Or maybe a scotchman?

Just so you know, where I'm currently working, there is a "staff photographer" and I've been told he uses a really big expensive camera with an expensive "back" that attaches to it and that it's like about a $20,000 camera... Hmmmm, want I should see if I can get you hired BBD?? Your orientation would be for a week at Asilomar... Hmmm, I have some photos that need critiquing on the Photography page... Hmmm, it's getting pretty lonely here all by myself... Hmmm, I'm not above a bit of bribery...

Taking my niece and an ex-coworker's daughter to the wildlife reserve this weekend for some photography practice. Hopefully, I'll have something new to add to those other photos that still need critiquing (hint hint )