iPhone 6 camera versus $8k of DLSR gear

Got a random question and I have no idea if this thread is where I should ask, but I will take a shot just in case anyone can help me out. Wife and I had newborn photos taken of our daughter. We are getting a few of them put together on a 16x20 collage. Our options are to get the images printed on fine art cotton paper or museum quality canvas. The canvas is a little bit more expensive. Does anyone have any recommendations on which one to get or know anything about this at all?

This is a really unfair assessment. If you're going to use two off camera flashes and a light box for the dslr you could use two off camera slave mode flashes and a light box for the iphone 6 too. Basically someone is trying to use lighting equipment with an expensive camera to say that the expensive camera is way better when in actuality the lighting is way better. If you want to show that the camera is better put a 70-200mm 2.8 on the camera or a 10-20 wide angle to show what the camera can do that the iphone is incapable of.

I'm not sure if his intent is to say the camera is way better, or rather the camera is way way better in very specific situations, but you should feel good about your phone's camera regardless. It almost seems aimed to dissuade casual camera photogs thinking about upgrading to a DSLR. At least in the writing.

Been a loooong time since I posted here.

Here are some shots I took from Iceland - (went mid September) - this place is off the charts. I already can't wait to go back. I encourage anyone who has even remotely thought of going there to go.
Kit was D7100, 18-105 kit lens, Tokina 11-16 2.8 lens, Mefoto Globetrotter Tripod, Lee Filters and F-Stop Loka bag. There were tons of photogs there, especially at the Glacial lagoon. (50 of us out there at midnight trying to catch Northern Lights(I got a good one on way back from there that night)

full gallery here -

http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/22...albums/iceland

Vik Beach


Horses East Iceland



Gullfoss


Jokulsarlon Iceberg Lagoon


Geysir Hot Springs area


Skogafoss


Horse east of Vik


Northern Lights - East of Lagoon - red glow lower right of mountain is Bardarbunga volcano gas glow

Very nice.

If I'm getting a Helios 44m for my T3i, what else do I need? Will I be fine/able to shoot if I get a non-chipped EF adapter for it?

Also, here are a couple pics I took a few weeks back while in Chicago. These have been converted to b&w, which I don't use a lot.

Good shots. Thanks for sharing..

Somehow being in CAR this summer was not my most memorable or dangerous trip after just getting back from Annapurna (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29672358)

The elephant days I took around 1k each and the gorilla days far fewer due to less time and much worse conditions. I was the only tourist in CAR at the lodge I stayed at, and probably overall (at least for wildlife reasons and I'm not sure there are many other reasons at the moment), because there is only 1 other lodge in the area, which was empty. They did have a few before/after I went of mostly Spanish people, but it was pretty awesome to be alone there.

Yeah, it was not safe to go to Bangui, the capital of CAR, so the only routes are to go west through Cameroon or south through Congo. Neither is convenient, cheap, or easy to arrange. In the past they would charter flights to Bangui with many guests or you could even drive there, and I hope that becomes possible again soon.

As for dietary habits, that is a little hard to explain, but basically at home I eat very few foods in pretty large quantities and without much flavor They accommodated me very well with omelette breakfasts, pasta for lunch, and really good dinners including salads (hadn't eaten vegetables for literally over a week!) + protein (chicken or locally caught fish)/potatoes/veggies + great desserts. The lodge owner couple and I ate dinners together -- it was pretty fascinating to hear what they had been and are continuing to go through and some of their ideas for the future.

Holy ****.

Wow, wow. I didn't hear about this. First the Everest avalanche disaster, now this. I was actually on Kala Pattar (the high point of the everest base camp trek, overlooking the whole everest range) the morning the April avalanche hit. We came back down and a couple of Nepali's were balling their eyes out, and we weren't sure why. After a couple hours we finally heard the news and the place where we ended up staying was the village where they were helicoptering in the dead bodies. It was ****ed up.

But it's one thing when you're mountaineering. Avalanche risks are always somewhat present. To have something like this to happen on a well traveled, non-technical trekking route is pretty crazy, especially in October! I hiked the Annapurna base camp route a couple years ago and honestly I just can't imagine something like this happening. It's only 3 hours from high camp to the top of the pass! And even less going down to Muktinath. Were most of the fatalities from avalanches? Or did people just get snowed in and froze to death?? I guess I've never been in complete whiteout conditions, but damn, its so wild to think that something as innocuous as the Thorung La Pass, at least as it seemed to me when crossing it, could be so fatal. I mean it's 17,000 feet, it seems like you would be able to dig out a snow cave and hunker down for a few days. I'm probably way off...

So you were on the circuit when the storm hit?? Which part? How bad were the conditions where you were at? How long did it take to get accurate information on what was going on at the top of the pass?

Here's when I was there. Left at 3am. Beautiful clear skies on the way up:


Amazing sunrise at the top. But it's really flat, not really near any steep precipices


The way down: Weather turned bad, but it was just snowing and really slippery.


Damn. My thoughts are with all those trekkers. Really can't predict something like this happening at this time of year. Or can you...?

Nice pics there. We were in Manang, which is the largest town we trekked through. Upon reaching there it takes 2 days to get to the camp prior to attempting the pass.

We got there in the early afternoon and all was good, including the lodge we were at having its own internet cafe and bakery. Then at night it began raining pretty hard, but didn't think much of it. I got up to pee in the night and saw a LOT of snow on the ground -- wtf! From then it snowed hard and nonstop the entire day.

For some reason, the people at the high camps attempted the pass this day in the storm. They generally leave quite early, so maybe in those hours it wasn't coming down so hard. I also quite scarily don't see myself staying put if the majority of others were hiking.

At our lodge/area, perhaps because it was so comfortable, no one went anywhere, though power went out. The lodge owner had told us we could pay with credit card so we kind of "splurged" there, but then suddenly we couldn't pay with CC and had no ATM access, so we somehow convinced him to use a generator to power a laptop which could connect to the satellite internet. Allowed us to pay with CC (+10% fee!) and was probably only person in the entire area who was able to send a message to family this day with an update.



The next day was super sunny and some people said they saw forecasts for more sun in the future so about 90% of our lodge proceeded to continue up. The trek day is only 3 hours and after about 1.5, we saw a group of about 20 going down. I was surprised by this.



As we continued, more and more were descending with reports that there was no path beyond the next guesthouse. Eventually we decided it wasn't worth the risk and if we were going to stop anywhere, we wanted to be back in Manang, with the nice guesthouse and town. We got back and internet was working and we saw reports that at least 4 were dead and then we were seeing helicopters consistently overhead for rescues. I sent a very poorly worded text to parents, something like "4 people died but we are much lower and going down mountain now" and then didn't have internet for like 3 more days

At that point we decided to give up and went down a bit that day and then took 2 more days to get down to the bottom, with the help of a jeep on the 2nd day. The day we went up and down and down a bit more, I didn't wear sunglasses. Note to others: The snow reflects the sun. I woke up unable to open my eyes and for about 24 hours they'd close every 10 seconds and it was painful to see any light, but I still walked down for 5 hours that day because we really didn't want to be stuck in a place with no power or internet. One week later I still am seeing things far away a bit blurry, but doctor said he believes there's no permanent damage and just need to put in drops for a couple weeks.

Me semi-blind:



We were insanely relieved to get down (btw Pokhara is one of the best value towns I've ever seen! -- $1.40 for eggs + toast + drink + potatoes ftw) and now a week later it almost doesn't even feel real.

IMO they should definitely have some kind of early warning system in place and it sounded like complete madness at the top with no one knowing what was going on. The guides don't seem that knowledgeable in general and it seemed that maybe only about 1/2 of people even had one (we only had a porter). My biggest takeaways are to not assume that anything is definitely safe (I still think taking reasonable risks is really important) and to make sure that you think for yourself with the help of the advice of extremely trustworthy people with local knowledge, not a random guide of a random guy at the lodge.

Random pic of awesome Nepali guy:



A couple others from the trek (critiques welcome, not edited):

Hi all,

As I think I mentioned a few months ago, I'm looking into doing a multi-year trip with a primary focus on African photography. I've been brainstorming good ideas for projects that are possible. The most generic would be to go to a ton of places, take lots of photos, select the best, and put together some sort of coffee table book.

I had discussed this with another 2+2er who mentioned that things like drones and moving RV-car-like cameras would be cool ways to differentiate my photos. I even saw the use of infrared cameras in the recently announced National History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy/ga...014/index.html

I'm also thinking about using the idea of wanting to see many different African countries as an advantage over most other photographers who may be more limited geographically. One example of a project that could be done in this direction is to photograph a huge number of elephant populations, everywhere from Kruger in South Africa to the Serengeti to Central African Republic to Chad to Mali (the northernmost herd).

Another idea is to visit every habituated group of gorillas (they exist in DRC, Congo, CAR, possibly Gabon, Rwanda, and Uganda). An add-on to this would be to also photograph other great ape species (chimpanzee/baboon and possibly orangutan in Asia).

While the above would be nice and fine and could probably make very cool projects in themselves, I think there's an opportunity to do something more meaningful. I was thinking of perhaps combining the African apes + elephants + adding rhinos and focusing on the stories of how these populations are struggling against poaching and trafficking all across Africa. I met some people in an organization that focuses on catching traffickers and one that does security at high risk locations (surveillance cameras at popular elephant spots for example) that could be good resources. This would help with learning about what's going on and could help with getting interesting photos of security systems, rescued animals, eco-patrols, and maybe even poachers who get caught.

The primary overall goal is to spread awareness and also to encourage others to visit/support these populations.

I'd love to hear any opinions on this or any other ideas you have.

Thanks!

Bonjour.. I've started to get into taking pictures with my dslr camera. I am looking to add a new lens into the mix. I currently have a 50mm f/1.8 canon, 70-300 canon, and the stock 18-55 that came with canon T3i.

I am kind of OK with what I have now, but am wondering if I'd get a lot of use/enjoyment out of something like the Rokinon fisheye lens? seen here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I mostly just take pictures of my kids, but I do like to go out and buzz around on my bike and take pictures of whatever looks nice/interesting.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas. This thread is amazing.

One of my best friends recently passed away from a brain tumor. He was an avid photographer and had a bunch of really nice gear. His mother came to me recently and asked if I'd be interested in buying his Canon 5D Mark III, and I jumped at the opportunity. I'll be thinking of him every time I take pictures and I think the first picture I publish from the camera is going to be of the memorial bench that his family had made for him in the Toronto Harbourfront.

Shot this from my room at the Aria.

Check out my photo recap from the November 9 here: http://******/p4QXF4-2o

Xmas incoming!

Well considering this thread has been pretty dormant lately I figured I'd post some more India pics. These are all from around Jaisalmer, in Rajasthan, India.
The sand dunes and the local people make for some pretty cool shots.

They're not loading on photobucket. I'm viewing this on my iPhone so maybe this has something to do with it.

Amazing photos Cardshark.

Great shots cardshark. I just got back from S. India for 2 weeks of work and 2 weeks of travel. I have a few decent shots that I will get to probably after the holidays.

I suck so bad at people though. I asked one street vendor who said no. Another guy yelled at me for taking a picture of a road along a cliff with him in it from like 50 feet away. I just gave up after that and took animals and inanimate objects.

hmm other people seem to be viewing them fine, so i think this is on your end



haha I run into some of the same troubles. Although to be honest I don't ask for all that many photos, as I prefer the candids. If they wave me off I'll do the 'sorry, sorry I'm just a dumb tourist!' face with hand motions and then run away. I normally try by best not to be seen. If I am noticed, most of the men seem fairly ambivalent about it, and some really love it, while women, especially in Rajasthan are usually not very receptive to it and will instantly throw their ghoonghat (veil) over their face.

To get good candids you have to pretty sneaky though. I use the 'point at something a tourist should be pointing their camera at, while photographing a specific person' technique quite a lot. Animals in the street are great opportunities! It works especially well with a telephoto lens, you just have to be good at positioning yourself in the right spot. Manually selecting an autofocus point also helps. 4th to last is probably the best example of the bunch. 3rd to last was a sneak attack from a bus window. In the 2nd to last one it was a family photo but I zoomed in really quickly to get just the woman, then zoomed out and to get everyone, and then showed them and they were like omg, so cool, whitey took our photo! The one with the woman's reflection in the bus window just looked liked I was taking photos of the boring ass desert through the window. But yea, step your creep factor up a notch for good people photos!

Where did you go in Southern India btw?? I really liked Kerala

My dad wanted a pic of his house. Snapped this, this summer, and thought it turned out well. Giving him a framed copy for Christmas.

Not sure about those colours. Hope you don't mind that I just tried something different.

Nice cropping