2013 Photography Upgrade Thread

[ferky]

Yes they do ... especially when you use them as a 3kW load tester

BTW I found some small amount of time to shoot these two puppies in action (full load -> no load). Recorded with Canon 650D, but unfortunately didn't have enough light for smoother results.

http://youtu.be/R6X0iW9vEY0

http://youtu.be/CGuFj15b8BQ

P.S.

Those occasional snapping sounds are just my fingers on the load tester switches

Enjoy

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Just did my first disassembly shots with the new camera. A couple things... first, the kit lens does a good enough job at close-up shots that I don't believe I need a macro lens. It would be nice to have one, but it's not a priority.

Second, I want a macro flash. Yesterday. Or maybe one of those ring lights to go on the front of the lens.

The camera is a little tricky to deal with on the close-ups yet, but I'm getting the hang of it. Did a lot of it with the lens at full zoom. Biggest challenge so far is to manually focus while trying to get enough light to see what I'm focusing on.

[ferky]

This is pretty much a usual difference between a macro-lens and a standard one (as close as I could get it to zoom properly):



It's not necessary to use macro-one, but it's a bit tricky to get a good photo with it on your camera (especially if you didn't do desoldering job and the interesting spot is tucked away - or basically, (too) limited access for a good shot).

As for lighting, a good photos come with light coming from its natural position (above, and in a 45° angle at the subject). This is done by positioning external flash face-up, so the light bounces from the ceiling or nearby walls and disperses evenly over your subject.

This way you get that soft light, without flash spots and dark noticeable areas or shadows.

This would be hard to achieve with your kind of photos (hardware, PSU's) and ring lights, at least from my short experience.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Not too tricky... I'm pleased with most of the shots I got in terms of sharpness, it's just the lighting that sucks. And that's not going to be an easy fix... the electronics bench is where it is and cannot be moved.

Will be doing a fair bit of experimenting on the next few reviews to see what works best with what I have now. I'll have to add the Nikon's onboard flash for sure. There won't be money for extra camera goodies for a while.

Part of me actually wants to keep using the Fuji for disassemblies. Partly because I can afford to get thermal grease and other stuff all over that camera, and partly because it's smaller and easier to manage. On the other hand, even without getting the lighting straightened out I was more impressed with the Nikon's results.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Now getting into the "acceptable" range:



That's ISO 6400, flash on, f13, auto white balance, 1/15 shutter speed. Not totally in love with it, but already better than what I was getting this morning.

[ferky]

That looks pretty good and probably will get even better when you get used to the camera.



Weight and size probably the first thing a newly born photographer notices. I've had (literally) a pretty big shock when crossing from an half a pound of compact to my first (borrowed) SLR, fully equipped with battery grip (double battery) and additional flash.

That thing weighs at least 2-2.5 pounds

As for pics quality, someone wise stated a while back ... art of photography is an art of catching light permanently. In other words - light is the most important thing, and creating good artificial light for shooting is a science of its own.

Tried to use external flash positioned separately (fired remotely with IR) and it can help but it requires a fair amount of experience (changing shoot angles, adjusting light levels of flash).


Without using a special flash, maybe it's a better bet to use no flash at all, and just have few strong white light bulbs (~6,000K) or fluorescent lamps, and of course adjust the camera settings accordingly.

That should give pretty nice results ...


BTW here is an example how pics would look like with a macro flash.

EDIT:

White background also helps a lot as the object appears brighter and the camera uses smaller ISO so the pics have better sharpness.

[Oklahoma Wolf]

I usually shoot against white paper in there... this was a test to see how good I could get it without the paper and with the lens focusing as close as it could. I also hadn't tried this thing at the crazy high ISO settings yet, and wanted to see what it was like.

It blows my mind how little noise there is in that shot for such a high ISO. Mr. Fuji, I still see more noise than this at ISO 400, which is where I shot the majority of my disassembly shots.

[ferky]

Yes those new SLR cameras from Nikon and Canon practically have no visible noise at all, especially compared to something like Mr. Fuji

I look forward seeing your new pics at PSU reviews because it will be nice to see some bigger and better pics especially when searching for some details on them

[Oklahoma Wolf]

Gave myself a challenge today when I saw this little guy crawling around on my bed:



I got the lens as close as it would go at 55mm... this is cropped way down. He's about 1/4" long.

[ferky]

Well hello there little fella ! How did you made him so calm? Sugar treats?

It's a pretty detailed photo, if I may say so. Only way to improve any further is by getting more light on these little buggers.

BTW I was planning on doing some modding on my VGA, but those SMD are extra small (1/25"). You literally need to get a heavy zoomed pic and then work by it







Practically, this is a Vmod (VGA Hotwire) that allows users to connect and control VGA specs (like voltage and offset) from motherboard BIOS and Asus software.

In this kind of situations a good camera with a decent lens is really handy