Obviously, you've never tried to capture a duck's wings in a certain position while the duck is taking off. Anticipation? Right. -- THIS IS A SIG LINE; NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! Al Gore's son was pulled over by police on the San Diego Freeway Tuesday with marijuana, Valium, Xanax and Vicodin on him. The kid never had a chance. He got hooked on downers at an early age listening to his father read him bedtime stories.
What letter of "mostly" did escape you? And why not using a 100+ frames/second film camera instead of puny 10fps in these cases? -Wolfgang
LOL! This is by far the first intelligent thing you ever posted. This reminds me of the idiot we had in the group post a question about wearing out a shutter on a 1D because she shoots 10,000 shots per event (horse show). That would be correct way to do it since we were always taught to make each shot count when shooting film. The digital age introduced us to a new breed of idiot that thinks it's acceptable to go full auto and sweep the streets like a New York city cop emptying their Glock totally missing the target and killing innocent bystanders. With all the AF problems currently with the Mk III right now you need a deep buffer and an 80 GB HD to get a few "in-focus" keepers. Rita
Spoken like the typical person who has never photographed real action. Scenes like this are too fast for normal people to react to: http://members.aol.com/bhilton665/tanzania_rainy_2006/lion_fight.htm Typical reaction times by people are 1/10 second, and add the shutter delay of fast DSLRs of .05 second and you are slower to react than the current top of the line action DSLR: the 1D Mark II (to be supplanted by the 1D III when they get the bugs worked out). Then someone will invariably say get a video camera, but video cameras are not 8+ megapixels. Roger
This was interesting. I've also heard that a zoo introduced a lion that the pride of lionesses didn't like and one morning, the keepers found him dead.
That's exactly what I got a week ago with the D50. Anticipation? No. Dumb luck? Yep. <g> But the duck (whatever type it was) would have been long gone by that time had I been using one of my P&S cameras. People recognized this duck as being the only of its peers that has orange legs, but I don't know enough about waterfowl (practically nothing) to know if it has any significance. Someone referred to these duck with a certain name but I can't recall what it was. It may have started with the letter 'K'. When I was getting copies of some of my prints made yesterday, the woman collecting them as they rapidly exited the large photo machine in the back of the store called out to her co-worker that was waiting on me "I like this picture" while holding up one of the shots of the duck standing on the end of a pier, taken just before he hopped into the water, swam a few feet, and launched himself into the stratosphere.
Of course you can and should anticipate the critical moment, but the odds are still far greater in missing the 'best shot' if you are restricted to a couple of frames a second. I know, as I go back to the pre motor drive 'old days' when the right thumb had to be used to wind on the film. I wonder how may present day photographers even know of a real manual camera? But believe me, I couldn't wait to get my first motor drive on my Nikon F, when I discovered such a thing existed. It opened up a whole new world with the possibilities of remote control etc. I would never look back and the faster (within reason) the better as far as I am concerned, especially as digital film is virtually free Oh and a big hard drive! Richard.
Nice! I can agree with you that in a *RARE* instance such as this a high frame rate is needed. I think you would agree what we are seeing in the dSLR world is kinda like the majority of the general population buying 4-wheel drive SUVs when they know they are never going to use 4-wheel drive. The person that truly needed it knows they need it. I guess it's good to have for that once in a lifetime opportunity? The reaction times you speak of make sense. I think the 10 fps of the Mk III is going to be a godsend for some and more work filtering out the scrap for others. Rita
And yet these photographers still were able to show some spectacular shots. Yes, it does make for an easier time. The days of film you had a finite amount of resources available to you at that instance while digital allows you to "sweep the streets" and shovel away the casualties later. A film photographer quickly learned the benefits of good technique. Rita
You just don't get it, do you? *YOU* brought up the duck "analogy". -- THIS IS A SIG LINE; NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! Al Gore's son was pulled over by police on the San Diego Freeway Tuesday with marijuana, Valium, Xanax and Vicodin on him. The kid never had a chance. He got hooked on downers at an early age listening to his father read him bedtime stories.
Probably Keven, but maybe Karl. -- THIS IS A SIG LINE; NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! Al Gore's son was pulled over by police on the San Diego Freeway Tuesday with marijuana, Valium, Xanax and Vicodin on him. The kid never had a chance. He got hooked on downers at an early age listening to his father read him bedtime stories.
If you every been on site with people photographing action with these fast digital cameras (e.g. 1DII), you would see the same technique as people did with film. They anticipate the peak action and during the peak fire off short bursts, often 2, 3, or 4 frames, then wait for another peak. They don't simply hold the shutter button down and go until the buffer fills up except in unusual situations when the action is great and prolonged. There are multiple reasons, including time to delete later, limited storage space, and wanting to keep the buffer empty in case something more exciting happens. Here is an example: this grizzly bear took a swat at another bear. As he was starting to swing, I fired off a few frames to cover the swing and chose the best one to display (actually several other frames are pretty good too). http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.bear/web/brown_bear.c09.09.2004.JZ3F4117.b-700.html During ten minutes of fighting, I probably shot about 150 frames, all in short bursts during anticipated peak action. Roger
There always seems to be people with too much money and too little skills and/or brains. But fast cameras do have a purpose in the hands of skilled photographers. But what one considers rare in action photography may be common to someone who seeks out action. Before I got into wildlife photography, I couldn't imagine shooting thousands of frames per day. Then I got a 500 mm f/4 IS lens (I actually bought it for astrophotography) and found out how wonderful it is for wildlife. Then I figured out that wildlife photography really isn't all that hard; the main issue is knowing where to go, then paying to get there, e.g.: Grizzly bears: go to Katmai, Alaska, http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.bear Lions, cheetahs etc.: Serengeti, Tanzania, http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.africa Birds: many places but some top spots: Bosque del Apache, NM, Venice Rookery, Florida, Everglades, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania, eagles: Homer, Alaska, etc http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.bird Polar bears: Churchill, Manitoba (On my list of places to go.) ;-) Penguins: South Georgia Island and other places in and near Antarctica. (Another on my list of places to go.) Due to the spread of the human population, animals have been cornered in to smaller and smaller areas. One just needs to go to those areas to see how awesome wildlife can be. Roger For many, it need not be a once in a lifetime opportunity. A once in a lifetime opportunity might be cheetahs playing in your backyard, but even if you had a 1D Mark II would you be ready and get the shot? But if you go to where cheetah's are common (e.g. the Serengeti), you would see many and have a much better chance of getting such many shots. To me 8.5 frames/sec versus 10 is a small difference. What I like about the 1DIII is more megapixels, 14-bit A/D, designed better AF (if they can get the bugs worked out). I personally wanted to see 12 megapixels at 8.5 frames/sec than 10 mp at 10 fps. I may wait for the 1DIV. Roger
[/QUOTE] I agreed with you, even showed ways to improve frame rate by 2 magnitudes, and you still are not satisfied? Oh well, there's no pleasing some. -Wolfgang
Speaking for myself, that's the way I do it. I'm sure most of these people you speak of came from a film background? The younger generation has a different mindset since there really aren't any "consumables" to limit them. Rita
I agree entirely. When you only had 36 shots, you had to make them count before having to reload. The only time I would keep the finger on the button for a very long burst would depend on the action, whether in sports or in wildlife, when, for example, a GBH takes off from the shore of Venice rookery with a bunch of sticks, flies across to the island and then displays to its mate on landing. Even with digital they is always the risk of the buffer filling up. How many times with the 'old' D1 did that happen and you had to sit and wait for the paper weight to become usable again, while watching the action go by! Hosing is all very well, but it just fills up the card and involves more wasted time at the PC. Richard.
