Thanks for the reply Robert. I was into film back in the early 70's and then really didn't have time to get involved with cameras until I got a canon dlsr in 2010 which seemed like quite a shock from what I remembered. I got back into photography because I had joined my wife in Real Estate and noticed that some of the pictures on the MLS looked like they were stained with smoke smudges which turned out to be very poor early attempts at HDR. Since I have gotten back involved I have seen some amazing (smudge-less) HDR photos. One thing I have noticed and what brought this question is that even some of the smudge-less HDR photos seem to be a little unnatural looking and I'm thinking that it is caused by an unusually extended unnatural dynamic range - some of the clearly sharp, contrasty parts of a picture are just a little too sharp and contrasty for real life. Maybe parts off in the distance shouldn't be as sharp with all the contrast as the forground but the algorythm can't know where the focal point of the photo really is - at least not yet.

Do film cameras typically have a larger dynamic range then digital cameras?

I just discovered the "digital photoshop connection" -

http://www.thedigitalphotographyconnection.com/index.php

They have a subscription service but the majority of their videos are free and the teacher is easy to follow and understand...

I don't know anything about the Tamron but before I bought the Canon 10-22mm, I rented one for 3 days and was blown away by the quality of the resulting pics.

Many users here including me have a 10-22mm Canon EF-S lens and it is great. It translates to a 16mm full frame lens which is about as wide as you want. One lesson learned is that when shooting try very hard to keep the lens level as any up or down will cause noticable vertical distortion. I use mine for interior real estate pics and our pro photog uses one also. Not "cheap" but a really great lens.

Some interesting history... Thomas, my great, great grandfather, didn't actually start Gallaudet University. Thomas started the first school for the deaf in the US - The American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, Connecticut in 1817. He married one of his deaf students, Sophia Fowler and she was the force behind the establishment of what is now Gallaudet University. It was her that approached Abraham Lincoln to consider a "college" for the deaf. Apparently she was very persuasive as she managed to get Amos Kendall, the Postmaster General, to donate his 92 acre estate in the center of Washington, DC to the cause and the "Columbia Institution for the deaf, dumb and blind" was created in 1864. Soon after, it was realized that deafness and blindness were 2 separate issues and the blind students were moved to a separate school in Maryland.

I have copies of the minutes of a few of the earliest board meetings and it is clear that Sophia, and her oldest daughter were running the show but at that time women were not allowed to be in a position of leadership so Sophia enlisted their youngest son, my Great Grandfather, Edward Miner Gallaudet to become the first President. He apparently did a good job since he remained in that position for the next 46 years.

In 1954, the name was changed to Gallaudet College to honor Thomas who was the founder of deaf education in the US. In 1986, Congress gave the institution "University" status so it is now called "Gallaudet University".

You will notice from the picture of Sophia that she probably didn't take a lot of anything from anybody... My family always referred to the portraits of Thomas and Sophia as "Puffy Cheeks and the Wicked Witch" - she looks scary mean...

Some Trivia:
In american football, the "huddle" was first used at Gallaudet because the other team could read the player's sign language about the plays unless the players "huddled" in a tight circle to block sight of what they were planning.

Gallaudet and the military universities are the only universities where each diploma is signed by the President of the United States. A tradition that started when the first 3 graduates graduated in 1869 and President Ulysses S. Grant signed each diploma. Tom (Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, III)

Spiders travel on the wind... It was probably a small spider that got blown or jumped off a tree after it attached it's web and it took the 6' for it to float to the ground.

Sport mode also shoots in auto continuous mode - it will shoot as many frames as the buffer can deal with so Raw + Jpg will only shoot 3 or 4 per burst...

Tom

Jane,

Take a look at the T4i from Canon, It is really a spectacular entry level camera that even does auto focus movies. I have a link from the "Features" page on the Canon website:

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras/eos_rebel_t4i_18_135mm_is_stm_lens_kit#Features

Any chance the name of the photo has been changed? I once took a pic, put the card in my computer, photoshoped the pic and resaved it to the card under a more descriptive name. When I put the card back in the camera, the camera would not even acknowledge the changed pic... It seems to only display photos with the camera initiated names ie: img_####.jpg etc.

Hope this may help...

Tom

Is there any flash affect in your attached photo? Seems like a fairly distant scene for any flash...

BTW It's spectacular!

Tom

I believe the RC6 is an infrared remote switch that has the same function as the camera shutter button and only works from the from of the camera. The received window is located just below the shutter button in the front. It is just like pushing the shutter button and I don't think it will hold the shutter open when held down. It's only use is to help with self portraits when you are standing in front of the camera.

What you need is a wired button (cheaper) or a radio controlled release with a timer (>$100 from B&H or Adarama - http://www.adorama.com/SearchSite/Default.aspx?searchinfo=remote+release).

It will fire the camera from as much as 300 feet away.

Hope this helps, Tom

From B&H, I bought a Audio-Technica ATR288W VHF TwinMic System ($129.95) that includes a hand held mic and a wireless Lavalier mic that works very well... My Canon T2i has a stereo input so I got a plug adapter from Radio Shack that converts the mono mic input into a stereo plug so the camera records both Right and Left tracks. Works very well.

Tom


Tom

On my T2i (550D) the underscore happens when I'm in Manual mode. It is not there when I'm in the Auto modes.

I use adobe RGB and get both type file names based on Auto vs manual... AV/TV/M use the underscore, the Auto modes (Full Auto Landscape, sport Portrait etc) do not.

Tom

Further to Tamron's reply... If you set the lens at 18mm and look thru the view finder as you turn the focus ring, the view stays very close to the same size. If you do the same at 270mm, you can see the size change drastically. The Canon 55-250mm also changes at 250mm but not as much.