Those look pretty good to me Zane!

How bad is the distortion before software correction?

Bagarre wrote:How bad is the distortion before software correction?

Here's the same shot before and after lens distortion correction. As you can see, it straightens lines around the perimeter of the frame that are the most susceptible to convex distortion, converting the hemispherical view to a rectilinear view, at the expense of some sizing and perspective distortion.

This is a mediocre shot, and my massive head is out of focus, but check out the lines of the aircraft. Notice how my passenger appears further away. It really trades certain distortions for others. The roundness of the emblem on my hat, for instance is more appealing in the natural shot.

Natural:


Corrected:

That straightens out nicely.
I'm currently selling my Nikon D7000 and associated lenses for something smaller and easier to travel with.
One concern was finding a good wide angle lens. I never considered software correction.

Bagarre wrote:I never considered software correction.

It's a crutch. If you can find a good aspherical/rectilinear wide angle, that's the way to go. This 7.5mm fisheye was cheap. And for these smaller sensors you have to go really really wide to make up for the crop factor.

First video out of the GX8. Doctored a little with lens correction and some color. I'm pretty pleased. I think my glass is definitely the limiting factor with this thing. And this is just the 1080p 24fps mode.

One thing I will say that I don't like is the use of AVCHD bundle files for video. Converting MTS files is a pain in the butt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSTIZe9C4Eg

Zzz wrote:One thing I will say that I don't like is the use of AVCHD bundle files for video. Converting MTS files is a pain in the butt.

What editing suite are you using these days? I don't find the workflow in Premiere Pro to be overly butt-painy.

rw2 wrote:

Zzz wrote:One thing I will say that I don't like is the use of AVCHD bundle files for video. Converting MTS files is a pain in the butt.

What editing suite are you using these days? I don't find the workflow in Premiere Pro to be overly butt-painy.

It has more to do with my personal methods for cataloging and sorting through footage. I don't want to have to rely on Premiere for that.

Zzz wrote:

rw2 wrote:

Zzz wrote:One thing I will say that I don't like is the use of AVCHD bundle files for video. Converting MTS files is a pain in the butt.

What editing suite are you using these days? I don't find the workflow in Premiere Pro to be overly butt-painy.

It has more to do with my personal methods for cataloging and sorting through footage. I don't want to have to rely on Premiere for that.

Gotcha. We're opposites on that one. I create file system folders for shoots, copy the avchd hierarchy in there and that's the extent of what I want to do outside of a tool. From then on I prefer to use the Premiere tools to catalog/sort.

rw2 wrote:Gotcha. We're opposites on that one. I create file system folders for shoots, copy the avchd hierarchy in there and that's the extent of what I want to do outside of a tool. From then on I prefer to use the Premiere tools to catalog/sort.

I use Premiere to a certain extent too per project with the bins, but... This could be its own thread on editing workflow.

Zzz wrote:I use Premiere to a certain extent too per project with the bins, but... This could be its own thread on editing workflow.

True. And only like three people would be interested in it. And I can't remember the last time I saw Patrick post!

On wide angles, any opinions on the Fuji 10-24 f/4?

rw2 wrote:

Zzz wrote:I use Premiere to a certain extent too per project with the bins, but... This could be its own thread on editing workflow.

True. And only like three people would be interested in it. And I can't remember the last time I saw Patrick post!

More than three! I would be really interested in that actually, since my organization workflow in lightroom is piss poor, at best. I really need to figure it out sooner than later since my scattered about/poorly named folder hierarchy is getting way worse before it gets better.

There are some great tutorials out there showcasing other people's methods of dealing with file organization but I tend to glaze over shortly after starting any of them....

Bagarre wrote:On wide angles, any opinions on the Fuji 10-24 f/4?

See my post on page 2 of this thread, the third photo down is taken at 20mm and the fourth taken at 10mm. Roughly the same angle and position between the two shots, you can see the difference for yourself. Other than that, I'm not much help with the recommendations

Bagarre wrote:On wide angles, any opinions on the Fuji 10-24 f/4?

At first, I was tempted to say that for an $800 lens, f/4 is not fast enough. But it's only one stop from f/2.8, which does seem to be the largest these zoom apertures get even in premium glass, so I dunno. There's some good art between f/2.8 and f/4 But this glass and its sharpness is really nice. And the 10-24 range is what I have been shooting with my cheap Sigma for the last several years.

When I research I like to search Flickr, 500px, etc. In addition to Bart's shots, here are some nice examples I found for the Fujinon XF10-24mm f/4. I'd say go for it.

Thanks! I read right past the fact that yours is the 10-24 Fuji.

Surprised that it's much larger than the 18-55 but my Tokina 11-16 is bigger than my 18-300. I guess that makes sense.

My old Tokina 11-16 was f/2.8 so f/4 doesn't seem very fast. Even my 18-300 was f/3.5. I read somewhere that the image stabilization allows you to hand shoot slower shutter speeds to where f4 isn't really an issue. I was able to shoot the Northern Lights with my 11-16 without a tripod (mostly).
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater
First time shooting stars so things aren't as sharp as they should be.
I don't think you'll do that with an f/4 tho.

Looking forward to selling all my Nikon stuff so I can buy the Fuji stuff.

I've been reading this thread, trying not to be the old guy telling kids how good they have it today...

I really don't understand all the discussion about "fast" lenses. Sharpness, sure. Distortion, of course. Fastness...

Historically the reason to want a fast lens was for low light. Historically, 400 ISO film was really the fastest that was usable. Sure, 1000 was available, but it was awful. 400, in truth, was pretty bad too.

Then digital came around. First it just sucked in general. Then it became useful for snapshots. Now it's way better than film for almost all applications.

Key is that it's been a long time since digital 400 was worse than film. I might argue it's been a decade or more. There are lots of cameras for which 800 or 1600 are *frameable* ISOs. Not just useful for special purposes, but damn good. As a canon shooter I'll note that the 70D (crop sensor!) is useful to 3200.

So am I concerned with fast glass?

Not at all. Money not being infinite I would go out and buy the new body that gives me another stop or two on *every lens I own* before I would spend hundreds more upgrading a single lens or thousands upgrading my inventory.

I dunno. That's how I think about it anyway.

"Fast" lenses are so-called because they let you shoot at a higher shutter speed in any given light condition, allowing more light through the lens due to their larger aperture. In the days of film, when changing ISO rating was a big pain in the ass, this was a much bigger deal.

Aperture to me is about the ability to achieve a shallow depth of field for isolating subjects by focus. Hence my comment about there being a lot of "art" in that last stop.

Going to shoot some airplane action or s landscape? You'll likely be in the f/6+ range anyway. Shooting through the prop? Low shutter speed (1/80 sec or slower) and around f/8-10 depending on brightness of the sky. Sexy girlfriend smoking a cigarette with a ukelele in hand on a dark Bangkok street? F/2.0.

Zzz wrote:Going to shoot some airplane action or s landscape? You'll likely be in the f/6+ range anyway. Shooting through the prop? Low shutter speed (1/80 sec or slower) and around f/8-10 depending on brightness of the sky. Sexy girlfriend smoking a cigarette with a ukelele in hand on a dark Bangkok street? F/2.0.

Brilliant.

Is it worth noting that I glean more photography knowledge from this site than anywhere else on the web?

Crenshaw wrote:

Zzz wrote:Going to shoot some airplane action or s landscape? You'll likely be in the f/6+ range anyway. Shooting through the prop? Low shutter speed (1/80 sec or slower) and around f/8-10 depending on brightness of the sky. Sexy girlfriend smoking a cigarette with a ukelele in hand on a dark Bangkok street? F/2.0.

Brilliant.

Is it worth noting that I glean more photography knowledge from this site than anywhere else on the web?

There is no way in hell I can afford the fast glass *and* the girlfriend!

But, yeah, I should have mentioned DoF in my diatribe.