Kitbash, Here are my reasons for picking the Nikon. One, my previous camera was a Nikon Coolpix 995, with which I was quite happy, but it had a damaging accident. Second, the review in dpreview.com was excellent and gave me more information. Lastly, an excellent review in Popular Photography and Imaging, in which they expressed surprise at such a high quality camera at a relatively low price. One other thing was that one of my students (I teach a digital photography workshop at the Southbury, CT, library.) had a D40 I could handle and it felt good. It is important that whatever camera you choose, it has to be comfortable in your hands.
NSFan, those pics you took are awesome!! You have an awesome tool on your hands- one you get the hang of it, you'll be shooting some great pics (which we wouldn't mind seeing, hint, hint.....)
Well problem now is I dont have a good photo editing software to resize the imgages. So until I come up with $150 I probably wont be able to post em on my railimages.:'(
Well I only have a D40 not the D40X. The D40X was one of the ones I wanted but hey I can suffer with the D40(I LOVE IT!!)
Alex, go download IRfanview software, free, and resize your images easily in about two steps. Are you shooting RAW or high jpg? :tb-confused:
I used to have Adobe Photostop on my computer- the starter edition is a free download, and it allows you to play with the image some as far as lighting, contrast, etc. IIRC, it also allows for cropping pics.
Mmmm pie... Alex, Irfanview is easy and pretty powerful. First, I always work from a copy of a picture, not the original if I want to retain that original. Click the upper left folder to open the file (any picture on your drive). Then select Image and go to Resize. Pick one of the defaults or enter your own dimensions. Save it. You're done. You can also crop out unwanted stuff by dragging four borders into position, and select Edit, then Crop image. Good for RI photos, you can crop out unnecessary foreground, too much sky, that finger in the lens, etc. I always crop before I downsize. Have fun!
Steve has a piece of very good advise when he says he works from a copy of an image, not the original. This way, if you do not like what you have done, so far, in your editing process, you can delete it and go back to the original and make another copy on which to work. Another excellent, and very powerful, editor is the one I have been using for several years--Paint Shop Pro (PSP). I am using version 10, which was named PSP-X by the new owners of the development, Corel. They have since come out with version 11, which I tried and did not like, and version 12, which I have not tried yet. PSP-X is much less costly than Photoshop and has done everything I have needed, so far. As you can see, there are a lot of good choices. It is a good idea to start with a free one, so that you can get used to the various things you can do in an editor, at least on the basic level. Then, when you feel you are ready for the more powerful tools, pick what is comfortable for you. You will probably find must of them do things in a very similar manner.
Yes, indeed, work with a copy. I have a folder "Nikon Originals" and another folder "Nikon Copies." I also have a numbering system. If the original is DSC_4345.jpg, then the copy is 4345(title of picture).jpg. I usually work in Photoshop format (.psd) and convert to tiff when submitting for print. I use Photoshop because I bought it for my work ten years ago. It's really overkill for photo editing. You can't beat it for design work, when you need to put together brochures. As Pierce pointed out Paint Shop Pro probably does exactly the same things, in a very similar way.
Thanks. When I edit my photos I dont overwrite the orignal just in case. Thats why if you look at some of my photos and the photo name is 10-5-07 RL which the numbers mean the date the photo was taken and RL mean "RESIZED" and "BRIGHTNED"
Well I got my first rejection with it. I kinda figured it woulda been rejected cause of all the weeds in the way. http://www.railpictures.net/viewreject.php?id=431683&key=1265241142
Alex, that's a fine picture--The first *and only* time I submitted a shot to RP.net I was denied as well. I had a nicely lit shot of an SD60 demonstrator (EMD 3, with Hi-Ad trucks), and it was tossed out because it was front-coupled. Rare or not didn't matter to them.. At least Rail Images isn't that picky! You can use that info as a learning experience. Try to shoot with sun to your back, with a clean foreground, and elevation always helps, when available. I have shot my share of flops, it takes time to be as good as Steve Brown, Herb Iske, kschmidt626,a nd many others on here. I'm working to improve every time I shoot.
Yea there for about 6 months I didnt even visit RP.net. Now im just kinda doing it to improve my Photography!
Pete - I like the simplicity of your file system. It makes a lot of sense. Alex - That is an excellent picture. I have seen people complain about RP's rejection of their pictures. It seems almost impossible to figure out their standards, sometimes. Perhaps you might want to consider posting your pictures on our sister site, Railimages. If you want us to critique any of your shots, we would be glad to do so, but we do not reject any.
Hello Peirce, I have alot of images on my railimages account. But I dont lose sleep if I get a photo rejected anymore. I have a buddy that is a screener on RP. He also owns a site called Cincyrails.com I just try to get photos on RP.net to let others see my work(Which I have no photos in the database"YET")
Keep shooting, Alex! And keep submitting. I was about 17 when I started submitting articles and photos. It took me two years to get my first article published in a small magazine. I'd get photos published in my college newspaper. No big deal, until AP picked up one of my sports photos. With that one photo, I could get a job as a photographer for a local paper. Nothing glamorous, but it started a career.
Thanks pete! I got one of my L&N #152 shots published in the newsletter at KRM. They have a newsletter like every month and my photo was in it so I was happy about that. The guy that does the newsletter will also be using a photo that I took of their Santa Fe CF7. So it kinda made my day when I found out about my photo being in their newsletter.