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Thanks for starting this thread BigV, I love photography as a topic of discussion. I am not quite as bad as you with the sheer number of photos but give me time ... just checked and I am over 60k of digital photos ... hate to think of how many old print SLR pictures I have.
I had used picasa's simple upload tools in the past to push pictures to their website but never used the full up tool until it was mentioned here. Just pulled off a copy and it is really neat! I normally use ACDsee Photo Manager 12 and I do love that for viewing and doing minor adjustments to photos but the face recognition functionality in Picasa is something I have always wanted ... too many times the wife has said she needed a couple pictures of someone ... and I then faced the task of navigating through a maze of folders to find some. On the f-stops discussion, I have not stepped up to a DSLR yet ... I take so many pictures purely because I have a simple point-n-shoot camera in my pocket with me quite often. A DLSR is not something you can easily carry around with you everywhere and often, such as in the rain or at the beach, it is not something you want to expose to the moisture or conditions anyway. I just bought a new Olympus XZ-1 point-n-shoot purely on the basis of wanting a "better" f-stop range, specifically this camera has a f1.8 lower end so it gathers a LOT of light for a PnS. It also has a large sensor size for a PnS - 1/1.63" (7.89x5.81mm) ... this is tiny when compared to a DLSR but it is large for a PnS. All that said, I will probably be buying a full up DSLR this year .... just because I can ... :) |
DSLRs are the new dinosaur. They are a thing of the past, like horse drawn buggies, eight track tapes, independent bookstores, clean air and water, and your innocence.
All the cool kids are going EVIL Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens http://laptopmemo.com/wp-content/upl...5/NEX-5_13.jpg http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/10...insanely-cool/ http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/...tch-your-dslr/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrorl...le-lens_camera |
Wow. outstanding footfootfoot, thank you thank you thank you.
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Not sure if you should thank or curse me.
Consider: I am still 100% behind this camera (which I own) |
* Drooling consumer fetishism *
Re FFF's old friend ... probably the single most important thing on a camera is getting the shape of the glass lens absolutely right. That doesn't change over time. A good lens is a good lens. |
There is a lot of discussion about the new mirrorless systems (like the Sony FFF posted above). I think the demise of the DSLR is a long way off still ... a full up DSLR will be the choice of pros for some time to come. At least the mirrorless systems are using a decent sensor since the sensor size is the other BIG thing to worry about (besides the lens ... good glass is vital). Can't get over how much like a toy they look like still though (the mirrorless systems).
A decent article on sensor sizes is at http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=Sensor_Sizes |
True, there is a lot to be said about a viewfinder, especially in bright situations. Also holding the camera away at arm's length so you can see the view screen is not helpful or quick.
I'm not sure if my bias is growing up with and spending 40 years with a viewfinder system rather than a view screen system. stranger things have come to pass, though. I'm not buying into EVIL myself. |
I'm gonna go EVIL as soon as I can find one that fits all the other parameters I require.
In the meantime, I won't miss the viewfinder. There are parallax errors, and in my current camera, the viewfinder doesn't even reveal the whole "frame" that is captured. I'll agree that under some conditions it's difficult to see the lcd. That's true for the viewfinder too. For those conditions where the difficulty is excessive brightness I offer this idea: http://www.lonestardigital.com/LCDviewer.htm |
Range finders, and twin lens reflex have slight parallax errors, the better rangefinders correct for it as you change focus. The main reason behind an SLR is WYSIWYG. The same lens that views, takes.
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You say that from your film bias.
Let me back up... you've forgotten more about photography that I will probably ever learn, buddy. I know that. But WYSIWYG is misleading. It is true that the same lens that sees, takes. But that's also true of the digital non-slrs lcd display. What's being displayed is what will be taken--or should/could. Still one set of lenses. But back to the Seeing part of what I'm getting. My ability to see (not conceive, that's another thing) what I want to make through the viewfinder is much more limited than what I can see via the lcd. The size is one big factor. I can see much more detail in a three inch lcd than I can in a three-eighths inch viewfinder. There are also other shooting conditions, very dark and unusual-not-taken-from-my-face camera positions that render the viewfinder unusable. I like the lcd, I sometimes use the viewfinder. I am, at the moment, headed down the digital path. With the exception of dslrs, the optical viewfinders will become less available, I believe. A slightly negative tradeoff that I'm happy to accept. |
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No you're making more out of it that what I meant. I'm just referring to parallax problems. The other issue is a personal taste concern.
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I have to admit I like the LCD for taking pictures ... even cameras with a viewfinder (getting harder and harder to find) I use the LCD. I agree you can see better detail on it than the vf ... and I also like being able to see outside the photo that I am about to take, that being what is happening beside the narrow view of the picture I am taking ... sometimes something off to one side, if added to the picture (or even replacing the current subject), results in a better picture.
I am in trouble already with the new Olympus ZX-1 I mentioned earlier ... there is a high speed photo option where you press and hold the shutter release and it takes pictures as fast as it can (it shuts off flash and drops you back to 2560x1920 pixels) ... I was out with my granddaughter yesterday and in just a little while wracked up 400 pictures ... will have to be ruthless with going through them and only keeping the best or I will have as many pictures as BigV shortly! |
an update: I have reduced the number of unidentified faces to 11,495.
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My DSLR will be a thing of the past when they pry it out of my dead cold hands!
Actually the new compacts are nice and I wouldn't mind one for those times when I want to take pictures without the weight and hassle of the big cameras and lenses. But they are amateur level cameras and not professional so it's like comparing apples to oranges. The LCD only viewfinder and the short batter life are 2 factors that separate them from good DSLRs as well as most have limitations when shooting in Raw. And it's not quite the same as the demise of film use in both the industry and for consumers. For professionals film usage has dwindled because digital quality has gotten progressively better and film is getting to be harder to have processed; not only Kodachrome but even E6 or B&W since supply and demand dictates how often a lab runs it's film processing line. All my film cameras, from 8x10 to 35mm are gone and I don't miss them. I got plenty out of them and they served me well. |
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I've met an awful lot of people carrying thousands of dollars worth of DLSR equipment, who are producing pictures on par with my Ansco Lancer. |
It's not the wand, but the magician
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You're saying xoB is an incompetent putz?
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If he is, then he is correct.
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*snort*
Hey. Nice picture of the natal homestead --> over thar. Very cool (no pun intended). |
I am a dedicated viewfinder loyalist. I chose my last two cameras based solely on which models included viewfinders. Here are my reasons:
1.) You look like a complete tool holding that little thing at arm's length, and jutting your chin under to help you focus on the jittery picture. Yes, you do. 2.) Said picture is jittery, because it is harder to hold something steady at arm's length than it is to hold it against your head. 3.) Again, the arm's-length thing negates the picture-size argument as well. A 3/8" viewfinder held up to your eye fills your vision and seems very large indeed. A 3" screen held away from your body appears much smaller than 3 inches. 4.) Constantly-active LCD screens suck up battery life like nobody's business. |
I *do* look like a tool, an even a viewfinder camera big enough to hide my head won't change that.
However. I don't take jittery pictures most of the time, there are ways to steady the camera besides using my forehead. Presbyopia. Constantly active screens do represent a drain on the battery, but all my cameras have a simple button labeled "display" that lets me toggle it off. for that matter, I don't have the camera on all the time like, say, a video camera. One of the most important deciding factors for my camera choice was speed from power up to picture taken. It mostly spends its time OFF tucked in my pocket. Not meaning to quarrel. Hey... show us some pictures, why doncha? |
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It is a valid reason for a non-viewfinder camera being held at arm's length instead of closer to your face. But that's a strike against the non-viewfinder camera. |
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I purchased both of the last two digital cameras (Canon A710IS and Canon G10) with the specific requirement that the have an optical viewfinder. Having taken thousands of pictures with them, I find a vanishingly (hahaha) small percentage of them were framed using the optical viewfinder. |
Cameras suck. all of them.
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I think you're just unable to focus right now. ;)
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What are you trying to say.. you're... unclear.
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I shutter to think of what he's been exposed to as of late.
But as time-lapses, things will get better. :comfort: |
FOCUS???
You mean Bofus? |
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I knew I could count on you!
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You have a great site. I have not made any recipes from it yet, but it gives me the feeling of ease and greatness of taste. I bookmarked you along with 'for the love of cooking' from blog spot. Two of my favorite recipe sites.
Oh and great photos too ;) |
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Cleaning out the fridge, I found three rolls of Kodak MAX 800 film... develop by 05/2003, using Kodak process C-41. Want 'em?
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Yes, please.
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OK.
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Thank you! I got them. Thank you.
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two factors contributed to the increase. one--I have switched computers and the transition to the new machine was excruciating. the databases that contain this info were damaged. fuck. two--I have been taking more pictures, and lots of those new pictures contained shots, crowd shots, and that means a LOT of faces. I'm culling the obviously irrelevant faces as efficiently as I can. but 13k faces is still a lot of faces. |
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takin a break now. |
5,185 unnamed faces.
so tired now. took 2100 pictures last week. many crowd shots with many faces. much editing ahead of me. |
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WTH are you doing anyway? How are you "identifying" all these peoples faces?
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Picasa has the ability to detect a face in a given shot, and I can identify that face. Once I've done that I can find that picture and that face easily. Have you any experience with face / tagging photos on facebook? Same kind of thing. I'm working my way through my whole collection of photos, and as I near the end here, the quality of the images Picasa has detected faces in are older, and crappier. It's exhausting work concentrating on screensful of faces and deciding who is who and who is I don't give a shit. I *really* want to finish this project. And when I do, I want to extract the sets of pictures that contain the face of a given kid (mostly kids from family pics, scout trips, little league games, etc) and then compile them into a movie, or just the whole "album" of shots and give it to the family. I've got about ten years worth of pics here and seeing them grow up on screen has been immensely pleasurable. I think the parents of the other kids would enjoy them too. ps--I see the screenshots I posted originally didn't make it into the quote. whatever. Go back and look at post # 60 in this thread for a visual of what I'm dealing with. |
ok, gotcha. That sounds pretty cool.
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I am going to finish this batch today. |
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done.
goodnight. |
I don't want to be a wet blanket, but I want to caution you about one thing:
Please be very sure that each and every one of the parents that you present with movies made out of hundreds of pictures centered on their kids understands very clearly that you are not stalking their little angel, or you will end up on a list and have to deal with a crap load of......crap. |
^^^ wut he said ^^^
The world is a fucked up place and you gotta cover yer ass. disclaimer: Unless you are stalking their kids. In which case go ahead and send the movies to everyone and .... <jus kiddin> |
good point jim.
you may be assured that I know each family personally, and have been friends with them for years. That's how I've managed to accumulate the pictures in the first place. That's no magic shield against crap of course, but anyone that's not digging the program isn't there. And indeed, I've had to sign photograph releases at some of the established summer camps. Regardless. I'm not stalking anybody's kid. Anybody's kid I have a picture of, that parent brought the kid to the bus and sent them off to camp with me and the other adults. I don't think I've made clear how I came to have these pictures, but you can be sure, every one of them was taken with the implied consent of the parents. |
I've scanned through the faces again and the pictures with identified faces. What I found is that there are LOTS of pictures that have *some* faces identified and others equally visible, indeed, faces of people recognized in other photos, that aren't detected by Picasa.
So. I've rescanned the whole collection, and the first total after this second scan produced almost 50,000 unidentified faces. That number is down to 28,005 now. A neat trick I learned by accident has to do with a couple of sliders in the program. One slider is used to zoom into the picture. When you grab the slider, you can drag it to the right for increased magnification. There's another slider up at the top that is used to filter by date the pictures shown. I've used this second one a lot to reduce the working set of pictures with faces I have to make decisions about. As I dragged the slider to the right, it filters out older pictures. The further to the right I drag it, the set of pictures displayed is smaller and newer. This is useful, but difficult to manage the slider one pixel at a time, because the time scale is not strictly linear. And at the oldest ranges, I might make a tiny physical change and have the time threshold change by a year. At the right hand side of the scale, the same physical distance on the slider might represent a much smaller time delta, perhaps only one month. Making tiny changes at the older ranges was tough. Then, I accidentally moved the cursor over the slider *and* accidentally rolled the mousewheel as the cursor was over the slider range and the slider moved one increment with each wheel detente I turned through! This is awesome! I tried it up at the top on the time slider, and it worked the same. So, now I can make the most granular changes to the time scale. This lets me divide the pictures into sets that are more easily understood since I take them in batches. Seeing them all together makes it harder to identify the faces since I have to shift contexts for faces I don't immediately recognize. I'm happy I found this kind of control in the interface. |
Oh, and I should have mentioned that this is a pretty cool idea... looks like a lot of work.
The genealogists of the future, in your family at least, may have an easier time of it because of this time you're spending. |
Thank you jimhelm. :)
Down to 17,723 today. |
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good night |
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