New camera test photo!!!

[Duane Hansen]

Took these with a friends Kodak DX7630 using the macro setting. Probably one of the better photos I have taken personally. The Ithaca is #896277, the barrel is Colt marked COLT 45 AUTO with a G on the belly. The slide stop is also a M1911 type. Otherwise a nice pistol.

If you would shoot more straight on, we could see the pistols finer details, such as lettering, much easier. Just a thought.

[smoky]

What a great pistol. It must be a good camera.
Smoky

[pdawg1911]

What are people typically doing to obtain the small file size in these photos? Are you using a VGA then compressing it? Or are you using a larger resolution like 1,2, or 3 megs, and resizing, then compressing?

[hyrax222]

What is Your Lighting Arrangement?

[Shooter5]

Here is my military photo-recon camera collection...just kidding! Recently visited the Udvar-Hazy Aerospace Museum, highly recommend the tour! Enola Gay is there along with many other interesting airframes including very rare and unique WW2 Luftwaffe and Imperial Japanese planes.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/udvarhazy/

[Scott Gahimer]

Because John indicated his new camera had crapped out on him (maybe just temporarily), thought I'd offer an alternate suggestion. I've used a Canon G11 for about the last year with pretty good results. It was nealry new when I purchased it (less than 100 images on it). I paid about $350+/- for it at a local shop.

I've shot about 9000 images in the last year and have become fairly familiar with it and its shortfalls. The Macro is excellent when it works. It is sometimes stubborn about grabbing a focus, but not too often. I've also discovered that when the camera sometimes indicates it is not in focus, it actually is for all practical purposes. That probably is less than 1% of the time, but it can be irritating.

I, by no means, claim to be a photographer. However, I have had excllent results using guns as subjects and good basic principles for getting a clean shot. I rarely ever shoot in full auto mode. I use the "P" mode, always use macro and a 2-second delay. I normally use a tripod to insure proper focus. Here are some photos I snapped recently.

Singer with a shot of part of the grouping with the gun. Other images of the Singer grouping are in this thread http://www.jouster.com/forums/showth...the-1911s-gone.



Here is an image that was shot from about 5 ft. away. I found the results were still much better when using the Macro setting. I first tried it without using Macro, and wasn't satisfied with the clarity and focus when I zoomed in on the full-size image to look at each individual pistol.

This image is from this thread http://www.jouster.com/forums/showth...-earlier-today.

The full-size image was good enough to go in, crop and slightly adjust brightness to quickly use one photograph to produce (14) different images showing each individual pistol. Here are some of those examples. 860147 was far left, second down. 930917 was bottom, on the far right.



Those images aren't as good as an individual image of one gun, but bear in mind they were taken from 5 ft. away using a Macro setting not intended for that range. And those images are not where the macro was set to focus.

All in all, I've been very pleased with the Canon G11. I've opted to do all my photography, normally opting to "float" the pistols using a white background. I've found that background influences the color of different finishes so much that it just doesn't pay to use anything but white to maintain consistency when displaying a lot of different pistols and finishes. I currently show about 300 pistols and more than 3000 images on my site. I don't have Photo Shop or any way to "remove" backgorund, so I just figured out how to use a neutral (white) background and make the pistols display accurately at the same time. Because I'm not a skilled photographer, that took some time to figure out my camera's individual settings, figure out what lighting to use and how, etc.

Here is an individual pistol shown in the "group" photo. Obviously, results are always better shooting one pistol at a time.

[John HOLBROOK]

I niw have 5 SONYs of various types, so I am back in business!!!

[Scott Gahimer]

I'll look forward to seeing some new images of old guns...or new images of newly acquired guns. Either way...let's see 'em! Thanks.

[John HOLBROOK]

Will do when I get a chance. My dance card is pretty full!!

[jmark]

Good info. Thanks John & Scott.