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Yeah, That's a pretty sweet optical zoom! :) As for digital zoom it does absolutely nothing for you at all! ;) All it does is crop your picturees in the camera. There is actually a disadvantage to it. If you shoot at your max optical zoom and crop later, you will have a better photograph. Nice pix by the way for both of you. :)

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How do you like your S3? I was playing with the idea of ordering one and give up waiting for a D2X. Too bad the flash sync is only 1/180 and my D2H isn't much better. With outdoor work it sure is nice to have 1/500th to work with. Anyway, other than the flash sync I've heard some good things about this body.


Shaun Bell

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Tall Paul, you sure have a good idea on the sighting tube. I'm reluctant to epoxy anything to my camera. I have some of those small square plastic thingies that I use with nylon ties. They have a peal and stick backing. Did you use a rectangular tube? How long is it? How well does it work? I've miss framed quiet a few shots because of the sleight delay.

garynjr, I agree with you about the digital zoom, however, it comes in handy some times. Here are three shots on a gloomy day but you can see the comparison. The first is no zoom, the second is 10x optical zoom, and the third is 40x digital zoom.

Ken

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Big Bird, Yeah, but I bet if you took the ull res version of the middle one and cropped it to the third one, it would look pretty much the same. :)

Shaunrbell, The S3 is the best digital camera I have ever used!!! I like the body of the D2X better especially since I've used a D1xfor close to 3 years. :) However, i have compared both and the image quality is better with the S3! :) Highlight detail is much more superior and overall quality I feel is beter. I like the S3 over any on the market right now. Including the Mark II, and the Nikon chips. :)

What do you want to do with it? Are you a Pro Photog? Just curious because that's a lot of cash to drop on a camera for just taking pics of cars or planes... ;)

unless you are independantly wealthy... ;)

I 100% suport the Fuji s3 though. I LOVE it. G.

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Lets just say I don't get to spark up the jet on the weekends lol! Mostly weddings and portrait work. I presume you're in the same boat? I can't think of a job more fun than photography....except maybe product testing for BVM! Hey Bob, need some help?

Shaun Bell

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I can think of a job that's more fun than Photography...

Photo manipulation :D

PS, Note, the photo not only look better, but both of the fences have been straightened.

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that's amazing. I noticed the grass is green too!

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Ah... ;) Yup, same buis... I use it for all my studio and location portrait work. 40x60 is the largest print I've made from it so that's large enough for me! ;) Also, more importantly, it handles highlights like a dream! still like the body of the D1x / D2x better. It's a better base model camera. I wish they would put the s3 Chip in the D2x and then I'd be really happy! The markII is good too but if you have Nikon gear, it's better to stick w/ the s3 or d2x. Here is a link to the review for the S3 onGary Fong's site... http://www.digitalphotographers.net/...ujis3settings/

It's prettyinformitive...

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Hey Minn, Not to shabby there bud. You have to love CS!

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I use 1/4" diameter aluminum tubes for these sighters. About 2 inches long, aligned with the image axis at maximum zoom and the usual distance I expect to be taking the photo.
I'm not concerned about the resale value of a camera.. when I get done with one, it's -done-!!!! :)
The viewfinder on my Fuji has lost most of its color, shows only green and yellow. Probably cost too much to fix, and I can use the LCD for the static shots.
The delay in taking the image and the camera range-finder actually focusing the image leads to many missed pictures when I'm flying and shooting, but not so many when I can pan with the subject and not be concerned about the flying part. :)
I'm looking at the 10X opticals; Olympus, Kodak and Fuji, but can't decide/fund yet.

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The delay is why you're better off locking the camera at infinity. This should give you shots in focus from 30' and farther. It's not very often you get a plane close enough to be out of focus. With the focus locked the camera does not have to "think" it just snaps the shot. I took about 4000 shots with my old Dimage 5. The first 500 I tried to let the camera focus and got about 1 in 10 good shots. After that I locked the focus and got 9 out of 10 that were decent and 3 out of 10 that were good enough that I could use them for magazine publication.

TFLG

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My Olympus C-750 does a really good job of auto fast focusing in the sports mode. The reason that I'm going to install a sighting tube has to do with the mental problem that I have. My mind just doesn't like to accept a black screen while the camera is thinking. Therefore, my tracking of the plane seems to hesitate during the black screen moment and sometimes I wind up cutting off part of the tail, etc. It's just a personal problem that the tube may cure. Thanks for the advice Tall Paul.

Ken

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My Fuji doesn't have the "focus lock" feature..
There's a pseudo-lock which requires the shutter button to be half-pressed while aimed at the subject/distance..
This is impractical while flying and photographing.
The burst mode, 4 images in rapid succession works a bit better than the single image at one time for getting more images in focus.
The screen blanking is another problem.. only with the Fuji, it shows an image, but not the image it will be taking. Panning must be continuous during the exposure.

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Do you have a Mountain Program? Landscape mode, looks like a Mountain. That should set you to infinity focus and the smallest aperature for depth of field.

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Not with this one.. the focus can be "fixed" as mentioned, but must be done for each shot.
I think the newer versions have something like a selectable focus.
Mine is probably 3 years old, which means it's probably 4 models obsolete.

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Gotchya...

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Tall Paul, when you are looking for a new camera, be sure and give the Olympus C-750, or the C-770 a good going over. With the 750 you can auto focus and press one button to lock the focus in. Or, you can auto focus and with one button transfer it to manual focus. Or, you can go straight to manual focus. The manual focus scale in the view finder can be in metric or english and as I remember has two scale ranges. Probably more than you wanted to know at this point.

This camera is extremely versatile and the printable manual is 204 pages long.

Ken

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Mike, that is a really good manipulation of my drab photo. I normally use Microsoft's Picture It to do similar things. What is another good editing software in a reasonable price range for the amateur?

Here is a photo that I did with Picture It of me and my 1/3 scale Bücker Jungmeister.

Ken

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Here is what the sighting tube looks like on my camera. I'm anxious to try it out.

I may reduce the internal dimensions of the tube by using round brass tubing. I used the square tubing because it glued better to the plastic pad.

Ken

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I just today bought a Panasonic Lumix FZ15 camera and it's awesome for action and still shots. It's got a 12x zoom and a VERY fast shutter (less lag from the time you hit the shutter button until it takes the image). It will also do "burst shooting" which fires off 4 frames per second. Very nice if you're trying to catch a plane in the air at a certain attitude. It's a 4 megapixel camera and that's just fine for me. Some people strive to get the highest megapixel count only to print 5x7's. I can print an 8x10 or larger crystal clear. If I was in to making posters then something more than 4 mpxl would be required. Cost me $371 from www.buydig.com.

MIke

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Adobe Photoshop is king, without a doubt, but is relatively expensive. A nice alternative, in the $100 range is Paint Shop Pro. PSP was recently purchased by Corel. There is a free download for evalutation available on the JASC site. If you decide to purchase, go for the boxed edition with manual.

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I just bought a Minolta Z1 camera from Wal Mart for $250 plus tax and am pretty happy with it so far. The 10x optical zoom is very nice but you need to have a steady hand if you are using the full zoom. Still haven't played with all the features but have taken some good shots with it already. The startup/autofocus time is very quick. Here is a picture of my EVO heli. You can even make out the carbon weave.

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BlackB12.... Congratulations on your FZ15 purchase. I have had mine for about a month now and am positive I've made the right choice for what I need. The Panasonic Lumix FZ15 is probably one of the better buys out there.
You won't have the problems that Flyfalcons mentioned about needing a steady hand shooting at 10X. The image stabilization that the Lumix uses will allow you to shoot at the 12X optical zoom without a tripod in good light.
When I started looking for a digital camera I hadn't even considered Panasonic until I read the reviews. There is only one other camera in this price range with image stabilization and that would be the Minolta Diamage Z3. All the Nikon, Olympus, Minolta, and Cannon's have you reaching for your tripod for max zoom pictures.
The FZ15 also does an excellent job in macro mode. Lots of excellent features.
I never was a real lover of any recent Panasonic products until the Lumix line of cameras.

Greg

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Ryan,

I see I'm not the only one who decided to make his own graphics for his Evo.

Did you use left-over plank trim too???:D

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Steve, I certainly did :D. $40 worth of vinyl will do one big Extra and the leftover scraps will do about six hundred helis. :)