Got some pix . . .


View Uptown from 30 Rock





Princeton University Chapel

Always love visiting there but am glad to be back among the hay bales and corn instead of traffic and highrises.

 

Kobi,

What camera you using man? Looks amazing.
Is it a special program that stitches a few photos together to create the panerama or is it just a normal photo from your camera?

Ive got to pick that up, looks awesome.

 

X2! This is all my Sony can produce...


I leave NYC tomorrow. While I also love visiting this City, it really makes me appreciate the fact that I call NC home.

- NCSU

 

K....I just can't see you being a hay baling, corn husker type of guy.

Nice pics! And yeah, Princeton Univ. Chapel is beautiful.

 

NCSU-I feel you on the whole city thing. The only difference, you live in Raleigh, thats 100x the city than where I live. NYC is crazy compared to most of the country in NC

 

Oops - I linked to the wrong pic for the downtown shot. The one I originally posted was a pic I was experimenting with a post processing thing. Here's the pic I intended to post (matches the style of the uptown pic a tad better)



The most recent pix of uptown and downtown from Rockefeller Center and of the interior of Princeton Univ. Chapel were taken with my Canon 50D. The panoramas were multiple shots assembled in photoshop cs4. The automated photomerge works pretty well but I still had to fix some errors by hand. The shots were also tonemapped from three exposures in aperture priority mode and then cleaned up in PS.

You don't need to mess with all of that however, here is a shot that I took with my Canon G9 point-n-shoot (in manual mode) - no post processing was done other than I composited multiple shots manually in PS (did not use the photomerge feature).


Downtown at night using Canon G9

ETA: Those panoramas, by the way, are huge compared to what you're seeing here. These are seriously low res and only a fraction of the original size. The originals are roughly 15000 by 4500 @ 300ppi, 16bit made from camera raw, each file is about 650 megabytes. Printed they would be about 50" by 14" or so.

For example - here's a section of the downtown pic at 100% scale



so you can imagine the size of the full pic.

 

Where were you at when you took that shot?

 

Oh, I'm not . . . but I appreciate a lot of the things the farmland offers. Driving thru N.Y.C is a horrendous experience any time, doing it on a Saturday night (like I did) is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
Each year I say I'm never driving into Manhattan ever again, and every year I do it anyway. I always think the condition of the streets can't possibly get any worse, and each year they do.
After driving in Manhattan, once back to driving in the countryside it is a huge relief. Tons of stress and anxiety disappear when entering the wide open spaces.
However, there's still a lot to be said for city life . . . like having access to anything any time.

My grandmother's brother got married there. He taught at Princeton and IAS. I have history there myself and love visiting every year. One of the two places I'd consider living at if I had to live in Jersey.

Totally did the tourist thing. Those were taken atop Rockefeller Center. And I do the 30Rock thing each year hoping to get some amazing shot (but never do). Hopefully it will pay off with some killer shot one year because it costs a fortune to do it. Consider last time I went and this year too.

NJ turnpike tolls to and from $8.00
Toll to use Lincoln Tunnel $8.00
Parking for two hours at 30 rock $33.00
Price of ticket to go to top of Rockefeler Center $21.00
Total for some pix $70.00

Last time I went I made the mistake of parking on the street and foolishly thought I had interpreted the half a dozen parking signs correctly . . . not . . . and got a $150.00 parking ticket for my troubles.

Still though, the view is amazing. It's worth the $21.00 ticket to the top. (take the train though, much cheaper that way).

ETA: you can check out the Rockefeller Center observation deck site here:

http://www.topoftherocknyc.com/

 

When I go into the city I do take the train. Drove in a couple of times and it is a big pain in the butt. Drove to the Yankee game, but that's the Bronx.

I have EZ Pass for the toll roads.

Princeton is a beautiful area. Where's the other place in NJ you would live?

 

Figures you use Canon stuff....

 

It's the way to go, but I didn't want to lug around my new camera equipment on the train and the subway. From now on though, I'm doing the train thing.

I loves me some Short Hills!

 

Kobi,

I have a G9 as well but my pictures don't look nearly as good as yours.
I'll be honest, I've never read the book that came with it but could you share your settings?
I'd like to set it up the same way as yours and try to match your results.

Thanks
Habs

 

Hey, what do you know? I never read the book either! Best way to learn is to do, mess around with it and try different stuff and see what happens!

The great thing about the G9 is that even in Manual mode is that you can view it live so you can change settings and see what your pic will look like before you take it. No guess work needed!

OK, here is a quick lesson in one of many ways to approach messing around with stuff and see what different settings will yield:



Always shoot in RAW,
Put the iso setting in Auto (A)
Put the camera in Manual mode (B)
You can adjust the shutter speed (Displayed at "C")
and you can adjust your Fstop (Displayed as D)
To adjust either press the change settings button (F)
and then turn the dial (E)
In this pic the shutter speed is the active adjustment (C) as it is in the darker box.
Adjust both back and forth until the picture on the screen looks best.
Take the pic.
One of the great things about the G9 is that you can turn off the flash in any mode, even full auto. So, when in a low light situation, if you have a cool look using natural light you can adjust you shutter and f stop as described above and get a great shot without blowing it away with the flash. To activate or deactivate the flash (or put it in auto mode) Press the little lightning bolt inside of the wheel (E).
If you are close in and need to activate macro mode, press the little tulip just to the left of that.
Play around with this and see what kind of shots you get. I used this type of set up to get the night shot of NYC. I didn't have a tripod either, just laid the camera on a flat surface and hoped for the best (used 2 second delay after pressing shutter button (the little clock icon underneath Func. Set button inside of (E) wheel.
Experiment and have fun.

 

Thanks Kobi,
That was a huge help. going to play around with it now. I just so happen to have it right here sitting on my desk

Regards

 

That's what I'm here for my friend.