Dan Tong

Thanks for this very informative summary of CS6.

re: AndyML

Nonsense. I don't have a single Apple Product, but I am well aware having tried some, that Apple understands that ergonomics is more than 50% of the success of such products. Other companies claim to make things easy to use, but fail to do so. Worse yet, they don't really pay attention and still don't get it at all.
While Apple may not have been the absolute first with many products, their refinement and improvement of many tech products has led to amazing market changes and, in my opinion, deservedly so. Yes, there are things I wish their products had which would make them even more easy and useful, but that s irrelevant.
I certainly don't buy into the Apple and Steve Jobs worship bit, because Apple is just like other Corps - just look at the terrible work conditions at Foxconn.
Try to leave your most obvious biases at home and attempt to be more neutral.

It's nice to hear from someone who not only reads the information but also has some brains. Most of the commentary following news releases and other articles is incredibly negative and dumb.

Thanks,

Dan

Interesting article. It was good to hear from more than one pro, and I enjoyed Dan Chung's wonderful video of Beijing.

Thanks,

Dan

Stacking should work for you even better than for "wild life photography" since your objects do not move, nor do you need to worry about wind moving your object (assuming you are indoors). Hence you can take as much time as you like between each racking focus exposure.

You should use whichever focusing method is the most precise and convenient.

Photoshop CS5 has the stacking capability.

Lucky for you you don't have to "buy" the diffraction argument.
It's completely free! As in no charge.

Of course you are technically correct, but here is another point of view, which in my opinion makes the author's statement right.

Long distances (2-5 feet?) for macro photos are only RELATIVELY long in the context of macro photography. In the context of photography in general (portrait and landscape, and excluding macro) these "long distances" are pretty much "close distances".

Therefore the author's rather general statement which explains the most defining characteristic of macro (vs genera) photography, the explanation is perfectly sensible. People also use the general term "extreme closeup photography" which just about everyone understands right away.

Sadly most people fail to understand "relativity" :)

Another wonderful installment in these excellent Macro Photography articles, accompanied, as always, by stunning images.

I'm eagerly awaiting the discussion of hardware, specifically the discussion of special macro lenses vs bellows vs extension tubes vs reversed lenses vs add-on close up lenses. These 3 methods to focus closer are listed in order of most costly to least costly and almost certainly in order of overall effectiveness, but I would very much like to know more about the pros and cons of each from an expert.

Thanks,

Dan

Great interview with a real pro. The videos are superb and the information is very timely.

I remember tons of naysayers here on these forums yapping about what a waste of time it is to put video capability on dSLR cameras.

Sadly, we have a lot of very unimaginative people who get cranky and ultra negative about new things because it is not of much interest to them. I suspect there is a negative correlation between how arrogantly opinionated one is and some measure of one's overall smartness.

Thanks for this very interesting interview!

Dan

This new Nikon sounds fantastic to me (and I have a large investment in Canon lenses). It seems to me that Nikon has often been much more creative and ahead of the technology race than Canon (for example USB3, focusing technology, DX mode, uncompressed HDMI output etc). The video capabilities are excellent too.

In any case I'm happy for Nikon owners who have invested in Nikon lenses. I hope that Canon rises to the challenge. Competition is great for us customers. Congrats to Nikon!

PeterBXL,

Your comments are right on and the naysayers are just too unimaginative to see them. JS Wisniewski, however, is no ordinary DPreview dummy. He knows his optics and can do the math.

However, in this case you have to take Joe's comments with a grain of salt. I clearly remember that he said that although the Minolta sensor image stabilization was very clever, it would never work with larger sensors. Then he proceeded to show the math to explain why it could not possibly work with full size (35mm) sensors because of the increased mass.

As we all know either his calculations, or his unstated assumptions were wrong, because we have sensor based image stabilization in the top Sony (who purchased the Minolta digital camera line) full size sensor dSLR cameras.

In any case I have never since taken some of his pessimistic statements too seriously : )

The video is really good, with zooming, exposure control etc. according to many reviews, and the video quality (Nex 5, 5n, 7) beats just about every other camera.

It's very exciting, though overpriced, and also disappointing for video use that there is no manual control over exposure in video mode.
Why are so many companies apparently so deaf to user input? The ability to lock exposure in video mode cannot be all that difficult, nor exposure compensation (much as in still mode). The fact that only sophisticated users would want that feature should not argue against including it either. The GX1 is in fact aimed at more serious, more skilled users. Besides, you can always not use a feature whereas the reverse is of course false.

Great news, and hopefully the price will come down some in the future.

Can you not accept the fact that your particular interests or point of view does not apply to everyone else?
Some of us may want the choice of using our very fine and expensive Canon lenses on the Sony NEX-5, NEX-5n, or NEX-7, under circumstances where portability and size is not an issue. Small and portable with E lenses and not very portable with large Canon lenses for different shooting conditions and venues.

Yes, you are missing the idea that other photographers may have additional or broader or different points of view than you do. I can explain in more detail if you need it.

To the people who are complaining about ANY retouching of faces, I can only say that I can understand your point of view.

However, anyone who wants to be skilled at Photoshop retouching should appreciate learning the tools to achieve certain effects such as these.

If you do not care for the end result and do not wish to apply them, then that's perfectly understandable, but if you don't know how to best use these tools to achieve a certain effect, then you have no choice.

Thank you very much for an excellent tutorial. I'm afraid a very large contingent of photographers can benefit especially from your comments about not overdoing the skin adjustments. If the pores are completely gone, it will look "fake" and "amateurish" in a very bad way.

Although I have used red filters for b&w conversions of portraits, I had not thought of using the red channel for routine skin beauty treatments, so it's much appreciated. The red channel will do wonders for almost any skin "color/tone" imperfections because many blemishes are "redder" than the normal skin areas.

The workflow you propose is really good and you explain very well. I'm going to add your excellent workflow to my "beauty treatment" workflow.

Thanks very much,

Dan

Fuji has certainly earned its reputation for innovation and creative thinking in the past and these X series cameras once again demonstrate this aspect of the company.

It's 2.8 at extreme wide angle only. At the tele end it's very slow. In caves, the light is poor so we need faster lens for portraits. Portraits are not very good at 28mm.