Gorgeous shots as always Don.

I need a new lens :/

Portrait of a friend. Cant decide wich one is best, help wanted!

As is I'd go with the color version. When I look at a portrait I wan't to be drawn to the face before anything else. In your B&W version the face could use a little more fill light and/or highlights to draw your eye in, otherwise it wants to drift over to the brightness of the horizon in the background.

Today's sun rising over my home town, aka photographs of a sleep-deprived bored hobby photographer



Just resized, no messing with the colours or contrast or anything else. Used the "Sunset" colour profile under the assumption it'd work just as well on the sunrise. It kind of did, it's more vivid than Adobe RGB.

Quote from morpha :

... it's more vivid than Adobe RGB.

Unless you are 100% certain your audience is using a profile-enabled browser or image viewer through a good monitor, you should not release images profiled under Adobe RGB. Since it has a wider gamut that de-facto sRGB, profile-disabled browsers and viewers happily assume everything they display is un-profiled or under sRGB - and everything wider gamut that sRGB looks flat, unsaturated, usually tinted to red/magenta and generally like shiet.

AdobeRGB has its place but not under general image viewing on teh intertubz.

Some random shots with the K-M










Last 2 are ~50% crops, because my 18-55 doesn't focus very close.

I think you have failed really bad with your upload, I keep getting asked authorisation username and password for http://ekodu.planet.ee

"A username and password are being requested by http://ekodu.planet.ee. The site says: "This is protected directory!""

Should be fixed now, sorry about that.

Quote from Taavi(EST) :

Some random shots with the K-M
Last 2 are ~50% crops, because my 18-55 doesn't focus very close.

I like the first one, awesome colors!

Holy crap, these Sigmas are tank-like. The 70-200 weighs 3lbs!

Gonna have to start lifting weights if I wanna take this beast hiking.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Holy crap, these Sigmas are tank-like. The 70-200 weighs 3lbs!

Gonna have to start lifting weights if I wanna take this beast hiking.

oh god.. I can't imagine what the Nikon feels like then lol

by the way, does yours have that weird.. metal.. but feels like felt material?
It's hard to explain, you have to feel those Sigma lenses to know what I'm talking about

I remember the first time I picked up my dad's 100-400mm 4-5.6 Canon, that.. man, it double proved how much I hate holding on to a Canon camera, I couldn't hold the camera for more than a few seconds without it hurting! And that was supporting majority of the lens with the tripod mount of course, those things hurt!

Quote from XCNuse :

oh god.. I can't imagine what the Nikon feels like then lol

by the way, does yours have that weird.. metal.. but feels like felt material?
It's hard to explain, you have to feel those Sigma lenses to know what I'm talking about

Yeah, that's the typical Sigma finish. It's on both the 10-20 and the 70-200. I like it, but I've heard horror stories of it peeling up after a year or two.

edit: wonder how much this guy weighs:

That beast surprisingly only weighs about 35 pounds!
Which.. imo sounds light for something of that size!
I think the problem with it really is the weight distribution lol, not so much the weight itself


I've had my 10-20 for a year and I haven't had any problems with it, but then again I'm not ravaging through a jungle with it every day either lol

I think it's safe to say if you keep it in the bag it came in and generally take care of it it will be just fine!

the best bit is on the page for that lens on the sigma website it says about making it eay to shoot handheld or something like that

That thing must make some epic pictures

Quote from Bose321 :

That thing must make some epic pictures

Yeeeeaexcept not.

Unless Don is behind it shooting rally.

Quote from Bose321 :

That thing must make some epic pictures

.. only if you're standing several kilometers away from the subject

Pentax optio 3.0 MegaPixel / 4x digital zoom

I just love the way the Helios-44K-4 renders foliage:

Wow that is awesome depth of field on that thing!

Also doesn't suffer the glass issues sigmas used to have.. the bokeh on that is super nice too, what is the minimum focus on that thing?

Quote from XCNuse :

Wow that is awesome depth of field on that thing!

Also doesn't suffer the glass issues sigmas used to have.. the bokeh on that is super nice too, what is the minimum focus on that thing?

That's actually from my Soviet Helios-44K-4, which is a 58mm f/2 lens. Cost me a whopping $50 (which is actually kinda pricey given the M42 version regularly goes for $20 or less on eBay).

Haven't had a chance to try the Sigma on backlit stuff like that yet, but I will soon. I somehow doubt it'll have the same crazy bokeh--probably a lot more creamy, but we'll see.

lol that's a funny look lens!
Nice bokeh though

I wish my 50 1.8 looked that good, wide open, in bright light it gets baaaad croma

I think mine was like around $50 also

But seriously I can't wait to see some photos from that sigma, I really want to see how that thing stands up in comparison!

Just got back from a 2 month volunteering trip in South Africa, at a monkey sanctuary. Had an awesome time . Here are a few shots I got from the sanctuary, Kruger National Park and a few other places:

Awesome stuff, Ross!

A few recent ones: