freddy333

Many may not be aware that in addition to his guitar artistry & the guitars that carry his name, Les Paul is also the 1st guy to record 'sound-on-sound', which, today, is referred to as over-dubbing. This, probably more than any other technology in the pop music business, is responsible for the quality & complex layering heard on most pop music recordings (& live performances by acts like Millie Vanilli, Madonna & Michael Jackson) of the past 50 years. For instance, Sgt. Pepper could never have been made by the Beatles had Les Paul's technique of recording a 2nd instrument (or voice) over a previous 1 not been available to them. This technique has helped countless struggling musicians (like I once was) to self-produce their music to a quality that would have been all but impossible without it. Requiscat In Pace, Les.

Old subject & all I can say is

Probably a good idea, Ubi. I just returned the 75-300 & ordered 1. So I will end up with the same (zoom) setup as Pug, which I hope will improve my image.

Question - What is worse (far, far worse) than a Leopard Daytona? Answer - This.

Still Thursday here & wearing my 6536/1

My ode to Les (6542 among the knobs of my Les Paul 'The Paul')

I am not that clothes conscious, so I do not have many pics that highlight them. But here is a wristie that might fit (no pun intended) A pair of my shoes (Lobb) did get used as props in a couple of wristies And do not forget that no member of the gentile class would consider his ensemble complete unless it left his admirers' noses tingling with the merest hint of just the right scent as he sashays around the room But, for me, generally, when not working, my typical garb is likely to consist of a t-shirt, Levis, 'Bans, a steel Rolex & a pair of Purcells Tailor that.

As usual, beautiful pic. Since I have a macro on the way, I thought a zoom would be useful to fill in the gaps left by the SX10IS, so I can do shallow dof shots that may be difficult to do with the LX3's meager 2.5x zoom. Thanks Pug. Just what I needed to see.

James - I share your love for the Daytona Newman model, but I think there are more accurate reps of this watch available & (hopefully) for about the same or not much more than you spent on this 1. You should learn what the real thing looks like & how it functions. If you are interested, I would start by searching out pics of gen Rolex Daytona 6263s with Newman dials from google images or timezone. Then, check out the offerings from some of the collectors here (specifically Andrew & Joshua) & compare their reps to the real thing.

Yes, it was an impulse buy. I rarely purchase something like this without doing alot of research 1st. But I was without a functional camera, so I did what I always tell people not to do - rely on a salesman's advice. I just went through the fredmiranda zoom lens reviews & this 1 was almost universally panned by everyone, so back it goes today. I think I may try to exchange it for the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS, which, in contrast, received almost universally rave reviews. Hopefully, it will provide a similar zoom (which does work well on this lens) but with Image Stabilization (which adds some hand-hold-ability to an otherwise tripod-only lens) & good image quality. And it is only about $50 more than the lens I have. I sure hope so. At this point, I have been seriously considering buying back the SX10IS & just dealing with its shortcomings. That p&s, with its 20x zoom & IS, allowed me to ignore most of the mechanics of picture-taking so I could concentrate on the creative process instead of struggling to find creative ways to get an acceptably decent image. But I will certainly wait to see what I get with the 400D & a lens that is capable of better-than-Polaroid quality images before I give up & return to the digital p&s world.

Thanks, Andei & yes, I have tried 3 stops down & virtually everything else. Ok, then what is the purpose of this EF 75-300 zoom lens, if all the images it produces -- both wide-angle & telephoto -- are soft with a slight halo around them? I mean, the primary purpose in stepping up to an SLR (from a p&s) is to get more precise images, no?

Your Tag Pic looks great, but I think you must have missed the beginning of this thread. Nearly all of my pics are, & have always been, shot in full manual (with the pic at the top of the thread shot being converted from RAW). Further, all of my shooting with this camera has been output in both RAW & the highest resolution (L) JPEGs, with the RAWs being processed in either Canon's included software or the latest versions of Adobe RAW or Paint Shop Pro (all producing similar results & the unprocessed JPEGs look about the same). And, again, seeing more of these stunning pics that Pug, Ubi & others produce with the same camera (some even with assistance of the camera's Auto functions), I have to figure that either my camera is defective (though I kind of doubt that), the CF card is defective or my Canon zoom lens is simply incapable of producing sharp images. The lens seems, to me, to be the most likely source of the problem since it is the only component of its kind (a zoom SLR lens) that I have had little direct experience with before buying 1 yesterday & 2 people have mentioned that it is the problem. Still, I find it really hard to believe that a $200 lens is incapable of producing a sharp image anywhere within its usable range (I get the same unsharp, slightly glowing images whether shooting wide-angle or telephoto or at any point in-between).

Thanks, but I did try that - full manual, as well as full auto, aperture priority, shutter priority, program, etc, as well as trying ALL of the basic (preset) settings. Believe me, I tried everything & the pic above was, by far, the best I was able to get with this combo. Whoa, Nellie!!!!!!! What was that about 'won't focus as close as many p&s cameras'???? As long as the object being shot is not closer than the lens's minimum focusing distance (which is 1.5m/4.95' for this lens), why should it not be able to focus & produce clearer pics than my p&s cameras? My watch in the pic was a good 8' away when I shot it. I always use a gray card & the shot I posted was done in RAW. Most of the other pics I shot (also in RAW, but I did compare them with their High Quality JPEG companions) had alot of color casting - some too warm, some too blue. Because the procedure for setting manual white balance is twice as complex as setting white balance on any of my previous p&s cameras, it is more than likely that I am doing something wrong. But, so far, I have not been able to figure out what it is I am doing wrong??????? Assuming you (or someone) are familiar with the 400D, this is what I am doing to set white balance - 1. Take a (full screen) picture of my gray card (manual settings) 2. Select Custom White Balance on the Menu 3. Import/set the gray card pic I just took into the custom white balance screen 4. Select the Custom White Balance option on the White Balance screen 5. Take the picture I have yet to see a color correct (or sharp) picture come out of this camera/lens combo. In contrast (no pun intended), this was the procedure for my p&s cameras - 1. Select Custom White Balance on the Menu 2. Point camera at gray card & press the Set button 3. Take the picture Worked like a charm every time. While it has been about 10 years since I last dabbled in any serious way with photography (& never used anything but the Planar 1.7/50 lens that came with my camera), I am not a complete noob. The 25-year old SLR you occasionally see in my pics used to see fairly regular use & not as a prop

My Canon 400D (same camera body that Pug uses) arrived today. Since I purchased the body by itself, I went to the local camera store & picked up a Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III zoom lens to play with until my macro lens arrives in 1-2 weeks. Unfortunately, while I expected a bit of a learning curve before I was up-to-speed on the new gear, I was not prepared for the number of features on point-&-shoots that are missing on this (far more expensive & theoretically more advanced) SLR. Things like setting white balance, which was a simple, 2-step piece of cake on my p&s's, is now a 4 (or is it 5?????) step procedure on the 400D. And, after all that, I still have not been able to get a proper white balance (I may be new to digital SLRs, but I know how to do a white balance, so I do not think the problem is me). I spent most of Tuesday experimenting with the 400D/75-300 combination, trying to get at least 1 good, sharp picture that bested my p&s's, but to no avail. The best the 3 of us (camera, lens & myself) could muster, after many hours & hundreds of shots that were not even this good, was this (tripoded in Manual program/focus, f/5.6 & @ ISO100 with the lens at the tele-photo end) Sadly, shooting outside in natural light was not even this good. Compare with a hand-held shot (in full Auto) from the SX10IS I just cannot believe a Canon DSLR cannot at least match (though it should surpass) the output from a $350 p&s. So I have to assume that either I am doing something wrong or there is something wrong with either the lens or camera body (which is a factory refurb). I also have a question - Is there a way to disable the pop-up flash when the 400D is set to Close-up (Macro)? Oddly, the Macro on the 400D is treated like 1 of the program functions like Auto, AV, TV, Program, Manual, etc & it is essentially the same as Auto (most of the manual controls are disabled). Worse still, since the Macro is controlled on the program wheel, you cannot enable it in other program modes like Manual. TIA

Modeling my 6536/1 for the new camera/lens (Canon 400D/75-300 f/4-5.6, shot in RAW) Having spent the last several years shooting with nothing but a point-&-shoot, I did not (fully) realize how simple they make composing. Now, back to an SLR, I am having to re-learn alot of what I had forgotten from the old film days. The lens & not having an LCD viewer, especially, are taking some getting used to. Unfortunately, so far, all of the watch portraits I have shot were either much too dark, way overexposed or terribly out-of-focus. But I think I can see hints of the greater potential to come (if I can just figure out why images are not as sharp as they should be)

Taps? Are you a dancer?

I believe the height of both calibers is the same - 5.75mm.

I have never used a gasket on a datejust bezel. As for removing the remaining caseback gasket, you can try denatured alcohol & nail polish remover (do not get it on the acrylic crystal). Failing that, unless you have access to a good ultrasonic cleaner, you may need to gently scrape it off.

Nope.

Top looks best to me. But, like I keep saying, these GMTIICs are so good out-of-the-box that I would need to see a gen in the same picture (same size, same location, same camera angle & same lighting) to be able to correctly tell the gen insert from the rep.

Ditto.

I am the same way, except that my absent-mindedness usually trumps my OCD impulse, which tends to result in something a bit shy of time-set perfection (I think a couple of them are close)

Get yourself 1 of those paint scrapers that contain a razor blade. Wedge it in-between the bottom of the bezel & the case & slowly work it around the circumference of the bezel until it loosens & you can lift it off. You will need a crystal press (or a vice with a pair of nylon spacers) to refit it.

I always thought it was common knowledge that humidity (& dust) were bad for all watches. This is why many gens' service departments are temperature/humidity/dust controlled & 1 of the reasons they charge more than most independents.

Monday - no fashion, just style