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submitted 2 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world
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submitted 2 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world
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submitted 2 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/nature@lemmy.world
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Picture taken this week in Estes Park, CO, USA.

Other hiking pics on pixelfed!

https://pxlmo.com/i/web/post/731645515845491178

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submitted 2 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/birding@lemmy.world

Photo taken this week in Estes Park, CO, USA.

More photos of the same day (no other birds) on pixelfed!

https://pxlmo.com/i/web/post/731645515845491178

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submitted 2 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/nature@lemmy.world

Kawuneeche Valley in the Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Lake, CO, USA. I still don't know that peak's name, but I will figure out soon.

More on pixelfed: https://pxlmo.com/i/web/post/729701334736943497

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Rocky Mountain National Park, close to the Grand Lake, CO entrance.

Check me out on pixelfed, too!

https://pxlmo.com/i/web/post/728664773829252788

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submitted 3 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/birding@lemmy.world

Sadly, no more bird pics. I saw a Steller's Jay but couldn't get a good photo of it

More pictures from the hike on pixelfed!

https://pxlmo.com/i/web/post/724032656434718631

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Bear in mind that I'm not a pro and I'm a hobbyist with "entry-level" equipment that I bought more than 10 years ago, even though I started shooting birds the past year or so. I'm commenting to add the perspective of a person who just happens to casually photograph birds on weekends.

I mostly use a Nikon D3200 APS-C with a kit lens (18-200mm), but I've had a Sigma 18-300mm and a Tamron 150-600mm in the past.

First thing that might surprise you, I end up with way less keepers than a person with reliable autofocus and good low-light performance.

Second, you do need to get pretty close most of the time, regardless of reach, especially for small birds. Usually, I will take "safer" shots and approach the bird slowly, trying to achieve the frame that I want.

Here's an example of a "safer shot", straight out of camera (using the 18-200mm lens):

I could walk forward two more steps to improve framing, before I was limited by a creek in front of me,

The final shot, illustrating how much I usually crop

Using the same Barn Swallow location as an example, I know from experience that they perch there if I "come early" and wait standing still for long enough (~15 minutes). So that's what I did when I went there the other day, standing at the same spot, but using the Tamron 150-600mm instead. This time, I didn't have to crop, since I pre-framed my picture, knowing their approximate size and that they would be there sooner or later.

There are situations where you need to crop a bit more, especially for birds that are both small and fast.

It took me close to 30 minutes to take this photo (D3200 + 18-200mm), since the chipping sparrows were zipping around, so I had to patiently wait for one to be within reach. I took exactly 6 pictures, two steps, lay down on the ground, one shot, two steps, lay down on the ground, one shot, repeat. Until the bird flew away.

I would say 200mm on cropped (300mm full frame equivalent) is when you can start to get good pictures: challenging but doable. 300mm on cropped is fairly nice (450mm equivalent). I don't think there are crazy improvements from 450mm--600mm, since 450mm is already nice for larger birds like jays or blackbirds, and ~500mm may be too short to reliably capture some smaller songbirds. 800mm or so is the longest I've tried and IMO it would be very challenging to have good enough technique to pull it off beyond that.

Of course, a person with a high-resolution, low-light beast will be able to crop more aggressively than I do. Especially if they just post their pictures online, where basically anything at 2MP or so will do.

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submitted 3 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/birding@lemmy.world

Yes, they beat the red-winged blackbirds this time.

Seen yesterday in Boulder, CO, USA.

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submitted 3 months ago by buffy@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world

Shot this weekend in Colorado, USA.

Check me out on pixelfed for more photos!

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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by buffy@lemmy.world to c/photography@lemmy.world

I know this topic has been discussed a lot before, but in my opinion there is no simple answer to this question.

Lately, I have been a bit disappointed with my Nikon DSLR kit (D3200) and thus I've been considering an upgrade. I got it many years ago, and it is undoubtedly a great, affordable camera that produces great images. I've had lots of fun with it and I can't complain about its performance when shooting -- given ideal conditions. When I am shooting more challenging subjects, however, I feel a bit hindered by my camera body/system. The points that bother me the most are:

  1. Size. The D3200 is a very nice, compact, and lightweight DSLR, but it is still relatively big compared to modern cameras. It won't fit in a jacket pocket even without an attached lens. More current cameras with a higher image quality can be smaller than it is (but heavier). The situation is even worse for higher-end DSLRs.
  2. Autofocus. Again, the D3200 is a fantastic camera if you are just using the center focus spot using the optical viewfinder and nothing else. Live view (contrast) focus is straight up unusable, and there are only 11 (phase) focus points or so if using the viewfinder. At least that's the case with "ordinary" Nikon lenses. I don't know how it performs with higher-end lenses, like the Sigma Art line.
  3. "Low light" performance. I can't bump the ISO significantly before image degradation becomes obvious. Low light in quotes because that's the case even in fairly well-lit situations. Occasionally, I like to print on medium-sized paper (A3+), and if I need anything above ISO 400 to properly expose the image, it won't look that good printed. Of course, I can always stick to printing bright images large and save the "low light" scenes to smaller prints, so this isn't really my main concern.
  4. Custom controls. I wish I could customize the camera settings a bit more. For example, on my camera, the back button AF/AE can be set to lock the AF/AE or as a back button focus. But in image preview mode, the same button "locks" the image so it can't be deleted. Thus, you need to quit image preview before using that button to trigger autofocus again. I would like to have a dedicated AF button so I can shoot straight from image preview if the opportunity arises. Another example of customization I can't do: settings like auto-ISO and shutter speed can't be capped/limited to a certain range. Let's say I want to use auto-ISO but prevent it from going above 400 to avoid too much noise (and decrease shutter speed but risk shaky images). Or the opposite: prevent the shutter speed in aperture priority mode from going below 1/100 to avoid shaky images and then change ISO instead. Well, I can't do either at the moment. Again, a nice feature to have, but totally something I can live with.

From what I have seen, cameras nowadays have gotten pretty good and they do look like a significant upgrade from 10-15 year old bodies. I guess all popular, entry-level, modern cameras (2019-) solve at least 3 of the 4 problems I listed above, so I don't think I can go wrong with any big brand. However, I'm having a hard time deciding with so many options and sensor size/formats available. My options so far are:

  1. Nikon Z. Since I am already familiar with Nikon F lenses, I have read a lot about them and I know the strengths and weaknesses of many of those. That means I likely won't be disappointed if I switch to another system, and I want a certain lens that doesn't exist, or the optical performance is poor, or it is prohibitively expensive. The Z50, Z5, and Z6 all look amazing, and I can pick or switch between a full frame or cropped sensor easier than I would if I was stuck with a micro four thirds. They are more affordable than Sony.
  2. Sony. They seem to be fantastic cameras, with great image quality and features. Sigma and Tamron options for Nikon are likely available for Sony as well. I'm just slightly afraid that lenses might be too expensive for what they offer. Their cameras look super compact and pocketable, which is a huge plus to me. Full frame (A7iii) or cropped (A6400) are also both available for a seamless transition.
  3. Olympus. I think it is impossible to beat micro four thirds in size and affordability. It is perhaps the only system where you can get a wide angle, portrait, fast prime, macro, and telephoto that you can take everywhere in a small bag while not costing you a fortune. They also have pretty nice features, such as the "live mode"/"smartphone photography", where you can get a frame that was captured slightly before the shutter button was pressed. This must be so cool for wildlife. Olympus stabilization is also highly regarded, with people claiming it to be "gimbal-like". The E-M5 iii looks very appealing. My main concern is that I've never used a micro four thirds before and thus I don't know how much I'm letting go in image quality. I already feel that the dynamic range I get with the D3200 rocking a larger, cropped sensor could be better.

I am not considering:

  1. Canon. I completely disagree with their "no third party lenses" policy. To me, that is unacceptable.
  2. Fujifilm. There are barely any telephoto options and they are one of my favorite lens types to use.
  3. Panasonic. I like what I read about the Lumix cameras, but they seem to be behind Olympus regarding micro four third still-focused cameras (apart from the G9). And I don't know much about the L-mount.
  4. Hasselblad, Leica, etc. Too expensive. I want something that I can take with me everywhere and not worry too much if it gets damaged.

I would appreciate if you all could help me figure this out! Especially people who have used more than one modern mirrorless system or have recently transitioned from DSLR to mirrorless. Many thanks in advance!

Edited to add:

I forgot to describe how exactly I use my camera. I mostly shoot:

  1. "Lifestyle" photos, like something cool I've seen while biking to work, walking in the park, visiting museums, etc.
  2. Hiking, biking, backpacking photos, like landscape, close ups, macro, wildlife, etc.
  3. Birds of all sizes.
  4. Occasionally, street photography if there's some cool event going on.
  5. I do like to shoot video, so something that would be 4K capable would be great.
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I hope this post fits the purpose of the community!

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

One of the reasons I really like seeing your posts is that the birds are so exotic to me!

Shout out to @snlug@lemmy.ca and @adjjjj@lemmy.world too!

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Thank you! I’m glad you like the photos.

I agree on the turtle! I decided to post the pics on Pixelfed first, then share them here. For some reason, I thought I’d share a different picture of the turtle on Lemmy, but this one is much more appealing indeed.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Thanks! It seems like the "dead link" is just telling us how to install any printer using CUPS, sadly. But the second link might help me, given that I can try to extract a ppd driver from the provided macOS drivers.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You are right, those are contradictory. I meant doing it for now and sandboxing the VM while I work on finding a solution. I'm now trying to extract the useful part of the MacOS drivers and see if I can run it natively on Linux.

Edit: I edited the original post slightly to address your point, which I fully agree with.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

True! There was a time my father would get home from work and just listen to bird songs CDs. Just seeing his joy and enjoying hearing nature myself made me consider field recording too

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

I would suggest checking "sold items" on eBay (there's a filter for that, or add &LH_Complete=1 to your link). You'll see that body-only Canon M10 cameras are actually being sold for around USD 180 or GBP 145. Those that are more expensive usually include lenses or other accessories. Sellers can always charge how much they want, but whether listings will be successful is a different question.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Crown rock, Boulder CO. May 4th, 2024. I saw three or four of them together that day

https://bouldercolorado.gov/trail/crown-rock

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You are right, I should have made this clear. I am not on Nvidia, I am using an old Thinkpad on Intel Haswell.

I'm glad to know my problem isn't completely new. I'll look into it further online. If you ever find a link to a report of a similar issue, I would be happy to see!

Edit: I found this link, the issue reported appears to be very similar to what I'm seeing here https://libreddit.tux.pizza/r/kde/comments/jhqbnz/kde_plasma_rendering_problem_black_squares/

Edit 2: I finally solved my problem! It was indeed an old problem already reported somewhere.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Yeah, I tried installing kde-full but it didn't solve my problem.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

I do store regular backups of this machine, but not of /var. I can always reinstall Debian (or whatever other distro), while keeping other relevant configs intact (stored in the backups) and not lose any critical data.

I commented below that I did check /var/log/dpkg.log, but it didn't help much due to the high number of packages removed that day.

At this point I am more curious to learn more about KDE and what is causing the problem, since other desktop environments (I installed mate) seem to work fine.

[-] buffy@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sadly I am not using BTRFS for my root directory on this specific system. If I end up deciding to reinstall, I will definitely go back to BTRFS to avoid such problems.

Debian actually has a KDE group named kde-full. I reinstalled it but the issue persists, which was honestly surprising to me.

~$ sudo apt install kde-full
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
kde-full is already the newest version (5:147).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 87 not upgraded.

The new user idea was really clever, thanks for the suggestion! I will try that now and see.

Edit: the new user also presents the same problem. Actually, it makes sense, since SDDM is affected as well (I should have mentioned that before).

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buffy

joined 9 months ago