Yay for new toys!
Posted on: May 20, 2009
Editing pictures with a laptop touch pad is beyond frustrating… not to mention painful… I’ve had a few instances where I’ve done so much editing that my hand and arm really started to hurt! Lately I haven’t spend that much time editing pictures but I kind of almost miss it… anyway a while back I had finally had enough and on Friday I ordered it – it’s a Wacom Bamboo tablet, and it’s lovely!
I’m still getting used to it, obviously, but I can see how it’s going to come in handy and make things so much easier! Granted, I haven’t done many photoshop-heavy pictures (I find nature pictures more gorgeous un-touched) but I also haven’t had any ideas in my head lately… hopefully some ideas will pop into my head soon and I’ll be able to give my tablet a work out.
The only thing that kind of sucks is that I don’t have a desk for my computer… I’m just using the dining room table. Which is fine but when I move, I’m not going to want to edit my pictures on my parent’s dining room table… and my bedroom at their house is too small for a desk. Hmmm… oh well.
Now all that’s left is the dSLR, which I’ve been saving up for all year and am hoping to be able to finally purchase in August. Cross fingers!
17 Responses to "Yay for new toys!"
May 20, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I was totally all about SOOC myself, until I started shooting RAW, which kind of makes it a requirement to do post processing. Now I spend way more time in Bridge, ACR, and the ‘Shop than I ever did before…and I’m still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. I just love how RAW has been able to save my ass when I screw something up on-site 🙂
I suppose the counter to that is just not eff up the exposure in the first place.
May 21, 2009 at 6:22 am
Daaaang. Well that makes me nervous about RAW then, lol – seems like so much work. Your pics look great tho so it must be worth it! I was talking to my dad about it and he was saying that RAW takes up a lot of memory too? I dunno, I’d like to learn about it… and right now sometimes I like semi-SOOC… where all I’ve done is tweak the colors a bit. Especially for outdoors shots…
May 21, 2009 at 6:28 am
It IS a lot more work, but most of the time you can blow right through it (assuming you already do color correction on JPEG, it’s a similar principle with RAW, but you have more flexibility…but it’s not “optional”, so to speak).
The biggest difference is, like your dad mentioned, file size. RAW files are at least twice as big as JPEG. I tend to burn through at least one 4 GB card in a shoot, if not 2 (I get about 230 exposures per 4 GB card). It’s crazy to think that I used to get away with a 1 GB card when I first got my Rebel (shooting in JPEG)!
May 20, 2009 at 9:38 pm
let me know how you like the tablet. i’m interested in getting a new one myself.
i also use my dining room table for my laptop ‘desk’ 😀
May 21, 2009 at 6:24 am
To be honest, usually I use my lap as my laptop desk… I like sprawling out on my couch so I can watch TV at the same time. Being at the table kinda sucks cuz I don’t like sitting in chairs properly.
And so far I really like the tablet… I need to get better and regulating how hard I’m pushing (so that I’m keeping it steady) and everything but for basic functions it’s great. Plus I like the shortcut buttons at top, for zooming and moving around.
May 21, 2009 at 6:25 am
(this is a reply to a the dSLR lens comment, but for some reason the “reply” button doesn’t show up under that particular comment)
Yeah, glass is REALLY where you end up spending your money…if you’re doing it right. I know that doesn’t sound like it’s making sense…but I’ve always thought that you’re better off spending money on lenses than on the body (not that the body is not important), as you will keep the lenses longer…
One good thing about glass is that it holds its value pretty well. It doesn’t really “wear out” and you can usually sell it for not much less than you bought it for. So my recommendation is to look into used lenses…then when you’re ready to upgrade that lens, you can sell it used, and recoup a little of the expense.
I would say one should expect to pay just about as much for the glass as you do for the body, if not more. Doing some very casual math, the lenses I currently own cost about 1.5 times as much as my camera body. Although I do have four lenses. And one of them along cost almost as much as the body did. So the lesson is…it varies 🙂
May 21, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Holy crap, are you serious? Man I’m barely able to afford a camera, how will I even think about being able to afford lenses? *cries*
And thanks for the tips… tho I’m still in shock!
May 21, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Don’t let me scare you! You will be able to go very far with just the “kit” lens that most dSLR bodies come with. Glass is an ongoing obsession…not a completely up-front cost 🙂
May 21, 2009 at 6:29 am
(Oh, I get it…it won’t thread comments down any deeper than 3 deep)
May 21, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Ohhh… maybe I should fix that.
May 21, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Good job. You are quite the blogstress!
May 21, 2009 at 9:09 pm
ha hardly… I can’t figure out how to add that comment luv thingy… any ideas?
May 21, 2009 at 9:10 pm
#1 – I’m not sure you can do it on wordpress.com (it’s a plugin, and wordpress.com won’t let you do that, you need to be self-hosted)
#2 – Commentluv seems to be all kinds of broken these days anyway, so I wouldn’t sweat it.
curiousillusion 
May 20, 2009 at 7:51 pm
So have you started putting together your dslr options yet?
May 20, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I second this question…what’s on your list dSLR-wise? I just upgraded from a 350D to the 40D about two months ago…it makes me so happy, but it also makes my hands so tired…it’s effin’ heavy when I put my big lens on it too.
This is one expensive hobby.
May 21, 2009 at 6:21 am
Sigh, I’ve never had a dSLR so I’m jealous of you, lol! And yeah, that’s my issue.. as I said to Rob – I’m not really picky about what I want, I just want a few things – and different lenses are one of them – I definitely want a macro lens at the very least. And I have a feeling that lenses are not cheap either!
May 21, 2009 at 6:19 am
Ummmm… not yet. I’m trying to wait til I can actually afford it to get my options together. I’ll probably start doing my research over the summer… but to be honest… I’m not all that picky and therefore, really don’t know what I *need*, I just know what I want (which is pretty basic).