I find it easier to pan action shots with a monopod rather than a tripod.

If a monopod is not an option I suggest using a tennis ball with a hole cut out. If you cut the hole just right, you will be able to fit bottom of all three legs of the tripod tightly into the tennis ball, and voila you have an instant monopod! Use disposable plastic ties to tie down the legs together at 2-3 places along its lenght, that will make the legs more rigid and act more like a monopod. You can always cut these off when you require a full tripod, and if you carry spare ties in your camera bag, you can convert the tripod back to a “monopod” if required.

When using a tripod I find that a ball head works better for me than a pan/tilt head for panning shots. Being that you have a $300 tripod it probably has interchangeable heads. If you don’t already have both types go to a camera shop and try the other one out. You can then decide which head works best for you. The really good (expensive) heads will allow you to level your camera properly with built-in spirit levels. However with digital photography and post-processing this is not as important a consideration though IMO as compared to film imaging. You can always correct the horizon in pp. There will be some cropping after the horizon is corrected, but this should be minimal as long as you are reasonable careful when composing the photograph.

Shalav, I would say that removing the moire has introduced another artifact instead, and that the result is blotchy.

Not really – see example below with only the moire removed – no contrast enhancement or resizing – it shows more clarity than the moire’d image. The artifacting is from the resize/contrast enhancement.

Personally I prefer to use a the Lannzos filter for resize. This is available in irfanview but not in photoshop or paintshop pro. The Lanczos filter tends to create sharper up-sizes and reduced artifacting as compared to the Bicubic filters in photoshop and paintshop.

In any case not much we can do with an image of this size (50kb)

All above are my personal opinions.

35-210 6x zoom / 38-380 10x zoom / 28-300 10.7x zoom

In this case it is the focal lenth of the lens as if it was equivalent to a lens used with a 35mm full frame film camera/lens combination. Since the sensor size in a compact EVF digitals are of smaller sizes than a full frame 35mm film (36mm x 24mm), the manufacturers manufacture them with smaller lenses (for cost as well as ergonomic reasons). They then convert these sizes to show equivalent size as if the sensor/lens combo was a full frame 35mm. The size difference between a digital sensor and a full frame 35mm film is known as the ‘focal lenght multiplier’. Manufactures multiply the FLM with the actual focal lenght of the lens to arrive at 35mm equivalents. A lens’ focal lenght describes the distance between the front of the lens to the sensor/film in mm, it is reduced in proportion to the FLM in digicams.

6x 10x etc… refer to the optical zoom factor of the lens. Optical zoom = maximum focal lenght / minimum focal lenght ie 210/35 = 6x; 380/38 = 10x ; 300/28 = 10.7x and so on.

f2.8-8, f3.2-3.5, f2.8-4.9

Describes how wide the iris (aperture) will open within the lens body at stated ‘zoom’. A 35-210 f2.8-8 describes a lens which in 35mm full frame equivalence is a zoom lens of 35mm-210mm, AND for this particular lens at 35mm focal lenght the iris (or what is more commanly known as the aperture) within the lens has a widest opening of f2.8, when the lens is fully zoomed to its 210 mm focal lenght equivalent the widest opening you can get is f8. The smaller this f number the larger the opening.

The numbers and the opening are inversely proportional and decrease with the increase in the diameter of the aperture and vice versa. This is because the f number describes the ratio of the aperture opening to the diameter of the lens body. For instance an aperture of f1.4 indicates the widest diameter of the aperture is about half the diameter of the lens body – so it will admit half as much light as compared to if the aperture was set at f1. Therefore f1:1.4 (or simply f1.4) describes an aperture of about 1/2 the width of the lens diameter, 1:2.0 (f2) describes an aperture of about 1/4 the width of the lens diameter and so on. To increase the aperture multiply by the sq root of 2 (1.41) and to decrease the aperture divide by the sq root of 2 (1.41).

On conventional 35mm lenses you will get apertures such as 1.4; 2; 2.8; 4; 5.6; 8; 11; 16 and so on. Smaller cheaper glass may not follow the same progression, but will follow the sq root of 2 formula.

f numbers are calculated based on the the sq root of 2. why? because you are calculating the area of a circle, and to reduce the area by half you divide the area by the sq root of 2. Every demarcation of the aperture is known as a f-stop. With the opening doubled (by 1 f-stop), the light that enters the sensor is also doubled. It means that the shutter speed can be halved to get the same exposure. This also applies vice versa – with the opening halved the light reaching the sensor will also be halved, therefore the shutter speed will have to be doubled to get the same exposure. A slower shutter speed means more detail is captured in the image.

Hence the terms fast and slow lens. A lens described as f1.4 is twice as fast as a lens decribed a f2, 4 times as fast as a lens described a f2.8, 8 times as fast as a lens described as f4 and so on.

How does this effect your photography? Lets assume you have 2 identical cameras, however on one you have attached an f1.4 (faster) lens and on the other you have attached an f2 (slower!) lens. If you use the f1.4 camera its light meter decides the picture will be properly exposed at f1.4 with a shutter speed of 1/500(th of a second). Immedaitely after this using the camera with an f2 lens you will get an exposure reading of f2 and a shutter speed of 1/1000(th of a second). If your second camera is not capable of shutter speeds of 1/1000 then your shot will be underexposed. You will loose detail in the shadows as well as end up with an overall dark picture. If the second camera is capable of 1/1000 shutter speed, it will capture less detail than the camera exposing at 1/500 shutter speed.

To compensate modern digicams boost their ISO (in the case of digicams an increase in ISO means they increase the sensitivity of the sensor). This comes with a downside, higher ISOs also show higher noise (random patterns of colour) in the image. This is specially prevalent in the smaller sensors of the compact digicams. SLR digicams usually have bigger sensors (which means bigger pixel size and hence more sensitivity, and less noise).

Of the 3 cameras you describe on the face of it I would first pick the 28-300mm, F2.8-4.9 (10.7x zoom) – even though it states 10.7x it actually has a 35mm focal lenght of 28-300 which is less than the 38-380 10x focal lenght of the second camera, but it has a wider angle lens and it is also faster at its widest angle. However I would also check this and see what the aperture of this lens is at 38mm. If it is the same as the second one (38-380 mm, F3.2-3.5 10x zoom) ie f3.2, I would choose the second one, even though it has a smaller ‘zoom’ it has an overall faster lens. You can always purchase after market accessories to increase the zoom factor. That however is my personal opinion, I initially weigh the wide angle capability and the speed of the lens more heavily than the stated max zoom.

In addition you should also compare the sensor sizes of the cameras. As a rule of thumb, the larger the sensor size the better the quality of the picture, the less the observable noise and the more details you can capture. A nikon D70 with its larger sensor and 6 Mp rating takes better pictures than my nikon coolpix 8700 with is 8 mp rating and smaller sensor.

In any case buying any camera is a compromise between you really want, what you can afford, and what situations you want to use the camera for. You have to decide what is important for you and which features you can live without, and for that you should use the the sensor size, the speed and the focal lenghts of the lens as unbiased data points.

Both the F16 and the FC1 are tailed cropped delta configurations (ie similar “airframes”). Why would their comparitive performance differ because of altitude? If one can out-manouvre the other at sea level it will also out-manouvre the other at any other altitude. It not as if configuration and other performance enabling form factors in the “airframe” would change due to the altitude? Aircraft with similar configurations will behave similarly (within the contraints of their “airframe”) at any altitude. They dont conviniently change their performance wrt each other just because the altitude varies.

The F16 C/D has a calculated ITR of 1.5 deg/sec greater than the FC1 at any altitude. It has a lower stall speed than the FC1 and its calculated corner velocity is greater than the FC1 by less than 15 m/s. Why would these advantages be negated solely because of altitude? Would the wing area of the FC1 suddenly change at different altitudes to enable greater performance in these aspects? I don’t think so.

Homie!

:diablo:

Alliteration lives!!!!

…The F-14 had a very low corner velocity, much lower than the MiG-23…

Any numbers on the wing sweep angle and weights? Just curious!

Already operates the MKI’s and no its not interested.

Read IAF comments in the Indian press after the Rice visit. I’m pretty sure the IAF will put that in writing if asked to give its official opinion to the government.

Jagan,

motto for 45 sqdn : Ajeet = victory: nabaha = the sky = victorious in the sky

motto for 12 sqdn : amitvikrmHa = unlimited force