Let me know how it looks!

[kiev4a]

Went to town today and used some gift cards to Comp USA I got for my birthday to invest in a new 256 meg video card (my old one was 64 meg).

Now I'm trying to get it calibrated to my screen. It would be appreciated if folks viewing my new picture post (after today) would tell me if they seem too dark or light or whatever.

Thanks in advance.
Wayne

[Reiska]

There are two main graphics chip manufacturers left, nVidia and ATI/AMD
which was your choice? Or maybe it is a Matrox,which earlier had a reputation for a best 2D performance.

I will be pleased to inform you if I notice some major differences in your pictures, which I doubt.

What comes to a computers. This site is now quite slow loading.
I am now in Helsinki and my connection speed here is: ~11.383 Mbps (high speed broadband)
The test server is in Northern Finland.

and to a server in Chicago only 1247kbps.
To a server in London UK, 7200kbps and to
a server in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), 2510kbps ??

London is OK, but the others seem to be slow for some reason ?
Still, even the lowest speed should be enough to load this site faster.

[kiev4a]

My chipset is nVidia as was the old one. I'm not a game player so my only reason for wanting a higher-powered card is processing digital pictures. The card allows running two monitors at once. If I had the desk space I also would hook up my CRT monitor which ia much easier to calibrate than an LCD unit.

[kiev4a]

Here's a couple of shots, both made on overcast days.
The statues have good contrast--the only color are some muted blue-greens in the building face.

The photo of London City Hall (what an odd building) is in a heavy overcast. Contrast isn't that good--the buildings might be a little muddy but there are clearly defined darker clouds in the overcast sky.

How do they look to everyone else?

[Reiska]

The first picture look nice. The colours (it's from UK) are such as they are supposed to be.

The picture of a City Hall is a bit flat as you mentioned. Slightly more contrast and colour would make good. On the other hand it shows the weather as it was and who knows adds a famous London Fog in it.

[Randy]

They look great to me Wayne, especially the statues.

[kiev4a]

Thanks guys. Guess I must be pretty close.

Wayne

[PeterW]

Hi Wayne,

Not a lot wrong with the colour balance and contrast for a heavily overcast day, and subjects that haven't got much in the way of contrasting colours to start with. I'm not overfond of mid-day harsh summer sunshine, it gives too many hard shadows with no detail, but equally I'm often disappointed with shots on a heavily overcast day. In black and white you can sometimes push up the contrast with extra development, or post-development editing programs, but again that's usually at the expense of shadow detail. In colour, at least when I try it, it's usually at the expense of colour balance.

I haven't actually seen the new London City Hall, though I've seen lots of pictures of it. Inevitably, it's being called King Livingston's Palace. I suppose it could grow on you, but I can't see many tourists in a few hundred years' time (if it lasts that long) looking at it in the same sense of awe and admiration with which they look at masterpieces of architecture and craftsmanship from the 1600s to the 1800s. Incredulity that anyone could design something so ugly, maybe, but awe and admiration ... NO!

BTW, were these shots taken with your digital SLR? They're razor sharp.

PeterW

[kiev4a]

Peter. There were taken with mt 6.1 megapixels Nikon D100 and a store brank 28-105 zoom. I wish I had had the Nikkor 18-70mm zoom I got after returning home. It's an even better lens.

Nobody I talked to in London had much use for the City Hall design. Everyone seemed to think it looks like everything slipped due to shoddy construction. Maybe it will grow on everyone!