Equipment Crew- Part III

[MC707]

In on awesome thread. Keep up the good work guys.

Interesting statistics you got there Keetman, how'd you get that window?

[twodog]

Guys, for $45 dollars do you really think the powertec is such a bad deal? Even if that price was in pounds I would buy that bench even though I have a commercial bench just to flip/keep as a spare if I had the space. It might not be commercial but its a lot of bench for $45 IMHO.

I, by no means think that $45 is a bad deal for a powertec bench ($285 for new is actually overpriced to me), but after lifting on benches of better quality I wouldn't prefer them. I don;t believe that Skid would be happy either, the good news is that it could get flipped, and probably for a profit, when he finds something different.

[pumping4life]

So I was away at a conference the last few days and went to a non-my-house gym for the first time in years last night. I learned a few things:

1) Many of the horror stories are true, but fortunately this was a small gym, so the horrors were on a smaller scale. Curl monkeys abound. None of them used the squat rack for curls, but nobody used the squat rack for anything. There's the guy training his girlfriend, but letting her do things wrong that, if done long enough, would likely lead to injury. One guy was doing a bunch of cool body-weight stuff, but eventually to a ridiculously repetitive point. He started doing situps using the Smith machine with the bar for his butt pad. With all the benches around, that's when I lost my respect for him.

2) When your the biggest guy there, people gawk. I know this sounds very arrogant, but it was a community gym with a bunch of early to mid 20-somethings, so I had a few years on them.

3) Dropping a heavy barbell always gets attention. I wasn't really dropping them, but 315# goes down with some force no matter what. At least I wasn't at a Planet Fitness or I'd have gotten the Lunk alarm.

4) Muscle Milk Strawberries and Creme tastes like a**.

[twodog]

4) Muscle Milk Strawberries and Creme tastes like a**.

Almost spit coffee my out. I don't even want to know what you used for a comparison, lol.

[4MEandThem]

I shot this today with daughter. I only have 1. We had a blast and got some triples with my boy. This was not done in photoshop.Basically a long exposure with 2 flash pops

[pumping4life]

Almost spit coffee my out. I don't even want to know what you used for a comparison, lol.

Well, most of our taste is actually based on smell...............

I shot this today with daughter. I only have 1. We had a blast and got some triples with my boy. This was not done in photoshop.Basically a long exposure with 2 flash pops

Cool pic. Did you do 2 separate exposures? I would think 1 long exposure would have left a trail of your daughter moving from 1 side to the other.

[4MEandThem]

Well, most of our taste is actually based on smell...............

Cool pic. Did you do 2 separate exposures? I would think 1 long exposure would have left a trail of your daughter moving from 1 side to the other.

1 exposure done in darkness the light trail is her moving into the other position.

[ExtremistPullup]

http://********.com/extremistpullup

The new ******** cover ya or nay



Old cover

[KBKB]

I shot this today with daughter. I only have 1. We had a blast and got some triples with my boy. This was not done in photoshop.Basically a long exposure with 2 flash pops

Cool photo.

Cool pic. Did you do 2 separate exposures? I would think 1 long exposure would have left a trail of your daughter moving from 1 side to the other.

He fired the flash twice for that photo, once for each position of his daughter shown in the photo. Without light on her, she's mostly invisible during the movement. Firing the flash freezes the motion...

I've read that long exposures can be used to photograph buildings with no people or cars in them on an otherwise busy street. You use a very small aperture and however many ND filters are necessary to get obtain a long exposure during the daytime. (You need to do this on a tripod and you need to set the shot up without the filters in place because once they're on, you won't be able to see anything.) Anything moving in the street or sidewalk during that time won't be in the frame long enough to be recorded. Only things which are stationary, like buildings, parked cars, street signs, etc. will be recorded.

[KBKB]

http://********.com/extremistpullup

The new ******** cover ya or nay

I like it. I vote "yay".

[pumping4life]

http://********.com/extremistpullup

The new ******** cover ya or nay



Old cover

Looks good. Over time you can rotate them for variety, too.

[twodog]

http://********.com/extremistpullup

The new ******** cover ya or nay

Yay on the cover but you need to have an updated outdoor pullup photos with the new Ivankos

[Stasher1]

I like it. I vote "yay".

Yup, me too.

[ExtremistPullup]

Yay on the cover but you need to have an updated outdoor pullup photos with the new Ivankos

Ivanko posted this on there fb page

[ExtremistPullup]

I took two shots one with the wt pullup (135) & one with the DL (405 no warmup just picked it up)

Shifted camera took a bench press shot (315)

With a T shirt change

Combined the first Two picture then stitched the bench press shot into a panoramic image.

I like to think of my self as very creative but trying to create a ******** cover 1000+ people will like is a PITA.

[twodog]

Ivanko posted this on there fb page

I've seen that photo and I like the way the red plates "pop", and I don't eventhink that they had been treated at that point.

[ProtienandIron]

Agreed about the ptec bench 2dog, it is overpriced, their price hike was unjustified.


The pics are good Steven. Congrats on getting on Ivankos page, must feel good.

[Skidmarx]

I, by no means think that $45 is a bad deal for a powertec bench ($285 for new is actually overpriced to me), but after lifting on benches of better quality I wouldn't prefer them. I don;t believe that Skid would be happy either, the good news is that it could get flipped, and probably for a profit, when he finds something different.

Yeah went with my gut and decided against it. Could probably flip in January and make some money, but I don't want shyt sittin around here til then.

So the wait for a used commercial FID continues. Hoping a Hammer Strength pops up, or something with leg pads for decline. The legend in that review last week looks super sweet but I don't have $600 to spend.

[Skidmarx]

4) Muscle Milk Strawberries and Creme tastes like a**.

lol try ON Pro Complex strawberry swirl. it rawks

[ExtremistPullup]

I took extra shots the photo wouldn't stitch with me curling so I added it after the stitching and tried to make it look as natural as possible.
21 45 lb Ivanko revolvers are in that picture to bad I only have 8

[KBKB]

I took extra shots the photo wouldn't stitch with me curling so I added it after the stitching and tried to make it look as natural as possible.

Looks okay to me...

[pumping4life]

lol try ON Pro Complex strawberry swirl. it rawks

I like ON's regular strawberry. What does the swirl taste like?

The only reason I got the Muscle Milk is because I was out of town and it was the only protein drink sold in the area of the gym.

[Stasher1]

I like ON's regular strawberry. What does the swirl taste like?

The only reason I got the Muscle Milk is because I was out of town and it was the only protein drink sold in the area of the gym.

As bad as that Muscle Milk is, I bet it can't hold a candle to the tub of Six-Star "Vanilla Cream" I have in the other room. It is, by far, one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth. I never thought I'd find myself wishing I had a tub of Body Fortress Chocolate-Peanut Butter, but it would be so much easier to choke down than this Six-Star crap.

[mensagitatmolem]

KB,

Like the pic. What is the main area of emphasis of the filter that you have been using as of late?

EP - Like the new ******** pic(s). The pic that Ivanko used, has several eye catching items. The rough brick in background. The red standing out. The determined look. Camo. A utilitarian overall look.

[KBKB]

Like the pic. What is the main area of emphasis of the filter that you have been using as of late?

If you're referring to actual glass (or plastic?) filters that attach to the camera, I have very few. For the 18-200mm lens that I use on my NEX-7, I have a UV filter that does nothing more than protects the lens. I also have a polarizing filter and a graduated neutral-density filter. The latter could be very useful for some of the landscape photography that I do, but so far, I've only used it once. On most of my recent hikes, I've been using a small (but good) point and shoot camera, the Sony RX100. I've purchased a polarizing filter for it, but have not used it yet.

If you're referring to filtering in the more general sense of steps taken during post-processing, I've been looking at the benefits and limitations of tone mapping using various (tone mapping) operators. One of the more useful ones for the type of photography that I do is the contrast equalization algorithm in the operator known as Mantiuk '06. I've found that it's good at extracting details that might be obscured by haze in the distance as well as details in very dark portions of images. That sunrise photo that I posted near the end of the old (part II) crew thread is a good example. The image that I got out of camera had a very bright sky and the hill in the foreground was very dark. Running the tone mapping operation on the image produced a gray scale result which brought out details in both areas of the photograph. I used a modified version of the original image as a color layer to put over the tone layer creating the final image (more or less).

But Mantiuk '06 contrast equallization does not work well in all instances. Often times, it puts far too much contrast in the sky (or elsewhere) It also does not create a very flattering look when people are in the photo. I've been experimenting with a photo of my daughter where she's retrieving one of our cats from the rooftop. It's a good photo for this purpose because it has a person, an animal, interesting clouds, a pine tree, a palm tree, and a bunch of roof tiles all in one shot. The contrast equalization algorithm makes it look like she's covered with a thin layer of mud. It notices all of the fine details on the skin whether it be old scars, minor skin discoloration, perspiration, actual dirt, etc. and makes it all a lot more noticeable by adding a lot of contrast.

I've been playing around with other tone mapping operators which work less well for landscape photography, but do seem to work pretty well for people. I've gotten some interesting results by using multiple tone layers where I either mask portions of some of the layers away or simply adjust the opacity of the layers (which can be considered to be a kind of mask too).

Below is another photo from last June. My wife, daughter, and I were hiking the Moab Rim Trail when a pair of dogs came bounding up the trail. My daughter stopped to take a photo of one of them. When I first looked at the photo when I got home, it wasn't very interesting because most of the scene was quite dark due to being shaded by the mountain on the left. (That early morning shade is much appreciated though when hiking it in the summer.) Tone mapping it and performing other operations on it make it a less boring photo (in my opinion anyway).



I should note that tone mapping is usually used as one step in processing HDR (high dynamic range) images for display using LDR (low dynamic range) media. Most of the photos I take use the in-camera HDR feature. This is not as good as setting up a tripod and taking multiple exposures, but I have noticed that there's a lot more information about the image at both ends of the histogram in the JPEG images that I get out of the camera. I'm not sure if tone mapping would be as successful for other JPEG images formed from a single exposure. (I think some good results can be obtained using a single RAW file though.)

[mensagitatmolem]

KB - Thanks for the follow up information. Yes, was interested in both answers. Have dabbled over the years with photography.(just enough to get in trouble with wanting to spend even more, as well as look for more software results via layering/mapping/etc.) Then I switched gears, and just bought some nicer/faster glass a few Canon d-SLRs and did not worry about post-processing much. Looking at some of your pictures, I thought you were looking to change some of the overall shading, as well as tonal shifting, to get a more even look, while keeping the color aspects as well as that "great wide open vastness" feel. You have done a good job.

[Wildtim]

I took extra shots the photo wouldn't stitch with me curling so I added it after the stitching and tried to make it look as natural as possible.
21 45 lb Ivanko revolvers are in that picture to bad I only have 8

Only eight gee what a shame LOL

I like the photo before the curl a bit better nice cover.

[ExtremistPullup]

new shrug video using the Ivankos. My first video, where I added a screen at the end with links.

[BloodType3R]

Photography and editing skills to envy in this thread.

[chrisau]

I've read that long exposures can be used to photograph buildings with no people or cars in them on an otherwise busy street. You use a very small aperture and however many ND filters are necessary to get obtain a long exposure during the daytime. (You need to do this on a tripod and you need to set the shot up without the filters in place because once they're on, you won't be able to see anything.) Anything moving in the street or sidewalk during that time won't be in the frame long enough to be recorded. Only things which are stationary, like buildings, parked cars, street signs, etc. will be recorded.

That's called light painting/flash painting. Basically take an exposure that is a few minutes long. Race around with a camera flash (or even a torch/flashlight) shining light on what you want to show up, and the camera will capture the car and not you.

http://longexposuretips.blogspot.com...ting-cars.html