It was a mostly-cloudy and cool day, only about 70F degrees. After a quiet Sunday morning at home, we decided to explore a park we'd not visited before — Plum Creek Park in the Medina County Park District. The park is located at the edge of the sprawling suburban city of Brunswick and immediately adjacent to residential areas. Exploring the earthen paths through the park's woodlands, however, you'd never know you were so close to "civilization." The woods were lovely, dark, and deep, as the poet wrote. We didn't see much in the way of woodland fauna. We did see deeply green mosses, interesting fungi, tree bark of various textures, and enjoyed an invigorating stroll over the rolling woodland floor. She carried her newish Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera and I my new Canon EOS 50D SLR for its first outing in the real world.
With the canopy of trees overhead and thick clouds above that, it was dark along the path. I shot a good number of photos and had some good results. Many shots, however, just didn't make it. Between the difficult conditions and learning the new camera, quite a few shots were exposed poorly or were not in good focus. There's much yet to learn, but I know it's me and not the camera! Except….
That darned 17-40mm wide-angle zoom lens continues to disappoint. I won't give up on it til I can try it stopped down to a decent aperture but I'm unimpressed –disappointed, really– with what I'm seeing. I had hoped the new camera body might provide better results than the little Digital Rebel XT did with this glass. Nope. {sigh}
UPDATE: It is beginning to appear the "software" problems I was having were not so much the fault of Photoshop CS4 as they were Photoshop's issues with my video/chipset drivers. I was able to open and edit a couple of photos after updating the drivers (Dell-modified Intel drivers). It's not all cleared up as PS crashed whilst I was saving an edited image. At least it appears we're headed in the right direction. Then there's learning to work effectively with RAW files….
PhotonStopper 
Nice textures in the feather. I'm guessing it's from a woodpecker? I'm too many decades out of touch with N American birds.It sounds like you need to march that lens back to Canon, with a polite "very funny; now fix it properly".I found with (earlier versions of) Photoshop, it sometimes took 3 or 4 attempts at installation before the thing finally grasped what it was supposed to do and got it right. Have you tried re-installing (maybe it's on the menu as "repair installation") since you fixed the drivers?That said, I've about given up on Photoshop. I was using 7, but I wasn't able to install it on a new PC (I somehow didn't have all my upgrade disks in the sequence since PS 3, so it wouldn't let me, and no way would I pay what they're asking for CSn). So I'm using a freebie version of PS Elements, and that's mainly as a wrapper for a set of plug-ins I like.You might light to take a look at Picture Window Pro (www.dl-c.com – make sure you look at the pro version, not the vanilla one), and LightZone (www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone). Both handle RAW and 16-bit images out of the box, both are aimed more for photographers than graphics professionals, and both offer try-before-you-buy and cost considerably less than PS CS4. PW Pro is a very capable image editor. Somewhat different methodology than PS, but there's a range of tutorials and whitepapers at the web site. Well worth a look, and worth far far more than what it costs. Lightzone is less "mature", and takes a different approach to PS; it's loosely based on the Zone System. Have fun…
Thanks, Spike! Yes, the feather appears to be a flight feather from a Hairy Woodpecker.The lens issue is vexing. I paid Canon factory service good money to address the focus issues but the darned wide-angle has little depth of focus and can't be relied upon for form excellent images. This will take some thought as I'm not a rich man who can sink money into it forever or keep buying new glass until I get a good one!This is the first serious problem I've had with Photoshop, other than an "activation" issue once. It's looking like the driver updates fixed most or all of the problems I was having. Thanks for the software suggestions; I'll likely investigate them regardless of my PS status. I'd been using GIMP for my freebie PS substitute and, while it's good, I can see room for improvement. — JG
Oops, yes, you did say on the photo description – I must have clicked through too quickly to notice.Hmm. A wide-angle with limited depth of focus seems like an unusual beast… Is it possible to take your body and lens to a dealer and do some comparison shots against one from their cabinet? Or even someone else with the same model lens. At least that way you'd have an inkling whether it's a fault with your particular lens or a problem with the model. I don't see why you should have to fork out money on something that isn't fit for its intended or advertised purpose, though. (Maybe I've gotten used to the consumer protection laws here 😉 )Heh. The Gimp is a nice piece of work in many respects, but as with Paint Shop, I'm incompatible with it at some deep level and I just get annoyed when I try to use it. Something to do with whether one is thinking about the image or the software, I think. Anyway, I'd be interested to see what you think about the others.
The wide-angle: Yeah, I'd expected "to infinity" depth of focus under bright conditions but got soft focus nearly everywhere within the picture. For a Canon "L" lens, it's shameful. After some work I've located contact information for their customer service department and told my sad story. We'll see if they can make this right. I dearly hope so.The GIMP has a clunky interface but if you can find what you're looking for, it has some great tools and is very powerful. I suspect once one has learned how to use it, one can get past the software and again focus on the image. — JG
I found a feather identical to that in our front yard Sunday!
I'm sure it was the same bird. Gee they fly fast! — JG