FEATURED The Big Photography Thread

RollingThunder said:

Nuthin' wrong with that pic Dark!

Click to expand...

You're very kind. While not a terrible picture, it's not as clear as I was hoping for, but it was very windy on the pedestrian bridge we were on... we were literally getting blown all around. I'll try another night. My biggest "complaint" was the street lights. Where I have large stars, many of the pics I've seen have more of just a "glow". I know physics has a lot to do with it, stopping up may help with that, but then I'd lose detail. After going back and looking at some other pictures though, I did figure out most have more ambient light (shot closer to sunset), which I think is probably the key.

RollingThunder said:

If the sun ain't shinin' I ain't shootin' (pictures)

Click to expand...

Trust me, I tend to agree with you. Girlfriend was visiting and wanted to give this a shot. I was more worried about getting shot. Not the most friendly part of town...

+1, I think that pic is awesome.

This is purely a guess, but I think the flares like that are from having the shutter open longer. Unfortunately the only way to shorten that is to raise ISO, which always introduces more noise. I think you're doing well already!

Dark_n_Beyond said:

I really like that pic, hokie... very nice!

I'd like to ask everyone for some tips for shooting at night. I haven't done much of it, but I've been dabbling a little bit. My main question actually has to do with flares, around streetlights etc. Although not very good, I'll post this shot I took the other night as an example. It flares pretty badly compared to others I have seen from the same location. How do you minimize them? I do have LR5, but I almost never do any post processing to my pictures, and it's very minimal if I do. Most of the fun in photography, to me, is just getting the shot right to begin with....

canon 60D, 50mm prime lens, iso 200, f22, 6 seconds
View attachment 133972

Click to expand...

Open up your aperture (from f22 to... f4?) to reduce the star flares. Since most of the subject is far away, your depth of field should be able to get most of it in focus.

I don't really know where to ask this so I'll try here.
we are having a gathering next weekend and my little woman wants me to hook up one of my computers to run a slideshow of her thousands of pictures on one of our large screen tv's.

she wants it smooth and flawless. I have run it for a while on the 65 inch screen and it really works well, so, to my question.

should I use my 8 core rig clocked up, with the 7850 video card?
my 6300 rig clocked up, with the 7770 card?
my 965 clocked up, with a 7770 card?

I used my fx6300, hd7850 rig and this worked out great.
I had to play with the screen format a little as the wide screen format streaches the pictures some, used an hdmi cable and just ran it as an ms slide show. I will surly be building a mini itx rig soon as this was a real hit. the only issues i had was that i could not hide the big case from view and a bit to much border at the sides.

First put the photos on the drive attached to the computer you're going to use. Networks aren't fast enough to deliver high res photos seamlessly at 3-8MB each.

Second, if you use windows stock viewer, you'll manually need to go through and set all vertical photos upright. Windows doesn't read and apply the photo data properly. I haven't tried to find a program that does, but that would probably be faster than going through them.

Lastly, this isn't a resource intensive prospect. Pick whichever PC you feel like attaching to the TV. It won't make a bit of difference.

neonblingbling said:

Open up your aperture (from f22 to... f4?) to reduce the star flares. Since most of the subject is far away, your depth of field should be able to get most of it in focus.

Click to expand...

Good advice here. More on sunstars: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/sunstars.htm

Went to a local event last night that had over 6000 jack-o-lanterns on display. All the displays below are comprised of carved pumpkins (fake pumpkins mind you for the sake of longevity, but still impressive).

Shots taken with my Canon S100. For a point-and-shoot, I'm really happy how well it handles low light pictures.

Wow, not bad. Really nice shots from that point and shoot cam. What did you have your ISO set at?

I had the camera set on aperture priority so the ISO was automatically selected. Most of them ended up being 1600.

To anybody subscribed here, I'd point you to my new thread: Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens Ongoing Review & Testing

hokiealumnus said:

To anybody subscribed here, I'd point you to my new thread: Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens Ongoing Review & Testing

Click to expand...

Grats on your new lense. Looks really sweet.

Btw, my lens kit with the camera is also plastic and the 200mm I bought is metal. I've held the lens kit with the camera several times but never felt that it was going to break off being such a light camera. I should be more careful anyways. Nonetheless thanks for the heads up.

Just because I wouldn't want to be accused of playing favorites.... St. Paul at sunset.

Wow, beautiful shot!

I don't even know where to photograph Raleigh from. I'll get a shot one of these days.

Question. What would it take for "Surround" shots. (5760x1080) Higher than 20+ MP? I am guessing those DSLRs you guys have at your disposal and up.

GTXJackBauer said:

Question. What would it take for "Surround" shots. (5760x1080) Higher than 20+ MP? I am guessing those DSLRs you guys have at your disposal and up.

Click to expand...

To make panoramas, you take several shots, and stitch them together using software. Adobe Photoshop has this feature that is pretty straightforward to use, but there are other software as well, such as Hugin.

There are some details you need to be careful of, such as keeping your exposure and focus constant, and to pan in the 'proper' way. I do not know the geometry and physics behind the movement, but I know that objects that are further away are usually easier to stitch together. A DSLR does help to manually force exposures and focus; what camera do you have? Maybe we can see if there's a manual for it online.

Here is an example of a 10-shot panorama.

neonblingbling said:

To make panoramas, you take several shots, and stitch them together using software. Adobe Photoshop has this feature that is pretty straightforward to use, but there are other software as well, such as Hugin.

There are some details you need to be careful of, such as keeping your exposure and focus constant, and to pan in the 'proper' way. I do not know the geometry and physics behind the movement, but I know that objects that are further away are usually easier to stitch together. A DSLR does help to manually force exposures and focus; what camera do you have? Maybe we can see if there's a manual for it online.

Here is an example of a 10-shot panorama.
View attachment 134331
View attachment 134332

Click to expand...

Wow amazing. I have a Panasonic Lumix GF3 with 14-42 (Came with the camera) and 45-200 Panasonic Lenses. I am a noob when it comes to this but was always fascinated growing up with this stuff.

GTXJackBauer said:

Wow amazing. I have a Panasonic Lumix GF3 with 14-42 (Came with the camera) and 45-200 Panasonic Lenses. I am a noob when it comes to this but was always fascinated growing up with this stuff.

Click to expand...

Jack,

The best thing about digital cameras is that they are very forgiving. Bad photo? Delete it and do it again. No film to buy, just a few batteries every coupler hundred shots.

I did a lot of black and white with a good camera in the 1980's and it became very expensive waiting a week to get my screwed up B&W photos back to try again. Not any fun.

GTXJackBauer said:

Wow amazing. I have a Panasonic Lumix GF3 with 14-42 (Came with the camera) and 45-200 Panasonic Lenses. I am a noob when it comes to this but was always fascinated growing up with this stuff.

Click to expand...

The best part is being able to try, try, and try again.

It looks like it should be fairly easy to manually set exposures (found the PDF manual here, page 41 describes using Manual Exposure). I am not familiar with Panasonics, but on my Canon camera, I also have the option for 'AE Lock' (auto exposure lock). This allows me to have the camera automatically take an exposure (I prefer aperture priority mode), and lock it for me.

I do not know how the Panasonic Auto Focus works, but I see there's a mention on page 25 that if you push the shutter button half way, it will obtain focus. For my camera, I can push the shutter half way, focus, take a picture, release the button only half-way, pan, and I can take another picture with the same focus. Alternatively, there might be an 'AF-MF' switch on your lens (I couldn't tell from photos of it), that I would keep on 'AF' while I'm setting up for a panorama, then switch to 'MF' (manual focus) so that the focal distance does not change.

I would recommend doing a google search for 'panorama tutorials' and just wander for a bit; there are many photographers out there who know the ins and outs of panoramas better than I do.

EDIT: One more thing: If you do not shoot in RAW and manual set White Balance, you might want to manually set white balance in your camera beforehand. White balance affects the 'cool/warm' feeling of the colors, here is a quick comparison.

RollingThunder said:

Jack,

The best thing about digital cameras is that they are very forgiving. Bad photo? Delete it and do it again. No film to buy, just a few batteries every coupler hundred shots.

I did a lot of black and white with a good camera in the 1980's and it became very expensive waiting a week to get my screwed up B&W photos back to try again. Not any fun.

Click to expand...

Exactly! I never delete photos on site, and the only time I look at them before I get home is to double check a histogram. What you see on a 3" screen on the back of your camera may look quite different on a 24" monitor. Don't be afraid to experiment with different settings, views, locations, etc. If I take 100 pictures, I may only end up keeping 10 when all is said and done. No harm in that. In fact... I've ended up keeping some that I really didn't think were going to be keepers, and deleting some I thought were going to be awesome.

I love fall!

f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO 100, 106 mm



More in the lens thread here.

Also, TOTALLY agree about the wonderful nature of digital. Just keep on shooting and figure out the winners later. I shot about 150 photos today. Of a tree. Picked about five I liked. Sure, there were plenty that were fine, but they didn't do it for me. Delete and move on. Horray digital!