FEATURED The Big Photography Thread

[hokiealumnus]

Here are a couple photos from a quick walk at the lake on Monday. Lighting was awful, it was cloudy and dark the whole time. I'll definitely go back when I've got time and there is better lighting. More in the ongoing lens thread (post 11 & 12).

The view as you walk up to the lake. It's VERY nice to have something like this less than two miles from our house. Raleigh's parks & rec is superb.



Fall foliage.



Squirrel! (Under trees, where it was even darker than the rest of the place.)



Geese in flight.


Ducks.



The kiddo at a playground near the lake.

 

[Johan45]

Some really great pics here guys. I just stumbled onto this thread, what a great idea.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

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.

Yeah I tend to delete the pictures that are obviously bad through the camera and continue snapping away.

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.

Thanks for the info guys. I will look into tutorials more and look up how to setup my settings manually.

Great Pictures Hokie!

 

[Dark_n_Beyond]

Last night had a church theme, so here's my obligatory shot of the night. I'm really considering the lens hokie has been reviewing, looks much better than my cheapo 18-55 kit lens...

Saint Paul Cathedral
18mm ISO100 f/22 30sec. Cropped slightly to remove a tree branch from the right side.

 

[RollingThunder]

Last night had a church theme, so here's my obligatory shot of the night. I'm really considering the lens hokie has been reviewing, looks much better than my cheapo 18-55 kit lens...

Saint Paul Cathedral
18mm ISO100 f/22 30sec. Cropped slightly to remove a tree branch from the right side.
View attachment 134572

At first glance I thought it was your home.............

 

[Dark_n_Beyond]

Some day I'd like to go inside and shoot a couple pictures, which they do allow during the week. I'm afraid it might fall down on me though

 

[RollingThunder]

My specific photo interest is commercial shipping (ships obviously). I have to catch them when I can in bad light,
good light, into the sun, so I have to take what I can get. Many are not very good, some are decent. Normally I
would delete this photo because I can't see the ships detail even full-sized but I kept it anyhow:

This is the Clipper Mermaid outbound for Aruba, Caribbean Sea.



I still see very little difference in ISO settings, perhaps I'm not sure of their specific function, so I leave it on "Auto."

 

[Dark_n_Beyond]

My specific photo interest is commercial shipping (ships obviously). I have to catch them when I can in bad light,
good light, into the sun, so I have to take what I can get. Many are not very good, some are decent. Normally I
would delete this photo because I can't see the ships detail even full-sized but I kept it anyhow:

I've not had much luck with ships. I've been to the Duluth harbor a few times on Lake Superior, and I don't think I've taken one picture I like there. Seems every time I've gone it's ended up being cold, windy, and drizzling, bad light, etc., just like you said.

 

[RollingThunder]

I've not had much luck with ships. I've been to the Duluth harbor a few times on Lake Superior, and I don't think I've taken one picture I like there. Seems every time I've gone it's ended up being cold, windy, and drizzling, bad light, etc., just like you said.

It can be just as challenging attemping to make a good photo out of a bad situation. What you think is not good may not be the case at all.

 

[Automata]

I still see very little difference in ISO settings, perhaps I'm not sure of their specific function, so I leave it on "Auto."

For digital cameras, ISO is how much the camera "turns up" (technical turn is 'gain') the signal from the sensor. The more you boost this signal, the worse your image will look, but the brighter the image is. However, you don't want to just bottom this out at 100 as it requires much longer exposure times to get the same image brightness.

For example, if you are shooting indoors shortly after sunset, you may not have a lot of light to work with. You have a few options. You can leave your ISO turned down, but you will need a much longer exposure time to get a decent picture. Alternatively, you can turn up your ISO (with possible loss in quality) to keep shutter speeds sane.

You have to get a feel for the types of images you are taking. Generally, I try to keep it as low as possible to prevent images from looking "grainy". The point where it seems noticeable on my camera is ~1600, but this will obviously vary between cameras and sensors. I have my camera set on "auto" for ISO, but it tells me what the current settings is through the viewfinder.

Here is a crude picture taken with my phone (I can't believe it worked that good) through my viewfinder as an example. With the low light conditions, it would take the picture at 6400 ISO.




I was taking a picture of a server support arm tonight and had the perfect amount of light (i.e. none) to demonstrate the ISO settings in succession. All pictures were taken from a tripod and only cropped to 100% (no color/light adjustments). Aperture was statically set at f/10.

Pay attention to the dark colors, such as the black bracket itself, as they will be affected most obviously (until the higher ISO setting).

ISO: 100
Shutter: 30 seconds





ISO: 500
Shutter: 8 seconds





ISO: 1600
Shutter: 2.5 seconds





ISO: 3200
Shutter: 1.3 seconds





ISO: 5000
Shutter: 0.77 seconds (1/1.3)





ISO: 6400
Shutter: 0.62 seconds (1/1.6)






ISO: HI 0.7 (comedy option)
Shutter: 0.5 seconds (1/2)





ISO: HI 2.0 (comedy option)
Shutter: 0.16 seconds (1/6)

 

[Dark_n_Beyond]

Great examples, thideras... Thanks!

 

[neonblingbling]

I still see very little difference in ISO settings, perhaps I'm not sure of their specific function, so I leave it on "Auto."

In addition to thideras' explanation, another thing that might be causing confusion is that the camera might be applying enough 'noise reduction' to the .jpg to reduce the amount of visual grain, making it harder to see the difference between ISOs.

 

[RollingThunder]

Thiddy,

Yep, good examples, thank you!

I guess for my needs then "Auto" is what I need, usually set to 50 - 100 auto.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Awesome pic Dark. Came out really great!

Thideras you sir are amazing. Thank you for that.

So basically you want it "poping out or grainy" when its dark or lower light enviroments from my understanding with a higher ISO. So the camera can bring some "brightness" to the pic and pick the outline of the object more no? I am speaking a little gibberish here but I think you guys get the idea with what I am saying.

 

[Automata]

There isn't a formula that states when x happens, set it to y, have z for lunch, and shoot like c. ISO is a setting that you change with other factors in mind.

For example, if you have a low amount of light and no tripod, you will probably want to set it higher so you can take the photos while holding the camera (less than 1/30 second shutter). Inversely, if you do have a tripod and don't mind taking pictures with very long exposure times, drop the ISO setting down to get clearer pictures.

When I take pictures indoors that I want to come out sharp, I usually set my ISO lower, put the camera on a tripod, and set the shutter speed to "very huge". I get stuff like this (sorry, I can only find good examples of servers).

Spoiler

All three pictures were taken with extremely low light and I don't think any of them look like it. The first was at night in a basement with a single 60w light about 10 ft away. ISO was set to 4000, f-stop to f/4.5, and shutter speed to 1/2 second.

The last two were taken at night in a dim room. ISO 200, f/5.6, 2 second shutter.


While writing this, I thought of another time where I was messing around with shutter speeds and ISO. Looking through my raw card backup, I found this picture.

Spoiler

ISO 250, f/1.8 (completely different lens), 11.4 second shutter. The picture looks nothing like what actually did outside the camera. This was taken in the dead of night and the blinding streetlamps you see were dim while you'd struggle to see anything else.

 

[Kamel]

ISO: HI 2.0 (comedy option)
Shutter: 0.16 seconds (1/6)

Wow, HI 0.7 was almost usable, but HI 2.0... wow that shouldn't even be an option on the camera lol

 

[Automata]

Wow, HI 0.7 was almost usable, but HI 2.0... wow that shouldn't even be an option on the camera lol

Agreed. I have no idea why those are even on the camera.

 

[neonblingbling]

Agreed. I have no idea why those are even on the camera.

I agree that the high ISO images don't look very good, but I found it to be not completely useless. When doing star shots, I have a very difficult time seeing in pitch dark. Since I cant tell what I'm aiming at, I take shots at ridiculous ISOs, adjust my camera positioning, then take my 'actual' photos afterward. Although a 18 second saving doesn't seem like much, it feels like a lot when it's cold out and you keep 'missing'.

2.0s f4.0 ISO H2 (102,400)


20s f4.5 ISO 6400, 44 image panorama


(yes, the first image didn't have any processing and the second one did...)


I also wanted to elaborate on thideras' ISO example. In addition to higher ISOs being grainier and having 'off' colors, lower ISOs usually have a greater dynamic range. I'm not going to lie and say I fully understand dynamic range, but my interpretation is that there is more information captured in the image, such as details in shadows and highlights. What this means for me, is that if I mess up my exposure, I have a greater chance of pulling out details from a lower ISO image rather than a higher one.

Grain Comparison:

Spoiler

1/125s f2.5 ISO 3200

100% crop


1/125s f5.6 ISO 16000
]
100% crop

'Pushing' the RAW files 3 exposures brighter:

Spoiler

1/125s f2.5 ISO 3200

1/125s f2.5 ISO 3200, +3EV

100% crop


1/125s f5.6 ISO 16000
]
1/125s f5.6 ISO 16000, +3EV

100% crop

PS do we have a page that describes how to use the [ table] tags? I wanted to place the attachments side-by-side.

 

[Railgun]

... to demonstrate the ISO settings...

I never realized that extended ISO settings were not populated in the EXIF data. Hi1/2 are blank, though it's really something on the order of 12800 and 25600 IIRC for that particular camera.

 

[Automata]

I never realized that extended ISO settings were not populated in the EXIF data. Hi1/2 are blank, though it's really something on the order of 12800 and 25600 IIRC for that particular camera.

I was a bit surprised as well. I went to pull the actual numbers because I was curious and found them missing.