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aidan · Apr 2, 2008

2nd Quarter - 2008 | April through June

Old Threads:

2008 - Q1
2007 - Q4
2007 - Q3
2007 - Q2
2007 - Q1

And, to get the ball rolling, a few photos from my shiny new Canon Rebel XT. It's been a fun 24 hours learning to use the thing, and I'm still certainly working on it! I thought the most constructive way to learn right off the bat would be to leave my photos untouched as I put them up here. So, what you see below is exactly how they came out of the camera - no cropping, no contrast/saturation adjustment, nothing. They're not perfect, but I can certainly see the power behind this camera that my old P&S just didn't have!

Here's to an awesome second quarter, Photo-GAF!

mrkgoo · Apr 2, 2008

Your eye is the first thing, and I know yours is great.

What mode are you shooting in? As per my earlier suggestion, hopefully you're using the creative zone (M, Av, Tv, P).

Lucky Forward · Apr 2, 2008

aidan, great stuff, congrats on the Rebel! Are you shooting in JPG mode or RAW? I understand that JPG processing in the camera will automatically tweak the contrast, saturation, and sharpness a bit, while RAW images are totally untouched...and then they really need the post processing to bring out the full potential of the images.

aidan said:
Shooting in Aperture Priority mode

edit: That's what I shoot in 90% of the time.

aidan · Apr 2, 2008

Shooting in Aperture Priority mode, I think. The thing I'm most curious about playing around with is DOF, so I figure that's a good way to learn. I'll also probably spend some time in TV (Shutter Priority) and get used to that before switching entirely to Manual down the line. I didn't buy an SLR for nothing!

I mostly chose subjects that seemed like they could give me the best understand of the camera and how things like Apeture, Manual Focus (holy crap, is that a whole world of difference from my last camera!) and distance from the subject play into things. As I get more comfortable with the camera, that's when I'll try to push my limits.

EDIT: Lucky, I'm shooting both RAW and JPEG, but the ones I posted are JPEGs without any work done on them. It sure eats up the battery life! Pretty soon I'll switch just to RAW and start doing the PP myself in photoshop. Just wanted some quick easy ones for GAF to gander.

mrkgoo · Apr 2, 2008

Great stuff!

Manual focus! You're keen!

For the record, I shoot mostly manual exposure, JPEG, and generally little editing, aside from cropping, which I love.

Ok, to boost us off this quarter (wow, April already).

Hope this is not too big - I tried lower compression and smaller size, but I lost the effect I was going for, so I went to this:

ef-s 17-55IS, 28mm, f8.0, 1/60s, iso100 (cropped off 15% of the shadow end of the histogram).

jet1911 · Apr 2, 2008

Sweet baby Jesus.

reilo · Apr 2, 2008

mrkgoo said:
Great stuff!

Manual focus! You're keen!

For the record, I shoot mostly manual exposure, JPEG, and generally little editing, aside from cropping, which I love.

Why save in JPEG? Use RAW or TIFF. RAW are your digital negatives - you can set your white balance, color saturation, contrast, etc - just back them up onto a large HDD [or two] and do your editing in Photoshop. Otherwise you are losing quality and color using JPEG.

That being said, since I'm not a photographer and just a technophile...

Ok, to boost us off this quarter (wow, April already).

Hope this is not too big - I tried lower compression and smaller size, but I lost the effect I was going for, so I went to this:

ef-s 17-55IS, 28mm, f8.0, 1/60s, iso100 (cropped off 15% of the shadow end of the histogram).

Holy mother of jesus that is a great picture.

Dkong · Apr 2, 2008

Jesus christ if that isn't the best picture I've seen in these topics I don't know what is. +1 for no post-processing except for cropping, and still producing a photo with that effect.

mrkgoo · Apr 2, 2008

Thanks for the comments, guys - always great to get some good feedback

reilo said:
Why save in JPEG? Use RAW or TIFF. RAW are your digital negatives - you can set your white balance, color saturation, contrast, etc - just back them up onto a large HDD [or two] and do your editing in Photoshop. Otherwise you are losing quality and color using JPEG.

That being said, since I'm not a photographer and just a technophile...

Well, while I'm fully aware of the advantages of RAW, I just don't use it. Partially it's because I don't feel I need to go to all the processing (though there have been times where it would've rescued me) - I don't want to spend the time on that side of things. I'm indecisive as it is without all the options that RAW affords me. Secondly, I don't have any decent software yet. I guess I could use the software that came with my camera, but I was always holding out until I got a new computer that can handle the more advanced software, but now that I have upgraded, I feel a bit too poor to get something like photoshop/lightroom/aperture.

I did try playing around with RAW as an experiment with demos, and I found the editing I tried to do in RAW was minimal enough that just shooting JPEGS were fine, at least for the stuff I was doing at the time. I think I will eventually had down that path though. iPhoto suits me just fine for now.

Jesus christ if that isn't the best picture I've seen in these topics I don't know what is. +1 for no post-processing except for cropping, and still producing a photo with that effect.

Well, I guess I don't deserve that +1. I try to mention whenever I adjust a photo - I clipped all the shadow detail from the histogram by about 15%. I think it cuts away all the darker pixels, but I'm not sure. In a way, I think it's like "low dynamic range" photography :lol

reilo · Apr 2, 2008

mrkgoo said:
Well, while I'm fully aware of the advantages of RAW, I just don't use it. Partially it's because I don't feel I need to go to all the processing (though there have been times where it would've rescued me) - I don't want to spend the time on that side of things. I'm indecisive as it is without all the options that RAW affords me. Secondly, I don't have any decent software yet. I guess I could use the software that came with my camera, but I was always holding out until I got a new computer that can handle the more advanced software, but now that I have upgraded, I feel a bit too poor to get something like photoshop/lightroom/aperture.

I did try playing around with RAW as an experiment with demos, and I found the editing I tried to do in RAW was minimal enough that just shooting JPEGS were fine, at least for the stuff I was doing at the time. I think I will eventually had down that path though. iPhoto suits me just fine for now.

Then I suggest you save your stuff in TIFF form then so that you don't lose data and detail like you would with a JPEG. Plus, TIFF have color profiles embedded to them which makes it easier for them to be printed. Granted, the file size is still larger than JPEG, but the advantages in quality are there.

Squirrel Killer · Apr 2, 2008

mrkgoo said:
Hope this is not too big - I tried lower compression and smaller size, but I lost the effect I was going for, so I went to this:

Holy. Shit. That's awesome.

I was thinking about posting a request for people to keep their pictures within reason (<150kb) for those of us who view 100 posts/page, but really, it's just 1200x800 900kb images of random shit that I want people to restrain themselves with.

Lucky Forward · Apr 2, 2008

mrkgoo, incredible shot!

I shoot everything but family-type shots in RAW. I don't necessarily always do RAW processing (I have Digital Photo Professional which came with my Canon) but for instance, with my shattering bottle shot from the last assignment the RAW original was on the dark side and I brightened it up a half-stop in RAW and changed the color balance to 'cloudy' to bring out more warmth. Then I adjusted levels, contrast, saturation in PS.

I've never had a problem with manipulation in post, I think it's the end result that matters.

mrkgoo · Apr 2, 2008

reilo said:
Then I suggest you save your stuff in TIFF form then so that you don't lose data and detail like you would with a JPEG. Plus, TIFF have color profiles embedded to them which makes it easier for them to be printed. Granted, the file size is still larger than JPEG, but the advantages in quality are there.

Tiff is just a container, right? I know it can carry uncompressed files, but my camera only does either RAW or JPEG. Do you mean I should convert my JPEGS to TIFF? Since JPEG is already compressed, does this really matter? Thanks for the advice, though.

Oh - JPEG is also capable of carrying the Color Profile with it. My image should be embedded with an sRGB colour profile. Furthermore, my editor at the moment, iPhoto, is non-destructive, so changes are only ever made to the original, even if you go back to make additional changes. This means that you only ever really have one compression step, which is fine by me.

oly. Shit. That's awesome.

I was thinking about posting a request for people to keep their pictures within reason (<150kb) for those of us who view 100 posts/page, but really, it's just 1200x800 900kb images of random shit that I want people to restrain themselves with.

Thanks and sorry about the large image. I'm very aware of image size, because I only got broadband like just over a year ago. I still remember not being able to visit these threads all that well because of it! I tried higher compression, but it really lost some of the edge detail. I tried a smaller image, and I kind of lost the 'epic' feel to the image. I was hoping I could sneak it in

If it's particular worrysome, I can link to it I guess.

mrkgoo, incredible shot!

I shoot everything but family-type shots in RAW. I don't necessarily always do RAW processing (I have Digital Photo Professional which came with my Canon) but for instance, with my shattering bottle shot from the last assignment the RAW original was on the dark side and I brightened it up a half-stop in RAW and changed the color balance to 'cloudy' to bring out more warmth. Then I adjusted levels, contrast, saturation in PS.

Thanks, Lucky. Yeah, I guess the main advantage of RAW is editing photos without it looking like it's being edited, because you're not pushing the limits of the format. Your bottle shots looks just as if it were straight out of a camera, unedited. Brightening a JPEG can have some strange effects.

Dkong · Apr 3, 2008

So I felt like grabbing my dad's D70s with a AF-S 18-70mm kit lens on it and experimenting a bit with manual settings. I have absolutely no skill and just took a couple of quickies out of my window while it's dark. Maybe I should practice less challenging shots some time.

27mm f/3.7 ISO 1250 exposure 1 second

48mm f/4.4 ISO 1250 exposure 1 second

These are the only two that are not completely FUBAR. I rotated, cropped and resized them in CS3, saved them for website viewing and then upped them to flickr. The second photo is my favorite of the two. I noticed the more reddish part of the street isn't in focus as much as the rest of the photo and although I like the effect this creates, it wasn't on purpose and I wonder what I did wrong.

Lucky Forward · Apr 3, 2008

mrkgoo said:
Thanks, Lucky. Yeah, I guess the main advantage of RAW is editing photos without it looking like it's being edited, because you're not pushing the limits of the format. Your bottle shots looks just as if it were straight out of a camera, unedited. Brightening a JPEG can have some strange effects.

Thank you, but this was probably one of the most processed images I've submitted. I shot it after work right as the sun was setting, but I missed the light and my patio was in shadow when I took this, so it needed a little help. Here's my entry unprocessed, just converted from RAW, and the final version after adjusting brightness (+1/2 stop) and color balance in RAW, then in PS adjusting levels, curves, contrast, saturation, sharpening.

Dkong, I like the second one a lot, too. It feels kind of furtive, like you're sneaking around at night. I don't really see a problem in the road, I think it's just the colors varying between the overhead lights.

joshschw · Apr 3, 2008

Lucky: I think Dkong means the road in the second is all "milky" it's actually interesting and I don't have any idea how it ended up like that. Your edit looks great, you did a nice job on it, really popped the colors and made it still look 100% real and natural, plus it has a warm tone to it which looks good.

adian: great banner, lol. good luck with the new camera, that purple building is pretty sweet.

mrkgoo: holy cow! absolutely awesome. Ive seen some similar sunsets but not that nice imo, and your silhouettes in the foreground. awesome.

I shoot RAW when I shoot indoors and the place is varying, in other words when each picture needs a separate adjustment. Otherwise it's JPEG for me, and there is no difference really in terms of the finished picture, it's just a bit easier to edit in RAW that's all.

---

Here's the newest stuff, should be 3/31 or later. I'll refrain from older stuff even though it looks much better:

first time I tried to use my flash lighting up something totally from far away when it's somewhat dark, worked okayish:

aidan · Apr 3, 2008

joshschw said:
adian: great banner, lol. good luck with the new camera, that purple building is pretty sweet.

Thanks! I snagged the image before they took it down from April Fools. I've been a fan since it showed up in the Lunchtime Banter thread!

mrkgoo, what the hell, that image is ridiculous. I may as well just return my new gear and quit....

I also wanted to thank you (and all the others) for all the advice and links. I've been doing a lot of reading over the past couple of days (I got a good magazine with a nice long article about Aperture and how it affects photos) and I think I'm finally wrapping my head around things. With my P&S I never really got around to learning the basics behind Exposure, DOF, etc... I just took photos. Now I've got to learn!

And to that end, here's a batch from the last 24 or so hours:

mrkgoo · Apr 3, 2008

Lucky: That's crazy! I love how you've done it very subtly. Presentation size is a great tool as well - never show your bad shots, and small sizes can hide misfocus. But your examples make me want to mess with RAW sooner rather than later.

Josh: thanks for the comment. Lol, that rabbit must've been blind for a good few minutes after that. Was it a wild rabbit? Nearly looks like a pika or something.

Aidan: See? I KNEW it wasn't just your camera! -that first pic (and some of the others) has the same sort of colour and sharp texture quality you get out of many of you older pictures. It's your eye and sense of timing, I'm guessing. Great shots - it's awesome seeing enthusiasts move to an SLR and experience the creative boost. A narrow DOF kick is inevitably the first experimentation -you can really isolate something and make the ordinary appealing. I love photography for that - there is always more to learn and to play with.

Lucky Forward · Apr 6, 2008

joshschw said:

Ooohhh, I love that shot! Great composition, clean and simple.

Here's a bunch of low-light, hand-held shots I did of my friend's band playing in a local bar shooting with my 85L f/1.2 wide open. Even at ISO 800 and 1600, I was still shooting at around 1/25 sec so most were pretty blurry, but I liked these.

VNZ · Apr 6, 2008

Some shots from Paris, last week.

(Getting kinda fed up with my 3-year-old point-and-shoot now... Is there anything fairly compact out there today which quality approaches a DSLR?)

dasein · Apr 6, 2008

OMG I AM OVERWHELMED WITH THE AWESOMENESS OF THIS THREAD ALREADY

HATS OFF to all of you, buncha sickoes!!

reilo · Apr 6, 2008

I just picked up a Canon Digital Rebel XTi... I might be joining these threads from now on.

mrkgoo said:
Tiff is just a container, right? I know it can carry uncompressed files, but my camera only does either RAW or JPEG. Do you mean I should convert my JPEGS to TIFF? Since JPEG is already compressed, does this really matter? Thanks for the advice, though.

Oh - JPEG is also capable of carrying the Color Profile with it. My image should be embedded with an sRGB colour profile. Furthermore, my editor at the moment, iPhoto, is non-destructive, so changes are only ever made to the original, even if you go back to make additional changes. This means that you only ever really have one compression step, which is fine by me.

Yeah, I just realized that after buying my XTi today that it only does RAW or JPEG. It's the Nikon D40x [which a friend of mine owns and which I'v used] allows you to save in TIFF. What I am personally going to do is save most stuff as RAW [unless doing continuous shot for something in fast motion] and resave it as TIFF on my MacPro.

But yes, that shattered beer bottle is a perfect example of what RAW can do for you.

VNZ said:
Some shots from Paris, last week.

I love this picture. The buildings in the background look like they were Photoshopped in using stock images. It's surreal.

Kal · Apr 6, 2008

Just picked up a Sony A350 + 16-80mm lens. I really don't feel like posting pics here lol; they look sooooooooo crappy compared to the amazing shots in here....

EDIT:

Lucky Forward · Apr 6, 2008

mrkgoo said:
Tiff is just a container, right? I know it can carry uncompressed files, but my camera only does either RAW or JPEG. Do you mean I should convert my JPEGS to TIFF? Since JPEG is already compressed, does this really matter? Thanks for the advice, though.

When I shoot in RAW with my 20D, the photos are transferred from my camera with a CR2 file extension, I think that's Canon's proprietary RAW format. I use Digital Photo Professional to convert them from RAW, and that gives them a TIFF file extension. I typically work on the TIFF image in PS and save again as a TIFF, but then I'll re-size and save as a JPG for uploading to Photobucket.

Forsete · Apr 6, 2008

Podoshawp galore.

Copying the look from old glass plate photos.

Pretty happy with this one..

..but this one still has that modern look to it, hmm.

Great King Bowser · Apr 6, 2008

Just a test shot for a honeycomb snoot I made out of drinking straws and a cereal box.

aidan · Apr 6, 2008

EDIT: Forsete, those are awesome. Love the style!

samusx · Apr 7, 2008

Some shots from the cherry blossoms last week end.

nitewulf · Apr 7, 2008

first day out with my new 17-55 f/2.8 IS lens. i am in love.

testing out the 50mm f/1.8 inside a club:

Lucky Forward · Apr 8, 2008

It seems nearly every photographer on Neo-GAF at some time or another posts a close-up shot of a printed page, so here's mine.

Canon Powershot G7.

reilo · Apr 8, 2008

Alright, bought a Canon Digital Rebel XTi on Saturday. Taking a Basic Photography class at college taught by David Brunn [former Nike head of marketing, masters degree in FA for photography, impressive resume]. I am using a 18-55mm SLR.

Take it easy on me, I'm a rookie. But I loved the hour or so I spent out tonight going around the Pearl District in Portland and just taking pictures. I think I've found a new hobby.

hey_monkey · Apr 8, 2008

I'm late, but: mrkgoo, that amazing orangey shot is just, well, amazing.

VNZ: also, that food picture really stood out to me from everything on this page. It seems like such an organized mess! But the picture is beautifully composed for all of that.

I've been shooting in JPG + RAW lately, because I have the hard drive space (though it's disappearing, I've noticed... but deleting the 3,000 pics in my iPhoto trash helped!) and I just don't always have time to process. Plus, most of my photography lately is focused on the baby, and it's not about being artistic, really, but giving the family close to daily updates on him. I wish I had more time to focus on it, because I am pretty sure I fail completely on portraits (I might as well have a cheap P&S), but since we've started going out for walks, I've had some time to do more "artistic" photography.

getting outside!

but what I really care about:

Dkong · Apr 9, 2008

I planned on chilling somewhere with a friend so we decided to grab a camera and take a couple of pictures this night. The photo's are JPEG straight out of the D70s and uploaded to flickr, nothing else has been done to them so I hope I can get some pointers on what would make my stuff better.

70mm F/7.1 ISO 1000 exposure 3 seconds (with 18-70mm kitlens)

Flickr main page seems to be down for me at just this moment, I will post a couple of other new pics later.

-edit-
Working fine again.

18mm F/11 ISO 800 exposure 5 seconds (with 18-70mm kitlens)

46mm F/18 ISO 1000 exposure 10 seconds (with 18-70mm kitlens)

70mm F/13 ISO 1000 exposure 5 seconds (with 18-70mm kitlens)

70mm F/8 ISO 800 exposure 1 second (with 18-70mm kitlens)

aidan · Apr 9, 2008

The sky is one of my favourite things to shoot around this time of year and it's been especially interesting over the last couple of days. Also had the Assignment theme on my mind. Still getting the hang of the new camera, but here's a few of the shots I was happier with.

And a reject for the Assignment thread:

nitewulf · Apr 10, 2008

Dkong said:
The photo's are JPEG straight out of the D70s and uploaded to flickr, nothing else has been done to them so I hope I can get some pointers on what would make my stuff better.

one thing is framing, second shot is really quite nice. the fourth shot is too cluttered, should be zoomed in more at the structure itself...the light post at the left is an obstruction, should be off the frame. light post strikes again on the next shot. im assuming you used a tripod? if so then you could try slower shutter speeds to get better exposure or go upto ISO 1600. try playing around w/ the white balance as well, i personally love the warm look, but some ppl dont.

Dkong · Apr 10, 2008

Alright, thanks for the tips. I don't have a tripod yet but I climbed the emergency stairway of some warehouse and got the shots from just keeping the camera still on the stairs. I can try to go back some time and get the shots in RAW so I have more freedom of playing around with white balance, but if I shoot in RAW I won't take the time to fix the images with camera raw. I am learning other stuff first. I don't really have a clue to get more accurate white balance out of the camera.

nitewulf · Apr 10, 2008

begin with taking day time shots actually, learn framing and metering. WB is decent enough on auto.

LuCkymoON · Apr 10, 2008

Why the 500 x 333 rez?

aidan · Apr 10, 2008

I suppose you're talking to me?

500x333 is just the default that Flickr outputs for a medium sized image. I have access to resolutions much larger than that, though. Why do you ask?

samusx · Apr 10, 2008

These are some edits of some shots that I posted a day ago.

jvalioli · Apr 10, 2008

aidan said:
I suppose you're talking to me?

500x333 is just the default that Flickr outputs for a medium sized image. I have access to resolutions much larger than that, though. Why do you ask?

I don't know anything about photography, but pretty much all of your stuff looks great to me. Any way we can get some high resolution versions of your stuff?

LuCkymoON · Apr 10, 2008

aidan said:
I suppose you're talking to me?

500x333 is just the default that Flickr outputs for a medium sized image. I have access to resolutions much larger than that, though. Why do you ask?

I wasn't really talking to anyone just w0ondering if it was some standard rez to post pics.
I like flckr but do I hgave to have a yahoo account to use it???

mrklaw · Apr 11, 2008

Can I get some advice on RAW? I've avoided it up till now as I'd need to change my post processing flow and just keep putting it off. Can someone cover roughly how their flow works? I have a canon 40D

THere are times when I'd like to push the exposure a little, and photoshop shadows/highlights isn't enough, or the WB is off. But I don't want to slow things down too much.

at the moment I bring the shots off my camera straight into iphoto08. then I skim through and delete bad shots, use photoshop as an external editor to tidy up those shots that need it (usually anything that will be printed I'll at least check the levels and sharpen)

Can you still use iphoto08 for RAW? I like the cataloging it does for family events. I suppose if I had to preprocess then export into iphoto it wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'd prefer to avoid it if possible.

BlueTsunami · Apr 11, 2008

mrklaw said:
Can I get some advice on RAW? I've avoided it up till now as I'd need to change my post processing flow and just keep putting it off. Can someone cover roughly how their flow works? I have a canon 40D

Adobe Lightroom = RAW Heaven

With Lightroom you just import a set of RAW files (one way is by a whole folder) and it'll add it to your Library of pictures. Your then able to jump between developing different RAW files that'll retain any changes you've done to them. Once your done processing, you can Export one RAW or a Batch and be able to maintain a certain resolution based on the long or short ends of the picture.

Kal · Apr 11, 2008

I just took these today:

LRB1983 · Apr 12, 2008

Some radom photos from Barcelona.
Violet squares are where I take the photos.

On the top: One of my fav malls around Barcelona. L'Illa
On the other side "La Modelo" prison where one of the last condemned to death in Spain was executed by garrote in a cell of the central Barcelona jail on March 2 1974. Capital punishment was abolished on 1978. La Modelo still works today.

Contrasts.

Dkong · Apr 12, 2008

Some new stuff, I've been practicing manual mode and aperture priority mainly. Some shutter priority experiments will probably follow later but I should get to doing schoolwork instead of shooting photos.

I'll leave it at that, I don't want to fill the page with my work :lol
I've been trying to use the light meter of the camera and it does help me get some better results but sometimes it seems to result in either too dark or too light pictures. I'll admit I haven't read up enough on the subject yet, but I don't have the time to study all kinds of material yet and I do want to just go out shooting and improve by doing so. Anyone got any tips on how to use the light meter? Do you get a reading on the subject itself, on the point of focus, on a light part of the picture, etc? I have no idea.

Great King Bowser · Apr 12, 2008

Just a couple from the Scientology protests today.

Dkong · Apr 12, 2008

What's the difference between the last two?

Great King Bowser · Apr 12, 2008

Testing. You passed, barely.

C-

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