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GAF Photography 2008 - Q3
- Thread starter SnakeXs
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Way to start things off with a bang, SnakeXs!
I've mentioned here a few times how I've wanted to get into photographing people a bit more, but I'm a bit too shy to do it. Well, I found two folk, my brothers, who I'm not shy of at all and thought that would be a good place to start.
I'm really happy with this small set.
Feedback is always appreciated!
I've mentioned here a few times how I've wanted to get into photographing people a bit more, but I'm a bit too shy to do it. Well, I found two folk, my brothers, who I'm not shy of at all and thought that would be a good place to start.
I'm really happy with this small set.
Feedback is always appreciated!
aidan, the first one if great. the third one is a bit soft for my liking, it could be either the focus or may be the aperture is wide open.aidan said:
as for the second one, you see the shadows under the eyes and other dark regions? those could be eliminated with daylight fill flash. just use the flash in manual mode, dial down the compensation to make it a subtle effect. great thing about ETTL is the flash will calculate based on your shutter speed/aperture values and light reflectivity from the subject, basically the camera will know it's for daylight fill purposes.
xun, thats great...is that w/ the 70-200L?
It was taken with the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, which is in my opinion a fairly decent lens.nitewulf said:
Now here's two I fired off with the 70-200mm.
This second one was created for the recent assignment.
Click to get bigger.
Also awesome shots so far guys, keep up the good work!
Steppenwolf
Member
Some pictures that i took during my lunch breaks last week:
more:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neppetsflow/sets/72157605593243696/
more:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neppetsflow/sets/72157605593243696/
Woffls: Camera phone or not, that's a bloody good photo.
Thanks, this type of feedback is what I love most about these threads.
What's weird is that the first one is my least favourite and the third one is my favourite of the batch. It may just be taste, but I don't really find the focus soft, though the apeture is blown wide open.
Flash is something I've basically stayed away from on purpose, it just seems so intimidating and like a whole other form of photography. I didn't even notice the dark eyes until you pointed them out, but now I can see how some fill flash could remedy that. Is the built in flash on my camera enough? I think it's also almost time for me to move away from AV mode and learn how to properly control manual exposure.
These photos were taken rather spontaneously, over the course of 15 minutes or so as we hung out and ate lunch. What's the best way to take off the cuff photography and control situations like that?
nitewulf said:
Thanks, this type of feedback is what I love most about these threads.
What's weird is that the first one is my least favourite and the third one is my favourite of the batch. It may just be taste, but I don't really find the focus soft, though the apeture is blown wide open.
Flash is something I've basically stayed away from on purpose, it just seems so intimidating and like a whole other form of photography. I didn't even notice the dark eyes until you pointed them out, but now I can see how some fill flash could remedy that. Is the built in flash on my camera enough? I think it's also almost time for me to move away from AV mode and learn how to properly control manual exposure.
These photos were taken rather spontaneously, over the course of 15 minutes or so as we hung out and ate lunch. What's the best way to take off the cuff photography and control situations like that?
i think you were close enough to the subjects for the built in flash to be effective, you have to take a few test shots next time and judge for yourself. it also takes some time to get used to compensating the flash exposure.aidan said:
i shoot manual because its the easiest for me. i found that Av best works with static subjects. i get blurry results even with slow moving ppl, so i'd rather have full control to stop subject movement completely or show motion, as needed.aidan said:
for spontaneous stuff in broad daylight, in a sunny day i will expose for the background, or the blue sky beforehand, while im walking around. that way its already pre-set within the ballpark before you're taking actual shots. and once you start taking the shots its easy to compensate over or under by varying either the aperture or the shutter slightly, based on your priorities.
broad daylight shots...portraits and stuff, is probably best with f/5.6 and upto two stops higher. pictures will come out crisp, and if the background is far enough, you still get the bokeh. landscapes definitely are better w/ high f stops, IMO.
against the sun in the background, ill expose for the background correctly so that the background isn't overblown, and then use fill to light up the subject. with the sun, flash wont be needed. of course all that goes out the window for far away architectural stuff against sunlight and stuff...and you start hitting limits.
I posted this on the Q2 thread but it was too late.
Im going to have a photography class next semester so Im gonna buy a new camera. I was always interested in photography anyway. Im thinking of buying this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8794691&type=product&id=1205537713445
Is it good for a begginer? What do you guys think?
Im going to have a photography class next semester so Im gonna buy a new camera. I was always interested in photography anyway. Im thinking of buying this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8794691&type=product&id=1205537713445
Is it good for a begginer? What do you guys think?
Perfect camera for a beginner, but consider the Rebel XTi if you want to save some $200. I have the XT and would never consider the last two revisions. Just some common sense advice... If you ever want to upgrade from your current equipment, make it a substantial upgrade that will reward you for years to come! My next camera would be something like the Canon 5D (large, full-frame sensor).
You know what you can also do with the extra money from buying an XTi over an XSi? Buy a quality point-n-shoot to carry with you at all times. You can't always have an SLR and your lenses on you wherever you go.Iit's always a good idea to have a small camera with you whenever a great photo opportunity presents itself. A few months ago I got the Canon A720 (full manual controls and a software patch for shooting in RAW, live histogram, etc!) and it's helped me shoot more photos than I have in many months since I became too busy with a full-time job to haul my SLR around.
You know what you can also do with the extra money from buying an XTi over an XSi? Buy a quality point-n-shoot to carry with you at all times. You can't always have an SLR and your lenses on you wherever you go.Iit's always a good idea to have a small camera with you whenever a great photo opportunity presents itself. A few months ago I got the Canon A720 (full manual controls and a software patch for shooting in RAW, live histogram, etc!) and it's helped me shoot more photos than I have in many months since I became too busy with a full-time job to haul my SLR around.
Jado said:
I agree. I bought a Rebel XT a couple of months ago, my first DSLR and I couldn't be happier. It's a great camera, is such a huge step up from what I was using before and has been a great learning tool. Buying an XT or XTi and using the extra cash for another P&S or even putting it toward a lense would be a great way to get your feet wet.
nitewulf: Thanks again, you've been a huge help!
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
Took some pictures of Fireworks on the 3rd. I only liked the way two of them came out. I attempted to do it without my tripod and with my 50mm Prime lens (two reasons why the rest probably didn't come out to my liking). Here are the two!
It is not important after a certain amount. It may actually be a negative for the XSi. The more megapixels you pack into the camera's sensor, the more noise you get in your photos. The sensor size has not changed since the XT but megapixel count has jumped from 8 (XT) to 12 (XSi). The increase is only important if you plan on printing very large prints and 8 megapixels is more than enough. "More megapixels!" is just marketing to entice casual market.
Great King Bowser
Property of Kaz Harai
Having just got a 580ex mk2 to dual wield with my 430ex, I'm going to start trying to take more portraits. I'd really like to try my hand at some outdoor portraits having read up on techniques. Just got some light stands stands and a small umbrella which I used for these. Here are some indoor portraits of my two sisters. 
580ex shooting into a small shoot-through umbrella at camera right. (I need to get a bigger umbrella, the one I used is pretty small so you need it pretty damn close to the subject - but then I did buy it for 99p well over a year ago in a closing down Jessops in anticipation of the day I'd try my hand at studio portraits :lol) Also the 430ex triggered wirelessly behind the subjects with a snoot attached as a hair-light/separation light.
C&C appreciated.
580ex shooting into a small shoot-through umbrella at camera right. (I need to get a bigger umbrella, the one I used is pretty small so you need it pretty damn close to the subject - but then I did buy it for 99p well over a year ago in a closing down Jessops in anticipation of the day I'd try my hand at studio portraits :lol) Also the 430ex triggered wirelessly behind the subjects with a snoot attached as a hair-light/separation light.
C&C appreciated.
WasteLand Soldier
Banned
¿iz David Bowie no?
Aidan: I really like the third one portrait. Very natural and relaxed. An excellent choice for monochrome. Can I ask some advice in choosing a picture to be monochrome (or shooting it in mind)?
GKB: Nice! I still haven't really dabbled in flash photog. Frankly, it's kind of intimidating. I can see you wield them with confidence, though, because your shots come out very clean. Are they slightly overexposed? Or is that the look people try to get with flash portraits?
inthezone: I would say the $200 is worth it for the Xsi - not for the megapixels, but some of the other features. Feature wise, the Xsi seems more on par with the 40D (from wha tI remember). Does the Xti have spot metering? Having said that, I think the future is going to be all full frame now. So it might be worth getting a cheaper model (instead of the latest), as Jado said, just for dabbling. Then when you know you want to upgrade, you can do so without regretting your purchase!
SnakeX/Steppenwolf/Bluetsunami: Great pics, and a great start to this thread!
Woffls: Also an awesome pic, regardless!
GKB: Nice! I still haven't really dabbled in flash photog. Frankly, it's kind of intimidating. I can see you wield them with confidence, though, because your shots come out very clean. Are they slightly overexposed? Or is that the look people try to get with flash portraits?
inthezone: I would say the $200 is worth it for the Xsi - not for the megapixels, but some of the other features. Feature wise, the Xsi seems more on par with the 40D (from wha tI remember). Does the Xti have spot metering? Having said that, I think the future is going to be all full frame now. So it might be worth getting a cheaper model (instead of the latest), as Jado said, just for dabbling. Then when you know you want to upgrade, you can do so without regretting your purchase!
SnakeX/Steppenwolf/Bluetsunami: Great pics, and a great start to this thread!
Woffls: Also an awesome pic, regardless!
Great King Bowser
Property of Kaz Harai
mrkgoo said:
Well, they look 'right' to me so I guess that is the look I was going for. I can really never tell on my LCD if the exposure is correct because of viewing angles and the like, but I just did some prints and they look correctly exposed on paper (to my eye/appeal at least).
I tend to use the histogram and visual warnings in photoshop when processing RAW files. If you hold Alt whilst adjusting the exposure/blacks slider it'll give you a visual indicator of blown out/underexposed parts. Can't remember where I learned about those, but they've been key to my workflow. From that I adjusted the exposure to the above and there shouldn't be any distracting hotspots or anything, but I digress. Flash photography is a whole new ball game, looking forward to learning as I go along. :lol
GKB, I think the lighting on your subjects looks harsh. There seems to be clipping on parts of their faces or skin detail is washed out (intentionally?). Try so that the flash enhances your photo but that it's not noticeable that you have an artificial light source beaming on their faces.
I don't do flash photography myself, but I am working on slight retouching of many great studio-quality photos shot by a photographer we contract for work at my job. You really forget that all this studio equipment and artificial light is being used. It's part of an upcoming marketing campaign so unfortunately I can't show you what I mean.
Any criticism for my photos posted earlier? I'm still learning a lot.
I don't do flash photography myself, but I am working on slight retouching of many great studio-quality photos shot by a photographer we contract for work at my job. You really forget that all this studio equipment and artificial light is being used. It's part of an upcoming marketing campaign so unfortunately I can't show you what I mean.
Any criticism for my photos posted earlier? I'm still learning a lot.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
GKB: I've read that a good Diffusion Umbrella (that has the flash pointed away from the subject) is really good at creating lighting without being harsh. Its weird though how your Speedlight is still casting some strong lighting even through the umbrella.
Even then, those portraits are very nice. The mixture of the DoF and lighting makes the portraits look very professional.
Even then, those portraits are very nice. The mixture of the DoF and lighting makes the portraits look very professional.
Great King Bowser
Property of Kaz Harai
Hmm, some interesting things to consider guys, thanks.
BlueTsunami; it really is a tiny umbrella so the level of diffusion isn't that great. I could probably have done with moving the umbrella further from the subject as well, but I was using a off-camera shoe cord which wasn't very long, so that was rather limiting. For some reason the 580ex refuses to flash when put in wireless master mode and connected to my 40D via a PC sync cable so I couldn't use my 5m of cabling. :lol
Jado, whereas I agree that there's times when you don't want to make it obvious a flash has been used whilst you utilise it alongside ambient lighting, I personally never really felt that applied with portraiture. And by portraiture I don't mean candids, rather fully planned, posed shoots where it will always be obvious that artificial lighting is used. But I guess maybe that mentality comes from my looking to dissect lighting set ups used whilst I was reading up in preparation. But still, I'm reasonably pleased with my first foray into flash photography. Always more to learn/experiment. Probably get a bigger umbrella in the not too distant future, might try a reflector umbrella as well and see what works best.
BlueTsunami; it really is a tiny umbrella so the level of diffusion isn't that great. I could probably have done with moving the umbrella further from the subject as well, but I was using a off-camera shoe cord which wasn't very long, so that was rather limiting. For some reason the 580ex refuses to flash when put in wireless master mode and connected to my 40D via a PC sync cable so I couldn't use my 5m of cabling. :lol
Jado, whereas I agree that there's times when you don't want to make it obvious a flash has been used whilst you utilise it alongside ambient lighting, I personally never really felt that applied with portraiture. And by portraiture I don't mean candids, rather fully planned, posed shoots where it will always be obvious that artificial lighting is used. But I guess maybe that mentality comes from my looking to dissect lighting set ups used whilst I was reading up in preparation. But still, I'm reasonably pleased with my first foray into flash photography. Always more to learn/experiment. Probably get a bigger umbrella in the not too distant future, might try a reflector umbrella as well and see what works best.
mrkgoo said:
Thanks. I really love that shot, too. I find that it really show the true colours of my brother and it so... him. If you know what I mean.
As for monochrome, to be honest I don't really have any hard rules. Most of the time when I'm looking at my photos in Lightroom (of which I've only brought the decent ones over from iPhoto) I usually just work off the cuff. I think high contrast photos work the best, but it also has to do with the mood of the photo and the subject.
A lot of the time I see a photo and something tells me it may look decent in black and white, so I simply desaturate it and see how I feel. Sometimes I'll look at a monochrome and a full colour shot at the same time and compare them. The shot of my first brother and the shot of my second brother are very similar close up portraits showing off expression but something about them made it clear that strong, saturated colours would work for the first one and monochrome would work for the second.
I dunno if that helps, but my best advice is just to go with your gut and desaturate any photo that you think may work. It's just a button press away to bring all the colour zooming back!
guess said:
Nice. Though I think you could have gotten away with trimming off even more of the buildings in the background.
Now a few of my own:
EDIT: Oh man, I've been going back and looking at some of the first posts I made in these photo threads.... Let's just say I've learned a thing or two since then.
o_0
Jugendstil
Member
Photos from 4th of July in Chinatown:
What kind of phone do you have? That's awesome!Woffls said:Apologies for quality, Camera phone =(
This was at like 5am one morning on campus at the top of the hill, I think I was up late watching an E3 conference or coming back from a friends after playing Guitar Hero II until 4am. Anyway, I saw it, it looked nice, I took a photo.
Lucky Forward
Member
This quarter is off to a terrific start, great stuff everyone!
My brother-in-law puts on a nice little fireworks display for the family every year, and this time I skipped the tripod to see what I could get handheld with my 85 1.2L. These first two were shot wide open at f/1.2 with the Depth-of-field assignment in mind, and although I like these, I think the dark background kinda minimizes the idea of "depth", so I went with the aquatot.
These "mortar" shells were going off nearly straight up over my head, and I tried to hold the camera as steady as I could during the long .4 sec exposure. I knew they would be shaky as hell, but I thought the bit of wiggle lent an interesting quality to these.
My brother-in-law puts on a nice little fireworks display for the family every year, and this time I skipped the tripod to see what I could get handheld with my 85 1.2L. These first two were shot wide open at f/1.2 with the Depth-of-field assignment in mind, and although I like these, I think the dark background kinda minimizes the idea of "depth", so I went with the aquatot.
These "mortar" shells were going off nearly straight up over my head, and I tried to hold the camera as steady as I could during the long .4 sec exposure. I knew they would be shaky as hell, but I thought the bit of wiggle lent an interesting quality to these.
LunaClover
Member
HOLY CRAP AIDAN!!!! Where the hell do you live?!?? Just wow!
Great King Bowser
Property of Kaz Harai
Wish I got nice sunsets round here. :lol Very nice Aidan.
Mum had her temple group round her house the other day and asked me to take photos.
Mum had her temple group round her house the other day and asked me to take photos.
Lucky Forward
Member
Stunning! ...and also very illustrative of the way sunrise/sunset light can change from moment to moment.aidan said:
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
aidan, you need to learn stitching! for the greater good of your beautiful landscape shots! What I would give to see a super wide panoramic shot of some of those vistas.
guess said:
Great King Bowser said:
Thanks! I can't take all the credit though....
LunaClover said:
Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. Not a bad place to live, eh?
Lucky Forward said:
No kidding, I was there for less than five minutes and the range of colours that the sky went through in that time was amazing. If I had hung around for another few minutes it would have been even more dramatic.
BlueTsunami said:
Yeah, I've wanted to start dabbling in that. I don't really have a good tripod, so it's tough to get my act together quick enough for photography. I intend to remedy that sometime in the next month or so, I'm travelling through Europe again in the fall and want to get a nice, lightweight and easily portable tripod. Once I get that I plan on diving headfirst into stitching and HDR.
I had a feeling you'd like this set, BT!
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
aidan said:
I always love your landscape shots
As far as stitching goes, 1) I can provide the program for stitching for you
p) and 2) You could use a Tripod to get a more exact, measured setup but I've personally done this without a tripod. All you have to do is plan out how many pictures you want and where you'll break each picture off. When you've done this, just pivot your head (while looking into the view finder) and take each picture at each point you've marked off (mentally). You then let the program that does the stitching to do the jigsaw puzzling.Either way, can't wait to see the results when you do start stitching!
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