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[mrkgoo]

Hey, guys, I need an opinion on something. I bought one of those Pantone Huey monitor calibrators as I've always had issues with my prints not matching what I see on screen (I had one instance where dark brown skin came out looking very dark gray-black on print) to see what it can do. I just ran it through its paces and it adjusted my CRT and now things look a bit "washed out" to me color-wise, but considering I've never calibrated with hardware before I might just be simply seeing colors correctly for the 1st time. So to test things, if it were, I decided to re-process my lioness shot from my 1st post to where I thought it better represented what I recall the reality looking like. For the redo, I set WB to daylight, and I ended up increasing Vibrance to 24 (the colors looked washed out more than I had originally thought) and dropped Saturation down to 13. I kept everything else the same. Which one do you guys think looks better?

Just a quick reply, 'cause I have to pop out and do something soon, but the top one seems to have more 'pop'. But of course, pop is a very fickle thing - it just means more contrast and saturation. The top picture seems less 'washed out' as you say, but I don't think it's that. The shadows look more blue in the lower pic.

I'm a stickler for colour calibrated monitor (or profiled, if you want to get correct about it). I have a spyder2, and it was Hell expensive, and to be honest, not even all that good - it's a PPC software program that doesn't even have all that many features. It gives ok results, but I have nothing to compare it with to really know.

I'm not sure calibrating your monitor will affect your out put too much.

 

[mrkgoo]

My current assignment entry (Theme: Unusual point of view).

It's something I've been meaning to take for a while, an image after M.C. Escher.


Assigment rejects (for now). Click to embiggen.

 

[fart]

Just a quick reply, 'cause I have to pop out and do something soon, but the top one seems to have more 'pop'. But of course, pop is a very fickle thing - it just means more contrast and saturation. The top picture seems less 'washed out' as you say, but I don't think it's that. The shadows look more blue in the lower pic.

I'm a stickler for colour calibrated monitor (or profiled, if you want to get correct about it). I have a spyder2, and it was Hell expensive, and to be honest, not even all that good - it's a PPC software program that doesn't even have all that many features. It gives ok results, but I have nothing to compare it with to really know.

I'm not sure calibrating your monitor will affect your out put too much.

a huey's not going to do much for your print output since it won't do reflective measurements (to be honest it won't do much for your screen output either, but that actually is the huey's fault). if you want to do close calibration at the screen, you need to start with a relatively high quality panel (or optimally, a tube) and one of the better colorimeter devices: xrite's i1 device is the desktop standard and the lacie software is the best back-end for it (although the pantone software isn't only marginally worse). the i1 with only the screen functionality for the pantone software will run you about 200, and modern IPS panels start at about 600 for an iffy one.

i think this is all pretty much a waste for the hobbyist, and i only have both because of a lot of wasted time and couple of happy accidents. if you want calibrated print output on top of that (for a desktop printer), you should pretty much give up. your best bet is to grab a standard profile for the costco minilab printer near you and do some test prints to get a good idea of how you can relate the costco output to your screen.

fake edit: although i'm quoting mrkgoo i'm really talking to grimlock here

 

[fart]

hey 3am must be time to barf all over the photo thread..

lx3 (since returned, but i actually really liked it)

film (note the hilarious artifacts all over the costco scans)

d80 (ye olde dependable)

 

[Grimlock]

Good pics, fart.

I thought about getting the Xrite, but last month Adobe had a special on CS4 that I couldn't resist, so I didn't have the money for it, and there's a $30 rebate on the Huey through the store I bought it at, so I decided WTH.

Anyhoo, I finally got some decent sleep (I've been somewhat insomianic for a couple of weeks) and my brain just went "Why not do test prints to see if the output's a better match, LOL!"-in other words, the first thing I've should've done, but didn't, after hooking up the Huey. So I printed a couple of shots. The prints look a little lighter than what I'm seeing on the screen in Elements, but they do match a lot better than they have previously, so the Huey is doing it's job. I found that image that I mentioned came out wrong and now it obviously looks bad. Guess I'm keeping this thing.

 

[Jeff-DSA]

A few randoms from the past week or two...

 

[mrkgoo]

fart: Where are those mountain pictures taken? Beautiful!

Jeff-DSA: Also very nice. I think the flower shot looks a bit heavily processed - like the flower has been stamped in afterwards. Why the sad faces?

Been playing some more with Custom Apertures:

(yeah I know, I'm obsessed, in more ways than one)
Some other kinda boring ones:

 

[fart]

the bottom ones are from rainier in washington, and the top ones are from one of the desert protuberances around here (socal)

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Jeff-DSA: Also very nice. I think the flower shot looks a bit heavily processed - like the flower has been stamped in afterwards. Why the sad faces?

Well, the flower is actually only slightly processed, but I've cropped in so tight in on it that it looks larger than it should in relation to the snow/ice crystals.

The sad faces are because that's the last issue of EGM ever to come out...

 

[dyls]

This guy showed up on my patio a few weeks ago.

 

[mrkgoo]

Some more ...

Click to embiggen:

 

[vatstep]

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Nice, vatstep. Good variety of shots there.

A couple from the home arcade tonight...

 

[sarcoa]

 

[so_awes]

 

[nakedsushi]

I'm thinking of picking up a new lens. Does anyone have experience with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens? I want something within that aperture range and price range.

I'm also trying to do more self-portraits, but they're challenging since you can't exactly be in two places at once.

 

[mrkgoo]

I'm thinking of picking up a new lens. Does anyone have experience with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens? I want something within that aperture range and price range.

I'm also trying to do more self-portraits, but they're challenging since you can't exactly be in two places at once.

Great photos everyone.

nakedsushi: What camera do you have? Have you considered tethered shooting to live scren on a laptop?

 

[nakedsushi]

I have a Nikon d40. Hm...tethered shooting sounds like a good idea. I definitely need to pick up a remote though.

 

[Epix]

1932 Ford Coupe. More available on my website: www.usethelight.com

 

[Black_Mamba]

Newest ones.

 

[so_awes]

I'm thinking of picking up a new lens. Does anyone have experience with the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 lens? I want something within that aperture range and price range.

I'm also trying to do more self-portraits, but they're challenging since you can't exactly be in two places at once.

i have the Sigma 50mm f/1.4. i love it! it's a little more $ than the 30mm but I figured I'm gonna go full frame one day so might as well.

all the pics i posted above are with the Siggy 50mm.

 

[nakedsushi]

^ alright, you guys convinced me. Sigma here I come.

 

[SnakeXs]

Few more. Been on an animaly run, I suppose.

 

[killertofu]

Can someone tell me why my photos look like crap on the internets?

 

[fart]

a draft from today

 

[Jeff-DSA]

I was going to post process this in Photoshop for maximum kick, but ultimately felt it was unfair to the sights I was lucky enough to stumble into this morning. So this one is unedited except for rotation and Photobucket's auto resizing.

 

[guess]

Off course???

 

[SnakeXs]

 

[kennah]

I just picked up an old (2003) Canon Rebel XT EOS 350D and am loving it. Nothing fantastic to share yet, but here is one "A Study in Glue"

 

[Grimlock]

Can someone tell me why my photos look like crap on the internets?

?? They look fine. What in particular are ya concerned with? What equipment are you using & what color space are you shooting with?

 

[BlueTsunami]

Messing around because Winter is slow for Photography

 

[Max@GC]

graffiti in spain made by a friend of mine.

 

[fart]

holy shit ouch. your friend just kicked my dick in

 

[fart]

already i hate them

 

[nakedsushi]

Gonna get into film photography to help my (lack of) composition skills. Picked this guy up with a wide-angled lens (being used on my d40 to take this picture) for a pretty sweet price (including lifetime warranty!).

 

[BlueTsunami]

Gonna get into film photography to help my (lack of) composition skills. Picked this guy up with a wide-angled lens (being used on my d40 to take this picture) for a pretty sweet price (including lifetime warranty!).

Check out this book. Its has great visual examples of various compositional techniques...

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0240809343/?tag=neogaf0e-20

already i hate them

Well I love those two <3

 

[entraik]

here are some old pics i took with my 40d... had to sell the cam a while back because of financial issues.. gonna pick up the 50d soon!

 

[Always-honest]

Newest ones.

you have a great eye for it imo

 

[Jugendstil]

 

[mrkgoo]

SnakeX: Man, I love your pics. That mannequin one is exceptional. I love that squirrel shot too.

Fart: Business as usual for you. In other words, mindblowingly awesome. That spiral staircase is so great.

Messing around because Winter is slow for Photography

I respectfully disagree

Clicketh to enlargeth (the smaller ones, that is):

 

[dskillzhtown]

Pics when I was in Detroit recently:

 

[fart]

holy shit incredible lake

that is fucking insane! where is that, and how many shots are those panos stitched from?

 

[mrkgoo]

that is fucking insane! where is that, and how many shots are those panos stitched from?

Thanks!

They are taken from Crater Lake in Oregon. As I'm led to believe (and Wikipedia is always right, of course), Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the US, the second deepest in North America, and the 9th deepest in the world. It is fed pretty much exclusively by snow and rain, and has no in or out flow at the surface, leaving it the clearest lake in the world.

I don't normally stitch panoramas, usually relying on just cropping top and bottom from wide angle shots. Not because I don't believe in it or anything - I just never had any software. But today I discovered Hugin - an open source panotools GUI. So I thought I'd give it a shot on some of the images I took at the weekend. Only the 1st, 6th, and last shots are stitched, from I think 3 pictures each.

It is certainly fun, and I think I found my new challenge in photography. That and I have an extender coming in the mail. Should be fun times.

Furthermore, this is one of my first times photographing properly in the snow, and I discovered a polariser nearly hurts more than it gives. Normally, the sky is super bright compared to the ground, so a polariser can help darken it to make for a more even exposure. However, snow is so white, you need to overexpose to get it to stay white. I decided that shots WITHOUT a polariser when snow is a predominant feature are probably better, as the snow already is bright compared to the midday sky. I discovered that making a sky darker in a snowscape can REALLY darken it, to the point where it's even darker than the ground significantly enough to ruin your shot. Also, my usual technique of chimping exposure on the crappy little LCD doesn't really work in really bright daylight. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[fart]

a-ha. i thought it looked like crater lake, but dissonance from you being in austriliasia normally. i haven't really hit any serious snow yet, but i'm definitely seeing the highlight issues in those shots.

oh man, i guess i know where i'm going next winter

Also, my usual technique of chimping exposure on the crappy little LCD doesn't really work in really bright daylight.

i'm definitely feeling this as well. the histogram also only goes so far (sometimes location information is just so important!). i haven't really been a huge fan of blending techniques lately because PS time is often so tedious for an image i'm going to hate 5 minutes later, but so is losing shots because you couldn't tell that your exposures were all off...

 

[mrkgoo]

a-ha. i thought it looked like crater lake, but dissonance from you being in austriliasia normally. i haven't really hit any serious snow yet, but i'm definitely seeing the highlight issues in those shots.

oh man, i guess i know where i'm going next winter

i'm definitely feeling this as well. the histogram also only goes so far (sometimes location information is just so important!). i haven't really been a huge fan of blending techniques lately because PS time is often so tedious for an image i'm going to hate 5 minutes later, but so is losing shots because you couldn't tell that your exposures were all off...

I do very little post processing, mostly because I'm lazy. So I'm trying to get in good habit of getting exposure well when I'm out. You are right about the histogram. I decided to try that as my main guide while I was at Crater Lake, but I could barely even see that. Not to mention, without a reference, I had no idea what I was supposed to be aiming for - but as you do, I learnt a bit more about photography this weekend. I also gave the highlight priority a go today. I'm not sure what to make of it.

 

[so_awes]

 

[singularity]

 

[SnakeXs]

SnakeX: Man, I love your pics. That mannequin one is exceptional. I love that squirrel shot too.

:O

The feeling is more than mutual. Sadly you're banned, but that comment made my day.

 

[nakedsushi]

Testing out my new lens. I'm in love with it already.

 

[Rentahamster]

Testing out my new lens. I'm in love with it already.

I was about to reply to your earlier question asking if the Sigma 30mm was any good, but I see you already got it.

I have it too, and it works really great on my D40. I bought it since there are hardly any prime lenses that can autofocus on the D40. I had a problem with back focus with my lens, however, and had to send both it and my camera to Sigma for recalibration. It works like a charm now.

The D40 + Sigma 30mm was my primary setup during a recent trip to Japan, and it worked great - especially indoors when a wide aperture and a bounced flash from the SB400 gave a a nice soft room-filling light. Great stuff. Nice and compact combo too.

@Jugendstil: You need to clean your sensor. You have dust spots.