The Photography Thread

[blackchilli]

I figured I might as well put up a few pics. These 2 pictures were shot in an island called pulau ubin, a ferry ride away from Singapore. Singapore is extremely clean and well maintained etc however this island (which belongs to Singapore) seems to have been forgotten about.

I tried to show how huge the jetty area was by including the fisherman in the picture along with the tree.



This picture was taken just as my girlfriend noticed the words spray painted on the metal board. The language used here is 'Singlish' which is a mix of English, Malay and Chinese dialects.

It basically means "what are you doing? Just buy a drink"

[john voight]

A couple of 12 second untracked exposures stacked. M42 orion nebula in center, w/ horsehead nebula (reddish/purple) up left from m42.

[cardsharkk04]

Originally Posted by blackchilli

I figured I might as well put up a few pics. These 2 pictures were shot in an island called pulau ubin, a ferry ride away from Singapore. Singapore is extremely clean and well maintained etc however this island (which belongs to Singapore) seems to have been forgotten about.

Ok so you're trying to convey the size of the jetty. Unfortunately the majority of your photo is filled up by open water and boring sky. Your picture would look better if it was pointed farther left and lower, getting more of the beach and the rocks and leading the viewers eye out to the end of the beach. Also horizons usually don't look that great in the middle of a photo. It usually looks better to have 1/3 sky and 2/3 foreground or 2/3 sky and 1/3 foreground (google rule of thirds). In Your case 2/3 foreground would be best I think. Also keep that horizon straight!

Now if I were to edit your photo I'd try to lighten up those rocks and the beach because they seem a little underexposed, as well increase the contrast in the sky to get a little pop from those clouds.

And if you can always try and shoot landscapes around sunrise or sunset. Well hopefully that was helpful

[cardsharkk04]

Originally Posted by john voight

A couple of 12 second untracked exposures stacked. M42 orion nebula in center, w/ horsehead nebula (reddish/purple) up left from m42.

Looks cool! What was your set up? What does untracked mean? I know nothing about astro photography. Is it hard to keep them from being too noisy?

[cardsharkk04]

Here's a few shots of the trains heading into and out of Union Station in Chicago as the sun was going down. It was bit tricky because the cars were constantly shaking the bridge, but I was very pleased with the results!

[Gazillion]

Lightroom 4 beta has been announced and is available for immediate download here


Julieanne Kost runs through a bunch of the new features in some videos here

[DrCircus]

truly fantastic thread. i m hoping to get more into photography and i ve learnt a few useful tips just browsing through here. i recently got myself the canon G12, and whilst it probably doesn t live up to most "serious" photographer s standards, so far i m really happy with it and it is a lot better than your average bought-in-the-supermarket camera. does anyone else own one who can perhaps lend some advice/tips, as i m still only gradually getting to know it?

anyhow, i shall be back soon with some photos

[Gazillion]

Welcome to the thread DrCircus. I don't own a G12 and know very little about it, but a quick search confirms that it is able to shoot RAW, so the one piece of advice that I would offer you is to shoot in RAW instead of Jpeg. Even if you don't appreciate the advantages that this offers you right now, future you will thank you for having the foresight to shoot in RAW at some point down the line If it offers a RAW+Jpeg mode, then by all means feel free to use that, so that you have RAW files for archival and later editing, but you still have a Jpeg for instant consumption and for uploading/printing/sharing while you are getting familiar with a typical RAW workflow.

[cardsharkk04]

Originally Posted by Gazillion

Welcome to the thread DrCircus. I don't own a G12 and know very little about it, but a quick search confirms that it is able to shoot RAW, so the one piece of advice that I would offer you is to shoot in RAW instead of Jpeg. Even if you don't appreciate the advantages that this offers you right now, future you will thank you for having the foresight to shoot in RAW at some point down the line If it offers a RAW+Jpeg mode, then by all means feel free to use that, so that you have RAW files for archival and later editing, but you still have a Jpeg for instant consumption and for uploading/printing/sharing while you are getting familiar with a typical RAW workflow.

This.

I went back and tried to edit some of the photos I took 2 years ago when I got my first DSLR and it was incredibly frustrating because they were all JPG's. Stuff that I didn't really notice when I first started out were super hard to to fix...trying to alter the white balance with shots under incandescent light was a god damn nightmare. Increasing exposure added a ****load of noise, boosting the contrast or sharpening would introduce haloing and/or artifacting. Shoot in RAW!!

[suzzer99]

I'm going to start shooting in both again - because memory is cheap and often the JPG gives me good ideas for how much to bump up the contrast, curves, saturation, etc.

[roomik17]

Really like those train shots! Would really like to get into this... any suggestions guys on a cheap...under $3-400 camera that has enough to it to last longer than a year?

[rponeal]

amazon's deal of the day today:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CBKJGG/...0FS9T05XCNYGJF

[Gazillion]

Wow - Lightroom 4's new basic panel is soooo ****ing good.

I highly recommend everybody who has yet to do so to download the beta and try it out.

For those who are just curious and want to watch a bunch of videos on it, there's a whole bunch of stuff featuring one of Lightroom's lead guys on Kelby Training. It's free and it's here:

http://kelbytraining.com/unveil

Just watch the 1st 15 mins of the first vid to see how potentially awesome the new basic panel is.

[DrCircus]

Originally Posted by Gazillion

Welcome to the thread DrCircus. I don't own a G12 and know very little about it, but a quick search confirms that it is able to shoot RAW, so the one piece of advice that I would offer you is to shoot in RAW instead of Jpeg. Even if you don't appreciate the advantages that this offers you right now, future you will thank you for having the foresight to shoot in RAW at some point down the line If it offers a RAW+Jpeg mode, then by all means feel free to use that, so that you have RAW files for archival and later editing, but you still have a Jpeg for instant consumption and for uploading/printing/sharing while you are getting familiar with a typical RAW workflow.

thanks

i have starting shooting in both RAW and Jpeg as i thought i might as well given the large memory. i have to say i have yet to notice a significant difference, but i trust i shall come to appreciate RAW with time, as also mentioned by cardsharkk. the only shortcoming is that some menu options are unavailable when shooting both or just one of the two. i can t quite remember which right now (but b&w, aspect ratio and such). but perhaps its best to leave such interference to post-processing anyway.

[Gazillion]

I would say that you're definitely right in your assumption that those types of edits are best left to the post-processing stage. If you want to start getting some idea for how RAW can potentially benefit you, download the Lightroom 4 beta that I linked a few posts back, watch the videos I linked for familiarisation, and then import some RAWs and some jpegs into the app, and see how much extra latitude the RAW files afford you when making edits as compare to the jpegs.