Since we're all posting flower pictures (accidentally taken at ISO 800):

Some randoms from my London/Paris spring break:

My favorite from this past weekend:



I am mixed about this one:

this thread and my current trip through europe have inspired me to take photography up as a hobby. right now i just have a standard digital camera, although it is a pretty good one, but when i get home i think im going to invest in something baller and take a college course or two. not sure why i felt obligated to share. maybe im just saying thanks for this awesome awesome thread to everyone thats posted in it. hope to be sharing some cool ones soon.

My lunch that i made today:




Sorry for the bad quality, the photo is from my 2 megapixel Nokia camera phone

Vin, I love that tulip shot.

Snoop di dyou take some shots while in Europe? I'd love to see a few of them.

Beginner with DSLR stuff, two shots I took today

from vacation in Florida recently.

Our unofficial 2+2 flickr group is still open for membership too!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/twoplustwo/

basic accounts are free there.

My dog's third birthday was the other day. I took some photos of her that day (because I've lost my mind):

here are some photos from some shoots we did these last two nights. hopefully we'll get some more tonight+ tomorrow.

sorry for facebook raping the quality on these. i'm the guy in the blue and green hoody, i was quite scared cause this was sketchy as all hell, but we got the shot.

I'm a sucker for shots like these. Nice job.

I've had strange light/contrast situations like this, and I'm wondering what the best approach is. I think this is a problem that is not encountered with film cameras (please correct me if I'm wrong).

If you note the relative light color of Half Dome and the reflection in the water around the dark area of the trees...



I had to meter on a very specific spot of the granite to get this to come out. If I meter off the trees, the rock "disappears", except for the dark stain on the face of the rock. If I meter on the sky, the trees appear almost totally black.

I'm not really technically proficient with stuff like this. Is this a light/aperture issue, or white balance?

I think this tends to happen less often with film, because the dynamic range is much greater. There are some digital SLRs that do better than others (full frame digital cameras have a higher dynamic range), but otherwise, I think this will often be a challenge. A couple things I might try:

1. Try to do something with HDR. Simply put, take bracketed exposures (at the very least, three, one overexposed, one underexposed and one properly exposed) and combine them into one image with a higher dynamic range than a single. There is a lot of content on the internet regarding how to do this.

2. Same as above, but instead of creating an HDR image, use Photoshop to just create a composite.

3. Shoot in RAW, expose for the lightest areas, and then bring up the dark areas in Photoshop using a mask. Use a tripod and shoot at a low ISO to reduce the amount of noise you introduce.

took these on a ski trip this winter, just got bored and started shooting.





there are some sweet pictures in this thread imo

this is cool, i like birch trees a lot.

Oh man, thanks...I try to do as little processing as possible (ie, none ) but I guess in situations like this I don't have much choice. I very seldom use a tripod as well...maybe time to start lugging extra gear around!

Went to the zoo yesterday and took some shots with a borrowed 70-200 F/4 L:

The gorillas are the saddest exhibit at the zoo:







Though giraffes seem pretty pleased with themselves:

incidentally i recently re-watched Gorillas in the Mist and read up on the subject. when young gorillas are taken from the wild, it's common for the elder gorillas to be killed in the scuffles from these "kidnappings". they are very protective. as a vegetarian and animal lover, this is really saddening. even worse, monkeys are still hunted for "bushmeat" in the congo, disgusting.

on the brighter side, i picked up the Tamron 200-500mm (canon mount) for wildlife forays. not as fast as "L" lenses, obviously, but seems pretty sharp w/ my monopod so far.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidraymond/2495707644/

Just got my first camera yesterday and kind of took pictures of everthing just slightly interesting, even though I didn't plan on taking pictures of flowers when I bought it. But had to try it :P






Don't know why, but kind of like this picture

#3 has a couple of parts that are heavily overexposed (goose + sky), but it looks kinda cool because it gives a vintage film feel. generally i do a bit of post-processing in Photoshop and adjust shadows/highlights to compensate for the range though.

you don't want too many of your photos looking overexposed unintentionally. is this a point and shoot or a DSLR? if it's a point and shoot you might want to experiment w/ different modes/presets. for DSLR, you can tonemap or do HDRs to capture the range.

#2 is nice. old rusty cars are always cool.

#1 could maybe use a bit more contrast?

just a few thoughts for constructive criticism, i'm far from a professional.


*if anyone wants to look at parts of my photostream and give advice, feedback, or questions too... go for it. i'm all ears.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidraymond/

It's a Sony a200 with a standart kit lens.

I know picture #3 is over exposed, but shot it in JPEG, so probably not much to about it :\ But I used Gimp to play with the colors, and though it looked kind of vintage, like you said

Tried to change the contrast in picture #2:

i think it looks a little more attractive now, just personal preference though.

flickr usually has good groups for technique discussion, you may be interested in these 2:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/sony-dslr/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/gimpusers/

Snapped this on the way back from skiing it.

Some more I like.





All I know about photography I learned in a semester of high school 8 years ago. Critique me, I want to get better.

Fix your links!