Photographers' Union Thread

[Diemen]

and also this

Gone are the days when the film did all the color/saturation work for you. Though I do miss my Velvia.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Gone are the days when the film did all the color/saturation work for you. Though I do miss my Velvia.

Thats what really blows my mind when I see discussions about whether or not to do post on digital photographs, as if its cheating or something. Without having the benefit of different emulsions, push/pull developing, zone system, burning, dodging, etc etc etc, what you're really left with straight out of the camera is a very run of the mill looking shot. I couldnt agree more with you about getting everything possible in camera, but there are certain things you just cant do anymore without post

 

[Diemen]

Oh definitely. RAW should be looked at as a digital negative that still needs to be developed. In-camera jpegs get somewhat close to a finished look, but I've yet to see in camera controls with enough sensitivity to really be able to fine tune the kind of color/saturation you're after.

 

[Jive Turkey]

By the way, your tones in this shot are gorgeous

 

[Diemen]

Thanks.

 

[ntalwar]

I've used Canon's software that came bundled with the camera and have been using Aperture 2 lately. I probably just need to spend time practicing and getting better versed in the terminology - sometimes I think I jumped into the deep end of the pool without really knowing how to swim in terms of buying my gear, getting software, etc and thinking I'll get photos that pop off the page at me.

Yeah, practicing with post-processing is a good idea. Having another set of eyes looking at your shots is also a good idea - then post-processing recommendations can be made. Feel free to post some here. As Jive Turkey said, each shot is different, and therefore requires different retouching. Canon's Digital Photo Professional is good to start with (and it's free). Download the latest version. I think a goal of retouching is to make the image look as you remembered the scene.

Here's a street shot I recently took, and used only Digital Photo Professional (no photoshop) for cropping and very minor tweaks.

I find that Capture One is best for these kinds of adjustments before you even move into photoshop. Exposure, Colour Temp, Hue, Saturation, etc can all be applied to all the photos in one session in real time. Theres also less information lost in your working file than there would be by applying the same adjustments in most other image editing software. If you can get your hands on it, I think you'll really like it

Thanks - I downloaded a trial version.

 

[Justin24]

Jive Turkey the photos you posted are wonderful. What was the setup for the first shot? did you use continous light, basically what I'm asking is how can I do something like that?

 

[Justin24]

Took this with a medium format camera when I took a lighting class this spring. Such a fun class to bad it was only 6 weeks long

My brother two days before he headed off to Boise State.

self portrait

 

[Jive Turkey]

Thanks - I downloaded a trial version.

Give it a few tries before you make up your mind on it. Unfortunately the newest version isnt as user friendly as the previous one. I dont know what they were thinking there

Jive Turkey the photos you posted are wonderful. What was the setup for the first shot? did you use continous light, basically what I'm asking is how can I do something like that?

Thanks man. The first shot was actually a very simple set up. The main light was a strip light (pretty much a long, skinny softbox) overhead. I also gobo'd (fancy term for a big card that blocks the light) on either side overhead to make the light reaching the subject even narrower. They are just out of the frame, above the subjects head with probably about 3-4 inches between gobos. The second light is the little kicker to the right, about 3/4 behind the subject (just adding a little rim to what we see of his profile). On that light I added a grid and a yellow gel (if you dont know, a grid looks like a honeycomb that you stick in front of the light to help make it more directional). I had originally set up with a third background light, but was a good distance from the wall, so I ended up getting the vignette I wanted without adding a third one. They were strobes, not continuous light, though there is no reason you couldnt do something similar with hot lights. The only difference is to control the intensity of light with hot lights, you have to move them back and forth, whereas with strobes, you can just power them down or up depending on what you need (and also colour temperature)

so without so much blabbering: One strip light overhead with 2 gobos. One light to the right, 3/4 behind the subject with a grid and yellow gel

 

[Justin24]

Very cool. I should use my studio equipment more often. Used my lighting equipment on the last one.

 

[Justin24]

Had to throw this in here again.

YouTube - A Journey Through The Eyes Of An Amateur Photographer

 

[Liesje]

Do you guys like this shot? I like it a lot, it's my background now on two of my computers (a rare shot for me that looks better larger than small, lol). I know it's kind of a cheesy flower shot, but I love pink and green. What do you think?

a REALLY big one

Here are some similar ones for comparison, I couldn't really decide which area I wanted in focus or how close to zoom.

Also, I'm having this weird problem. It's not so much a problem as it is me not knowing what I'm doing. Previously, I used a Nikon D40x which I borrowed, and then I bought the D90. The other day I went to get my camera and the battery was dead, so I put the lens back on the D40x which was charged. I was surprised that when set on AUTO or Sport, the pics straight off the camera I liked better from the D40x than the D90. When I'm just shooting my dogs wrestling in the yard I don't usually fiddle around with manual settings, takes too much time and thought, so I use AUTO or Sport. I noticed the same thing, that when I first tried the D90 the pics didn't really seem any better, maybe even not quite as good as the D40x on AUTO. On the D40x the color is more accurately saturated, there is more contrast....overall the picture off the camera looks more like what I saw/how I want the pic to look, whereas with the D90 they often are more blurred, too washed out, and the color, saturation, and/or white balance is farther off. Like I said, it's really my problem b/c I'm using AUTO, but still it seems weird that the D40x would outperform the D90....

Here's what I mean...typical D40x pic on AUTO....not perfect but just a snapshot and the color of the dogs is pretty dang acurate

And with the D90 (granted the grass is mostly dead....but the pic was all washed out (I'm pretty sure I darkened it) and the color is still icky, not acurate as above methinks)

 

[ntalwar]

Also, I'm having this weird problem. It's not so much a problem as it is me not knowing what I'm doing. Previously, I used a Nikon D40x which I borrowed, and then I bought the D90. The other day I went to get my camera and the battery was dead, so I put the lens back on the D40x which was charged. I was surprised that when set on AUTO or Sport, the pics straight off the camera I liked better from the D40x than the D90. When I'm just shooting my dogs wrestling in the yard I don't usually fiddle around with manual settings, takes too much time and thought, so I use AUTO or Sport. I noticed the same thing, that when I first tried the D90 the pics didn't really seem any better, maybe even not quite as good as the D40x on AUTO. On the D40x the color is more accurately saturated, there is more contrast....overall the picture off the camera looks more like what I saw/how I want the pic to look, whereas with the D90 they often are more blurred, too washed out, and the color, saturation, and/or white balance is farther off. Like I said, it's really my problem b/c I'm using AUTO, but still it seems weird that the D40x would outperform the D90....

Do you shoot RAW or JPEG? It might be easier to evaluate if the same scene is taken with both cameras (and see settings). I don't think I use AUTO anymore - I'm not sure if settings can be used to override default values for saturation etc. Is the blur motion blur? My camera allows up to 3 custom shooting modes on the dial, so I could use those for quick settings if needed. Not sure if the D90 has that.

 

[Mofo]

Liesje you might want to take pics with both cameras under the same conditions, like ntalwar said, it should give you a more accurarte comparison, I'm no expert on Nikon but if the D90 is a DSLR and the D40x isn't it really shouldn't give you better images in general

As for the pics above they are quite nice, maybe just a bit more of saturation

 

[Liesje]

I'll try some tonight if I remember so we have a more controlled comparison.

My snapshots are JPG not RAW. Running out of hard drive space for RAW snapshots!

Mofo both cameras are DSLR. The D90 is supposed to be way better and it's a much newer model (comparable to the D300 with a less robust body).

I thought maybe there are settings you tweak when you first setup the camera that could be different? I'm not sure. I used the D40 as it was given to me (didn't really tweak besides how the autofocus works), same for the D90, I changed some of the autofocus settings and that's about it.

 

[ntalwar]

I thought maybe there are settings you tweak when you first setup the camera that could be different? I'm not sure. I used the D40 as it was given to me (didn't really tweak besides how the autofocus works), same for the D90, I changed some of the autofocus settings and that's about it.

Found this article on Nikon Picture Control Settings:
Nikon D300 and D3 Picture Control Settings

I'm not sure it applies to AUTO mode, but it does apply to JPEGs. You might have to adjust the camera's defaults. Canons also have that functionality. I shoot only RAW these days, and it's a lot easier/more accurate to tweak settings on the PC (especially a batch).

 

[Liesje]

Thanks! I think that's what I'm looking for. I'll try it tonight. I do like saturated color.

 

[Justin24]

I like it liesje the pink brings out the picture.

 

[Justin24]

Some behind the scenes from the recent photo shoot.

Now a question from my fellow photographers. I am leaving for Ecuador June 1st. Now one of the shots I want to take is a night photography shot. I want a person to sit on a stool, another person in a mask behind that person with their hand on person sitting down shoulder and another person with a mask looking to the right and then have their church lumminated in the background. How do I light each person with out over exposing them and how long should I expose each person to the flashlight I will be using and what settings do you recommend?

 

[Mofo]

the background is a church?, it really all depends on how well illuminated is the church, but you probably would have to use a slow shutter as long as you are going to be flashing the subjects, to freeze them, no constant light that won't work...if you have a tripod that would help, but if you've got a steady hand that will probably work too(I don`t, my pulse is really fucked up)

Also wide aperture, but shoot from a good distance to have all 3 subjects in focus if that's what you want, iso about 250-400, it really all depends if there is good ambient light or if you are using at least two strobes, but then again it all comes down to how you want the image

 

[Justin24]

Im guessing with these small towns usually the church is in the center of town. No I will not be flashing. I want to use a flash light. I bought a flash light from Homedepot (hardware company) that illuminates pretty good.

Here is an example of what I meant.

Used the flashlight I bought and did this with a long exposure.

I want to light the church last like that

and illumiate the people with a smaller flashlight and get something like this.

 

[Jive Turkey]

I would definitely use a tripod. We used to call that 'painting with light' at school. You can get some really cool effects that way. My only concern would be the people. It would be hard for them to stay still for a long exposure and if you lit them and had them leave the frame, they'd look like ghosts. I think it might be difficult to get a sharp image, but that doesnt mean it wont be interesting. Also, if you did use a strobe or flash on your subject with a long exposure on the background, you'd get a kind of silhouette around your subject that would make them look dropped in. Pretty much what happens is they move ever so slightly during the long exposure and it creates a black shadow around them. I'm on my way to work now, but when i get home, I'll find a picture of what I mean. I'm pretty sure Nigel Parry has a shot of Larry Flint where this happened

 

[ntalwar]

I would definitely use a tripod. We used to call that 'painting with light' at school. You can get some really cool effects that way. My only concern would be the people. It would be hard for them to stay still for a long exposure and if you lit them and had them leave the frame, they'd look like ghosts. I think it might be difficult to get a sharp image, but that doesnt mean it wont be interesting. Also, if you did use a strobe or flash on your subject with a long exposure on the background, you'd get a kind of silhouette around your subject that would make them look dropped in. Pretty much what happens is they move ever so slightly during the long exposure and it creates a black shadow around them. I'm on my way to work now, but when i get home, I'll find a picture of what I mean. I'm pretty sure Nigel Parry has a shot of Larry Flint where this happened

I haven't done anything this advanced, but I agree that the holding still part would be the biggest challenge. A mid to high ISO would probably be needed in that case. Or possibly blend two exposures - one with the people and one without them.

 

[Mofo]

dude there's home depots in mexico no need to explain

Like Jiveturkey said it's going to be very difficult with the long exposure and have a sharp image, you could get away with 1-2 sec but more they will move...

 

[Justin24]

I am going to try and attempt this. i hope it works. The painting with light li learned in lighting class this semester. I asked my teacher also and he said good luck. Lol

 

[ntalwar]

Some of my photos from an air show (my first one). It can be a real challenge to track jets through the viewfinder.

 

[anitram]

Jive Turkey, your photos are beautiful. Did you go to OCAD?

 

[Justin24]

Ntalwar

 

[ntalwar]

Ntalwar

Thanks - putting my new 70-200mm f/4 IS (plus 1.4x TC) through its paces. I'm happy with the sharpness and performance of it, and look forward to shooting more with it - specifically nature and sports shots.

 

[jets]

ntalwar, might fine job on the airshow photos