NikonsAndVStroms Photography Thread

[RPD1]

Great thread, guys. I don't have anything worth critiquing but am learning from what is being said here.

[Thisguy]

Thanks!

75-300 IS is what I used.

Originally Posted by NikonsAndVStroms

Exposure wise the top one is alright, the middle is a little under leading to a "muddy look" and the bottom you went too heavy on the processing....the key is to have it add to the image without the viewer realizing it's there.

For this type of shooting there are a few things you want to do.

First they are all almost dead center, put them off to either side to emphasize where they are going/have been.

Second, pan with the bike. You want to do the lowest shutter speed possible where the bike is still in focus and the background gets blurred.

Third and well forth, set your camera for continuous shooting even at 3FPS hold it for another frame....once you get in the rhythm you can keep the bike in the right spot and just hold down the shutter release. And the other part since you are using a base level DSLR pick an AF point and before the bike gets to where you want to shoot line it up and follow the bike there, have it set on continuous focus and then the focus has time for a initial lock on and you can keep the bead. I did a few with my E-420 and 40-150 lens so you should be fine just practice. (The above shot is with the D700 and a 75-300 which is actually a pretty cheap lens, I'll try and find the E-420 shot.)

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by knybanjo

You'll think twice before starting a thread like this again won't you.

All right....I tried to hack that same pic again, in spite of it's limited potential. This time I just tried to set the black and white points (not sure if I know what I'm doing though) then just played with the levels and curves ever so slightly. Not sure if what I did next was good or not but I added just a touch of saturation and unsharp mask......

This is turning into a job

Back to the image I decided to give it a shot myself following your steps somewhat. First I duplicated the image to keep a copy of the original (just putting this in because it is a great habit to make) then slight curves lightening it. After that I duplicated that image then desaturated it. Instead of inverting I just used soft light @50% directly on the image, here are the steps (original image, curves, then the final):



There is still some work and maybe 50% is a bit much but it should give you an idea of what I mean.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by Thisguy

Thanks!

75-300 IS is what I used.

You got me beat mine is pre-VR old metal bodied Nikkor.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by docwells7

Fuji S602z (point and shoot) w/ IR filter at midday.


Canon 10D, Sigma 15mm fisheye, selective color in Photoshop.


Canon 10D, Tokina 19-30mm, Tiffen circular polarizer.


Canon 10D, Canon 28-135mm High key experiment following instructions on internet.

1) is a great shot for a point and shoot, you have the fence framing it, and bringing the viewer to the house and great IR trees, then you go up to the clouds. I feel the IR made this shot but it those elements do I mentioned do help a lot. My suggestion is not so much to look to change this but to go out and do more since this is the strongest shot by far.

2) This one looks more like a cut and paste which is the risk of selective color.

3) I would have moved down/forward then angle up a little more...it could be the small size of the image but the needles and cliff face get jumbled together.

4) Great snapshot and the processing makes it a nice image, my big critique is the grey areas, you can see some that are very jagged and sharp...you could try dodging them all out but then you risk losing the shoulders since they are close to absolute white, it could work though.

[Tallboy]

this is for Snoid - or you if you have insight - but he made reference to Adams' Zone System in a critique of one of my images I posted earlier in the thread. does anyone have a good resource ( book, website, etc?) to learn more on this method? I've only read a few short snippets about it, but I am curious to learn more.

thanks.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by Tallboy

this is for Snoid - or you if you have insight - but he made reference to Adams' Zone System in a critique of one of my images I posted earlier in the thread. does anyone have a good resource ( book, website, etc?) to learn more on this method? I've only read a few short snippets about it, but I am curious to learn more.

thanks.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...e_system.shtml

There is a lot of info on that page.

[snoid]

Originally Posted by Tallboy

this is for Snoid - or you if you have insight - but he made reference to Adams' Zone System in a critique of one of my images I posted earlier in the thread. does anyone have a good resource ( book, website, etc?) to learn more on this method? I've only read a few short snippets about it, but I am curious to learn more.

thanks.

i think the best analog explanation is from the man himself. try 'the negative' by ansel adams.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14075294/T...ve-Ansel-Adams

[Tallboy]

Thanks for all the suggestions. reading those websites and I'd just put the Negative book, along with the Camera book, in my Amazon shopping cart before I checked back into the thread. Will get them to coming.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Since I have been doing a lot of work time to give you guys some

Just a basic photo exercise, these are what I do when there are no projects going on and you never know what new idea for a series or style will come up. So in this case I had a few minutes to spare and decided to stop by a local site I have found good ideas in the past. When walking on the path I saw a lot of interesting reflections in the puddles and decided to set my challenge to see if I could get any interesting compositions out of it. I might not have gotten much out of it (no portfolio images) but it is fun and keeps you shooting and expanding.

So that's it just find some simple subject and stick with it for 10-15 minutes or longer if you get inspired and see what comes out when you devote that much time to something so simple (be it a landscape, object (motorcycles work well ), person, etc.) and I highly recommend having some music going on in the background.

Here are 2 that I grabbed today:





You never know when this sort of thing can really pay off, one night with a couple of Labatt Blue's and Nine Inch Nail's Year Zero I came up with a interesting image (and as you will see in many ways related to what I did today) that lead to a whole series including:



I had a lot of fun doing those, the above image is actually straight from the camera, I played with all the in camera settings and lighting and basically did tons of sessions of exploring the same object, ending in about 12 final images.

Another example is from the other day while waiting for my phone to be fixed I went around with the D700 (which due to the size and loud shutter can become interesting for street photography) and here are the results:

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by r00t4rd3d

I have a weird bug picture taking fetish :

You are skirting the edge of overexposing these images so just be careful (you might want to put -3 in the exposure compensation) the 2nd one has some blown out areas and all are very very bright. I would work on getting a little more contrast in there, if you have photoshop I would mess around somewhat similar to the write up I did for knybanjo minus the initial curves since you are already there.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by Doc.Snyder

This one is a nice image, the only thing I would really work on for this type of shot is holding it so there isn't that bit on the bottom left and have the yellow line come in from closer to the corner. And maybe a bit off the right but in doing so you lose the landscape so that is a tough call.

The big thing here is you need an element or processing style to make your idea of this composition stand out. Think of it like a portrait, everyone is working with the same base, a model and many times a flat background and it is the little things that differentiate and make one really stand above the rest.

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by Doc.Snyder

I have clicked reply to this image a few times and my mind jumps around a lot on how to really make this image the best.

The parts I don't like so much are the mountain side on the right in shadow and the sky. You do need some negative space above the buildings just there is a bit much currently since the sky is completely clear and visually only adds a "rest area".

Most of your visual information is after the shadow mountain and up to the end of the road. For my eye here is the best crop:



You leave a little on the top and bottom as rest areas, but this is a very "dense" image and that windy road in the background is an amazing visual element. What type of camera was used? This is thee type of image to print smaller to bring the viewer in to see all the detail, or huge to have them be taken "into" it.

[capt_enduro]

I've been inspired by this thread.
I can't resist, deal me in:

[NikonsAndVStroms]

Originally Posted by capt_enduro

I've been inspired by this thread.
I can't resist, deal me in:

Out of the 3 I feel 1 is the weakest but by no means is this bad, these are 3 great images that are clearly jumping into a fantasy world. For this one a tiny bit more space on the bottom would help, I get a little crowded feeling down there.

For 2 I love the effect, in these last 2 it feels like a blurry line between photo and computer generated and not in a bad way. It is more along the lines of the feeling of the space than a direct representation. My only issue here is the closest tree on the left where the treatment feels more like underexposure compared to the mistiness in the ones further down.

3 is a great scene and I love the tones on the tree and the colors. There are 3 things that bother me a little on the image. One is on the right most part with that tree trunk it's texture really grabbed me being such a large and detailed area of the composition. This is keeping my eye from the center trees/clouds/waves/lighting on the trunk going forward. The next is that branch coming out from the right towards the center tree, I know there is not much to do in that situation but more negative space around it would help. Finally the top of the tree is abruptly cut off by a crop which is a pet peeve of mine as you can tell reading my critiques

And you win the my most gushing critique award

Seriously nice job on the processing