Post your photography skills! (self-gloss)

[Crane's]



hey cranes. do you shoot any digital or is it all film? if you're shooting events that's gonna be a lot of rolls of film!

Def digital. I use film for special projects or by request.

Heading back out there for a couple of hours this afternoon for another event. Gonna be a nice day and should be a lot of fun again. I really need more jobs like these....

 

[il ciclista]



Graphic design, but not much lately. My heart is in it[COLOR=ff0000]*[/COLOR] (like in photography, but graphic design came first), but I don't like to do it as a routine job with strict deadlines et cetera. I don't mind that for my other work (in the language field), but I do for "creative" work. I'm rather "style-steady" (i.e. stubborn ) too when it comes to graphic design—I prefer sober designs (think Tschichold), so that only works if a client likes that as well.
([COLOR=ff0000]*[/COLOR]I hate it that that smiley f*cks up the line leading.)

oh yeah he was the first designer I ever did a report on, I like his stuff. I am really draw to Paula Scher right now with her old typefaces brought back, I really love older type verses all the stuff you find on like dafont.com Do you have a portfolio to look at?

 

[NOBD]



oh yeah he was the first designer I ever did a report on, I like his stuff. I am really draw to Paula Scher right now with her old typefaces brought back, I really love older type verses all the stuff you find on like dafont.com Do you have a portfolio to look at?

I'm probably the last person in the world without a website or blog... I have a physical portfolio with printed designs. My old designs are in QuarkXPress format and I have never bothered to make pdf's or something "web presentable" of them.

 

[NOBD]

Sharp feet

 

[il ciclista]

nice perspective, was this under a glass?

 

[NOBD]

Thanks. It sat on a window.

 

[Szeph el raton]

Was walking around a bit while waiting for my gf to arrive. Was somewhat foggy.

 

[NOBD]

^
Nice. No tricks?

 

[A Y]

Holy crap, Ed. I didn't realize how many pictures you posted. Anyway, a general comment: I think one thing that could really improve your photos is to make it clear what the subject is. In many of them, there are lots of things in the picture, but it's not clear what we should be looking at. If you want to put a lot of stuff in a photo, that's OK, too, but make sure that the relationship between all of the objects is crystal clear.

There are lots of ways to do this: exposure (make sure the main subject is exposed correctly, and manipulate the exposure to minimize the presence of the other elements), focus (main thing in focus, other blurred out), composition (isolate the thing you want to photograph, or arrange things so that all things lead to the main thing).

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

I think the composition has the potential to be interesting, but there are too many things to catch the eye. For example, there are many lit candles, some out of focus, and others in focus, but the one unique element --- the cross --- is out of focus. I know it's dark, and you probably didn't have a tripod, but I wonder if a deeper depth of field (higher f/stop number) would have helped this.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

This one has interesting lighting, but again I'm not sure what the subject is. Perhaps another angle, or doing something with the exposure might have helped.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Same deal with the picture of the candles: two white chairs stand out, but the focusing point seems to contradict what we think the subject should be. I like the beam of light coming through also, and perhaps the picture could have been recomposed to make that the main subject of the picture.

Anyway, my comments on the other pics are about the same, and hope they're somewhat helpful. The main point is to try to make clearer what you want as your main subject. Hope you keep it up!

 

[Szeph el raton]



^
Nice. No tricks?

No digital editing except slight sharpening and a hint of S curve. Approximately 10 p.m., fog, bridge. 30 sec at f/16.

I'm still on the fence about the barrel distortion. It doesn't take away from the picture but a friend says I should iron the horizon flat. Perhaps I'll go there again and also bring the 17-40 L, it should be optically better at such a wide angle than the 24-105 L. I also forgot to deactivate the IS even though I was using a tripod.

 

[NOBD]



No digital editing except slight sharpening and a hint of S curve. Approximately 10 p.m., fog, bridge. 30 sec at f/16.
I'm still on the fence about the barrel distortion. It doesn't take away from the picture but a friend says I should iron the horizon flat. Perhaps I'll go there again and also bring the 17-40 L, it should be optically better at such a wide angle than the 24-105 L. I also forgot to deactivate the IS even though I was using a tripod.

Did you shoot it in RAW? Lens correction might fix the barrel distortion. I like it anyway.

 

[Szeph el raton]



Did you shoot it in RAW? Lens correction might fix the barrel distortion. I like it anyway.

Always do. I one-click fixed it but personally I didn't see a real improvement as I don't mind it in this one. But happy you like it anyway.

 

[Kaplan]



I also forgot to deactivate the IS even though I was using a tripod.

n00b question: I've seen this recommended before, but why is it you should do that?

 

[Szeph el raton]



n00b question: I've seen this recommended before, but why is it you should do that?

I can't judge by my own experience but only by what I've read (I'm a theory guy, before I try something practical I spend hours to understand the background). When hand-holding the camera, the IS is supposed to move the glass element in the lens to counter-adjust the tiny movements you do while the shutter is open. When you have the camera on a (solid, fitting) tripod there is no camera movement and therefore all the IS can do is decrease sharpness by moving the glass element when it actually shouldn't.

I don't know if you can see this in the web-sized picture, letter size or only in 100% magnification but I prefer to be on the save side by deactivating it.

The reason you should turn your camera off before changing lenses is related to that. If the IS is active when you take the lens off (it also stabilizes your viewfinder, not only while you push the shutter button), it does not go into the default position and therefore might move around in the lens while it is not in the camera. If this is bad for the lens? Don't know. Do I want to find out? Hell no.

 

[NOBD]

I think the new generation IS lenses somehow detect that you're using a tripod, so you don't have to manually switch IS off.