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Anyone Into Photography?
Tosh
Veteran
I've recently re-kindled a hobby I had 20 years ago, before life got in the way, and purchased an old 2nd hand DSLR, which is great (and the lenses are really cheap too). And some photo editing software too, which I don't think is cheating; it's just like having your own dark room.
So, is anyone into photography? I think the Lobster does a bit, judging by his photos. What is it you like to photograph and what camera(s) do you use?
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I don't much myself but I'm my husband's "assistant" lol
He mostly takes pictures of the night sky (we see the northern lights fairly frequently) and nature and wildlife. He uses photoshop and lightroom. I think using editing tools can be great, nothing wrong with it as long as a person isn't misrepresenting a photo as natural when it's greatly altered. It's fun to play with.
He mostly uses a Canon Rebel T3i. We got an Olympus underwater camera for our Florida trip and that was a lot of fun to play with when snorkeling and playing in the pool. Can't say the lenses for the Canon are cheap though. I wish. It's gotten to be an expensive hobby, lol.
I'm into it. But my camera is more advanced than I am.
I'm mostly into travel photography. I have the new Canon EOS 7D Mark II. I have recently started using the fairly reasonably priced Corel Paint Shop Pro X& software. It's excellent. I've been working on some of my very old photos, some 50 years ago, and have been able to improve them substantially, even though they were originally film pics, scanned into digital.
I agree with Karasit regarding the legitimacy of using software. I'm actually more not-into HDR because it virtually never looks "real" to me (or maybe I just haven't seen it done well. I haven't started getting into RAW, but probably will soon.
I think everyone is into photography by the amount of photo snappers out there using their mobile phones. Selfie generation.
After many years I obtained a sort of early action cam, just point and shoot. It was great. I used to edit on Linux and even do video stitching. Video though is very time consuming.
Then my sister gave me her old digital camera with a 10x digital zoom. Oh dear. I kept it on auto but was starting to use and appreciate the zoom for video work. Then I started using an iPod touch and even iPad, starting to explore composition. Beginning of the end really as I realised I really like the zoom facility which phones and iPod touch usually lack.
So eventually got a bridge camera as I prefer the technonology to set the ISO and aperture (Yuk). Click and shoot suits me. I had access to a DSLR recently. Very sharp. Auto for me though. I am crass amateur.
Your recent dogee photo was far more professional.
The bridge camera I use is a basic Canon (named after a boddhisatva - Kanon originally)
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1712483.htm
Light, simple, cheap and suits my shooting style. Not into button fiddling or boring people with my camera prowess.
I do enjoy extreme editing though, so I have a SD wifi reader for transferring on to my iPad and use mostly googles snapseed to edit. So I am a post editor. Whereas a more professional approach is getting things right at shooting time. My extreme editing at times uses brushstroke which really turns photo into art.
I tend to take whatever interests me. Mostly nature, buildings, landscapes, family, people. I started reading things on ISO 'golden mean' etc but apart from turning on the grid and using golden mean - apertures is BORING man!
This year I am trying to take a photo of a kingfisher in flight, so have started using multiple shot mode (dunno what technical term is) That is gonna be hard, perhaps even impossible without tripod etc. I used the tripod somone lent me once. Never again. Too much faffing.
I am very tempted to get a camera with higher zoom, raw save and better sensor but will try and restrain myself for another summer if possible, when better technology including variable image focussing after taking, will be more widespread.
DSLR? [shudder]
@Tosh, I am not an expert in this but, I love to see more of your running mate Tye photos
faffing?
(faffing) English slang - apologies
To muck about, wasting time doing something not necessary.
I've been faffing about all day with my car
My dad has always been into photography. He had a dark room for many years. More recently he has been repairing and restoring some really old family photos and negatives (from the early 1900s) which come out amazing. It's quite interesting to see photos from so long ago brought back to life
I take photos mostly just for memories. I don't have the artistic eye like my husband and my dad do, but I don't mind. I just like to record stuff that I enjoy. Things that might not be print worthy or amazing, but evoke memories and senses for me when I look through them later. So i can remember exactly how the air smelled, how warm it was, how I felt, and so on. I'm sure my husband gets the same of the pictures he takes. But for example, he took 700 pictures just with the one camera (the non water one) on our trip, and he found only 88 of them even worthy of posting on FB, lol. I prefer to take pictures of people doing things while my husband prefers not to take pictures of people at all. So we balance out the needs of our family pretty well, lol. He lives for nights the Milky Way and Northern Lights are out.
He understands all the settings quite well and is pretty adept at using tripods and such. I don't know anything about them (settings...tripods I can manage...kind of) and mostly stick to auto mode.
I'll have to get some when I'm back running (currently injured with shin pain).
But here's a couple with Mrs Tosh, my other running partner:
Running in the Brecon Beacons:
And this following one was a recce of the Black Mountain Fell Race, a very tough 17 mile course, the initial part is physically very demanding and the last part is technically challenging from a navigation point of view. It's designed to knack you, disorientate you, then get you lost!!! It certainly worked that way for us.
Oh, and when your Missis falls in a stream, do NOT - repeat DO NOT - see it as a photo opportunity. Apparently, so she informed me (with her hands on her hips) - you're meant to be a gentleman and help her out. Everyday is a school day.
Both taken with a point-and-shoot, but touched up/cropped with photoshop lightbox.
I think I overdo the editing, looking at those, and the focus could've been sharper in the second one. She wasn't going to hang about while I fiddled with the camera though.
Top tip.
Thanks
I have heard some women are not into sports, cars, action films etc.
tsk, tsk
Some of us men are taking such an interest in jewellery, makeup and Hello magazine ... Not? Ah well . . .
[lobster stereo typical failure]
Great that you run together.
Get well soon.
Here is the amount of filtering I sometimes use. Tower Bridge Runners.
It seems reading some of these posts that my technical knowledge is lacking; what kind of filters do you use, @lobster? I see the effect, but what do they do?
Here's a couple of recent efforts:
This one is my first attempt at 'painting with light', where you set everything up, camera on a tripod, turn the lights out so it's pitch black, and then with a torch highlight the things you want the camera to pick out. I think I was using a 15 second exposure here:
Tintern Abbey; a nice crop took out a row of parked cars at the bottom of the pic.
I chased these (I suspect) horny butterflies around a field to get this one, which I took on 'rapid fire' (I don't know the technical term) to try and get one good image...
Any constructive criticism would be welcomed. I'm just really playing about at the moment without knowing (too much) about what I'm doing.
I don't use filters. I do post editing but I use extreme settings.
You should have filters in Photoshop lightbox. I tend to use presets.
... for example took your image onto iPad Brushstrokes app ... the presets in this warp or distort the image to make it appear as if it is painted.
I am still playing. It is probably as far as I will go. I was taking photos of common blue flutterbys (ye olde name for butterfly's) this morning. Was trying to get a shot of a kingfisher in flight [failed] that is practically impossible without a tripod but I am gonna do it . . . The king fisher did not come back. Ah well ... next time ...
Wow, nice camera. At the price tag I'd be worried about taking it out of the house!
When I'm back up 'n' running (literally - I'm currently injured), I plan to take the camera with me; I get to pass through some lovely places sometimes, so my cheap/ancient DSLR is perfect for me. I wouldn't dare do that with yours though, in case it got broken.
I can replace it for under £40.00 ($60 USD).
I'd love to see some of your pics if that's okay?
In a week or so I will be going down into part of New Mexico with the new camera. After that try out I'll perhaps post a few.
But if you go to pbase.com and search vinlyn you can see quite a bit of my old mostly landscape stuff...although much of it is from the old film days and then scanned into digital, thus reducing the quality. There is a lot of Thai Buddhist stuff there, also.
I'm a professional landscape photographer, have been since 1989! I would post a link to my site but I don't know if that allowed, anyway you can see my stuff on Flickr ( John MacBrayne) gear is always a talking point, I view my cameras as tools, nothing more, good tools but still tools. So, I use nikon digital, presently D2x and D3x and only really a couple of lenses, I like a 17mm and a 28mm for most landscapes. I find neutral density graduated filters indispensable to control the tonal range in a scene, and I buy the best, what's the point in sticking a sub standard filter in front of a top quality lens? For film work, I use a pair of Leica rangefinders with 35 and 50mm lenses along with an elderly Nikon FM2. For large format film work I use a Mamiya RB67 and an Ebony 5x4 large format camera. I suppose for a Pro I don't use that much gear but I know it all inside out and can use it all instinctively. Big thing with gear is dont be afraid to use it, I do a lot of seascapes and taking kit to the sea in itself is an act of faith! Danger can be buying a really expensive camera then not taking it to the best locations in case you damage it. In my opinion a D2x in virtually indestructible and you can pick them up real cheap now. I can't fault mine
I agree, JohnMac. There have been very few places I haven't been willing to take my cameras...a few places in inner cities, and a very few places in the old days when I would do some somewhat rugged hiking. And someday I may have an unfortunate incident, but I've never had anything bad happen like theft or breakage.
I guess the most embarrassing thing that happened was quite a long time ago in Thailand when I was visiting a temple where there had been some interesting archaeological digs. One of the digs had been covered by a building, and you could walk in and walk over catwalks to look directly down on some of the skeletons in situ. I whipped out my flash attachment and it slipped out of hands and fell down on one of the skeletons. It broke, so there was no sense in trying to retrieve it, and no one saw it happen, but I was still mortified.
I can see how they really bring out the foreground in the pic you shot (which is lovely) but I've read somewhere that if you're (for example) taking photos of mountains in the distance, wide angle lenses can make them look a bit flat.
So it's about what you wish to bring out; the foreground or the background.
Is this correct?
@JohnMac, you're quite welcome to post a link to your site.
One-time posters putting up ads and cutting and running - not allowed.
Established members with something lovely to share - that's ok.
That's great! I thought I'd better ask first, here's my site:
http://www.artscape-canarias.com/
Tosh, wide angle lenses are great things but if your not careful they can make everything look very far away, for example, in the picture I posted, you can see that I got really close to the sand in the foreground and the rocks, I was only about 2m away, so that those elements fill the foreground and lead the viewers eyes along the rocks into the sea and up to the moon, the trick is to always fill the foreground with something! The background then takes care of itself, here's another example of foreground filling, one I took last week:
Thanks @JohnMac I like the mixed media idea. Lovely work. Reminds me of early black and white tinting but you have taken it much further.
It might suit me as I have all the talent of a 'paint by numbers' artist.
m m m . . . now where did I put my crayons ... don't expect any competition ...
Here's the picture, I forgot to attach it! Too early, need coffee....
Very interesting.
My sister is the same. Using RAW (I don't have the option) is a good move as digital media is relatively cheap.
I find that to express the emotional intensity or beauty I must use filters. My camera is tiny. I wish it was flatter and was very disappointed when Google Glass went back to the drawing board. I hope a high quality action camera with optical zoom, variable post image depth choosing and linked to editing on an Ipad is released - 'Icamera'. I really hope it is not too far away.
Click, point, play with and enjoy images is my preference.
http://danbaileyphoto.com/blog/the-end-of-an-era-i-just-sold-all-of-my-dslr-gear/
>
You need more coffee...
I shoot everything in RAW, the only filters I use are neutral density graduated, I also use exposure stacking a lot, as most of my images are made in morning or evening light, so shoot one at the metered exposure the several either side, I use 1/2 stop increments and then blend all of the exposures together in PS,it means that your highlights aren't burnt out and there is details in the shadows....great technique.
I plan to have a go at this tomorrow; well focus stacking really (if the weather is too bad for me to work). I understand the principle, I've just got to learn how to use photoshop.
I took a few pics of some runners at the weekend at mile 11 of a 13 mile off-road and very hill race. A lot of the ladies called me names as they past, for the cruel position I chose (when they were all sweaty and drooling from the mouth).My camera is pretty old, so I'm blaming my tools for my 'work':
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1lyf9txgOf7i-TajrXrX620bs7Q&usp=sharing
But I did do a very nice close-up shot of a flower I liked (the flower is about the size of a thumbnail in real* life):
*Being a Buddhist forum, I'm using the word 'real' in the conventional sense.
My first attempt at photo stacking;
It's meant to be in focus throughout the photo.
(Taken today by the River Severn)
Yesterday it was raining so the clouds were swirling around the Shard. I love the Shard. I was taking a shortcut and there she was. Visible from all over London . . .
Sheltering from the rain was an opportunity to catch a runner at this; Ye olde Palace of Westminster ...
Extreme filtering added - available with most phones, as is my preference ...
Great pics; love how you framed the runner in the arch, with Big Ben and the bridge too.
Here's a couple of my recent efforts:
Took a screenshot of @lobster's effort, and this is what happened... I took it in 'sketch' mode, which turns some beautiful pictures into veritable works of art...!
Awesome thread, I wish I had a fancy camera - presently using just my cell phone camera, point n shoot.
I posted this picture on the pictures thread but no one's biting, so I'm bringing it here in the hopes someone could tell me what that flash of light is in the tree. Someone told me what it's called but I forget - at first I thought it was something supernatural, but they said nope.
^^^@Silver, I think it's called 'lens flare', it is normally regarded as a 'fault' and can be prevented with a lens hood or filters on a camera with a lens.
You might also want to have a read up on the 'Rule of threes'; it may have been a better photo if you put some of the ground into the first bottom third of the photo and had the sky covering the two two thirds (or do the opposite if you wanted to highlight the ground, rather than the sky).
Also 2nd hand DSLR bridge cameras are fairly cheap; they're good to learn the basics (which is where I'm at). Cameras are like fitness equipment; people buy them, use them every day for a month, then don't touch them for ages, then sell them.
The first is a picture of some quinces gathered from my mother's garden in October 2014....
The second is the same picture, but taken again in 'sketch' mode....
@Tosh, thanks for that information. I owned my ex's Nikon 35mm and took lots of pics of my son with it, etc., had a friend at work who was taking a photography course and got lots of good pointers from her, but now mm is out :-( I have no idea where that camera went anyway. Weird. The picture I posted above was taken from the bedroom window - I've gotten many a fantastic sky picture from that location - mostly outside in the drive, but that one inside through the window...maybe that had something to do with the flare. There's nothing but rooftops if I lowered the shot, so I try to avoid it most of the time.
I bought a digital camera one time, thought it was a a good deal, but it had too many bells & whistles that boggled my mind so I returned it. haven't shopped since for a different one. I also wonder about how to go about changing my 35mm pictures to digital. I have no idea.
The Potomac River near Harpers Ferry a few years ago:
I like taking pictures of things that I find pleasing, last night there was a bright full moon that was covered by a thin layer of cloud which made it look even brighter, it had a light rainbow ring around it.
Really like the pencil sketch @federica.
I was in Richmond Park today. Got pics of Lesser and Greater Woodpeckers but here are the parks most famous residents. Their ancestors were hunted by Henry VIII ...
Digital cameras in phones are outstanding (unless you have drowned your phone as some techno-Luddites recommend)
I took this one yesterday on the way towardsSugar Loaf Mountain; Wales:
I think Welshmen must like sheep with mis-matched earrings!
Bah humbug.
For those who feel they can not take interesting pics on a phone ...
Try my tips app works from most browsers on phones, Linux, Apple, Windows etc
http://adsy.me/wZtOB9BPdr
I am still learning. That for me is the fun. For example 'narrative'. This means posing questions and providing answers for the viewer. An unusual angle, perhaps lower.
What I love doing is going out with an agenda. For example what if you had to find something boring and make it interesting. I have pics of drains, walls, soap suds, bins that I love.
Everything is about perception ... wait ... where have I heard that before ...
Im lovin this thread!! Keep the pics comin!!
Took the above ^ ^ ^ w/my trusty lil camera phone...then used the 'posterize' function:
...."posterize".....? Aaaaaaargh!!
relax, ma'am! My cell phone camera also has other choices such as sepia, sketch, b&w, solarize, and negative.
psst, @Federica - this is the 2nd time today, I've tried to post a photo and it came up with the wrong one, even though I checked the number of the photo twice. I dunno what's up with that. Do you have any idea why it's happening? {never mind}
It showed 0195 when I saved/opened, but now that I'm looking in pictures, it says 0193 so that's that - one of those crazy cloud pictures -
Being amongst tourists with cameras and a telephoto lense . . . empasing the intensity of an emotion through remastering to black and white.
^^^ I've just discovered I love pics of street photography; I've been looking at a bunch of pics by Gary Winogrand.
Nice catch.
He is practicing mindfull walking?