The Official S-T.N Photography (methods) Thread

[PirateT7]

the image is being compressed, to let you put more images in your memory card.

my advice: You bought a camera with lots o' pixels, don't let it's computer throw 'em away. Shoot at the highest-quality you can; memory cards are cheap. Read the manual and determine which setting results in the largest file size and always use that.

[Sport-Touring]

[Jeff]

Yep, shoot it the best quality you can. Compression is really evident in photos with a lot of red. You can see all sorts of splotchy areas in red that makes compression really evident. Shoot the largest photo in the highest quality.

Jeff

[Marcster]

So this Summer I've found a new thing to photograph....

Fireworks!

[Marcster]

These are from 7/24 (I also took a bunch more last night):

[Jason F.]

Well I just got a new to me DSLR with a kit lens. I have never used more than a point and shoot so my learning curve is going to be steep. Just got back from  working vacation and a short family visit to St. Louis, Kansas City, and Topeka.

Take look at a couple of my pictures and give me some feedback. I would love to get some more tips on getting more out of this new camera.



I am somewhat proud of this shot. It was just a neat looking building and sky. When I looked up I had to take a photo. Power and Light District in Downtown Kansas City.




This one did not turn out like I would have liked. The sky was overcast and the arch just seems to blend in with the background. I wanted to get some pop and contrast between the trees, the arch, and the sky. What could I have done with the settings to get a better shot or was the overcast sky just a deal breaker for this shot?




Another St. Louis Riverfront/Arch shot.





World War 1 Museum and War Memorial Park. Kansas City. Again not enough pop or contrast between the subject and background.






Final shot I will throw up is a decent one of a cousins little girl and the dog. It could have been better so I am open to suggestions.

[tthompsr]

I like this one.

[DavidLSI]

I found this photo that I thought the collective could appreciate.  The photographer is David Orias and his web gallery is here http://davidorias.1x.com/.

Some one asked him...
Wow. Where did that come from?!
       
David Orias REPLY
The main road in Yosemite Valley in fall. I propped my camera on a tripod in the seat next to me ad took longish exposures.

[mugwump58]

[vitaminC]

I recently rented a Pentax K-5 and 21mm lens. It was great fun, and my personal copy is arriving tomorrow!  

This is a composite of four 30-sec exposures:



And this was just messing around in my backyard to test some camera functions. It's ~120 8-sec exposures stacked in CS4.

[Jeff]

Very cool!  

[ambientboy]

Trekkin across NV:



Salt Flats outside of SLC:



Seattle (wtf??):



Oregon Coast:



Great Divide Basin:

[ambientboy]

Commercial style with f/16-22, two remote strobes, pocket wizards.  Post production is minimal beyond white balance.

[Zixxerpilot]

Anyone here want to critic me a bit? I'd like opinions from people who KNOW bikes, unlike the people on the photo forums who hates them.

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:

[kendenton]

Since you asked

#1 - too cluttered, not sure what the "focus" of the picture is.  There's a saying about the difference between painting and photography - in painting you start out with a blank canvas and decide what to add to it to create your vision.  In photography you start with everything and need to decide what to leave out to create the photograph.

#2 & #3- Pretty good - good color saturation, exposure is decent.  Background nothing to get excited about but the bike is obviously the primary focus (which is good)

#4 - too dark, too busy.  I do like the diagonal line leading back into the photo though.

#5 & #6 - a touch dark, and since there really is no interesting background I would crop closer around the bike.  Not sure what lens you have, but for shots like the last two I would experiment with a long focal length (>150mm or so) and large aperture (F2.8, F4) to get a shallower depth of field to make the bike "pop" from the background more. No need for everything to be in focus, the sharp background distracts a bit from the bike.

That's a lot of nitpicks, your shots are better than what a lot of folks are happy with.

[MrMoto]

In general, take bike pics from the right side rather than the left. The side stand angles the bike toward the ground on the left, and up to the sky on the right, reflecting the available light.

Try it.

[ZED]

Generally speaking, the lighting is very flat.  Bright harsh sunlight isn't good either.  Some of them are very dark, but in all cases you need more light on the bike.  This is very difficult because flash won't work.  Bare flash would be too harsh.  With metallic and glass objects like a bike you need to be careful of bad reflections from your light source (sun, flash, magic wand, etc.).  You can use a portable strobe and soft box or umbrella, but I know from experience that's a huge pain to take on location.  Better would be use a largish reflector to bounce some light onto your subject.  You can build reflectors or you can buy them.  I've seen collapsable ones too.

Indoors it's much easier to control the light.  Outdoors the easiest but most time consuming way to light the subject well is to wait for the right light.  My avatar is small and the lighting isn't perfect but it gives the idea.  You can see it is using late afternoon light to softly, yet firmly light the subject.

Photography is largely about light.  Learn to feel the light.

Good start.  Good luck.


P.S.  Number 6 sure is a cool bike.  
Although I would probably have angled the bars a bit towards me because the Z just looks so awesome that way.  

[Zixxerpilot]

Yeah, the biggest problem I'm having is how to work the lighting. Since these were done outside in the sun, I couldn't figure out how to play the angle to get them to look nice without being too dark. I'm still working on exposure settings in the sun, too.

Zed, the Z is mine. She's my little gothic slut. Dirty, quirky, but wild as can be. The R1 is a friend's bike. Looks tame, not much is left stock.


Thanks for the advice guys! I'm going scouting for a better locale, this was a last minute deal, and I wanted to play with some of the things I've been learning from Tif. She's also fairly new, but knows a lot more than I do. However, she's focusing more on action shots, snapping pics of the kids.

[ConPilot1]

Quit being dicks, the guy's trying and except for the last two the compositions are pretty good.
It's the guy's first crack at photography. If I could have done that on my first crack with a film camera I'd be tickled pink.

You're doing well.

Just follow your eye and your heart and keep your eyes peeled for magic light/shadows/color. What's great about modern digital is except for the initial investment it doesn't cost dog squeeze to do it.

Back in the day films/paper/chemistry/color prints were quite expensive. Now it's just a couple memory cards and a good digi cam.

Learn the metering systems, how they work. Learn about F-stops and shutter speeds and the dynamics associated with both and how they work together.

Learn what an 18% grey card is and how to meter for midtones in an average photo. Then play around and meter for lighter areas, shadowier areas and see the differences that different exposures make.

[The Shepherd]

Quit taking pictures of motorcycles. If you were brave enough to steal your wife's camera, be extra brave and takes some pics of her and post them up here.  
 

[Mr.Black]

Quit taking pictures of motorcycles. If you were brave enough to steal your wife's camera, be extra brave and takes some pics of her and post them up here.  
 

There is this.....