The Photographers' Corner 2013-2020

[seraphim]

Just for information - was having a discussion elsewhere and mentioned a focussing technique some hadn't heard of: it's called back button focussing.

Photographers complain their lenses focus slowly, or focus on the wrong object. DSLRs ( don't know about the mirrorless) have a focus lock button you can use to focus where you wish without pressing the shutter release.

Disengage the focus activation from the shutter button, so the camera doesn't focus when you activate the shutter. Also, disengage the focus lock, which prevents the shutter from activating when the image is out of focus. Both are done from the menus. Instructions can be found online for particular cameras.

Then you can focus on a subject, and recompose and shoot without losing the focus on the subject, without the necessity of holding the shutter release halfway down. It's also great for action photography where you can quickly prefocus on a given distance, then keep shooting knowing the focus won't change. If you know the hyper focal length of your lens, and can estimate distances well, there are many occasions you can quickly set maximum depth of field to infinity by focusing on an item at the approximate hyper focal distance. Especially good for lenses that don't have focusing distances displayed.

Just a thought

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

'i like my stuff to look the way i wished it did.'

That's called art. The HDR looks like it can be used to good effect, though. Your barn shot is reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting. More detailed, but the same feel.

What software do you need to manipulate HDR?

 

[mathjak107]

these are some color hdr's

 

[mathjak107]

'i like my stuff to look the way i wished it did.'

That's called art. The HDR looks like it can be used to good effect, though. Your barn shot is reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting. More detailed, but the same feel.

What software do you need to manipulate HDR?

i use either the nik hdr pro or photomatix. even though i helped develop hdr darkroom i like the other 2 a bit better.

if you are wondring how i use it with people and animals that are moving i combine my hdr image in photoshop with a good neutral image from the stack and replace the blurry people with the shot of the peoople captured fine in one of the single shots.

they blend great.

 

[seraphim]

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, and admittedly the process/math is way over my head. As noted some can look garish and some can look very nice. I just found this one that I worked on some time ago that came out better. Perhaps a bit more color saturation for some tastes.

It does appear to open up a wide variety of possibilities with a single shutter activation..

 

[seraphim]

I'm hearing cash register noises, and they ain't pretty. Stopped taking photographs because the challenge seemed to be gone.. This might open up possibilities...

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

"if you are wondring how i use it with people and animals that are moving i combine my hdr image in photoshop with a good neutral image from the stack and replace the blurry people with the shot of the peoople captured fine in one of the single shots."

So the the HDR camera is actually shooting multiple frames, then, not just digitally separating data from one shutter opening? Rhetorical question...

 

[mathjak107]

boy we find the more we learn the more we don't know. everything becomes a challenge to us as we get better.

we really do not consider ourselves much beyond advanced amateurs in the scheme of things.

 

[mathjak107]

"if you are wondring how i use it with people and animals that are moving i combine my hdr image in photoshop with a good neutral image from the stack and replace the blurry people with the shot of the peoople captured fine in one of the single shots."

So the the HDR camera is actually shooting multiple frames, then, not just digitally separating data from one shutter opening?

yep, i do 7 high speed shots at 1 step intervals. i end up going as high as +3 to minus 3 and then blending them into a super exposure.

 

[seraphim]

No one knows everything...

 

[seraphim]

'yep, i do 7 high speed shots at 1 step intervals'

I need to find a tutorial rather than just asking you two lol

 

[mathjak107]

all you need to know is you don't know ,then search out those who do know.

been doing that as an investor my entire life.

i just steal the thoughts and ideas of those a whole lot smarter than me like dr pfau or michael kitces.

 

[mathjak107]

'yep, i do 7 high speed shots at 1 step intervals'

I need to find a tutorial rather than just asking you two lol

i don't mind ,that is how we all learn. you need a camera that can do exposure bracketing automatically.

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

More experienced or knowledgeable doesn't necessarily equate to smarter. Everyone has something to teach. But I'll check it out.

I assumed you needed anHDR camera...

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

The D200 should work, then. It's the software doing the 'work' of HDR

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner


Untitled by jglennhart, on Flickr

An image in between all the chatter lol

Shot with an iPhone

 

[mathjak107]

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, and admittedly the process/math is way over my head. As noted some can look garish and some can look very nice. I just found this one that I worked on some time ago that came out better. Perhaps a bit more color saturation for some tastes.

what happened is you needed more shots taking it darker in the set. the sun is so bright in the left corner that even at the darkest the image still blew out.

the end result is the blowout turns white in the final image instead of retaining good color.

many times i find i have to start out the bracket using negative exposure compensation so i can get a darker set.

 

[Walt34]

I assumed you needed anHDR camera...

There is no special HDR camera setting. Many have an automatic bracketing feature but that is not necessary. It just makes the bracketed exposures easier to take.

Mathjak, dang it you are selling me on the D800. Now if I could just sell it to DW....

 

[mathjak107]

ha ha ha , you need her to do what my wife does, she goes I am taking yours go get something else.

 

[Moscyn]

A photo from my iPhone when walking The Great Wall on vacation in China.

 

[Ronstar]

......
Mathjak, dang it you are selling me on the D800. Now if I could just sell it to DW....

+1 Walt. I keep warning DW that I'm going to get an 800. And yesterday i found that I owe only a few 100 in taxes, not a few 1000. So if I get one and a lens, it's almost as if it's half paid for.

 

[Ronstar]

Fooling around in my home office. Natural light coming through the window seemed about right

 

[ItDontMeanAThing]

...
But Walt - that first exposure has all the detail you need, if you PS it and tweak the histogram and saturation. Maybe tweak the exposure as well, lastly. To me, that's almost an ideal exposure from which to make an image.

Dark areas tend to hold detail better, which can be discovered with 'shopping.

Sometimes true. Sometimes the dynamic range is too great for a single exposure.

I'm told my image below looks like a single exposure. Actually the back of the plants was lit by a shaft of sunlight while everything else was in the shade of a thick canopy of trees. HDR was the only choice. My inexperience shows, as I didn't use an exposure spread wide enough to keep some of the plants from being overexposed.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98341917@N08/11731104535

Similarly, these statues were in a shaft of light. Getting decent detail on their brightly lit areas reduced the background to various shades of black and dark brown. Used HDR because I wanted a background.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/98341917@N08/11731900096

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

A photo from my iPhone when walking The Great Wall on vacation in China.View attachment 18608

Wish I could get out that way sometime - that wall's an impressive achievement. The haze in the photo gives a nice sense of distance.

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

You guys are inspiring me to stop stop taking snapshots and get serious again. Downloaded a free HDR program last night, just to look over the basic controls, and did a little studying. I can see the advantages to having HDR available for tough shots or a bit of surrealism. I like mathjak's barn photo, but something didn't feel right looking at it, and I think I figured out that feeling. Though the eye can discriminate a large tonal range, like the camera it can not do so all at once. So being able to see detail of the snow AND detail inside simultaneously didn't feel quite natural. This isn't a negative critique of the image, just an observation. Art doesn't have to be realistic, although realistic art is my personal preference. Yet, in ItDontMeanAThing's recent examples, the HDR did add depth and detail to the images, without making the shadows look unrealistic.

I'm also a big fan of chiaroscuro, and black shadows play an important role in a composition, to me.

Just talking out of my posterior, here...

RonStar

You guts are making me feel lazy... Nice composition and lighting. Amazing how nice subjects are often just laying around the house.