The Photographers' Corner 2013-2020

[steelyman]

Go for it! Is it spring yet?

It's coming!

Last year I was hanging out at the beach. There was another guy who was always up early for coffee.

I told him I had something to tell him. He looked at me all serious and asked "what?".

I said, "June is, in fact, busting out all over".

That was a fun cup of joe

 

[seraphim]

It's coming!

Last year I was hanging out at the beach. There was another guy who was always up early for coffee.

I told him I had something to tell him. He looked at me all serious and asked "what?".

I said, "June is, in fact, busting out all over".

That was a fun cup of joe

If it's spring, then get to that garden and start photographing!

Yea, I know - Mr. Procrastination here speaking.

 

[steelyman]

If it's spring, then get to that garden and start photographing!

Yea, I know - Mr. Procrastination here speaking.

Yessir! It's a very pretty place, done by Japanese people.

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner


Rough-Water by jglennhart, on Flickr

Ought to crop some of the sky out of this shot... I'm never happy.


Windy-Location by jglennhart, on Flickr

The last photo of my old camper van. Never did replace that hubcap.


Grid by jglennhart, on Flickr

This one's just fun. No double exposure - just reflection. Ought to burn that upper right corner in completely.


Fisherman by jglennhart, on Flickr

And finally, Haver Lake in Colorado.

Huh. Didn't know those last two were GIF files. Better replace them.

 

[mathjak107]

No adult supervision lol.

The LCD display really isn't necessary, either. As I said, it's a check before I walk away from the scene. Didn't have one between 1973 and the early 2000s. I do use meters of one sort or another - even if it's just the reflective meter of the camera, which - by itself - usually wants a correction. The histogram merely shows the meter's finding in a different format. Neither is infallible. Quite frankly, can do without a meter. First camera was an Argus brick with no electronics and I couldn't afford a light meter. Ever read the guidelines on a box of Tri-X. Lol

But as you say - know your equipment. But also know your art and understand light. It doesn't need digital dissection to record it properly. Or even for postproduction manipulation. Too much formula, and formula doesn't create art. Neither do pretty colors - alone.

But I think MathJak and my disagreements are over a misconception of what 'exposure' means. An exposure is a combination of aperture and shutter speed to capture the appropriate range of gray scale to acquire detail. All the color manipulation one can preset in a modern camera does not affect exposure. Just colors.

the flower just has to much sunlight hitting it head on i think. i store my older photo's on a portable hd which i have packed away so i can't really fiddle with it easily at this point to see if darkening it would change things . .

exposure takes in dynamic range as well . in fact exposure is aperture ,shutter speed and iso speed.

increase iso and you lose dynamic range .

the higher the iso the less of a range the camera can capture between light and dark.

exposure also determines what your colors look like. increase exposure and the colors wash out. decrease exposure and colors look more saturated. they are all directly connected to each other.

there is no exact proper exposure ,only a range of exposure for the look you want. i can push my exposure towards the higher end and colors will look on the lcd slightly washed out. shoot darker and the colors will look better but the signal is not as strong.

they are both well within the range of proper exposure . but since i do my editing out of camera i want the exposure at the higher end of the range.

i can always darken with no increase in noise in post processing but lightening something is akin to increasing iso and creates noise.

 

[Walt34]

Although this is not really practical with a landscape type scene, if you're shooting smaller scenes or portraits outside, you can often reduce the dynamic range by using flash or strobes to fill in the shadows a bit.

Which is exactly what I did with this shot. (DW wanted photos of her niece's nursery.) Exposed for the window in manual by aiming the lens out the window, 1/100 sec f/9, set two SB-900's in TTL bouncing off the walls behind me. That way I can play with the shutter/aperture and the strobes will follow along. If I want to adjust the strobes I do that with the commander, which on the D7000 is the pop-up flash.

Click on the photo, it looks blown out in the preview.

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

the flower just has to much sunlight hitting it head on i think. i store my older photo's on a portable hd which i have packed away so i can't really fiddle with it easily at this point to see if darkening it would change things . .

exposure takes in dynamic range as well . in fact exposure is aperture ,shutter speed and iso speed.

increase iso and you lose dynamic range .

the higher the iso the less of a range the camera can capture between light and dark.

exposure also determines what your colors look like. increase exposure and the colors wash out. decrease exposure and colors look more saturated. they are all directly connected to each other.

there is no exact proper exposure ,only a range of exposure for the look you want. i can push my exposure towards the higher end and colors will look on the lcd slightly washed out. shoot darker and the colors will look better but the signal is not as strong.

they are both well within the range of proper exposure . but since i do my editing out of camera i want the exposure at the higher end of the range.

i can always darken with no increase in noise in post processing but lightening something is akin to increasing iso and creates noise.

ISO differences is a given. Yes, exposure affects gray scale tone which affects color. But one still does not choose exposure with color. Colors can be saturated or desaturated in post production. The flower had too much sunlight hitting it head on means, if you'll pardon the observation, the exposure did not take the highlights into account and that detail is lost. That is acceptable to your preference, but not mine. Except when working high key, any areas of undetailed white, except planned highlights, are unacceptable to me. But we are two separate people with separate tastes. Your method would fail for me, but will work for the high key appearance you seem to prefer. Any increase in visual noise I may or may not have by lightening dark areas is not perceptible to a viewing audience at 100% magnification, therefore is not significant. To me.

There is no 'better' way of doing an exposure, as long as it produces exactly the image you want. I would consider those images over exposed. That makes me neither right nor wrong, just expresses my style. I would have reduced the exposure about 1.5 stops, checked the LCD, the probably would have reduced it another stop; and I would have been happier, had I been taking the photo. But I didn't take the photo. If you have achieved exactly the image you envisioned when you activated the shutter, then your exposure was correct. If you're not imaging the final image, but merely accepting what you get, that's up to you. Only you know that.

So what works for you and what works for me may be completely different. Its been an interesting and congenial conversation, but I think we're just repeating ourselves at this point. And probably boring the other readers...

 

[Walt34]

Sensor cleaning

For those with DSLR cameras, what do you use to clean the sensor, or do you send it out to have it done? I've been using Delkin Devices' kit, which for the most part seems to work okay, but I'm not thrilled with it. It takes half-a-dozen or more swabs to get everything off, and even then there are still faint spots. I guess that's oil?

I've tried Photographic Solutions' swabs but they leave lint on the sensor.

I've read reviews on most of the methods/brands etc. and there doesn't seem to be a clear winner.

 

[seraphim]

The Photographers' Corner

Which is exactly what I did with this shot. (DW wanted photos of her niece's nursery.) Exposed for the window in manual by aiming the lens out the window, 1/100 sec f/9, set two SB-900's in TTL bouncing off the walls behind me. That way I can play with the shutter/aperture and the strobes will follow along. If I want to adjust the strobes I do that with the commander, which on the D7000 is the pop-up flash.

Click on the photo, it looks blown out in the preview.

Looks good. Nice balance of natural light and flash.

 

[seraphim]

Sensor cleaning

For those with DSLR cameras, what do you use to clean the sensor, or do you send it out to have it done? I've been using Delkin Devices' kit, which for the most part seems to work okay, but I'm not thrilled with it. It takes half-a-dozen or more swabs to get everything off, and even then there are still faint spots. I guess that's oil?

I've tried Photographic Solutions' swabs but they leave lint on the sensor.

I've read reviews on most of the methods/brands etc. and there doesn't seem to be a clear winner.

I'm sorry to say I've never cleaned the sensor. Don't even know in which year the lenses were properly cleaned. Just wiped with a T shirt. After reading up on the topic, I was persuaded that the sensor doesn't need cleaning unless the dust is showing up on the image. But I'm lazy...

 

[mathjak107]

I had such a hard time getting eclipse fluid off of my mirror when i cleaned a spot the thought of ever tackling the sensor is out of my head.

 

[FIREd]

Anybody planning to get a shot of the "blood moon" on Tuesday?

 

[Skyward1]

I was recently looking for owls and noticed a cavity in this tree that looked promising but after checking it out with no success I was about to move on when I looked up. On the end of one its branches in the direction I had just walked I saw this young bobcat looking down on me. You never know what you might run into out there.

 

[Major Tom]

Sensor cleaning

For those with DSLR cameras, what do you use to clean the sensor, or do you send it out to have it done? I've been using Delkin Devices' kit, which for the most part seems to work okay, but I'm not thrilled with it. It takes half-a-dozen or more swabs to get everything off, and even then there are still faint spots. I guess that's oil?

I've tried Photographic Solutions' swabs but they leave lint on the sensor.

I've read reviews on most of the methods/brands etc. and there doesn't seem to be a clear winner.

I've had my DSLR since 2005 and the most I have done is to blow dust specks off the sensor with a blower. I have never cleaned the sensor directly. There are a few small specks on it but they don't show unless I have the aperture stopped down to about f/8 or smaller, and the specks coincide with a large area of consistent tone such as the sky. On the few occasions I do get specks in my images, a few clicks with the healing brush in Photoshop takes care of it.

My opinion only, but I don't think it's a good thing to be overly concerned about every little speck of dust on the sensor.

However, if you shoot a lot of landscapes with the lens stopped down, dust on the sensor becomes more of a concern.

 

[Major Tom]

Which is exactly what I did with this shot. (DW wanted photos of her niece's nursery.) Exposed for the window in manual by aiming the lens out the window, 1/100 sec f/9, set two SB-900's in TTL bouncing off the walls behind me. That way I can play with the shutter/aperture and the strobes will follow along. If I want to adjust the strobes I do that with the commander, which on the D7000 is the pop-up flash.

Click on the photo, it looks blown out in the preview.

You seem to have balanced the window light with the flash quite well - nice job Walt. Weird how the previews blow out highlights, but I know that conversation has been had here before.

 

[Ronstar]

Geez I go away for a couple days and y'all go hog wild. Love that photo, Ronstar.

HDR is a nice tool to have in the bag. It can be misused like any tool, and when that happens the results are downright scary. It's not unusual for me to process a set of exposures into HDR and then decide a single exposure works better but when it works it works very well.

To suggest to someone that their eye is not a good tool as to gauging correct exposure I would suggest caution here. If one is accustomed to their camera and it's display relative to getting the results they want, then why the hell not is what I say

Thanks Paul. I agree that HDR is the right tool for certain situations, and I can attest that when misused the results are scary. I've been playing with HDR through Photomatix the past few days and I've produced some nasty images. To me, it seems like the way to produce a decent HDR is to first recognize a situation where HDR would be the best means to produce the shot, and then properly bracket the shots.

 

[Major Tom]

On the subject of using flash to bring out details in the shadows while exposing for the highlights, it's a technique I used to use quite a bit when taking portraits outside. In this shot, of a musician on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood, I wanted to give at least some sense of his surroundings, even though it was a portrait taken at close range. I wanted to show the sky and the palm trees in the background, so exposed for the background while using a small handheld flash with a small softbox fitted, to light his face. Although it was a very small handheld softbox (about 12" x 6" at a guess), it was held very close to his face, so that the shadows cast are fairly soft.

I know this guy, and this shot has been up on my website since it was taken in 2005, so I don't think he'll object to me posting it here.

PS - if anyone wants to critique, that's fine with me

 

[Ronstar]

Great shots and tips today. I'm venturing a little into HDR using info from this thread.

Mathjak - great flower shots. Using some of your shots (ones without bugs) to convince DW that I need an 800

Seraphim - I like the fisherman shot the best.

Walt - great interior shot and explanation how to handle the lighting

Skyward - Nice bobcat shot - I'm usually looking on the ground for these guys while hiking, but I never suspected that one could be stalking from above.

Major Tom - Great portrait / lighting

 

[mathjak107]

 

[kcowan]

HDR is "built-in" to the iPhone.

How To Take Stunning HDR Photos With Your iPhone

That is probably why they have removed their software from iTunes. I use the free one by Almalence on my Android. I will get the ProHDR for her iPhone 4S. Thanks for the link.

 

[Mr. Paul]

That's a good one, Major Tom. The softbox really did allow you to get a lovely softer edge to the shadows .... like!

 

[Nemo2]

Love the laid back monitor!

 

[mathjak107]

thanks , i guess he is just "monitoring things"

 

[steelyman]

I didn't even know I had HDR (much less what it is). Apparently I do!

 

[Walt34]

I like that softbox effect. While I do have a couple of umbrellas I haven't bought a softbox yet. With a VAL (voice activated lightstand) AKA DW, it would produce some nice portraits.