StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Thought I'd try something for the photographers here. A consolidated thread for photographers to post photos for feedback.


General Rules

• Please limit yourself to 3 photos per day.
• Critique is optional, but helpful. Please contribute.
• If you choose to critique, please be specific. (one-sentence critiques like "Great photo! Nice colors!" is not helpful.)
• Don't post pictures of your pets.
• Maximum width or height of any image should not exceed 1024 pixels.
• No, really. Limit yourself to 3 photos per day.
• Yes, many photographs will feature women as subject. This does not give you an excuse to act creepy about it, please don't.

Flickr Rules

• Link images back to their flickr page.
• If you are a Firefox user with Greasemonkey, install this script to make linking easy.

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This is a photo I took of a production back in July that I did a lot of reworking on a few weeks back. As always, feedback is welcome.

Hey, I recognise that set!
Other then the over-highlighted guy in the forefront, nice picture, though could use some better framing.

Here is another photo that I took last may, at the Indy 500:



It's Scott Dixon on his final lap of the race.

Ace, thanks for the feedback. I really didn't have too much time to really get in and play around with getting the best stills I could that day. Given that I was kind of a producer and had a lot to do on that show.

I take it you panned along for that one?

I've got a few F1 shots like that from... oh, sometimes around 1998. It's a complete bitch to pull off.

EDIT: I might as well contribute

This was not a B&W photo, but I could never make it look right in colour so I made it B&W and used one of the duotone presets in Photoshop to bring out the contrast & details a bit. I'm still having trouble making all the snow look right.

@Bounty: There are tilted and aberrant lines in the picture. I´d get rid of them in Photoshop

@Aerius: Some more contrast would vastly improve the image imo.

btw, nice photos every body.

Instant Sunrise wrote:This is a photo I took of a production back in July that I did a lot of reworking on a few weeks back. As always, feedback is welcome.

Ace basically said everything I'd say about this one. It's a good snap, though - just 'almost' enough. I think the Indy shot is quite well done though; your steadiness paid off in keeping the car sharp but abstracting the background. The cables are encroaching on the wheels a bit, but you work with the point of view you've got.

Bounty wrote:EDIT: I might as well contribute

It's ~1o (nice!) out of plumb and bright sky pulls my eye up and away from the street; those are my main criticisms by far. But the setting is good and the people are well-placed in it, and I think at base it's a decent photo. With your permission I'd like to use this one for Photoshop practice, and if I manage to get a good result I'll post it here.

I'm still learning about proper exposure (hooray for functioning light meters!), but I'll pass on a couple of bits from two of my books. They might come in handy - but if this is nothing you didn't know, my apologies.

Michael Busselle, [i]Better Picture Guide to Black & White Photography[/i] wrote:An exposure meter, whether it's a built built in TTL meter, or a separate hand meter, works on the principle that the subject it is aimed at is a mid-tone, know [sic] as an 18 per cent grey. ...With most subjects the reading taken from the whole of the subject will produce a satisfactory exposure. But if there are aspects of a subject - when it contains large areas of very light or dark tones, for example - the reading needs to be modified. An exposure from a white wall, for instance, would, if uncorrected, result in underexposure and record it as grey. In the same way, a reading taken from a very dark subject, like a portrait of an African tribesman, for instance, would result in his skin being too light.

Henry Horenstein, [i]Black and White Photography: A Basic Manual[/i] wrote:The most accurate system for exposing film is to take the light reading only in the darkest shadow area of the subject and then compensate. The general rule is: Take the reading in the darkest area and expose for two stops less. The darkest area should be the darkest area where some detail is desirable... If the shadow areas of the negative are properly exposed, the highlights will fall into place in most cases.

Horenstein is hitting the outer edges of the Zone System, but I'll not go there because there's no way I can state it succinctly.

My contributions:





I was in the middle of a snowstorm, and the storm broke for a few minutes just as the sun was finished setting. I was loaded with monochrome, so I whipped out my snapshot camera and did what I could with it. Sorry about the noise.

With your permission I'd like to use this one for Photoshop practice, and if I manage to get a good result I'll post it here.

Feel free.

When I took the shot, I thought the arch and sky wouldn't come out as strong, but then they... did. The idea was to draw the eye to the people in the street but being the darkest point and pretty far down makes them fade into the background a bit.

The info you posted is certainly useful. Unfortunately it wouldn't have made the picture better since I didn't have a light meter on me anyway, the exposure is best guess

Great Idea Sunrise! .
@ Simplicus - the second shot is much, much better - the composition is better (first is cut too close from the top) as well as colours. The first with a bit more work (rule of thirds and the colours not going grimmy) could have been awesome, it looks like something from the Luminous Landscape .

@ Sunrise - good shot, I don't see you doing much better without being able to manipulate the studio conditions, the light extremes are too nasty, unless you were allowed to use a flash in which it might have helped fill in the background and crew. Apart from the dude in front of you - that bit's a drag!.
What show is that?
Love the F1 shot. (I can never get the AI Servo to work worth a damn on my canon with fast moving objects, though cars are a bit easier to see and track than birds I suppose )
3 a day huh? I can dig it

Portrait of an acquaintance of mine with my Sigma 30mm F1.4 lense. (The thing is just too fucking WIDE! With not enough magnification! Fucking awesome bokeh though ).
Well, not so much bokeh as "shot in a club at 3AM over a candle. (I used my GF's cellphone to provide more backlight in a latter shot, but it gave a blue smear over his forehead, so I left that shot out and used this one instead).


Alleyway in Jerusalem.


Just a tomato. In a pizza shop called tomato. (Fucking lack of magnification . Fucking good Bokeh, though there isn't enough light to appreciate it here)).

There's a lot of empty space in the tomato one. was that on purpose?

Bounty wrote:There's a lot of empty space in the tomato one. was that on purpose?

As I said, crappy lack of magnification . (I couldn't focus any closer with the lens).

1: Pretty good, a little too much contrast for my tastes. A bit more rim light could have really helped this. I'm not digging the light coming up from below, it feels like it's taking away from the picture, and not really adding to it.

2: A decent picture. The top third of it could benefit from being a darker and burned in. It's distracting from the rest of the picture. Which is a shame, because it could be a much stronger photo if that ceiling wasn't so bright and drawing attention to itself.

3: A crop to just the tomato would be helpful. The other thing with macro photography, is that you should stop down the iris so that all of your subject is in focus. Right now, the outer edges of the tomato go out of focus and you've got a soft edge. It just works much better, that if you want a lot of bokehs in your background to make sure that you macro subject is completely in focus from front to back.

Tripod!

Well, tripoddy thingy. I got one of those cheapo 5" high tripods - more like a stabilizing foot - and figured I might as well get a nice shot of the garden:


Digital camera, everything on manual because I need to learn. The focus isn't right. Maybe I shouldn't have shot dead ahead... at an angle and with some light it's look less drab.

What digital? It looks a bit soft, did it uspport your focusing diatnce/macro?

Powershot A640 with the stock lens. It's soft because I tried manual focussing, but the focussing preview window on the screen is squinty. User error.

Bounty wrote:Powershot A640 with the stock lens. It's soft because I tried manual focussing, but the focussing preview window on the screen is squinty. User error.

A cheap Canon compact with MF? Fuck. Not bad.

Things I learned tonight:

- Doing something fun really makes you lose track of time and freezing fingers
- Yes, snails can go fast enough to suffer from motion blur
- Snails are sneaky bastards

Shot at night with the only illumination coming from a faint streetlight, hence everything being yellow. All settings on manual. Model was a prima donna.


If anyone has any suggestions for cropping or further retouches, I'd love to hear them.

@ Bounty
It's more or less impossible to get a sharp photo under those circumstances. If you ever get a similar opportunity to photograph a small animal like that, I would try shooting from a different angle. I know that this is a snail we're talking about, but usually anything else than the top view is more exciting. I think that cropping from the right would emphasize the snail more. Right now there's bit too much empty space. Good try, though. Handling a camera in cold temperatures without gloves is a bitch.


I used to occasionally photograph urban scenes and architecture between 2003 and 2006. During the last two years I've barely taken couple hundred photos and almost all of them during a holiday. I'm trying to resurrect my old hobby, but in the mean time I could share some old photos. I'm terrible with technical issues and finer points of photography - I just go with the flow.

Rooftops of Paris on a rainy day in December 2006. Shot with my old Canon PowerShot. (Flickr photo)


Rome, summer 2008. Shot with Nikon D70 and its basic kit lens.


Helsinki waterfront, summer 2006. Same equipment as above. (Flickr photo)

I know that this is a snail we're talking about, but usually anything else than the top view is more exciting.

I know. I considered trying to get a side view, but on the left I'd be blocking what little light I had and on the right there was a tree. I suppose I could have tried a three-quarters view... getting lower was tricky too; I needed the tripod for stability but the legs only have one position.

I like the Rome shot - if those are the Spanish Steps, you caught the mood perfectly

@Oberleutnant

First shot is really nice.
Second shot - Dang, your kit lens has a damn nice F-stop (foreground as opposed to background blur).
3d shot is a really nice BW shot, were you on water? I like the shot, good composition too.

Three shots from my visit to Israel's premier Technical university and engineering institute (where I might be studying).
Taken on the train on the way there:

The winding way from wind tunnels to example aircraft and engine testing:

Taken on the train back:

All shots taken with a compact cam.

I'd have uploaded photos from the aerospace and engineering labs, but hey, only 3 a day, right?

Photos I took of a JMSDF ship back on my deployment. I'm not more than a "Tourist" photographer, but I think they turned out pretty good...

Inspired by watching Time Warp on the Discovery channel, I try my hand at high-speed photography. The colours came out like crap in the originals, so I used Photoshop to add overlays and false colouring to bring out the details & contrast. Photos were taken with a Canon SD800IS on continuous shooting mode with a 50W halogen spotlight less than a foot away from the glass to get the shutter speeds fast enough.

@Lonestar
- First shot is nice.
Third shot would be great if you would crop the blocking bits out.

@Aerius - First shot is really nifty .