SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Eye of the non sleeping engineering student.
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I can't decide which version of this shot I prefered - stretcher in focus or his gear in focus. Maybe a tighter zoom lense for tighter composition? (55mm lens).
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See Doss Run. Run Doss Run!
(super crop :P).
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From around the campus.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Bounty »

The first is creepy, the second is a mess of blur.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Bounty wrote:The first is creepy, the second is a mess of blur.
Depth of field, not blur.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Simplicius »

The Grim Squeaker wrote:Depth of field, not blur.
It's still blur.

This photo has the same problem as the two of the singers I pointed out earlier: the frame is 90 percent GIANT IRRELEVANCY and 10 percent oh hey is that the subject way over there. If you use elements in the photo to frame the subject, you still have to make sure the subject is the most important part. This goes double when your frame is a giant out-of-focus mass and your subject is a tiny boring torso.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by phongn »

The Grim Squeaker wrote:
Bounty wrote:The first is creepy, the second is a mess of blur.
Depth of field, not blur.
Uh, the foreground is out of the focused DOF, therefore it is blurry. Also, what's the subject? You have multiple competing elements: the backpacker, that big green-yellow fabric and the guy stretching in the distance. They all compete with each other. The foreground is not near indistinct enough to frame the shot (and as Simplicius mentioned, totally irrelevant) and that big field of color doesn't help. The distant-guy isn't located at any of the common framing points, either, which might've marginally helped (rule of thirds, golden ratio, etc.)

That engineering-student picture is creepy; the only thing I really like about the running guy is how his shadow is parallel to that blue beam. I get the idea that he's running but nothing else - not the emotion or exertion on this face, nothin'.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

phongn wrote: That engineering-student picture is creepy;
It's just peculiar :). (She liked it/appeal to authority)..
the only thing I really like about the running guy is how his shadow is parallel to that blue beam. I get the idea that he's running but nothing else - not the emotion or exertion on this face, nothin'.
It's just meant as an amusing piece of life snapshot.

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Jeans for all!

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Tables in the morning.

I like the S90 :D. And macro. And learning B/W.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

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One wonders whether he was talking, doing or exclaiming.

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Well, the shadows and reflection looked great on the camera screen, less so on the fucked up laptop screen (the tonality went all to hell).
I'd be interested in hearing if it looks worth a damn to anyone here.
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Intense concentration.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Simplicius »

Death wrote:selective desat
Ugh, selective desat. If you've got to do it, at least do it with intent. Otherwise it's just another gimmick, and not even the trendiest gimmick.

Best to get it out of your system early, I suppose.
Well, the shadows and reflection looked great on the camera screen, less so on the fucked up laptop screen (the tonality went all to hell).
I'd be interested in hearing if it looks worth a damn to anyone here.
The tones specifically of the reflection look all right. Lower contrast than the stuff outside the pool, but even. Must have been bright out, though, because your shadows outside the pool are quite black.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Simplicius wrote:
Death wrote:selective desat
Ugh, selective desat. If you've got to do it, at least do it with intent.
It was done with malice and deliberate intent :D. (see the blue jeans shot, which makes it work much better I think :).)
Otherwise it's just another gimmick, and not even the trendiest gimmick.
70's gimmicks>HDR gimmick :D.
Best to get it out of your system early, I suppose.
What's wrong with Black and white then, eh? (This is the second time I sword to stick to it. So far I broke the rules to take pictures of a cat, a product shoot and the aforementioned colour substitution/removal).
Well, the shadows and reflection looked great on the camera screen, less so on the fucked up laptop screen (the tonality went all to hell).
I'd be interested in hearing if it looks worth a damn to anyone here.
The tones specifically of the reflection look all right. Lower contrast than the stuff outside the pool, but even. Must have been bright out, though, because your shadows outside the pool are quite black.
It looks better on a normal pc screen here in the labs. Still, there's just something...bland about it, and a lot of my BW shots. I upped the contrast and sharpness settings in-camera, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I could take colour pictures and desaturate them, but I want to compose and see them in BW in the first place.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Simplicius »

Death wrote:It was done with malice and deliberate intent :D. (see the blue jeans shot, which makes it work much better I think :).)
Looking at that one as an advertisement, the motive for using selective desat makes more sense. However, the photo itself would make a incredibly poor advertisement. First of all, although the product is set apart from the rest of the shot by being in color, the color is basically a pastel blue and there is no way that pastel blue on a background of grays is going to leap out and arrest the viewer, where dragging the viewer's eye directly to the product would be the point of such a technique. Secondly, the whole shot is missing the kind of emotion and mood that advertisers use to make people want to buy products - whether glamour, sex appeal, coolness, joy, wealth and fame, or whatever - while this picture is very static, the students standing around don't convey much besides casual friendliness, but a sort of formal friendliness based on their poses.

It's just about impossible to convert a snap into an advertisement simply because seldom in real life do you find the kind of amped-up moods that advertisers create in studio to make products appealing.
70's gimmicks>HDR gimmick :D.
All gimmicks are equally repugnant, since they amount to wallpapering over mediocre photographs with cheap flash. Any technique in the hands of someone who uses it with skill and purpose is not necessarily a gimmick, but when Hip Betty takes a photo of her feet and desaturates everything but her shoes, or shoots TRUE HDR CAT, it's just a stupid gimmick.

For people dabbling in these wonky techniques, my advice is either to stick with it, learn to use the technique effectively, and build your whole artistic vision around it, or dabble in in on your own, for your own amusement, and keep it right out of the rest of your work. Until you are able to consistently make solid, quality photographs, wonky techniques are essentially a blind alley and I hate to see people wasting their time like that.
What's wrong with Black and white then, eh? (This is the second time I sword to stick to it. So far I broke the rules to take pictures of a cat, a product shoot and the aforementioned colour substitution/removal).
Nothing wrong with b&w if you can use it well (ditto with color), but I was still talking about selective desturation there.
It looks better on a normal pc screen here in the labs. Still, there's just something...bland about it, and a lot of my BW shots. I upped the contrast and sharpness settings in-camera, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I could take colour pictures and desaturate them, but I want to compose and see them in BW in the first place.
Well, if your complaint is an aesthetic and not a technical one, then it's easier to explain. It's a bland photo in part because the scene is bland (trees, grass, ho-hum, guy sitting down, kind of hunched, might as well be a rock, ho-hum). It's also a bland photo because the tones are distributed in big chunks of flat tone - the toward the right are one, the shadows are another, the guy and the paving + grass right to the left of him are another, a big chunk of the reflecting pool is another. These chunks of tone are distributed around the photo seemingly at random, so they aren't composed in any way and even work against the composition of the guy and the border of the pool. Since the subject of the photo falls into one of the chunks, with the exception of his head which is highlighted against a shadow (which is good), he basically disappears.

If you're going to work in black and white you must, you absolutely must learn to see without color. You have to see in light levels and shades of gray and compose with them just as you would compose with colors, because they are all you get to work with. And you will get a lot of failures until you do, and they won't be the kind of thing you can fix in post.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Simplicius wrote:
Death wrote:It was done with malice and deliberate intent :D. (see the blue jeans shot, which makes it work much better I think :).)
Looking at that one as an advertisement, the motive for using selective desat makes more sense
I wasn't going for an advertisement look, but thanks for the critique.
Simplicius wrote:
It looks better on a normal pc screen here in the labs. Still, there's just something...bland about it, and a lot of my BW shots. I upped the contrast and sharpness settings in-camera, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I could take colour pictures and desaturate them, but I want to compose and see them in BW in the first place.
Well, if your complaint is an aesthetic and not a technical one, then it's easier to explain.
More technical, I can't explain it, but the reflections looked..stronger.
Well, I'll see if I can't see a better example, I have an image in my mind, I just don't know how to make the light/exposure work for it, or where I saw it. (if I did).

Rest of the reply posted in photo talk, it was getting OP.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by J »

The Grim Squeaker wrote:It looks better on a normal pc screen here in the labs. Still, there's just something...bland about it, and a lot of my BW shots. I upped the contrast and sharpness settings in-camera, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I could take colour pictures and desaturate them, but I want to compose and see them in BW in the first place.
It's a question of seeing, it's a skill which isn't going to be developed overnight. Which is why NONE of my B&W pictures were taken using the B&W mode on my camera. NONE. All of them were taken in colour, I then visualized what I wanted in the B&W version and used various Photoshop tools to achieve the look I desired. It's not a contrast & sharpness problem, fiddling with those settings on your camera won't help. The problem is visualizing lighting, shades, and colours, and how those colours will render into shades of grey. What will pink look like? Or yellow? Or red & light blue? Colours which seem very contrasty can end up being very close to each other in B&W, and you can't fix that without filters. Which is why I take my pictures in colour and do the conversion in Photoshop, this way I can see & control everything and add in various filter effects as needed as I've done with this picture.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

J wrote:
The Grim Squeaker wrote:It looks better on a normal pc screen here in the labs. Still, there's just something...bland about it, and a lot of my BW shots. I upped the contrast and sharpness settings in-camera, but it doesn't seem to change anything.
I could take colour pictures and desaturate them, but I want to compose and see them in BW in the first place.
It's a question of seeing, it's a skill which isn't going to be developed overnight. Which is why NONE of my B&W pictures were taken using the B&W mode on my camera. NONE. All of them were taken in colour, I then visualized what I wanted in the B&W version and used various Photoshop tools to achieve the look I desired. It's not a contrast & sharpness problem, fiddling with those settings on your camera won't help. The problem is visualizing lighting, shades, and colours, and how those colours will render into shades of grey. What will pink look like? Or yellow? Or red & light blue? Colours which seem very contrasty can end up being very close to each other in B&W, and you can't fix that without filters. Which is why I take my pictures in colour and do the conversion in Photoshop, this way I can see & control everything and add in various filter effects as needed as I've done with this picture.
The problem is that I don't know (yet) how to think or visualize in black and white. Doing so in colour just means that I work for a good colour picture, not a good convertable BW picture.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

f-4
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f-3
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f-1
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Lt. Dan »

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Flowers outside the conservatory in Golden Gate Park, in San Fransisco.

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A beach in Northern California.

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Highway 50 in southern Utah.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

IMG_0053
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IMG_0070
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IMG_0076
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Yes, it's a red stop sign in a BW image. I don't care if it is a basic idea of the type, I thought of it, and I liked it!
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by J »

Bamboo
Image


I couldn't get the background to drop away the way I wanted in colour, but B&W sure did the trick.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Just some..stuff.
Don't have any time these days:
Image.
Yeshiva kid in the underground library (one of them at any rate).

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Pretty good for a compact camera at 1am, handheld.

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Yeahh...
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

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Sunset.

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"Coffin" :)
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Pulp Hero »

Airport terminal, I was just playing around with my new camera settings, but I really like how this photo came out:

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Sting:

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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Bounty »

The Sting one looks great. I like the shadows. Taken from a balcony seat, I presume?
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Simplicius »

Put a roll through the Minolta; pleased to see that it is fit for winter operations. Only thing I don't like about the camera is that there is a lot of dinge somwhere between the ground glass and the viewfinder window, which makes focusing a hassle.

I went out on a limb with a lot of available-light night shots on that roll, and the results were satisfying.

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Night passage (90 seconds)

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Dragon Cement (30 seconds; two frames) (click for bigger)

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Moonrise over Belfast Harbor (15 seconds)
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by The Grim Squeaker »

Simplicus - the first one is weak, though the idea has merit. Second shot has nice lights, but it's unclear what's in them apart from a factory (and that's cut in half).
Third shot has some beautiful moonlike light. What are the fire like glowing things on the bottom of the frame? Did you take it at night or early in the morning?

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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Simplicius »

@Pulp Hero, I like that shot of the airport gate. B&W gives it a very clean look; I doubt it would have worked nearly so well in color unless the gate itself was carefully color-coordinated.

Sting one not as much; the shadow on the stage really is awesome but the rest doesn't do much for me.
The Grim Squeaker wrote:Simplicus - the first one is weak, though the idea has merit.
Don't care; it is an experiment with exposure times, and a successful one.
Second shot has nice lights, but it's unclear what's in them apart from a factory (and that's cut in half).
So you see a photo of a lit factory and your conclusion isn't that it is a photo of the factory? Crazy.

That bits are left out (and not very much; take it from the guy who was there) doesn't really matter because they aren't lit much compared to the main part. The structure fades out of the frame - and a good thing too, because pano ratios greater than 3:1 don't look very good.
Third shot has some beautiful moonlike light. What are the fire like glowing things on the bottom of the frame? Did you take it at night or early in the morning?
"Moonlike" - it is the moon; there's nothing else lighting the shot. The glowing bits are the moonlight reflecting off the edges of the rock, a twig, and a leaf. Taken early evening, probably around 5 PM or so after the sun was completely set.
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Re: SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

Post by Bounty »

Sting one not as much; the shadow on the stage really is awesome but the rest doesn't do much for me.
What actually makes the image work for me is that it's not all about the guy in the centre; it's very busy in the periphery with the overlapping light/shadow circles while he's standing there in the middle looking serene. Especially for an image that was, I presume, taken in difficult circumstances (I mean, it's not like you have infinite options for framing and timing during a concert), it looks really distinctive and conveys a mood.

If it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you, of course.
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