The Photography Thread

[PeteJ]

Love the second one Spagoli, I actually think that is very imaginative First one is neat too, must have taken a while to balance the coins!

Dukesy, the makings of a great shot is there and you clearly have a great eye. The shot draws my eye to the center really well, but sadly it's too dark - the subject doesn't stand out enough. Difficult shot to take however, nightime stuff like this is very hard.
Great choice of camera too

Thanks Ish!

Ginger - what do you think of CS3, worth upgrading?

Nice Pete, the background is quite freaky ( suits the pic well mind ) - do you have light brown tiles or have you retouched that some?

The background is white photo paper, but the lighting in the room made it come out slightly brown. It has been touched up.

[Ginger Tosser]

Pete, CS3 is worth it if you use a Mac as it's a universal app. Not found too many of the new features as yet. Personally if i had CS2 on a PC i'd keep it. But as CS2 on a Mac runs via rosetta emulation it does become more of a memory hog.

It's currently free on Beta if you have a valid CS2 key, else it defaults to 2 days use only (but they're work arounds for Window and Mac apparantly).

Camera Raw is much improved, has the same features as used in Adobe Lightroom Beta. I find most of my image that just need colour correction can be fixed with Camera Raw.

[Ish]

Christmas shots... alright I suppose...

[MartyG]

Anyway this is probably my favourite picture I've taken so far

http://www.dukesy.me.uk/dukesyFoto/images/20061226111934_stepstoblack.jpg

Any thoughts ?

Urban shots can be cool, so the idea is definitely there. Like Pete said, it's not lit evenly. It's obvious that you've used a flash, and it's not been powerful enough to light the scene adequately ( unless you meant to have half of it in darkness ). You could increase the ISO rating, widen the apature and extend the exposure times (any and all of these will change the shot), and you might not have needed the flash, which in return would more like have given some even lighting.

You could also have tried a slow sync setting on the flash, try it to see how that affects your photos. ( And read this page about different flash modes ).

It's always worth trying a few different exposures on shots to see what difference this makes to the photo, because it can have some surprising effects, and the more you experiment, the more you'll start to get a sense of what's going to work in a certain situation.

[briareos_kerensky]

Personally if i had CS2 on a PC i'd keep it.

I beg to differ Camera Raw aside, if you work a lot with Illustrator (and Indesign) the added features on smart objects alone are well worth the upgrading price, as well the reduced loading times. Non-destructive filters are extremely welcome, too, as well as the new selection tools. The improved vanishing point works fine, too, and the new interface looks like it has been designed for widescreen monitors...this might be a big drawback, I will test on the CRT I have at the office after these holidays, but everything feels more "rational".
I still have to try the new Bridge and the utility bundle that comes with the beta, but I think I'll wait for the commercial release to test them.
Right now the biggest complain I have is the new program icon. Then I don't really understand why Adobe keeps on assing the redo hotkey to crtl+shift+z rather than crtl+y, the old PS7 option was so damn useful.

[Ginger Tosser]

I suppose it depends if you need those features. For your work it seems a worthy upgrade (and £150 isn't bad i suppose). Program Icon is ugly! Maybe its done to stop the confusion with the CS2. I guess when it is released it'll be the normal icon,

[Dukesy]

Urban shots can be cool, so the idea is definitely there. Like Pete said, it's not lit evenly. It's obvious that you've used a flash, and it's not been powerful enough to light the scene adequately ( unless you meant to have half of it in darkness ). You could increase the ISO rating, widen the apature and extend the exposure times (any and all of these will change the shot), and you might not have needed the flash, which in return would more like have given some even lighting.

You could also have tried a slow sync setting on the flash, try it to see how that affects your photos. ( And read this page about different flash modes ).

It's always worth trying a few different exposures on shots to see what difference this makes to the photo, because it can have some surprising effects, and the more you experiment, the more you'll start to get a sense of what's going to work in a certain situation.

Thanks for the tips. that page had some great information.

[Richard.John]

A dragon (or is it a lion?) at my local shrine.

[Ginger Tosser]

No couldn't figure out what it is either. I'd go with a dragon though, sounds better!

Quite an overcast morning at Birmingham Airport.



TNT 737 - waiting to be scrapped after crash landing earlier this year



Nice shiny new one ready for painting (could be an oldish one stripped for painting in reality!)

Exif for both: Eos 5D, Ef70-200 f/4L @ 200mm, 1/250 f/5 iso400

[Alastair]

Had a play with a negative scanner just before xmas. The quality was good but not great and it had the tendency to pull the neg slightly too far and leave a blank line through the picture. It was so slow too

Best I have from what I've checked so far is this from New York about 4 years ago:


Click the pic to go original size and see the quality of the scanner.

Taken with a Pentax ME Super and Ilford HP5 B&W film I think.

I would LOVE to go back and re take this shot digital, one day I'll make it!!

[PeteJ]

Just checked out the large version, absolutely love it. One of them timeless shots that you wish you had taken...execpt that you actually did!

[Ginger Tosser]

Stunning shot, i must revist some of my Medium format stuff i took in there. Can't recall any being that good though.

[Alastair]

Thanks guys, glad you like it, has been one of my favourite shots for years now. Happy to have finally got it digital.

[MartyG]

Grand Central Station? Amazing building - when I went in there and had to lay down on the floor to take a photo of the ceiling - I'm sure the people there thought I was mental. The chewing gum I bought in the kiosk there was rubbish though. Great shot Alastair.

[Ginger Tosser]

Pizza place on the lower floor was nice! Also got my only decent cup of Tea at GCS.