The Photography Thread

[Kieran76]

I went for a lengthy cycle and photoshoot today practicing landscapes. As I suspected I need practice!! I find it hard finding things of interest in a "normal" landscape.

Did take this not bad picture of a dragonfly though. I was taking a picture of a weir and it landed on a plant next to me.

I've got some backpay coming at the end of the month. I may well invest it in one of those lenses. The detail on the lemur is superb!

I think thats a fantastic picture.

[Ish]

Cheers guys. Its the slight blur on the end of its tail that made me label it average. Perhaps I'm being too harsh on myself! I love the red where its wings attach to its body. Incredible creatures!

@dc-arena: I use a digital SLR - a Nikon D50 and currently I only have the standard "kit" lens. Its my first SLR, I bought it about a month ago, love it to bits!

[PeteJ]

That's an awesome shot - I've been keeping my eye out for dragonflies, as you say they are pretty incredible looking.

[dc-arena]

One thing that point-and-shoots really fall down with is Macro shots; something like that dragonfly would be impossible. Tempting.. very tempting.

[Ish]

The D50 is quite cheap too. I got mine for 400 quid from Jessops including the lens. For the price its an outstanding starter camera. In my humble somewhat inexperienced opinion of course!

I've really fallen in love with photography since getting it.

[PeteJ]

One thing that point-and-shoots really fall down with is Macro shots; something like that dragonfly would be impossible. Tempting.. very tempting.

A mate at work has a Canon compact (not sure of model, it's the one which looks a little bit like an SLR) which is superb for macro work. It has a focal range of 0mm, which is quite frankly astonishing! You can literally put something on the lens and it'll focus perfectly.

[the shape]

Thanks for the Flickr add, Pete.

I took a shot of an apple last night (as you do) but decided to touch it up in photoshop to make the colour jump out a little bit more - but then I noticed a problem. When I view in photoshop (elements 2) I can get the image looking how I want it, but when I've save the file (keeping full quality) and preview the image via Windows it suddenly looks an awful lot brighter and washed out. Can anyone explain this?

You have just discovered Color Space. Soon, you will wish for death.

[Ginger Tosser]

I like the dragon fly shot. Good detail for a standard lens

[PeteJ]

Thanks for the Flickr add, Pete.



You have just discovered Color Space. Soon, you will wish for death.

I don't understand this - could you explain further? I can open the image again in PS and it looks just how I want it, but viewed in anything else it looks completely wrong! It isn't a particularly great shot, just curious.

[Anpanman]

Nice. Very nice!

Definetly going to have to get myself one of those badboys. But some Nikon equivelant.

Still kudos to you Mr. PeteJ - its not the lens its what you do with it what counts. Apparently

And I really do love that flower shot. The contrast between the yellow and red is just stunning.

Wish I was about 20 years younger seeing the wonderful pics you guys are taking makes me wish I had a bit of money to burn coupled with the convenience of digital hotography.

Used to be into macro and when I changed my Olympus OM2n gear for a Nikon FM2 body in about 1984 I bought with it the Nikkor 55mm f2.8 micro lens. The lens was exceptionally sharp and according to many people it's the best lens Nikon has ever made, even better than the 50mm f1.4.

Yes, you would have to focus manually but it should work on your Nikon DSLR OK and the best bit is you can pick them up fairly cheap on ebay, as I write this there is one with a bid of ?31.
Christ in 1984 I think I paid something in the region of about ?400 for it.

[bangaio]

I don't understand this - could you explain further? I can open the image again in PS and it looks just how I want it, but viewed in anything else it looks completely wrong! It isn't a particularly great shot, just curious.

This is theproblem I was aluding to a while ago. I process all my raw files as Adobe RGB Tiffs. The problem is that colour managed apps (eg. PSE2 CS2 etc) can displaty images using that colour space that is capable of displaying the full gamut of colours you see on screen. If you save that as a jpeg and display it in windows or firefox for example - these are not colour managed so just show a regular rgb jpeg and therefore loose out lots of the gamut. The same is the other way if firefox was to use argb for example.

Interestingly Mac OS is totally colour managed down to safari so can handle this ok. Make any sense? Sorry i'm knackered!

There's plenty of reading on colour spaces etc on the web. I use Adobe as it is a good match for the gamut of my printer.

[the shape]

Well I only use Macs and believe me, we still have plenty of problems with color management. It is a complex and horrible subject. I read a chapter on color space in a giant Photoshop tome once and, soon after, killed a man.

To Pete, the easiest way I can explain what is happening to you is this. Photoshop is following a set of rules for displaying color based on 1. the range of colors your camera operates in (its color space) and 2. the way your (hopefully calibrated) monitor displays color. Windows et al are ignoring point 1. I think; I've never owned a PC and I'm not altogether sure how they handle color.

This sort of thing is just the tip of the color space iceberg.

[Ginger Tosser]

Can you set the camera and photoshop to work with same colour space (not really pissed about on PS to know).

[the shape]

Oh yes!

But when that picture is then viewed on software that does no color management, it looks shoyte.

See?

And this is before you even bring in printers, which have their own zany ideas about color space. And then it gets very bright and all there is is the ringing in your ears until somehow you're across town, outside her house, and there's blood under your fingernails.

[MartyG]

What sort of kit do you guys all use? Any of you with point and shoots, or do you all have "proper" SLR/Digital SLR cameras with fancy lenses?

I have a Nikon D50 on which is a Tamron 28-200 atm, also have a 200-400mm lens which is a heavy beast. This is the one I take most of my photos with now. Very annoyingly though, the rubber cover for the ports on the left has fallen off. Always thought it looked flimsy and cheap for it to be on a Nikon camera.

Then I have a number of SLRs, 2 x Nikon F90x Pros, Nikon F50, Nikon EM, Olympus OM10 (with a nice array of prime lenses), and a number of point an shoot digitals. Olympus C2020, Olympus 420L, Minolta Dimage 2330 Zoom, and a Jenoptik C3.1 LCD which is my take everywhere camera (and produces ****e images) because it was very cheap.