The Photography Thread

[Magnakai]

Tommy, with landscape shots you (generally) want to go as wide as possible and wind the aperture up to something like f/11 or even higher. That's because you generally want as much fine detail in the image as possible, and a higher f-stop equals a tighter aperture, which brings more of the image into focus. You may well need a tripod or a handy wall/bin to rest the camera on. Does the G9 come with an infra-red remote like the G5 did? That was really handy for this type of thing.

[TommyG]

Thanks for the reply Magnakai. It doesn't come with a IR remote but i'm sure i can add it to the list of things to buy

I've just be trying what you said and each time I think i'm getting a good picture and settings, the camera shake icon appears on screen (even when it's fixed on a flat, solid surface) lowering the shutter speed helps the image but getting the exposure right is tricky. And please excuse me for my ignorance but there seems to be what I can only describe as a spirit level scale icon which moves up and down on the right hand side of my display, any ideas what that is? (PeteJ i'm looking at you )

Thanks again, awesome thread

[funkydan]

Hmph! I want...no...I need one of these!! Don't have the money for it though....may have to wait until November (my birthday) or worse still....Chrimbo!

[Brad]

Cracking Bee shot Tommy. Here's one I found in my garden a couple of weeks ago:

[MartyG]

With the G9 you're going to be getting far more depth of field than you would with an SLR ( due to the physical sensor size and equivalent lens ) and the wider in length you go, the more depth of field you get too, so there shouldn't be a need to stop down the aperture to the point you're getting shake warnings, especially if the sun is out.

What people often forget with landscapes is it's still important to have something of foreground interest, which the grasses in the shot you posted just about do - but if you look there, there are some far more interesting long grasses that could be used to generate foreground interest. It's not a hard and fast rule ( like all photography "rules" ) it's just there as a guide, and might not be appropriate in every landscape shot.

Took this on the way to work yesterday ...

[funkydan]

A couple more of my U.S. shots converted to B & W:

San Francisco:



River in Yosemite:

[prinnysquad]

I like that second one. The background looks really hidden and menacing, but the foreground is lively and cool, almost relaxing.

[TommyG]

Great Bee shot FullSpecWarrior, I love that the focus is on the eye, my gf has a thing for Bee's ever since she saw Michaela Strachan pat/stroke one on a nature programme, she does the same when they are about now

Thanks for the advice MartyG, do you think if the shot is looking a little dark then instead of bring the aperture down then maybe just increasing the white balance or shutter speed is the way to go first then?

Oh and love the River in Yosemite Dan, that's definitely one of my goals to get a great water shot with a long exposure

[Magnakai]

White balance isn't to do with brightness, it controls where the white point is, and thus the balance of all the colours. If you raise the ISO, that raises the sensitivity of your sensor, allowing you to shoot in darker situations. The downside is that you get more noise on your image, reducing detail.

Also, if you're hand holding and you drop shutter speed below 1/60th of a second, you almost always get some shutter shake. I imagine it's less on a compact than an SLR, so you could maybe get away with 1/30th, but you'll have to experiment to find out. Edit: Apparently the G9 has image stabilisatron, which compensates for camera shake. So you should be able to hand hold at around 1/50th with confidence, and even images at 1/30 and 1/15 should be acceptable if you're smart.

[winky]

yay more great pictures, thanks everyone!

For hand holding, a good stance and technique helps a lot. Lean against something whenever you can!

Any tips on getting lightening right? I play around with the shutter speed and the ISO then review, but when its sunny outside its proving hard to see the screen well enough to judge if I've got it right. Also, any tips on getting colourful pictures, is that directly linked to shutter speed/ISO or do a lot of you guys tinker with your pics with software?

Try this on your 400D. Go to the menu and choose the second tab (camera 2). Go down to Picture style and set one of the user defined . Boost sharpness to near all the way (I prefer a little softness) boost contrast a step or two and boost saturation to max. That wont help the underexposing but it might give your images a little more pop. experiment with the setings and see what works.

If you dont like using RAW this lets you control to an extent what the camera will do with your JPEGs.

Dont be scared to take multiple shots if you think the exposure is wrong. I t can be hard to review on the LCD so learning the histrogram helps. Also on review the 400D will blink to show blown out highlights, which is handy at a glance. Means you can see where you have clipped the bright tones without necessarly understanding the histrogram.

This is a good read for histogram nonsense: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...istograms1.htm

http://www.sphoto.com/techinfo/histograms/histograms.htm

*cough* dipped my savings and bought a 40D *cough*

[MartyG]

Thanks for the advice MartyG, do you think if the shot is looking a little dark then instead of bring the aperture down then maybe just increasing the white balance or shutter speed is the way to go first then?

If the shot is too dark, neither of those things will help - white balance affects the colour shift on your shot. Increasing the shutter speed would make the shot darker still as you'd be decreasing the light getting to the camera ( assuming you're using a manual mode and the camera won't compensate on aperture ). Like Magnakai says, take a look at ISO settings - increasing these allows you to shooter in darker situations.

Also, take a look at exposure compensation on your camera - it's the one marked with the +/-. This allows you to fine tune the exposure by "tricking" the camera into either over-exposing or under-exposing from the set shutter & aperture settings.

If you search for exposure compensation in this thread, it's been explained before

[TommyG]

Again, thank you very much everyone

[funkydan]

White balance isn't to do with brightness, it controls where the white point is, and thus the balance of all the colours. If you raise the ISO, that raises the sensitivity of your sensor, allowing you to shoot in darker situations. The downside is that you get more noise on your image, reducing detail.

Image noise isn't always considered a downside though, it does really depend on the subject IMO. Sometimes when I shoot bands, it's nice to get some rough grainy-looking photos as bands usually like that sort of thing.

[Alastair]

This thread moves way too fast!

Anyway, I got home at 2am last night and I'm just about to head out of the door to start all over again now. It's going to be a long weekend.

Talking of weekends, Vampire Weekend:


The Go Team! and the mass of assembled togs that squeezed into the pit, it was rowdy to say the least!

[funkydan]

Nice shots Al - love Vampire Weekend - any chance you'll photograph the Young Knives tonight at the Pavillion Theatre at the Brighton Dome?

That is a lot of togs in Go Team pit! Looks like fun dude...enjoy it