The Photography Thread

[Paulos G]

Visited Chester Zoo the other day. Here are three pictures from my Beasts, Bums and Butterflies gallery:

[funkydan]

Paulos, your grouping name is very apt - I like the beast (although I'd be tempted to up the contrast just a fraction more to differ Nelly from the trees a bit - cracking shot though!), I do not like the bum and the butterfly is beautiful!!

[PeteJ]

That elephant shot is awesome. Love the framing.

Really pleased with this one, love the lighting in the hair. Was such a lucky shot too, one of those reaction shots that could have so easily have been bad. It was saved somewhat with Photoshop mind (higher contrast, burned out parts of the background - though it was pretty dark to start with).

[ryodi]

I'm not a great photographer but I picked up the new Canon Ixus 100 IS recently and took some test shots while I was in Evesham using just the camera's automatic settings. This is Evesham Abbey if I recall correctly.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3593/3450113181_2ac4660fe9_b.jpg

[Extra Terrestrial]

I haven't step into this thread for ages.

Anyway-a-days, St Lucia was nice.



Rodney Bay beach
Goodbye Dear Sun, Goodbye
Sailing Home

I have two more available for viewing on my Flickr page.

[Garf]

Some great stuff is here again..

Pete - that wedding dress shot is great, really great..

Paulos - the shot of the elephant is very good as well.

Haha - lovely light in the animal shots.

ET - Some very nice stuff on your flickr from St Lucia - looks a beautiful place.

Some recent stuff, most of it from the Square Mile as I was working yesterday - also the first time I used my new lens (Nikkor 35mm 1.8) - lovely bit of kit..

[VR46]

Very rarely venture in to this thread, but crikey, that's what I call a lense.

http://www.juzaphoto.com/eng/articles/sigma_200-500_2_8_ex_dg_review_test_samples_raw.htm

[dc-arena]

I took these with my 8 year old Fuji 2mp camera at the weekend. Thoughts?





Would love to get a DSLR but I have no idea how to take decent shots like what's in this thread. I guess its just lots of playing and practice.

[Paulos G]

I like it but the background is a bit distracting. As an idea, get some black foam from an art shop and photograph straight down. It makes it very easy to eliminate distractions. Here's an example of the sort of thing I mean:

[dc-arena]

Thanks for the tip, it works very well with that shell photograph!

Was that taken in-doors with the shells just placed on the black foam?

[Paulos G]

Yup, that's how I did it. It works well for photographing outdoors too:



(I didn't quite tidy up the bottom left corner properly).

[dc-arena]

That's cool. Perhaps beyond the ability of a P+S (which I currently have). Do you need to mess with exposure settings so the object remains vivid whilst the black is black?

[Paulos G]

Both the shots I posted were taken using my 7 year old P&S (Nikon Coolpix 4300). I just stuck it in macro mode.

I use spot metering when exposing for something like that. To keep the black as black as possible I just did a little tweaking in photoshop elements.

[dc-arena]

What is spot metering?

[Paulos G]

Here's a handy guide!

Link.