The Photography Thread

[Spatial]

Those cup pics are great and it all looks very surreal - but I don't half fancy a cuppa now.

[Ish]

Great shots GC - the cups may have been there but you still made good photos out of them, credit where credits due

[Ish]

Another shot from my recent games day.

[MartyG]

Lovely image, would like to see it with more tones towards white (but not losing all the black and dep greys).

Aye - it's a nicely composed shot for sure - but it's lacking in contrast a little in the bottom half of the pic - perhaps that fits in more with the bleak concept

The cup pics look like a lot of fun - and that guitarist ( hero ) pic is nicely sharp in B&W.

[Spagoli]

Some old fungus stuff

[Sarkster]

Not had my 400d long. Its my first "proper camera" and im struggling with learning to use it and also struggling with basic things like composition. Of the hundreds of **** photo's ive taken so far, im averagely happy with this.

The B&W isnt an artistic choice btw, it just saves me having to worry about colours!

[Gareth C]

Great shot, brilliant composition and DOF.

As for black and white...I shoot black and white for mainly the same reason!

[Magnakai]

Sarkster, try taking photos in colour and converting them using this method:

http://weblog.slower.net/archives/3

You'll have much deeper range in the image.

[Richard.John]

Sarkster,

That's a really nice image with super DOF but, in my humble opinion, lacks contrast. Enjoy the Canon, it's a great tool.

[Sarkster]

Thanks very much for the comments. I'm a total noob at this so all advice is more than welcome. When you mention contrast, Richard, do you mean the whites should be brighter? (yes, I am THAT noobish).

[MartyG]

In B&W photography, contrast describes the tonal range in your photo, generally it's said a photo has high, normal or low contrast.

High is where the photo is mostly pure whites and pure blacks and very little grey tones.

Normal is where there'll be blacks, whites and a good range of grey tones across highlight and shadow.

Low is where the photo has grey tones in which highlights and shadows have very little difference in densities, and so the scene appears flat. Your pic falls in this category.

In B&W different colours can have the same grey tone density, which is why filters work well, and why it's worth reading up on converting colour->B&W using filter techniques.

[Richard.John]

I mean the difference between the shades of black and white that's all. Do you have a post processing app? If so just play around with the contrast a bit to see if it makes the image 'pop' a little more.

I hope you don't mind but I downloaded your pic and used auto contrast in Picasa and it gave me this. A two second job! It's amazing what it can do to for a pic. (in my humble opinion of course)

[MartyG]

I downloaded your pic and used auto contrast in Picasa and it gave me this. A 2 second job! It's amazing what it can do to a pic.

Yup, and what's more, Picasa is free \o/ - plus it has a filter B&W conversion tool in it, and it's great for organising and viewing your photos. Well worth d/ling.

[Richard.John]

Sarkster,

Get yourself an account at www.flickr.com as well as you will find a million and one tips to help improve your pics.

[Ish]

And when you do post your URL so we can all take a nose.

I'd second the points on post-processing. No need to go overboard but tweaking colour balances, saturation and contrast can make the world of difference to a shot.