The Photography Thread

[funkydan]

Loving the shots on here over the last couple of pages. Al, your Scotland shots are wonderful, love the one with the jetty on the lake. Winky, that monitor shot is just too cool! Marty, love the 'reflection' themed shots from a couple of pages back. Magnakai, love the squirrel shot.

And thanks guys for your encouraging words on my club shots from last weekend. The guy at Club Class really liked the shots, wants a CD so they can uploaded to the Club Class site, and said he would like to use my services again beyond Electric Gardens! Great success!!

Dan

PS @ Marty: mmmmmmm......SB-600, I so need one of those!

[MartyG]

Marty, how does an M42 adapter ring work. I've been on the cusp of getting one for my 400D for a while now, but I just can't seem to understand how it copes with adjusting the aperture. Can you manually do it on an M42 lens, similar to the focus or something?

All the adapter does is allow the M42 lenses to mount the Canon body. The camera won't adjust the aperture, you have to do it manually on the lens with the ring, and of course the focus is also manual. The camera still meters so it'll probably work ok in aperture priority mode, but I'm using it in manual mode.

The good thing is you can pick up the 28mm, 30mm, 50mm, 55mm, 85mm and 135mm all for under £20 a pop, some for under £10 ( my 28mm cost £9 inc postage ), which I have mounted on the camera today.

[Anpanman]

But it's a bargain! SB600 cost nearly ?200 on their own, let alone coming with all the other stuff

Telling me, fantastic price - git

Great water shot too Alistair

[MartyG]

Given me a cost of £40 postage making it total £260 - I've paid the man, so we'll see what happens.

I took a few shots on the way home with the new cheap lens - nothing particularly great mind:







I got my new Samsung G800 phone today too - it has a 5 MP 3 x Optical zoom on it, but tbh, I'm not impressed by the quality of the shots - they are really really grainy, more so than that cheap £12 Vivitar digicam I bought :/

[winky]

Magnaki: I love the squirrel shot, if it wasn't for that foreground leaf it would be bloody perfect. Still a great shot though.
I love the fiddler on Argyle street, he seems like an interesting chappie, did you get any more photographs of him?

For your information this chap here http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgkw/ has (or may have had now) an exibition in Glasgow (I think). I am told it was at the Skypark, just off the Clydeside Expressway, near Finnieston.
I haven't been and only heard through a few people at work, still haven't found anything on the internets about it but might be worth a visit if you are interested and you can actually confirm that it is still on.

Dan: great news that you are getting to do more work. I don't know what you were worried about

Marty: You seem to buy something every bloody week . Thats a real passion for equipment you have there. And your shots you posted are spooky. The orange cast from the street lights in the mist is other wordly.

Edit: Info here for the exibition : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgkw/2181838872/

[MartyG]

Marty: You seem to buy something every bloody week . Thats a real passion for equipment you have there. And your shots you posted are spooky. The orange cast from the street lights in the mist is other wordly.

I don't really - I've just had a splurge since Christmas; and I haven't been buying much in the way of games the last two months which would normally equal my photography spending recently.

I've been having fun with the 10D - I've taken far more pics with it than the D80 - I think because I got it pretty cheap I don't really mind lugging it about the shop as much.

The shots above were all hand held and are on Picasa. I was quite surprised the rays came out quite so well, I could see them moving and didn't think they'd capture so well. Still don't think they're particularly flickr worthy though.

[funkydan]

Dan: great news that you are getting to do more work. I don't know what you were worried about

Thanks mate, and to be honest, I was worried because I wanted to get it right. But it seems that I did, so I'm happy.

[Alastair]

Thanks for the kind comments guys.

Magnakai, that squirrel shot is ace, I don't mind the leaf in front really, would be better without but it never works out like that does it! I saw red squirrels in Scotland but never had the long lens on at the time so couldn't grab any shots, they aren't as bold as the grey ones. I have gone a bit ND crazy but it's fun to use new toys and also good to get different results to joe public who doesn't have the filters!

Cool fog effect Marty, like the first one best.

Got a film developed yesterday:
Another from holiday:


A general 'old tatty things' shot:


And a colour take on the coniston shot, different composition too (more ND overload on this!(digital obv.)):

[Magnakai]

I like the textures in the bathroom shot Alastair. I think we've got the same disused metal ring thing in our one... Is the top shot a film one? It has a nice sort of quality to it.

Marty, I really like the third pic you've posted up there. The colour's really nice and the hint of detail down the bottom along with the little trail of smoke lends it a really serene pastoral atmosphere.

[Alastair]

Yes, both the B&W's are from a film camera. That is NOT my bathroom, [shudder], mine is way nicer and has modern things in it. The metal ring thing is a cup and toothbrush holder. Surely you knew that

[Magnakai]

I know, but mine hasn't seen a cup or toothbrush since I've been living there. Mind you, my bathroom doesn't have a shaver plug. And it's literally falling off the house. But that's another story...

[Magnakai]

This is one from a while ago, but I never got around to uploading it for some reason.

[babs]

Ok folks, quick question from yours truly. I still only have the stock lens for my D40 at the moment (there's more than enough for me to learn while I get used to it!), but I was taking shots at the beach the other day and noticed it had started drizzling. Now my lens has some dirt/smudges on it, I just want to know the best way to clean it without scratching it or doing something hideously bad to it.

[Alastair]

With a lens cloth, obviously!!

Or, a clean yellow duster, like what you use to dust the tables etc just without old manky polish dried into it. Anything soft that wont leave marks behind.

I use a clear filter to protect the actual front element of my lenses and don't really care what I clean the filter with, t-shirt, fleece etc. Anything goes. I take more care with the actual front element though if that ever needs a clean.

[Magnakai]

I pulled out my 400D's kit lens the other day for almost the first time since I got it, and was absolutely disgusted by the feel of it. But then I took a few pictures and was quite pleasantly suprised. I still can't get my head around a zoom lens, but the quality's pretty decent. If you're in a bright location, the relative slowness of the lens doesn't matter too much. I still think it'd be better to bundle something like the 35 f/2 with the camera, but I'm a total prime snob.

Also, has anyone had any experience with any sort of colour matching/screen calibration stuff? The Pantone Huey or the Spyder 2 seem to be the recommended ones.

My problem is that, for example, that photo I uploaded a couple of posts above was really nicely balanced on my external LCD monitor, but at work it looks absolutely terrible. I've gone through SuperCal and the Apple monitor calibration tool, but I always end up going back to the original settings as the corrected ones look plain wonky. I set my Macbook screen to a gamma of 2.2 and temp of D65 and it looks fine, and photos on that tend to reproduce quite well on other screens. On my external, however, a gamma of 2.2 makes it incredibly dark and totally useless. I'm assuming a decent external calibration device will sort this out. Right?