PHOTOS PLEASE

[+JuggerNaut+]

previous to the last three posts i had a hard-on. nice work guys.

[Immo]

More Paris photos

View from Montmartre in Paris, bit noisy but you can see the many lights


Inside the Louvre museum


Piano bar in Paris

Excellent shots!

[vileliquid1026]

winged victory image

Amazing job, Saturn. I have been very fond of that since I had to draw it once in high school. Great sculpture and a fantastic picture

[Fanatic X]

I knew you took a picture of the airport the moment I took mine, but I also wondered how the hell you got up there.

Also, I know that's your secret and what makes the difference between you and everyone else on this forum, but do you HDR all your pictures? You have this unique richness, colortone detail in all your pictures, I'm really curious.

Dude it was 4am at the airport. You could've taken a dump where I was standing and no one would notice.

My secrets? Oh, I don't know...I don't think I want to share it so that copy cats could mimic my awesomeness.

[MaCaBr3]

[Tsakali_]

Where am I?

beautiful... aside from its apparent clusterfucked poverty feel to it, probably holds a special atmosphere. Living in such close quarters were all these diff. aspects of life come together must be quite an experience. it's almost like looking at an art piece that undermines dimensions/ locations to capture the essence of everything in one frame.

[Fanatic X]

That's the spirit.

Follow these steps:
- duplicate layer
- apply lucisart sculpture plug-in (30%)
- layer opacity: 70%
- duplicate layer again
- apply PS reduce noise - Strenght 10, preserve details 0, reduce color noise 100%, sharpen details 0
- layer opacity 15-25%
- merge 3 layers
(makes the photo look more like a picture/drawing)

Colour adjustments:
- may use dxo film pack
- may use simple hue/saturation tweaks
- work with multiple layers again, adjusting opacity for taming the effect
- i like reducing saturation sometimes

For improving contrast:
- unsharp mask: amount 10%, Radius 40 pixels, threshold 0

Sharpening:
- duplicate layer
- filter > other > high pass: 0.8 - 1.2 pixels
- layer=overlay, opacity 50%-80%
- merge layer

If shooting HDR:
- use photomatix
- generate HDR (3 - 5 exposures)
- tone-mapping (various settings)
- dump in photoshop and use above process

I use this work flow for my images 70% of the time.

Everyone benefits from sharing.

[Fanatic X]

beautiful... aside from its apparent clusterfucked poverty feel to it, probably holds a special atmosphere. Living in such close quarters were all these diff. aspects of life come together must be quite an experience. it's almost like looking at an art piece that undermines dimensions/ locations to capture the essence of everything in one frame.

It certainly does, doesn't it. Certainly does..

WTF are you mumbling about artsy photo critic fag?

That clusterfuck is called Hong Kong.

[MaCaBr3]

Wow, tnx Fan, very good pointers, I actually didn't hope you were gonna be so detailed

[Tsakali_]

beautiful... aside from its apparent clusterfucked poverty feel to it, probably holds a special atmosphere. Living in such close quarters were all these diff. aspects of life come together must be quite an experience. it's almost like looking at an art piece that undermines dimensions/ locations to capture the essence of everything in one frame.

It certainly does, doesn't it. Certainly does..

WTF are you mumbling about artsy photo critic fag?

That clusterfuck is called Hong Kong.

just take the complement for a job well done and shut it fatty.

ps

I'm not sure if you're really a fatty but i have nothing else to go on.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Question: Can't you just use a single RAW file instead of 3 different exposures in Photomatix?

[ForM]

Three different exposures bracketed. One for dark, one for normal and one for light.

One raw could be used and stopping the exposure down and up, but it does not work out quite the same. Then others tend to over do the process and make it look like shit.

[creep]

I remember when they just taught us how to take good pictures and we didn't have fancy software to make them "look good". Just several tubs of chemicals and a dream.

[GONNAFISTYA]

All my picts are untouched (except for resizing for this thread)....straight from the camera.

Uh...except that B&W one of the guy in the wheelchair. When I posted that I was gay.

[Doombrain]

I remember when they just taught us how to take good pictures and we didn't have fancy software to make them "look good". Just several tubs of chemicals and a dream.

fancy software

[tnf]

Saturn - you know the name of this painting?

[tnf]

And is HDR something that the camera does, or just something you do with software after the pic is taken, and in 'photography for idiots' terms, can someone tell me what it really does to the image quality? I wish I was capable of making pics with the quality in this thread, but even if I bought a real nice camera I'd still suck.

[seremtan]

Saturn - you know the name of this painting?

it's called 'the raft of the medusa' by gericault

at least, that's what the title at the bottom of the picture says

[tnf]

i've got a lowly 17" lcd. all I could make out was the geric...something.

[MaCaBr3]

And is HDR something that the camera does, or just something you do with software after the pic is taken, and in 'photography for idiots' terms, can someone tell me what it really does to the image quality? I wish I was capable of making pics with the quality in this thread, but even if I bought a real nice camera I'd still suck.

A High Dynamic Range picture is created by merging 2 or more different exposures from the same composition, so technicaly your camera doesn't make HDR pictures, you have to use software like Photomatix Pro and CS3 to combine and process a set of pictures you took to create a HDR picture.

[saturn]

thx for the comments everybody

[Underpants?]

made the last round on the mountains yesterday snatchurn. Thought of your :mock destiny: icon pose on top of the world as I ate shit on the wrong edge of a rutted-corn spring storm lift. My neck still aches, fucking done with the carbon and steel, I think, for another 8 months or better. :pisst

[saturn]

Interesting PM. Made me think about my modus operandi.

You guys take some awesome photographs. I'm just curious what kind of gear all of you are using, especially the lenses.

Saturn: Are you still shooting with the D70? What kind of glass are you using?
DB: How's that D3 treating you? Must be fucking nice...
Mac: Anything new with you?

I'm just wondering if I need a filter for my Nikkor 18-200mm and what you guys use to PP. (Lightroom? CS3? Anyone using Capture NX)

I'm still using my "old" and trusty Nikon D50 with 6 MP. The majority of my photos are taken with a:
- Nikon kitlens 18-55mm (the cheapest Nikon makes, which broke after a skier hit me on a snowboard run)
- Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 prime lens
- Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 macro lens
- and lately for city and landscape shots: a wide-angle Tokina 12-24mm f/4 which flares easily and produces a lot of chromatic abberation.

Photos are shot in JPEG and imported in iPhoto cause I'm lazy. Mostly a bit of contrast was added to photos. Lately I'm using Lightroom to get more dramatic effects and because it's a great photo-processing program. Photoshop is only used when there's heavy editing needed.

Most of the work is done when the photo is taken. Composition, available light and timing are the most important factors for a good photo IMO. Camera, lens and post-production come in second.

[Underpants?]

Where am I?

beautiful... aside from its apparent clusterfucked poverty feel to it, probably holds a special atmosphere. Living in such close quarters were all these diff. aspects of life come together must be quite an experience. it's almost like looking at an art piece that undermines dimensions/ locations to capture the essence of everything in one frame.

you live in a state of constant aesthetic saturation, don't you T-Sack.

p.s.?

[Doombrain]

I don't have a D3, I used one for a bit and I didn't get on with it. However it's a great camera, just not for me.

I use CS3 and Aperture 2. Most of the editing is done in Adobe Camera RAW and I little sharpening in CS3.

B&W I normally find with channel looks best and strip the other channels out then convert back to RGB or convert to LAB and remove the AB channels.

Large amounts of RAW files i'll run through Aperture 2 which is by far the best RAW editor on the market next to Capture One.

Gear wise i have a 5D with a 24 - 105 f/4 L and a Sigma 70 - 200 f/2.8 DG which i think I'm going to sell in favor of a Canon 70 - 200 f/2.8 IS L. Speedlite 430 EX and 580 EX mkII and I flight case of other shit.