Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah the first one is beautiful.

You should do. Embarrass yourself? Nah, just encouragement here.

That depends what sort of pictures he was planning on posting.

Thanks, I was shooting blind largely, holding the camera on the floor and tipping it up a bit, nice colours but the compositions are pants as a result.

I like the Gas Station thing Decca, and the colourful cat pic!

Here's my attempt for least quality pic of the thread. Taken on a phone camera, pointed at a grimy 2" mirror illuminated by a torch, in the guts of an engine bay.

And then 'compressed' to 55K

Has a nice grainy quality to it Kalmar. More plz.

?Note I only look at the photos as they appear in the thread.?
maybe it is my screen, or something else, but mark's and pete's pics seem to look sharper. The crispness of the photos seems more, almost rendered, the lines seem straighter, the colours crisper. Is it me, is it the camera, or the upload software, am I imagining it? Sorry, I don't mean to insult anyone elses photos, but I just wondered if there was "physical" difference?

I don't know if there's a real difference, but here are the following factors that affect a lenses's sharpness:

Usually they have a 'sweet spot' at around f/5.6 - f/8, or sometimes even up to f/11. That's when everything is super sharp that you want to be in focus, nowt to do with depth of field, more to do with engineering. Conversely, when you open up the aperture to its limit it usually becomes a little softer. The 35mm f/1.8 I use is slightly softer when wide open, but sharpens considerably on f/2.2 and when you hit f/2.8 and higher really starts to look smart.

Diffraction - when you go for a very narrow aperture, around f/16+ say, although more of the picture becomes in focus, the sharpness suffers a little.

When zoomed in there is a loss of sharpness when photographing distant objects as there is more air between you and subject, and thus more atmosphere distortion/difraction/science thing.

Zooms are less sharp than primes. This is because they're engineered to do multiple things and so engineers have to make compromises to stay affordable, whilst primes are simpler to construct and so all the effort goes on that beautiful, beautiful glass.

Also, unlike Canon, Nikon applies no sharpening whatsoever when you shoot in RAW. So when you put your pics on the computer, it's usually wise to apply just a little touch of sharpening. As with every other camera, if you shoot JPEG Nikon applies a touch of sharpening - but what mental shoots JPEG, eh?

Nikons do sharpen in raw*, but if you load them into view NX rather than lightroom then that sharpening is removed.

My car and electric station pictures do look softer because it's a comparatively poor lens**, although the colours are good, outside of F8 it begins to suffer. If you look at this shot taken with the 35mm 1.8 at it's Original size then it's sharp as a tack.


Daisy profile black and white by Learnin' Curve, on Flickr


*D300 does, it has an entire menu dedicated to automatic raw processing (because if there is an opportunity for the D300 to have a menu bah gawd nikon will jump on it) not sure about the others but I would assume all the newer ones do as well.

** To be fair, it's a whole £50 second hand and I got it free, I wanted to test it because it's one that ken rockwell is in love with, my test results came back as expected - yet again Ken Rockwell is full of shit. Clearly it's a bargen, but it's not something I would buy over even the non-vr version of the 18-55 which you can probably pick up for the same price.

That's a beautiful dog shot.

PLEEEEEEASE tell me that's a euphemism for something. *consults internet*.

Either an "ugly ugly ugly" woman, or one who takes it up the arse.

THANK YOU INTERNET.

Yeah, love that dog shot Decca. That dog for Primeminister! All hail Primeminister Dog!

Nice grit on your shot, Kalmar, but how about a square crop and B&W? Photo full of colour noise? B&W it kids and watch it become grainy cool. Hopefully.

Love the lifeboat MarkG. Doubt I could get that with my prime 35mm lens!

Yet more from the drip-feed that was my 3 week America trip.




Such Great Heights

Big: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nervouspet ... /lightbox/





Is There Life On Mars?

Big: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nervouspet ... /lightbox/ (Recommended)

Blinking heck!
That really does look like a scene from some scifi extravaganza.

Thanks for your encouragement Pete. In fact that was only a snapshot taken for diagnosis purposes, not ART ones. I just thought it looked cool. And reminded me of the first Alien film, a bit. However, can't resist playing:

So Pete, you make all that noise about being intimidated by my landscape photography, then smugly sit on your laurels for a couple of weeks knowing full well that you've got stunners like that to roll out. You oik.

That second one is all kind of awesome

As I think I've mentioned previously, I seriously hope you're selling your photos, Pete. Because if any unscrupulous bastard comes across this thread, they'll all get nicked and sold for someone else's profit. Because they're awesome.

Shame there isn't a blushing dimlie. Your comments make me happy, thanks guys and gals! As for the descent one, I honestly couldn't see it for a while. That day was just so rewarding in how nature blessed me with just the right weather that I feel kind of like a dick whoring them out too quickly, hence the sitting. Also, with the Life on Mars one, that was honestly a slow burner for me. When I looked at it at home it disappointed me in that I felt it didn't deliver the full strangeness of what I saw and felt around me.

But then I might have been slowly gagging on the poisonous, thin brew that is the atmosphere of Mars, so what do I know?

I'm seriously mulling trying to sell stuff. Guess I should try and set up a website for myself first and then see how other people do it. And then, um, try doing it.

I'd love to get some decent landscape shots but it seems like you need to be in the right place at the right time and then not make a complete hash of it when you are. Generally I am finding myself starting to take fewer pictures when I go out just to take some piccies but whenever I'm out walking I just seem to take bazillions of pictures along the way instead of lurking around long enough or repositioning myself to try and get fewer decent ones. Must try and work on this.

I forgot, I did try my hand at some ACTION SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY when I went out with the new lens, I think I caught the drama, the passion and the intensity of the unfolding spectacle pretty well:

Must have had to crank the speed right up. Superbly caught.

That Sky

Top one is lovely, really nice.

I like how everyone comments on how alien it looks, but the first thing I thought was that looks fun/scary to hurtle down & I quite fancy a go at climbing that pinnacley ridge too

Flipping heck Pete! Spellbinding!

I've just spent hours editing great photographs I can't put online even though they include my own child because it's of a school sports day. Head saw me with a whacking great DSLR and made her move - Going to have to take my CF card and reader into school and manually transfer them over.

On the plus side whenever they put photos up on the walls or website by some strange coincidence it's always the children of goveners and mothers who help out who end up in the photos. Same goes for any art displays, The Girl has always been one of the ones left out. I resisted the temptation to do this myself so it's all group shots, took lots ended up with 15 after I had removed all the ones with children picking noses or with hands in underpants

so anyway...

[img]good%20photographs%20you%20can't%20see%20in%20case%20you%20are%20a%20pervert.jpg[/img]

Ugh, I hate the entire 'you might be a pervert taking photos of my kid jerking off and no matter that real ones obviously do that looking through children's catalogues' thing going on. It's a kid, in a jumper, what - are you afraid you're risking the essence of the kid's soul on the minute chance I might be putting my hand down my trousers while I look at it? Obviously it's not cool to snap away cheerfully at stranger's kids but this entire..

Gagh. Let's pick this up in another thread if we need to. One of the best portraits I ever took was a random one of some kid at a library event and I had to promise I'd never replicate it anywhere ever. Never mind it was just his head and arm. Grrrgh.

Can't decide between the middle one and the bottom one, Decca. Though they're all very nice. I think the lower ultimately. I like the toy-town feel.

Another one from the vaults on the ol' D40x:



Pumpkin Family Portrait

I'm half tempted to get them printed up myself you know, I have the feeling that they will end up printed on some shitty 20 year old inkjet in postcard size.

Erm, Pete. Sorry to say it man, but that pumpkin shot is a repeat

Or should I say 'rePete'?

The summer's rubbish for peering into space*, but you get to see things like this instead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud

It was taken bang on 1am btw. Look at the bigger version for some stars & more feathery cloud
*Too much humidity & it doesnae get fully dark up here for a few months.

Oh wow. Superb picture Wullie, and a New Thing to learn of

Not so! Different angle! But yeah, it is the same thing. Shall try harder. (Roots around...)

Really? Mucho apologias Senór!

Nay worries mate. I must be careful about subject regurgitation - I just love pumpkins! Anyway, I've been taking a lot of photos of randoms lately, especially down at Third Floor Photogallery. Here's one of a guy who was part of a fine bunch of folks I was chatting to during the Ben Roberts opening night there.



Blue T-shirt Dude

(I quite like the reflection in his glasses.)

Liking those clouds, Wullie. Almost look electrified. Great shot that.

Ah, bugger... by Learnin' Curve, on Flickr

Mmm, beautiful clouds there Wullie. You're a lucky man! I love that kind of atmosphere.

Went to Whitechapel Gallery recently to see a Paul Graham exhibition and couldn't resist shooting pics myself. I can't work out if this one is at all interesting or is in fact desperately boring. Only you, the Beexer, can decide...



At the Gallery

I like it.

It's a quiet picture in terms of colour and subject matter, but not boring. Nicely composed and gives you the feeling of queueing up to see the exhibit yourself.

I don't like it. Sorry Pete, but it holds no interest to me. There's nothing unusual to draw the eye and I'm not intrigued to know what they're looking at.

Sorry

My stats are telling me this photo is getting some attention, not sure why


the brush by Learnin' Curve, on Flickr

I kind of agree with this. If they weren't looking in a rather bored fashion at a grey wall with what appears to be a set of rules on, it might be a bit - I dunno, perkier?

The tone is dull but I find the picture interesting.

I think it's quite visually pleasing, in a subtle way. The colours of the neck scarf thing, and the soft focus on the further away girl.
But yes, I think it might be better if you could see part of a photo on the wall.

But then you'd loose the intrigue.

John Major likes this.

I like it because of the tones, the neck-scarf, and oddly precisely because of the grey light and empty feel.

Though obviously I have qualms, otherwise I wouldn't have opened up for the forum's opinion. So two for, two against. Interesting.

You'll also notice that the 2 naysayers are Canon fodders. just saying like.

The grey strip of wall is aligned perfectly with her head too.

It's certainly not my fave of yours but it's definitely an interesting shot.

It's very understated, but I like it.