A few years ago a fellow forum member posted a thread about how he had gone about photographing a particular landscape. He'd visited the place, taken notes, worked out where to shoot from, took light readings etc.etc. - then gone back the next day to take carefully formulated pictures. Being of the serendipity school of photography I'd have gone along with the camera and just tried various angles and settings as they occurred to me and as the light seemed to dictate on the day.
What's your approach - are you a careful planner - when you're off out for the day do you take every possible lens, filter and flash just in case? Do you travel light and just take things as they come? What's your general approach to taking pictures?
Snap, snap, snap then realise the ISO is wrong or the aperture, went to London last weekend in & out of museums etc always on the wrong settings. Went with minimal gear Sigma 24-70mm & canon 70-210 & I never used the second lens so I could have gone lighter. Maybe should have taken the flash for inside the museums but some places don't allow flash photography anyway.
A place to avoid if you go is Ripley's - expensive to get in & rubbish even the kids were underwhelmed, could have seen more interesting things in a local junk shop.
I think it all depends on the day, as light levels will changes within minutes sometimes. I once went out to take photos of the frost around dawn. As the sun rose I photographed the dawn but before I could take any photos of the frost, grey flat clouds came in and killed the light. I gave up and went home. :(
What I do tend to do is notice what will make a great photo, when the conditions are right, and will return there later to take the photo. ;D
i can't even plan when i'm going out with the camera let alone what the light conditions are, as i only have 3 lenses i normally take them all, i don't have any filter's so i don't take any ;D
like bones i often on the wrong settings so i mostly take a couple of shots on auto and then have a play with the manual settings and then a large slice of hope pie is needed.
Quote from: alan1572 on July 31, 2009, 11:16:38 AM
i can't even plan when i'm going out with the camera let alone what the light conditions are, as i only have 3 lenses i normally take them all, i don't have any filter's so i don't take any ;D
like bones i often on the wrong settings so i mostly take a couple of shots on auto and then have a play with the manual settings and then a large slice of hope pie is needed.
We should have the wrong settings club! cos I am for ever doing it especially to get a rushed shot only to find its eye blinkingly bright or eye peering dark :-[
Hello from Windy Sheffy.
Now then,i usualy pitch up,put the 12 tonne bag down and just sit for 15 mins looking around and thinking,,,,,no set formula just react to whats going on.Can ofcourse be quite the opposite if things are changing quickly,ie the dragon fly is flitting about or the rain is imminent(usualy is round here).
As for wrong settings club,ermm,i once did a whole days shoot around Edale,which involved some sharp uphill walking,and when i got home,id left the damn camera on the previous nights rock show settings,including iso 1600,,,,i was REALLY chuffed about that !
Heres one for you all,who can come with a good Mnemomic for making sure ALL settings are checked at the start of a shoot ??
Shine On
Quote from: irv_b on July 31, 2009, 05:19:03 PM
Quote from: alan1572 on July 31, 2009, 11:16:38 AM
i can't even plan when i'm going out with the camera let alone what the light conditions are, as i only have 3 lenses i normally take them all, i don't have any filter's so i don't take any ;D
like bones i often on the wrong settings so i mostly take a couple of shots on auto and then have a play with the manual settings and then a large slice of hope pie is needed.
We should have the wrong settings club! cos I am for ever doing it especially to get a rushed shot only to find its eye blinkingly bright or eye peering dark :-[
looks like bill wants in ;D
i won't mention the time i left the memory card in thepc and spent the day snapping HMS Lusty in liverpool, lucky i could go back the next day
I'm still not sure how I managed to change my D90 from large/fine JPEG to small/fine JPEG half way through the afternoon at a dog show...took a while to realise why the top lcd showed so many shots left. And there was the time I shot the entire day with my Fuji S5 on 'Velvia' setting - saturated colours were'nt in it!
I aggree with Old Boy about going back to something you have seen when the light and conditions are suitable for the shot you want to create. I once went back to some telephone boxes in the dark & rain to get the right atmosphere. People kept looking at me as if I was mad but it has turned out to be my best seller to date. :legit:
If I do shots for work, I know that I generally need wide - due to mostly being in plantrooms, so its the 5D, 17-40 and the flash gun.
If I shoot for myself, then I tend to take most of my kit, though I will select lenses - ie generally wide or generally long.
As for going to places for a particular light - only done that really in the Lakes when I went with a group of us from DPG and did a sun rise.
And to carry on the theme of how you approach your hobby, what's your average shutter count? I know it varies a lot according to subject but are you of the 'better take just a few more just in case' school or the more measured 'get it right first time' type? Most shots I've taken at an event this year was the two day agility show where I took around 4,000 shots mostly on the D90 - that's when a D300 seemed like a good idea!
Now then,,
Funny one this,at a Gig i,ll easily take 250 shots on each of my 2 cameras in 2.5 hrs,,,,,then again,if i,m wandering about the countryside its quite the opposite,the waterfall last weekend i only did 50 odd shots in 2 hours,to be honest i much prefer the slow easy approach,at one Athletics event i had the d300 on continuous,and took millions of shots,wading through them after was a real pain,,,,,,imagine all of this in the days of film !!
Shine On
Again, if I'm at work, I'm no generally looking for artistic shots just record ones - but at the end I do go for the arty type. But even so, may only take 20-30 shots in a day.
Out at the wildlife center the other week, I took ~2500 - and most motor sport events I take a similar number in a day. Most I've done was for the Rally of the Midlands last year, when I took nearly 4000 - and on a single battery charge too!
Quote from: greypoint on August 01, 2009, 11:57:09 AM
And to carry on the theme of how you approach your hobby, what's your average shutter count? I know it varies a lot according to subject but are you of the 'better take just a few more just in case' school or the more measured 'get it right first time' type? Most shots I've taken at an event this year was the two day agility show where I took around 4,000 shots mostly on the D90 - that's when a D300 seemed like a good idea!
It depends on what I'm shooting but usually have the camera set to take two shots at a time. With butterflies or flying birds, like Swifts or Swallows, usually take a burst of four or five shots, as you haven't got time to press the shutter in single shots. This makes sure I have a few that are spot on. The most I've taken in a day is just over 800 spread over about eight hours. ;D
When I'm out for a day's general bird/nature/whatever turns up type photography I find what happens is I tend to take a number of shots just for the sake of it early on - especially if the weather and light are good - just in case nothing much turns up later. I think that's why I end up with so many shots at the end of the day!
If its burst speed, then I tend to stick to low speed - 6fps - I am quick enough to release after just 1 shot, but have the burst available if needed.
Occasionally I use the full 10fps, sometimes just for the hell of it, but sometimes for good reason! I took a 10fps burst of a cannon being fired last year - and got everything from the fuse being lit to the explosion!
i like to really explore a place and look for scenes to take both wide and right down to macro level. i make use of the available light on the day and will sometimes walk round an area for a number of hours so i end up with different lighting conditions as the sun moves round.
i am trying to limit the number of pictures that i take as the gigabytes are mounting up and i am onto my second external hard drive (1tb)
now i have a larger viewing screen on my D80 i find that i delete more pictures on the camera than i do on the laptop.
Quote from: anglefire on August 01, 2009, 04:23:13 PM
If its burst speed, then I tend to stick to low speed - 6fps - I am quick enough to release after just 1 shot, but have the burst available if needed.
Occasionally I use the full 10fps, sometimes just for the hell of it, but sometimes for good reason! I took a 10fps burst of a cannon being fired last year - and got everything from the fuse being lit to the explosion!
Just when you think you're doing well with 6fps someone has to come along and beat it ::) :2funny:
Don't mention EHD's - I've managed to distroy about 3 - I had WD 1Tb NAS - which was not very fast, despite being 1Gb network - but the HD went and is now dead. I've had a couple of USB drives die on me. I now have a Qnap 1Tb NAS - which is stunning - not cheap - but is a proper 1Gb NAS - with enough computing power to run itself - it also acts as a Itunes server - so I can listen to any tune anyware in the house via a shared library.
But having had a devil of a job to restore all my images from the WD drive before it totally died on me, I also back the NAS drive to a 1Tb USB - this is done by the NAS drive itself - it has 3USB ports and a SATA port - I might get a SATA EHD to use that to back up the NAS, then use the 1Tb (Buffalo) EHD to back up my Mac Laptop as a time machine drive.
Quote from: greypoint on August 01, 2009, 06:52:59 PM
Quote from: anglefire on August 01, 2009, 04:23:13 PM
If its burst speed, then I tend to stick to low speed - 6fps - I am quick enough to release after just 1 shot, but have the burst available if needed.
Occasionally I use the full 10fps, sometimes just for the hell of it, but sometimes for good reason! I took a 10fps burst of a cannon being fired last year - and got everything from the fuse being lit to the explosion!
Just when you think you're doing well with 6fps someone has to come along and beat it ::) :2funny:
Better not mention the 11fps the D3 can do then! ::)
QuoteBetter not mention the 11fps the D3 can do then!
Yeah, but that's in cheat mode! Don't count! Cos someone will mention a pentax that does loads of FPS.
11 fps and every possible focal length covered......hmmmm ;D
Every focal length but only half as many pixels! :)
Quote from: anglefire on August 01, 2009, 09:46:18 PM
Every focal length but only half as many pixels! :)
It's not the number of pixels that matters but how they are used! :2funny:
Which is why I'll stick to me Canon Pixies. :tup:
And so to the next part JPEG or RAW or a mixture of the two. I think I know the answer as most people seem to prefer RAW and processing on the PC. But do you have a use for camera taken JPEGS? Should'nt a camera be capable of producing good JPEGS? And as a further ancillary point - do you ever shoot in b/w mode or do you always covert afterwards? Do you enjoy working on your photos when you've uploaded them or is it a bit of a chore that you do because the results are worth it?
Quote from: anglefire on August 01, 2009, 09:43:04 PM
QuoteBetter not mention the 11fps the D3 can do then!
Yeah, but that's in cheat mode! Don't count! Cos someone will mention a pentax that does loads of FPS.
All right I'll mention it - 21-23 FPS, but only in low res jpeg and with the mirror permanently up.
I almost always shoot RAW + jpeg. Often the jpeg is fine for what I want to achieve, but if it isn't then there is always the RAW to fall back on.
When shooting for a mono image I always convert afterwards. There is so much more control with software and a full sized screen.
I like to 'develop' my pictures in the digital darkroom, but not as much as I like drinking red wine.
Quote from: anglefire on August 01, 2009, 09:46:18 PM
Every focal length but only half as many pixels! :)
Yeah but they are 5 million
really good pixels. If I was organised I would drag out some crop shots I took the other week. IIRC they looked pretty good but I can't honestly remember why I was shooting crop.... (and remembering why I shot it would be first step to finding it).
Back to the original question....sometimes I plan and sometimes I just make it up as I go along. Here's one that I planned for about a week....
(http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_ryan/filechute/JP_184432_57184442.jpg)
I'd spotted the location on a recce a week before and planned everything about that shot right down to what time of day I'd shoot it (IIRC we changed the time of the first dance slightly to accommodate it) and how I'd light it (go on...have a guess).
This one was spur of the moment.
(http://homepage.mac.com/jonathan_ryan/filechute/TP__192203_75.jpg)
I knew there was a chance of a reasonable sunset but the rain kicked up at the wrong moment. The chip van was slow cooking the wedding breakfast (really) and I looked and saw enough light in the sky to have a stab at something cool. "Hey come over here..." and in about 15 seconds flat I had it posed and shot.
As for burst mode....hardly ever use it. I'll shoot 2 or at most 3 shots on a burst. And the D3 is still pushing 6 figures on the frame count.
JPEGs? Yeah I always shoot kids in the studio on jpeg because it's so much faster to edit. If I did adults in a studio I'd shoot jpeg too - there's really no need to shoot raw when you have control over everything. Oh and sports too - always on jpeg because sports are pretty easy. And I don't get paid for it ;)
I also sometimes plan and sometimes don't. I always take a shed load of pictures - a few at least of every shot - just in case. evene when doing landscapes I bracket the shots. I sometimes do jpeg and RAW but mostly RAW only (I need the latitude for when I get the exposure a bit wrong (again... >:().
Jonathan: the artificial light in your picture seems to be coming from a source behind the man and slightly towards the camera - maybe something like a flash held high by a human lightstand at the end of the path/pool on the left hand side just after those plants? But that's almost certainly too easy. Enlighten us. :2funny:
Nice pics BTW.
Quote from: Eileen on August 03, 2009, 07:32:54 PM
something like a flash held high by a human lightstand at the end of the path/pool on the left hand side just after those plants? But that's almost certainly too easy.
Nah - after a week's thinking about it, simple worked. The plants on the left give it away.
There are only 3 tricks going on here:
1. Time of day. This wouldn't work during the main portraits because the sun was too high. Not only is that more light to overpower but the reflection wouldn't work. I had to wait until the sun had dropped enough to give me a shot at reflections but was still lighting up the general scene. Exif says it was about 18:45. Sunset that day was about 20:00.
2. Supplementary lighting. Even an hour before sunset an ambient exposure would be something like ISO 100 / 1/125 f11 ish. To give it a bit more richness I wanted to drop half a stop off ambient and fill. That means getting quite a lot of light on them for even a marginal increase in brightness. The closest position you can put the lights is about 20 feet away. Inverse square law says "what??? are you crazy?". It took 2,400 w/s of flash held just out of frame -as you say on the left at the end of the bridge just enough off square to light th shadow between them.. That's the equivalent of 6 average studio heads. Looking back I could have flagged them to reduce the spill on the foliage.
3. The fountain. I wanted movement in the water but had to shoot at 1/125. I'll leave that one as an exercise for the reader.....
As it happens I'm in a small amount of trouble over this picture. A couple of mags have run it and the venue want it for their advertising. Unfortunately, a key part was hiding the sign saying that the bridge is extremely dangerous and you must on no account walk on it..........
And having taken your photos either by design or accident, processed and played around with them, what next? Do most disappear into the depths of your hard drive - do you print everything you like? I keep meaning to get a load of prints done around 8 x 10 in size [i've got a load of mounts] and making a proper display - but never seem to get round to it.
Well as someone who can walk across a room and forget why, planning does me no good. I forget the plan. If I'm lucky, I'll see someplace interesting on a Sat and remember to go back on the Sun. Otherwise, I might remember a place a year after I was there. Worse, I'll remember I planned to return to a place but not remember why. Mostly I just hit the road go in a general direction and hope I come across something interesting.
I have gone the whole hog and now print, mount, frame and sell from our local market and other local outlets. If you are going to print your pictures I would first recommend you get a quality printer. I learned this to my cost when I first applied to the RPS ( I felt a complete D..k ) what you see on the computer as a excellent shot can look completely different in print. If anyone is interested, what you eventually learn from the RPS is to make a good final print. :legit:
Most of the stuff I do actually get printed is for other people, and I also use my dog stuff to make things like cards, notebooks, keyrings fridge magnets etc. for our charity - I so agree with the comment about what you see on the screen not always being what you get in a print. If I'm having any big prints done by an online printer I generally get some 6 x 4s done first so I can adjust before wasting money on the large size.
The terrible thing is I rarely print anything. I've got a few of my shots up in the reception building where I work as they're always after suitable images and they print them pretty well but once they're filed away on my hard drive they tend to sit there gathering... well, not dust but you know what I mean!
I've tried printing at home before and I've got a good printer but the prints always come out darker than I expect. Given the I expect them to be darker than on screen as it's subtractive light rather than additive light they come out really rather dark. I've struggled around with printer profiles, letting CS3 control colour spaces and post-scripting and I never get a print to come out as I'd like so I give up and don't print! :(
Just out of intrest how many pics have you guys printed (or thought good enough even if you haven't yet) out just to hang on your wall for your own pleasure over the last year or so because there are some fabulous images posted here
Myself - maybe three not that I have had them printed!
Quote from: irv_b on August 05, 2009, 10:03:36 AM
Just out of intrest how many pics have you guys printed (or thought good enough even if you haven't yet) out just to hang on your wall for your own pleasure over the last year or so because there are some fabulous images posted here
Myself - maybe three not that I have had them printed!
Irv, I have my own mrs Bucket who does not like clutter in her house so we only have one portrait of each family member in the dining room, done some for the mother in law of all her grandchildren together which were printed & framed for mothers day and now hang in her front room. Maybe 3 or 4 I would like to see on the wall if I was allowed.
Simon
I've got about a dozen on the walls of the house in various places. Not allowed any big ones though as (and it sounds like it's a girl thing) my better half prefers blank walls to pictures or paintings. Although I did have to put my foot down over my Pre-Raphaelite prints . .
I hate blank walls! Tend to paint everywhere white to give a plain backdrop to all my pictures - what I really want to do is to swap the existing pictures some of which are mine to a wall with a display of some of my own favourites - just never seem to get round to it!
Quote from: Chris P on August 05, 2009, 08:34:09 AM
The terrible thing is I rarely print anything. I've got a few of my shots up in the reception building where I work as they're always after suitable images and they print them pretty well but once they're filed away on my hard drive they tend to sit there gathering... well, not dust but you know what I mean!
I've tried printing at home before and I've got a good printer but the prints always come out darker than I expect. Given the I expect them to be darker than on screen as it's subtractive light rather than additive light they come out really rather dark. I've struggled around with printer profiles, letting CS3 control colour spaces and post-scripting and I never get a print to come out as I'd like so I give up and don't print! :(
I print a good deal, but have only one picture of my own actually on my walls. Like others, I keep meaning to get some framed but haven't quite got get round to it.
Chris: I also have a good printer and despite a fully calibrated workflow was having some problems with dark images (calibration made the colours right but didn't change the darkness). Someone told me that they used a hue/saturation layer for their prints, increasing saturation and lightness. I have tried it and it works really well. Generally a small increase is sufficient - around 5-7% depending on your printer. For some very dark or saturated images a slightly larger increase helps. It makes a huge difference - the pictures are now much closer to the screen in tonal terms.
Quote from: Eileen on August 05, 2009, 06:42:48 PM
Chris: I also have a good printer and despite a fully calibrated workflow was having some problems with dark images (calibration made the colours right but didn't change the darkness). Someone told me that they used a hue/saturation layer for their prints, increasing saturation and lightness. I have tried it and it works really well. Generally a small increase is sufficient - around 5-7% depending on your printer. For some very dark or saturated images a slightly larger increase helps. It makes a huge difference - the pictures are now much closer to the screen in tonal terms.
Cheers Eileen :idea:, I'll give that a go and see how it comes out. I don't really know why I haven't already tried it. I suppose that when I first started I naively assumed it would be quite straight forward (I know better now!) and had no concept of additive or subtractive colours etc. I think I just gave up!
I'll give it a go later and let you know how I get on!
Quote from: irv_b on August 05, 2009, 10:03:36 AM
Just out of intrest how many pics have you guys printed (or thought good enough even if you haven't yet) out just to hang on your wall for your own pleasure over the last year or so because there are some fabulous images posted here
Myself - maybe three not that I have had them printed!
Um, in the past 12 months?
1. It was a snap of a new nephew printed 6X4 and shoved in a desktop frame.
I print a lot more for clients and probably print about half a dozen a week in the season to hang in the gallery (it has a very fast turnover - yes, I throw away most of what I print...).
Lately I've started using a new pro lab that do the most amazing work and have started ordering fine art prints just for the feel of the paper. But I haven't framed any yet. They are more for handing to paper geeks.