Ultimate Photography thread.

[Garrett_T25]

I know there's a fair few keen photographers on here and thought it would be good if there was one central place to learn. I had a quick search but couldn't find anything similar.

So, if there's something you want to know, advice about kit, photography techniques, or you want to show off your best pictures and maybe have them critiqued on how to improve, post away! (Try to stick to posting your own work only though, unless you want to try and establish how something is done).

I'll start off by posting up a few recently-taken pics.

[spice_weazle]

Nice pics.

I only have a basic DSLR, Canon EOS 1100D, so dont expect great pics like yours but Im wanting to try and improve the images I take.

I took some pictures at our local car meet the other weekend and they are very poor TBH. I got loads of glare on the car bodies even though the light levels where poor. Ive brought a polarising filter to cut down on the glare, not had chance to use it properly yet but have noticed that its very dark so will need a lot of compensation, but do you have any other tips?

Here are a few of the pics.

The first looks over exposed to me.





I can never seem to get the depth of field correct.



Any tips/advice would me massively appreciated.

[Delboy]

This is a great idea for a thread

I'll post up a couple of mine when I can, I have a Sony A200 and its my first DSLR, I spent a long time getting used to the settings and now moving on to wanting to learn more about advanced techniques/better composition etc.

I think my favourite kind of photography at the moment is more natural scenes, pictures of people or animals just doing what they do or at an event or something but spontaneous rather than posed. I like the whole 'capturing a moment' thing. Love the white tigers in the first post

I need to invest in a tripod as I also want to experiment with HDR and nightscape/long exposure stuff.

Bizarrely I've not photographed many cars yet!

[TheBigShow]

I need to invest in a tripod as I also want to experiment with HDR and nightscape/long exposure stuff.

Long exposure/night/creative photography are my favourite.

Get yourselfs a Flickr account. See mine in my signature.
I run a modified canon 400d, and st most events can be found geeking out with Cornwall doing night time photos of people's cars. Decembers photo in this years calendar was mine of nismo spirits car.

Haven't had as much time of late to get out and about with the camera.
If you really want to learn more go over to talk photography forum, it's really good. Loads of guides etc.

At the moment I'm trying to improve my panning skills, and my general eye for a good photo. Something I struggle with as I'm not a particulary arty/creative person.

[Garrett_T25]

Spice - Glad you like the pics! To be honest with you, there's nothing in those images you couldn't achieve on your camera. While I do use some top kit, it only really comes into its own with hand-held low-light stuff.

The easiest way to tell whether a shot is exposed correctly is to look at the histogram on the back of your camera:



It's a graphical representation of your exposure, showing the tones from shadow (left), mid-tones (middle) and highlights (right). This shows exactly what your sensor has seen in a given shot, with 'spikes' at either end denoting 'clipped' tones. Generally, a 'correctly' exposed shot will hold most information around the mid-tones area, and where possible will not clip tones on either end. It's worth becoming familiar with the histogram as the image preview isn't necessarily accurate.

Most editing programmes will show it too, and using 'levels' in photoshop is directly adjusting this:



Another to show 'clipped' highlights. These are areas which hold no information and you can see the 'spike' on the right hand side of the histogram.


Looking at your shots, they don't look over-exposed, although they do look like they could do with some basic processing (levels/curves, sharpening).

Ive brought a polarising filter to cut down on the glare, not had chance to use it properly yet but have noticed that its very dark so will need a lot of compensation

A polarising filter is a seemingly-magic piece of kit when used properly. However, as you've noticed, because it works by eliminating half of the light entering the lens, you'll have to compensate by adjusting your exposure by one stop. It's also a great thing to use when photographing a water reflection.



Delboy, if there's anything in particular I can help with, feel free to ask. I'm working on compiling a tutorial book together so any questions are helpful to help me gauge what people want/need to learn.

If you really want to learn more go over to talk photography forum

Although I have an account on there and post fairly regularly, I think it has lost its way and is in danger of going down the Pistonheads route. There is some talent on there, but there is also constant sniping and one-upmanship.

[Chriscooke]

Polarising filters look like a good investment. What should you look for when buying?

What's the filter that allows you to use very low shutter speeds in bright daylight allowing you to capture people's movement at car shows?

I definitely need to work on my panning skills also as currently I have none.

[Garrett_T25]

There's nothing really to them, so you don't have much to look for. I'd always buy a circular polarising filter as they're a bit more useful (giving you control of which plane the light is omitted from). Personal recommendation is Hoya, although they cost a little more.

The filters you're referring to are 'Neutral Density' (ND) filters, and come in various depths. You can stack multiple filters, too (I have three ND4s). You can also hold welders glass in front of the lens if you don't want the expense of buying the filters.

Panning is essentially just practice, there's nothing too involved with the technique. I think people get put off by either starting too slowly, or by their relative hit rate (on a good pan, you might get one good shot in ten, if at all).

[spice_weazle]

Nice one for the help. Ive just set up the camera to show the histogram so will get into the habit of using it. I have photoshop elements11 but TBH Im pretty baffled by it at the moment.

@ Delboy and TheBigShow. Low light/night longer exposure stuff is what Id love to be able to do. The first image of T25's is the sort of thing I aspire to, not necessarily with cars though, Im pretty much into taking pictures of anything.

[tippers]

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

I'm really into my photography and will be following a BDC team this year.

I'm confident with panning shots and basic composition but I'm always looking to improve.

Some of my stuff from last season is on my page below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/SMIDS...ref=ts&fref=ts

[Garrett_T25]

Spice - No problem

Tippers, some good stuff on there. Which BDC team will you be following?

I forgot to say, feel free to post up your FlickR/Bookface/Website URLs in here if you want others to browse your work

Mine is here:

Facebook (Most up to date stuff)

FlickR (Not something I use very often)

Main page (Needs updating)

[McRearout]

Cool thread
Recent picture of my friends Mondeo:


An ex-asylum near my home:


some HDR Urbex:


ND Grad Filter:


And a recent one of my ugly head and pretty wife:

[Dare]

I tried HDR photography for the first time yesterday, wasn't thinking about composition or anything on this just purely on whether I could put together the different exposures. Now I know I can do it i'll go deeper into making some better images but does anyone have some advice on how I could have corrected the top left of this (there's some strange colouring on the lampost and house as well as the sky).



My Flickr

[McRearout]

HDR is a funny business.
What programme are you using?

The strength is set too high for a start and that's why you're getting the haloing and odd colours.
Try toning it down a bit and then working upwards. You can redo the sky using g layering techniques but it could be time consuming.
Too much contrast can work against HDR shots, especially with back lit subjects.

[Dare]

HDR is a funny business.
What programme are you using?

The strength is set too high for a start and that's why you're getting the haloing and odd colours.
Try toning it down a bit and then working upwards. You can redo the sky using g layering techniques but it could be time consuming.
Too much contrast can work against HDR shots, especially with back lit subjects.

Thanks for the advice, really appreciate it.
I'm a patron of Photoshop so used the HDR function within that, I did play around with the different options but as it was my first time I was moving the sliders without particularly knowing what they were adjusting and just got it to a point where I liked the look. I suppose I could try and fade in some of those house edges and the sky from another layer using one of the stock photographs, just wondered if it was something that can be fixed in the HDR process.

Also I used 12 different exposures for this, is that too much/too little?

[McRearout]

All my HDR work is done with just 3 RAW shots. It either works or it doesn't. I use Photomatix Pro, then Lightroom and then finish in Photoshop.
There are some useful Photoshop HDR guides on youtube, but I cant get on with it in CS5.

I try to do HDR very subtly these days and sometimes I'm just lazy and use Topaz instead. It's a great sharpening plug-in for Photoshop.

[Garrett_T25]

How many shots did you merge for the HDR and how were they bracketed in terms of exposure? If you're happy with everything apart from the saturation in that area, to be honest the easiest way would be to overlay some graduated colour on the sky.

[McRearout]

I take it back, the Asylum shot above is a 9-shot HDR at 1/2 stops. I try to keep away from the extremes (EV +3, -3) when shooting HDR.
The problem I have with HDR is the noise it can produce and sometimes odd colour casts, hence the reason that shot is now B&W

[McRearout]

Anyone heard of the Rogue Flashbender?

Probably the best bit of kit in my bag and it only cost £25.
I tried stofens for a while and didn't like them, but this works excellently, although it can look a bit silly attached to the camera.
It is great for wireless flash work though:

and

[Dare]

How many shots did you merge for the HDR and how were they bracketed in terms of exposure? If you're happy with everything apart from the saturation in that area, to be honest the easiest way would be to overlay some graduated colour on the sky.

To be honest when I took the shots I just kept moving the exposure adjustment 2 settings 'up' each time so went from a photo that was pretty much all white to nearly full dark which worked out at 12 different exposures, the only thing I knew about HDR before this was that you needed multiple exposures so that was the process I quickly thought up.
I love your Challenger photo, how did you manage to include the headlights like that without it darkening the rest of the image? I know that if I took that all you'd see is the headlights and nothing else...

[McRearout]

Does your camera have an 'exposure bracketing' mode? You can set 3 EV points and it will do it automatically. Use your remote, or failing that use the timer.
I also try to use 'Mirror Lock-Up' where possible.