Any Photographers with DSLR's Around ?

[weavis]

Try Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing

[Prairie Chicken]

I was able to upload the image to the CF gallery but copying the address doesn't seem to work for me. I've tried copying the url from Flickr & no joy.

I've resisted Photobucket in the past--if the image is already in CF it has got to be I've just not got the address right. :bang head:

One more time ...
& again

[weavis]

Taken with point and shoot. Slightly under exposed.




Light room...

[Coops]

Morning folks. Just got up and read these posts. The lady is still in bed, getting some shutter eye. Will see if I can get her to answer in person, using her fingers that is, later.

Coops.

[D&D]

We might 'second' Prairie Chicken's request for tips on how to better present images here. We too find only uploading small files through the attach function...?

Anyway, as it seems we're wondering well afield from marine images, here are a few snaps from our recent 'voyage' (air and land!) to China...

[FoxyLady]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Okay, it's about the picture of the building. I like it much, but it needs to be re-taken still

I really only have two points:

- There's something sticking up into the air from the roof, but it goes beyond the picture. This is irritating because now the viewer wants to know what it is and this is distracting. If it is not interesting at all, it can be erased with Lightroom or Photoshop. Pictures like this are refused on stock photography sites for this.

- The most prominent (is often closest to the camera) vertical feature must be vertical. The building is rotated to the left now. I know it isn't but lens distortion makes it look like that.
The best way to fix this is to use a tilt-shift lens. This lens is a must for those who do a lot of architectural photography and it can straighten it all out to how it is for real. For me, I could even afford one but don't want to carry yet another lens for this. So the second best way to address this is with lens correction algorithms during post processing. I do this with Lightroom and that works really well. So good that I can take a picture from my fisheye lens and straighten it to a regular ultra-wide angle lens in a second. You do need to have the lens correction file but those can be downloaded from the Internet if not already available in the default library.

The above is not meant as critical, just for readers who don't know this yet, to pick up the little I know of photography

My picture for today is a very macho Caracara:

Hello Jedi, Mrs Coops here

OK, thanks for the critique. To be honest I hadn't even noticed the thing sticking up. It was a bit of a rush job, was a quick snap as I had something I knew would be OK for this daily shot in the 365 challenge I am doing. Time was limited when I took it and also when I processed it so it was click, click, click, post and off to watch the footy

I quite like the wide angle distortion, which is why I used my wide angle lens (apart from the fact it was on my camera ), so wouldn't even consider straightening it.

I take photos for myself, not to make money, so any improvement would be for me, not stock photo sites or paying customers BUT.....we can all improve, and we all take crap shots at times

Coops just posts them. He doesn't ask me which ones I think are worthy of posting here

[FoxyLady]

Originally Posted by fishin4bogey

When the Mrs. is shooting macro, does she use extension tubes? Picked up the macro lens I wanted, still need practice, but it's an awesome lens. I hear a lot of people using extension tubes with their lenses also.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Hiya, Mrs Coops here

I don't use extension tubes. I have some, but have not tried them with my macro lens. I found it hard enough getting good pics with just the macro lens at first, as with such a narrow DOF, the slightest movement put everything out of focus.

I have found that you really need a flash with macro, even in sunlight. I don't have HSS flash, so fastest shutter speed I can sync flash to on my camera is 1/320, but with that and ISO at 400, I can set aperture up at 11 and higher to try to pull in as much DOF as possible. I'd ideally like faster shutter speeds to compensate for slight hand movements when taking macro shots but that means another flash, so I make do with what I have.

Much practice later and I now feel I have the macro mostly under control ( also had to learn to manual focus, auto focus is hopeless with macro)

[FoxyLady]

Originally Posted by Prairie Chicken

I have been wondering what program(s) Mrs. Coops is using for processing. I use ACR and Photoshop Elements and am happy with that combination although I sometimes wonder if Lightroom would be beneficial in addition to ACR. Any thoughts on that?

Jedi, although it's Mrs. Coop's work, I appreciate & can benefit from your explanations of why that antennae or whatever it is, is bothersome. I would have removed it, and likely the one to the right with the black object on top, but I couldn't have articulated why they bothered me other than I don't like superfluous objects in the image.

I would also like to know how you two, Coops & Jedi, are uploading images. The posting option for "Insert Image" requires a url address and my images reside on my Mac. I add images as attachments & they appear as thumbnails which need to be clicked on to be a reasonable size to view. I like your way better, but do I need a url to do so?

Hi there PC, Mrs Coops here

I mostly use ACR and PS to edit/process my photos. I have NIK sofware also and love the effects I can get from that. I have used LR in the past but find that I don't need it as well with PS, and I believe PS can do more than LR, but I am very much a learner when it comes to photo editing, especially the removal of unwanted objects

As for uploading, I load the images up to Photobucket and Coops knows how to attach them to here. Photobucket really degrades your photos, so I can't really recommend it, but it is easier than teaching the old dog new tricks

OK....I'm off back into my corner and will leave Coops to it again

[D&D]

Originally Posted by FoxyLady

I take photos for myself, not to make money, so any improvement would be for me, not stock photo sites or paying customers BUT.....we can all improve, and we all take crap shots at times

We agree completely...and very well said too!

[fishin4bogey]

Hello Foxy,

First your work is exquisite! I understand on the flash for the macro. I am going to order a Wimberley bracket for the set up I want along with a good strobe. Used the new macro lens last weekend. I was having fits with the auto focus " hunting" It will all take time and practice.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by FoxyLady

I take photos for myself, not to make money, so any improvement would be for me, not stock photo sites or paying customers BUT.....we can all improve, and we all take crap shots at times

We also don't make money with our hobby. The reason we use stock photography sites is to get the critique feedback from professionals which I think helps us improve ourselves. Besides technical issues like too much noise etc., they really look at composition issues, distracting features etc. There are also negatives attached to it, like the requirement to remove any brand names etc. on everything in the picture, no recognizable people without a signed model contract etc.

After the stock photography sites accept pictures, you still learn from which ones sell and which don't.

I'm not saying to work with these stock photography sites, just explaining the reasoning behind our choice to do so, plus it's nice to see when people actually pay something for a picture we took, to put on their website.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Prairie Chicken

Thanks Hud.

OK, let me try this.


Hmmm, a few tries to get the address correct & it... sort of worked.

I only see a small image and none at all with other posts. We upload all our images on a site made for that and then link the pictures here. We use smugmug.com which is a paid service but without ads or limits on number or size of the images. There are plenty of free sites too.

[fishin4bogey]

I spend entirely too much time on photography on the net. A bunch of pros and slackers like me, and it's all Canon equipment. I get far more ideas from there than any school could teach me.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[Prairie Chicken]

Yes Jedi, the thumbnail is what I see too. I think I uploaded the url from the CF gallery thumbnail where I uploaded the image to ... but I can't seem to find the right url address. I may keep trying for please forgive some tries on line.

Alternately, I thought the Flickr address would work ... but no joy. Maybe Hud will come back & offer some ideas.

[Coops]

A door somewhere.



Strike a light.


South Murwillumbah.



Coops.