General Photography Thread

[Alfonzo]

Some of my latest endeavors:









You can find the bigger sizes of these and others on my photostream here.

[nightstalker]

I'm not a professional by any means but I thought that I would share these photos that I took on my Hollywood vacation in September.

Seahorse at the Long Beach Aquarium


HP COS flying car at the WB Studio Tour - Hollywood


HP at the Forecourt of the Stars - Hollywood


Fireworks show over the Castle - Disneyland

[sllagnire]

I went to the cathedral of St. John the Devine this weekend. So huge. So pretty. Here it is.


I also had a few random pictures I took at an aquarium of jellyfish that I really like. Here they are.

[xraydude]

Snowy Egret shot at Avery Island, Louisiana last year. There is a huge colony of nesting Egrets there on the grounds, and the entire park is a wonderful place for photography.

[Neptune]

Here's a picture I shot of my backyard over the weekend.....

[Tiberius]

Originally Posted by Tiberius

Only had a few pics for the rule of thirds. For the next technique, I'd like to try fill flash. Fill flash is when you use the flash on a sunny day to reduce shadows. A common usage is with portraits - if the person's eyes are in shadow then the camera will leave that shadow dark in order to keep detail in the rest of the image. Turning on the flash will give a bit of light to put some detail back into those shadows, giving a much nicer looking photo.

I'll leave this exercise up for a few weeks to give everyone a chance to try it. Just remember that this technique doesn't just work with portraits - any subject that has a large contrast between the lit and shaded parts will benefit from it, provided that it's close enough for the flash to work!

Doesn't seem to be many people interested in trying this. If you are, try it out and post your pic.

[BelleSnowyOwl]

I think it would be good to start a thread just for the "photo of the week" thing, now that we have a whole section.

[kala_way]

some sort of contest could be fun! sorry I haven't posted a "thirds" pic, I have excuses but I won't bother.

I found this online and thought it was a very cool idea, maybe we could do something like this as a contest. What do you think?
28 Ways to Interpret a Photo

[Tiberius]

Yeah, a thread for this would be good. I'll go start a thread for it and give a linky.

Here it is! http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=113320

[mac_attack]

I LOVE to take pictures! The benefit of taking tons of pictures wherever I go is that one or two always turn out somewhat good...to me, at least. I uploaded like 16 pics to my photobucket (seems a lot, but I took over 500 and these are the ones that came out ok) so I'll post thumbnails here, if that's ok. Someone let me know if that many takes up too much space. Click the thumbnails to make them full-sized. (Not that I needed to tell you that...)

These pics were all taken on my vacation to Southern Utah in July. Let me know what you think! (The 4th picture in has Native American drawings on the stone wall...I didn't just take a picture of the wall. They are the three small, red-ish figures on the wall. The archaelogists think it may be a drawing of the Native American gods or a history record.)

[lovehedwig]

It's the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.
(And sorry for the bad positioning. You might have to turn your head a little.)
Only one picture for now. My pictures aren't very good.

[xraydude]

Originally Posted by lovehedwig

It's the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas.
(And sorry for the bad positioning. You might have to turn your head a little.)
Only one picture for now. My pictures aren't very good.

Your picture is fine. I like the lighting of the tower. You might want to rotate shots like that with your editing software before you upload to make it a little easier to view. Keep shooting and posting!

[mac_attack]

Originally Posted by siver

I just got a canon rebel xti a couple weeks ago. here a few of the pictures i have taken/had taken of me with it. using the 18-55 kit lens too. 3rd and 4th one are me, taken by friends, i took the rest.





and of course, all of them are heavily photoshopped, because thats how i roll. haha

Can someone help me out with something?? I'm trying to get a photo somewhat like this^^(at least what I think is the one above...it won't show up on my laptop for some reason...the one of the guy on the skateboard moving through the photo?) of my little sis dancing and frame it for her for Christmas. (She's a dance-aholic!) I want a picture of her twirling across an old, black and white stage in her skirt...and I want the whole pic to be in black and white except her skirt and headband, which will most likely be pink. Quite a bit, huh?!

I read upthread about how that pic was taken (holding down the thing before the subject enters, etc) and I know I'd have to photoshop it a bunch...my question is, can I do that with my camera??

I have an Olympus D-380 that was handed down from my dad, to my older sister, to my younger sister, before I finally got it. I've had it for 6 months and just barely figured how to turn off the flash...so...I'm kinda useless with cameras.

I'm fairly confident that I can do this, though, if someone can tell me how to do it on my camera. My dad knows photoshop and he said he'd teach me some stuff...then again, he also said he'd fix the brakes in my Blazer and hasn't yet, so I might need some help with that, too, later on.

If someone could give me a few tips or something, I'd be forever grateful. Really.

[xraydude]

Originally Posted by mac_attack

Can someone help me out with something?? I'm trying to get a photo somewhat like this^^(at least what I think is the one above...it won't show up on my laptop for some reason...the one of the guy on the skateboard moving through the photo?) of my little sis dancing and frame it for her for Christmas. (She's a dance-aholic!) I want a picture of her twirling across an old, black and white stage in her skirt...and I want the whole pic to be in black and white except her skirt and headband, which will most likely be pink. Quite a bit, huh?!

I read upthread about how that pic was taken (holding down the thing before the subject enters, etc) and I know I'd have to photoshop it a bunch...my question is, can I do that with my camera??

I have an Olympus D-380 that was handed down from my dad, to my older sister, to my younger sister, before I finally got it. I've had it for 6 months and just barely figured how to turn off the flash...so...I'm kinda useless with cameras.

I'm fairly confident that I can do this, though, if someone can tell me how to do it on my camera. My dad knows photoshop and he said he'd teach me some stuff...then again, he also said he'd fix the brakes in my Blazer and hasn't yet, so I might need some help with that, too, later on.

If someone could give me a few tips or something, I'd be forever grateful. Really.

Can't see the image you are referencing either. I assume it has some sort of motion blur effect? If so, with the camera you have, (if I remember right, the D-380 is a point-and-shoot 2mp, right?), your best bet would be to put all of the special effects into it through Photoshop. You can achieve motion blur effects through long shutter times and strobe lighting, but I don't think you have much play with that camera. You should, though, be able to get a good shot, then add the effects through Photoshop.

[Tiberius]

If you want to have a black and white photo with a bit of colour, the easiest way would be to shoot the photo in colour, and when it is in photoshop, duplicate the layer and make the top layer black and white. Then use a layer mask to allow the parts from the coloured version to show through.

[mac_attack]

Originally Posted by xraydude

Can't see the image you are referencing either. I assume it has some sort of motion blur effect? If so, with the camera you have, (if I remember right, the D-380 is a point-and-shoot 2mp, right?), your best bet would be to put all of the special effects into it through Photoshop. You can achieve motion blur effects through long shutter times and strobe lighting, but I don't think you have much play with that camera. You should, though, be able to get a good shot, then add the effects through Photoshop.

It's actually not so much motion blur as it is like...image cloning or something? I don't know any of these technical terms, sorry. Tiberius, do you happen to remember the picture? You commented on how the person did that:

it looks like several exposures were taken with the camera on burst mode (where it keeps taking photos for as long as the shutter release is held down), then combined into one in photoshop.

Kinda similar to a double exposure or multi-flash mode (although the elements that change in those techniques are partially transparent).

That's the kind of pic I'm going for. Can I do that with my little Olympus D-380 or will it work on a Panasonic DMC-FZ30?? My dad has that one, he might let me use it.

[xraydude]

Originally Posted by mac_attack

It's actually not so much motion blur as it is like...image cloning or something? I don't know any of these technical terms, sorry. Tiberius, do you happen to remember the picture? You commented on how the person did that:



That's the kind of pic I'm going for. Can I do that with my little Olympus D-380 or will it work on a Panasonic DMC-FZ30?? My dad has that one, he might let me use it.

From the quoted description of the shot, I think you can get that with the FZ30. It looks like that camera can do 2 or 3 fps burst mode. At full resolution, the specs for that camera say you can capture 9 images continuously in standard mode. So that would be 3 seconds of continuous shooting. If that is long enough to capture the full range of motion that you want your sister to make, then you are set. It also looks like you can shoot at 2 frames per second indefinitely, and if that is quick enough for the speed your sister is moving, then that would work too. Of course, if you are using flash, then all bets are off, since that will take longer to charge up. So I would say a key to your shots would be excellent lighting, so that you don't need flash, and can shoot fast enough shutter speeds to stop blurring. Probably the 'Sports' setting would be what you would use. Of course, I am basing all of this on the description of the type of shot you want, since I can't see it. This is all also based on you shooting her natural motion and speed. If you can get her to move very slow, then you can get more images for the range of motion of the shot. Also, although I did do action photography a LONG time ago, most of my shooting and post processing work is nature photography these days, so someone like Tiberius may have a much better idea or technique.

[Tiberius]

Mac Attack, it sounds like an HDR image, which is a combination of several images. I can't remember the picture though....

[nicolerork]

Chiodos
The Avalon - Hollywood, CA

[xraydude]

Originally Posted by nicolerork

Chiodos
The Avalon - Hollywood, CA

Excellent shot. I checked out your links, and you are doing some great work. I love old, abandoned buildings as well, although I tend to go for industrial settings. You should start your own thread.