Perpetual Photography Thread

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:51 am

Really digging that first one especially, Grimwar.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:36 pm

I'm finally starting to like some of my strobist style use of flash. Here's one of my niece/god-daughter at her 3rd birthday with the strobe positioned slightly off cam to the right with a bounce card to throw some light forward while still bouncing off the ceiling,

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:41 pm

Absolutely love that shot, soup. It's like the sky and the earth are one ...lots of chaos and similar shapes/color/lighting in both. Love it.

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 8:12 pm

Soup, I thought that was another of Enough's shots. That's high praise.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:07 am

That's a beautiful shot, Enough. Worthy of being on a high dollar greeting card.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:46 am

Here are a couple chickadees, shot through a window. All the flying shots were blurry as it's a bit overcast and rainy today. Also I could use a tripod.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:18 am

What lens were you using, Austin? I tried a bunch of bird shots last week with my old non-VR 70-200mm and was really disappointed with the results.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:22 am

wonderpug wrote:What lens were you using, Austin? I tried a bunch of bird shots last week with my old non-VR 70-200mm and was really disappointed with the results.

It's a Nikkor 55-200 that I bought with my camera. Not a VR though; I wish I had spent the extra $50 or whatever it would have been though. My birthday is in May though.

I should note that I wasn't that far from the birdies. They were on my kids' playhouse on our deck and I was at the windows on the door out to the deck.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 1:34 pm

On Sunday a good friend of mine had a CD release party at a local club to celebrate his debut album. (Bill Fagley's You Don't Care, now available at CD Baby, or digitally at Amazon, iTunes, or other digital music distributors!)

Anyway, I played photographer for the evening and gave my D90 and 50mm f/1.4 a brutal workout in a combination of low general lighting and brightish stage spotlights. Here's some of my favorites from the shoot:

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:02 pm

Cool, wonderpug.

zinckiwi · Post by **zinckiwi** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:30 pm

3# is fantastic. I'd crop and rotate ever so slightly just to tighten up the frame a tad and also get rid of the ear on the bottom left; once that's gone it won't so obviously be a face.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:57 pm

zinckiwi wrote:3# is fantastic. I'd crop and rotate ever so slightly just to tighten up the frame a tad and also get rid of the ear on the bottom left; once that's gone it won't so obviously be a face.

Good advice. I have a bad habit of sitting on my photos after a shoot and never getting them off my hard drive and out to interested friends and family, so these just had a quick sharpening before upload. When I get some more time (so, never) I'll do another pass for cropping like your suggestion and to take a shot at rescuing the drummer from his dark dreary corner in the wide shots of the stage.

This was also my first time shooting RAW. I had previously thought for my needs it wasn't worth the extra file size and JPEG step, but after this shoot I think I might be addicted to the power. I had the white balance set extremely cool to combat the lighting in the club, but when I switched the flash on for a couple crowd shots and forgot to reset the white balance they turned out like smurfs. With RAW I was able to easily turn them human again in post-processing.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 5:53 pm

We spent some time in Old Salem, in Winston Salem today. I wish I brought my other lens as I only had my zoom with me. Makes getting wider shots a little difficult when you have to walk across the street to get them.

This first one I wanted to focus on the twisted branches in the foreground against the ladders in the background. I messed with the picture a bit trying to draw more detail to the branches and put less direct focus on the background. Not really sure how to do that though.

Does this thing look ready for eating or what?

Sectoid · Post by **Sectoid** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:12 pm

Austin wrote:This first one I wanted to focus on the twisted branches in the foreground against the ladders in the background. I messed with the picture a bit trying to draw more detail to the branches and put less direct focus on the background. Not really sure how to do that though.

Blur the background, not the branches.

I like the last shot, Austin. That doorway looks like a slice of bread. I would have cropped and rotated it a little to get better vertical lines, though.

We seem to be on a bird kick here. I shot some ducks yesterday, here's my favorite:

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:15 pm

Speaking of a bird kick...

From a few days ago,

and from earlier today:

wire · Post by **wire** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:17 am

Ah...nice to see this thread alive and kicking again. Great photos everyone!

Sectoid · Post by **Sectoid** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:23 am

Well, it is spring and we all eventually come out of our hide-y holes...

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:33 am

I have no idea why I am so pleased with this shot, but I am.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:52 pm

Bump for spring weather and a couple of spring shots.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:31 pm

Nikon announces what could be my ideal street photography run and gun cam, the D5000! The key features for this use that I see are the diminutive size, articulating LCD (finally!) + live view for shooting from the hip, "quiet mode", video (in case news happens while on the street) and basically the same sensor quality/size as the D300/D90. Get yourself an afs 50 1.4 and the new 35 afs and bingo what a great street cam. Or I might substitute the 16-85 VR. Now just to sell some photographs to pay for it, heh. Nikon also announced the AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm F3.5-4.5G ED, right after I bought my 11-16 Tokina. But actually I already saw this lens rumored when I bought mine, I chose the Tokie for the f/2.8 more than anything else since I dig night photography so much.

And to keep this thread on track I give you my latest composite constructed from two images I shot this last weekend at an open space area near where I live (yes the sun was really like that, probably one of the best head on shots of it I've taken of it):

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:42 pm

Very fun composite, I like it.

Is the lowest duck in the flock the only female?

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:55 pm

That's a helluva attention-getter!

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:48 pm

Unagi wrote:Very fun composite, I like it.

Is the lowest duck in the flock the only female?

Thanks! And you are correct, that is the lone female. For whatever reason I seem to see this a lot with groups of waterfowl in flight. I've not noticed it with N. Shovelers until this photo, but last year I took oodles of photos of Mallards with all males and one female such as this:

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:04 pm

Mountain Climbing

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:14 pm

Enough wrote:For whatever reason I seem to see this a lot with groups of waterfowl in flight. I've not noticed it with N. Shovelers until this photo, but last year I took oodles of photos of Mallards with all males and one female

I am wondering if these males are basically harassing the lone female, trying to earn her attention, etc.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:28 pm

love that last one Unagi. Excellent.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 11:47 pm

My new favorite shot:

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:26 am

Nice shot, Malificent. I like it a lot.

Sectoid · Post by **Sectoid** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:45 am

Nice, Malificent. Very Little Rascal-ish/Americana.

Some images from my Digital Photography Final:
Leopard Gecko

Mexican Porcupine

Prairie Dog

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:42 pm

That Mexican Porcupine shot is fantastic, I must say.

Sectoid · Post by **Sectoid** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:30 am

Malificent wrote:That Mexican Porcupine shot is fantastic, I must say.

Thanks. I like your avatar too. Did you shoot that?

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:40 am

Sectoid wrote:
Malificent wrote:That Mexican Porcupine shot is fantastic, I must say.
Thanks. I like your avatar too. Did you shoot that?

Yessir...

wire · Post by **wire** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:18 pm

Awesome shots everyone. It's really nice to see this thread and the night photography thread continuing to be active

Here are a few of my more recent entries to my 365 Project.

geezer · Post by **geezer** » Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:11 pm

Glad this thread is still around - as always, great great stuff to see from everyone

We just got back from Hawaii & I though I'd share:

black sand beach on Maui

another from the same beach

Outdoor dinner "theatre" featuring traditional South Pacific dances

And another from the same performance

Arizona Memorial - Pearl Harbor, O'ahu

From Diamond Head, O'ahu

O'ahu - North Shore tidepool

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:39 pm

Very nice Geezer, thanks for sharing. I especially dig the first one and the luau, cool stuff. And you actually managed a fairly unique take on the Arizona, no small feat heh!

Edit: here's a shot of Orion and friends I took last weekend up at Rocky Mountain National Park:

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:31 pm

Beautiful.

Settings, please, Enough?

Clicked on the image but I kept timing out.

One day I am going to achieve a similar shot and post it here.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:06 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote:Beautiful.

Settings, please, Enough?

Clicked on the image but I kept timing out.

One day I am going to achieve a similar shot and post it here.

Odd it's working for me, but it could be flickr. I read they were having issues today. Settings: Tokina 11-16 @11 mm, f/3.2 (one third of a stop from wide open, can't do that on the new Sigma and Nikon ultrawides), ISO 1600, 30 secs, long exposure NR was on. The shot was taken at the end of twilight where there was still enough light to get the foreground lit up on a no moon situation and it also helped get the sky bluer.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:07 am

Nothing too special yet, but we've been doing light sight seeing to start and spending more time with business of sorts. Tuesday we head out with bushmen for a couple days to find some rhino.

Giraffe

Zebra

Gemsbok

Unagi · Post by **Unagi** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:17 am

Great shots Austin !

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:30 am

Looked like a buffet for this fish eagle, if he decided he wanted bird instead of fish.

I missed the lesser flamingos taking off and they have the real nice colors when they fly.

I thought these guys were black at first (starling) but they really show some nice colors in the sun.