Photography Thread

[Joe Harvatt]

Quick snap of one of my basses.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

I haven't had much time to shoot this semester with a full load of graduate school, but I did manage to get this natural light shot of my breakfast - the light was just too good to pass up.

 

[Philligan]

I can't believe no one's posting this. I'm really sad that I have to wait about a month, but I'm still really excited and grateful. Compare this to the AF problems a lot of people have been having with the 70D and Canon's refusal to acknowledge anything.

The video's not great at explaining what's actually being added, just some of the stuff you can do with it. Basically, they're adding separate tracking AF modes, kind of like the D4s. There's one geared towards wide angle lenses, where you choose a starting point and it'll track an object over the entire frame. There's another one geared towards sports which is basically like single point continuous AF, only you can select zones and it'll predictively track within that zone. They recommend using the centre 3x5 spread, because those are the phase detect AF points.

What blows my mind is that they don't announce the general improvements to the existing AF. They're supposed to be making everything faster, and the phase detect AF points are getting updated from a 2.5EV sensitivity to 0.5. It blows my mind that they can change EV sensitivity via a firmware update. Low light AF is definitely the X-T1's number one weak spot for me. It's not so bad that I regret totally leaving a DSLR system, and the manual focus is so good that it pretty much makes up for it, but shooting something like a dark wedding reception or a show in low late definitely shows off the AF's weak points. 0.5EV gets it near the ballpark of an acceptable DSLR AF system, so I'm really excited to see what kind of difference it makes.

After this, the only thing I'll really feel I'm missing from the system is an IR focus assist with flash. The built-in AF assist lamp is fine, but you get way more range and way less distraction from a speedlite's IR lamp. The Nissin i40 (which is almost definitely going to be my next purchase, because wedding season is coming up and I'm shooting dance photos at a few friends' weddings) doesn't have that, but it has a video LED lamp that can function as an AF assist, only it doesn't work with Fuji cameras. That's the only real bummer for me. If they could develop (or work with) a better AF assist system, I'd be totally fine with the camera's AF limits.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

I'm so far behind on camera tech - I'll just keep shooting my D3 until it dies (and then probably have the shutter replaced).

 

[Tang]

Some more from the vacation. It should be fairly obvious which camera was used for each shot

 

[soliloquy]

i'm loving the ND filter. its also teaching me to use the exposure meter a bit too. fun lil thing

 

[ThePhilosopher]

Those all look a bit softer than normal (or bad jpeg compression); I have a small collection of B+W ND filters, they're fun.

 

[Philligan]

I really like that photo of the tree, man.

 

[Tang]

this turned out exactly like I wanted. I dialed in about -2.3EV to match the exposure to just how damn dark it was the in the venue. I managed to capture the light in such a cool way.

surf rock by nrrfed, on Flickr

 

[soliloquy]

Those all look a bit softer than normal (or bad jpeg compression); I have a small collection of B+W ND filters, they're fun.

interesting you picked up on it. my eyes aren't as experienced, nor my photography skills as polished. but i uploaded them onto facebook, then uploaded them onto imgur. supposedly uploading them on facebook deteriorates image quality. the only thing i was able to pick up was a slight deteriorating in the colors as before the pictures were far more vibrant. facebook makes the pictures smaller, so they are easier to deal with.

and i dont shoot in raw either as computers and i dont get along much. so i'm not sure how to manipulate images on the computer to enhance/alter them. thus jpegs are what i normally use. most i do on the computer is change their brightness level.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

If you're going to upload to FB resize to 2048 on the longest side - it's one of the optimal sizes for FB compression. Shooting in RAW isn't terribly hard and there a slew of resources on RAW workflow out there on YT.

 

[flint757]

If you ever decide to jump in to shooting raw I find Lightroom is pretty intuitive to use compared to software like GIMP or Photoshop. Both require a slight learning curve, but between the auto settings and presets you can get some nice results with minimal effort if that's what you desire. If you decide to dig deeper it's just a matter of manipulating the sliders. Fairly simple overall.

Not sure what camera you have, but you could also transfer the jpegs to your phone and use an app like VSCO to make simple tweaks. From my limited knowledge of uploading photos to Facebook it's best left as a last stop for your photo as they do some nasty things to them during compression.

 

[soliloquy]

If you ever decide to jump in to shooting raw I find Lightroom is pretty intuitive to use compared to software like GIMP or Photoshop. Both require a slight learning curve, but between the auto settings and presets you can get some nice results with minimal effort if that's what you desire. If you decide to dig deeper it's just a matter of manipulating the sliders. Fairly simple overall.

Not sure what camera you have, but you could also transfer the jpegs to your phone and use an app like VSCO to make simple tweaks. From my limited knowledge of uploading photos to Facebook it's best left as a last stop for your photo as they do some nasty things to them during compression.

just like Tang here, i'm a pentax fan-boy. currently i'm using a pentax k5 (one model older than the one tang uses). it does shoot in RAW when needed.

the program i use to change the brightness on the pics is just the standard builtin programs that computers come with. nothing fancy at all. just help you crop stuff, or change saturation, brightness, and some other options that are hardly ever used, if at all.

 

[Tang]

If you ever decide to I'd definitely look into shooting RAW. imo, the Pentax jpgs, while certainly usable, don't do justice to how good Pentax's RAW files actually are.

If you have any questions about Lightroom certainly feel free to ask.

 

[JeffFromMtl]

Kodak Tri-X 400 pushed to 1600 shot with the Lomo.

 

[Rook]

^Tri-X recently became my go-to daytime black and white stock, I love it!

Phil, I saw the update and am very excited about that, I just keep forgetting to check in here, haha! Should be awesome though.

Finally, people saying 'it has no depth of field', when what they mean is 'it has a wide depth of field' is one of my pet peeves haha. If something is all in focus, it has loads of depth of field hahahaha. Minor...

Anyway, not been here much lately, hope everyone's well.

 

[capoeiraesp]

Spent some time out bush recently here in Oz camping in a caravan park and riding each day. Great times with the XT-1 & xf56 and xf18.

 

[UnderTheSign]

What kind of settings did you use for the first shot? Loving it.

 

[capoeiraesp]

Honestly?
Aperture priority at F1.2 whilst shooting through a bus window at 90 kph. That's about it. The electronic shutter did the work here and it's a case where the sensor roll worked out well.

I learned a big lesson about how good pre sunrise light is. Most of these shots are just before or at sunrise.

 

[Philligan]

Finally, people saying 'it has no depth of field', when what they mean is 'it has a wide depth of field' is one of my pet peeves haha. If something is all in focus, it has loads of depth of field hahahaha. Minor...

If you're referring to the photo of Dawn where I mention that, that's what I meant. Even at further distances, the falloff from that lens is pretty much instant.