Photography Advice & Discussion Thread

[TRA1NR]

Nice pics Mick! are they one shots or were you shooting continuous? what shutter speed were you using an how fast do you think the bikes were going?

[ratter]

Thanks guys

These pics are straight from the camera, no editing at all except for the photobucket resizing.

I took a heap of pics, the good ones are now in a separate folder, some of the pics were blurry as I was getting a feel of what was working to my likings but kept playing with camera settings including iso etc to try to get me a shutter speed that would capture the motion blur but try to keep the frame etc in focus, so shutter speeds will be all over the place depending on iso used and camera opening.

I was using my 28-135 and I don't think is all that sharp so was trying to use a mid range aperture rather than going towards either end, the motion blur from the panning was close enough to make the background start to disappear.

I would use the screen to zoom in a much as possible after taking a pic to see if the speed was fast enough to keep the frame reasonably sharp but slow enough to capture the motion blur of the wheels and sometimes riders legs.

The bikes were probably only going maybe 20 kmh or a little less at this point, it was just 200 mtrs away from the transition area and the first corner they had to take, some riders did not even have their feet in their shoes at this point.

I was using high speed mode but most pics were 1 shot

Any advice regarding touching them up would be appreciated, any info re what to do and why would be good, thanks

Edited 29/03/12 09:45 PM by ratter

[Adam]

I wouldn't do too much to them really Mick. Did you shoot in JPEG or RAW?

I had a quick go at my favourite of the set. Just a little hit of contrast, sharpening and I tilted it ever so slightly.

Before...

After...

[ratter]

That looks a bit sharper like that

Was shooting and normally shoot in Jpeg

How do you normally work out how much sharpening/ contrast etc? Do you allow your programme to adjust automatically or do it manually to your taste?

[Adam]

JPEG's already have an amount of in camera processing done in terms of colour, white balance, contrast, sharpening and noise reduction etc.

Sharpen at 1:1 view and keep an eye out for jagged edges and halos starting to appear around the edges. If you see those you've gone too much. How it looks can depend greatly on what method you use to sharpen. There's a bunch of different ways to do it in Photoshop. All of which I know SFA about. I do all my work in Lightroom where it's a much simpler process.

You really need to know how the different sliders effect the image to do a good job of it. A Google search should fine heaps of information on the subject.

[sexual harrassment panda]

couple of pics from my walk in the scrub on the way home from work today

[ratter]

Thanks Adam, I realise that shooting in jpeg, the camera will apply it's own settings, I keep thinking I should shoot in RAW, but normally don't have the time to post process, thanks for the info

[bunna]

Figured I might own up to being a canon fanboy too.

50d for me to start with. Saving my pennies for a 70-200 f2.8 IS II as my first serious lense.

I've noticed a lot of tech talk on here, I used to be a bit the same until a mate from work sent me a link to Ken Rockwell's site.

I guess tech talk about cameras is kinda like us on here talking about tech specs on cars - not really where you need the knowledge to drive the things!

I'm desperately trying to get better at composition-really thinking about what I want my shot to look like before I just click away.

Trust me-it only took a couple of cruises and V8 supercharge rounds worth of bursted, not very well thought out photos for me to quickly get over sorting through hundreds of rubbish pics! This is something I've picked up reading Ken's site, as well as checking out Adam's cruise photos, often from the same cruises where it was entirely possible for me to have tried the same shots if I had the creativity.

I also have some books by Scott Kelby (did I see him linked a few pages back?), another very helpful soul for us beginners!

[Adam]

Good point!

Cruises and car shows are hard places to get the WOW shots. The light is generally pretty harsh, there's people everywhere and the scenery isn't always that great. You just have to work with what you have and accept that you probably won't get one of your favourite shots out of it.

Composition is certainly a key part of photo. Maybe even the most important part. All the technical knowledge in the world won't help you if you can't compose a shot. Think of it like learning to ride a bike. I could give you a stack of books 6 feet high on riding a bike, but you'd still fall off time and time again without the practical experience. Photography is the same.

If you're really interesting in improving then I'd suggest watching these...

[cmarks85]

Bulb modes let's you open your shutter till you close it. I don't know if there is a max time ( as long as batt last?) For best results you'll need a remote cable (ebay). Some you can set it up to take x amount of frames for x amount of time and x amount of time between. A cgoof long exposure photo is a full moon. It will make everything look daylight with stars in the sky.