My Latest stuff - Wildlife & nature with PS editing

[LERsince1991]

My latest photos
First wildlife photos
Flickr feed here

All taken with a small sony point and shoot camera in macro mode whilst going on a walk with the family

I tried to simulate a sort of HDRI effect. They look purposely over edited and saturated but i think its effective in this example.
Felt the background colour of the peacock photo was very distracting and looked a lot more interesting and effective with it partly black and white.

 

[Designer Dale]

Hi, Luke.

HDR is an entirely different animal than single shot photography requiring multiple images at different exposures blended together to bring out the best tonal ranges of each seperate shot. This just can't be done in any app that I know of in just one shot. I would rather see images like these edited with just Levels or Curves to bring out the best natural colors.

If you put your camera on a tripod and make a number of exposures at different settings, you might be able to get an HDR effect. I think the minimum is five shots.

I'm not that much of an HDR fan being trained as a film photographer. There is one shot in the HDR thread that I do like a lot. It is an interior shot of a dining room and the multiple exposures pull out all the rich colors of the wood.

Dale

 

[LERsince1991]

Hey Dale!

Thanks for the comment.
I know that HDR images use multiple exposures to define better tones in dark and light places etc.. (sort of) but I can't adjust much settings on my little camera ^^ I do have a tri-pod however but I just wanted to experiment and so I googled simulate hdri in photoshop or something similar... it seemed to work well for them but for me just burned the image in really, worked a bit though.

I must say I'm not keen on HDR photo's, they look very game, graphicy but I've seen some nice subtle ones on DeviantART.
Again I'm trained as a B&W film photographer really As you can probably see in my early flickr feeds

Luke.

P.S. To me photography isn't capturing every day life, its about uncovering the unknown and showing it to the viewer. I don't like photos that are 'normal', theres just nothing appealing to me. It needs to be eye catching, look natural but be better than life - or just an exaggeration

 

[LERsince1991]

Heres a few I did today.

These actually are HDR images but they're made to look like there normal instead of the computer graphicy effects most HDRI's have.

I set up a little rig in a spare room for photography

I realized my point and shoot camera can do HDR shooting.
I experimented with frames, colouring and toning in PS.

Comments and crit very welcome!

Luke.

 

[leighonigar]

Much better! A bit catalogue but not bad!

 

[103734]

Ah your second set of pictures are much better !

The first set was a little to saturated for my tastes, it has a unnatural feel to it, and I don't think it works to well with the shots because they are of very natural things, just imo.

 

[GoCubsGo]

Ah your second set of pictures are much better !

The first set was a little to saturated for my tastes, it has a unnatural feel to it, and I don't think it works to well with the shots because they are of very natural things, just imo.

Agreed. I felt as though the deer was the strongest and totally ruined by a clear misunderstanding of PP saturation.
The second set posted is nice, catalogue as someone said but very tranquil.

 

[Designer Dale]

Greetings, my Brit friend.

I like the one with the vase the best. Framing and use of color are good. The shot in the middle of the scrawny looking tree is well framed, also. The last one is a bit bland for me.

Good work. Keep it up.

Dale

 

[miles01110]

HDR is an entirely different animal than single shot photography requiring multiple images at different exposures blended together to bring out the best tonal ranges of each seperate shot. This just can't be done in any app that I know of in just one shot. I would rather see images like these edited with just Levels or Curves to bring out the best natural colors.

You can do it in one shot if it's taken in RAW, but you don't get the best results, but you still have to manipulate the exposure so you're combining "3" shots or more.

 

[LERsince1991]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!
The first set of photos were over saturated, I agree. I wanted to experiment with an online tutorial that tried to simulate a HDRI but it didn't really work well. I like the grasshopper and peacock, they aren't over saturated IMO. The deer is, I also added a bit of a glow. The landscape was drastically over processed, I knew that but I guess I kinda like it.

Now I know how to do HDR shooting on this camera I will be back to the park to get some HDRI's of the landscape, castle and trees.

As for the second shoot. I've got someone interested in my work and wants to commission me for a few shots of flowers so I set up this little photo booth to get some nice lighting and textures. The windows are frosted so the light is well defused.

The second shoot was inspired from Karl Blossfeldt and Charlie Hopkinson

I'm trying to track down some nice flowers to shoot in there, possibly in black and white, I don't know, will see.

P.s. Hey again Designer Dale

Luke.

 

[LERsince1991]

You can do it in one shot if it's taken in RAW, but you don't get the best results, but you still have to manipulate the exposure so you're combining "3" shots or more.

Would love to shoot in RAW But this little point and shoot camera is being pushed to its limits already Can't do RAW, only a JPEG that is very slightly compressed -_-
Thanks for the info though

 

[LERsince1991]

Thought some people might want to see some of the originals.

 

[AlaskaMoose]

Would love to shoot in RAW But this little point and shoot camera is being pushed to its limits already Can't do RAW, only a JPEG that is very slightly compressed -_-
Thanks for the info though

I like your photos, specially the one of the deer (Stag?), and then the one of the vase. And don't despair about using a point & shoot or compact camera. Lots of great photos are taken with these each day. Just take a look at this photos taken with a Canon G10 (I believe this is a compact camera?):
http://www.davidbergman.net/blog/20...to-during-president-obamas-inaugural-address/

 

[MattSepeta]

Well..

My latest photos
First wildlife photos
Flickr feed here

All taken with a small sony point and shoot camera in macro mode whilst going on a walk with the family

I tried to simulate a sort of HDRI effect. They look purposely over edited and saturated but i think its effective in this example.
Felt the background colour of the peacock photo was very distracting and looked a lot more interesting and effective with it partly black and white.

I really like the shot of the deer, but I have never been a fan of isolated color against b/w, like your peacock pic. It would be much better to just adjust your angle or your aperture to either get a different background, or a more blurred bg.

(EDIT) After looking at the landscape pic at a bigger size, I have a bit mroe advice. You really need to pay attention to "noiseish artifacts" created by over saturating and over processing images. If you want to super-saturate images, make sure to run a gaussian blur - soft light effect over the image, or something similar to get rid of the nasty pixel looking stuff.

But good job, other than that! Nothing wrong with the good ole' p&s!