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Photo of the day (April 2008)
- Thread starter Lightglance.com
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Cool pic Carlos! I like how the sun rays out. You must have been standing at a pretty beautiful spot with that view.
So I took some of my first night shots yesterday in downtown San Diego. I am totally new to this so I did not really know what to do. I took 5-10 shots of each scene to guarantee proper exposure (-2 - 1 0 +1 +2). I set my ISO to 200... (was that right?) and shot everything in raw. Using apertures of 2.8 5.6 and 11 with shutter speeds from a half second to 30 seconds, I did my entire shoot. Any pointers would be great because I have seen some incredible night photography on this site. My entire shoot for the day is on my smugmug (in the sig) in the Coronado album.
Night scenes.. My way of working (don't mean it's the right way
) is to use a tripod, the lowest ISO (that's 100 on my Nikon D200), and a shutter speed that's appropriate for the 'sweet spot' of my lens (that's f11 or thereabouts). I shoot on 'manual and, typically, my exposures will be from 5-30 seconds.The best time, for me, is the hour after sunset, when, crucially, there's still some light in the sky. I try to 'balance' the ambient light and with other lights (floodlights, street-lights, etc...). After the 'magic hour', the sky goes dark, then black, and I don't tend to shoot in these conditions.
It snowed in Vancouver yesterday...
Please excuse the abysmal pic. quality - I blame the fact that this is a crop of a 5 megapixel jpeg.
Please excuse the abysmal pic. quality - I blame the fact that this is a crop of a 5 megapixel jpeg.
'Blow up' a pic to 100% in Photoshop and check critical focus. I'm selling pix through the Alamy agency, and this is what they ask photographers to do ('cos it's what they do, when assessing image quality). I mostly use Nikon's 'kit' lens (18-70), so I'm keen to get the best out of it. And, anyway, don't most (all?) lenses perform best at f11 or thereabouts?
'Blow up' a pic to 100% in Photoshop and check critical focus. I'm selling pix through the Alamy agency, and this is what they ask photographers to do ('cos it's what they do, when assessing image quality). I mostly use Nikon's 'kit' lens (18-70), so I'm keen to get the best out of it. And, anyway, don't most (all?) lenses perform best at f11 or thereabouts?
Very Interesting. Thanks for the tips.
I was wondering about the proper aperture because I did not know what the best would be. Good to know that ISO of 100 would be the best as well.
When I want to take a picture just after sunset, do I meter to the sky? Also, do I need to change white balance or leave it on auto?
Another problem I had was taking pictures of bright scenes. For example, a scene of the pier with fairly bright lights caused a lot of 'noise bubbles' rendering my image useless. Is there a way to prevent this?
Thanks again Doylem.
'Blow up' a pic to 100% in Photoshop and check critical focus. I'm selling pix through the Alamy agency, and this is what they ask photographers to do ('cos it's what they do, when assessing image quality). I mostly use Nikon's 'kit' lens (18-70), so I'm keen to get the best out of it. And, anyway, don't most (all?) lenses perform best at f11 or thereabouts?
I also read somewhere, that on the D300 its sweet spot is at f/11 and on the full frame D3 was f/16 if I remember correctly. So on this last trip to CR I tried to follow this advice and while over looking some awesome mountains I shot one at 22 and one at 11, and for sure enough (using the loupe in Aperture) the shot at f/11 was sharper.
If I'm shooting pix after sunset, i'll generally give myself enough time to shoot a series of pix. The ambient light changes, of course, while the streetlights and floodlight and car headlights stay the same. There'll come a time (it may only last a few minutes) when ambient light and artificial light achieve a kind of balance... and this is when the best pix come, IMO. This balance means the sky is still full of colour (not black...) and the pinpoints of artificial light sources won't look like 'blown out' highlights. The scene will look natural and need little or no PP (which is what I aim for).
Metering? It's trial and error for the first couple of shots, as I review the pix. White balance I leave till later, 'cos I always shoot RAW...
PKennethV, nice colors and textures; however the candy wrapper in the bottom left hand corner distracts me.
It's not the body, the sweet spot differs for each lens. For most lenses it is 1 or 2 stops slower than the fastest speed.
f/2.8 = f/4-8
f/4 = f/8-11
Thank you...I wasn't sure if I should keep that there or not. I defiantly like the gray line at the bottom thought. Looks like some cloning work to do.
No, I really like the carpet on the bottom of the frame aswell =).
It looks exactly like the kind of carpets they have at my school...
It looks exactly like the kind of carpets they have at my school...
View of Cascade Head, Oregon
...from a friend's place you can see the last stretches of the Salmon River before it exits into the Pacific at Cascade Head.
Model: NIKON D50
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 18mm
...from a friend's place you can see the last stretches of the Salmon River before it exits into the Pacific at Cascade Head.
Model: NIKON D50
ISO: 200
Exposure: 1/160 sec
Aperture: f/10.0
Focal Length: 18mm
Outside Yankee Stadium, New York City
April 20th, 2008
D40 | 1/320 at /5.6 | 55 mm | ISO 200
On the last day of his five day trip to the United States, the Pope arrived to a crowd of more than 60,000 people for a mass at Yankee Stadium this afternoon. After having been at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan during the morning, he was supposed to arrive at around 2:30 PM. The security outside the stadium was very high when I arrived. The area was filled with NYPD, Secret Service, snipers on rooftops as well as the stadium, counter terrorism units, and barricades. It felt as if there were thousand people outside the stadium with me; standing on their toes trying to take pictures, selling all kinds of Pope Benedict paraphernalia. Some chanted, some protested. I took pictures.
It snowed in Vancouver yesterday...
http://img.skitch.com/20080420-xx1ydcbtex6ih2s9hmwsg81781.jpg
Please excuse the abysmal pic. quality - I blame the fact that this is a crop of a 5 megapixel jpeg.
you've got some interesting colors goin on there
I took this one in Nassau while waiting for the Straw market to open....He spent the whole night drinking at Senor Frogs and was passed out on the pier haha...
Bum
Bum
"haha"
not funny?? I thought it was hillarious...i mean we were on the island at 9 and Senor Frogs closes at like 4 so he'd been there a while...
not funny?? I thought it was hillarious...i mean we were on the island at 9 and Senor Frogs closes at like 4 so he'd been there a while...
Guy drinks himself into a stupor (for reasons best known to himself...) and passes out in the street. Somebody sees him, takes his picture, posts it on the www and thinks it's "hilarious". Right...
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