General Chat / The Offical Photography Thread

Almost.

I know. All I have right now is this damn point and shoot, I can't focus right.

https://webspace.ute...d996/portfolio/

All photos taken with a Nikon D50 with a 50mm f/1.8 except for two. One of which was with a LensBaby and the other with a Holga 120CFN on Kodak E200 Color Slide Film.

Nice portfolio you got there.

#1 Nice effect, with the unsharp parts
#2 Interesting as part of a series. Want to know what is going on there.
#3 Needs some fill light from the right and the background should be smoother. Good expression on her face
#4 What is on the flag? Show it!
#5 Great shot. One minor problem. The person on the right ... (Wish it was that easy to shoot people in Germany)
#6 Nice portrait. Make it more symmetrical.
#7 Cross postprocessing is great. Cool pictures. Want to see the right person's face though
#8 Tilts CW.
#9 meh. Nothing there ...
#10 Tilts CW. Try to HDR it.
#11 Undersaturated or make the effect a lot stronger. Good apart from that.
#12 Nice. Do not like the black background.
#13 Make it a little unsharper to underline the effect. Nice apart from that.
#14 Could use stronger expressions on the peoples' faces.
#15 meh
#16 Great snapshot. Cut out the person on the left to make it even stronger.
#17 Best one imo, though a little overexposed.
#18 Too dark and creates no atmosphere for me.
#19 Pizza is something to eat. Not to take pictures.
#20 Great timing. Good shot.

All in all really good. Would change two or three of them, but the rest is really good. Go on and stop making all your images tilt.

Looking forward to more from you,
Magnus

thanks for the honest critique magnus. i swear i am working on the camera tilt habit.

My feedbacks are always short when it comes to photography.
Sounds a little harsh when I read it again, but I think you know what you do well and it is a lot easier to point out the not so good aspects.

Camera tilting is not a real problem at all, as it is easy to fix at the computer. It basically is the first thing I do with all my RAW files.
You can use the tilting as a effect aswell, but I think that is totally overused by a lot of people.



I need to do a portfolio aswell for a homepage and totally wish I was as far as you are.


Going to test a AF-S 70-200 VR 2.8 IF-ED this Sunday and will probably be amazed enough to get one later this year.
Might have something to show next week.

Does anybody know where I can get a fog machine for small money?

Magnus

I feel so lame asking this, but What does it mean to HDR an image?

Thanks

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.
Still cameras has a very limited Dynamic Range and cannot reproduce high contrast.

Because of this some photograhers take several pictures of the same motive, mostly using a tripod, with different exposures.
You can merge all the pictures to one on the computer and get a higher Dynamic Range as a result.

For more information read this.

Going to test a AF-S 70-200 VR 2.8 IF-ED this Sunday and will probably be amazed enough to get one later this year.

Ohhhhh... that's a good lens. I've heard nothing but good things about it. I'm pretty damn sure you will fall in love with it.

(Tell me how it goes!)

--

BTW, fantastic portraits/candids, chapel! I'd love to get to that level with my own people photography skills.

70-200 2.8 is a horrible lens ... horribly expensive.

Apart from that a really great lens.
The 200-400 4 was great aswell. I think I like it even more than the 70-200.

So here is a test shot with the 70-200:

View at 800px.
70-200mm @ 200mm 2.8

Have the get some shopping done soon.

Magnus

http://homepage.ntlw...r1/DSCF3304.JPG

Edited by Nic, 21 April 2008 - 03:56 PM.

This is a 1100px crop resized to 800px.
The 70-200 works amazing on the D300. This one is wide open (2.8 ) at the upper end (200mm). I am really amazed by the performance of the lens.

The original size of the one shown in the post before is 6500x3250px. Perfectly sharp.

And again:


ISO 200 200mm 3.2
1100px crop

OH



MY



GAWD!!!!!


That's incredible. Where'd you go to be able to spot falcons (is that a falcon? I can never tell the difference among birds of prey; I know that's sad) like that?

Amazing photos.

Looks like an eagle but still excellent pictures none the less. Is that using a cloud as a backdrop or was it indoors or I guess you could get it like that if it was exceptionally sunny either way please explain where this was. Also, I don't know how you can stand such a big lens. I usually hate using anything larger than my 70-300mm and that borders on being to big for me. Although I guess what we find fun differs.

It is a red kite. At least that is the term my dictionary gives me for what we call "Roter Milan".

I went to an ornithological station together with some other members of a German Nikon Club. They had a flight show in the morning and we were able to get some amazing pictures done.

The weather was rather bad. Cold, cloudly and a little misty. So you can see clouds and mist in the background of those pictures. All I did was correcting the exposure and cropping.

I can understand your complaints about the 70-200 2.8 being too big, but when you look at the optical quality it delivers, the fact that it is 2.8 and one of the best nowaday Nikons I totally like it. Yes it is rather big and heavy, but in certain situations it is the best you can have.
I really think it depends on what you want. I tested the 18-200 aswell and didn't get any sharp pictures of the birds as they were too fast for the autofocus. Some other people told me, they had the same problem with the 70-300. For what I am doing I really like the lens and will probably get it.
The last two are almost 1:1 crops and now have a look at the CAs and sharpness. To me that is totally amazing.
So yes, I am going to get that monster. Maybe together with a monopod, so carrying is a lot easier. Though with the VR it hardly makes sense to get the monopod ...


Thanks for the nice comments.
More pictures as soon as I find time to remaster them.

Yeah, seriously, the 1:1 quality on that is absolutely ridiculous. On the 18-200, you'd still get some graininess or slight blur, but on yours, the shot is flawless.

Definitely a good lens. How much does it retail in Europe currently?

Depends on where you are going to get it and what you want.
You can get it for about 1600€ as an imported lens. Means no Nikon Warranty, but 3 Years Mack Warranty, which is no problem at all.
I have seen prices over 2000€ for a new one with Nikon Warranty.
The used ones I have seen are about 1400€, which is ridiculous ...

1600€ = 2535US$

Any good shops in the US? Would have to pay 19% for taxes, so it has to be about 2000US$, with Mack Warranty and shipping ...



About the 18-200:
It is a great lens for what it wants to be. A very flexible zoom from wide angle to tele, but that is where the problem lies. Because of the high zoom range the autofocus is slower as more lenses have to be moved by it. Apart from that it has some problems with distortion, but again this is because of the high zoom range.
Most of the problems are easy to fix and I have seen a lot of great pictures taken with that lens. If you want to go professional it is not the first choice, but that is a different story.

^ Yeah. The 18-200 is a fantastic multi-use lens for most of the things I'd want to do, but once I decide to do some more professional stuff, I'll expand my lens collection. For now, it does everything I'd like with great results.

I feel like I've seen the 70-200 for around $1700 US, but I'll have to check on that. The good online shops in the US are typically:
- B&H Photo
- Adorama

Are two reputable ones, though I've never purchased from them.