General Chat / The Offical Photography Thread

Thanks a lot, Al.

1250€ at B&H including shipping and taxes. Sounds great. Now I just need to find out more about the warranty ...

What warranty do you usually get in the US? And what says the card by Nikon. US warranty or international warranty ...

Thanks in advance.

You should buy the imported version of the item from B&H as it is usually cheaper and also B&H provides the same coverage as the Nikon warranty for a period of one year so you are not restricted to the US for repairs like I am pretty sure the Nikon warranty is. Also, if you really are in fear of breaking it or something happening you could add the Sage Max Protection Plan that B&H offers which covers everything including your own fuck ups. My buddy got his D200 replaced via it for free because of his own stupid idea of changing lenses while shooting a waterfall. But yeah B&H is where I buy everything including my film and I highly recommend it.

Pretty sure unless you specify, you will get the US warranty if you buy from Adorama or B&H.

I've added a "People Photos" area to my web site with candids and portraits and spontaneous photos of people that I've taken over the past couple of months (all with my wonderfully amazing D300). If you're not a friend of mine on Facebook, then these photos will be new to you. If you are... then at the very least, they'll be bigger.

http://www.corkscrew...eopleindex.html

(As mentioned in my quesetion thread about Lightroom and Flash, you may have to refresh the page when you enter a gallery; it should load fine after the first time you enter.)

Some decent shots. I like the hands of the piano player and some of Victoria's portaits (14, 15) best. Taking the pictures in hard light (sun) is not a good idea if you want to go for a clean and professional look. The two ones named above were taken in the shadow and don't have hard (cast) shadows on the face. She is amazingly beautiful in front of the camera and it looks as if she liked the shooting a lot.

There are quite a lot artifacts because of resizing though. The gallery adjusts to the monitor resolution which is not good, as the browser resizing is horrible.

Thanks for the information you two. Will contact B&H next week about warranty and shipping.

Technically, it was documenting my friend's photo shoot of his friend, Victoria. But that's a little too long to put as a title. I was just snapping random candids and doing occasional portraits with my other friend, so on my end, it was nothing formal at all.

BTW, call me stupid, but elaborate on what you mean by "artifacts." I'm pretty sure you're commenting on the loss of image quality, but I wanted to make sure specifically. The gallery adjusts to three sizes based on browser resolution.

Thanks for your critique, Magnus. I've got a long way to go before I catch up to you (and numerous other amazing photographer friends I know ).

Hey, that path it not too long. Just took my about a year and a half so far.
You got the look a good photographer needs so I feel confident to see amazing pictures from you in the future. Just learn a little more about techniques and you will be totally fine.

artefacts. Well I hoped it translated, and put in 'i' instead if the 'e', probably because I was too lazy to grab up the dictionary.

What I am talking about is that the gallery is resizing the pictures depending on the monitor resolution. That is a good thing, as I hate people galleries made for 3000px horizontal.
The problem is, that the browser has to do the job of resizing. I am at a low monitor resolution at the moment and that is where the problem is.
Look at Robert Glenn, picture #4. It shows the problem pretty well, if you are on a low resolution. Just have a closer look at the borders of the piano and his arms. (All diagonal lines.) They are not very smooth at all, because the browser does the resizing. Those would look a lot better if the job was done by lightroom, photoshop etc.

I probably just need to get a better monitor, but then again, when you go professional, you can't tell customers to buy a better monitor to see your pictures.
A problem I am dealing with at the moment aswell.

Hope this explains it, Al.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah... my home monitor is 1680x1050 (iMac). My work monitor is full 1920x1280 Dell (i.e. Samsung). So I'm sort of spoiled with pretty high quality monitors. I haven't really looked at it at the lowest resolution. Oh well...

Get a better monitor.

--

Just out of random curiosity (because your answer is unlikely to change anything I do), did you go out and buy books on photography techniques, or look up techniques online, or talk to people, or just go out and take pictures and develop your own style? Everyone has his own way of arriving at his skill level, so I'm just curious about yours (and anyone else who cares to talk about it).

A combination of all, I think.

I am reading a lot on the internet about remastering photography and when it comes to colour management there is no other way to learn it apart from reading books and things on the internet.

As for photography techniques itself. Thinking about it, I hardly look at pictures taken by great photographers (people like Newton, Adams etc.).
I read some books and texts about exposure (Adams), studio light, lines and colours (Addison Wesley has some great books about this).
Got the books from the local library.
I think it is rather important to know what the human eye finds aesthetic and how to get the point of interest where you want to have it, but reading alone doesn't do the job. Try to use the techniques you have learned and develope you own ideas (based on other peoples' ideas).

What I think is most important, is that you can always learn something about photography. Just have your eyes and ears open, talk to people, read, but most important, take your pictures and try to get beyond the limits.


This sunday I went to a local park to take some macros. Reading how to take good pictures was the one thing, but having the look for deatails and interesting light is the other. (Finding the one flowers with an insect sitting on it for instance.)
What I often do is trying to move arround interesting objects to get an idea of what perspective works out. The more I did it the easier it was to find the right perspective on the first glance.

As you can see a lot of mixed techniques to learn.

Good to know your technique is more similar to mine than different. I've never really bothered to read too much about technique, etc... and the few times I have, I've found the tips to match things I've already incorporated.

Ultimately, yeah, it goes back to just doing it. Over and over again.

To update this again:


800px again!

Might want to anti-alias the text.

That's the only critique I have.

haha, thanks.
Just added the text, very quickly, for showing it here.

Here is another one without text:

800 Pixel!

Pictures are always better without text.

Depends on the use of the pictures.
If I would use those pictures for an exhibit and put them before black background I would probably go for the frame in the last but one picture.
Apart from that the text adds a piece of information to the picture as it shows the frog in its natural environment together with the name.

I've posted some more of my photography on my site that I wanted to share. Most of the new galleries feature my lovely D300 in action. Or rather, they feature photos taken by my lovely D300.

Torrey Pines:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
Pics from a hike I did last week. Didn't even mean to go on a hike, but we found this place while driving by.

The French Alps:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
From my 2006 Study Abroad in France. This was basically our end of semester vacation, and the first time I ever skied. This is the only gallery out of these six that used pics from my old Canon.

Belmont Shore:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
This is what a nicer part of Long Beach looks like.

Backbone Trail:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
A hike in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Malibu.

Point Dume:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
West of Malibu, we hit a nice hike here two months ago and came upon the trail at the perfect time of the year and, as the flower pics might point out, the day.

Mammoth Mountain:
http://www.corkscrew...lery/index.html
Yeah... I brought a DSLR on the slope.

It's a Flash-based gallery. If the page says "image loading" for more than a few seconds, just refresh the page.

Hey Magnus, your second frog pic has an especially tight depth of field. What're the specs on that snapshot?

Great pic, though. You continue to amaze me and make me envious.

D300 - 105/2.8VR @ f/7.1 - ISO400 - 1/500s - ~1:2

Will have a look at your pictures later today when I have more time.

Interesting. You'd think that the decent f/stop gives a good depth, but the zoomed in lens counteracts that.

You are right Al, this is a approx. 1:2 macro shot and you usually have a very tight DoF there.
The other picture was taken with f/7.1 aswell, but because of the nose being fully in the DoF it looks as if the DoF is larger.

You can read a lot about the DoF on wikipedia. What applies here is that the DoF is getting smaller the higher the magnification or to make it a little more mathematical: DoF~1/m with m being the magnification.
If I had the money I would probably get the PC-E 85mm by Nikon. It is a great macro lens and you can shift the DoF which makes it a lot easier to get the results you want. About 1.3k€ is a lot of money though and I am not sure if I can take all the pictures I want without having a the VR (OS, IS or whatever you want to call it.)
I am trying to use the SB-800 with some self made 1x1feet softbox next time I am outside with the macro lens. Maybe that helps to get some even better results. Need to experiment with the colour temperature there aswell as I do not want these horrible pictures where you can see the use of flash too easily.
I am really getting into macros and maybe can make some money with taking pictures of some horses later this summer which would be great. Did take some horse pictures for two friends which they liked a lot. Might show some of those shots soon. (Still need to sort out the very best out of about 100 I handed out to them.)



I also had a look at your pictures Albert.
Torrey Pines seems to be a great location. I like the rocks and the redish sand. The watchtower in picture 3 looks pretty good, especially in combination with the steps. You should take the picture to photoshop though and work on the pole on the left. It should be vertical. You are running into this problem because you were looking downwards. This is not a big deal, but you should do the correction of the perspective. Apart from that the lens has quite some distortion on the wide end. Get PTlens to correct it. You can get it for $15 and it makes the pictures a lot more enjoyable as you will have a straight horizon after the correction.
If you sent the jpeg I can show you what I mean.

The panarama shots taken at Belmont Shore are outstanding. Maybe work on the b&w conversion to make the sky look a little more dramatic. Yes this can be a lot of work, but it really pays of.

Point Dume #30 is great aswell. The wave and the rock. Really nice shot. I am not sure if I like the person on top of the rock though. Did they climb the front or did he go there from the back?

And the last one of the Mammoth Mountain series is interesting. If you go there again make this a panaroma and you will have a great picture.


You should really sort the great pictures from the snapshots and go on working on your photographical skills. You seem to improve rather quick.
Already looking forward to your next set of pictures.