Photo-a-day

[Virtual Monkey]

^ Kalniel, I like it, those branches look spookily like hands. What have you done, desaturated the red and blue channels? Makes it quite atmospheric - what did it look like before?

[mmh]

nothing spectacular... just a birthday tattoo pic



taking pictures of your own legs is kinda hard though

[kalniel]

^ Kalniel, I like it, those branches look spookily like hands. What have you done, desaturated the red and blue channels? Makes it quite atmospheric - what did it look like before?

Yep that's exactly what I did - I just hadn't figured out where the channels were in The GIMP previously

It looked something like this before:

[brammers]

I think you're on your way there Kalniel. 2 things - I don't like what you've done with the greens - I can see what you're after but this time I don't think it's quite right.

Secondly I think you're going to need to do some manual brush work to get the most out of that shot. Your adjustments have left it a little grey, I think if you get in with dodges and burns you can get a lot more atmosphere out of it. Really let the blown highlights flare out, get the blacks moodier.

[kalniel]

I think you're on your way there Kalniel. 2 things - I don't like what you've done with the greens - I can see what you're after but this time I don't think it's quite right.

Secondly I think you're going to need to do some manual brush work to get the most out of that shot. Your adjustments have left it a little grey, I think if you get in with dodges and burns you can get a lot more atmosphere out of it. Really let the blown highlights flare out, get the blacks moodier.

Thanks very much for the feedback - I'll try dodge & burn, and perhaps the easier 'cheat' method of a large radius unsharp mask.

The green.. was just because I discovered where the channels were so wanted to see what happened pretty much - that's kind of my approach to most things to be honest The grey.. yeah I see what you mean, but I was almost heading the other way actually and going for pale/desaturated image, almost like a sepia. Guess I couldn't quite make my mind up so got left in a sort of half-way house

[j.o.s.h.1408]

im going to start editing pics using photoshop cs3. been playing about with lthe brightness and contrast of some of my pics so far. will post some before and after results sometime during the week

[Ruggerbugger]

First sunset with the 450D and Sigma 10-20mm. A bit soft for me, but was hand held for convenience sake.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

looks very nice mate. what aperture settings u have set on that lens? is it the higher the aperture the more light thats let in the lens?

[Ruggerbugger]

looks very nice mate. what aperture settings u have set on that lens? is it the higher the aperture the more light thats let in the lens?

Thanks That's at f5.6, I think the smaller the number the more light, but the less depth of field. I'm sure someone will correct me there I really need to get out earlier with the tripod to get a better shot.

[tfboy]

Thanks That's at f5.6, I think the smaller the number the more light, but the less depth of field. I'm sure someone will correct me there I really need to get out earlier with the tripod to get a better shot.

Correct
But remember, [pedantic mode on] that it's a fraction: f/5.6, f/2.8, f/6.3, etc. [pedantic mode off]
The lower the number, the more open the aperture will be, up the maximum aperture number you can get for a given lens. And larger aperture (lower number) = more light = faster shutter speed.
And as you said, the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field is, but also, the more you're pushing the lens to its limits, which can produce softer pictures.
So either way, you can't win

[matty-hodgson]

good old trusty £90 6mp camera

[tfboy]

Here's one of some racks of a system I've been working on

[Bobster]

And as you said, the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field is, but also, the more you're pushing the lens to its limits, which can produce softer pictures.
So either way, you can't win

thats not to do with the lens but to do with the resolution of the camera, after i believe f16 on an 8MP camera the image starts getting softer..

[Ramedge]

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Correct
But remember, [pedantic mode on] that it's a fraction: f/5.6, f/2.8, f/6.3, etc. [pedantic mode off]
The lower the number, the more open the aperture will be, up the maximum aperture number you can get for a given lens. And larger aperture (lower number) = more light = faster shutter speed.
And as you said, the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field is, but also, the more you're pushing the lens to its limits, which can produce softer pictures.
So either way, you can't win

im still using the 400d stock lens

[kalniel]

thats not to do with the lens but to do with the resolution of the camera, after i believe f16 on an 8MP camera the image starts getting softer..

He's talking about wide-open apertures and lens softness. You're talking about diffraction limitations at closed apertures which is about resolution (which isn't necessarily megapixels).

Take a worst case scenario, my canon A720 P+S for example. 8MP, small sensor camera. At wide open (f/2.8) there is a little softness. The lens sharpens as I stop down to f/5 or so. However as I stop down the aperture, diffraction of light increases. Because the individual sensor pixels on my camera are so small even tiny amounts of diffraction are picked up by neighbouring sensor pixels and start blurring the picture. This can be a major problem, so like all P+S my camera is limited to something like f/8. However even by f/4 diffraction is having an effect, but it gets progressively worse.

This is one of the main reasons P+Ss do not look sharp at 100% zoom - they are usually affected by both lens softness and diffraction. DSLRs with larger lenses and sensors delay the noticeable effects of diffraction until f/16 or higher. It's also one of the reasons most of us bang our heads at the megapixel race on P+S cameras.

However, even though increasing sensor density for the same lens makes diffraction softness more likely, you are still capturing more information as long as the diffraction isn't too bad. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get cameras/software that start correcting for diffraction at some point - it's a relatively well understood problem (yay for fourier transforms )

Ramedge, nice - just like the adverts