Photo-a-day

[kopite]

Would a polarising filter not help with the sun issue?

Or an ND filter?

(I`ve been reading understaing exposure and got lots of inspiration now just wiating for a day off work so i can use my camera)

[HSK]

Yea, I think a ND filter would help with the light, or maybe a graduating one so you can still get the details in the shadow/lower areas and have the sky/sunlight darkened. Polarising I think would help a lil as well, but helps for saturating the colours more. I need to get hold of a ND filter.

[Bobster]

First proper shots with my 450D. Apologies for ****ness. Still don't know how to use the bloody thing properly.





Had problems with the suns brightness. UV filter needed?

first one isnt bad composition well done

ok in your 450's Custom Functions - goto C.fn-5 and turn it on (this is Highlight Tone Priority) will mean you can't shoot ISO100, but it does mean that brighter area's will be saved from blowing (unless you really mess up the metering)

[brammers]

The shots are too bright in areas because of the camera's inability to deal with the dynamic range of the scene - the brightest areas are too bright compared to the darkest areas. Cameras can cope with approx 10stops of dynamic range nowdays - each stop represents a doubling in brightness. If anything is more than 10stops brighter than the darkest area you're going to lose detail. Some of this can be brought back if you shoot RAW.

A UV filter will do almost nothing to those shots - now we're on digital cameras we have these filters built in - it sits just in front of the sensor with a load of other stuff. UV filters nowdays are for protecting expensive or exposed front elements - even the best ones degrade image quality (ghosting in some situations) so be careful with their usage on your cheap lenses.

An ND filter will also not help at all. Neutral Density filters are just that - they neutrally lower the brightness of teh whole scene. Stick an ND on the front of your camera and the camera will just compensate for the loss of light coming in - you'll get an image exposed exactly the same, just at a longer shutter speed. Why might you want a longer shutter speed? It'll add movement to the frame - movement of clouds, water, people; it'll all be emphasised with a longer shutter speed. Use a long enough shutter speed and very odd things start to happen - instead of individual waves registering on a beach you just get a weird flat sea where the average wave height is... A couple of minutes for that.

A graduate ND might help - this is a filter that's dark in some places and clear in others. Say you've got a bright sky over a dark forground. The dark part goes over the bright sky, the clear part goes over the dark forground - voila, the whole shot is evenly illuminated.

A CPL might also help in some circumstances. It cuts down glare, darkening down some bright areas of some scenes, notably water based reflections. It probably wouldn't do much in the 1st example though - that's a shot straight into the sun, CPLs work best at an angle of 90degrees to the sun. Saturating certain colours is a benificial side-effect of killing the water based glare, most notably in the sky (full of water - the blue comes out), in foliage (again full of water - becomes really green) and on... umm... water.

[BlackDwarf]

Thanks Bobster. Will give that a try next time I'm out and about.
There's lots more to think about with a DSLR. I've only ever used a fairly ordinary point and shoot compact (got some decent pics with them, but this is another story entirely) I'll get there eventually.

Need to get my hands on the 50mm for gigs now. I'll post some the next gig I go to, and you can rip them apart I'm sure

[MaddAussie]

Took this at a wedding back on halloween

[YorkieBen]

Don't suppose you've got a picture from a bit farther away have you....? Can't get my head around this shot!

[tfboy]

HSK, another option for those kind of scenes is to do some very light HDR, although you'd need a tripod for that.
As the horizon is fixed, you can take a manually-forced darker exposure and then mix the two in post production so you get some shadow details out of the dark bits but not have the sky blown out too much.

But pretty good as a first effort. If you the camera took the settings on automatic, it's done a pretty good compromise IMO

[Bobster]

chrimbo photo

[HSK]

HSK, another option for those kind of scenes is to do some very light HDR, although you'd need a tripod for that.
As the horizon is fixed, you can take a manually-forced darker exposure and then mix the two in post production so you get some shadow details out of the dark bits but not have the sky blown out too much.

But pretty good as a first effort. If you the camera took the settings on automatic, it's done a pretty good compromise IMO

Yea definatly - that's what i did with the last shot i posted of the shoreline -2/0/+2 exposures, (even though the shadows are not so great, it was better than before). but not going too much in the the HDR effect, used a plugin called LR/Enfuse for lightroom.

[madman045]

My youngest daughter, christmas day lunch time

[YorkieBen]

From fountains abbey today:








Took absolutely loads of pics, trying out my new lens

[kopite]

Nice pics mate.
Liking the first one shame the deer wasnt looking straight at you but still an immense pic

[kalniel]

Continuing the Christmas theme..

[merdat]

Was going to get round to taking a pic of our tree today but had to pop out and do a bit of work and when I got back tree packed away . Never mind , always next year

[midzt]

YorkieBens photos inspired be to go out the other day to take some photos, so here are the better ones, not really sure how to take photos of wildlife so it was more of a point and shoot exercise to see what came out