PHOTOS PLEASE

[plained]

haha great burnout andy and ur car looks absolutly ucking awesome!!

and hey i very much enjoyed ur neil young old man

very nice

[plained]

ey inolen

yea i'm no pro and certainly hardly even knowing anything

but to achieve a similer look to the pic u had said u preered the look of

i would boast up ur cams coler sateration and boost up the contrast settings

then maybe shoot with the arpeture priority mode setting with the lens opening full wide open

i think ur pics r fine now tho cuz ur content is awesome so i doent even notice any ittle stuff

[[xeno]Julios]

fucking HAWT!

[tnf]

[inolen]

The background is terrible, but I'm trying to work on improving the colors in my photos.

Used a custom picture style today, bumped up the sharpness, contrast and saturation all 2 notches. Lightened his face in photoshop and adjusted the blue level a bit to make the sky more intense.

[tnf]

I would recommend using manual for most stuff and then altering things with raw editing software after taking the picture.

To get the background more blurred and the subject more in focus comparatively (from my experience at least) you want to be near the end of your zoom range with the lens (but this can be a pain in the ass with the 200mm zoom while trying to do those type of shots). Lower f-stop number (aperture more open) gives you more blurring in the background as the focal length is shorter. Looks like you took that one at 2.8 so that is fine. Try composing a similar shot, but closer to 200mm if you can manage getting far enough away. Test by setting up the bike and then taking shots with everything the same but using 70 mm, 100mm, 150mm, and then 200mm, and watch the effect on the background. (edit - as I think about it, I am usually taking crops of full images for portraits and stuff when I get the blurred background effect with the zoomed in lens, so I'm not sure how it will work for a full action shot like this being that far away....sorry if it doesn't work out right, just throwing suggestions of what I've tried in my limited experience)

Just don't back up into moving traffic as you are doing it. I almost fell off a steep ledge again this morning while shooting those osprey.

One thing I've read about Canon Raw files regarding color is that they tend to be a bit undersaturated out of the camera, so the bumping up of saturation a notch or two is definitely a good idea. I don't know how accurate the article I was reading is about that, but I notice that I need to bump saturation up by 2 or so in most of my pics.

You may want to look at adjusting shadow/highlight in photoshop for a pic like the one above to bring out a bit of the shadow detail (I find shadow/highlight sliders a nice way to bring out detail you thought was totally lose in shadow like details in the feathers of the birds or faces of mountain bike racers).

[Fender]

Summit racing HQ is just a couple miles from me.

I have been just a couple miles from you a number of times

In Akron Ohio?

[andyman]

I have been just a couple miles from you a number of times

In Akron Ohio?

Ooh... I was thinking of the one south of atlanta. nm, you can unlock your doors and windows now.

[andyman]

1600 ISO, 30 second exposure. lots of light pollution, but most of that light is probably from the sun even though it went down 3 hours ago. with my eyes all i can see is the big dipper.



turns out 30 seconds is the longest exposure an xsi will do!

[tnf]

you should be able to do bulb exposure and it will keep it open as long as the shutter is pressed, but that is best used with a remote.

[andyman]

you should be able to do bulb exposure and it will keep it open as long as the shutter is pressed, but that is best used with a remote.

Ah so that's what that means... got to get a remote shutter
This photo should probably be taken at like 0230 that way there is no stray sunlight.

[ToxicBug]

I've heard that bulb can fuck up the sensor due to heat damage.

[tnf]

There was a family of geese on the course I was playing a tournament at this weekend:



BTW - my 2 man scramble team won the championship flight by birdie'ing the last 9 holes to win by 1. 4th time I've played since last July. I think that is the secret to golf - only play 2x a year. Much less frustrating.

[PhoeniX]

I've heard that bulb can fuck up the sensor due to heat damage.

I remember reading elsewhere when doing night shots like that it's better to take a series of short-ish exposures to keep the sensor happy. You can do it via a laptop using EOS Capture or DSLR Remote Pro (seems much better) so you don't have to keep clicking the shutter too.

[andyman]

I've heard that bulb can fuck up the sensor due to heat damage.

I remember reading elsewhere when doing night shots like that it's better to take a series of short-ish exposures to keep the sensor happy. You can do it via a laptop using EOS Capture or DSLR Remote Pro (seems much better) so you don't have to keep clicking the shutter too.

Ah yes, forgot about that. Thanks!

[ForM]

Birdies.......

This pair finally decided to come back and looking forlorn at me wondering when I was going to clean out last years nesting....





Not as sharp as I would like and am about ready to toss this lens in the scrap heap.

[tnf]

Which lens is it Form? The 70-300 IS or non IS?

BTW - you know the handheld rule about focal length and shutter speed, right? Do you know if you are supposed to factor in the 1.6x crop factor for that? ie. 200mm focal length, 1/200second minimum shutter for handheld or should it be 1/320s minimum shutter handheld on a crop factor body to account for the 1.6x on the focal length?


Here's another baby goose shot

[ToxicBug]

I don't think that you factor the 1.6x, since its just a crop, it doesn't actually make your lens longer. ie you still have the same fov, the outside is just cropped.

[seremtan]

god i hate you tnf

i took a fuckton of 200mm gosling pics on monday (canada geese love the thames in oxford) and not one of them came out worth a damn

[tnf]

god i hate you tnf

i took a fuckton of 200mm gosling pics on monday (canada geese love the thames in oxford) and not one of them came out worth a damn

The light was perfect - early evening, sun a little lower in they sky. I've got a bunch more to go through still, some great ones of the whole family swimming along - sort of a step-by-step of them appearing in the lake behind a bush one goose at a time. The father really swelled up when I got too close and I thought I was going to have a chance to shoot pics of an angry male goose attacking me (not something I would look forward too) and chasing me across the 5th fairway while golfers look on.

With a lot of my wildlife shots, I've been really fortunate in terms of what's been going on when I was watching them and also learned a lot about proper exposure and making sure I get somewhere near it on the first attempt. When I first started doing outdoor shots of animals, half my images would be either way over or underexposed. And I love this L-series 200mm lens. Even without IS and only f/4 max aperture, it performs great in conditions like this. I understand the frustration you feel though - really sucks when you miss a great opportunity. I've taken tons of shots that I thought were great until I got home and realized they were all slightly out of focus.

[Fanatic X]

[+JuggerNaut+]

your eye gives me a boner.

[tnf]

FanaticX is too good.
I didn't know mountains could trigger engorgement until seeing these images - I agree with Juggs.

[seremtan]

i'd have permanent priapism too if i woke up to that every morning. nice pics

[andyman]

The water in the second pic makes me so thirsty!