Quake3World

I have been playin with my camera now for the last few days trying
to work out how to take nice pics as i would like to decorate my
room with them. Now, i have 4 pics here, 3 of my car, 1 of the
place i was taling the pics. Now, how do i get it so the car is really
in focus, but the background isnt? Also, i think the car looks crisp,
(looks better in full rez) but s there a way of getting it to look even
more so? Also, how do you make light look soft?

The Samples:










Now, i will be out tonight trying a few night shots out. I would like
to have it so all the car lights leave trails but every static object
looks really really clear. Any tips??

I'm using a Cannon IXUS 430 so i know the pics arnt gonna be
amazing, but its quite a tidy cam so anyone that can help, please do

Cheers all

using a tripod?

getting a tripod made my pics improve loads.

Don Carlos wrote:I would like
to have it so all the car lights leave trails but every static object
looks really really clear. Any tips??

google says long exposures
http://www.danheller.com/tech-longexp.html

The consumer digital cameras have really small sensors, therefore the lens has a very wide field of view. This means that you can't get a nice shallow depth of field at a distance of 2-3 meters (focus close to infinity) like you'd get with a real SLR like a 35mm SLR or an interchangeable DSLR like a Canon 350D, 20D, etc.

THIS ISN'T A THREAD ABOUT DRIVING BADLY. SHOO.

you have f stops in film cameras (and in digital). the smaller the f stop, say 1.0, 1.8, 2.0, 2.8, the more light is let in thru the lens and the more shallow your depth of field will be, ie whatever you focus on will be the only thing in focus (your car) and the rest blurry (the background).

conversely, the higher your f stop say 16, 22, 32, 64 the greater your depth of field. this is how most land/city/seascapes are done, coupled with long exposure times because f32 let's in so little light.

focal length also plays a part. w/wide lenses you won't notice much change in depth of field so you would want to use say 50mm to 105mm and no greater than 3.5 or 5 for an f stop to get the effect you're looking for. that's one way to judge the quality of a lens; by how fast it is, or how low the f stop goes, for wide to normal focal lengths.

interetsing...cheers guys...

Check to see if your camera has a macro mode. Putting it in that mode should change the F value (it does on my cam at least), and when you zoom out with it and take a pic, then whatever's in the background will be less in focus.

For sharpening, you really need to get photoshop. It's amazing. You can use a quick Unsharp Mask filter that will do wonders to improve the sharpness of your photo.

You can also work with the color settings individually, and adjust their hue, saturation and intensity. Therefore, you can change how sharp and bright the background looks to bring what's in the foreground to even sharper focus and emphasize it.

I'll try to post a few of my pics up tonight if I can to show you what I'm talking about. I've been playing with it a lot the last few days and I'm really starting to get into it.

Have fun. :icon14:

love ur <s>golf</s> polo

1) Play with your F Stop (the lower you go, the less in focus).
2) Play with it in Photoshop (sharpen the car and blur the background).

F-stops are good for making subtle changes in depth of field, but you can make far more dramatic changes by manually focusing the lens. Your camera should have a manual setting even if it's a point-and-shoot.

To get streaking lights, just use a long exposure, and hold the camera on a tripod so steady objects won't blur. You'll have to use a longer exposure at night anyway, so the effect is almost automatic. Use a higher F-stop and low ISO's to get even longer exposures. I'd use the lowest ISO possible at night, as it will cut down the noise a lot.

If you want a blurry background but fully sharp car, I imagine you'll need a pretty long lens over 200mm. You can lower the f-stop, but what you'll get on a wide lens is only a portion of the car being in focus.

mjrpes wrote:If you want a blurry background but fully sharp car, I imagine you'll need a pretty long lens over 200mm. You can lower the f-stop, but what you'll get on a wide lens is only a portion of the car being in focus.

:icon14:

I forgot about that. This might actually work, but if he zooms out completely, his lowest f/stop will be something like 5.6-6.3, so it will probably neutralize the shallower DOF that the longer lens estabilishes.

Here are a couple I took. This first one was an old birdhouse on a farm when I was in VA a couple weeks ago.

Original (sized down for posting - original was actually 2272x:1704)


Image after a quick Levels Adjustment Layer and Unsharp Mask filter (and cropped):


And after adjusting the H,S and I of the individual colors (I know the leaves are way too green, but I was having fun playing aroud):



Here's a pic I took when I was doing my scuba certification dive, of an old van that was in the quarry.
Original:


After PS touch-ups:



I'm still not very good at it, but I'm starting to learn. If you have a digicam, Photoshop is invaluable.

Wow, impressive PSing of the van.

Thanks man. I consider that quite a compliment. :icon32:

Transient wrote:Wow, impressive PSing of the van.

w3rd

Let the sun do the work for you. Taking pictures at noon is fine and everything, but you can turn a boring scene into something nice by shooting at sunrise, sunset, or night.

rep wrote:Let the sun do the work for you. Taking pictures at noon is fine and everything, but you can turn a boring scene into something nice by shooting at sunrise, sunset, or night.

The only thing that rep ever said that is actually useful :icon14:

what did you do to get the car'wreck like that? great work up:

image/auto levels

Oh, and an unsharp mask.

Layers New Adjustments Layer Levels....

And played with the light/dark levels to get the balance I wanted.

Filters Sharpen Unsharp Mask

To bring out the edges and such a little better.

Don Carlos wrote:

Transient wrote:Wow, impressive PSing of the van.

w3rd

You get a chance to get some more shots last night?

Hey Rook, no i didnt on account of being so fucking tired lol

But i think im gettin sed 2 what i need 2 do
Check this:

[lvlshot]http://web.ukonline.co.uk/c.slocombe/sharp.jpg[/lvlshot]

Think i got what i want. Nice sharp (heh) front pic, and then a really blury background

What u think? Also, no PS job on that