Author Topic: Photography  (Read 1861 times)

Offline Tupac

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Photography
« on: June 02, 2011, 08:44:52 PM »
Tips, suggestions, ideas, anything photography related share here



I think I got after this picture to much with the color enhance



I just used a white balance on this one, it was a little light
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Offline PFactorDave

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Re: Photography
« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2011, 08:52:25 PM »
You might benefit from a polarizing filter.  It would help prevent the colors looking washed out.  What camera are you using?

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Offline Tupac

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Re: Photography
« Reply #2 on: June 02, 2011, 08:54:00 PM »
You might benefit from a polarizing filter.  It would help prevent the colors looking washed out.  What camera are you using?

Powershot SX30
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Offline Tupac

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Re: Photography
« Reply #4 on: June 02, 2011, 09:09:04 PM »
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Offline PFactorDave

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Re: Photography
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2011, 09:19:42 PM »
Thanks a bunch! Just ordered the one off of Amazon, cant justify spending another $200 on camera stuff for the other

I don't blame you.  Heck, I'm a professional photographer and I don't spend that much on filters...  But I don't normally use them.  I do think the circular polarizer will help you out though.  Some other things that might be helpful...

Don't shoot on the automatic setting if you have a choice.  Look and see if your camera has a TV (not television, it stands for Shutter Priority).  TV allows you to tell the camera what shutter speed to use, the camera will select an appropriate f stop (a measurement of the size of the hole that lets light into the imaging sensor).  You'll have to experiment a bit, but I would suspect that somewhere in the 1/250th - 1/500th of a second should be plenty fast for the type of shots you are taking.

Also, if your camera has an ISO setting, lower is better usually.  So, an ISO of 400 or less would be good if you are shooting in daylight.  Higher ISO settings should be reserved mostly for lower light situations.

I've never done any aerial photography, so I'll think about it for a little while and see if I can come up with any other things you can try to get a better image.

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Offline Tupac

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Re: Photography
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2011, 09:26:40 PM »
I had my ISO set up a little high, and I reset my shutter priority to 1/500th thanks again for the tips!
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Offline PFactorDave

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Re: Photography
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2011, 09:39:08 PM »
I had my ISO set up a little high, and I reset my shutter priority to 1/500th thanks again for the tips!

Just keep an eye on the Aperture that the camera is selecting while in TV mode.  For what you are doing, the higher the f stop the better for a deeper depth of field.  It shouldn't be a problem in bright daylight, in fact you may be able to go even faster on the shutter (which would be a good thing in this case).  So, if you see that the Aperture (f stop) is pegging around 18-22 or so, you can crank the shutter faster.

One trick is, set the camera to AV (Aperture priority) and set the aperture to 22 and take a picture, note what shutter speed the camera picks.  As long as the shutter speed you are getting is above the 1/250th mark you should then switch to to TV mode and set your shutter one notch slower then what the camera was picking on AV mode.  This should get you best possible depth of field and as long as your shutter is still around 1/250th or faster you'll be golden.

You could just use AV mode all of the time, but setting to TV mode is a habit that I picked up when I was shooting sports all of the time.  Better to control the shutter and be on focus, then to control aperture and risk the shutter being too slow and producing motion blur.

Hope that all makes sense.  Let me know if it isn't clear.  I usually have a chalkboard in the front of a classroom when I am explaining this stuff to people. 

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Offline Obie303

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Re: Photography
« Reply #8 on: June 02, 2011, 09:44:39 PM »
I picked up a Nikon P500 as my back up.  It's a little more advanced for just a point & shoot.  I actually prefer my old D80, but the D7000 looks real sweet.

A great website for camera reviews is www.dpreview.com    You can compare all of the new cameras out on the market if you're looking to upgrade.  It also has a forum site for tips and advise.

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Offline PFactorDave

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Re: Photography
« Reply #9 on: June 02, 2011, 10:02:05 PM »
This is what I carry if I am covering something like a High School football game for the local paper, or just about any news story.



From top to bottom, sort of...

300mm f2.8IS
Canon EOS-1D with 70-200mm f2.8IS
Canon EOS-5D with 28-70mm f2.8
Manfrotto carbon fiber monopod
and the black pack with the cord is an auxillery battery pack

Not shown is the flash that I carry and my 1.4x and 2x tele-extenders

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Online Shuffler

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Re: Photography
« Reply #10 on: June 02, 2011, 10:12:53 PM »
I cover sports with this.........

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S.A.P.P.- Secret Association Of P-38 Pilots (Lightning In A Bottle)

Offline PFactorDave

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Re: Photography
« Reply #11 on: June 02, 2011, 10:15:47 PM »
I cover sports with this.........

(Image removed from quote.)

I had an Etch a Sketch when I was a kid...  I have come to the conclusion that the guys who can use them to create pictures like that have solod their souls to the devil in exchange for their dark etch a sketch powers.

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Offline cactuskooler

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Re: Photography
« Reply #12 on: June 02, 2011, 10:53:42 PM »
The few aerial shots I've taken are always lacking in contrast. I imagine that's due to shooting through the window plus the amount of atmosphere between target and I. Dave mentioned the polarizing filter—I bought one the other day but haven't had a chance to use yet from the skies. I've got a Nikon D90.

Yuck


Fortunately I'm better at Photoshop than I am at photo snapping, sort of.
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Offline Tupac

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Re: Photography
« Reply #13 on: June 02, 2011, 11:13:52 PM »
Here is a before and after of another picture I took. The problem you have cactus looks very similar to the one I'm having.




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Offline saggs

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Re: Photography
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2011, 11:46:55 PM »
The biggest issue with getting low contrast images like that is simply the time of day.  The best light for photos is an for an hour after sunrise and for an hour before sunset.  Like Dave mentioned a polarizer will help a lot as well, and you need a circular one or it could mess with your autofocus.

Also you may running into a dynamic range limitation in those shots, digital sensors cannot match the range of the human eye, so you end up with the sky overexposed (blown out) or else the ground underexposed. Solution for that is either a graduated neutral density filter to tone down the bright sky, or merging multiple exposures (HDR) which is impossible to do properly from a moving airplane.  Also I bet that Photoshop or Lightroom could pull a lot of detail out of that bright sky still.  I've taken photos that I thought where completely blown out, but have still been able to pull back the exposure in Lightroom and get lots of detail.  I'm pretty sure I could make a huge improvement in those photos just using a graduated exposure filter in LR, as well as playing with the tone curve.

But really the best thing you can do if you want nice aerial pictures is to get airborne just before dawn and just wait for the golden light to come.  Or you could also go up in the evenings if your night time current and don't mind landing after dark.    :old:
« Last Edit: June 02, 2011, 11:55:45 PM by saggs »