Photography - Discussion, Photos, Equipment, Etc.

[Goesje]

Thanks! I'm indeed liking it already xD

 

[Astronomer]

Street photography.  This one screams "despair" to me, from his posture, his hands, to the momentarily empty street. From the moment I noticed him to the time it took me to move to the right, crouch, compose the image, and get two frames, maybe 3 seconds elapsed.

 

[KicknDatAzz]

You all are posting some great shots here!

I have been a photographer since I was 16.  Started with Canon A-1s and AE-1s back in the day and have used them ever since. One of my first jobs was as a photographer on the beach shooting postcards and keychains for tourists.

 I used to do a LOT of darkroom work, developing and printing black and white and also developing slide film (E-6 process). I also used to do weddings but gave that up. I had my own business shooting Preschool kids during the week and pets on the weekends that I ran for several years. Also have done a lot of modeling headshots and the like for portfolios, etc.

Since I have a great full time IT job, I mostly enjoy shooting people and landscapes/nature these days.  I live on a lake and am close to the beach - good stuff.

I am still shooting Canon and currently have a 70D with:

 Canon 50mm 2.5 macro

Canon 28-104 F4 L

Canon EFS 17-55 2.8

Canon 75-300 4.5-5.6

I just started playing with Lightroom last year, and have toyed with Photoshop for years as needed.

I'll dig in to some recent stuff and post some when I have some time.

 

[BoomSlang]

[Smeggie]

Two years ago, today:

June 17, 2015. My wife and have taken some incredible hikes over the years. But the views during our hike around Byers Lake in Denali State Park (Talkeetna Alaska)...were epic.  Truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.

@AyaqGuyaq knows what I am talking about....

 

 

[Astronomer]

2 hours ago, SGTSmeg said:

Two years ago, today:

June 17, 2015. My wife and have taken some incredible hikes over the years. But the views during our hike around Byers Lake in Denali State Park (Talkeetna Alaska)...were epic.  Truly one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.

@AyaqGuyaq knows what I am talking about....

 

 

 

Man, I am extremely jealous! Beautiful landscapes there. At the moment, I'm living in Boring Flatland™

 

 

[Goesje]

Don't like the crowd, or the fact I focused on the rear of the car but like I said, learning curve

 

 

 

Well...trying xD

[Astronomer]

New toy: a ~$100 MIDI controller. These are normally used as a music mixer for live music, DJ-ing, etc. My usage for it is quite a bit different: Image editing. The application that I use for image cataloguing and basic camera RAW image editing is LightRoom, from Adobe.

Using a free plugin for LightRoom called "MIDI2LR", I've mapped the controller's dials, sliders, and buttons to LightRoom tools. It's easy. The first time I plug in the controller and once in LightRoom, I activate any control on the pad and MIDI2LR opens a dialog that lets me choose from organized menus which LightRoom tool I want to associate with that control. The process is very intuitive. I mapped it out in advance and had it set up in a few minutes. I only have to do this once and save the mapping file.

The dials, in rows of 8, I've set for red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta adjustments. The adjustment rows are for adjusting those colour's Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.

The sliders correspond to primary adjustments of Colour Temperature, Tone, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, and Vibrance. The buttons let me navigate my photos, undo/redo adjustments, zoom in/out in increments, select white-balance presets, attach ratings to images etc.

This will speed up photo editing greatly. This image was edited with the controller! Once I get to the point where I don't have to think of what control does what, I can just focus on the image and make my adjustments with my left hand. This will replace a lot of clicking around with the mouse to various tabs and on-screen sliders. I noticed that while navigating through my images, as soon as I touch an editing control, it takes me directly to the editing mode on-screen. The fine-control and having my most used tools handy on one physical device is game changing. If I need more controls, I can simply add another controller. There are many on the market, starting for as low as $40 with a few controls.

I've just added coloured dots for the dials and I'm in the process of makeing lables for the sliders and buttons. I'll post an image of the controller again when it's all finished.

[Astronomer]

2 of my eclipse pics:

 

[Merlin007]

2 of my eclipse pics:







 

Nice photos Astro.

Sent from my SM-A520W using Tapatalk

[Hunter1948]

Awesome eclipse

[Smeggie]

1 hour ago, Astronomer said:

2 of my eclipse pics:

 

Very nice!  One of those 'dots' is the International Space Station (ISS)

NASA published a few photos of it zoomed in and quite obvious.

Good stuff!

[Smeggie]

Snagged a couple of shots of a Bald Eagle when I was out boating on Memorial Day.

Two of the better ones.

Taken with Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens.  Eagle was about 100 yards away so these are significant crops.

Also took my new drone out and got some footage I may post a little later.

Cheers!

[Smeggie]

Here are some shots from the Outer Banks of North Carolina where I have been vacationing for a week.  The week started out very rough with Hurricane Jose just offshore.  We had ~50 mph gusts for the first three days.  Beaches have been closed to swimming all week (unless you were a professional surfer here for the competition).  Weather broke on Wednesday (beaches still closed) but at least it was nice and sunny.

The waves were huge for this area and the surfers were having a blast.  So I decided to grab my camera and make the most of it.

The weather was also perfect for some night exposures at the Bodie Island Light House....although I had to fight with a group of clueless photographers one evening.

Also had fun flying my drone around.  Had a video to upload but I guess it's too large...I'll resize it and try again later.

Oh....the surfer photos were taken with my Canon 5D MK IV and Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens

The lighthouse photos were taken with my Canon 5D MK IV and Canon 24-105 f/4L USM IS lens.  On tripod (IS / AF disabled) with remote shutter on BULB at f/4 for ~13 seconds)

One more night then back to reality for a few weeks.

Cheers hope to see you all on the server in a few days!

-Smeg (a.k.a Dave)

[Smeggie]

Finally got a chance to start looking at some of the other photos I took after I got home.  I particularly like this Milky Way shot I got.  

[KicknDatAzz]

On 8/19/2017 at 5:54 PM, Astronomer said:

New toy: a ~$100 MIDI controller. These are normally used as a music mixer for live music, DJ-ing, etc. My usage for it is quite a bit different: Image editing. The application that I use for image cataloguing and basic camera RAW image editing is LightRoom, from Adobe.

Using a free plugin for LightRoom called "MIDI2LR", I've mapped the controller's dials, sliders, and buttons to LightRoom tools. It's easy. The first time I plug in the controller and once in LightRoom, I activate any control on the pad and MIDI2LR opens a dialog that lets me choose from organized menus which LightRoom tool I want to associate with that control. The process is very intuitive. I mapped it out in advance and had it set up in a few minutes. I only have to do this once and save the mapping file.

The dials, in rows of 8, I've set for red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue, purple, and magenta adjustments. The adjustment rows are for adjusting those colour's Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.

The sliders correspond to primary adjustments of Colour Temperature, Tone, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Clarity, and Vibrance. The buttons let me navigate my photos, undo/redo adjustments, zoom in/out in increments, select white-balance presets, attach ratings to images etc.

This will speed up photo editing greatly. This image was edited with the controller! Once I get to the point where I don't have to think of what control does what, I can just focus on the image and make my adjustments with my left hand. This will replace a lot of clicking around with the mouse to various tabs and on-screen sliders. I noticed that while navigating through my images, as soon as I touch an editing control, it takes me directly to the editing mode on-screen. The fine-control and having my most used tools handy on one physical device is game changing. If I need more controls, I can simply add another controller. There are many on the market, starting for as low as $40 with a few controls.

I've just added coloured dots for the dials and I'm in the process of makeing lables for the sliders and buttons. I'll post an image of the controller again when it's all finished.

THAT sir, is BAD AZZ!!!

[Astronomer]

From this past weekend.

[Astronomer]

Another one a little later in the morning.

[Astronomer]

From July 2017.

 

[bds1961]

Finally got my replacement camera since my original gear was stolen.  Still have a few more lens to replace. 

[Gam3rGurL]

this mornings sunrise

[JohnnyDos]

Nice but where in Ontario?

[bds1961]

Made a trip through Tioga pass in Yosemite on my way to Reno

[Astronomer]

On 10/24/2017 at 7:49 PM, bds1961 said:

Finally got my replacement camera since my original gear was stolen.  Still have a few more lens to replace. 

THAT is a sweet piece of kit! Congrats on getting what is arguably one of the best cameras out there.

I just picked up a used Canon 6D full-frame. It's huge pixels and very low noise make it still one of the top cameras for low-light and night sky photography. I'm keeping my APS-C body for nature/birding etc.

[Gam3rGurL]

On 21/11/2017 at 5:52 PM, JohnnyDos said:

Nice but where in Ontario?

Orangeville. Moved last year