My noob approach to photography

infinity_racer · 2005-11-13 22:24:53

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/kyddo112/side.jpg The highlights are blown out here, either by overexposure or photoshop. You also have far too much contrast because you've lost all detail in the shadows under the car. Try for a more natural look and use an unsharp mask to sharpen every photo you resize for the web. http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/kyddo112/signature.jpg You tried to do something impossible. Cameras can't adjust for differences in bright and dark like your brain can (your eyes can't either but your irises are fast and your brain compensates to make everything seem visible at once - your brain also flips everything from your eyes that comes in upside-down but that's another story). To get this shot to work (first, let me ask why you'd want half your car [only] in the shade?) you would have to A) use a graduated neutral density filter or B) take two exposures, for light and dark, and then blend them in Photoshop. Tutorial here: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...exposures.shtml (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/blended_exposures.shtml) http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/kyddo112/front.jpg I like this one a lot. I personally would have stepped back a bit or not cropped so much but this is a very nice shot. Like the first, it's a bit heavy on contrast and saturation, but there's nothing really wrong with it. It would, however, really pop with an unsharp mask on it. Keep your camera in AV mode in nearly all cases. The reason is fairly simple. As long as your shutter speed is fast enough to stop the shake of a handheld shot, and you are not shooting action or trying to get blur, your shutter speed is pretty irrelevant. That is, 1/125s is really the same as 1/800s with the proper aperature change. Nothing will change in the final output when you're shooting a car at different speeds that are above, say 1/60s. BUT, every single f-stop (or aperature) change affects your camera's depth of field. That means that taking a shot at f4 may have 32ft in focus where a shot at f32 may have 6,000ft in focus. And, the closer your focal length, the more drastic the change. Here's a shot at f1.8. It would be much different on a tripod at f16 with the background in sharp focus. http://josiahgordon.com/archives/Favor.jpg Hope those long answers helped a little :hello:

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11-17-2005, 12:54 AM

#31

flitcroft

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The highlights are blown out here, either by overexposure or photoshop. You also have far too much contrast because you've lost all detail in the shadows under the car. Try for a more natural look and use an unsharp mask to sharpen every photo you resize for the web.

You tried to do something impossible. Cameras can't adjust for differences in bright and dark like your brain can (your eyes can't either but your irises are fast and your brain compensates to make everything seem visible at once - your brain also flips everything from your eyes that comes in upside-down but that's another story). To get this shot to work (first, let me ask why you'd want half your car [only] in the shade?) you would have to A) use a graduated neutral density filter or B) take two exposures, for light and dark, and then blend them in Photoshop.

Tutorial here:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorial...exposures.shtml

I like this one a lot. I personally would have stepped back a bit or not cropped so much but this is a very nice shot. Like the first, it's a bit heavy on contrast and saturation, but there's nothing really wrong with it. It would, however, really pop with an unsharp mask on it.

Keep your camera in AV mode in nearly all cases. The reason is fairly simple. As long as your shutter speed is fast enough to stop the shake of a handheld shot, and you are not shooting action or trying to get blur, your shutter speed is pretty irrelevant. That is, 1/125s is really the same as 1/800s with the proper aperature change. Nothing will change in the final output when you're shooting a car at different speeds that are above, say 1/60s. BUT, every single f-stop (or aperature) change affects your camera's depth of field. That means that taking a shot at f4 may have 32ft in focus where a shot at f32 may have 6,000ft in focus. And, the closer your focal length, the more drastic the change.

Here's a shot at f1.8. It would be much different on a tripod at f16 with the background in sharp focus.