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It's relevant to photographers of all experience levels. Well, maybe not pros. Because I hope by the time they become professional they have every concept in the book memorized.
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Apr 9, 2013 00:02
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Going on the topic of books, which of the three main Ansel Adams books (The Camera, The Negative, The Print) would be worth getting? I've been photographing for almost a year and have a decent idea about my camera (digital but I also have a film SLR), lenses, and filters. I do have a bit of an art background (along with my science background). Lately I've been taking landscapes but might want to other subjects later on. I do have Understanding Exposure and the other older recommended book in the OP of one of the other threads.
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Apr 9, 2013 00:11
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GoldenNugget posted:Going on the topic of books, which of the three main Ansel Adams books (The Camera, The Negative, The Print) would be worth getting? I've been photographing for almost a year and have a decent idea about my camera (digital but I also have a film SLR), lenses, and filters. I do have a bit of an art background (along with my science background). Lately I've been taking landscapes but might want to other subjects later on. I think the question is why do you want to get the book? If you want a quick introduction into mechanical film cameras and their operations, get The Camera. If you're into shooting LF film via the zone system and want to do your own N+1 etc development and stuff, the best book would be The Negative. If you're going to get serious into darkroom printing, then you can also read The Print. Or just read all 3 for the sake of knowledge and the fact that you're probably not going to carry out most of what he says unless you're really hardcore.
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Apr 9, 2013 00:26
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XTimmy posted:Quickie: Is Understanding Exposure relevant to more advanced shooters or is it only a beginners text. I feel I know my poo poo regarding exposure, but I'm always looking for a chance to consolidate and broaden my understanding, am I going to be bored learning about how to eliminate handshake or does it get more indepth? It is only useful as far as understanding the basics. If you have the idea of the triangle down (iso-aperture-shutter) and how a light meter works, I don't think there's much else in there.
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Apr 9, 2013 00:30
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Reichstag posted:It is only useful as far as understanding the basics. If you have the idea of the triangle down (iso-aperture-shutter) and how a light meter works, I don't think there's much else in there. Saved me $20, thanks. Any recommendations for someone who's trying to step up their game as a professional.
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Apr 9, 2013 01:04
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alkanphel posted:I think the question is why do you want to get the book? If you want a quick introduction into mechanical film cameras and their operations, get The Camera. If you're into shooting LF film via the zone system and want to do your own N+1 etc development and stuff, the best book would be The Negative. If you're going to get serious into darkroom printing, then you can also read The Print. Well I was reading some of the reviews and I saw some comments saying that some of the topics in those books are still relevant to digital photography. Maybe I should be looking at other books? My main issues are recognizing good natural lighting and trying to make things look interesting. The thought process to a good composition. I understand the rule of thirds and was using it instinctively when I used to draw and paint but other than that I don't have much else to go off of. I'm also still working on the different effects you can get with DOF, filters, long exposures, and narrow apertures but don't know what to do with a lot of it. For example, I shoot a lot of landscape at f/8 because it's more in focus and the image quality is sharper. I also want to get more out of all the technical knowledge I've picked up.
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Apr 9, 2013 01:32
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GoldenNugget posted:Well I was reading some of the reviews and I saw some comments saying that some of the topics in those books are still relevant to digital photography. Maybe I should be looking at other books? Yeah, that's not really what Adams wrote about. The Negative is a great reference book and everyone should read it at least once but it isn't especially practical or easily digested. There is a lot of theory on visualization of tonal range and how exposure and development relate to that. Not so much on the actual composing. You must also remember Ansel was a protosperg and be prepared to have every tiny thing involved be SUPER IMPORTANT.
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Apr 9, 2013 02:24
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For someone like myself who was just getting into photography it was amazing because he made the whole process seem very simple and I still use his examples when I want to explain to someone else how exposure works. So no you probably won't learn anything technical from it if you already "understand exposure" however it is great for teaching you how to teach someone else how to meter or understand what an aperture is.
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Apr 9, 2013 02:59
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I like to go back and read Understanding Exposure when I feel like I'm getting lazy. In general there are usually a few things in there that I forget every now and then, but the most useful thing you get out of that book will be in the first few chapters with the triangle, for sure.
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Apr 9, 2013 03:01
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As somebody just getting started on photography and kinda lazy/apprehensive about going out of my way to find interesting photos, this book seems potentially useful after skimming through it a bit: http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Everyday-Photography-Stunning-Wherever/dp/081743593X/ For the most part, it basically just seems to espouse "zoom/crop everyday objects and abstract them into their constituent shapes/colors/patterns," but it's rather effective at that message, and every picture comes with a description of what makes it interesting.
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Apr 9, 2013 03:16
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How do you generally price prints? I'm reading around and most say 100%? I recently got some prints and matted and framed them. I think my cost between the prints and materials is about $27. Is $64 reasonable for an 8x8, with 12x12x2 frame? These will be submitted to a local exhibition with a 15% commission.  Photo Apr 10, 7 39 10 PM by philip painter, on Flickr
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Apr 11, 2013 18:02
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smallmouth posted:How do you generally price prints? I'm reading around and most say 100%? That seems reasonable enough to me, but it all depends on the audience. People will pay more or less depending on how the piece strikes them, so it's hard to say. I will say that is a fantastic photo though.
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Apr 11, 2013 18:34
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XTimmy posted:Saved me $20, thanks. Any recommendations for someone who's trying to step up their game as a professional. Practice.
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Apr 11, 2013 19:36
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smallmouth posted:How do you generally price prints? I'm reading around and most say 100%? Yes. Price it such that when it sells you can cover your costs and print another. Minimum.
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Apr 11, 2013 19:43
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smallmouth posted:How do you generally price prints? I'm reading around and most say 100%? Looks nice - where did you print that?
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Apr 11, 2013 21:19
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Thanks for the information, everyone.rio posted:Looks nice - where did you print that? I had it printed from mpix. I've been happy with their service, but if someone knows of a better company let me know. The mat and framing I did myself.
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Apr 11, 2013 21:23
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I have a question about shooting a train at night. I want to shoot a train moving at what I think would be ~45-55mph at night. I want the trees illuminated by its lights, but I also want the train to be seen. I'm not sure how to shoot it. For equipment I have a T2i, 2 kit lenses (EFS 18-55 3.5-5.6 & EFS 55-250 4.0-5.6)and a rokinon tripod I was thinking of doing a long-ish exposure (like 1-2 seconds?) right before train passes to get the light, maybe bulb to cut it at the right time. Then do a pan as a second one passes, and combine the exposures or is there a better way?
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Apr 16, 2013 17:45
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Or you could set up some flashes to fire at second curtain. Do your 2 second exposure to get the scenery and then when the train is where you want it in the frame, fire the flashes to freeze it. I would be worried about getting in trouble firing flashes at a train though. It's obviously not dangerous, but on the other hand, people are pretty jittery these days.
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Apr 16, 2013 17:54
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xzzy posted:Or you could set up some flashes to fire at second curtain. Do your 2 second exposure to get the scenery and then when the train is where you want it in the frame, fire the flashes to freeze it. This is spot on. You'll probably also get some motion trail behind the train, giving it the feeling of "rolling into" the picture. Messing around with second curtain flash can yield some very interesting results. How would you go about testing the flash exposure for such a shot? Just have an object in the general area you expect the train to hit and test on that? It's not really something you get a lot of shots at in a small amount of time.
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Apr 16, 2013 18:49
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Hmmm, I hadn't really thought of a flash, but that would probably make things a lot easier. How would I set it up that the train seems still? I don't want to much motion because in my head it seems like a little darker / eerie set up, and I think motion would affect that feeling. I'd have to rent the flash, what do you guys recommend, an alien bee setup or something? Edit: Also sorry for all the newbie questions. Most of my photos are of my kids, my dogs, or architecture. This is the first time I really though of something I want to set up.
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Apr 16, 2013 19:58
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Never apologize for newbie questions! To freeze the action totally you want your shutter at a high speed, something like 1/200 or so should be alright for a train. If you're doing this in the dark and with a flash, your aperture is what will determine if you get the right amount of light. How much distance is it to the trees from where you're shooting?
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Apr 16, 2013 20:15
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I appreciate that squidflakes, thanks. I could be anywhere from 0-115' from the train, with the "forest" depth around 30' on either side of the tracks. So I'm thinking of being about 65' back so I can use my widest aperture to get as much light as I can. Because of my pretty small maximum aperture on the 18-55 I'm not to worried about depth of field issues. Dial M for MURDER fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 20:50
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smallmouth posted:How do you generally price prints? I'm reading around and most say 100%? Did you buy that frame and mat off the rack, or did you have to custom cut them? Framers charge out the rear end for stuff like that, and your customers are going to be glad you've saved them that pile of money, or they'll think the frame sucks and rip the picture out and do it themselves (unless you're willing to just sell them the picture as well).
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Apr 17, 2013 15:00
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Dial M for MURDER posted:I appreciate that squidflakes, thanks. Ok, remember that light falls off at the square of the distance, so 65' away from your main subject is going to require a good amount of light and with such distances you're not going to have even lighting right out of the camera. An AB800 can probably do it, but you'd be better off getting one of the White Lightning 2400 or larger units. I would absolutely contact the rail line or a local trainspotting group and have them let the engineers know what you're up to.
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Apr 17, 2013 16:35
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FISHMANPET posted:Did you buy that frame and mat off the rack, or did you have to custom cut them? Framers charge out the rear end for stuff like that, and your customers are going to be glad you've saved them that pile of money, or they'll think the frame sucks and rip the picture out and do it themselves (unless you're willing to just sell them the picture as well). I custom cut the mat. The frame is off the rack. I know frame/mat cutting is a huge racket. I'm hoping just to get these to move and get some word of mouth locally.
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Apr 17, 2013 17:03
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Are there any good on-line printing sites for Canada? I know this comes up every so often, but I haven't seen it specific to Canada in a while. I just picked up an order from Snapfish.ca, which they hosed up - I wanted 8x8 squares, so I ordered 8x10 (they only have 3 options) hoping to get a white edge I could trim off, instead they auto-cropped and ruined my pictures. The previews did not show the auto-crop. They also sent it by UPS, despite me specifying Canada Post (because UPS is horrible). I sent them a complaint, but I doubt anything will come of it. A bit of googling suggests these other options: https://www.photolab.ca/ http://www.blacks.ca/blacks/home.jsp http://www.onlinephotoprinting.ca/ http://www.bonusprint.com/canada/ I don't have a Costco membership. Has anybody used these (or some other) services in Canada? mpix says shipping to Canada is $30, which is way too high for an order that should cost about $30 by itself.
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Apr 18, 2013 16:19
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Okay, this is a really weird question but if anyone could help that would be awesome. It has to do with the basic workings of auto focus. Is it right to say that distance from the subject tells the lens how to focus? Or at the very least most cameras are equipped with some way to tell the distance to the subject? My question is could you measure an object based just on the .EXIF data the camera records? The assumption would be that the subject is perfectly perpendicular to the lens(since your 'distance to subject' would probably be taken at the center of the object, or at the very least the point at which you focused). Take for instance a stop sign. I stand 20 feet away, take a picture with my camera(after autofocusing on center of the sign). Then after the picture is taken I would like to find the width of the stop sign. Would it be possible to calculate that? I would want to be able to say something like, "I took a picture of a stop sign from 20 feet away, at 35mm, the sign takes up 15% of the frame(width-wise), therefore the stop sign is x inches wide." It seems like it should be possible, but I'm not sure if there's enough information logged from the camera to do so. I don't need to do this for any particular reason, I'm more just curious if it's possible.
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Apr 18, 2013 16:46
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DoctaFun posted:
You could probably math backwards from the reply Platystemon posted to my query here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3169707&pagenumber=356#post414558158
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Apr 18, 2013 17:02
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Don't think EXIF contains focus distance info. Canon has focus point info.
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Apr 18, 2013 17:02
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evil_bunnY posted:Don't think EXIF contains focus distance info. Canon has focus point info. It can, I just double checked some of my old d40 shots and there is a "Subject Distance Range" field. I've never seen it be accurate though.
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Apr 18, 2013 17:06
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loving lightroom doesn't show it so I never knew.
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Apr 18, 2013 17:13
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Anybody else get in on Ctein's last dye transfer print sale? http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2013/04/cteins-great-last-blowout.html#comments Saw it just after it was posted and manged to put my grubby paws on a "Columbia at dusk" print. Seems somewhat fitting to have an image of obsolete tech printed using an obsolete tech. 
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Apr 18, 2013 17:47
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DoctaFun posted:Okay, this is a really weird question but if anyone could help that would be awesome. It has to do with the basic workings of auto focus. Is it right to say that distance from the subject tells the lens how to focus? Or at the very least most cameras are equipped with some way to tell the distance to the subject? I spent a lot of time looking at the best way to measure the size of objects in video without any inframe references for my work and the best solutions seem to be projecting structured light patterns (like the Kinect does) or Time of Flight cameras, which send out light pulses and use the known speed of light to calculate distances within a scene from the delay in the return of those pulses. I'm pretty sure most cameras use passive AF with contrast or phase detection so I doubt you can use them to determine distance with any accuracy.
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Apr 18, 2013 19:13
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big scary monsters posted:I spent a lot of time looking at the best way to measure the size of objects in video without any inframe references for my work and the best solutions seem to be projecting structured light patterns (like the Kinect does) or Time of Flight cameras, which send out light pulses and use the known speed of light to calculate distances within a scene from the delay in the return of those pulses. This is helpful, as is the other replies, thanks guys!
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Apr 18, 2013 21:15
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ExecuDork posted:Are there any good on-line printing sites for Canada? I use London Drugs for my printing. Honestly, they're the best I've found. I will caveat by saying the only thing I've ordered from them online is greeting cards (and they were great) and I usually go into the store in person to order prints, but I'm pretty sure the quality would be about the same for both. http://photolab.londondrugs.com/
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Apr 18, 2013 21:22
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DoctaFun posted:Okay, this is a really weird question but if anyone could help that would be awesome. It has to do with the basic workings of auto focus. Is it right to say that distance from the subject tells the lens how to focus? Or at the very least most cameras are equipped with some way to tell the distance to the subject? On EF mount, some lenses report focus distance to the camera and some don’t. Even lenses that do share focus distance don’t necessarily do so with much precision. Some only have seven steps of granularity from minimum focus distance to infinity. Others have thirty, which isn’t so bad.
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Apr 18, 2013 22:02
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HookShot posted:I use London Drugs for my printing. Honestly, they're the best I've found. I will caveat by saying the only thing I've ordered from them online is greeting cards (and they were great) and I usually go into the store in person to order prints, but I'm pretty sure the quality would be about the same for both. They're actually really solid, and depending on the location, if you get to know the lab person you can get your poo poo absolutely PERFECT (it helps if they have an unrequited crush on you, but I'm sure it works without that too).
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Apr 19, 2013 03:23
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I used to live fairly close to a London Drugs, but now I live on the other side of town. I was hoping for a service that I could use without actually, you know, talking to real people - upload to site, select output, they mail it to me. Is London Drugs capable of such service, or should I get off my rear end and walk into the store?
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Apr 19, 2013 21:12
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ExecuDork posted:I used to live fairly close to a London Drugs, but now I live on the other side of town. I was hoping for a service that I could use without actually, you know, talking to real people - upload to site, select output, they mail it to me. Is London Drugs capable of such service, or should I get off my rear end and walk into the store? Yeah they do online stuff and ship it to you too. But you know, it's probably good to get out and talk to people once in a while 
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Apr 20, 2013 03:34
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There were about six months in there when I didn't really get to shoot much for a variety of reasons. I read this forum, watched videos and read articles linked from this forum, sought out other forums and found they were universally terrible, and when I did start shooting again, I found myself to have improved drastically. I know shooting is the best way to learn, but months of research and reading and getting comfortable with the various ideas of photography also seems to have been extremely helpful. Now if I can just keep shooting, I can start improving from here.CarrotFlowers posted:Yeah they do online stuff and ship it to you too. But you know, it's probably good to get out and talk to people once in a while LIES.
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Apr 20, 2013 04:37
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