plumbbob1 wrote:
Hi friends,
I've got an issue.
On a mountain top overlooking a meadow and valley of the Gila River, in New Mexico, I am preparing to make a pan of a small section.
My issue is; I only want to climb the mountain once, so, the trees that define the ribbon of the river appear a weak gray. The pic could be great if the gray was darker creating more contrast.
Question; should I use a camera filter of some color to enhance the gray or has filtering given way to Photoshop? The colors around the scene is predominately tan colored winter grass.
Hi friends, br I've got an issue. br On a mountain... (
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You could choose to use a filter, I think you can still buy them. You'd need to read up on which one, of course, and then you might not like what the filter does to the rest of the image as you cannot simply filter the trees. I'd do this in post, it's easy to do using the brush in PS or LrC and most likely in many other programs. I make these kinds of corrections almost routinely in landscape images.
If you are simply trying to capture individual shots of the swing that can be done with, most probably, a shutter setting of 1/2000 to 1/4000, but getting the shot sharp depends upon your skill with the camera and the settings.You'll need to experiment and practice.
boomboom wrote:
Hi all you Hedgehogs. I took this picture in full sunlight and was happy except the white on the duck was too intense. Is there something I could have done taking this picture that would have kept the color but toned down the whites for more feather detail? I would prefer to do this before postprocessing if possible because my PP is weak. Thanks for any suggestions.
Have not read the other replies...in digital photography, unlike film photography, getting the whites correctly exposed is much more important. Film had a better ability to correctly expose highlights so photographers "exposed for the shadows, processed for the highlights." When taking digital images it is the exact opposite. Expose for the highlights and process for the shadows. If you overexpose the highlights, the white portion of the image, and get no detail you cannot process to get the detail back, there is simply no information there to get. The camera and software histogram are helpful for this. If you take JPEG images instead of RAW images there is a greater need to take care in exposure. When taking a shot of an image that is white, the bird in this case, move your focus point to the bird and expose for the bird, looking at the histogram to be sure that the histogram does not stretch all the way to the edge at the right side, although even then small portions of white can still be blown out. Learning to shoot white objects is a challenge but you can be effective at it if you pay attention to exposure.
Mac wrote:
I am a retired railroad worker. I worked on the the Railroad Division of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) for 30 years. From reading different posts and comments about photographing trains here on UHH there are some thing that people need to be aware of.
1. Train tracks and the areas around them are owned by the railroads and are private property. If you are on or near the tracks you are trespassing. Even at road crossings the tracks and areas around them are private property. Road crossings are established by agreement between the railroads the governing body for that area. That is why at road crossings cars and people are required to stop and wait while the train passes through. The trains have right of way because they own the tracks.
2. Being hit by a train is not the only danger of being on or near the tracks. There are any variety of tripping hazards in an about the tracks, from uneven ties to loose cables and many other things. The rails are made of steel and if someone trips and falls they could twist an ankle, break a bone, or crack their skull. If they fall on a sharp object they could stab themselves.
3. Trains have steel wheels that run on steel rails. It takes a train a lot longer to stop than it does a car. Depending on how big the train is it could take up to a mile or more.
4. It’s not the trains responsibility to look out for vehicles or people on the tracks. It’s responsibility of people, pedestrians and drivers, to keep off the tracks except at road crossings and only then when there is no train approaching.
I am a retired railroad worker. I worked on the th... (
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It's a nanny time we live in for sure...hoping that most of the people that are taking train shots do so with caution. Having said that, I think many of the train shots we all see are from Train museums or parks and they have many rules for us to follow. We have one where I live, Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, and I have shot there multiple times. I know there are these parks in many places as there are a great many train buffs. As for being careful, life is filled with tragedy and pain in many ways and your reminding people to be careful is being done with the utmost good will but will not stop a stupid or careless person from dying or being maimed due to a train accident. Being stupid or careless is not fixed by a cautionary tale.
mikegreenwald wrote:
I'm unable to install Topaz on my M1 MacBook. Topaz installation instructions say "incompatible", which learned only after I was foolish enough to buy it without using the free trial.
Supposedly the new upgrade to 4 took care of the M1 problem. I only know that because I just uploaded it and read what it said. Good luck.
roko111 wrote:
Hi and thnks everybody who responded.
Just to be more specific I want to tell that, of course, I'm not expecting to make millions, or hundreds of thousands bucks on my photos. Even thousands. I'm not on a pink cloud.
Of course I'm not in the position to spend money on lawyer(s) consultation
The only my intention now is to understand bit better the legal aspects by publishing and selling photographs, and be in the knowing what to do right to keep my copyright.
Probably all specifically photo copyright information now online. I spent time digging online but didn't find too much satisfying me.
Thank you, Bill_de for the link. At least it something for now ....
Hi and thnks everybody who responded. br Just to b... (
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FYI...any photo you take is copyrighted, automatically. Be sure to include the metadata with your signature when you put it online or request any user to add your name, or include your name in the photo, although this is not required to ensure copyright but will allow someone who wants to use your photo to find you. Creating a legal copyright is more about legal issues if you go to court. Copyright is a murky area and one to be discussed with a copyright lawyer if you wish to do that as you don't want to read copyright law. I think it's also a fluid law in today's digital world. If you are that worried about people stealing your work then don't put it online anywhere at all. Otherwise it's a sort of wild, wild digital world. As for stock, a lot of intense difficult work for very little return, as others have said.
I use a Stealth 203 (Enduro) tripod. I have used it with a Nikon 200-500 lens and in the past a Tamron 150-600 lens. Now I just use a Nikon 500PF lens and no tripod for the most part. A heavy lens will drop a bit if the ball head is not large enough to hold it. I use a RRS B-55 ball head. This gear has worked out well for me. Budgets differ and you did not state yours but my budget found the cost to be reasonable for what I wanted, a stable setting to get the best shots. Putting a long lens on a small transportable tripod would be asking for trouble.
elliott937 wrote:
I am simply very curious to learn from my fellow members ... how many enjoy post-processing as much as taking the picture snap? Post-processing ... like a lot? Post-processing ... don't like it at all?
I love processing my RAW images. I'd be disappointed if I had an image that did not need my touch. As you know, when shooting digital, any digital format, the image must be processed, either by someone using software or by the camera. I can't imagine letting the camera make those decisions for me.
suntouched wrote:
Listen Up- there is NO Shame in upgrading your camera equipment even if only for GAS! If you want it and you can afford it then go for it. You don't need anyone's permission here to do that. You don't need anyone here setting limits on what you buy or how often you buy or if you should buy. If you have a closet full of unused equipment that is your business.
Will it make you a better photographer? Maybe or maybe not. But it will be fun to find out. New equipment will often push you forward to becoming better by the technical advances. It may help you see improvement which may be the catalyst for more improvement.
Why is it there is honor in using outdated equipment? It is often said here that my (really old) equipment works just fine. Well that's fine for you but don't use it as a measure of why someone else should not buy new.
It use to be fun here seeing members say "The Brown Truck is coming and then it fell out of favor followed by other members denigrating the purchase of new equipment. (yes- I have been on this forum for a long time) Why- why taint new equipment purchase with underlying negative judgement? There are real advances in new cameras now that can achieve results that older cameras can't- ISO improvement, focus, reduced size and weight, focus stacking, interval and video results and many other advances.
So let's not treat our members as children but as thinking adults. We should be responding to the implied question of what did you gain by updating not should I update. And GAS is ok.
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What I don't understand about people on this forum is why ask strangers, people you have no idea about as far as their skills and abilities go, what you should buy? I would think that's a great question to ask very specific people that you know have the knowledge to help you and perhaps reading reviews, of which there are many across the web, is also a good way to learn about equipment. Then, why are people so darn compelled to tell everyone they got something new? Is it bragging? A silent plea for help? Why not just get out there and take some great images with it and maybe post those with the specs? It appears that some people just have a great need to "share" with others and that means you'll get a variety of comments, maybe even some negative ones if someone is jealous that you can afford something they want but can't afford. From a personal perspective I would not be comfortable telling the world what I can and cannot afford and sometimes when people do that it does sound like bragging and then maybe it is. Often if a header has anything about new equipment I just pass it by...yours said, "rant" and I was curious. Maybe people just don't have anything better to do with their time than to talk about equipment.
home brewer wrote:
I was thinking about some recent posts and I wondered about lens focal length for given situations. I assume a wide angle is not a good choice for grizzly
What is you favorite lens focal length
for cities?
for birds and other wild life?
for birds in flight?
people?
wide open landscapes?
Waterfalls?
canyons?
family events?
thanks for any suggestions that helpful
Recently I went to Death Valley, I used a Nikon D850 and only two lenses, the Nikon 70-200 for far-away dunes and the Nikon 16-35. I also went to two wildlife refuges and there I used, for both, the Nikon D850 and the Nikon 500PF (I used to use the Nikon 80-400 and the Nikon 200-400 but not since I got the 500PF). My general walk-about lens is a Nikon 24-120 for the dSLR and a Nikon 24-70 for the Z7. I assume you were simply curious about the answers but I don't think they really provide concrete information for photographers as each situation we find ourselves in differs and so do the cameras and their abilities and the same for the lenses. There is a well-know photographer who photographs all wildlife with a wide angle only and the prints sell for upwards of $100,000, they are incredible: he sets the camera on the ground in a specific location that has been watched and takes the shots remotely, sometimes from a nearby cage. What matters most about the lens we use is that we know what that lens is capable of and why we have chosen to use it and that is the hard part to learn. Asking yourself what you want the image you capture to accomplish will lead you to the right choice of lens.
Yes, I was there once. We stayed until after dark and shot the shed and cars lit up, those shots turned out very nice. It's a ghost town, pretty much like all the others. Go and see what appeals to you and hope something does and that it turns out as anticipated. If you stay to do lighted night shooting you can bring a headlamp to walk around and bring some flashlights to light up the objects.
Jacqui Burke wrote:
I am very new to post-processing and just downloaded Lightroom and Photoshop. I would like advice on buying a book/books on getting started. I understand that there are online tutorials, but my prefered method of learning is reading. I would like to learn all the theory from a book while sitting in front of the computer open to the appropriate program. I also like books because I can increase my speed of reading when I easily understand a concept and slow my pace when comprehension comes slower. I also like to bookmark and highlight for future reference. Once I feel in control of the basics, then the online tutorials will be more helpful. Thanks!
I am very new to post-processing and just download... (
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BTW...the one module in LrC that you really need to understand is the Library Module. In this module you organize, mark, and work from if using Collections or Folders. All of your imported work will show in this module as well as all your folders and collections, it is the center force of the software and the place. where a lot of people make mistakes. Read up on this module first.
Jacqui Burke wrote:
I am very new to post-processing and just downloaded Lightroom and Photoshop. I would like advice on buying a book/books on getting started. I understand that there are online tutorials, but my prefered method of learning is reading. I would like to learn all the theory from a book while sitting in front of the computer open to the appropriate program. I also like books because I can increase my speed of reading when I easily understand a concept and slow my pace when comprehension comes slower. I also like to bookmark and highlight for future reference. Once I feel in control of the basics, then the online tutorials will be more helpful. Thanks!
I am very new to post-processing and just download... (
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Martin Evening has a book that is very coherent. I learned the software the same way you are describing, but with Scott Kelby about 10 years ago. I don't recommend him, he is not organized in a fashion that I can understand. Then I read the entire Adobe manual, this is when you could actually download it (I had it bound) twice!
RosiArt wrote:
I'm doing my post-processing on an IMAC 27with the latest software, and after a recent trip I decided I didn't want to make a book, but rather created a "collection" within LrC. How do I make a distributable PDF?
One way is to use the Book Module, just let the program pop them in however and then you can use the Export Book to PDF, this works if you want some kind of order in your images.
Another way is in the Print Module, you can export to File as a JPEG then click on the JPEG to print it but print instead to PDF or use export to PDF.
Another way is to save them all as prints and from the Print Module sent them to PDF instead of to Print.
And, you can also use the Adobe online program to show your work to others by the use of a link after you pop the images into whatever you want, it's now called Creative Cloud Express: it lets you use the Adobe server and templates to produce whatever and it is stored on the Adobe server, you simply copy a link and post it for others to click on.
Could be other ways, too....
James Eslinger wrote:
A general notice to the community. A new section has been added, one devoted to the central topic of Post-Processing (PP). I've been slow to get things going, vacation and deadlines at my real job got in the way. But I intend to rectify that!
I invite all with an interest to participate when you have something you want to say about the topic, have a question, or just want to show off your latest clever creation.
I'm the monitor, but I make no claim of expertise. I did propose the creation of the section, because I believe the topic is such a significant one it deserves a place of its own.
I hope to see there!
Jim
A general notice to the community. A new section ... (
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Hi Jim, how does this new section differ from all the other sections already here? There is on already called Post-Processing Digital Images that has 4506 topics...can't be the one you are talking about, can it? It's managed by some others. Then there is For Your Consideration, a Critique section, and an Analysis section (those two should be the same to me). Just confused a bit and trying to figure this out. I find that the posts on these smaller forums are fairly slim, people seem to like to just pop whatever it is into the General section. How is your new section different?