I will probably ask for help again once I got the money. For now I just need to settle here in my new life. I'll probably buy a lens in a couple of months, most likely before Christmas.
I'm using a 50D and my walk around lens is the EF-S 17-55. I'm about to upgrade to Full Frame though once the 5D Mark II successor is announced. Part of the reason I've been selling off the more expensive parts of my collection. Here's some more photos: Yoyogi Flower by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Bicycles by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Cicada Shells by gaijin_punch, on Flickr
Sunbeams at Meiji Jinguu by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Midtown over the Cemetary by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Takao-san (Tenguu 3) by gaijin_punch, on Flickr
I like the first three pictures you posted. You really got some talent spotting good angles and compositions - when did you start getting into photography? I recall you talking for years and years about your expensive camera gear that sits unused in a corner of your room. Apparently those days are over
I wouldn't say it's expensive (it's a 50D -- plenty more expensive bodies). I got a DSLR when I had the kid, and wound up getting a pricey lens when I realized I shot indoors a lot. At that point, I decided I should use it, at which point me getting up off my ass and putting the time in to take good photos fluctuates.
As soon as I get this roll of Fujichrome 64T cross-processed and scanned, I should have some stuff to post! Excited. Just a few more shots left... (I'm still not used to having 36 exposures instead of 24. )
Couple of more shots from tonight. Sorry that it's so many, but at least in terms of bandwith it's fairly bearable (2.5mb for all of them) (there's a girl sleeping on that bench) It's still the same average kit lens, but I'll probably buy a nice new lens in October when I get some money. I just recently joined the photography club of my university to enhance my knowledge on the matter. They offer many workshops for photoshop editing and advanced SLR settings, two things I don't know much about yet.
I'd give anything and everything to live here... :crying: I feel like if I ever visited Japan, a week or 2 wouldn't be enough time to stay...
this one is clearly my favorite. many compliments, you already look far better then me! also you cam must have a great noise reduction on low light!
Bubbles 10 by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Bubbles 1.1 by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Yoyogi Park Flower by gaijin_punch, on Flickr Odaiba Boats by gaijin_punch, on Flickr
Your pictures look great. What program do you use for the effects and editing? Photoshop or something else? My PS skills equal zero so I never enhance my photos which is a shame, really. I'll attend some workshops soon to learn the basics though. Could you post the original versions of some of your snapshots just to illustrate how much you changed?
Sure. Here are the untouched images... converted from RAW to JPG w/ no tweaking. I don't think any of them are bad, per se, but you can really tell when the clouds/light come in to play, it can get rather dull, epsecially if it's the middle of the afternoon (which all of these were). Photoshop is really not that hard once you wrap your head around a few things. In fact, there's tons I don't know, but I'm half decent with: -Adjustment Layers -Blending Modes -Curves -Levels & Brightness / Contrast -Sharpening -Bluring, for effect. The picture w/ the guy making the bubbles has a slight blur. That's basically all any of mine ever feature... maybe I'll cut out something that doesn't belong, but that's about it. Now, having said that, I do touch up the RAW files first... sometimes extensively. You have FAR greater control than on a JPG. Sure, you can get the same effect on the JPG, but it's just easier w/ the RAW file. For the two above w/ the bubbles, I edited the RAW file to get the sky to be a lot bluer, and to jack up the contrast. For the flower, I made the greens greener and more saturated. And some contrast stuff. After that, I do whatever I want in Photoshop. It's not the best for creativity purposes, but I have some templates where the image is a smart object. I replace this image with my new image, and voila. Generally I've got a few different layers for each effect, but with different settings. I disable/enable various layers to try to make the image look better. Sometimes, it just flat out doesn't work. Sometimes it's perfect. Usually you have to tweak the settings. That's where CS3 (I think) comes in handy, as it's when they introduced smart objects. As for the colors, google the following to get some ideas of curve examples Cross Processing Lomo Holga There's a ton of tutorials for each. Some good, some bad. I know people think Photoshop is going oveboard, but I find it superior to Gimp and worth the money if you're going to use it more than a few times a week. I've yet to find any good RAW editor on Linux, and I owned Photoshop for ages as I needed it for gamengai, so... no brainer.
I was going to ask the same question. I'm still in the habit of overdoing the saturation and fucking too much with the levels, but I blame that on the abundance of clouds we get in Scotland I've just started using CS3, and i'm liking the extra control you get with RAW, beats the shit out of JPEG hands down. Before: After:
Yeah, I've found clouds to be tricky. In Japan we get overcast weather more than "fluffy cloud weather". At least it seems that way. The other thing you can do, if shooting in raw, is play with the temperature (white balance). That has a pretty huge effect.
