I’m enjoying the view of this amazing sunset outside my place in Winfield right now. After snapping a few pics with my point and shoot Minolta S304, I ended up needing to use PS7 to balance out the images I took. Since a lot of us enjoy taking pictures, we should have a photography thread…
http://screenlooking.com/html/modules/gallery/albums/album13/PICT1523.sized.jpg
What advice do you have for shooting images like this one, where large differences in light are present? My photos never show the image as well as my eyes did at the time.
I’m not a photographer, though I play one on TV.
That being said, the problem is probably the metering mode on your camera. It’s trying to average the entire scene. Is there like a spot meter mode? Can you get it out in RAW format? That might be a way to play with it.
Lately I’ve been using the shotgun method of photography: Take a bunch of shots, using all kinds of different settings. One is bound to look good.
creativepro.com/story/feature/18075.html
creativepro.com/story/feature/18076.html
Couple articles and stuff.
By metering mode, woudl those be the little boxes in to view finder? like one in the center and 4 around that one? I can select any 1, or line of 3 I believe.
I dont’ know what RAW is, but I’m assuming it’s the high-quality setting… Rather than having the image compressed to JPEG. Mine does TIFF.
RAW is like what the sensor saw before the camera interpreted it. So if you can get it, you can overrule the camera’s opinion.
Try like metering one part of the scene (hold the button half way) then moving and taking the shot. Experiment.
Oh, and it may be a bad method… but I tend to half-press the shutter button in different intensities of light, so it focuses and meters differently for each picture. I think thats probably the same idea when using automatic metering. (?)
[quote=“MiG”]RAW is like what the sensor saw before the camera interpreted it. So if you can get it, you can overrule the camera’s opinion.
Try like metering one part of the scene (hold the button half way) then moving and taking the shot. Experiment.[/quote]
Did you liek insert that post or something? I’m feeling weirded out by you… I’m going to take random pictures of things in the house, and try to figure out these manual ISO/Shutter Speed/Exposure etc etc settings I know nothing about.
Stay tuned for more images, 56k users may want to stray away unless I feel like making linkage.
I replied at the same time as you, I guess.
According to this place:
steves-digicams.com/2001_reviews/s304.html
your camera can do spot-metering, as well as Auto Exposure Bracketing. So go nuts and fool around with it.
I was lucky enough to find the actual PDF manual for the camera, so you might say I’m going nuts. Even the Auto mode (meaning point and shoot) has a bracketing feature which takes a photo and then 2 others +/-0.5EV. In Manual mode I can do the same in 0.1, 0.3 or 0.5EV incrememnts… Just for an example…
http://www.screenlooking.com/images/photography/bracketing/pict1548.jpg
http://www.screenlooking.com/images/photography/bracketing/pict1549.jpg
http://www.screenlooking.com/images/photography/bracketing/pict1550.jpg
In this case, the - 0.5EV looks better (in my oppinion).
Dude, if you’re into photography and putting it online, I’d highly recommend flickr.com
It’s great just to syndicate your photos and stuff with rss and atom feeds, and the flash-based slideshow rocks.
[quote=“orangetang”]I was lucky enough to find the actual PDF manual for the camera, so you might say I’m going nuts. Even the Auto mode (meaning point and shoot) has a bracketing feature which takes a photo and then 2 others +/-0.5EV. In Manual mode I can do the same in 0.1, 0.3 or 0.5EV incrememnts… Just for an example…
In this case, the - 0.5EV looks better (in my oppinion).[/quote]
Something you ought to remember about bracketing though… if you seriously underexpose a picture, you can still reveal the details by upping the levels in photoshop. But if it’s the other way, if you seriously overexpose a picture, then the details are lost.
Wow, MiG thanks for the website. im in love with it now.
[quote=“hoshq”]
[quote=“orangetang”]I was lucky enough to find the actual PDF manual for the camera, so you might say I’m going nuts. Even the Auto mode (meaning point and shoot) has a bracketing feature which takes a photo and then 2 others +/-0.5EV. In Manual mode I can do the same in 0.1, 0.3 or 0.5EV incrememnts… Just for an example…
In this case, the - 0.5EV looks better (in my oppinion).[/quote]
Something you ought to remember about bracketing though… if you seriously underexpose a picture, you can still reveal the details by upping the levels in photoshop. But if it’s the other way, if you seriously overexpose a picture, then the details are lost.[/quote]
I must have kind of unconcoisuly learnt that on my own. Thinking about it now, when I take outdoor pics, I generally use the half-button-press technique and aim at something bright, sometimes the sky if it’s a scneic shot, and then move the image into the frame… That way, the foreground and stuff may be a little dark, but atleast I can change the ‘shadows and highlights’ in photoshop, which generally makes htigns look fairly balanced without hindering the realism of the photo. I just was kinda wondering if there was a technique or Ap/Shutter/ISO preference for shots like the one I took where you can’t really win in the end. It was really a lot more beuatiful than that picture shows.
Oh and are films/CCDs sensitive to different wavelenghts of visible light? IE: blue = shorter wavelength, red is shorter but we see more of it beacause of this…
What’s your username on there? Make me a contact (miguelb) and join the Prince Rupert group if you want.
The neat thing is that you can subscribe to people’s “photo streams” with RSS.
Wow, thats pretty nifty. I think I might revamp screenlooking.com into some form of photogallery/photography website as I aquire knowledge of this stuff.
[quote=“MiG”]
What’s your username on there? Make me a contact (miguelb) and join the Prince Rupert group if you want.
The neat thing is that you can subscribe to people’s “photo streams” with RSS.[/quote]
ghost3x
added you.
speaking of photography… anyone ever heard of this brand?
cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie … 08851&rd=1
worth it?
yup it’s a cheap POS!
but a name brand camera. My fav my Canon : O )
I am a broke student… so unless you wanna buy me one then i need something cheap. I just want something cheap that will have decent pictures.