Photography 3

[Miss T]

It's like the botched plastic surgery of photography. Always looks artificial and ridiculously over processed. Saw a photo blog of a Chernobyl trip and the HDR effect cheapened the photos a great deal.

Depends on how you do it. For example these are HDRs and I wouldn't say they're too over processed:

 

 

Brugge by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

Brugge by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

London by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

 

A bit brighter than normal photos, yes. But they don't look plastic and in-your-face.

[crazybobbles]

@Bobbles: are you Kyle of Digitalrev?

 

Anyway, something I've been wondering which you might be able to answer Bobbles, you use greycards etc right? How does that work in the processing of the images?

I know you take a greycard pic so you can set it after, but do you compare it next to the screen or is there a value you should set?

you can set custom white balances on the fly with them.

 

could also sync your white balance settings based on the grey card shot.

 

personally i hand crank them and pick a temperature i like, should really look at pasting them to save effort

[crazybobbles]

Depends on how you do it. For example these are HDRs and I wouldn't say they're too over processed:

 

 

Brugge by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

Brugge by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

London by MissTerje, on Flickr

 

 

A bit brighter than normal photos, yes. But they don't look plastic and in-your-face.

have you tried playing with the curves of just the normal exposed shot and achieve the same effect?

 

kinda see playing around the curves as makeup whilst hdr being a RAGING BOOB AND NOSE JOB. Some can look horrifying and some can look good (and obviously better than an unprocessed shot), but nonetheless it's gone beyond tweaking raw camera settings and into "photoshop" unreal areas.

 

Not to say they're not interesting, just that they carry that "artificial" and "over processed" tag even if it's not

[matthijs]

Mm, if anything some of the shots remind me of the intro to 'The Hobbit', which to me looked a bit too HDRish.

[Miss T]

have you tried playing with the curves of just the normal exposed shot and achieve the same effect?

 

kinda see playing around the curves as makeup whilst hdr being a RAGING BOOB AND NOSE JOB. Some can look horrifying and some can look good (and obviously better than an unprocessed shot), but nonetheless it's gone beyond tweaking raw camera settings and into "photoshop" unreal areas.

 

Not to say they're not interesting, just that they carry that "artificial" and "over processed" tag even if it's not

Depends on the originals - with some you can easily achieve the same effect with just curves and with others it's impossible. I don't HDR everything of course, I mostly do it when I can't get what I want from just a normal shot.

 

I used to be very much against bigger editing because you take a step away from photography and make it more artificial. But then again, it all depends on what the photographer wants to achieve. If you want to achieve something different from what can be done with just a photo and minor tweaks, why not? As long as you don't go claiming that it's a natural shot, of course.

[naget4music]

or send them through facebook All are fine

Chuck us your email and I'll send then thru soon as I can

[crazybobbles]

Depends on the originals - with some you can easily achieve the same effect with just curves and with others it's impossible. I don't HDR everything of course, I mostly do it when I can't get what I want from just a normal shot.

 

I used to be very much against bigger editing because you take a step away from photography and make it more artificial. But then again, it all depends on what the photographer wants to achieve. If you want to achieve something different from what can be done with just a photo and minor tweaks, why not? As long as you don't go claiming that it's a natural shot, of course.

which is why i compared it to boob jobs, if you can make your boobs bigger with a quick operation, then why not?

[Ro]

I'm always undecided on HDRs, sometimes they do look really nice but other times they don't come off so well. I tend to just fiddle around with the curves until I'm happy.

[crazybobbles]

I'm always undecided on HDRs, sometimes they do look really nice but other times they don't come off so well. I tend to just fiddle around with the curves until I'm happy.

 

They do look nice at times and obviously even more to non photographers, but as a photographer, I'm cursed with knowing when something is impossible to achieve via a few raw camera setting tweaks and have been pushed out of its natural limits to get the result and it doesn't rub off

 

Also the same feel whenever I look at black and white photos, there are proper pros who pro the shit out of the photo to make it look pro (curves to the death) and the other 85% of the time I make the assumption that it is done because the noise is too much so desaturation was needed to fix it (also 5% of the time for poncy selective desaturation)

[dan.]

It's short for High Dynamic Range, a method where photos with different exposures are blended into one. (http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/ - this has a pretty nice explanation for it, if you scroll down a bit.)

 

So if you take three shots of the same scene:

1. normal

2. underexposed

3. overexposed

 

and then blend it together, the general image will come from 1, the brighter areas are taken from 2 (so the sky isn't too bright and you actually see the clouds etc) and darker areas from 3 (so instead of having a tree silhouette you can see the colours on the tree etc). This way you can turn a photo with near-white sky and dark trees into one colourful shot where you can see everything properly.

 

It can be awesome when done well and really terrible if you over-do it.

Thank you, that's made it a lot clearer!

 

...what do people mean by 'curves'?

[crazybobbles]

Thank you, that's made it a lot clearer!

 

...what do people mean by 'curves'?

 

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/photoshop-curves.htm

[Δ]

Untitled by Aidan H., on Flickr

 

sunset last night!

[Miss T]

Amazing colours! The cloud stripe on the sun adds an interesting effect as well.

[polythenelucy]

oops I haven't been looking at this thread for a while. I love all the fireworks pictures posted! I'm always impressed by how perfectly they look just from using a tripod, and of course a long exposure.

 

As for HDR and processing photos, I always prefer SOOC. But of course I'm not that skilled of a photographer so I'll still mess around with curves.

 

Could you post a clear example of it? I'm not sure whether a polarizing filter would help you much, so I'd love to see it a bit more clearly.

 

What you do have to keep in mind if you want one, is that your front element may, or may not rotate. If it rotates get a circular filter, if not you can get a non-circular, which only has (for example) the top half filtered. This might help.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure I have more extreme examples but this was the first one I could find. See how the sky is all washed out but the tree branches and leaves are lined with a blue color? I took this photo while I was standing under a tree shadow (I dunno, I feel like that somehow contributes to those ugly blue outlines). I told my wedding photographer friend about this problem and he suggested I get a polarizer. Though, I prolly shouldn't trust his word, I noticed the blue outlines for some of the graduation he shot for me.

[Cice]

just returned from prague

[matthijs]

 

 

 

I'm sure I have more extreme examples but this was the first one I could find. See how the sky is all washed out but the tree branches and leaves are lined with a blue color? I took this photo while I was standing under a tree shadow (I dunno, I feel like that somehow contributes to those ugly blue outlines). I told my wedding photographer friend about this problem and he suggested I get a polarizer. Though, I prolly shouldn't trust his word, I noticed the blue outlines for some of the graduation he shot for me.

 

What I noticed immediately is that the light itself is very bright; that'll have as a result: harsh highlights, and yes: blue lining.

 

First of all, I don't think this is a problem of your camera. A polarizing filter could help, but you can also fix some of it in e.g. lightroom. As you prefer SOOC (straight out of camera for those reading), you could try, but it won't guarantee you better results.

 

What I did in lightroom was taking down some of the highlights and whites, adding contrast, take down the blacks and shadows a bit for more contrast, add some clarity and saturation/vibrance.

 

[polythenelucy]

What I noticed immediately is that the light itself is very bright; that'll have as a result: harsh highlights, and yes: blue lining.

 

First of all, I don't think this is a problem of your camera. A polarizing filter could help, but you can also fix some of it in e.g. lightroom. As you prefer SOOC (straight out of camera for those reading), you could try, but it won't guarantee you better results.

 

What I did in lightroom was taking down some of the highlights and whites, adding contrast, take down the blacks and shadows a bit for more contrast, add some clarity and saturation/vibrance.

 

 

Nice, the sky is still washed out but I like that the blue lining, rather than looking like a flaw, gives an illusion of a bluer sky. But is the lining pretty much inevitable if I photograph in a shadowy location on a sunny day? I think I prefer photos that resemble the actual subject matter in color and contrast, so these kinds of imperfections annoy me a bit. Guess I'm still learning how to embrace the minor flaws in my photography.

[matthijs]

It may have to do with your settings, e.g. the ratio of diaphragm vs shutter speed. Try the polarizing filter though, might help!

[Tom//P]

Untitled by Thomas Pozegic, on Flickr

[polythenelucy]

It may have to do with your settings, e.g. the ratio of diaphragm vs shutter speed. Try the polarizing filter though, might help!

 

I always shoot with a ~4.0 f-stop (doesn't give me much bokeh but I still go for it haha). that definitely might have something to do with it. and yeah, like you said, i could just edit in lightroom, or photoshop in my case. haha i should focus on saving up for a lens. baby steps. thanks for the help, mate!

[matthijs]

For these slightly wider shots, try going to f7 or st like that.

 

Nice one Tom!

[Ro]

Maybe if this thread stays lively we could have a monthly (or something) mini challenge?

[Miss T]

Maybe if this thread stays lively we could have a monthly (or something) mini challenge?

I'd be up for that!

[naget4music]

I went through my 2012 photos and found some other cool photos that I forgot to upload to flickr

Perspective by superfasteganfish, on Flickr

 

Goornong by superfasteganfish, on Flickr

Maybe if this thread stays lively we could have a monthly (or something) mini challenge?

 

Sounds cool!!

[matthijs]

Maybe if this thread stays lively we could have a monthly (or something) mini challenge?

 

That's cool; I think it should be a bit technical and theme wise; so that it can be done with all cameras, but also that it'll help you to get to know a bit more and experience with new styles!