I got my camera back on friday, all fixed up! Taken about an hour ago: Is this PSed? If so it looks like there is a little bit of blue background bleeding onto the bottom right of the stem. If not that could just be back light. Otherwise this has great colors.

@erisan: The framing of those leaves seems a little weird but it may be personal preference. I'd think zooming out a little and letting the background take over more would be better (basically I guess I'm saying rule of thirds more or less), right now the leaves fill the frame, but only diagonally and it seems odd to me. It's got great colour harmony though. anyway MMA competitions are a nightmare to shoot, no flashes, no lighting, and me owning relatively slower lenses except for my 50mm prime. Did what I could, though. (Surprisingly the guy who got hit with the jumping sbhk didn't get knocked out. Rock-solid head.) Since freezing the action would mean getting black exposures, I had to go with shutter speeds of around 1/60, so I tried to put the motion blur to good use. Any tips? I did google briefly for muay thai and boxing photography but it wasn't really very impressive.

Since freezing the action would mean getting black exposures, I had to go with shutter speeds of around 1/60, so I tried to put the motion blur to good use. Any tips? I did google briefly for muay thai and boxing photography but it wasn't really very impressive. Up the ISO to 800 or 1600 depending on your camera. Unless you are planning on doing prints the grain shouldn't be much of a problem. You can also shoot in raw and change the exposure compensation to get a faster shutter speed and then bring the exposure back up in a raw editor. This will of course cause some more grain.

(Surprisingly the guy who got hit with the jumping sbhk didn't get knocked out. Rock-solid head.) Unfortunate that we can't see their faces, but excellent capture of motion here.

Dark moon: Don't worry, I've got a landscape shot, sir. I like the first picture I uploaded because the kid is looking into the camera and he looks absolutely dreadful, but in all of the other shots (there's at least four more) he's just doing his thing. gilrain: thanks, bud yalborap: ugh I was shooting with my ae-1 and the fifty, and I was at an odd angle for that shot because the game had just begun, but I'm not making excuses for an out of focus shot: it's better than nothin Uberslug: I was going to go directly to flickr and add the photo of the deer as a favourite because it's absolutely gorgeous. I'd probably slap a 16x9 crop on there but either way it looks fantastic edit: and, to whomever asked, I was using incredi-cheap film from the local dollar store that was probably expired but none the less left in my cars glove compartment for a year

Good composition here but you lost a lot of detail in the hand / face due to over exposure. If this was done in raw I would pull down the exposure a bit to see if there is any detail left in the hand. Then I would take that version put it as a second layer then use a gradient mask so the right side of the face still maintains about the same brightness. I like the low DOF but you might want to make it just a tiny tiny bit wider so both eyes are in focus. Also, I think it would look a little better had you not cropped the right iris. The second shot is an ok portrait but I prefer the creativity/composition of the first shot a whole lot more.

Uberslug: that image of the black car could be good in an 'hey car liking guy, here's a stylized photo of the side of a car' if you cropped the wheel arch and wheel off entirely. Penpal: I like that first shot of the toddler and mother? at the shooting range, except I think you've focused on the wrong face. and just for fun, gingerbread women with teacake bellies, and jelly babies inside.

Are...Are there really jelly babies in there? And are they malformed fetuses, or yummy fully-shaped newborns?

Man looking at those portraits reminded me of how much I wanted to get a SB-800, and I checked out the local stores today for the prices. Eww. I'll probably have to stick to finding a used one on ebay. Also Jake the last shot is pretty sweet but I think moving the red...thing a little more to the right would help since a tiny bit of her eye is obscured as it is, and it looks a little odd.

Uberslug: that image of the black car could be good in an 'hey car liking guy, here's a stylized photo of the side of a car' if you cropped the wheel arch and wheel off entirely. Penpal: I like that first shot of the toddler and mother? at the shooting range, except I think you've focused on the wrong face. Great shot. My only complaint is the thumb is cropped. Other than that I really like it. Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler I like it but again I'm not sure about the elbow crop. Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler This is a great shot. I would consider doing it with her face on the other side of the lamp? so her lip piercing is more prominent. Also I think it would be nice if you heal/cloned out the softbox reflection on the lamp. Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler

It's been a looong time since I've posted pictures here so I have a few older ones. I went to the election night party in Grant Park on the 4th, and it was incredible. I took my camera, but didn't get any great shots. So here the shots that actually did not come out too blurry. I used my 50mm f/1.8 so I had pretty much no zoom and shallow depth of field at a really high ISO.: And here are some shots I took the other day when our family went to cut a Christmas tree. I always have more fun taking pictures of people rather than trees. I would love some crits on these please:

space: The first four are all too blurry, with nothing particularly interesting in the composition, and wonky horizons. Of the others, the first I like even with the weird eye crop, although you could crop the bottom 1/3 to 1/2 off and have a better photo imo. Second is good although I'd try to crop after the girl's left shoulder and I'd like the focus in the foreground on the third but that's maybe just me, and the last is kind of dull and a little blurry yalborap: Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler I made them for a babyshower CC: I agree. Took the shots for fun, and using a very cramped space so I'm happy to have anything, even with some very suspect cropping. Might re-crop the middle one to loose more of (our) right arm and call it a keeper anyway, because I like the expression. Also, I wouldn't normally clone something so large out, but in this instance I think you're right. sonictk: I'm in two minds about the eye. On the one hand I know it's a technical no-no, on the other, I like that the thing obscuring the face is cutting through the eye. (excuse the b&w, just messing around) I tried it a couple of different ways, but I think with it just cutting the eye is my favourite. Perhaps it needs more though?

Damn you Jake. I honestly can't decide between the B&W and the color, both are great. Spacerobot: the tree farm one is excellent, really great colors and good comp. too. Bleh, I haven't taken nearly enough photos in the last few weeks. Booo me.

It's hard to decide between the colour and black and white because they're two different poses! The second one her expression is foxy, dammit. The colour would probably suit it. That being said, the b&w is classy as all get out. space robot: love the one of the crowd and the USA, and of the one with the two ladies in the tree, it's fun. self portrait It's vertical because it was printed for a project and the frame was fucking terrifying. I'm thinking about putting them side by side.

Spacerobot (image spoiled for size): Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler I find the cropping of this picture a bit distracting, as the eye is just cut in half, but I just love the colors.

It's been a while since I posted. Haven't been going anywhere or doing anything. Jack

Jake, I like the stuff. Some could use a little more thought on the framing, but the portrait is pretty strong. A couple more from the end of summer: this is a semi-auto-portrait, I guess... a matter of priorities:

And just messing around the house.

Wow Jake that second B&W version you posted is a lot better imo. I guess it comes down to personal preference as always. Frankly speaking I like the second one, both in terms of the eye issue and the expression a lot more. gafato that would normally be pretty boring but I like how the shallow dof makes it look like the avatar is actually running. I don't know if you did that on purpose but either way that's neat as hell.

gafato that would normally be pretty boring but I like how the shallow dof makes it look like the avatar is actually running. I don't know if you did that on purpose but either way that's neat as hell. Come on, give me a little credit.

And just messing around the house. This would be better if all the frames were the same size. I love the left picture. It has great lighting / mood to it. The far right picture would look a little better if you cloned / healed out the vertical line on the right side of the light to give it a more minimalist look. The cat picture is well a cat picture with better lighting than usual. I know I'm a little biased because I generally dislike people's pictures of their pets.

no: I think the cropping on some of those B&W's is a bit funky (the cat's ears, towel, and the crotch particularly) Some Good use of DOF though.

I'm getting back into photography now that I have a decent camera again, so I thought I'd post some of my better ones from recently to see what people think. One issue I know about is my focus. My eyes are fairly bad, so frequently when I think the picture is focused correctly, it isn't. I've started using autofocus more and wearing my glasses when I do this, but that's why some of these are a little off. My favorites are the first two, but I thought the rest were decent as well. The last one was supposed to have the bushes more in focus but, alas.