Bringin' back an old favorite *snip* you have some weird green blotches in the background of that one.

Dangit, I knew that would happen. Needs a reedit. Also it'll disappear when I take that version off Flickr. You may look crazy, Proto.

This one any better?

Yes but there's still stuff on the right side of the smoke, much harder to see this time around. Got my nifty fifty in the mail today. No more 70-300 only! I can be in the same area code as my subjects! So exciting!

You have a cat in your new lens. The cleaner might be able to take care of it. Smile!

Sheri: woooo smoke! I like... that's about all I got. Astorite: Really like that pic man, the desaturated colors really work great in it. JRosey: Cat looks like a shadow, which is pretty cool actually. Not a fan of the comp though. #2 is... odd I guess, I'm a fan of non-traditional crops that are pulled off well. But the ear on him just barely hitting the edge of the crop is buggin' me a bit. Wooo old photo I liked but, finally got around to doing something with.

Pros: Really like the picture, but I can't decided if I wish it were centered or if I like that it's just off-kilter, balancing the bigger background trees on the left side vs darker clouds on the right. Did you make a conscious decision there?

Indeed. That's actually something I kinda fought with for a while, I don't like to do a whole lot of post for the most part with landscape shots. But, I did darken the clouds on the right a tiny bit (they were already pretty dark) to make up for the trees on the left. I'm happy with the shot, but I definitely don't think it's super excellent. Plus the fact that the middle pot isn't directly centered with the lines in the pavement (I should have moved it when I was there) is driving me crazy.

Prop: I'd crop it so you're not sniping that last uncomfortable bit of the diamond off, possibly further up (so it seems more deliberate), although my preference would be to make it a triangle pointing into the scene. That would get rid of such strong lines pointing off frame, and make the most of the rest of the comp, which is excellent and run on sentence. JRosey: I second the cat cleaning filter. Also, if you are going to take a photograph of a man staring at a cat like that, I'd spoiler it as nsfw, especially if you follow it with a mouth close-up. Ok, so I haven't had a chance to take many photographs recently, for the following reason (spoilered for general roughness). Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler

Thanks jake, appreciate it. I'm actually doing a horizontal crop here next week so I'll definitely keep that in mind. Your papercraft never ceases to amaze me man. And the fact that it's a lamp makes it all the better. That shoe, gah!

From a fashion show I did monday under less than ideal time and location constraints. :\ Who loves playing with specular highlights. I do! I do! Just a hair/makeup shot.

CC, you deserve credit for eliciting gut reactions from me with your shots. I either really like them, or I really don't. I love that first shot, but the second shot scares me.

MKR what were you trying to capture there? If you were trying to capture generic things then you got it, but if you were trying to go for something more interesting then you need to work on finding a different subject or shooting the subjects differently. -The wet deck has nothing interesting about it. Maybe if you got really close to the ground and used absurdly low DOF it would be more interesting but even then it would still be a deck.... -The middle one is the only vaguely interesting one IMO with the comp (having the table take up the majority of hte frame) and the water droplets. But including the corner of the table feels odd. -The sunset picture is just that. A generic sunset picture. I would avoid taking these unless there is some amazing color, clouds, or a really cool thing in the foreground to silhouette against the sky. When looking for subjects think to yourself: Is this something the average person would see in their everyday lives? A sunset - yes, a wet deck - most likely. If you do want to shoot a subject that fits into that category then you need to shoot it in a really extreme way using angles, composition, and DOF to make it interesting. But honestly the best thing to do is go about trying to find things that people don't see all the time. For example Sheri took an apple and did some really shallow DOF, odd angle, very saturated, with good light, and water droplets. So she took a normal thing and did a lot technical things to make it look good. Pope also does a good job of taking generic plant life and making it look interesting with REALLY shallow DOF, high saturation, and puts the subject against a background with vastly different color or brightness to create contrast. On the other end of the spectrum you have Uncle Long and I. Long hikes out to remote areas that most people don't see to take great pictures. I get attractive models in usually odd clothing at very differently decorated or colored locations with hyper realistic light. Edit: This is also kind of directed at everyone as general advice.

I'll try those things out the next time I go shooting stuff.

CC: Although simple, that first shot is probably my favourite thing you've ever posted here. Could do with a little rim on the right perhaps, but otherwise Spoiler: show spoiler hide spoiler MKR: To add to CC's suggestions, one thing you are obviously grasping is the need to isolate and simplify, so definitely keep doing that!

Film stuff.

Camera's back and works great. New lens is awesome. Flash is awesome, though I'm doing little more than bouncing it right now, although early results are good. I feel a little lost when it comes to manually setting the power and setting flash exposure compensation. I feel like the camera's doing too much work for me in auto mode, and I'm just a bit lost setting everything myself. It'll be fun to learn!

So, a couple of hours ago I got a "plastic fantastic" as the store clerk called it. f1.8 50mm. Seems like a nice little lens...unfortunately after being stuck in terrible Austin traffic for 2 hours I have no time to play with it. I have to go do some vandyke prints. :/

Goshinga: I like the first shot, the train track sort of forces your eye to follow it off into the horizon and the composition with the wires above the track is good.

Jake - That thing is hells of cool CC - I wish the first had less headroom, but I like the expression and the model a lot. Side note, what is up with the slump is that the new 'model' thing to do? For the second, maybe clone out/clean up the line by her hip (looks like it's part of the wall?), but the model's expression also scares me a bit. The lighting is cool, though. The hair/makeup shot doesn't really seem to show off either, unfortunately. It's a nice profile, though. Wish the last one had a little more headroom. In the end, I like the effect of the lighting. I'm not sure if it accomplishes anything in particular, but in and of itself it's pretty neat, I like it more than your usual stuff. And because I really, really liked it and no one had anything to say, I'm going to post it again.

Sheri, what's your setup?

I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Hey, MKR, I know you use CHDK on a Powershot as well, so maybe you can help me here, but if anyone can give me help with this, it'd be greatly appreciated When I take photos as RAW files, the noise seems to be much worse in comparison to the JPEG versions. I noticed it a lot playing around with it yesterday Now, is this always going to be the case, being as this camera isn't truly built to save in RAW, or is this more the cause of the ISO setting when I took these shots (all were indoor/dark outdoors), which were all on auto, around 200. I mean, In some of my pictures I can really tell the color difference when I take it in the RAW format, but I don't know if it's really worth it if the noise is amplified as well...

Hey, MKR, I know you use CHDK on a Powershot as well, so maybe you can help me here, but if anyone can give me help with this, it'd be greatly appreciated When I take photos as RAW files, the noise seems to be much worse in comparison to the JPEG versions. I noticed it a lot playing around with it yesterday Now, is this always going to be the case, being as this camera isn't truly built to save in RAW, or is this more the cause of the ISO setting when I took these shots (all were indoor/dark outdoors), which were all on auto, around 200. I mean, In some of my pictures I can really tell the color difference when I take it in the RAW format, but I don't know if it's really worth it if the noise is amplified as well... Set it to save in DNG, and run the badpixels script (it should be in the test folder). The JPG has this file's map applied, while the RAW is untouched. Go check out the badpixel page on the CHDK wiki for all the fancy details. edit: Also, the RAW doesn't have any white balance, color, or exposure corrections applied. The JPG is processed in-camera. I highly recommend RAW Therapee for its sexiness and workflow.