This definitely wasn't a photo-oriented trip, but I think I got some pretty neat shots and got out of my comfort zone a little bit with some street photography in Hanoi. Looking forward to seeing how they all turn out.
After getting Greg Girard's book "Hanoi Calling" I have been itching to go there. Looks like an amazing place. Cant wait to see your pictures.
I havent been shooting lately, but at least my computer is working again, so I can sift through older work in these lean winter months.
After getting Greg Girard's book "Hanoi Calling" I have been itching to go there. Looks like an amazing place. Cant wait to see your pictures.
Thanks, I think I'm going to be a bit sacrilegious and just get them lab-developed, since I can't get into the darkroom till next Friday and I'd rather spend my time making prints. This was also my first time shooting TMX400, which from memory is one of your preferred films?
That book looks interesting, too. Makes me want to go back with my Hassy and a tripod and do it properly! Or maybe just have some more bun cha.
Some "new" work from me, that's been sitting in my fridge for a few months:
I called in sick to work today and spent a good five hours in the darkroom, during which time I made ... two prints. I'm pretty happy with them, though! Pics to come once they're dry and I've found the time to go back in and pick them up.
The only issue with my Vietnam shots that's really bothering me is that I apparently kept the focus at infinity for too many shots (instead of using hyperfocal distance) so many of my landscape shots are softer overall than I'd like. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with how TMX-400 prints at 11x14, and I'd happily go bigger once I find something worthwhile.
[edit: shitty phone pic, the mountains are less dark in person.
Really like the look of that one @Baron Dirigible, very beautiful shot! Can't wait to see more.
I found an old roll of velvia film wherein I was testing out my Nikonos V camera for the first time. Going to take some getting used to, looks like most of the shots I took with a shallow dof where just slightly out of focus, but some still turned out pretty good. Also was more than happy with how the viewfinder worked, I more or less hit the compositions I was going for. Guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the look through viewfinder matches up with what the lens is actually seeing...
Thanks, @Prospicience! Hoping to get back in soon to pick them up, but probably won't have time to do any more actual printing till after Christmas.
I actually like your underwater shot the best out of the Velvia set, the composition really works for it. Which Velvia is it?
For B&W, I'm a big fan of Acros, but it's steadily getting more expensive and harder to track down. It's an amazing high-contrast, low-grain stock, though. As above, I'm enjoying T-Max 400 right now and might throw some into my next bulk order. Otherwise it's all about Ilford FP4 and HP5. What film were you using there?
I also saw an exhibition recently which used 35mm Ilford Delta 3200 negs blown up to 20x24", and the results were actually really incredible -- the grain was surprisingly unobtrusive and helped provide a distinct aesthetic which wasn't just "grungy under-exposed noise".
Hey thanks Baron. I think the building with the water was my favorite, but that's mainly due to the architecture coupled with the pool water. I didn't think anyone would necessarily like the nikonos shots as they're more me testing/fooling around with the camera. But, I'm glad you like!
I'm honestly not sure which velvia it was besides that it was 50 ISO. I'll have to check out those B&W films, I may even give the 3200 a shot as my friend has a rooftop pool I'm planning on using at nighttime. I actually used Ilford HP5 as it was the film I used in HS, so I was somewhat familiar with it. Haha it's good to know it still is a good B&W film!
Okay... so here's a few more from that Sin City shoot. I swear these will be the last. My friend who I did the photos for was asking if I had any more for a poster he's getting done to promote an upcoming concert. Realized I was a little too critical of the photos on my first lookthrough and was happy with how these ones turned out as well.
I like the first one, too, but something feels off to me -- I think it's one of those shots where I like it for a certain component (in this case, that water) but the overall composition doesn't mesh for me. Also, it's the only shot for me where the colours are overly distracting.
As far as I know there's only one Velvia 50 (a quick Google tells me classic Velvia was always 50 ISO and branded 'Velvia', but was later dropped and then reintroduced as 'Velvia 50'. TMYK.) I really like it and should shoot more of it, but again, expensive and hard to find
I like the first and third shots in this set -- they feel really dynamic & atmospheric. The second shot doesn't do that much for me, unfortunately; it kind of looks as if he's just missed his train and is about to call an Uber.
Thanks @Baron Dirigible, first and thirds are my favorites as well. The third ended up being the photo he used for a show flyer for this upcoming weekend. Think it works perfectly for that.
I got a new toy over the holidays, so I've been taking it out as much as I can. Unfortunately there are so many restrictions (rightfully so to be honest) I haven't gotten to take it out quite as much as I would have liked. Here's a few from the sky I've grabbed so far though
I'm a little bummed I may have ruined my underwater camera - the lens seems to be permanently fogged up after my last shoot in which I took photos of the bride, in her dress, under water, after her wedding. Really hope at least those turned out and it wasn't fogged up the whole time. Only time will tell, gonna just finish off the roll and see if I can get it developed with some success. *fingers crossed*
*edit* Forgot to post these here, but here's a few from that same wedding weekend. SQueen by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Havent shot anything in months. Bought my first home, so that has been devouring all time and energy. Been to a wedding or two, and shot some snaps, but I havent had time or figured out a place where to develop them. Helped out a buddy and shot part of a wedding with a digital, but thats just a bunch of drunken, sweaty friends frozen in mid-dance routines. Not a pleasant sight. But the lights that the venue was using were so weird! It seemed that the luminance levels in color were absolutely different from B/W conversions. Like night and day.
[edit: shitty phone pic, the mountains are less dark in person.
I really dig this shot. Let me know if you would be interested in print exchange, although I do not have means to do hand made darkroom prints right now...
I'm a little bummed I may have ruined my underwater camera - the lens seems to be permanently fogged up after my last shoot in which I took photos of the bride, in her dress, under water, after her wedding. Really hope at least those turned out and it wasn't fogged up the whole time. Only time will tell, gonna just finish off the roll and see if I can get it developed with some success. *fingers crossed*
Sorry to hear about the camera. My trusty f3 is developing issues, which is sad as it has been with me all over the place. Hope your shots come out ok!
Great shot ! Wish the bird was a bit more centered along the Y axis.
Anyways I was thinking about getting a drone, but all the rules and regulations scared me away.
It is funny, most drone pictures tend to look the same, but your shots definitely have your style to them. Kudos!
I really dig this shot. Let me know if you would be interested in print exchange, although I do not have means to do hand made darkroom prints right now...
Thanks! I'm bummed out that I still haven't had the chance to go back and pick it up, but I'm waiting till I have enough time to learn selenium toning and tone it there. Also need to think about framing options at some point. We have a bunch of shitty Ikea frames for poster prints and the like, but I'd prefer to go a bit more upmarket on stuff I've spent some time on.
I'd be down for a print exchange! Even if we're not doing our own wet prints, good art is good art. I'm going to try and get some more colour stuff professionally printed this year, so that could be a good excuse.
New year new photos, let's keep it movin' people! I-70 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
I like this shot, and I'm a bit surprised it wasn't another one in your drone series. That said, I feel you're losing a lot of detail in the clouds and the blown highlights to the left are really distracting. I did a quick brightness/contrast layer in PS to bring down the brightness of the sky (inverted the layer, painted the sky white, and then set it to minimum brightness and ~40% opacity) which seems to help the mood of the piece, but I'm not sure there's much I (or you) could do with the highlights as shot.
Great shot ! Wish the bird was a bit more centered along the Y axis.
You and me both haha. Every time I take photos of hawks, falcons or ravens they always take off right as I'm about to take the photo. It's seriously uncanny. As it was perched there I had it more or less centered and then it took off and my reaction time wasn't quite fast enough.
I like this shot, and I'm a bit surprised it wasn't another one in your drone series. That said, I feel you're losing a lot of detail in the clouds and the blown highlights to the left are really distracting. I did a quick brightness/contrast layer in PS to bring down the brightness of the sky (inverted the layer, painted the sky white, and then set it to minimum brightness and ~40% opacity) which seems to help the mood of the piece, but I'm not sure there's much I (or you) could do with the highlights as shot.
Thanks man. It actually isn't a drone photo though haha, it was taken at an overpass. I did do a gradient filter with highlights and brightness lowered quite a bit. In this particular sunset I really loved how brightly on fire the sky seemed, while the landscape itself was covered in a very mellow softbox style overcast light/shadow. That all said, it's good to know that it is distracting to someone else. I'll play around with it and see if I can find a happy medium.
sorry guys, it's been too long! lost my ability to easily load film into the developing tank and my eye-fi got made redundant, so it's been hard for me to really get stuck into photography. picked up a new flashair card though so at least i can start easing myself back in through digital with a mostly mobile workflow:
i have more photos, mostly cliched fungus shots from a rainforest bushwalk, that i might inflict upon you all soon. i really need to get back in the habit because my new daughter is due next month and i don't want to end up with no nice photos of her!
p.s. catching up on the last couple of pages, i love fall lungs@Prospicience and herbert cafe@Baron Dirigible. keep up the good work! prosp, you're a machine.
edit: oh, i have a technical question for those who might be digital / colour savvy. does anyone know how to do complex split-toning through rgb curves? as you might have guessed from the above shots i can do red and green in the shadows and highlights, but i'm not good enough with colour to figure out if i can do my other favourites, especially blue shadows / yellow highlights. it's probably getting yellow in the highlights that's stumping me.
So my wife decided for Christmas to get me a Canon T6i. But it was on back order and we were broke when it was back in stock. Yesterday she surprised me by saying she ordered a Canon 70D since it was in stock (yay for QVC I guess?).
I'm pretty psyched to be able to take "real" pictures! The digital camera her parents bought us years ago was a lovely gift, but it was a pretty basic one, no lens options other than what it had installed, and so on. This one comes with an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 lens. I'll learn what all that really means... I spent a good portion of last night watching video reviews. I had been following some beginners videos as well starting last year. I wanted to know how to use the camera I already had when we went to check out my cousin's 4x4 event in Vermont (Vermonster 4x4 in case anyone's heard of it). I was able to get some decent shots from that, but I'm looking forward to using this one this year.
Guess I'll have to buy Lightroom and learn how to use that, too! I took a photography class in high school ... 21 years ago. I've got a lot of catching up to do.
Lightroom is very good to start with. Make sure you shoot in RAW format! Do all the colour tweaking yourself in lightroom.
The 'f' numbers are the size of the aperture, or how much light the lens lets in. The lower the number, the more light. Lower numbers also will give you a shallower depth of field meaning less foreground and background will be in focus. The reason it has a range is because you have a zoom lens, so at 18mm focal length, the aperture is f3.5, while at 55mm it's 5.6. So you're letting in more light when at a wider angle.
The 18-55 is the focal length. This is how wide you will see. Lower numbers are wide-angle and higher are more zoom or telephoto. 18 is quite wide (landscapes) and 55 is more of a mid range (portraits). 35mm is close to what humans see. That's a pretty flexible lens to start with.
edit: oh, i have a technical question for those who might be digital / colour savvy. does anyone know how to do complex split-toning through rgb curves? as you might have guessed from the above shots i can do red and green in the shadows and highlights, but i'm not good enough with colour to figure out if i can do my other favourites, especially blue shadows / yellow highlights. it's probably getting yellow in the highlights that's stumping me.
so it turns out this is really obvious - you just crank up blue in the shadows and take it out at the top. apparently all the other colours minus blue are... yellow! who knew.
Lightroom is very good to start with. Make sure you shoot in RAW format! Do all the colour tweaking yourself in lightroom.
The 'f' numbers are the size of the aperture, or how much light the lens lets in. The lower the number, the more light. Lower numbers also will give you a shallower depth of field meaning less foreground and background will be in focus. The reason it has a range is because you have a zoom lens, so at 18mm focal length, the aperture is f3.5, while at 55mm it's 5.6. So you're letting in more light when at a wider angle.
The 18-55 is the focal length. This is how wide you will see. Lower numbers are wide-angle and higher are more zoom or telephoto. 18 is quite wide (landscapes) and 55 is more of a mid range (portraits). 35mm is close to what humans see. That's a pretty flexible lens to start with.
I started agonizing over this being a APS-C vs a full-frame sensor, but I have no frame of reference to complain about. I'll work with it and go from there. Thanks for the info, I kept getting the aperture size to light scenario wrong in my brain as far as higher = less.
Man I'm stoked to get this! I'll have to rent some lenses to play around with after I get used to the one it comes with.
I think if you multiply the focal length by 1.6 you'll get what you'd see on a full frame. So your lens would be equivalent to a 28-90mm on a full frame 35mm camera. It's still pretty wide and that's a flexible range to play with.
Also I don't know if you have one but a monopod is a wonderful thing for lower light when you don't want to set up a tripod all the time.
Oh man @bsjezz really like Hot Foot Bridge and Worldbuilder. Periwinkle valley I may have preferred the non blurry one, those rocks have some great lines in them. Couldn't remember how to do split toning, hadn't used it in a while to be honest. Just stumbled across it again in PS Camera RAW though. Very handy that it has its own tab!
@Fawst yeah don't fret too much about APS-C, if its a landscape you can really get as wide as you want with photoshop or lightroom if you stitch together a bunch of shots afterwards. When I was shooting a friend's wedding, I took a minute with my 100mm prime on my 7D and shot about 35 photos to get a really wide, very detailed high resolution photo with everyone in it. Luckily I chose a great time during the ceremony and barely anyone moved, but I was amazingly surprised how well it turned out.
I've been shooting a decent amount, I take my dji up whenever I can (which isn't much). But most of the areas around the city are off limits unless you get a permit beforehand. It seems the restricitons on UAS's (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) are getting more strict by the day. It makes sense being how easy it is to buy a quad copter and be stupid with it and cause immense amounts of damage. But it sucks when I just want to get a sunset photo of the city I live in haha. Decided to take today to get a little caught up on unedited work, so here's a few of my recents. All of them rather different from one other.
sorry guys, it's been too long! lost my ability to easily load film into the developing tank and my eye-fi got made redundant, so it's been hard for me to really get stuck into photography. picked up a new flashair card though so at least i can start easing myself back in through digital with a mostly mobile workflow:
Are there any public darkrooms around Sydney you could use? I've joined two seperate ones in Melbourne and they can be a bit annoying to schedule time in, but I've found it's really healthy personally for me to stake out an afternoon to spend in a dim and smelly room. Though with one child and another on the way your spare time might be even more limited! (Congrats by the way!)
p.s. catching up on the last couple of pages, i love fall lungs@Prospicience and herbert cafe@Baron Dirigible. keep up the good work! prosp, you're a machine.
I started agonizing over this being a APS-C vs a full-frame sensor, but I have no frame of reference to complain about. I'll work with it and go from there. Thanks for the info, I kept getting the aperture size to light scenario wrong in my brain as far as higher = less.
Yeah, don't go down this path, for that way lies madness. APS-C is a sweet spot in the market as far as price v quality, with full-frame being prohibitively expensive for anyone not shooting professionally. (As I've mentioned before, if you really want the smooth bokeh you can only get with full-frame, buy a 35mm film camera for a tenth of the price.)
As far as lenses, you're in luck as there are some good, cheap options available for the Canon EOS system. Something like this 24mm f2.8 would be a step up from your kit lens for the wide-to-normal end, while this cheap 50mm f1.8 would be a great choice for portraits.
That said, I'd recommend getting as much use out of your kit lens as you can, even before you bother renting lenses. Work out the focal lengths you enjoy shooting with, or what you feel limited by, and go from there. (Personally, I'm a big fan of the 40mm effective focal length, since as @bombardier points out it's roughly the perspective of human vision.) Fortunately, once you work out what you want, the Canon lens ecosystem is wide and well-developed enough that you can find pretty much whatever you want for a decent price. (I also highly, highly recommend buying used from a reputable online retailer.)
As for me: I just spent a weekend away in sunny Emerald (the one in Victoria, not the actually sunny one in Queensland) and came away with a few fairly good shots. Hoping to get them, along with a bit of a backlog, developed sometime this week. And then it's off to New Zealand in April...
If you want a good digital full frame, picking up a Canon 5D mark 1 would probably set you back only a couple hundred. I know it's not comparable to stuff today since it's like 8 or 9 years old, but honestly most people wouldn't even notice, especially when doing this for fun.
sorry guys, it's been too long! lost my ability to easily load film into the developing tank and my eye-fi got made redundant, so it's been hard for me to really get stuck into photography. picked up a new flashair card though so at least i can start easing myself back in through digital with a mostly mobile workflow:
Are there any public darkrooms around Sydney you could use? I've joined two seperate ones in Melbourne and they can be a bit annoying to schedule time in, but I've found it's really healthy personally for me to stake out an afternoon to spend in a dim and smelly room. Though with one child and another on the way your spare time might be even more limited! (Congrats by the way!)
okay so i figured out that i can use the bathroom at night if i drop a sheet over the window. it doesn't suit my impatient disposition but, it'll do. on sunday morning i mixed up a new batch of chems and developed a roll of expired junk that has been sitting around for a few months...
i'll throw a roll in a real (not leaky) camera next i think. i haven't taken any photos of the local surrounds since i moved across town so maybe that's on the cards. i'm always worried about the chemicals expiring quickly, even though my last ones lasted something like 18 months and 50+ rolls
p.s. have fun on the south island! we went to franz josef / west coast from christchurch via arthur's pass, then up and back across stopping at hanmer springs. some beautiful lambshanks landscapes to be sure
If you want a good digital full frame, picking up a Canon 5D mark 1 would probably set you back only a couple hundred. I know it's not comparable to stuff today since it's like 8 or 9 years old, but honestly most people wouldn't even notice, especially when doing this for fun.
I'd be interested to see a shoot-out between a modern APS-C sensor and an older full-frame sensor. In any case I suspect someone who doesn't notice the difference between an old and a newer full-frame camera also wouldn't notice the difference between an old full-frame and a new APS-C, so beyond getting the shallower focus of full-frame there isn't really much point to the upgrade.
(Though I'll forever be on team Used Film SLR. If it was good enough for NatGeo it's good enough for your holiday snaps!)
p.s. have fun on the south island! we went to franz josef / west coast from christchurch via arthur's pass, then up and back across stopping at hanmer springs. some beautiful lambshanks landscapes to be sure
Did you drive or train across? We were originally planning to take the TranzAlpine, but there were fires literally the day before I was booking everything and the train lines are closed for at least six weeks. Which should be fine for us travelling in April, but I'm thinking I might plan now to drive across and stay a night at Arthur's Pass. If you did drive, how did you find the trip?
(My itinerary's since reversed since it turns out flying in to Wellington is a lot cheaper than Queenstown, and likewise flying out of Queenstown is cheaper and easier.)
yeah we drove. the road through arthur's pass is one of the most picturesque you'll ever drive. as long as you're good with like, blind, single-lane cliffedge corners... didn't have time to get too far up or down the coast but it was a cool trip. whatever you end up doing, you'll love it
Camera gets delivered today! Too bad it didn't get here in the past five days, when I was actually home. That's ok, I can play with it tonight and I'm working from home tomorrow. I'll have to order a high quality SD card (have a basic one already for the other camera) and pick up Lightroom. Psyched!
If you want a good digital full frame, picking up a Canon 5D mark 1 would probably set you back only a couple hundred. I know it's not comparable to stuff today since it's like 8 or 9 years old, but honestly most people wouldn't even notice, especially when doing this for fun.
I'm still using my 5d Mark 1 which I bought used in 2009. It is still chugging along and making nice pictures. The only thing that is lacking IMO is the older cameras don't have the amazing ISO range for low light.
Also, if people haven't used it, Flickr's camera finder is quite fun: https://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/eos_5d/
It really shows that you can get great stuff with a wide variety of cameras. You just need to bring creativity and some photoshop/lightroom skills.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Hoping to see an influx of some new photos with that camera Fawst. Make sure to flex your photographic eye as often as you can. Even just taking photos around the house, working on compositions and exposure settings, learning your camera's lightmeter, etc. Just like any other art form, the more you use your camera and get used to the tools you have at hand the better you'll become. Practice practice practice.
Uuuuh so, the sunrise was too pretty not to take a shot when driving by Chataqua park in Boulder today. I missed a lot of the orange but there was still enough to grab a shot when I got there.
So do people who use DSLRs tend to use auto-focus, or do you go manual? The auto is nice on my 70D, but I was messing around with manual settings and that is when I found out I know nothing.
Gotta figure out how to properly adjust my exposure triangle settings (or at least figure out what I like). That said, I need to figure out how to actually adjust them, never mind adjust them properly. It's really a mixture of photography basics and learning the camera. I get the idea behind the basics, but I find that in practice I need to ... practice. I'll post some terrible, untouched photos later. Haven't picked up Lightroom yet. That reminds me, does anyone use something like GIMP instead of Lightroom? Free is nice, but boy is that a convoluted program. I've used it in the past to reduce image file sizes and reduce JPEG quality for posting online without killing bandwidth for people, but I've never even thought about using it for manipulating photos otherwise.
So do people who use DSLRs tend to use auto-focus, or do you go manual? The auto is nice on my 70D, but I was messing around with manual settings and that is when I found out I know nothing.
i've never met a dslr with a good manual focus mechanism. getting autofocus right takes more nuance and configuration than you might assume - do some reading about single-point and zone autofocus, for example, and get in the habit of adjusting it / considering it consistently - but it's always far easier than MF when your focal length is varying from shot to shot. there are exceptions - eg, for street photography where you're taking rapid snaps it can be good to set manually to hyperfocal distance, or for particular shots where you want special focusing effects, etc... film cameras often have focusing aids like a split-ring mechanism where you can quickly manually focus precisely, but those have been eschewed and manually focusing is generally more hassle than it's worth.
My vote goes to centre crop. The right side feels too unbalanced for the off-centre crop to work.
What does the original image look like? I don't see any reason to crop out the trees, either. If there's more foreground that you're able to crop back in, it could help add depth to the scene via layering.
Thanks guys! The center crop image is basically the full thing.... I might be able to bring in some more FG from a different exposure though.... I might mess with the idea.
Would it be weird if I just post both images to Flickr? Do people often post multiple crops?.... I should probably just pick one, and get over it haha.
*shrug* it depends on what you are using your flickr stream for. Unless you are using it as a super serious curated portfolio of your work you shouldn't feel bad posting extra stuff for us.
If it really bothers you, you could upload images in the forum or upload it to another service like imgur.
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
I always just try to post one version on Flickr, but I do use it as an alt portfolio from time to time (aka when I forget to update my website for a while). I usually post alts just here on the forum.
@muninn always seem to like your vertical cityscape photos, so well balanced.
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After getting Greg Girard's book "Hanoi Calling" I have been itching to go there. Looks like an amazing place. Cant wait to see your pictures.
I havent been shooting lately, but at least my computer is working again, so I can sift through older work in these lean winter months.
DSCF1020-Edit by Maciej, on Flickr
That book looks interesting, too. Makes me want to go back with my Hassy and a tripod and do it properly! Or maybe just have some more bun cha.
Some "new" work from me, that's been sitting in my fridge for a few months:
Victoria Rd by Rohan Bassett, on Flickr
Herbert Cafe by Rohan Bassett, on Flickr
I called in sick to work today and spent a good five hours in the darkroom, during which time I made ... two prints. I'm pretty happy with them, though! Pics to come once they're dry and I've found the time to go back in and pick them up.
The only issue with my Vietnam shots that's really bothering me is that I apparently kept the focus at infinity for too many shots (instead of using hyperfocal distance) so many of my landscape shots are softer overall than I'd like. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with how TMX-400 prints at 11x14, and I'd happily go bigger once I find something worthwhile.
[edit: shitty phone pic, the mountains are less dark in person.
I found an old roll of velvia film wherein I was testing out my Nikonos V camera for the first time. Going to take some getting used to, looks like most of the shots I took with a shallow dof where just slightly out of focus, but some still turned out pretty good. Also was more than happy with how the viewfinder worked, I more or less hit the compositions I was going for. Guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the look through viewfinder matches up with what the lens is actually seeing...
IMG_0006 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
IMG_0013 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
IMG_0016 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
IMG_0019 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
This is the only underwater one that really "turned out" okay haha.
IMG_0002 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
My Portfolio Site
Any of you film folk have a favorite B&W film you use?
Downpour by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Puff Over Plains by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Chandler Beach by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
My Portfolio Site
I actually like your underwater shot the best out of the Velvia set, the composition really works for it. Which Velvia is it?
For B&W, I'm a big fan of Acros, but it's steadily getting more expensive and harder to track down. It's an amazing high-contrast, low-grain stock, though. As above, I'm enjoying T-Max 400 right now and might throw some into my next bulk order. Otherwise it's all about Ilford FP4 and HP5. What film were you using there?
I also saw an exhibition recently which used 35mm Ilford Delta 3200 negs blown up to 20x24", and the results were actually really incredible -- the grain was surprisingly unobtrusive and helped provide a distinct aesthetic which wasn't just "grungy under-exposed noise".
I'm honestly not sure which velvia it was besides that it was 50 ISO. I'll have to check out those B&W films, I may even give the 3200 a shot as my friend has a rooftop pool I'm planning on using at nighttime. I actually used Ilford HP5 as it was the film I used in HS, so I was somewhat familiar with it. Haha it's good to know it still is a good B&W film!
Okay... so here's a few more from that Sin City shoot. I swear these will be the last. My friend who I did the photos for was asking if I had any more for a poster he's getting done to promote an upcoming concert. Realized I was a little too critical of the photos on my first lookthrough and was happy with how these ones turned out as well.
ROOKE5 Profile by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
ROOKE5 Subway by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
ROOKE5 Steamed by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
My Portfolio Site
As far as I know there's only one Velvia 50 (a quick Google tells me classic Velvia was always 50 ISO and branded 'Velvia', but was later dropped and then reintroduced as 'Velvia 50'. TMYK.) I really like it and should shoot more of it, but again, expensive and hard to find
I like the first and third shots in this set -- they feel really dynamic & atmospheric. The second shot doesn't do that much for me, unfortunately; it kind of looks as if he's just missed his train and is about to call an Uber.
I got a new toy over the holidays, so I've been taking it out as much as I can. Unfortunately there are so many restrictions (rightfully so to be honest) I haven't gotten to take it out quite as much as I would have liked. Here's a few from the sky I've grabbed so far though
Generic Beginner Drone Photo Looking Straight Down at Trees by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
On Thick Ice by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
I'm a little bummed I may have ruined my underwater camera - the lens seems to be permanently fogged up after my last shoot in which I took photos of the bride, in her dress, under water, after her wedding. Really hope at least those turned out and it wasn't fogged up the whole time. Only time will tell, gonna just finish off the roll and see if I can get it developed with some success. *fingers crossed*
*edit* Forgot to post these here, but here's a few from that same wedding weekend.
SQueen by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Say Something by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
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New year new photos, let's keep it movin' people!
I-70 by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
My Portfolio Site
I really dig this shot. Let me know if you would be interested in print exchange, although I do not have means to do hand made darkroom prints right now...
Sorry to hear about the camera. My trusty f3 is developing issues, which is sad as it has been with me all over the place. Hope your shots come out ok!
The temp seems a bit cool for me in this shot, which in turn reminds me of the movie "Gone Girl"...
Great shot ! Wish the bird was a bit more centered along the Y axis.
Anyways I was thinking about getting a drone, but all the rules and regulations scared me away.
It is funny, most drone pictures tend to look the same, but your shots definitely have your style to them. Kudos!
I'd be down for a print exchange! Even if we're not doing our own wet prints, good art is good art. I'm going to try and get some more colour stuff professionally printed this year, so that could be a good excuse.
I like this shot, and I'm a bit surprised it wasn't another one in your drone series. That said, I feel you're losing a lot of detail in the clouds and the blown highlights to the left are really distracting. I did a quick brightness/contrast layer in PS to bring down the brightness of the sky (inverted the layer, painted the sky white, and then set it to minimum brightness and ~40% opacity) which seems to help the mood of the piece, but I'm not sure there's much I (or you) could do with the highlights as shot.
You and me both haha. Every time I take photos of hawks, falcons or ravens they always take off right as I'm about to take the photo. It's seriously uncanny. As it was perched there I had it more or less centered and then it took off and my reaction time wasn't quite fast enough.
Thanks man. It actually isn't a drone photo though haha, it was taken at an overpass. I did do a gradient filter with highlights and brightness lowered quite a bit. In this particular sunset I really loved how brightly on fire the sky seemed, while the landscape itself was covered in a very mellow softbox style overcast light/shadow. That all said, it's good to know that it is distracting to someone else. I'll play around with it and see if I can find a happy medium.
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Hot Foot Bridge by jeremy o., on Flickr
Worldbuilder by jeremy o., on Flickr
i have more photos, mostly cliched fungus shots from a rainforest bushwalk, that i might inflict upon you all soon. i really need to get back in the habit because my new daughter is due next month and i don't want to end up with no nice photos of her!
p.s. catching up on the last couple of pages, i love fall lungs @Prospicience and herbert cafe @Baron Dirigible. keep up the good work! prosp, you're a machine.
edit: oh, i have a technical question for those who might be digital / colour savvy. does anyone know how to do complex split-toning through rgb curves? as you might have guessed from the above shots i can do red and green in the shadows and highlights, but i'm not good enough with colour to figure out if i can do my other favourites, especially blue shadows / yellow highlights. it's probably getting yellow in the highlights that's stumping me.
I'm pretty psyched to be able to take "real" pictures! The digital camera her parents bought us years ago was a lovely gift, but it was a pretty basic one, no lens options other than what it had installed, and so on. This one comes with an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 lens. I'll learn what all that really means... I spent a good portion of last night watching video reviews. I had been following some beginners videos as well starting last year. I wanted to know how to use the camera I already had when we went to check out my cousin's 4x4 event in Vermont (Vermonster 4x4 in case anyone's heard of it). I was able to get some decent shots from that, but I'm looking forward to using this one this year.
Guess I'll have to buy Lightroom and learn how to use that, too! I took a photography class in high school ... 21 years ago. I've got a lot of catching up to do.
The 'f' numbers are the size of the aperture, or how much light the lens lets in. The lower the number, the more light. Lower numbers also will give you a shallower depth of field meaning less foreground and background will be in focus. The reason it has a range is because you have a zoom lens, so at 18mm focal length, the aperture is f3.5, while at 55mm it's 5.6. So you're letting in more light when at a wider angle.
The 18-55 is the focal length. This is how wide you will see. Lower numbers are wide-angle and higher are more zoom or telephoto. 18 is quite wide (landscapes) and 55 is more of a mid range (portraits). 35mm is close to what humans see. That's a pretty flexible lens to start with.
so it turns out this is really obvious - you just crank up blue in the shadows and take it out at the top. apparently all the other colours minus blue are... yellow! who knew.
Periwinkle Valley by jeremy o., on Flickr
not sure if the "gazing off into the distance" focus works here. but i'm happy that i can egregiously colour the way i want again
I started agonizing over this being a APS-C vs a full-frame sensor, but I have no frame of reference to complain about. I'll work with it and go from there. Thanks for the info, I kept getting the aperture size to light scenario wrong in my brain as far as higher = less.
Man I'm stoked to get this! I'll have to rent some lenses to play around with after I get used to the one it comes with.
Also I don't know if you have one but a monopod is a wonderful thing for lower light when you don't want to set up a tripod all the time.
@Fawst yeah don't fret too much about APS-C, if its a landscape you can really get as wide as you want with photoshop or lightroom if you stitch together a bunch of shots afterwards. When I was shooting a friend's wedding, I took a minute with my 100mm prime on my 7D and shot about 35 photos to get a really wide, very detailed high resolution photo with everyone in it. Luckily I chose a great time during the ceremony and barely anyone moved, but I was amazingly surprised how well it turned out.
I've been shooting a decent amount, I take my dji up whenever I can (which isn't much). But most of the areas around the city are off limits unless you get a permit beforehand. It seems the restricitons on UAS's (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) are getting more strict by the day. It makes sense being how easy it is to buy a quad copter and be stupid with it and cause immense amounts of damage. But it sucks when I just want to get a sunset photo of the city I live in haha. Decided to take today to get a little caught up on unedited work, so here's a few of my recents. All of them rather different from one other.
Dreaming of the Road by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Evergreen by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
Lone Star Shadow by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
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Thanks!
Yeah, don't go down this path, for that way lies madness. APS-C is a sweet spot in the market as far as price v quality, with full-frame being prohibitively expensive for anyone not shooting professionally. (As I've mentioned before, if you really want the smooth bokeh you can only get with full-frame, buy a 35mm film camera for a tenth of the price.)
As far as lenses, you're in luck as there are some good, cheap options available for the Canon EOS system. Something like this 24mm f2.8 would be a step up from your kit lens for the wide-to-normal end, while this cheap 50mm f1.8 would be a great choice for portraits.
That said, I'd recommend getting as much use out of your kit lens as you can, even before you bother renting lenses. Work out the focal lengths you enjoy shooting with, or what you feel limited by, and go from there. (Personally, I'm a big fan of the 40mm effective focal length, since as @bombardier points out it's roughly the perspective of human vision.) Fortunately, once you work out what you want, the Canon lens ecosystem is wide and well-developed enough that you can find pretty much whatever you want for a decent price. (I also highly, highly recommend buying used from a reputable online retailer.)
As for me: I just spent a weekend away in sunny Emerald (the one in Victoria, not the actually sunny one in Queensland) and came away with a few fairly good shots. Hoping to get them, along with a bit of a backlog, developed sometime this week. And then it's off to New Zealand in April...
okay so i figured out that i can use the bathroom at night if i drop a sheet over the window. it doesn't suit my impatient disposition but, it'll do. on sunday morning i mixed up a new batch of chems and developed a roll of expired junk that has been sitting around for a few months...
Cupid's Thornbush by jeremy o., on Flickr
Colorizer by jeremy o., on Flickr
i'll throw a roll in a real (not leaky) camera next i think. i haven't taken any photos of the local surrounds since i moved across town so maybe that's on the cards. i'm always worried about the chemicals expiring quickly, even though my last ones lasted something like 18 months and 50+ rolls
p.s. have fun on the south island! we went to franz josef / west coast from christchurch via arthur's pass, then up and back across stopping at hanmer springs. some beautiful lambshanks landscapes to be sure
(Though I'll forever be on team Used Film SLR. If it was good enough for NatGeo it's good enough for your holiday snaps!)
Did you drive or train across? We were originally planning to take the TranzAlpine, but there were fires literally the day before I was booking everything and the train lines are closed for at least six weeks. Which should be fine for us travelling in April, but I'm thinking I might plan now to drive across and stay a night at Arthur's Pass. If you did drive, how did you find the trip?
(My itinerary's since reversed since it turns out flying in to Wellington is a lot cheaper than Queenstown, and likewise flying out of Queenstown is cheaper and easier.)
I'm still using my 5d Mark 1 which I bought used in 2009. It is still chugging along and making nice pictures. The only thing that is lacking IMO is the older cameras don't have the amazing ISO range for low light.
They seem to be going for around $400.
Also, if people haven't used it, Flickr's camera finder is quite fun: https://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/eos_5d/
It really shows that you can get great stuff with a wide variety of cameras. You just need to bring creativity and some photoshop/lightroom skills.
Hoping to see an influx of some new photos with that camera Fawst. Make sure to flex your photographic eye as often as you can. Even just taking photos around the house, working on compositions and exposure settings, learning your camera's lightmeter, etc. Just like any other art form, the more you use your camera and get used to the tools you have at hand the better you'll become. Practice practice practice.
Uuuuh so, the sunrise was too pretty not to take a shot when driving by Chataqua park in Boulder today. I missed a lot of the orange but there was still enough to grab a shot when I got there.
Chataqualigned by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
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Cool and Unkind by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
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Emerald by Rohan Bassett, on Flickr
Emerald Golf Club by Rohan Bassett, on Flickr
Photos from last year's trip.
So do people who use DSLRs tend to use auto-focus, or do you go manual? The auto is nice on my 70D, but I was messing around with manual settings and that is when I found out I know nothing.
Gotta figure out how to properly adjust my exposure triangle settings (or at least figure out what I like). That said, I need to figure out how to actually adjust them, never mind adjust them properly. It's really a mixture of photography basics and learning the camera. I get the idea behind the basics, but I find that in practice I need to ... practice. I'll post some terrible, untouched photos later. Haven't picked up Lightroom yet. That reminds me, does anyone use something like GIMP instead of Lightroom? Free is nice, but boy is that a convoluted program. I've used it in the past to reduce image file sizes and reduce JPEG quality for posting online without killing bandwidth for people, but I've never even thought about using it for manipulating photos otherwise.
i've never met a dslr with a good manual focus mechanism. getting autofocus right takes more nuance and configuration than you might assume - do some reading about single-point and zone autofocus, for example, and get in the habit of adjusting it / considering it consistently - but it's always far easier than MF when your focal length is varying from shot to shot. there are exceptions - eg, for street photography where you're taking rapid snaps it can be good to set manually to hyperfocal distance, or for particular shots where you want special focusing effects, etc... film cameras often have focusing aids like a split-ring mechanism where you can quickly manually focus precisely, but those have been eschewed and manually focusing is generally more hassle than it's worth.
Center crop on this? Or off center?
I guess I'm going to try and edit out those trees on the bottom. Seems super involved though, but all the other shots like don't have any trees!
What does the original image look like? I don't see any reason to crop out the trees, either. If there's more foreground that you're able to crop back in, it could help add depth to the scene via layering.
Would it be weird if I just post both images to Flickr? Do people often post multiple crops?.... I should probably just pick one, and get over it haha.
If it really bothers you, you could upload images in the forum or upload it to another service like imgur.
I always just try to post one version on Flickr, but I do use it as an alt portfolio from time to time (aka when I forget to update my website for a while). I usually post alts just here on the forum.
@muninn always seem to like your vertical cityscape photos, so well balanced.
Stumbled on this guys' work today, pretty amazing aerial idea here. https://petapixel.com/2017/03/10/folding-landscape-photos-will-mess-brain/
And one of mine from last week
Sunreyes by Lee Stonehouse, on Flickr
My Portfolio Site