The MR Photography bum, errr, buff thread...(contains photos)

[brecklundin]

I was just chatting with fugazied about our mutual hobby of photography and thought it might be nice to share a thread with fellow hobby shooters, or ya "prima donna" pros as well....hehehehe....JUST TEASING...

We all have our fav gear and probably also visit brand related photo boards but we could also have some fun here as sort of a "non-denominational" photo thread. And first it does not matter if you are using your phone's camera, a point-n-shoot or high end full frame or even some fancy large format film or digital back camera...I am just hoping to have some fun outside of books here...we aren't all that one dimensional that books are all we thing about or enjoy...I am willing to bet cash money there are some very experienced photgrpahers out there...as well as beginners who might not feel comfy posting on a dedicated photography board. So why not get your feet wet here!

I shoot Pentax gear these days because I love their great line-up of "limited" primes, both the DA Limiteds and the FA limiteds. The lineup of DA* weather sealed lenses are super as well when paired up with the weather sealed K20D or K7. In fact the K7 is rated down to -10°C with a whole host of other neat features. I made the move back to Pentax this past July when the K7 had been announced, though I have yet to buy a K7, instead deciding to go with the nice fast limiteds first then when the newness of the K7 wears off I will grab a new one later this winter I hope.

I have a hodge-podge gallery here:

http://www.brecklundin.com

Nothing fancy or anything just somewhere to toss the odd shot or two. I also use it for my eBay product shots.

One of the real motivations in wanting a large format color ebook device is for both photography books as well as reference materials for antiques (the family business which I grew up in since I was 7 so almost 42 yrs in the biz...). While there actually is an increasing number of photography books out there in color in ebook formats, there is almost nothing in the area of antiques & collectibles references. I keep writing the major publishers like Schiffer Collector Books but still nothing...OTOH, even the smaller authors in photography see value in ebook versions...so here is to hoping we see something useful for our hobby after this week is done.

Anyway, if you have a fun shot, a bad shot, a silly shot, a question, an answer, or just wanna discuss something about your gear, photography in general, whatever...lets see how it works? Might be fun to talk outside of the often polarized brand centric forums...

BTW, even if you are not a Canon shooter I highly recommend POTN (http://www.photography-on-the.net) as well as the Pentax Forums at, go figure, http://www.pentaxforums.com. They are both privately run and not affiliated with either brand...plus they are populated by some really super folks both with excellent info. What I can't find at one I can find out about at the other. And of course there is the one-size-fits-all http://www.fredmiranda.com though I never really felt at home there like I do on POTN & PF...

Lemme see, what is a fun shot I have up right now...here are a couple shots I took with my 40D & Sigma 10-20/4-5.6 around my hometown:





I set those to a max of 1024 wide, if that a prob we can drop them easily enough but lets try and keep shots no wider than 1024px...seem reasonable? And maybe no more than two shots per post? Just for simplicity sake?

[brecklundin]

A hot topic when looking at Pentax from the Canikon camps is the issue of high ISO noise. The Canikons are great in producing nice clean moderate to the higher ISO images fit for web consumption. But the trade off is loss of detail. Pentax chose to not process even the raw file leaving the detail at the cost of more noise in the shots. I find I enjoy using the increased detail AND increased noise as a creative element in the shot. I am not any expert at all so my subjects tend to be, well very simple. I'm still learning to see shots creatively as well as technically but at the same time developing some ideas into how to use the tech differences to my advantage.

Here is an example of a high ISO shot with very basic processing in Lightroom 2.x and no noise reduction (NR) applied. The settings for the shot are above the image.

I converted to greyscale and adjusted the levels only slightly and got a shot I was happy with that has sort of a sense of old film when we learned to use "grain" from pushing film to a speed faster than it was made to shoot. This was just sitting on the headboard of my bed with a single 15w warm CFL bulb as the lighting. It was hand held with the in body stabilization turned on (Pentax calls this Shake Reduction or SR for short).

Pentax K20D, DA 35mm Limited, 1/25, f2.8, IS03200


One of the things that is amazing about the 35ltd lens is not that it's a 35mm focal length true 1:1 macro lens but rather that is this superb close focus lens that works as a nice everyday lens and works out to around a 50mm length lens on a full frame or film body camera (and yes this lens works on FF or film Pentax SLR bodies from 30-40 yrs ago or newer). Plus the bokeh even at 2.8 is wonderful if you plan the subject to background distance with it in mind, or in my case, get lucky because I never even gave it a second though!! hehehe....

[brecklundin]

Oh, my avatar was the result of shooting a bird at the convalescent center where my Mom was until August 18th, 2009. I actually goofed up the shot trying to get close enough to the cage bars so they were not visible in the shot (for those who don't know, you can do stuff like that if you can get really close and focus on a subject farther away from the lens...the stuff up close is not really registered by the film/camera sensor. And with digital we have the added advantage of trying to edit out any portions which do show up and detract from a shot.

Here are the stages of the shot and a link to the final version in my gallery (oh, I suppose I am going to already break the idea of only two images per post, but I will use smaller images to make up for that part! hehehehe):

Original shot...you can see my cunning plan was in need to a turnip to make it work!


Stage 2 - You can see this is just a crop from the original and is really not too bad but still was not what I had hoped...


Stage 3 - Here I used some of the creative filters in Photoshop CS3 to make the shot look more like a drawing than a photo...it's close butt here are some harsh transitions between the color gradients in the shot giving it a look like a topographical map. You would need to look at the larger versions to see these lines...



Final Version - Made a few more adjustments and viola I had a shot I could print and give 8x10's of the birdie to a few of the residents for their rooms. One even asked if her grand daughter could have it because she really liked it and the bird was one of her fav critters in the residence...I mean geeze, it felt really nice when she asked since that was also the first time anyone wanted a copy of one of my shots, who cared if she was like 9...


You can click here on this link to see larger versions:
http://www.brecklundin.com/Getting-t...93100269_yeq36

[montsnmags]

I have two DSLRS ("The Professor", and "Farnsworth" respectively), amongst about 10 other cameras of assorted type (SLRs "Professor Frink", "Ginger" and "Thurston"; rangefinders "The Skipper", "Mary Anne" and "Bender"; polaroid "Leela"; TLRs "Bitey" and "Pie"; and P&Ss "Flipper", "Lovey" and "Gilligan"). There's some non-workers too (their names die with them).

My DSLRs are my main cameras - actually, just the one really, "Farnsworth", as it is a personal "upgrade" on the other one - though I'm inclined to use any of the others occasionally for varying times. At the moment I'm going through an iPhoneography phase, and so the iPhone ("Zelda") is also getting a fair whack of photos through it.

For my photos, well, I've currently a small gallery I haven't updated in a while:

http://www.parknmeter.com/gallery/main.php

It's probably due for additions, a rework and an edit, though I'm still finishing off scanning the last of the old negs at the moment. There's not a lot to see there...family, pets, some Noosa pics, a snake. They are generally (other than the snake) favourite photos, but...well, like I said, I need to do an edit, and some may fall from favour while others take their place.

Cheers,
Marc

[phenomshel]

Niiiiice shots, Brecklundin!