The Photography Thread

[Raid]

Sparked by my post about buying a new camera in the Just Bought Tech thread, I present the Gamers Arms Photography thread, wherein we talk about the recording of images using sophisticated combinations of ground glass and silicone and probably some gold or something holy hell this stuff is expensive.

Anyway; I decided a few months back that I want to get back into photography having neglected it for a few years. I'm working on getting my eye for composition back. Current goals for the year include trying street photography and portraiture. I've started playing with slightly more advanced editing techniques in Photoshop and Lightroom, although they're probably a little over done at this point. I'm considering moving to another editing platform (Capture One), due to Lightroom being an atrocious (if easy to use) piece of software that bogs down my reasonably well-specced PC even with a tiny catalogue.

[Mantis]

Very cool. This is something I've always fancied getting into, particularly since I started to get my hands on a huge long lens camera for work every so often.

How much editing do you really need to do in Photoshop style software when you have a decent camera?

[Raid]

Depends on what you want to achieve by editing. Any camera made by a reputable manufacturer is going to give a good image most of the time, but editing to improve an image rather than just fix it has always been a large part of photography.

[Rusty]

What is that last one? Is it a 'toy' model photographed or a screenshot? I like the lighting

[Raid]

It's the Play Arts Kai Raiden figure that came with the collector's edition version of Metal Gear Rising Revengence. The lighting comes from two Phillips Hue desk lamps set to blue at either side, and the model is sat on my Surface Pro that provides the underlighting.

[Raid]

I know this is just a fact of my new camera's resolution (it's a 30mp full frame sensor), but the amount I can crop images is ridiculous compared to everything else I've ever used. This is a 100% sized crop of a photo of my Gundam Exia model (the forum does automatically resize images, but you can open it in a new tab to show the full size):


This is the original image showing the crop:


(this was a failed shot; the pose and angle aren't great, and really I should have used a longer focal length as there's way too much wasted space; I think I may have missed focus too as the text on the shoulder is slightly blurred)

It fills my monitor yet that can't be more than about 10% of the original image. This thing is a beast of a camera.

[Achtung Englander]

i like your 3rd photo a lot Raid

[Mantis]

This thing is a beast of a camera.

I should hope so. Am I right in thinking that it costs £3,000+?

[Alan]

I like the dilapidated building. I'm very partial to abandoned places and black and white so win win Congrats on the camera, its a heafty bit of kit! Do some weddings on the side and it'll pay for itself I got a quick shot of a Fuji GFX and I could feel the anxiety of just holding that bloody thing convinced I would break it and get billed


I do love photography but I feel like I'm in a slump with it right now. I'll take my camera and have it with me all day and take one picture when I used to come back with 100. I have fairly recently been trying street which I do like in the way that everything is constantly changing and as soon as you see something its already passed which keeps it exciting. On the flip side sometimes I feel like a proper creeper randomly taking pics of people doing their thing. There is a certain exhilaration to it though....

I keep trying to do astro but every single time Ive hauled my ass out to a darksky area its been overcast. Ive a few ok starry ones but nothing more than okish and definitely not interesting in any way. I hope to give it a good go in the summer when the milkyway rises again.

He'lan coos at sunset


Single mum


Arbroath harbour


Moody shot of contemplative person


Some plant thing up near Burntisland, looked like they were in the midst of an oopsy happening.

[Raid]

This thing is a beast of a camera.

I should hope so. Am I right in thinking that it costs £3,000+?

If you buy a UK model, yes. I bought a grey import and saved around £1100.

Thanks AE, I like it too. The lighting reminds me of MGS2, which was a happy accident.

Alan those photos are superb, far nicer than anything I've ever taken. I'm sorta hamstrung by not being able to drive, so my choice of subjects is limited to places I can walk to (or take a train) and Lancaster isn't that big. I'm considering heading to Manchester for the Chinese New Year celebrations to give Street photography a go.

[Alan]

Ach, 90% luck 10% skill Far far more thought went into your cracking model shot than anything Ive ever taken. Thanks though!

Chinese new year would be a great place to start. Interesting sights and people wont think someone with a camera is at all out of place. I'll actually need to check out if theres anything going down in Glasgow and do the same. Ive wanted to do that for the Fringe but something always comes up and I cant make it.

[Raid]

Yeah, the crowds and expectation for there to be lots of cameras makes me think it's an ideal place to start. I need to make sure I understand my new camera's autofocus before I do though, as it's significantly more complicated than on my previous cameras.

[Alan]

Try out zone focusing too so you can shoot without looking or from the hip and be less conspicuous. Also means zero lag on shutter press.

ie, mansplain,
Use a wide lens (max around 35mm, preferably 28mm)
Set to F8-F11
Manually focus to around 6 feet which should have around 5-7feet in focus
Set shutter to as fast as conditions allow(preferably 250-500 or faster)
Set iso to auto up to 6400 (probably can go higher on that EOS)

Judge the 6 foot distance and shoot away! It’s an interesting way to do things.

Wider the lens and higher the F the bigger the in focus zone will be.

[Raid]

That does sound like a useful technique, but I suspect I'll have so much else to concentrate on at the time that for now I'd prefer to let the camera to do the focusing (the new lens focuses imperceptibly quickly, there's no hunting whatsoever). I just need to understand how exactly it operates. My last camera had 9 autofocus points. This one has over 5000, and while I can choose one to place over the subject, it'd be nice if I didn't need to rely on the old focus-recompose method and just let the camera choose the appropriate points.

[Raid]

I finally got around to picking a photo from the Exia shoot the other night.



(for reference, this is what the model looks like under 'normal' lighting)