Photography

[ozzie]

Lenn, those pictures just scream AUTUMN! and I love it. Here in Texas we don't get much of a fall season and I miss it.
Sem...she is an angel. Great shot!

[LennG]

Steve

She is simply adorable. 

[Shoelessjoe]

Frank

I really appreciate your knowledge of photography. A lot of it is lost opn me as far as the technical aspect.

This intrigued me as I do make shots, sort in the dark. looking out at bright scenes. This HRD you speak of, is this something you have to manipulate your camera to do, or just set it to take a certain type of pix and it does it automatically. I am using a Canon Rebel T-6 which has specific settings for all sorts of different types of pix, yet I rarely use them, preferring to stay in Auto, or move it to a Tv setting, which I can control the speed of the pix. I am sort of familiar with that where I can manufacture effects, like trying to shoot into the sun, or blurring the  water, as I have posted. After that, I am sort of dumb and dumber. I should enroll in even an online photo class, I believe I would love it.
Again, I really don't understand too much of the technical aspects, but I appreciate any help you offer.

Lenn, don't sell yourself short.  You have a great eye for what to include in a picture and your composition is excellent.  There are many photographers who can go many years and never achieve the level of composition that you do.  This is a hobby and it is suppose to be fun so just enjoy what you are doing.

To answer your question, I can't answer for Canon as I have a Nikon however, there should be an HDR setting as well as bracketing.  You will more then likely need to shoot in JPG which is the standard file format that is universally accepted and you are more then likely shooting with this file format already.  There are a number of picture file formats.  As I said the most commonly used is JPG.  I shoot mostly manual with a few exceptions in what is called Camera RAW.  You don't need RAW so stay with what you have been using.  Basically what happens in JPG format is your camera determines based on the picture you are taking what the end product should look like while RAW is used mostly for post processing.  I'm sort of a geek at heart so I really enjoy post processing even more so then the actual taking of the picture.  When I take a picture I'm always thinking what can I do in post to enhance what I'm seeing.

In short, check out the link below and look at your camera's menu settings.  It will tell you what to set to get an HDR picture.  Remember you need to take an HDR picture when you have a high contrast subject.  By that I mean you bright highlights and dark shadows.  Just set it and let the camera work for you.

https://www.google.com/search?q=canon+rebel+t6+hdr+settings&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS874US874&oq=Canon+Rebel+T-6+HDR&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l4.17260j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[LennG]

Thanks Frank. In the video, it looks as if they are using the same camera I have, so I'll try some of the 'hints' next time I'm shooting, to experiment.

[Shoelessjoe]

Lenn, you may not always come across a situation where you can use HDR but sooner or latter you will and you can now experiment and see what you can get.  Do you remember at a game in the old Dallas stadium where you had the opening in the roof.  If you remember when a player was tracking a ball down the sidelines and the picture on the TV got washed out.  Some of the picture you could see but the rest was washed out.  That's what happened.  There wasn't enough dynamic range in the TV camera.  The player had no trouble tracking the ball because humans eyes can compensate.  We humans just have a much better dynamic range then any camera that can be built.

[ozzie]

Here are a couple of shots I took while experimenting with a full moon one night.....

[ozzie]

Somewhere along the Charles River in Boston...



Interesting Clouds taken with my phone...

[LennG]

Lets see where to go with todays group

Lets try our visit to Washington DC. When my kids were young, we used to go to DC every year. I had lots of problems there as my license plate is GIANTFAN, and I used to find all sorts of stuff drawn and written on my car when we got back to it. Anyway, we still try to get to DC as often as possible. It is truly a photographers place to be. I would say it is about the most photogenic city I have ever been in. With monuments all over, a great zoo and the Smithsonian, truly a picture takers heaven.

So let me show you some pix

The Washington Monument as seen in the 'Reflecting Pool' (Everyone gets this shot, or, at least, tries to)



On visiting the Lincoln Memorial and you can still see my fixations for reflections in water



Abe, up close



Tomb of the Unknown Soldier



Arlington National Cemetery



And the Washington Monument again, with a full moon in the sky

[T200]

You guys have created a monster now, but I love showing some of my pix, so get ready

You can change your name to PhotoMonster   

[LennG]

The next set is not for exhibiting, but just for some personal thing which I think several on this board will like. They are just pix I took of an event that happened, by chance, while we were visiting the Iwo Jima Memorial.

We were leaving to move on, and I wanted to take a few pix of the Memorial. It is in Arlington, Va and we were heading to Antietem (those pix come later). anyway, when we got there, there was a huge crowd. seems this ex marine who lost both his legs in Iraq, was doing a cross country bike thing, to raise money for the Sempher Fi charity. He has a special bike that he pedals with his hands which he used to go cross country in a bit over 2 months. So, we had to hang around to see this man, as he was ending his journey at this Memorial. There were multiple news crews and huge crowd from Rolling Thunder, who had accompanied him during parts of the ride.

So here are just some pixs I took of this remarkable gentleman ;

He arrives at the Memorial



Greeted by his family



Rolling Thumder offers their approval



His ride in pix



Part of the celebration



On just my own note. People lined up to congratulate him and I joined that line. When I got to him, told him I was an Air Force Veteran, his reply was 'Sorry about that' with a huge grin on his face.(remember he was a marine) Just a great experience for me.

[Shoelessjoe]

As I've said before I love to work in post processing to bring a different perspective to a picture.  You can modify a picture just to save it as I did with a boy on a swing, clean up a kid who has food on him or change the background and crop to make a better picture.  You can also make a photo that is very different then the original.

Original photo that had lost most of the detail in the background highlights.


I changed in the second photo the exposure and cropped in to get closer to the boy.


He had food all over his face after eating so I had to clean him up.


This also had to be cleaned up.


Before.


After adding a background and adjusting the color of the flower and adding a red streaks.


Before.


After changing the background to look the same on both sides of the flower.

[LennG]

Wonderful shots Frank. I LOVE those close up of young kids. Are they your family?

[Shoelessjoe]

Wonderful shots Frank. I LOVE those close up of young kids. Are they your family?

Yes Lenn.  They are my nieces two sons.  They were taken about a year ago.  I worked on them for several months in Lightroom while learning to use the software to get them where I want them to be.  I printed them and gave them to her for Christmas.  It's what I enjoy doing and being retired it's a great hobby to have.  The only problem that I have is GAS (gear acquisition syndrome).  My wife is going to kill me but I'm looking at moving to a mirrorless camera.  In fact the entire industry is going mirrorless.  Sony right now makes the best and I have my eye set on one of their full frame models.  As I said I have a bad case of GAS.

[LennG]

Todays group. I think I've said it before, but I also like to try to get some pics, out of the norm, that MIGHT be interesting to some, sort of my abstract group. Maybe close ups of unusual things, or just looking at some thing a bit differently.

Here is what I mean

We were riding on those back roads and saw an open barn with bundles of hay. Why not take a pix



Walking on a beach somewhere and there was a huge area of rocks that must have been washed up



Just designs on the beach



Lobster buoys in Maine



A wood pile outside some one's cabin



We went to a cigar factory on an excursion off of a cruise. They had all these gigars stacked in huge rows



Ice crystals formed on my car windhsield one morning

[T200]

PhotoMonster,

You definitely have a photographer's eye.

Keep 'em coming!