Photography

[Sem]

I haven't visited this thread is a long time. There's some great pics here of professional quality. Thanks everyone for sharing these.

I no longer own an actual camera so I take all my pics with my iPhone. While it's surprising what you can get with a cell phone, it's definitely no on par with with a quality camera.

Here's a couple pictures I took recently with my phone.

Sunset as seen from Dinosaur Caves Park in Pismo Beach, California. The park is located about 15 miles up the road from our house.



Another sunset. This one looking across nearby Lake Cachuma, a man-made reservoir providing most of the water for Northern Santa Barbara and the city of Goleta. What's great about the lake right now is that it's sitting at 100% capacity, (they're actually letting extra water out to stay at 100%). I first started watching this lake back in 2007, and during that time until now it's never been above 60% full, and frequently only around 30% full.

[ozzie]

Nice pix, Sem. I really love that first shot from the cave park.

[LennG]

Steve

Great shots. I always love a good sunset.

[Bill Brown]

Not anything special but the sky is telling me that a big northeaster is about to deliver a lot of snow.

[Shoelessjoe]

Here is one that I've been working for the past couple of weeks. Let me know if this works haven't done this in a while.
I just clicked on the link and it brought up the picture.
[https://i.postimg.cc/6pqPgYJg/Prime-Hook-Blue-Heron-Flip.jpg]

[ozzie]

Yes it worked and it is awesome! What a great shot. Just beautiful.

[Shoelessjoe]

Ozzie, thank you for your comments. Much appreciated.

I was worried about this one. I took in on a raining day at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. He was just standing on a stump and wouldn't move. I just love his mad or angry look. Something pissed him off.

I got close, within 100 ft and used a 300 MM lens, but I still had to crop. My camera has 42.4 MP but I had to crop it to get in as close as I wanted and when you crop you lose megapixels. As a result, I ran it through Topaz Denoise AI and Topaz sharpen AI. 

At the last meeting of a meeting of a Photography Group that I belong to I received a comment that the feathers on the back were too sharp. I took it into Photoshop and put a blur on the feathers and also blur the background to soften both. It worked and I think that the bird looks better than before.

We read from left to right while this bird was looking from the right to the left. As a result, I flipped the photo so that the bird was looking from the left to the right the way our eyes are trained.

[ozzie]

Nicely done. I don't think I ever would have thought about flipping the photo to make it seem more natural to our eyes, but it makes sense. Once again,  great shot!

[Shoelessjoe]

In our group get together once a month, a lot of the discussion on composition relates to how we want to lead the viewer in the photo naturally with leading lines, contrasting colors, and tone variations like Dark to light. You want to direct the viewer to a specific location in the picture. Another thing is the eye of a person or animal or bird. If the eye is not sharp than the picture is not good. Some of the new cameras like the Sony a1 or the A7rV have an auto focus system that is really sophisticated. It has focus modes that can recognize the difference between a human and say a bird. It even has a mode to recognize and focus on an insect's eye. Imagine being able to get a tack sharp picture of an ant's eye.

[ozzie]

Very cool information and very interesting.
You mention your photography club, I have been checking into photography clubs here in my area for the past few months.
It's harder to find one than I imagined. Some near me have nice websites, photos and "mission statements", and then upon further review, I see nothing has been posted on the site for years! I have found a few that seem to be thriving though and will definitely take a better look into them. I think it would be a great learning experience and fun to interact and share with others.

[ozzie]

No one's posted here in a while, so let me continue this great thread with some pix from our visit to Slovenia last summer. Specifically, a place called Lake Bled. A beautiful location with turquoise colored water, a church on an island and a "castle" high on a mountain.


No motorized vehicles are allowed on the lake, so to get to the church it's short gondola ride.







The steps leading up to the Church grounds



The grounds and surrounding area

[ozzie]

To continue on....
Calling this a "Castle" is stretching it a bit I think, but I'm not going to argue with the locals 
It is now used for events like weddings and parties.









Here are some of the views you get from above..

[ozzie]

[Moose135]

We were in the Outer Banks for the past week, extended family rented a house on the beach in Corolla. Weather turned out to be almost perfect, GF got to see her son and grandson, and we got to see some neat stuff.

Currituck Lighthouse





12 seconds that change the world forever...the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. This marks the spot where their first flight ended.







Pacific Sea Nettle at the NC Aquarium.



The north end of Corolla is home to a herd of wild horses, believed to be descendants of horses lost by Spanish explorers in the 1500s. It is a 4x4 area, where driving is permitted on the beach - there are actually a large number of homes located behind the dunes, reached only by 4x4 vehicles. We took a tour through the area to look for the horses.



This is Dove, a two-month-old foal.



If you are staying at a house in the 4x4 area, you just might find some horses hanging out in your carport.



Jake was an absolute rock-star this week!

[ozzie]

As always, I just love every one of your shots! Especially the night time pix. Stuff I could never pull off.