Photography (Post photos, comments, and criticism here!)

I took a look and found that the last photography thread here seemed to go out a year ago, so I thought I would make a new one! Photography is one of my many passions, so I thought I would post a few pictures from the year I spent living in Australia, and see if anyone else wanted to contribute. Please feel free to offer up constructive criticism -- and please please post your own pictures too!


Just a picture of some dew on some grass one morning after I got my new digital SLR camera:



Picture of a wallaby (like a smaller kangaroo):



Rainforest moss:

 

Nice pics. Love the moss.
It's about time one of you Aussies started posting some pics.

 

Nice pics to both of you.. I have a few I am proud of.. here's a goldfish from my analog Canon SLR..



was in the finals of a $10,000 contest with that one.

 

Wow, beautiful, Laura! The first one's very crisp and fresh, while the second one's subject matter is fantastic... what is that, anyway? My sister's the botanist, I just think plants are pretty. :O

What kind of camera/software do you use? The colors seem less vibrant on the second one than the first one, and some digital cameras let you take photos in RAW format that let you, to some small degree, play with the exposure after the fact.

@Paxton: Gorgeous! I looove fishies! Taking pictures through glass is so tricky, at least for me. LOL I love the colors, they're so vibrant. What's his name? (Also, kudos for analog... much harder than digital!)

@Musksnipe: Sorry if I gave the wrong impression -- I'm not Aussie, I was just living there for the past year! Back in the U.S. now, getting down to "real" life...Job, rent, etc. etc. etc. :zzz

 

Really beautiful pictures for being taken with the automatic type camera! I'm impressed, Laura, my pictures with automatic cameras always come out horribly.

As for the settings... I took a photography class waaay back in high school, so promptly forgot it all. But I saved and saved and eventually bought my Nikon D40x, which is fantaaastic. What I love about the digital SLR is that you can have absolutely no idea what you're doing, and just try a specific setting, and if it comes out horribly, you can see it immediately and try different settings. Trial and error, and eventually you start to get a feel for what's good for what situations. There's also an automatic setting, which I do use sometimes for quick pictures, so if you don't feel like mucking about with endless combinations of settings, you can just snap a quick photo.

And don't even get me started about zoom lenses... <3

 

Not only is this my favorite KIND of picture (we have a "Wedding cake" corner in the living room with a picture, and Boutonnieres from the wedding it was from) but this is my FAVORITE picture ever, it's my brother, and sister-in-law.. Wal-Mart thinks it's professional, so I can't print it there. LOL

 

About that.. I heard that Nikon changes a lot in the lense area.. If you buy a Nikon lense now, it might not fit your next camera, I think they change the fit every 10 years.. Canon never has, and won't.. So you're safe with a nice lense forever..

 

Huh, I've never heard that... but definitely worrying, worth investigating when buying a new camera. I've never had any problems with my Nikon, but it's only about a year and a half old, so I'm hardly an expert.

@Laura: I'm saving up for a major zoom lens... So many times I've wanted to take a wildlife photo, only to have it be just a little too far away to make the perfect picture. The lenses do cost a lot, but they also have good sort of "mid-range" lenses where one size fits all, for basic camera work. That's what I have now, and I pretty much love it.

@TxTazDad: Whoaaa. Now THOSE are boats. Also, what a cute kid! Red hair ftw.

 

Here's a couple I took of one of my clients over the weekend. She was competing in a state level pageant.

Wish I had video of this one, she was impersonating Karen Walker, and it was amazing.. she took that category.




Pardon the red eye, did not get to fix it yet, this ws her black and white walk on outfit.

 

Great pics, all of you. We're turning MG into PhotoGeeks. LOL

 

I certainly hope so, musksnipe! Here's a few more from my Australia trip:

Harbor outside the hotel I stayed in during a Tasmania excursion:



Lighthouse in Victoria:

 

Picture of my mother on her 25th Anniversery. She wanted to do something special for my dad so she put on the wedding dress and we took a few shots.

 

I got married in full dress uniform (Royal Marines) that was 39 years ago and 40 pounds lighter so no chance for me

and then at work

 

love the wedding photos

Does anyone recall the really wild storms we had in Victoria in early April. The following pics are from Apollo Bay during that time. 1st one is a view of from the top of the Lighthouse at Cape Otway that Azulala showed before. Middle pic is of Apollo Bay and last pic is the Ottway fly. The top of the tower is 47 metres from the ground.

 

Wow! Thanks so much for posting these! God, I miss Victoria so much. I agree, those storms were pretty wild... though by U.S. east coast standards, they were fairly normal. But by that point I'd gotten used to Melbourne weather!

It's SO cool seeing these pictures... when I did the Great Ocean Road drive we stopped at Apollo Bay because I saw something and suddenly screeched "STOOOOP" and it turned out there was a whale and her calf swimming around in the bay. No good pictures of her, unfortunately, but it was sure a sight to see!

I should dig up my pictures of Lockard Gorge from my hard drive when I get home... that place, and the stories with it, was SO awesome.

Someday I'll go back there.

 

Never been to Lockard Gorge, will be great to see some pics.
Just for the awwh isn't it cute, I have a pic of a little furry friend we saw on the roadside snacking about a km from the entrance to the Lighthouse. The other pic is looking down from the tower of the Fly. The whole structure moves whilst your walking on it. :eek :-D

 

There's nothing better than family. Here are most of the kids too young to have them on my mom's side. There are a lot more if you count the kids of my generation.

 

Awww, great picture, Paxton. I love family photos when the kids' smiles look genuine.

 

Gorgeous picture, Halo. I <3 bees, though only on the other side of my camera lens. They have a nasty habit of flying up and stinging me when I did absolutely nothing to make them mad, and most of the time didn't even see them there first.

TxTaz -- you have such cute pics. That kid is adorable.

 

Here's a relatively valuable picture...

 

Looks like a scan?

 

Right, I elected not to call it a photograph.. Sorry..

 

I wouldn't mind having that picture be the contents of my pocket. As it is there's just a hair tie, a gum wrapper, and an old receipt...

 

I was just moving it from one bank to another. LOL

 

In caaash? Yeesh, I'd be way too scared to carry around more than $100 in cash. I constantly leave stuff everywhere. Brave man.

 

LOL I cashed my paycheck, and drove it to my bank to deposit it.. Cash moves faster for some reason. I get money in my account same day with cash.. takes 3 or 4 if I deposit the check. Let me try and redeem myself.. Here's a stitch I did of Niagara Falls the last time I was there.

 

Oooh, pretty! I've never been, and REALLY want to go. There's so much fun to be had with long exposures. It looks a nice stitch, too... do you have a bigger copy?

 

Yeah, somewhere.. I think.. It was made with multiple 5 mega pixel shots, and a stitching program. I'll ask around to some people, and look at the computers at my house. I know there's a bigger one somewhere.. Note though, there are date stamps all over the bottom of the picture.. I might have one without too... I'll see.

Glad you like it though. Thanks.

 

Oh, I didn't even notice the dates. I think I thought they were lens flares, though how you'd get that many lens flares in a panorama shot, I have no idea. Chalk one up for my dead brain. I more noticed the slightly darker section to the left of center -- ever tried to Photoshop it up a little to match? Might be too much effort. XD

 

Oooh, lovely pictures, Kestrel! I particularly like the purple flowers at the bottom... what are those? I don't recognize them (not that I'm a botanist or anything by a long shot...)

 

Yay, more pictures! *waits patiently*

 

Gorgeous! Your hand looks oddly like my sister's hand. :confused Are those more columbines, or are those different? so lovely!

 

Wow! What's that spidery blue one?! So beautiful! And you take such lovely close-ups! :drool

 

Wow Kes
Have you ever thought about taking up photography as a profession? These photos are really good

G

 

LOL! Darth Vader FTW! <3 <3 Awesome costume.

I want that mug...

 

Couldn't find the Out n About thread, so here I am. We had a bunch of thunderstorms roll through over the last couple of days and i am trying to get the perfect lightning picture.
I hadn't gotten my tripod set up yet, when a big cell went through. The pic is not quite in focus and and the sky full of flashes either blinded my camera or just burned the image in.



This was a just missed flash of lightning.

 

Time to start a new one? Out n About part deux? Then book mark it LOL

 

Gorgeous lightning pics, Musksnipe! I keep meaning to try and do some storm photography myself, but never quite remember in the moment... too preoccupied with the storm itself! :yum

 

@ Azulala... I've taken hundreds of pics and have only caught 3 bolts.
And none of them are the perfect one, yet.

Good Hunting!

 

When I was younger I got obsessed with night sky pictures, and tried taking pictures with my mom's 35 mm camera, with longer and longer exposures -- pretty soon I started running into the problem that the earth was turning, and the stars were turning into lines. So my dad, who's a wanna-be engineer, helped me design a little stand for the camera that would pivot just a little on a motor to follow the motion, letting me leave the shutter open as long as I needed -- it took weeks and weeks of tiny adjustments, painstaking recordings of what angles and speeds I used, but eventually I got some really phenomenal stuff. I wonder if my parents still have that old thing in the garage somewhere...

 

I wish I knew how to make pictures like this...
when you drag the mouse across them they move around 360 degrees!
I don't even know how to copy/ paste them so here are links:

gaylord texan bridge panorama...
<http://fieldofview.com/flickr/?page=photos/fpsurgeon/2549333201/>

eucalyptus and a sunset...
<http://fieldofview.com/flickr/?page=photos/joshsommers/369631177>

peaceful panorama...
<http://fieldofview.com/flickr/?page=photos/fpsurgeon/2503458218/>