Photography thread

The background is a standard black photography backdrop with white led Christmas lights hung from the top bar with spring clamps. The background lights are not the same string of light she has in her hand. For safety, I, one, didn't want her to pull the whole thing down, and two, the background lights are 120VAC, the light string she is holding is battery powered by 2 AA batteries. The safety of the model is paramount, especially when it's my two-year old.

The lighting of the subject is a little more tricky. As already mentioned, this photo was shot wide open, f1.8 as I recall in order to make the background lights have the nice bokeh ball look. But too much ambient light and the background disappears, too little ambient and the subject is too dark. A better camera would have allowed me to push the ISO up, but the crop sensor in my A6000 doesn't like higher ISO settings (800-1200ISO would have been about right, but that created too much noise.) Keep in mind, I'm already at 1/125 shutter speed at 127.5mm (85mm @ 1.5 crop factor) so I'm limited there as well because keeping a two-year old in focus at that focal length with anything slower is tough. So, camera right, I used a 500w continuous light in a bounce umbrella turned away from the background enough to keep it darker than the subject. I then used a 2-stop diffuser panel to soften the light on the subject even more. To even things out a bit, I used a silver reflector camera left and slightly in front of the subject.

Hope this made sense and answered your question.

 

Yes, yes it does. Thanks!

 

This was taken with a GoPro Hero4. I was at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana CA, my wife was shooting interviews, and one of the guys involved. I did play with the Instagram filters a little, very little actually, it came out pretty nice just being all camera.

 

This is from four years ago, at the apartment I used to live at. No filters, just camera, my Sony a57. Seems so Christmas'y to me.

 

Here ist end end of the year articles on recommended gear from DP Review.
https://www.dpreview.com/?ref_=pe_1822230_263319210_dpr_nl_289_0

 

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Nice reminds me of fleet week this year

 

A shot from this evening's moonrise.

 

Sunrise Daytona Beach

 

Where is that? Nice sculpture.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that is Scubalong's sister sunbathing somewhere in California.

 

This and several other similar sculptures are on the outskirts of Borrego Springs, CA.

 

My family and I helped out at a charity again this year. Festival of the Trees. People decorate Christmas trees and then they get raffled off for charity. The pics above are a few I took with my Samsung Galaxy S7. The more I use it, the less I use my Sony A57... I'm still looking through the two hundred or so pics I took today.

 

The sensors in phones are really quite good. That's why even though I still take a few "snapshots" with my camera, I try to be more selective. I try (big emphasis on the word try) to take pictures with my camera that can't be taken with a phone. It has to be tough out there for the pros now that everyone has a decent camera on them at all times and the filters that can "edit" photos in a fraction of the time it takes in Lightroom and Photoshop.

 

The phones small sensors and wide angles lens make a shallow depth of field really hard to achieve. But on real close ups it still is possible, like Lints above desert photo, background is nicely out of focus.

 

Yep, the wide angle is horrible for portraits as well, which kills me because so many people take distorted selfies. Proper perspective, DOF and off camera flash are things any pro should have mastered (though I've seen some that haven't) but with the dynamic range of today's sensors, lighting can be edited in simple phone apps, and bokeh can be added too. To make a living at this, you better know your stuff, you won't sell many photos if your clients can create similar or better results with their phone.

 

The camera on my S7 has a "Pro" feature that allows manual control of the focus, aperture, shutter speed, white balance etc. I'm pretty impressed with what it can do. I think I'll try a couple of those clip on lenses and I think I saw Bluetooth flashes somewhere.
One thing I have noticed is that the color sensor on my a57 is obviously superior to my phone and the blacks are blacker as well. I definitely can only get some pictures only with my regular camera, but all things considered, in super impressed with the S7 camera.

 

The camera on my S7 has a "Pro" feature that allows manual control of the focus, aperture, shutter speed, white balance etc. I'm pretty impressed with what it can do. I think I'll try a couple of those clip on lenses and I think I saw Bluetooth flashes somewhere.
One thing I have noticed is that the color sensor on my a57 is obviously superior to my phone and the blacks are blacker as well. I definitely can only get some pictures only with my regular camera, but all things considered, in super impressed with the S7 camera.

 

I agree with you on the depth of field. You can see in the mouse and bear pic above that I didn't use the manual focus.

 

Couldn't sleep, so I drove over to Coronado to watch the sun come up.