Any photographers in the house?

Went fishing today. It's the tail end of the salmon season and basically over, so no luck. At any rate, I got a few fun photos due to the river being a mirror.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/aJVDRXXl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/uYrZ8P3l.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/YPkZ0Vil.jpg)

Bonus points if you can guess what general setting I overtweaked in post.

Any 500px users here? What do you think of there ranking system? It feels kinda easy to game. I don't post a lot to the website but still somehow managed to get a photo onto their popular page pretty quickly today. It feels like a bunch of people sharing likes back and forth rather than actually appreciating each other's work. /sigh anyway for anyone interested here is the photo I posted to it.

http://500px.com/photo/53659996

I still quite like the website, it does have a few thing going for it that Flickr doesn't.

Lots of good pics coming from my Japan trip, still going through everything right now. But MAN I got some great shots.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Wzx1vN2.jpg)

(GOD I love this lens.)

Nice!

Ranger Rick wrote:

Lots of good pics coming from my Japan trip, still going through everything right now. But MAN I got some great shots.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Wzx1vN2.jpg)

(GOD I love this lens.)

ok what lens is that? and pls tell it it doesnt cost a couple thousand. (want!)

Blotto The Clown wrote:

ok what lens is that? and pls tell it it doesnt cost a couple thousand. (want!)

Olympus 75mm f/1.8

That's a stunning image Ranger Rick. The gesture of the hand in particular elevates the composition.

Hi all, I thought I'd share this here. Today only, amazon is selling the Olympus E-PM2 with two kit lenses (14-42 and 40-150) for $349.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G237L8I/ref=ox_ya_os_product

I picked one up, looking to have something compact to bring around instead of my big DSLR.

I started out with an E-PL1 before upgrading to the E-M5. I'm *really* happy with the micro 4/3 format. Good sweet spot between size and quality. That's a nice camera and the kit lenses are decent.

I've got the other version of that zoom (14-150 instead of 40-150) so I sold my 14-42 kit lens when I sold off the E-PL1. Sometimes wish I'd kept it, it's a nice small size... though with the 25mm prime being close to the same size I'm not sure I'd really end up using it.

I've got to build this

Yeah, that guy has all kinds of awesome PCV contraptions. A long time ago I built the Make magazine steadicam for my brother. That was pretty cool.

Snow is difficult because the camera will try to make it the medium gray that the exposure meter ... exposes for. A full stop, maybe a touch more, of positive exposure compensation would have probably brought it up to a proper exposure. If you start shooting raw you can also really pull a lot out, much more than you can after it's "developed" to jpeg.

You might also try playing with that image in black and white. The strong contrast might work where the exposure you were looking for didn't.

Rahmen wrote:

You might also try playing with that image in black and white. The strong contrast might work where the exposure you were looking for didn't.

Good idea!

Yeah, as Liquid Mantis explained, exposure is tricky with snow. I'm not very good at it and usually don't bother with exposure compensation. Well, I might if I had a nicer camera, but mine is pretty simple and a lot of those settings are buried in menus.

Here for example is just a real quick edit:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/V8lt2I6.jpg)

Cool. Have fun with the snow Plavonica!

Still lots of Japan photos to go through, but I picked up Photomatix Pro for HDR processing since Photoshop's tools for it are kinda crappy. Holy *COW* I was able to pull an amazing amount of detail out of a 3-exposure shot:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/dhZ5RzV.jpg)

I love Photomatix. It's an amazing product. I agree photoshop leaves a lot to be desired in that department.

You did a nice job of keeping it toned down in the HDR dept. I am not a fan of the over-the-top HDR shots like Trey Ratcliff at http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ though he has started to shoot more tasteful HDR. His earlier stuff, though well done, was often way OTT

groan wrote:

You did a nice job of keeping it toned down in the HDR dept. I am not a fan of the over-the-top HDR shots like Trey Ratcliff at http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ though he has started to shoot more tasteful HDR. His earlier stuff, though well done, was often way OTT

Yeah, I'm not a fan of it either. I like using it to get maybe a tiny bit more color, and a lot more detail out, but I prefer trying to better match what my eyes see, rather than going for the surreal.

A couple more along those lines:

Tokyo Tower:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/8VRN790.jpg)

...and another shot of Mt. Fuji from later that evening, when the sun was already behind the hills:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/pYcWux1.jpg)

Great shots!

I too upgraded to the newest version of Photomatix. I also have HDR Effects Pro 2 and Photoshop, where Photomatix crushes them both in putting out the best HDR edits.

And here is my shot of a sunset from this fall that is straight out of the camera, no editing. Goes to show that if you are in the right place at the right time, the colors of a sunset can be amazing and HDR isn't needed. Five minutes before and five minutes after this shot and the sunset was completely different.

IMAGE(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7300/9654724416_b83b5ffe37_b_d.jpg)

Wow! Beautiful shot!

Great shots both of you.

RangerRick - I'm pretty sure Photomatix has the control points system which might let you play with the levels in the darker area if you want to brighten them up just a hair. (But great pics regardless)

I like how these two photos turned out:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/rBOcmtVl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/R2VKnW6l.jpg)

My brother took my nephew on The Holiday Express, and I tagged along. The Steam engine this year is gigantic and gorgeous. The Portland Rail center is also really cool. I can't even describe how big those engines are in person. It's really mind blowing. That wheel has a diameter that's taller than me (6'1"). Well, if it isn't taller than me, it's very close.

Photos!

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/DxIDhqUl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/O5NDELOl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/o2Hm8Gxl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/6cgNt4ql.jpg)

That last shot is golden, Tuffalo.

I'm doing another 365 day project, where I will post a new picture every day of the year. Here is Day 4 of 365:

Tesla
IMAGE(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3751/11759280835_d192eafab3_b_d.jpg)

Bella - Day 6 of 365
IMAGE(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7406/11805646274_802e0a604f_c_d.jpg)

Great shot Eason. I really like how well captured the dog's expression is and the hint of the face of the owner gives it additional warmth.

Nice shot, Eason.

If you don't mind me asking, you've got it tagged as using off-camera flash: Where did you have the flash setup for that shot?