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1st Attempt at Photography - Tips?


Dizzle229

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Hey guys. I'm not really sure how this forum works as I haven't posted here before, so sorry in advance if I'm doing anything wrong. Anyways, I've gotten into photography over the past year or so, and admittedly, I have very little idea what I'm doing. Generally I try to set it up so that I don't need to edit, but I figured this would be a good example to practice on. Also, sorry the file sizes are so huge. According to PhotoBucket, 25.7MB total.

 

 

 

Before

IMG_0317.jpg

After

satcrossminpole.png

 

Changes:

-Increased saturation quite a bit.

-Very slightly darkened.

-May have played with hue slightly, not sure.

-Removed flagpole and a pipe thingy on the roof from the background.

 

 

 

Anything I did wrong that I should fix? I'm using Paint.net.

LOTRjokesigedition-1.png

Get back here so I can rub your butt.

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A good photographer can get a great image in the camera with minimal editing, keep that in mind.

 

Your original image is overexposed and you should either increase the f-stop to around f-10 because it's outdoors or increase the shutter so it will let less light in.

 

If you don't know how already, learn how to use the histogram to get your photos exposed correctly. A histogram should look like a mountain range if you want details in the shadows and highlights and everything in between.

 

Also look for interesting subject matter. Ask yourself if it's boring or not. Just don't take photos of something for the sake of taking photos and trying to show off your technical skills. If you can catch someone's attention for longer than 5 seconds it's more than likely an interesting shot.

 

If you want interesting shadows, colors, and lighting.. take photos outside around 30 min before sun set and 30 min after. It's called the golden-hours.

 

A larger aperture ie: f-1.4 = shallow depth of field (everything not in focus will be blurry)

A smaller aperture ie: f-22 = More depth of field (great for landscape photography)

 

Fast shutter will let less light in but freeze the motion of things like water, vehicles, anything in the wind.

Slow shutter will let more light in but any camera shake will make it blurry. So if you had a tripod with your camera on it and a shutter of around 2 seconds and were taking a photo of a seascape, you can have everything but the water focused and sharp but the water will have a dreamy effect.

 

ISO or ASA is the sensitivity of the sensor in your camera. For film, the ISO is how sensitive the film is to light and it will sort of lighten or darken the image depending on the ISO regardless of the other settings like shutter, aperture, etc. So if you had a film of 100 ISO and 400 ISO, the 400 ISO will be brighter even though if you used the same settings to take the picture. So if you set your camera to 800 ISO you can take a properly exposed photo in a dim lit area, but the downfall is that the noise will be more visible. If you want a clear, noiseless image.. set the ISO to 100. Some cameras go down to 50 ISO.

 

If you have a DSLR, set it to take RAW photos as well with JPEG. The RAW file contains a lot of unprocessed informaton and if you take an overexposed image, you can lower the exposure in camera RAW without losing information or very little. The JPEG is for when you're viewing your photos on your computer.

Dart.jpg
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  • 2 months later...

A good photographer can get a great image in the camera with minimal editing, keep that in mind.

 

Your original image is overexposed and you should either increase the f-stop to around f-10 because it's outdoors or increase the shutter so it will let less light in.

 

If you don't know how already, learn how to use the histogram to get your photos exposed correctly. A histogram should look like a mountain range if you want details in the shadows and highlights and everything in between.

 

Also look for interesting subject matter. Ask yourself if it's boring or not. Just don't take photos of something for the sake of taking photos and trying to show off your technical skills. If you can catch someone's attention for longer than 5 seconds it's more than likely an interesting shot.

 

If you want interesting shadows, colors, and lighting.. take photos outside around 30 min before sun set and 30 min after. It's called the golden-hours.

 

A larger aperture ie: f-1.4 = shallow depth of field (everything not in focus will be blurry)

A smaller aperture ie: f-22 = More depth of field (great for landscape photography)

 

Fast shutter will let less light in but freeze the motion of things like water, vehicles, anything in the wind.

Slow shutter will let more light in but any camera shake will make it blurry. So if you had a tripod with your camera on it and a shutter of around 2 seconds and were taking a photo of a seascape, you can have everything but the water focused and sharp but the water will have a dreamy effect.

 

ISO or ASA is the sensitivity of the sensor in your camera. For film, the ISO is how sensitive the film is to light and it will sort of lighten or darken the image depending on the ISO regardless of the other settings like shutter, aperture, etc. So if you had a film of 100 ISO and 400 ISO, the 400 ISO will be brighter even though if you used the same settings to take the picture. So if you set your camera to 800 ISO you can take a properly exposed photo in a dim lit area, but the downfall is that the noise will be more visible. If you want a clear, noiseless image.. set the ISO to 100. Some cameras go down to 50 ISO.

 

If you have a DSLR, set it to take RAW photos as well with JPEG. The RAW file contains a lot of unprocessed informaton and if you take an overexposed image, you can lower the exposure in camera RAW without losing information or very little. The JPEG is for when you're viewing your photos on your computer.

 

All of this in terms of how you're using your camera. To reiterate try and get great shots just out of using the camera rather than editing. Some of the best photographers didn't even have photo editing programs available to them at their time of shooting and they have some of the most world renowned photos to date. What you have edited is really nice, however. You've got some nice skills in the photo manipulation department there, so don't be afraid to tweak photos.

 

Another thing you might want to take in mind when shooting is composition. Have a quick read of the Rule of Thirds. That helped me out tons when I first started out in the world of photography.

Achieved 99 Woodcutting on 12/06/08

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