+1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
No. 2 is a real beauty with just about every element of the image in nice cooperation. Though my favorite is no. 4. It has great depth and I can almost feel like like I'm hanggliding into the frame.
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+1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kayaker72
No. 2 is a real beauty with just about every element of the image in nice cooperation. Though my favorite is no. 4. It has great depth and I can almost feel like like I'm hanggliding into the frame.
Hi all,
I've been lurking this forum for some time now, and really like the friendly atmosphere and the impressive amount of both skill and knowledge displayed here. While I'm nowhere near most of you in terms of photography (not to mention my poor written english skills), I happen to live in a wonderful place that allows me to sometimes take nice pictures nonetheless.
Lately I started to be really interested in just hiking around in the swiss Alps with my 450D. I read Jonathan's post about larch season in Canada (p. 38 of this thread), and thought I would mention that we have quite a lot of larch trees here as well. Most tourists think they are ill when they see them without needles during the winter, but these trees are really something to see these days. I was lucky enough to have some time to hike around last Sunday, and here are two of the resulting pictures. I hope you'll enjoy them.
Have a good day.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8053/8...9607951b_c.jpg
Autumn colors par Tounis_9, sur Flickr
[http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8331/8...4740f159_c.jpg
Emaney par Tounis_9, sur Flickr
Welcome Tounis to the forum, they are certainly spectacular shots, particularly love the last one. The scale of that shot is magnificent. Has the frost killed all the grass?
Cheers,
Steve
Thank you for the comment Steve.
Yes, at this altitude (about 1800 meters), there have already been some rather cold nights. Snow came the previous Monday, and you can still see some of it on the top of the mountains, but the rest of the week has been beautiful and it quickly melted. There's not that much grass anyway, as a cow herd is spending the summer up there, leaving almost nothing behind. Now they are back down in the valley preparing for winter.
A few weeks from now, snow will cover the whole place, which won't be easy to visit before at least May.
Welcome, Tounis. Those are beautiful images.
Larry
Welcome, Tounis --- those are great shots. I love larches and look forward to seeing them in their golden splendor each fall. It's great when you get a nice mix of green and gold as you did, together with a mountain backdrop. Perfect. I'm very much looking forward to seeing more scenic landscapes from your area... keep them coming!
Thanks for the positive feedback. I'll certainly try to keep them coming as I spend more time walking (or skiing) around here. Winter is coming soon, and it's always an interesting season too here in the mountains.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathan Huyer
By the way, I wanted to thank you, because the numerous beautiful landscapes you posted on this forum inspired me to give more time to photography, and to try to improve my ability to see the beauty of the nature around me. And when I look at your pictures, it always reminds me of the time we spent between British Columbia and Alberta during a trip with my family when I was only 8. I have really fond memories of this journey through your country, and I certainly hope to come back one day.
@nvitalephotography, those are really nice. I especially like the third one.
Nick - Nice shots... where were these taken?
Tounis - Welcome to the forum. The mountain landscapes are great, and I hope to see more. Sorry, I am a bit late responding to your first post.
Pat
The top one is Cades cove, in Smoky Mountain National Park. The water is the stream just below below Amicalola falls in Georgia (which I posted a photo of in the autumn thread)
A couple of shots, please let me know what you think
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5055/5...c70f56b864.jpg
Swallow Falls by edd.jones, on Flickr
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5132/5...a0fdbdf859.jpg
Aber Falls by edd.jones, on Flickr
i like the subjects but the compositions don't work.
Nvitalephotography, cheers for your comments. Very new to all this so would love to know more 'why'Quote:
Originally Posted by nvitalephotography
Ed....there is a lot to like about the photos. I can tell a lot went into their execution. And I will let Nick speak for himself on this, but my suggestions would include the following:Quote:
Originally Posted by d0051m
1. Both photos may benefit from better framing/definition of your subject (but I agree, good subjects). The way the shots are framed, I am not sure if the subject is the rock or the water. It seems that the "subject" are rocks in the middle of the photos. Yet, the eye is naturally drawn to the water. But in both photos the water is mostly, but not fully captured. This is most obvious in the second photo as my eye continiously wanders with the water off your picture, either up or down. In the first photo, the base of the waterfall is cut off. I would have enjoyed both photos more had a) you focused more on the rocks with less water so the the rocks took up more of the frame (assuming the rocks were your subject) or if you had the water blurred more. b) included the complete waterfall (at which point, the waterfall would be your subject).
2. I wonder about white balance in both photos. In the first, the water itself may be yellow, but looking at the vegetation, I think the photo may be a bit "warm." However, looking at the second photo, the white balance appears to be a little "cool." Maybe only a few hundred degrees kelvin, but a little.
3. The first shot is a little dark, maybe 1-2 stops.
All of these may have been artistic choices on your behalf. There certainly is a bit of an abstract flair to both shots.
As I said before, there is a lot of good in the photos. You acheived excellent blur of the water while maintaining good detail on the land.
But, I am no pro...so take everything with a grain of salt.
Kayaker, thanks so much for the comments. Am very much learning my way around the camera and can fully admit not enough thought goes into composing of the scene. One set of terms I don't quite understand is cold and warm and wondered if you could explain a little more.
Thanks very much
Sure...here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature
http://www.betterphoto.com/article.asp?ID=24
http://www.ephotozine.com/article/gu...mperature-4804
I am not sure how you processed your photos. They may have been jpg right out of the camera. If so, let me suggest shooting in RAW and using software such as Canon's free digital photo professional, Adobe's lightroom, or DXO's software. There are many others, but those are the three I have. Each has a slider bar that lets you adjust color temperature to RAW images. You can "cool" down a photo by decreasing the temperature, which tends to accentuate blue tones or can add add warmth to a photo by increasing the temperature, which tends to accentuate the yellow/orange tones.
Yeah, I completely agree with what was said, summed up my thoughts perfect . The second one I feel like the main subject is the waterfall in the background(at least thats where my eyes go) yet its cut off. I think if you aimed up a little higher this shot would be great. the water and rocks in the foreground would lead your eyes into the picture where they would land on that great waterfall.
The first photo I just want to see more of the scene.
You have great subjects here and the slow shutter is good.
A couple of weeks ago we had full moon, and I spent a late afternoon capturing it rising. In a set of about 20 pics this is the one I like best. (There aren't too many minutes when the ambient light and the moonlight mix well in a single exposure.)
Attachment 1555
I tried my hand at a panorama shot this morning, shortly ater sunrise. I used the 24 mm TS-E, and shifted left and right to generate the combined image. It was quite a lot of fun, mostly because it was -19 C and the wind was howling. Trying to work those fiddly little knobs on the lens without freezing your fingers is a real trick. This location is the Spray Lakes Reservoir, just up the hill from where we live. I'll definitely come back here and try some other spots.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p...0/panorama.jpg
Edit: Forgot to mention, I also used a 3-stop soft edge graduated ND filter.
Great effort to pick up a shot like this Jonathan, I like those blue tones.
Another great shot. I like the reflection off the ice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathan Huyer
It sounds cold morning. We had a warm spell here the last couple of days... I think it hit 60 F here today. I usually like the cold, but I am content waiting a little longer.
Here's another panorama from this morning... this time I shifted the lens up and down, and merged the two images together to create a square composition. The ice crystals in the foreground are just a few inches away from the lens, and I used a bit of tilt to get the whole scene in focus. This was quite fun... I can't believe I haven't actually tried panoramas before with my tilt-shift. Previously I've just been using it for single-shot images.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e...20panorama.jpg
Another reason to get a TS-E. I hadn't thought of using it for Pano's.
Pat
Great shot Jonathan.
Here's a shot from Lake Tahoe with a little bit of snow on the Sierra in the background.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9...0copy-Edit.jpg
Mark:
The water color and clarity is really nice on that shot. Lake Tahoe sure is a great looking place.
Pat
Nice shot WMF
Thanks! But it's easy to take good pics when you have a good subject.
A couple from tonight, amazing storm! Haven't seen anything like it for a very long time.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8347/8...dda93bf6_b.jpg
Mount Isa Electrical Storm by Ben__Taylor, on Flickr
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8489/8...4c6572ef_b.jpg
Lit up by Ben__Taylor, on Flickr
Those are great lightning captures. I especially like the second one. Well worth the clothes.
Those lightning shots and the low angle set up at Lake Tahoe are great images! Here is one I clicked off last Friday along the central coast of California. McWay Falls drops 80 ft to the sea below, but it is just a minor element in this large scene.
[img]/http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8343/8...595476b5_b.jpgTidefalls - - - Big Sur, California by ernogy, on Flickr[/img]
Clicked off....LOL. I bet there are a lot of us who wish we could click ones off like this.
Great shot mate.
Ben, fabulous lightning shots... especially #2.
Erno, great work on that scene. I was there in March and wasn't able to come anywhere close to this kind of result. I'm a bit torn whether the tree silhouette against the sky adds to the image or not. I'm thinking it would also be a great picture without the tree in it. Mostly though, I love the motion in the water. You picked just the right shutter speed. Sometimes in my photos I tend to overdo it, and blur the water too much. This is a good example of why it's often better to go with just a little bit of blur.
BenQuote:
Originally Posted by btaylor
Great shots, would it be possible to supply the settings. I have attempted lightning many times all with poor results, any help would be appreciated.
Absolutely!Quote:
Originally Posted by Raid
To be honest getting a shot of lightning starts with a bit of trial and error, once you get it all dialled in though it's quite easy from there. I was very lucky last night as there was a ridiculous amount of activity in the sky.
The way I try to do things is to use shutter speed to expose the scene using the ambient/available light and use both ISO and aperture to control the exposure of the lightning.
For the first shot I was at ISO 160, 13sec exposure and I'm pretty sure it was f/8.0. Because the Samyang 14mm is manual aperture and doesn't read back to the camera I don't know for certain, however I was generally sliding between f/8.0 and f/11. If there's a lot of ambient light and you don't want too much movement in the clouds etc you can speed up your exposure a bit down to, say, 5sec for example. You should still be exposing correctly for the lightning as before since ISO and aperture have the biggest effect on that component of the shot.
For the bottom shot (with the fire in the background) I was shooting at ISO 400 for a 30sec exposure and again at around f/8.0 to f/11. I had the ISO bumped up here as the lightning was much further away and hence needed the extra sensitivity to expose the lightning correctly. This could also be achieved through opening up the aperture a bit. For the foreground here I was simply light painting with a torch.
So once you get your settings where you want them, just sit it on a tripod with a remote shutter release and let it keep ticking over.
Not exactly too scientific but hopefully this gives you a decent starting point.
edit: SHOOT RAW
I agree with Jonathan, that water is absolutely amazing. Wasn't there an assignment recently to capture an image with a bunch of different focal points? This would have been perfect. There are just so many cool things to look at in that image (the sky, the waterfall, the silhouette), but the water definitely takes the cake. That would be an excellent wall piece.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathan Huyer
Another from the other nighthttp://farm9.staticflickr.com/8209/8...f81a5405_b.jpg[/url]Super Storm by Ben__Taylor, on Flickr
Amazing shot Ben, love the clouds and the multiple bolts.
That's an awesome multi-exposure shot.
Ben - I really like the that last one... cool composite.
Erno - When you can get a shot where an 80 foot waterfall is dwarfed by the grandeur of the other elements of the shot, then you know you have something special. Nicely done.