Post your best current shots

[Kayaker72]

Some great shots on this page.

Mark...I love the feel HDR is giving to your indoor shots...

Poik...I already commented on flickr, but great series with ridiculous amounts of character.

Sam..I join the chorus, great series.

Falstaff...welcome to the forum. That is s great series of shots. I like the composition on a number of them. A quick tip on posting on the forum, if you go into and double click on each of your thumbnails, you will have the option to make the thumbnail full sized.

Zach...some really cool photos. Love the bucket concept.

[jamsus]

I like this shot a lot, i know is not "perfect", but the location was quite hard and dangerous to reach so the result was apprecciated!

Behind Florence, Tuscany Sunset

[Dave Throgmartin]

Jamsus,

Nice one. I like the black and white. Did the color version have promise too?

Dave

[jamsus]

Jamsus,

Nice one. I like the black and white. Did the color version have promise too?

Dave

Color version was a bit dispersive and loose something in my opinion, i shoot this one with a 600D APS-C sensor so retrieving the "shadow" zones (all the terrain, cause the lot of light caused by shooting directly in the sun) created a bit of noise and grainess!

[Kayaker72]

Out to dinner in Portsmouth, NH last Friday night. Not a bad view. May be my last dinner on the decks this season. We'll see.

Both shot with the Canon 5DIII and the 24-70 II

@50 mm, 0.5 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 (braced on the deck railing)

Small-0983 by kayaker72, on Flickr

@70 mm, 1/160, f/9, ISO 250

Small-0972 by kayaker72, on Flickr

Thanks for viewing....Brant

[sambisu]

Was playing with my new lighting modifier - fstopper's light disc - and some flowers my wife had left over from a wedding.

Just lit this with one speedlite with the light disc attached (above to the left) and a reflector (to the right and low enough to provide some light on the lower flowers). I really ended up liking how the black and white with some boosted contrast brought out the form of these flowers that normally just kind of get lost into one big yellow blob in pictures.

5DIII + Sigma 50 Art @ 1/200 sec, f/11, ISO 100

_H8A2750-Edit by sambisu, on Flickr

[Jayson]

A waterfall. My first. Please CC when you get a chance. Want to make this as good as I can.
Canon 7D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 34mm, f/13, ISO 100, 65 sec. Used a CPL and a 6 stop ND

[conropl]

Jayson:

Very nice. In the weekly assignment you said it is a small waterfall. Some of my favorite and many times the most photogenic falls are some of the smallest.

As for comment:

• Your best help is to improve the lighting... in other words, shoot early morning (sunrise), sunset, or heavy overcast.
• Need a strong foreground. The leaves and rocks actually work well if in good focus and glare free.
• Don't be afraid of f/16. Diffraction is minimal, and f/18 is not very noticeable, but the smaller aperture with help with the DOF for the foreground and give you a longer exposure if needed.
• Sometimes using the stream as a good lead-in works really well (even better if you can get a few rocks in there with leaves). To do this, you need to pull back some, get low, and put the falls in the top third of the frame.
• Dissecting the falls by zooming into interesting parts usually works well and produces something different than most will get.
• I may be wrong here, but it looks like your CPL was not turned to get ride of the glare on the rocks at the bottom. My first priority for the CPL is to get rid of the ugly glare on wet rocks. You will be amazed at how well that cleans up the detail in the rocks and makes the foreground a lot more interesting.

Good luck and enjoy the water.

Pat

[M_Six]

First football shoot


Eastern Illinois University Homecoming 2014 Football by Mark J Photography, on Flickr


Eastern Illinois University Homecoming 2014 Football by Mark J Photography, on Flickr


Eastern Illinois University Homecoming 2014 Football by Mark J Photography, on Flickr

[Kayaker72]

A waterfall. My first. Please CC when you get a chance. Want to make this as good as I can.
Canon 7D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @ 34mm, f/13, ISO 100, 65 sec. Used a CPL and a 6 stop ND

If that is your first attempt, you did great.

In addition to Pat's comments, the color temp varies as you move across the waterfall from warm to cool. Part of this, and I am very impressed (and suspect PP) that you do not have even more contrast considering part of the falls is in light and the other in shade. That is very tough. The best photos have more even lighting on the waterfall, either it being in the shade or light. But, if you think of it, many of the "iconic" waterfall shots are taken with the falls in shade. It just helps with the lighting and contrast of a very white water and the surroundings. I am not sure time of day was the issue, as the light seems to be fairly horizontal, but maybe a different time of day would be better.

Longer exposures look best when the water flow is exceptionally consistent (see Pat's week 43 winner). When there is spray, the longer shots get fuzzy. Which does work, but I sometimes like a more kinetic look given by faster shutter speeds. I would be interested what this would look like at 1/4-2 sec range.

Final thought, and Pat already voiced it, but I sometimes take a picture of the falls (ok, often), but some of the better waterfall pictures capture the whole scene surrounding the waterfall. So, think about the whole scene would be a suggestion. I obviously do both, sometimes focus on the falls itself and sometimes try to capture the scene.

Of course, all of this is not meant to be critical. Just some thoughts.