The photography thread

stickyfiddle

Not showing on my work machine but facebook is blocked, so that's probably why.  

It does say "image may contain dog" and "image may contain dog and indoor", so I'm going to assume it's a picture of a dog, indoors  

goldtop

All showing up here now. Great photos.

boogieman

Yup that’s sorted it. Nice pics @Wolfetone ;
How did you do the lighting set up for the one of your daughter?  Looks really cool.   

Wolfetone

boogieman said:

Yup that’s sorted it. Nice pics @Wolfetone ;;
How did you do the lighting set up for the one of your daughter?  Looks really cool.   

Thanks. I use cool lights. I used two lights into gold umbrellas and a silver reflector overhead.

I normally use a shoot through as a key light, a light into a gold umbrella as the secondary and the hair light is a snoot up and behind. The background is black cloth with the subject about 1.5mtrs out.

I haven't taken any serious photos for about six years and am only just getting back into it now. I didn't use my normal setup as I couldn't find my overhead. 

I wasn't particularly happy with this photo as her left eye has too much shadow. That said, It takes time to get back into the hobby because of the subtle changes required to achieve a better result. 

boogieman

Wolfetone said:

boogieman said:

Yup that’s sorted it. Nice pics @Wolfetone ;;
How did you do the lighting set up for the one of your daughter?  Looks really cool.   

Thanks. I use cool lights. I used two lights into gold umbrellas and a silver reflector overhead.

I normally use a shoot through as a key light, a light into a gold umbrella as the secondary and the hair light is a snoot up and behind. The background is black cloth with the subject about 1.5mtrs out.

I haven't taken any serious photos for about six years and am only just getting back into it now. I didn't use my normal setup as I couldn't find my overhead. 

I wasn't particularly happy with this photo as her left eye has too much shadow. That said, It takes time to get back into the hobby because of the subtle changes required to achieve a better result. 

Thanks for the info. I’m still a real novice with lights, I’m just using a couple of speedlights with softboxes on cheap stands and a reflector at the mo. Just playing around with different things really, to get a feel of how they all work together. I might get some proper studio lights at some point. 

Actually I hadn’t really noticed the shadow on the eye until you mentioned it, but yeah I can see why you could unhappy with the shot. I think it’s still a nicely set up shot and your daughter looks a natural in front of the camera. I wouldn’t be unhappy if I could turn out a result like that. 

Wolfetone

boogieman said:

Wolfetone said:

boogieman said:

Yup that’s sorted it. Nice pics @Wolfetone ;;
How did you do the lighting set up for the one of your daughter?  Looks really cool.   

Thanks. I use cool lights. I used two lights into gold umbrellas and a silver reflector overhead.

I normally use a shoot through as a key light, a light into a gold umbrella as the secondary and the hair light is a snoot up and behind. The background is black cloth with the subject about 1.5mtrs out.

I haven't taken any serious photos for about six years and am only just getting back into it now. I didn't use my normal setup as I couldn't find my overhead. 

I wasn't particularly happy with this photo as her left eye has too much shadow. That said, It takes time to get back into the hobby because of the subtle changes required to achieve a better result. 

Thanks for the info. I’m still a real novice with lights, I’m just using a couple of speedlights with softboxes on cheap stands and a reflector at the mo. Just playing around with different things really, to get a feel of how they all work together. I might get some proper studio lights at some point. 

Actually I hadn’t really noticed the shadow on the eye until you mentioned it, but yeah I can see why you could unhappy with the shot. I think it’s still a nicely set up shot and your daughter looks a natural in front of the camera. I wouldn’t be unhappy if I could turn out a result like that. 

Lighting and composition are 80% of most photo's. Being able to control your light is a good thing. I haven't done any serious photography for a few years and it's not surprising that my first attempt after that period wasn't the best. 

Budgie

Wolfetone said:

Does this work? Let me know so I know for the future.

Lovely! I hope you print or get it printed.

goldtop

New question: to buy/rent Lightroom (or something else)?

I only use a (very) old copy of Paint Shop Pro on Win7 for editing my images, and beyond crop/resize, Contrast/Brightness/HSL and some histogram adjustments, I don't find it very useful or friendly. No RAW import either.

After watching just a few YT videos of Lightroom users, it seems a lot more useful. It's still available to buy (at about £130 for v6), and although that will go out of date, I don't want to get locked into a forever-rental with Lightroom CC, so it seems the obvious choice. I'm not a pro, so can't offset costs against tax.

Any thoughts from Lightroom users?

Or is there a competitor that's worth considering?

stickyfiddle

I use LR CC. It's very good for processing, but the real bonus comes from the mobile workflow. I important almost 100% via ipad, then sort/reject before importing to LR. Then when I do import everything is there in the cloud for heavier edits on the laptop or simple stuff & sharing on my phone. I also love using the Pencil to edit, which is ipad only, obviously. 

If you're not using it on mobile then I definitely wouldn't go for the subscription; this, Netflix and iCloud storage are literally the only monthly software payments I have. LR 6 might still be a good bet, especially if you can find a discount code online. 

There are other things like Affinity and CaptureOne that are meant to be excellent.

boogieman

I’m still using Paint Shop Pro x5. It imports RAW files fine and does pretty much everything I want. Never felt the need to upgrade to later versions, but then I don’t do much beyond cropping, tweaking levels, adjusting white balance, saturation, clarity etc plus the odd bit of cloning. 

Wolfetone

@boogieman ;  The finished article . Lighting corrected in Photoshop and also compare with original where left eye had too much shadow. I get as much fun using Photoshop as I do taking the picture.

boogieman

Wolfetone said:

@boogieman ;  The finished article . Lighting corrected in Photoshop and also compare with original where left eye had too much shadow. I get as much fun using Photoshop as I do taking the picture.

Nice job. 

Grumpyrocker

goldtop said:

New question: to buy/rent Lightroom (or something else)?

I only use a (very) old copy of Paint Shop Pro on Win7 for editing my images, and beyond crop/resize, Contrast/Brightness/HSL and some histogram adjustments, I don't find it very useful or friendly. No RAW import either.

After watching just a few YT videos of Lightroom users, it seems a lot more useful. It's still available to buy (at about £130 for v6), and although that will go out of date, I don't want to get locked into a forever-rental with Lightroom CC, so it seems the obvious choice. I'm not a pro, so can't offset costs against tax.

Any thoughts from Lightroom users?

Or is there a competitor that's worth considering?

I ditched the LR sub and don't miss it.

RAWTherapee is excellent and it's free. It seems initially complicated - but that's because it offers loads of settings you don't necessarily need. If you just use the bits you do need then it's easy to get to grips with.

I partner this with Affinity Photo - a superb Photoshop replacement that's cheap as chips and is a one off payment, not a rental like Adobe. 

goldtop

stickyfiddle said:

I use LR CC. It's very good for processing, but the real bonus comes from the mobile workflow. I important almost 100% via ipad, then sort/reject before importing to LR. Then when I do import everything is there in the cloud for heavier edits on the laptop or simple stuff & sharing on my phone. I also love using the Pencil to edit, which is ipad only, obviously. 

If you're not using it on mobile then I definitely wouldn't go for the subscription; this, Netflix and iCloud storage are literally the only monthly software payments I have. LR 6 might still be a good bet, especially if you can find a discount code online. 

There are other things like Affinity and CaptureOne that are meant to be excellent.

Excellent - thanks. Affirms my PoV on subscription (in effect, occasional photo hobbyists are subsidising everyday photo pros).

Affinity looks like good value - almost like a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop. I will check out some reviews and YT tutorials.

ionian

I understand why people don't like the subscription model and there are good alternatives out there. But I am a Lightroom and photoshop cc user, which is a hangover from when I was shooting events and needed the batch processing of Lightroom.

I think that if you are shooting regularly, it represents good value and the real advantage is the wealth of info and tutorials available. You are only limited by your imagination. 

goldtop

@ionian I understand, but realistically, there may be some months where I don't use it at all. Same reason that I don't do Netflix/Sky/etc.

Affinity is really looking like a better option for me.

ionian

goldtop said:

@ionian I understand, but realistically, there may be some months where I don't use it at all. Same reason that I don't do Netflix/Sky/etc.

Affinity is really looking like a better option for me.

Then I'd agree, it doesn't make sense if you're not a high volume user. I used to be processing thousands of images a month - but now, much fewer, and it's only my complete familiarity with the sliders that stops me looking elsewhere. 

Grumpyrocker

goldtop said:

@ionian I understand, but realistically, there may be some months where I don't use it at all. Same reason that I don't do Netflix/Sky/etc.

Affinity is really looking like a better option for me.

Affinity is very good. And it will process RAWs. It's not the best RAW processor though but on the whole good enough for 90 percent of my shots. Where something needs a bit more work in say shadow receover RAWTherapee (which is free) does a brilliant job. In fact RAWTherapee does a much better job with sharpening and detail of FUJI RAW files than Lightroom does.

goldtop

Grumpyrocker said:

goldtop said:

@ionian I understand, but realistically, there may be some months where I don't use it at all. Same reason that I don't do Netflix/Sky/etc.

Affinity is really looking like a better option for me.

Affinity is very good. And it will process RAWs. It's not the best RAW processor though but on the whole good enough for 90 percent of my shots. Where something needs a bit more work in say shadow receover RAWTherapee (which is free) does a brilliant job. In fact RAWTherapee does a much better job with sharpening and detail of FUJI RAW files than Lightroom does.

I'll give RAWtherapee a go, I think. Spent some time looking at the user articles and it seems pretty useful, and powerful, if a little bit over-powering as an eyeful. Didn't yet see a list of compatible RAW formats, but hope the Sony and Canon are mainstream enough. Thanks.

Grumpyrocker

goldtop said:

Grumpyrocker said:

goldtop said:

@ionian I understand, but realistically, there may be some months where I don't use it at all. Same reason that I don't do Netflix/Sky/etc.

Affinity is really looking like a better option for me.

Affinity is very good. And it will process RAWs. It's not the best RAW processor though but on the whole good enough for 90 percent of my shots. Where something needs a bit more work in say shadow receover RAWTherapee (which is free) does a brilliant job. In fact RAWTherapee does a much better job with sharpening and detail of FUJI RAW files than Lightroom does.

I'll give RAWtherapee a go, I think. Spent some time looking at the user articles and it seems pretty useful, and powerful, if a little bit over-powering as an eyeful. Didn't yet see a list of compatible RAW formats, but hope the Sony and Canon are mainstream enough. Thanks.

You should have no problem with those formats.

Yes it can seem complicated but just minimise all the controls you aren't likely to use and then it becomes quite simple.

Do also download the free film styles pack as that adds lots of great filters and film simulations. For Fuji users RAWTherapee also now includes the famous Fuji sims.