I like your picture, Mal! I'm planning to buy a tripod this weekend. A tripod would enable me to take photos with longer exposures. One of the things I'd like to try out is photoing fountains and other running water with an exposure of several seconds. I've seen some pictures photographed like this and I love the almost smoke-like quality this gives to the water.
Get yourself a remote switch like this one too: Then you'll get zero wobble when you want to manually hold open the shutter for varying lengths of time - in fact they're just good for any shots with a tripod, you sometimes can't help moving the camera a tiny bit when you press the button and using the timer is too much faffing. I had a mess around a while back with night shots, those cliché pictures with car headlights streaking alond the road, around corners etc. Everyone does it but it looks so cool if you hold the shutter open for 5 seconds or so, the cars totally disappear and you get these yellow and red laser beams along the street.
Yeah that sounds like a good idea. So this is for bulk exposure, where you hit it once to open the shutter and once again to close it? You can't use the remote to change the shutter speed and then just click it once to take the photo? Thing is, I've done some reading on HDR imaging, and to produce HDR images with an 8-bit camera you need to take at least three different exposures of the same image. So, same ISO and aperture, but different shutter speeds. My camera does have auto bracketing (which rotates between -2EV, 0 and +2EV for each new picture you take) but if I want a bigger span of exposures I have to set the shutter speed manually for each of the pictures. And I suspect that when I am fiddling with the wheel to set shutter speed I'd probably rock the camera too. So a remote that can set shutter speed would be perfect.
It's just an alternative to the normal button really, so you don't have to touch the camera at all and so you avoid accidentally moving it when you take a picture. edit: to clarify sentence.
You should be able to set the shutter speed on the camera, and walk back a step or two before pressing the remote, mine works like that, once the settings are set, the next time you press the button it will apply them, and they reset every time. Also, if it's a reflex, make sure you hide the eyepiece when taking long-exposure night shots with a remote, as extra light can come in from the back and spoil the effect. My camera has a widget for that on the carrying strap.
Ah, yes, I understood that bit. Thing is, for HDR imaging, you need several exposures of the same view. These images will later be combined into one HDR image. So, if you move the camera between these different shots you're screwed. But I guess I'll just have to be careful when changing the shutter speed. HDR is only one of the reasons I'm looking into getting a tripod. Regular long shutter speed images is another (the ones with the smokey water we talked about earlier). With these regular images the rocking-the-camera-while-changing-shutter-speed problem wouldn't apply. For those unfamiliar with HDR, it is a way of storing much more colour and light information into an image than is possible with the usual JPEG or RAW images. You could call it an über-negative. Some very expensive cameras can shoot directly in HDR, but with most cameras you need to combine three or more JPEG/RAW images into one HDR image to get the same result. This negative is then "developed" (called tone mapping) into a regular JPEG or TIFF so it can be viewed on a normal monitor or printed with a photo printer. Compare these images (normal camera images): With the tone mapped HDR image, a combination of all three images: Notice how the tone mapped HDR image have perfect definition in both the highlights and shadows of the image. With a JPEG or RAW, you would have had to choose to have definition in the highlights or shadows, but you probably wouldn't be able to get both. HDR images are often closer to how the human eye would see the scene than JPEG images are. Both of these images are taken without asking for permission from Ryan McGinnis excellent tutorial blog on HDR. I recommend a read if you're curious on HDR. I've never heard of this, but good tip, I will see if this applies to my camera aswell.
Brace yourselves... We went to eat in a restaurant not far from my (now ex) office to celebrate my leaving today, and when the dessert came along, what did they give us to eat it with ? Yup. SPORKS !!!!
I took this around the same time as my photo-comp entry, I just liked the water-distorted tree. In case anyone is worried, I was parked up at the time, rather than driving without wiping my windscreen.
This one could have been for the Colours competition, but it only arrived today (the badge, that is) so it'll just be to make Doors so jealous he'll DIE.
I know... But if the badge means what I think it means, you may just like me again one day... **smiles a mysterious smile**
I love those snouts Ben! Dead, alive or fake pigs? Here's a picture of a heron I took yesterday, at a lake near my home. He was very much alive and took off a couple of seconds later.
It does, now that you mention it. To continue on the Japanese theme: Here's a picture of a tree/shrubbery I took the same day. I'd say the tree is about five foot high if I remember correctly, but to me it is curiously shaped like a bonsai. I only saw this once Lipi pointed it out.
I usually warm a cold swede by chopping it up and throwing it in a pot of boiling water, but, hey, if compliments are your thing, KK, they are pretty pictures...
I went through this thread and fixed the codes - in two cases though, the pictures just dissapeared after the link had been edited. It happened to one pic from Plaid, and one from Sampanna. Also, wherever there were more than four photos embedded, I had to edit the surplus ones into links because more than four - or was it five?- isn't allowed. (That includes smilies, by the way.)
Yeah, I went through and did mine before that, the 4 pics per post is a bit annoying, but then it doesn't happen often...
Plus, from now on, if we want to show more than four photos, we can still split posts. It does undermine people going hyper with the emoticons though, which is why I think it should remain that way.
When I lived on Deer Lake we had a big Jackpine down by the lakeshore, one day a heron was in the tree and I ran to find my camera but I missed the chance and the heron flew away, about two days later the tree toppled into the lake! It had been such a big part of my view and all of a sudden it was just gone,never to host a heron again. It's funny how things happen like that. I have the picture in my mind still so clear like I took it and it was in my photo album but I didn't get it and I never can. Take as many beautiful pictures as you can, you will never regret them.
This thread was cloe to falling off the first page. So I thought I'd bump it back with some pictures I took of a tramp. So sad they'd make Phil Collins shit tears.
That's an ace picture of a swan with water dripping of its bill. I don't know why, but when I saw Rinso's first tramp picture at a glance I thought it was a gorilla.
Rinso - I am tired of repeating myself when it comes to your pictures. ...so sad... I hated Phill Collins for those lyrics by the way. Ben, I know where you took the last pictures! It looks so much like my photos of that very elevator that I thought, "Hey! He stole one of my Prague pictures!" irate:
You obviously pre-emptively stole my idea... Though it was a really neat elevator shaft, my more philistinian friends wondered why on earth I was taking pictures of it. N.B. The other ones were in Prague too. Hmm, I'm not sure whether to thank you for your praise or be nervous considering your obvious blind spot from Rinso's picture... I'd thank Rinso, but he smells.
On the off chance Ben were you in Prague last week? Not wanting to sound like a stalker or anything (although I do sound a little bit weird on re- reading this post), I thought I seen someone who I thought looked like you walking through wenceslas square last week. As I had been looking at photos on this site on Monday before I left, I was seeing 'familiar' faces everywhere I went. Anyway, if that wasn't the case - you have a lookalike of unknown English origin wandering around Prague at the moment! Congratulations on the Photos by the way - I love the one of the Swan - it's really beautiful!
Yeah, I was in Prague from Thursday to Sunday for a stag weekend... that's real spooky that you were there too. What were you doing in Prague? Apart from stalking me of course...
That is a bit spooky ... I was there from Wednesday to Saturday. My family bought the trip for myself and my twin as our 30th birthday/Christmas present! Obviously you didn't recognise me…having never met, and because I don't have any pictures of myself on the net however the day I seen you, you were wearing a red t-shirt and had a backpack on your back, walking near the top of the square (on the right hand side if your facing the museum.....) Just before I pulled a pair of binoculars out from underneath my trench coat to take a better look..... Hah, how much like a stalker do I sound like now? I’ve got people watching you right now Chris don't annoy Ben by correcting him- he was typing his post in an different accent, attempting subterfuge and to try and throw me off his trail. I'd better log off now as I'll get into big trouble for loging into messageboards from work.....
Ok, now I'm real real spooked as I don't have a red t-shirt and the only time I was wearing a backpack was when I was in the airport and moving my things from the taxi in to/out of the hotel... So it seems that I am a twin too and my twin also chose that moment to go to Prague. My parents had better have some decent answers for all this... edit: and you're also stalking my twin, where is he now and what is his phone number?
And why would he need to do that in private MSN conversations with me, too? Eh? Eh? Ah well. I suppose Ben can look like an awful big fool if he so wishes.
We went to West Midlands Safari Park last week as we really needed a time out. Friday we went to see all the animals........ Here is a bug eyed monster feeding a goat! (lol i love him really.)
I thought a stripy horse would be fun to show you as well. They got rid of the monkeys but there is a Hippo that looks very much like me! The white Lions were magnificent, the white Wallabies were cute and the Sea Lions were amazing! If you are ever near Bewdley i would recommend going here, they even give you a free return pass! its so cool!
He was ok, he admitted his thing for Hippo's. Just knowing he likes me (as a hippo look-a-like) has really boosted my confidence.