Back to basics

Garry Edwards said:
Let's not nitpick.
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Why not? As more than one of my teachers tried to hammer into us: "if you don't say what you mean you can't mean what you say!"

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jonbeeza said:
I just can't seem to work the scene, but there is always tomorrow. I just don't know if I will ever be able to crack it. ......
My trouble also is that I don't have a relaxed mind, my mind is always racing. When out and about I am thinking of loads of things, so when I am taking a photo, I am also thinking of lots of other stuff also,.....
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If you're struggling to "see" a scene in an instant, that's not a bad thing. Not everyone will be able to see something straight away. If you're doing street photography, you do have to be a bit quick to capture what's in front of you. But if you were to try architecture or landscape photography working the scene is easier (generally) because the subjects aren't moving.
If you go out to shoot, pick a building or feature in the landscape (tree, rock, water, bridge) as your subject, spend 15mins walking around it, trying different shots from different angles (high or low), go close but with a wide angle, go further away take a wide shot of the whole, but also a zoomed in shot of part of the subject.
Try lots of shots of the one subject, then go home and go through all of them on a computer, find the ones you think are better and then think about why they are better. Is it the angle, or the light or the background...
Then go out again, pick a different subject and do the same, this time remembering what worked better last time.

About 70% of what I shoot these days is landscapes and although I'm no expert, I've learned that to get the best shots, I need to spend time working on it.
 
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While I am tinkering with all my old cameras, a quick snap with the DSLR. I have to be quick with the cat, as he wont keep still. He ran off after I took this shot.
I did not bother going for another walk, I stayed in my front garden, and took a few photos.

I know the focus could be better, but I struggle at times it's just me, things don't work like they used to.


PS

Meaning me, the camera equipment works fine, I am not as adept as I used to be. :-)
 
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jonbeeza said:
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While I am tinkering with all my old cameras, a quick snap with the DSLR. I have to be quick with the cat, as he wont keep still. He ran off after I took this shot.
I did not bother going for another walk, I stayed in my front garden, and took a few photos.

I know the focus could be better, but I struggle at times it's just me, things don't work like they used to.


PS

Meaning me, the camera equipment works fine, I am not as adept as I used to be. :)
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I would have upped the ISO to make it brighter.... but other than that, it's good.
 
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Out with the kit lens, to try and catch some fast moving traffic. Not trying to achieve or say anything, just whiling away the time, as I go for my morning walk.





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Tried to take a photo of a Swan, but it jumped out of the water and chased me.
 
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Made sure I put a bit of distance between me and the Swans, they don't chase me usually.
 
jonbeeza said:
think buying another camera will improve our photography. The only thing that has improved, is the image quality.
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haha you say that like it's a bad thing.. i would ahve thought improved image quality is as good a reason as any to buy a new camera :) moreso for anyone who gets the basics right anyway ..
 
KIPAX said:
haha you say that like it's a bad thing.. i would ahve thought improved image quality is as good a reason as any to buy a new camera :) moreso for anyone who gets the basics right anyway ..
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As in a good quality image, of a badly composed shot. :-)
 
jonbeeza said:
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Out with the kit lens, to try and catch some fast moving traffic. Not trying to achieve or say anything, just whiling away the time, as I go for my morning walk.





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Tried to take a photo of a Swan, but it jumped out of the water and chased me.
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Shooting moving cars is great practice for thinking about technique that shows what you are photographing.
firstly I’m not 100% convinced these are moving;)
You should lower the shutter speed so it doesn’t freeze the wheels, and that makes the panning slightly harder.
The other thing you can do is to shoot really slow moving cars with a v long shutter speed, pan it properly and your slow car looks v fast :)
These are the kind of techniques that make you smile when you get them right.
The other challenge you might get would be reflections off the windows, which you can control with a polariser, again a tricky technique.
 
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Phil V said:
Shooting moving cars is great practice for thinking about technique that shows what you are photographing.
firstly I’m not 100% convinced these are moving;)
You should lower the shutter speed so it doesn’t freeze the wheels, and that makes the panning slightly harder.
The other thing you can do is to shoot really slow moving cars with a v long shutter speed, pan it properly and your slow car looks v fast :)
These are the kind of techniques that make you smile when you get them right.
The other challenge you might get would be reflections off the windows, which you can control with a polariser, again a tricky technique.
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Most certainly moving, some were doing easy 60mph maybe more. I know they do look like they are stationary, I thought that myself. I was shooting from the side by a hole in the hedge, as I did not want to be spotted by the motorists, as it was a very busy dual carriage way. I was actually trying to freeze the cars at that moment, as I was trying to see if I could actually make out the people inside, for no real reason, other than my weird fascination. So that being my intention, I think I achieved what I was trying to do. I did it by simply picking a point in the road, and waited till the vehicle hit that point, and made sure I had a fast shutter speed. :)

I think at one point, when I had the space, I did try panning. I will have to look to see if I kept the photo, as I may have deleted it, as it probably did not work.:thinking:
 
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This was the hedge I was shooting from, but facing vehicles side on. There is a walking route along side the road.
 
Just go and be more obvious, there is nothing weirder (apart from hearing a shutter click in a gents toilet) than poking about in bushes/hedges in order to surreptitiously take a photo. The more you just be obvious the more confident you will become, and it will improve your street photography as well.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Just go and be more obvious, there is nothing weirder (apart from hearing a shutter click in a gents toilet) than poking about in bushes/hedges in order to surreptitiously take a photo. The more you just be obvious the more confident you will become, and it will improve your street photography as well.
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Pedestrians have no access to that road, you can see the road from holes in the hedge at various points. There is a walk way along the route, and you can spot the traffic every now and again. :-)
 
Panning is like a golf swing, you have to track the car as it approaches, have your body pointing to where you want to shoot then follow through after you press the shutter so your have one fluid movement. I find the short lenses harder to use so my minimum is a 70-200.

Have your aperture at its widest and start at around 1/250 and look for wheel blur and adjust accordingly.

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foggy4ever said:
Panning is like a golf swing, you have to track the car as it approaches, have your body pointing to where you want to shoot then follow through after you press the shutter so your have one fluid movement. I find the short lenses harder to use so my minimum is a 70-200.

Have your aperture at its widest and start at around 1/250 and look for wheel blur and adjust accordingly.

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Next time I will try the panning thing. But the photos I did, I was trying to freeze the cars, just to being a nosey git, and see if I could spot the drivers. No reason, other my weird fascination.
 
jonbeeza said:
Next time I will try the panning thing. But the photos I did, I was trying to freeze the cars, just to being a nosey git, and see if I could spot the drivers. No reason, other my weird fascination.
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You are still trying to freeze the car while panning but with a slow enough shutter speed and good technique as the shutter is open the cars speed is matched to your panning speed so the wheels and background blur and the car should be sharp.
 
Phil V said:
I can’t work out whether you’ve spectacularly missed my point or you’re trolling.
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I have obviously missed your point, I am certainly NOT trolling. I do agree with you, the cars do look as though they are not moving. :-)
 
jonbeeza said:
I have obviously missed your point, I am certainly NOT trolling. I do agree with you, the cars do look as though they are not moving. :)
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You could try a shutter speed as slow as you can hand hold.
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jonbeeza said:
I have obviously missed your point, I am certainly NOT trolling. I do agree with you, the cars do look as though they are not moving. :)
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My point wasn’t that simply that the cars look like they’re not moving, my point was that you could be using this as a learning experience (your complaint being that your photography is stagnant).
photography isn’t about pointing your camera at an object, it’s about creating an image of that object that conveys something or helps tell the viewer something.
 
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Tried getting some fast moving cars, no not got the panning technique yet. No worries, I have not wasted any film. I have not wasted anyone's time, other than my own. There is always tomorrow, and the day after that. At least I am getting out and getting exercise. :-)
 
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I did go out this morning with the intention of getting fast moving vehicles, spotted this bird gliding in the wind. I think it is only a magpie, but it looked nice the way it was just gliding in the wind. So I thought, I will see if I can get a photo of it. I was using an old lens on my body, so I had to use manual focus.
 
jonbeeza said:
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I did go out this morning with the intention of getting fast moving vehicles, spotted this bird gliding in the wind. I think it is only a magpie, but it looked nice the way it was just gliding in the wind. So I thought, I will see if I can get a photo of it. I was using an old lens on my body, so I had to use manual focus.
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Jon, if you want to improve composition, then put all your lenses bar one away for a month, and just take out one lens, ideally a prime, if its a zoom then put a large rubber band around zoom ring to lock it to one focal length. Yes there are things that might catch your eye, that you might not have the lens for, but work the scene and catch other angles, You will surprise yourself with the results after a couple of weeks.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Jon, if you want to improve composition, then put all your lenses bar one away for a month, and just take out one lens, ideally a prime, if its a zoom then put a large rubber band around zoom ring to lock it to one focal length. Yes there are things that might catch your eye, that you might not have the lens for, but work the scene and catch other angles, You will surprise yourself with the results after a couple of weeks.
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Looks like it would have to be the 35mm prime then.
 
woof woof said:
I know I should move on :D but foot zoom... There's no such thing. Yes you can sometimes walk closer to the subject, although equally sometimes you just can't, but even if you can you've completely changed the perspective and it'll be a different picture to one you'd have taken from the same position with a zoom set to a longer focal length.

As for slowing things down, any number of things can do that but slowing things down can again lead to a different picture as things move in and out of the frame or the light changes.
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I quite agree it’s one of the biggest photography myths out there yet many on here refer to it regularly!

Another big photography myth is ‘doing it all in camera’!
 
For panning shots of moving vehicles on the road, they aren't really going fast enough to give much of a sense of speed at the kind of shuuter speed needed with a longer lens when hand holding. Instead try using a wideangle and then getting in as close as you safely can. Examples (ignore the IR - not important in the context):

Cars.IR.ICM-3181 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Copenhagen cyclist-7774 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr
 
ancient_mariner said:
For panning shots of moving vehicles on the road, they aren't really going fast enough to give much of a sense of speed at the kind of shuuter speed needed with a longer lens when hand holding. Instead try using a wideangle and then getting in as close as you safely can. Examples (ignore the IR - not important in the context):

Cars.IR.ICM-3181 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Copenhagen cyclist-7774 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr
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I am going to try and get in closer. :-)
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Jon, if you want to improve composition, then put all your lenses bar one away for a month, and just take out one lens, ideally a prime, if its a zoom then put a large rubber band around zoom ring to lock it to one focal length. Yes there are things that might catch your eye, that you might not have the lens for, but work the scene and catch other angles, You will surprise yourself with the results after a couple of weeks.
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And the key to this approach is to not think about the pictures you 'missed' because you had the 'wrong' focal length.

Any creative process involves a lot of missed opportunities and failures. If you can overcome fretting about them you'll improve. You might even find some failures can be turned into successes.

Always remember - perfection is boring.
 
Ed Sutton said:
And the key to this approach is to not think about the pictures you 'missed' because you had the 'wrong' focal length.

Any creative process involves a lot of missed opportunities and failures. If you can overcome fretting about them you'll improve. You might even find some failures can be turned into successes.

Always remember - perfection is boring.
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I must admit, I always felt I could have done with more reach, when I have the 35mm stuck on the camera. I know I need to stop that, and work with what I have, when I have the 35mm on.
 
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