So it begins!

fotojack

Senior Member
Kias....male or female? :) Hard to tell from your user name and avatar. ;) Nice shots, by the way. You're using the right approach to learning, too. :)
 

Kias

Senior Member
All Male here. Actually my name is Rob. The username was made up back in March of 1806 when I was logging on to a BBS, and the screen printed out at a whopping high speed of 1200 baud, "Handle:" and then nothing but a blinking cursor. Well, I had a Pilots training book in my lap that I was reading, looked down at the book and saw: "KIAS - Knots Indicated Air Speed" It's kind of stuck ever since.

The Avatar is breakfast from the Disney Cruise we took earlier this year.
 

Kias

Senior Member
I would just like to post my general observation as a whole about raw files.

WOW!

I'm sure most of you already know this, but if you're new like me, you may not have seen why you should shoot raw, in my humble opinion anyway.

If you're an old sea dog, move along, there's nothing to see here. :cool:

If you're new, the following two photos are the exact same photo just post-processed differently in Lightroom. It's completely amazing how much data is in that raw file. (You can see my newbieness ghost in the second photo)

rawglobe1.jpg

rawglobe2.jpg
 

Kias

Senior Member
One more before I go to bed. Just playing around with the DOF. I won't bore you with the twenty pictures I took though.

20121216-_1RB0319.jpg
 

Kias

Senior Member
No new photos today. Well, I am trying to capture one of our Greyhounds running, but I'm having an awful time trying to get the focus right. Guess I'm going to have to read the focus chapter again.

Anyway, it's a play around in Lightroom kind of day with pictures taken this past weekend.


Hey hunters, you missed one!
20121216-_1RB0303.jpg


No bones about it, that's not a rock!
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Be careful where you walk!
20121216-_1RB0283.jpg


But the memo said there wasn't enough cats on the internet!
20121216-_1RB0318.jpg
 

Kias

Senior Member
Also an update on my 'wares. Tripod and remote shutter button will be here tomorrow. I'll forgo the other lens for now. I ordered 3 wine kits instead. (That's 90 bottles of wine if you're wondering...) Gotta keep the boss happy! (or at least drunk, so I can buy more lenses.)

I figured I've still got a lot to learn before I throw another lens into the mix!
 

Kias

Senior Member
The wine is here. The tripod is here. The remote is here. The Rocket Air Blaster I forgot I ordered is here.

And now a word from our sponsor.

20121220-_1RB0434.jpg

Lovin' that tripod and remote! Can't wait for the storm to blow through so I can get outside with it!

Oh well... Good time to start making the wine!
 

Kias

Senior Member
Second time out of the yard with the camera. Things were moving fast, in strange lighting I couldn't figure out. I'm positive the ISO is too high. I completely forgot to check what it was. Ooops!

Anticipating the shot. I think I got that part down pat!

That focus is still kicking my butt! I'm gonna have to read that chapter again, again.

They do look much better on facebook though. Must be because they're next to the "other" photos on there...

Anyway, I had fun tonight! I remembered I had a CH mode when I took the picture of my wife!


My wife doing what wives always do. :D
20121222-JuliaBlocks.jpg


That look is priceless!
20121221-_1RB0733.jpg


Anticipating the shot, and it worked!
20121221-_1RB0768.jpg


Well, I have a year until I get to do this again. So I'm off to practice. Time is of the essence!
 

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
Definitely some noise from the higher ISO settings, but given shutter speed and aperture I don't know that you necessarily had it too high. Any less and you may have had issues with subject movement. You can do a fair bit of noise cleanup in Lightroom. With martial arts it's nice to see a little bit of movement from the body parts that are flying around mixed with solid facial expressions. I like the middle photo for that. If you spend some time editing that one I think you'll be able to darken the gis a bit while also reducing ISO noise. Play around with the noise reduction sliders and you should be able to find a sweet spot where the graininess fades but you preserve the natural look of your subjects (too much luminance and it starts to look painted).
 

stmv

Senior Member
Layers are your friend, you can soften the background noise of the pictue, masking the main subject which with the black cloth and such can tolerate some noise anyway.

Often for shots, a layer to remove noise in sky is helpful, or as minimum not be effected by any sharpening.
 

Kias

Senior Member
Well, I tried my best in Lightroom. Can't seem to get it any better. I'm sure it's me, not lightroom. If I have to get into layers, I'm shipping the photo off to my daughter who;

A. Has photoshop
B. Knows how to use it
C. Knows how to use it properly

I'm almost certain it'll be easier for me to just get the picture right with the camera in the first place! Well, that's my goal anyway.
 

Kias

Senior Member
The Adventures of Mr. Snowman!
Once upon a time Mr. Snowman was lost in the Christmas Forest. He wanted nothing more than to find his way home to Christmas Village.
20121224-_1RB1166.jpg

So off he went! He soon found himself in Cookieland. Oh how he loved Cookieland, but it wasn't home, so he continued on his way.
20121224-_1RB1236.jpg

He saw a mountain in the distance, but first he had to travel through the Candy Valley.
20121224-_1RB1222.jpg

He finally found his way to Cheeseball Mountain, but it wasn't home.
20121224-_1RB1168.jpg

So he climbed a tree to see if he could see his home.
20121224-_1RB1230.jpg

He could see it! He was so happy to finally be home!
20121224-_1RB1232.jpg
 
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Kias

Senior Member
I think I may have figured out my focusing problems. Read that the focusing distance through the whole range of my lens was 8 inches. So, you can see the first three pictures, not counting cookieland, are out of focus and the last two, along with cookieland, look much better once I realized I had the lens too close!

Still learning!
 
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Kias

Senior Member
Wow! What an adventure tonight!

The moon was out, so I ran and got the camera and tripod. Starting shooting, wasn't getting anything I liked. About 50 shots in, I remembered I'm suppose to shut off the VR whilst on the tripod. A few more shots and I remembered f/8.0 is the sweet spot on this lens across the entire range. A few more shots and I remembered to set it to put the mirror up first, then take the exposure. In and out of manual, aperture priority, shutter priority, all kinds of different exposure lengths, and I think this is the best one I could come up with.

1/60
f/8.0
ISO 100
70mm
Manual mode
Seriously cropped

20121227-_1RB1718.jpg
 

Kias

Senior Member
I seem to keep finding myself in dark strange places that it wouldn't be very nice to pop off flashes all the time. So I'm thinking I may need to step it up with my lenses a bit. Maybe a 35 or 50mm with a large aperture? 1.4ish? I don't know... Something I need to think about.

At the Teppanyaki last night.
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20121231-_1RB1765.jpg 20121231-_1RB1759.jpg

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