The Official Photography Thread - Vol. 3

[HankHill]

Which kit? If it was the 18-140 kit lens then that sounds about right (on Amazon for ~ $996). I don't recall any BF deals on that model, only the prior 2 (D5100/D5200) and the D3100/D3200. Those always have deals on them.

If you want to exchange this for an older model I guess you could, but since this is a gift for the newest one why bother?

 

[tokes99]

dope! taiwan? vacation? 'm hoping to hit up taipei one of these days...

 

[trynafeelmink]

Is there any guides for people looking into getting into Photoshop? I Use lightroom & play around with photoshop here & there but i really wanna become much better at editing and i have the time. Any websites/ manuals out there to help improve on Phostoshop & really get the Basics Down?

 

[Nawzlew]

dope! taiwan? vacation? 'm hoping to hit up taipei one of these days...

Yessir.

I'm Taiwanese so I come back a lot but haven't really shot. Today was beautiful day - finally stopped raining so took the opportunity to go out and get some shots.

Is there any guides for people looking into getting into Photoshop? I Use lightroom & play around with photoshop here & there but i really wanna become much better at editing and i have the time. Any websites/ manuals out there to help improve on Phostoshop & really get the Basics Down?

I like Serge Ramelli on Youtube for Lightroom.

What are you trying to learn though? Photoshop has a rather steep learning curve so it might be easier to know exactly what you want to learn.

 

[iamdef]

Yeah, I'm mainly interested in learning about how to manipulate lighting, mainly for portraiture, in order to get the kinds of photos that appease my taste. Is dropping a hunna for a 3 hour lecture really worth it... or do they recycle the same stuff I see on YT videos?

Honestly depends on the teacher. Look up who is teaching the course and google em and see if their name comes up with anything you find respectable. Might find out he's a world class photographer specializing in lighting or some dude who's been ripping people off under 3 different names for the past decade

Does anybody else take candid phtotos of people? I was trying to do so but I didn't want people to think I was a creeper lol anybody have any run ins like that or any suggestions?

 

[timelessflight]

Took some pics in Forever 21 yesterday. Gonna start taking my camera everywhere and trying to get more candids of people

nice pics

I too need to start carrying my camera around everywhere I go. Do you use a neck strap, hand strap, etc?

 

[iamdef]

nice pics

I too need to start carrying my camera around everywhere I go. Do you use a neck strap, wrist strap, etc?

nah, I hold it in my hand and keep my lenses in the pouch that is connected to my bag.  but I do have a concept strap that I want to put together that will connect with my camera bag. Hopefully I'll get it put together soon so I can show off my creative genius lol

 

[Nawzlew]

I use a shoulder strap.

Does anybody else take candid phtotos of people? I was trying to do so but I didn't want people to think I was a creeper lol anybody have any run ins like that or any suggestions?

i feel you man. I use to not to candids at all cause of this feeling, but now it's like whatever. that being said I haven't been caught so

 

[goste187]

Turning an empty room in my place into a mini studio, just ordered 3 softboxes and the background/muslin thingy

 

[tokes99]

Is there any guides for people looking into getting into Photoshop? I Use lightroom & play around with photoshop here & there but i really wanna become much better at editing and i have the time. Any websites/ manuals out there to help improve on Phostoshop & really get the Basics Down?

It's mad photoshop guides & tutorials outchea...as was stated ps is a pretty powerful & robust you could use it for years and not fully know or useit to it's max. definitely look up tutorials for specifics but you will have to mess around with it to really learn it (which is why I primarily use lightroom #thatsimplelife)

dope! taiwan? vacation? 'm hoping to hit up taipei one of these days...

Yessir.

I'm Taiwanese so I come back a lot but haven't really shot. Today was beautiful day - finally stopped raining so took the opportunity to go out and get some shots.

i really love how asian big cities are laid out, they tend to have this cool mix of old & new, scale that is just super cool to my western eyes...

Yeah, I'm mainly interested in learning about how to manipulate lighting, mainly for portraiture, in order to get the kinds of photos that appease my taste. Is dropping a hunna for a 3 hour lecture really worth it... or do they recycle the same stuff I see on YT videos?

Honestly depends on the teacher. Look up who is teaching the course and google em and see if their name comes up with anything you find respectable. Might find out he's a world class photographer specializing in lighting or some dude who's been ripping people off under 3 different names for the past decade

Does anybody else take candid phtotos of people? I was trying to do so but I didn't want people to think I was a creeper lol anybody have any run ins like that or any suggestions?

to your 1st point, all knowledge is useful (generally) respectable artist or not, the main concern there is whether or not that person is a good teacher and able to effectively transmit knowledge in a digestible way...

as for taking candid photos out in public, you kinda have to embrace your inner creeper...I don't really have the constitution for it, but I found a bit of success using longer focal lengths from around 75mm to 150mm but not nearly as close to have that gritty street photography feel, there's an axiom in street photography that goes something like, paraphrasing, "if your photos aren't any good , you aren't close enough"

 

[Fong$tarr]

I honestly don't think there is that much to Photoshop when editing photos. I think it gets complex if you start masking things out and creating layers but for the general things, you'd only be messing with the basic sliders like brightness/contrast, color balance, etc. Cloning is a skill that can take sometime but honestly if you are cloning that much, than I would consider the photo more of a failure than something you can resurrect. Lightroom kills in the filter department but I am almost sure you can take those same filters and use it in Photoshop.

Honestly to get the best of both worlds, just study both. My photo resolution for 2015 is to actually use Lightroom. I feel almost dumb in not knowing really how to use it.

 

[iamdef]

 
Turning an empty room in my place into a mini studio, just ordered 3 softboxes and the background/muslin thingy

Jelly. We were going to do that in our current house when we were looking then found out she was preggo so a studio was a no go lol play on playa

i feel you man. I use to not to candids at all cause of this feeling, but now it's like whatever. that being said I haven't been caught so

Yea, gotta ge my inner covert ops Snake from Metal Gear Solid lol

to your 1st point, all knowledge is useful (generally) respectable artist or not, the main concern there is whether or not that person is a good teacher and able to effectively transmit knowledge in a digestible way...

as for taking candid photos out in public, you kinda have to embrace your inner creeper...I don't really have the constitution for it, but I found a bit of success using longer focal lengths from around 75mm to 150mm but not nearly as close to have that gritty street photography feel, there's an axiom the states paraphrasing "if your photos aren't any good , you aren't close enough"

True. I intended to make that point but somewhere between the time I thought it up i got distracted and left it out

I have a 70-210 lens that I like but when you're at a crowded mall you're bound to get 5-25 people between you and the intended subject at a decent distance. I like to use my 24-120 lens just to leave it at 24 so I can pretty much just aim it and fire off a few shots and with it being that wide I typically will hit my taget but that lens is a lil messed up so if my subject isn't close then I have to crop it and cropping highlights all the noise and how just out of focus it is in my pics and i hate that

 

[Nawzlew]

I honestly don't think there is that much to Photoshop when editing photos. I think it gets complex if you start masking things out and creating layers but for the general things, you'd only be messing with the basic sliders like brightness/contrast, color balance, etc. Cloning is a skill that can take sometime but honestly if you are cloning that much, than I would consider the photo more of a failure than something you can resurrect. Lightroom kills in the filter department but I am almost sure you can take those same filters and use it in Photoshop.

Honestly to get the best of both worlds, just study both. My photo resolution for 2015 is to actually use Lightroom. I feel almost dumb in not knowing really how to use it.

cloning :x :x :x :x

been using photoshop for 8+ years and i still can't get it down.

 

[tokes99]

I honestly don't think there is that much to Photoshop when editing photos. I think it gets complex if you start masking things out and creating layers but for the general things, you'd only be messing with the basic sliders like brightness/contrast, color balance, etc. Cloning is a skill that can take sometime but honestly if you are cloning that much, than I would consider the photo more of a failure than something you can resurrect. Lightroom kills in the filter department but I am almost sure you can take those same filters and use it in Photoshop.

Honestly to get the best of both worlds, just study both. My photo resolution for 2015 is to actually use Lightroom. I feel almost dumb in not knowing really how to use it.

you no use lightroom??? in 2015 you will be DELIVERT!!!! on the strength of organization alone it is useful to have...then there is batch editing, the fairly simple interface...it is SOOOOO much easier and pared down than photoshop bruh, Photoshop is where it gets real; these days i really only use it for compositing & content aware fill (which is magically awesome)

 

[iamdef]

I'll be back to using photoshop and lightroom heavy when I get my laptop out the shop. For now been using Snapseed and Photo Mate R2

Watched a few tutorials on lightroom and I see it's more powerful than I thought so I can't wait to utilize the tools i've overlooked. Never quite got the hang of burn and dodge in photoshop but I'll be back at it soon

 

[goste187]

I personally use LR and PS for my edits. Scott Kelby has some good books for PS and photographers. Grab the E-book, put it on your ipad, while you play with PS on your laptop/pc.

 

[tokes99]

yea they each have their uses, I feel like lightroom (as well as other dedicated raw converters I've used) is so much faster & all the edits are non-destructive by default, to do to the same in ps you have to actively make the decision not make destructive edits...

 

[goste187]

Agreed, LR is for 90-95% of my editing. But the other 5-10% is usually PS, for the really heavy lifting, or because some of their tools work so much better than LR. The spot healing brush/clone stamp in PS > LR.

 

[benssick]

Some photos from NY this past weekend


10k by Benssick_, on Flickr



New York City by Benssick_, on Flickr


Fly by Benssick_, on Flickr



122714 by Benssick_, on Flickr



Cinema by Benssick_, on Flickr

 

[yanky]

I need to use Photoshop more and all its features. I use LR most of the time but feel like I'm not getting everything that I can out of the photo.

 

[khankussionz]

you no use lightroom??? in 2015 you will be DELIVERT!!!! on the strength of organization alone it is useful to have...then there is batch editing, the fairly simple interface...it is SOOOOO much easier and pared down than photoshop bruh, Photoshop is where it gets real; these days i really only use it for compositing & content aware fill (which is magically awesome)

LR is definitely a great tool. I create a new catalogue for every session I have. Sounds like overkill but it makes organization so easy. For example... Today I shot Fongstarr, I create a catalogue "20141229-Fongstarr" and that will create a folder with the same name in the desired location on my computer. I create a folder within that root folder and name it "00 Raw/PSD" and import all of my raw images in there. I then dump all the crap images and go to the print module to create a contact sheet of all the keepers in pdf format to send to Fongstarr. I save the pdf in the top level of the folder. I create a collection in LR called "Deliverables" with collections "Edited" and "Unedited" in it. Once I'm ready to export, I've already set up my custom export settings which create folders "01 Hi Res" and "02 Web Res".

I send my image from LR into PS to do my detailed edits. I just learned that I can send it as a psd file that i can open and update later in PS as long as I make sure to update it in LR when I'm done

 

[monstar]

Some photos from NY this past weekend

great shots my man

 

[bigslim773]

benssick DOPE SHOTS. IM HEADED TO NY IN THE MORNING FOR MY 1ST TRIP THERE. IM MORE EXCITED TO TAKE PICS THAN I AM ABOUT THE WHOLE TRIP ITSELF, LOL!

 

[benssick]

Thanks!! @monstar @bigslim

 

[putting in work]

If she doesn't want to return it no matter what then just keep it.

Which kit? If it was the 18-140 kit lens then that sounds about right (on Amazon for ~ $996). I don't recall any BF deals on that model, only the prior 2 (D5100/D5200) and the D3100/D3200. Those always have deals on them.

If you want to exchange this for an older model I guess you could, but since this is a gift for the newest one why bother?

Hey guys thanks for the reply and sorry I didn't get back to you guys sooner but I think I asked questions in here before and the thread moved slow and didn't get answered.

But... she's telling me to return it and get one that I like. As I said before I do like the camera but think she overpaid on the price. She bought it from this place in Manhattan called B&H Photo she said and she said she'll return the camera, Nikon D5300, this Saturday.

The camera was actually $850 but the people their said it has wifi and that's why the camera costs so much or something. It is a nice camera and I've looked at reviews for it and they are good. HankHill the camera she bought me the Nikon D5300 came with one lens and I think it's the 18mm one or whatever the standard one it comes with. If you're asking about other deals I saw that came with more I posted a link below and not saying that's what I want but just saying the bundle comes with way more stuff and is cheaper.

As I stated before I'm always on slickdeals and always see deals pop up with DSLR's and a lot of other stuff that come with it so that's why I was asking her if that's all they offered when she bought the camera which was a free memory card.

When I see other deals like this Canon T5i bundle and all it came with I wonder why the one she bought didn't.

There are other deals I see too and I'm not just looking at Canon but it just irks me to see how she paid so much and got so little.

Any help is appreciated because like I said besides point and shoot and photography classes I took in high school I'm a noob to all of this.