Nice photos! Two questions on the waterfall: did you hand hold and did you use a ND filter? When I was a lot earlier in my photography journey I shot some auto sports and looking back realized I was at teeny tiny apertures for a lot of the shots. I’ve always wondered how others approach longer exposures in the sun, especially when you don’t know what your light will be. Do you bring multiple ND filters and swap them, do you try to bring one Goldilocks, … ?
Thanks, fixed!
What a well framed photo! And yes, that’s meant as a non-risque double entendre.
For anyone wondering what I’m on about, if you have a symmetrical object with sharp lines in front of you take the time to do something with them. In this photo, OP made sure they were centered/squared to them. This makes for a very pleasing photo.
A bit late to the party but…
Before you take a photograph, think about what you’re trying to photograph. Are you trying to isolate a subject or are you trying to capture a scene? This helps you figure out where you should be focused and how much (or little) depth of field you should try to achieve. For this photograph, it seems like you’re trying to capture a scene with some flours and an interesting rock. As an added bonus, you have some pretty nice lighting going on.
After that you’re on to framing - is the camera square and level to your subject, if the background distracting can you reposition to make it less so, is there an unusual angle you can use to make your photograph a bit more unique, etc. For this photograph, I think this is the biggest area of feedback. Having focus so low in the frame is a little unusual, but it seems to work here. I don’t mind the house in the background a ton, but the pole is a bit distracting - especially because you’re not completely level/square to it. If the pole was unavoidable, I would have tried to make it perfectly vertical. Is there another place you could have stood, and/or another focal length you could have used, to capture your scene? Kneeling in situations like this can be helpful.
Finally, you’re into post. I generally like what you posted. Beyond rotating the image slightly to get the pole completely vertical, my only suggestion would be to selectively desaturate and/or decrease exposure on things you find distracting - like that pole for example. I am not talking about “photoshopping” those things out, only manipulating their colors to make them a little less visually obtrusive. You could do the same with the red house to make it contrast a bit more with the purple flowers that are directly in front of it.
To save the highlights or for the effect?
Depending when back in the day ways for you, be prepared for higher prices. On the other hand, the gear these days is great. If you’re not going to be shooting fast scenes, most bodies will do nicely. Pick up a sharp prime and you’ll be off running. From a purist shooting experience, primes are pretty freeing. A prime will also get the added bonus of primes having good optics and most of them have low night performance.
At your budget, I would suggest used gear. There’s nothing wrong with DSLRs if you won’t be shooting dynamic scenes, but mirrorless have very nice focusing algorithms these days. Coming from Nikon, I would recommend a D7x00 series body and a prime or three. If you want to go mirrorless, Sony has a very deep back catalog of glass. The A7III is still a great camera and can be had at a pretty good price on the used market, which will leave you with space for a nice lens or two.
I posted this a month ago, but it seems to apply here.
First, the best camera in the world is the one you have on you. Have an urge? Take the photo with what ya got, even if that is your phone. On the other hand, try to be more intentional about bringing your camera with you when you venture into the world. This will probably take finding the right lens and overall package size, but I bring my camera and a compact lens with me on most family activities as a result.
Second, for well lit subjects that aren’t moving much and aren’t that far away modern cellphones are generally fine. Yeah, a dedicated camera with a fast lens can create a nicer looking background if you’re simply sharing photos on the web it’s not going to matter a ton. Don’t get discouraged if this is the kind of photography you prefer.
A dedicated camera will blow a cellphone out of the water in a couple key areas. Those include:
Four examples where I adore my gear:
Happy shooting! If you have questions, make another post!
Not sure, but I would suspect that AI output would likely be very similar to procedural generation output in that it will need some massaging before it can be used as a final asset.
Procedural generation of content in games is by no means a new thing. Even if the end state isn’t completely procedurally generated, odds are a version of the asset was initially and a human touched it up as necessary. When you’re talking about large asset sets (open world and/or large maps, tons of textures, lots of weapons, etc) odds are they weren’t all 100% hand made. Could you imagine making the topology map and placing things like trees in something like RDR2?
That’s not to say all this automation is necessary a good thing. It almost feels like we’re slowly chugging through a second industrial revolution, but this time for white collar workers. I know that I tell myself that I would rather spend my time solving problems vs doing “menial” work and have written a ton of automation to remove menial work from my job. I do wonder if problem solving will become at least somewhat menial in the future.
Check the post title ;)
Great read, with some amusing asides.
Shots fired!
We probably have the same model - the one with the big oval stand. Every once in a while I wish it was OLED and/or higher resolution, but it’s not worth the expensive or all the modern “features” such as these.
Get your self a “fast” lens and you’ll be back to hand holding pretty quickly. Granted, you’ll lose depth of field so this may not work for every shot. Prime lenses are your best bet here. f/1.4 should be plenty but f/1.8 or even f/2 will do.
You can use the exposure information from the photos you took to play the “if I had a faster lens, what kind of ISO and shutter speed could I get away with”. The zoo lights photos I posted a few days ago in one of my comments were hand held.
That your company has an in-house software dev team is impressive. Does the revenue-generating business have access to that team?
Not OP, but in a similar situation. We have in-house dev for both tooling/infrastructure as well as revenue generation. For better or worse, leaders have neglected the software tooling and infrastructure that we use to build and deliver our revenue generating software for decades. Some serious cracks in the foundation showing and we might finally start fixing things.
I find that I’m really choosy with which landscape photos I like, but I really like the post photo and the first photo in the post. Nice work!
I think I have two general responses.
I think you’re right in that photography and the style of photographs has evolved with technology. Each of those technological steps has been partially shaped by art (what makes it to market) and taste (what succeeds in the market). Additionally, darkrooms gave a lot of leeway for the look of the final image. This also ties into what makes for a compelling image - you’re often looking for a dramatic scene, a subject that’s a bit out of the norm, and/or unique lighting. Yeah, there are street photographs of everyday people doing everyday things in normal lighting, but they often aren’t that compelling.
In other words, photography is often stylized. I personally think that’s OK, especially when you consider how flat lightly processed photos are.
The good news in today’s world: if you shoot digital you can shoot raw + jpeg and change the look of the image pretty drastically with non-destructive edits. I’ve re-edited photos I’ve taken over a decade ago and changed their look significantly. I can do the same again in another 10 years if it strikes my fancy.
In my experience, recognizing when there is an opportunity for a good photo and framing are the most important components of getting a good shot. Everything else only helps make getting that shot easier.
A dedicated camera with a fast lens won’t make zoo lights a clinch, but it sure does make life a lot easier.
I’ve commented along these lines before, but here it is again.
First, the best camera in the world is the one you have on you. Have an urge? Take the photo with what ya got, even if that is your phone. On the other hand, try to be more intentional about bringing your camera with you when you venture into the world. This will probably take finding the right lens and overall package size, but I bring my camera and a compact lens with me on most family activities as a result.
Second, for well lit subjects that aren’t moving much and aren’t that far away modern cellphones are generally fine. Yeah, a dedicated camera with a fast lens can create a nicer looking background if you’re simply sharing photos on the web it’s not going to matter a ton. Don’t get discouraged if this is the kind of photography you prefer.
A dedicated camera will blow a cellphone out of the water in a couple key areas. Those include:
Four examples where I adore my gear:
Happy shooting! If you have questions, make another post!
Nice! Cross post to !beebutts@lemmy.world
Are these straight out of the camera JPEGs? If yes, the camera does quite a bit of onboard post processing, which can result in very different final results. If you happen to have the raw files and process both identically you’ll likely get a very similar look between the two photos.
Old.reddit.com has slowly been getting worse. Lots of collapsed comment trees, a similar posts section after the first two comments in a busy comments section, etc.