ICJ's photography thread

[Billy Mays]

I initially felt like my last post here was a good one to make, now I'm not sure and am having second thoughts that are teetering on the verge of regret.

ICJ: Was my last post in this thread the right thing to do?

[Tdarcos]

I kind of felt the picture of Frobozz (1496) seemed to have something missing because only part of his face is visible and it's got a very hard shadow. I have a suspicion you can get away with a "too dark loss" effect in color (presuming Frobozz isn't all gray anyway) but if it's in grayscle it works better if all of the face is visible. Try taking another - if getting Frobozz to sit still is not a Herculean effort - and either add a little light or try to make sure the light is better focused.

Picture 7596 of Frobozz is not so bad because the shadow is no where near as severe. Now, I don't want to sound like the 1496 photo is trash, I just think it does not show off the cat as well. If you're going for a mysterious look - if you ever saw the scene of Orson Welles face only partially visible in a doorway in The Third Man, such effects can be perfect (or in the case of your cat, purrfect) - in the right circumstances.

I might not have noticed as much except for the video about extra light and how a well-aimed second (fill) light drops the very hard contrast.

Also, given your penchant for adventure games, may I suggest you name your next cat "Zorkmid."

[Tdarcos]

I would also note I can see the difference between cameras when my cat's photo was included here as compared to some of the very soft images the expensive cameras do.

On the other hand, what I can afford are $39-$69 consumer cameras with fixed lenses. I don't have the income to purchase a $390 camera and add a $300 lens. This would not always have been the case.

One time I was coming home from work and stopped at a 7-11 to get a couple of hot dogs. As I got out and looked at the passenger seat, I had a portable CDRW burner, various CD and CDRW used and blank, Zip drive, Jaz Drive and disk, a dozen Zip disks, a small camera, smartmedia chips, and a couple other items, plus various cables. It kind of hit me that I'm carrying over $2,000 worth of equipment on that seat that I just acquired a little at a time.

[Flack]

OK, let's do this, let's get going and shoot the moon.

This is fantastic! It's amazing to see how much you've improved by taking a single class. It's really making me want to pull out my camera and do the same. I'm glad everyone else is on board and not derailing things!

One time I was coming home from work and stopped at a 7-11 to get a couple of hot dogs.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'll reply to the other posts tonight. I have to post this one quickly:

Flack!! Use those settings I mentioned in manual mode for your camera. It's a full moon tonight. Take a few shots. I bet you get something great. And if you have something crisp, adjusting brightness and contrast will make it pop in Photoshop. You can do this. The moon needs you. The earth needs you. This thread definitely needs you.

[AArdvark]

Why do RobB's cats look reasonably content but Commander's cat looks resigned?

[Tdarcos]

Why do RobB's cats look reasonably content but Commander's cat looks resigned?

Why do ordinary women end up with pictures showing pores, blemishes, and not necessarily optimum image for the one taken, while professional photos done with posed models, hundreds of shots to select the best one, professional lighting, makeup, backlight, green screen look so much nicer?

I'm taking a picture of a kitten under full light (2 13w LED bulbs producing 1500 lumens each, which is 95w incandescent equivalent each), with a cat I'm trying to get to sit still and face the camera. His expensive cameras can probably take good pictures at 350 Lumens (40W incandescent equivalent) not requiring the cat to be pushed into a pose in very bright light.

[RealNC]

[AArdvark]

My all-in-one camera is crap compared to my phone camera. How sad is that. tells you what difference 10 years makes in the world of tech. All the manual settings are available in my LG5 and the pix come out so much better. WTF.


THE
CANT FIGHT THE TIDE
OF THE FUTURE
AARDVAK

[AArdvark]

In a related note..Can anyone else recall the lumens of every light bulb in their living spaces? That's some Rainman shit right there.

THE
LET'S TAKE COMMANDER
TO ATLANTIC CITY
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I haven't heard the term lumens yet in learning about photography. (One note relating to something Flack said earlier, the class helped a lot but since then I've done the following - I used to listen to pop punk at work. I still do, but I used to, too. Now I also will go to Youtube channels about photography and set those to play. I just get the audio, because I am working, but I'm absorbing a few hours of knowledge that way, too. I don't feel it's affecting all the levels I gained in pop punk. Not yet, anyway. It is amazing that we live in a time where you can get this much knowledge just clicking the "play" button and letting Related Videos take over.)

Anyway, when you think Tdarcos is wrong, that is when he is right. Now that I am watching out for it, I am sure that there is a chance I'll hear the term all the time. However, the #1 piece of advice to give him or anyone else is to go to Manual Mode in your camera and meter for light. That is the first step and the first thing our instructor taught us.

[Tdarcos]

In a related note..Can anyone else recall the lumens of every light bulb in their living spaces? That's some Rainman shit right there.

Because I'm getting older and I need more light in certain circumstances, I had to learn equivalences. For example, I normally use a 100W Incandescent when reading small print. But how much is that in a compact fluorescent (about 23-26), a halogen, an LED (about 13)? And what is the equivalent for smaller brightness bulbs? Rather than trying to remember 10 different wattages, I learned to look at two things which are consistent no matter what the bulb type: the lumens, and (if necessary for color) color temperature. I usually just use 5400 deg. Kelvin unless I need a "harder" white.

For equivalent light as incandescent, use 16 lumens per watt, which means 15 is "close enough" if they don't have an exact match, meaning a 40 watt Incandescent is about 640 lumens, a 75W is about 1057, 100w is 1600. Now it is much easier to judge a bulb because the lumens will be shown much more prominently - and can be found faster - than the incandescent equivalent. Also, I can multiply by 15 in my head so I don't have to write anything down. This immediately allowed me to know the two 13w LED bulbs at 1500 lumens each would light up the room with equivalent of about 190 watts or 2 95w.

[Tdarcos]

Oh yes, color. In visible light on objects, color is moved on two axes: red and green, and blue and yellow. I learned this from working for a plastics manufacturer who had to match colors of packaging, so that a shampoo or toilet cleaning product will produce bottles that are consistently the same shade of blue, brown, white, red, etc.

The red and green axes are conflicting, you can make something more red, or more green, but not both. Corollary to this is you can make something more blue or more yellow, but not both. This also has an effect on white: adding (small amounts of) blue to white makes it "whiter" while adding more yellow can make it look dingier. After a while you can get used to it and actually see the contrasting colors used.

Now this only applies to "process" colors, colors used on objects like manufactured objects or printed photographs. Colors in light have a different system, which is why colors on monitors can sometimes differ from the same thing printed out.

[AArdvark]

So...photography. This is RobB's photography thread. He's getting really good at it. Does this mean the next game is getting an HD update?

THE
MAGENTA CYAN
GOODBYE
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Fuckbutts, fellas! It's cloudy where I live! I need one of you guys to step up and photograph the PINK MOON tonight!

Tonight! Tonight, god dammit!

[Tdarcos]

Fuckbutts, fellas! It's cloudy where I live! I need one of you guys to step up and photograph the PINK MOON tonight!

Tonight! Tonight, god dammit!

What am I gonna do
Tonight, tonight, tonight - oh
I'm gonna make it right
Tonight, tonight, tonight - oh.

You keep telling me I've got everything, you say I've got everything I want
You keep telling me you're gonna help me, you're gonna help me, but you don't

- Genesis - Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So...photography. This is RobB's photography thread. He's getting really good at it. Does this mean the next game is getting an HD update?

It's true. The next one will be four color shit, but the next graphical one after that will have still pictures taken by me that are hopefully all good and interesting.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

A note I will follow up on later: I should have been shooting in RAW this whole time.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I've taken about 3,000 photos in RAW mode. Well, RAW + JPG. I have manipulated just a few of them from RAW into JPG, but it seems to me that doing nothing other than exporting them to JPG as-is from RAW makes them look a little better.

I brought this photo into AffinityPhoto as a RAW file, manipulated the colors to give it a colder temperature, exported it and cropped it. Adam Jensen of Deus Ex, friends:

AJ_IMG_1705 by bluejays2017, on Flickr

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Same picture, but I tried to go for a more dramatic look. Started in RAW, did my modifications, cropped it, that's it.

IMG_170502 by bluejays2017, on Flickr