Photography Chat

And the fact that you think the only other possible questions are "ill-defined questions like how to make nice photos" is exactly what saddens me. We just don't have the site expertise to handle anything else.

@b_jonas industrial questions aren't photography and are not interesting or even related to the vast majority of the community. Those are part of the exact problem Matt was describing.

@AJHenderson I think the fundamental problem is that the question, while hitting on an interesting topic for Photo.SE, is not quite well-formed. The fact that some of the answers addressed the cheating aspect shows there was a rush to answer before understanding the OP's underlying question. So in that way, I kinda agree with Matt's meta question. To an extent. At its core, it wasn't a well asked question, IMO. At least, it needed some clarification to suss out the meaning.

@Hueco Except, the answer is actually yes, definitely.

@mattdm that's probably because the answer to the question is rather mundane, if you take it at face value. Is composition after capture against any traditional photography rules? The answer is No. I'd say that this is further reinforced by forced crop prints, as in, once the world sunk their teeth into 2:3 35mm, but still preferred their 4:5 albums, crops became mandatory anyway.

wee bit of birthing issues right now, if you think folks get emotional on photos.SE, just imagine how it gets when you replace metaphorical children with actual children.

and "-1 'cause your picture makes me want to stab my eyes out with a rusty fork" just doesn't seem that constructive or helpful to the person who took the picture... :-)

It's easy to get hyped by the marketing materials and believe that the new X-T3 is nearly perfect and all previous models that preceded it are now woefully inadequate. But the proof is in the pudding (or photos, as the case may be). Will all of the fantastic photos that have been taken with an XT-20 or XT-2 suddenly turn to garbage (ala Cinderella's dress, carriage, etc. at midnite)?

It's also worth considering that a 9/20 release date does not guarantee you will be able to walk into a retail shop on 9/20 and buy one. Many times highly anticipated new cameras have been pre-ordered in such quantities that dealer's allocations are already spoken for well past the release date. Until the last couple of months or so it was nearly impossible to buy a Nikon D850 without sitting on a waiting list first, and that camera has been out a year.

i'm not about to try to explain how to cut and paste construction paper on a stack exchange site

@JamWheel The canvas wouldn't stop running in front of the lizard. :P

That's not math! That's arithmetic. :)

@jrista It's not as though we're dealing with a million people voting... The opinions of 10 to 15 random voters on photo-SE can hardly be put up either as a ringing endorsement of ones work if a picture wins, or a stinging indictment if it doesn't. :-) FWIW, I was pulling for you and yours had my vote.

Reading answers on this site makes me wanna photograph more often :) Keep up the good work people!

(mods can @ ping someone even if they've never been in chat)

@cabbey With all the faux irony I can muster, I'll quote @mattdm's comment from last month (during his 'Rule of Thirds/Golden Ratio' research): "Seriously, this site is a dangerous waste of time. :) "

@chills42 I'd go even tighter at the bottom

I'm all for 'get it right in camera,' but for the occasion when I don't, I love having a 'last line of defense.' :-)

OMG everyone. My answer about the rule of thirds, golden rectangle, and rabatment was so interesting to me; I literally spent hours reading about it. I'm crushed, crushed I tell you, that it has not gotten tons of upvotes in the half hour since I posted it.

Spent the weekend playing with my dad's a6500. (He never takes my camera buying advice. 😃) I know Sony cameras are super-popular, but... ugh, it felt like operating a VCR from the 1980s rather than a camera. I've used Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Fujifilm, Olympus… and never have I felt so perplexed with a camera's interface. And that's barely even getting to the insanity of trying to change the focus point while looking through the EVF. Sony fans — convince me I'm wrong. :)

@chills42 truth be told, i think most have been happy with the community in general and the appropriateness of the modding plays a big role in that. From my POV, why mess with a good thing. I don't feel like anybody is abusing power or being too absent (of those that are rerunning). Personally, I'd be more interested if I felt I had something to add beyond what is already been done.

The answer could use an update to note that that system is obsolete, but just adding "Micro" is totally wrong.

@xiota Your edit to my answer to photo.stackexchange.com/questions/9355/… is incorrect -- this is the question about DSLR lineups, not mirrorless, so Four Thirds, not Micro Four Thirds was appropriate.

Every time someone punches Tom Cruise an angel gets its wings...

i think you should be required to get something useful in college...if you're going to major in something useless, then you should have to minor in something practical

I'm really surprised that no one else is running for mod. There are currently four mods, however only three seem to be rerunning. We need another member to run, so we can have a full compliment.

there is something to be said for investing in good glass

Hey all, I'm kind of busy these days, so I've just dropped by to thank @RowlandShaw, @chills42 and @jrista for nominating themselves as moderators. The site seems to work very well under your rule, so I'm glad you've all volunteered again :-)

@Jin: Can you drop the "& Photographic Editing" part of the title from our logo image? We decided a little while ago just to call this the Photography SE site. The Photography Editing part is garnering too many general image editing/general photoshop/general graphic design questions.

this site is great for starters. im loving it

Reading through recent lighting posts by Jay Lance Photography, I regret I can upvote each of them only once.

@EvanKrall Hey, thanks! I've already addressed 3 of the 5 'basic' lighting setups: Short, Broad, and now Rembrandt, but yes, my intent is to hit all 5 over the next few days... Assuming someone doesn't beat me to it. :-)

So, to anybody who was looking at that 50mm f/1.4 Sigma that I said I was looking at the other day. I got it, and LOVE IT. Its amazing, no regrets.

Patents can be evil at times:

@EsaPaulasto But I have a camera. I'm a photographer!!! ;)

@jrista Use a net to capture birds -- you might damage your camera using it to catch birds ;)

@JimMacKenzie A lens does not have to be parfocal to be considered a zoom lens. If the field of view can be altered at the same focus distance, it is a zoom len. It's just as much a zoom lens even if the focusing mechanism must be adjusted to maintain that focus distance. A "prime" lens can only be varifocal by altering the focus distance and can not produce two different angles of view for the same focus distance.

anyways, photo.se is awesome and helped me even though I'm an iPad camera lamer.

Hey Jin, you've done an amazing job with all the new SE designs

IT'S LIVE!

@Stoan photographers often get ...afraid.. of high ISO because they think it ruins pictures. I'd encourage you to pick an aperture and a minimum shutter speed thats appropriate for your vision and go with whatever ISO meters right for that ...even if it feels too high. There's lots of ways to make ISO noise look better, but blurry is always blurry.

<-- Canon fan

I read through all the comments and my final thought was, "Why the hell are we not on the metric system?"

I also use the Montgomery Scott Method - tell your boss that everything takes twice as long as it actually does

@andyml thanks for your service

@EsaPaulasto I disagree. A hero may be someone who saves without having to kill.

haha, poor @stoan - "All you have to do is use the rule of thirds except when it doesn't work, and don't forget focus, lighting, exposure, post processing and choosing a decent image host. Easy."