Photography Chat

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AJ Henderson

03:06

and there goes the -90, serial upvoting reversed

1 hour later…

AJ Henderson

04:22

ok, I officially love photographing fireworks now

I actually didn't expect much from when I was checking them on the camera during the show, but looking at them in lightroom, I think I got some real gems

I also think I have desktop wallpapers for a month or so

AJ Henderson

04:41

ajhenderson.com/galleries/fireworks/index.html

they certainly aren't perfect since it's my first time trying fireworks

but I'm pretty happy with them for a first time shot

though some of them didn't scale to full size as well as the smaller versions looked

3 hours later…

Esa Paulasto

08:04

@AJHenderson Meh likes :)

even the fourth, the one where your camera made circular movement during exposure, did not look bad but sort of interesting :)

and my daughter was like Wow! and Oooh! when she saw your photos, but of course it was for the fireworks not for the quality of photography. Then again, if we are not presently watching the live fireworks, then we need good photography to have these wows and ooohs ;)

6 hours later…

Michael Nielsen

14:18

@EsaPaulasto I never missed mine after tossing it in 2009. and I havent had anything in its zoom range until a year ago.

and I barely used that one.

after getting it

Regret getting it

teh gold on this cake turned out well with the lumia :)

1 hour later…

MattJ

15:35

Looks a bit yellow to me

Just kidding ;)

AJ Henderson

16:26

@EsaPaulasto yeah, that was one of the surprises of the night, I figure that shot would have been ruined by me having to adjust position, but it turned out to be a very smooth motion that gave it an interesting look I thought

glad I'm not the only one who thought that

oh yeah, speaking of tasty food photos, I forgot about this one

that was just with room lighting (which was actually fairly yellow) and then some very basic color correction (I dropped vibrance a little and white balanced.) I'm not sure if it is the dynamic range or what, but the 5D Mark iii seems to be able to make most food shots look appetizing.

1 hour later…

MattJ

17:44

My last firework attempt

Esa Paulasto

18:01

@MichaelNielsen Good for you, of course ;) Just that Toby is buying one lens now, a 40 mm prime, and however useful and nice this lens might be, I would not think it is good enough to completely replace the kit zoom.

@MichaelNielsen Nice gold colour. My wife bought a Lumia 820 yesterday. No, bought it two days ago, received the next day, which is yesterday. It was a question of price and camera quality combined. I tried to tell her Lumia 720 would be better for her, but she just kept her mind.

That cake is of coffee cup size? Not a full sized birthday cake, by the looks of it. Just asking for trying to get the shooting distance and how there's surprisingly (for a phone camera) out of focus blurred area around the focus plane. So it has to be the small version cake, and shot at close.

@AJHenderson hehe, I guessed it was a mistake gone lucky :)

@AJH Another thing that caught my attention is the low amount of smoke in your photos. Was it a windy night, or lucky enough to have even a gentle breeze moving smoke away from spectators, behind the fireworks. Or did you somehow get rid of it in post?!

Michael Nielsen

19:00

what do you mean? these were my first attempts: i.sstatic.net/K7OBp.jpg

Esa Paulasto

19:21

Nice reflections on water.

Michael Nielsen

19:35

ah ajh had fireworks pics. I thought you were referring to mattj's that has a lot of smoke, haha

1 hour later…

Michael Nielsen

20:38

@AJHenderson typical mistake

why would lumia 720 be better?

the gimped winphones are not attractive

Esa Paulasto

@MichaelNielsen Can't remember anymore, it was three weeks ago I reasoned with my wife.

Michael Nielsen

you dont do that much then? ;p

Esa Paulasto

or four weeks.. I looked at specs back then and got my conclusion that for my wife the 720 would have suited better. Then I forget what it was.

Michael Nielsen

it cant run all apps due to being gimped. nuff said

Esa Paulasto

@MichaelNielsen hehe, I'm lucky enough to have as stubborn wife as how I am myself ;)

So, knowing how useless it is to argue with her, we just sort of give and take in turns

Michael Nielsen

20:45

she should have gotten 825 or 925

Esa Paulasto

and have you checked the prices of those?

Michael Nielsen

Esa Paulasto

gotcha

so easy to say "why not take this or that"..

Michael Nielsen

I had 820 before 920

the price was about the same :)

and its through the phone company, where theres not much differnce in the price

like 5E per month difference

not worth looking at the price

Esa Paulasto

and I see stores selling 820 very cheap, hmph okay not that cheap, but whatever, the price of Lumia 820 has been coming down and down, while L720 has kept its price almost level for the last couple of months.

from that, I deduce they are trying to sell 820 out as fast as possible, while there still is anybody willing to buy it. So far it seems there is not too many willing.

At one point the 820 was very near the price of 720. And all it meant to my wife was that happy to buy it so cheap :P

AJ Henderson

20:50

@EsaPaulasto I just choose photos from the ones that were bright enough that they drowned out the smoke

the smoke is there, but it's below the black point

but if I gain it up a bunch, you can see the smoke clearly

Esa Paulasto

@AJHenderson okay, thanks :)

good to know it can be helped in post.

if not totally taken off, at least lessened to a point where it does not bother much.

AJ Henderson

@EsaPaulasto part of it is also to focus on the fireworks that go higher than the rest

Esa Paulasto

I took these 90 minutes ago ;)

AJ Henderson

most of the ones that were low to the ground have tons of smoke

Esa Paulasto

Yes there is smoke in @Michael's firework photos too, but not disturbingly

low-flying fireworks, by the looks of it.

Funny that there just happened to be fireworks show in this town tonight :)

AJ Henderson

20:56

hmm, power is going on and off here :(

not sure how long my battery will last on my telcom gear

Esa Paulasto

@AJHenderson Harpo Marx playing with the switch at the electric company...

►

Esa Paulasto

21:36

Not exactly my first time ever photographying fireworks, but certainly first time with a good camera. Previously I just shot videos of fireworks, just because taking photos was so pointless with those other cameras I've had before this.

So basicly these I shot tonight are my first attempts at fireworks :)

Michael Nielsen

works well, without tripod.

Esa Paulasto

hard to do a quick aim and then press shutter release and hope for steady hands :P

Michael Nielsen

guess which one of these I whitebalanced with colourpicker and which is my own crazy eye perception picker:

Esa Paulasto

hahaa, can't wait!! :)

Michael Nielsen

@EsaPaulasto you shoudl find a good way to crop it so it doenst look like a lucky shot

Esa Paulasto

21:42

Man, this time I trust your eyes did better work. I mean, the left side photo is with your WB and right side is with pick-up tool. And the left side photo looks better!

@MichaelNielsen Yeah, I know, and that's one of Sony's RAW processing software's worst point: if you crop, you can't resize - and if you resize, you can't crop.

this time I chose to resize to get smaller file.

@MichaelNielsen Second thought: with that colour scheme, the left side steaks could be just about any kind of meat, but the right hand side steaks are beef cut from a cow (and they sell it as ox-meat).

cropped version..

jrista

22:01

bleh

fried my video card yesterday

Esa Paulasto

@jrista whatever it takes to convince our better halfs of the necessity to spend money on the computer...

jrista

WELL, i'M BOTH HALVES AT THE MOMENT

no wife

It did fry though

turns out, my power supply wasn't good enough

Esa Paulasto

ah, blessed areth you

jrista

19 amps, vid card required 24 amps

turns out, the newest generation of cards, the NVidia 770, 780, and Titans specifically, need anywhere from 30-42 amps

so, I had to get a new power supply

and I'm running on an old video card for the moment

Esa Paulasto

Can't say anything to that, I don't read computer news or suchalike while in between upgrades.

Michael Nielsen

22:29

left = colourpicker. right = my eyes picker

it least no nose picker

Esa Paulasto

left one looks better, right one more real, imo

Michael Nielsen

the left one's smoke is better

Esa Paulasto

I did not even notice the smoke before. And the right one does have a slight yellow tint, but it is so slight that if seen alone the photo would be just right.

Michael Nielsen

to me the left one has yellow tint

Esa Paulasto

and all this on my screen only as usual. This is not calibrated.

going to sleep, good night

AJ Henderson

23:21

@EsaPaulasto nah, we have a thunder storm

supposed to be back on at 9:30 or so it sounds like

luckily, I switched off the computers and have enough power in the UPS to run my laptop for almost a day

and can redirect my internet through my phone :)

@MichaelNielsen couldn't say without seeing the original