Share Your July Photos! (2021)
@beau-carpenter that car picture is so print worthy!
Quote from SpruceBruce on July 29, 2021, 8:08 pm@beau-carpenter that car picture is so print worthy!
@sprucebruce Thanks! I don't print many of my shots, but I really should. Do you have any go-to places for printing?
Quote from Beau Carpenter on July 29, 2021, 5:16 pmQuote from Snappy on July 29, 2021, 4:11 pmQuote from Beau Carpenter on July 29, 2021, 1:07 pmThis month I've been shooting mostly on an Original Canon 5D which has been a lot of fun as well as an Olympus E-PL3. Definitely on opposite ends of the size spectrum!
What lens have you been using on the Canon? Beautiful pictures.
Thanks! My photos have been pretty evenly split between the Canon 50mm 1.8 and the Sigma 35mm 1.4 Art
I really like the Sigma, but it is by far the heaviest lens I've ever used. Especially coming from the M4/3 system.
Yeah I owned the lens only once - I bought it for a great deal advertised as a Pentax K mount and it turned out to be SA mount so I sold it off 🙁 Was excited to try it.
Those seem like a great pairing!
A couple for the last few days of July.
Big crop and huge shadow recovery on this one. Bird was basically black. Been watching post-processing videos trying to up my game there because I STINK at it, haha. Both technique videos and also color science videos. Very interesting. Very intimidating.
Pentax KP + DA* 300mm f4
Quote from Beau Carpenter on July 29, 2021, 10:42 pmQuote from SpruceBruce on July 29, 2021, 8:08 pm@beau-carpenter that car picture is so print worthy!
@sprucebruce Thanks! I don't print many of my shots, but I really should. Do you have any go-to places for printing?
Mpix, they're pretty decent value. You could always hunt used printer market. I got a PIXMA Pro 100 used for $30 that had clogged jets, that just took a bit of Isopropyl Alcohol and a misaligned head. It definitely pays for it self very quickly once you get past the initial investment.
Quote from SpruceBruce on July 31, 2021, 3:15 amQuote from Beau Carpenter on July 29, 2021, 10:42 pmQuote from SpruceBruce on July 29, 2021, 8:08 pm@beau-carpenter that car picture is so print worthy!
@sprucebruce Thanks! I don't print many of my shots, but I really should. Do you have any go-to places for printing?
Mpix, they're pretty decent value. You could always hunt used printer market. I got a PIXMA Pro 100 used for $30 that had clogged jets, that just took a bit of Isopropyl Alcohol and a misaligned head. It definitely pays for it self very quickly once you get past the until investment.
I like Mpix a lot. Thinking of trying Adorama's service because they offer print-on-demand services that can integrate with a website. I'll order some samples first to see the quality-per-price.
I still haven't gone owning my own printer yet. I think that would be really neat. Thought about it many times. But then I feel like I would need to learn a lot more about prepping my pictures for print. Just a little intimidating 😉
Quote from SpruceBruce on July 31, 2021, 3:15 amQuote from Beau Carpenter on July 29, 2021, 10:42 pmQuote from SpruceBruce on July 29, 2021, 8:08 pm@beau-carpenter that car picture is so print worthy!
@sprucebruce Thanks! I don't print many of my shots, but I really should. Do you have any go-to places for printing?
Mpix, they're pretty decent value. You could always hunt used printer market. I got a PIXMA Pro 100 used for $30 that had clogged jets, that just took a bit of Isopropyl Alcohol and a misaligned head. It definitely pays for it self very quickly once you get past the until investment.
I'm holding my breath for when ink tank printers hit the used market... the racket of printer ink being more expensive than gold or human blood is hopefully over!
Quote from Snappy on July 31, 2021, 2:41 amA couple for the last few days of July.
Big crop and huge shadow recovery on this one. Bird was basically black. Been watching post-processing videos trying to up my game there because I STINK at it, haha. Both technique videos and also color science videos. Very interesting. Very intimidating.
Pentax KP + DA* 300mm f4
Absolutely love these shots! @james-warner-b Agreed, I find that challenging too.
My work has not yet crossed the threshold where I am confident in consistently getting good results. One area where I feel like I've been making progress is by using fewer global edits and more localized edits with masks.
I find Boris Hajdukovic's Darktable editing moments to be an interesting watch > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMbDlOwmmQnkRmcb2_5WERg He often uses masks to localize edits to a certain area.
To me it is reminiscent of power windows in Davinci Resolve. Also, I would highly recommend playing with parametric masks in Darktable as that is very similar to color grading with qualifiers in Davinci and very useful as well.
@sprucebruce I need to try Mpix, the extent of my photo printing is Walmart's one hour 😅
I have been using Lightroom for a years now. At 10 bucks a month, it's a bargain in my opinion. what is that? A trip to Burger King- two trips to Starbucks? A 6 pack of good beer? About a quarter of what I might spend in gas driving around looking for wildlife to shoot.
i don't really need all the library features- nor do I use them to their fullest. For a while I started using Luminar. It was okay...sorta clunky. Then I switched to apple Photos. Very good editing program that comes free with a Mac. I don't think it worked all that great with RAW files, but it did work. Tell you what for a lot of people it's all you need. you can use Luminar as a plug in too. I can't recommend Luminar though.
So after a while I went back to Lightroom and immediately I was able to edit faster, and in short everything just looked better. I think any software I would use would have to be non-destructive. In other words it never touches the original RAW file. With one click you can always go back to where you started.
Even with the few photos I shoot these days and I delete junk with impunity, my Lightroom catalog is still a mess.
Quote from Snappy on July 31, 2021, 2:41 amA couple for the last few days of July.
Big crop and huge shadow recovery on this one. Bird was basically black. Been watching post-processing videos trying to up my game there because I STINK at it, haha. Both technique videos and also color science videos. Very interesting. Very intimidating.
Pentax KP + DA* 300mm f4
Those shots will please any bird people on social media. They will love them.
If you use software that is non destructive there is nothing to be intimidated about.
Post processing can only help so much and the fact of the matter is that it does not get much harder than bird photography.
300mm is the bare minimum and most of the time, it's too short. I have the 1.7 TC for mine. 500mm gets you in the ballpark much better. image quality is noticably degraded and does not seem to improve at f8.
AF suffers in low light where the naked lens is a star performer. I am told the 1.4 TC works great.
One disadvantage of Pentax ( and the main reason I don't own one) is as far as I know, no cheap ticket to 500mm. Tamron and Sigma ignored them for the 150-600 and 100-400mm.
Pentax makes a 150-450mm but they go for 2 grand used.
