amateur photo thread.
- Thread starter Conbon14
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A so, so event for me. Not so good photo opportunities, crowded, loud, but I got some OK shots. Still not impressed with these.
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Is Befunky responsible for the "film" edges?
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welp... the 24mm 1.4 comes tomorrow.... so. freaking. excited.
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I know exactly how you feel, I just got my 12mm F2.0 for night photography. Its just....
.
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I can't wait to stitch some shots together from the 4th... last year I was a total noob when I first got my camera, shooting at like F/12 or something and in shutter priority.... but hopefully F/1.4 pulls in the light fast enough for a high speed shutter, especially with the insane light that's going to be hitting it.
I know exactly how you feel, I just got my 12mm F2.0 for night photography. Its just....
My only fear: rain... it's gonna be a 50/50 chance on Friday..
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I hear you, looking back when I tried my first night shots.....I think I couldn't have failed harder. Oh my. 
Just be aware of the star trails with long shutter speeds! My calculations say, if you have an APS-C, you got 15-17 seconds till the stars start to distort with your 24 at 1.4 at 1600 ISO.
My problem right now is the moon, I hope it will be gone a couple of hours past midnight, right now its almost bright as day outside. Sigh. If its not the moon its clouds.
Just be aware of the star trails with long shutter speeds! My calculations say, if you have an APS-C, you got 15-17 seconds till the stars start to distort with your 24 at 1.4 at 1600 ISO.
My problem right now is the moon, I hope it will be gone a couple of hours past midnight, right now its almost bright as day outside. Sigh. If its not the moon its clouds.
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yeah I've noticed it's pretty bright out now more at my new house than at my old, almost daytime light when it's a full moon...I hear you, looking back when I tried my first night shots.....I think I couldn't have failed harder. Oh my.
Just be aware of the star trails with long shutter speeds! My calculations say, if you have an APS-C, you got 15-17 seconds till the stars start to distort with your 24 at 1.4 at 1600 ISO.
My problem right now is the moon, I hope it will be gone a couple of hours past midnight, right now its almost bright as day outside. Sigh. If its not the moon its clouds.
Normally I like star trails but I know what you meant... I think by the 500 rule I'll have 20 seconds at 1.4 with 24mm... and some high ISO too... normally I shot 100 to keep as much grain out as possible but that was with the kit lense so yeah..
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Yeah you'll definitely have to ramp your ISO up past 1000 if you want nice milky way shots, even with a good lens that gathers a f-ton of light. Its still night after all. Does your camera have post processing noise reduction? Mine does and it works great to reduce noise from high ISO settings.
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That is... amazing.. I got my lens sometime last week but last night was the only night that the clouds broke up enough to shoot. I don't live in a place like Colorado or somewhere far out enough to get shots like that, but that is my goal...My first attempt on capturing the milky way with my Rokinon 12mm F2.0. I'm satisfied considering there was a full moon howering on the horizon when I took the photo. Still have to learn a lot about post processing.
I don't know when I'll get mine up... school has been, well.... lets just not go there..
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What time did you take that shot? If you can't remember that's fine. I normally go out at sometime between 10-11 and start shooting, but I live basically in a canopy of trees...
And what body are you using btw? I'm just really paranoid by any noise in the picture to be honest, and I don't think the D3200 performs that good with high ISO levels (like 1600 and above) at night... Even with those F1.4 shots, I'm still at ISO 100, shooting somewhere at 20"...
I shoot without the noise reduction on because I can't see much of a difference side by side, and when I'm at ISO 1600, or 3200, I feel that it's just adding stars that aren't really there, and they aren't sharp at all. I try to focus via live view too, and the focus ring on the 24mm doesn't just randomly move either...
I dunno... here is something I tried Sunday..
New Light by Jacob Buchanan, on FlickrI think the images are a lot more cleaner and crisp than the ones with the kit lenses I was just poking around with, but I wish I could travel a lot more and go to places and get shots of the Milky Way...
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I shot that pic in 11:17 just as the moon was rising (I was in a hurry). ISO I think was 1250-ish, 25 secs of shutter speed, no noise reduction, F2. Ironically, you can have more Noise with an ISO that is set too low. Shoot a daytime picture in a dark room with ISO 100 and you'll see what I mean.
I usually shoot pics an hour or two past midnight (I'm almost completely nocturnal), thats when the light pollution drops significantly- a lot of lamps turn off after midnight, as do people in their homes.
I usually shoot pics an hour or two past midnight (I'm almost completely nocturnal), thats when the light pollution drops significantly- a lot of lamps turn off after midnight, as do people in their homes.
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Fuji X-M1. Why?
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No reason in particular. I'm just not sure if it's my post-processing or if it's the settings I have in my camera when taking the shot. I really haven't done a full comparison yet with the new lens to see what settings work best.
The last image of mine above is so far to me, the best night image I've ever shot. But I'm not sure if that's a good image to others, not so much as framing, location, and no imperfections, but things like little to no noise, sharp stars, just some of the more I guess you could call "technical" aspects of it..
Last night I went out and took 64 different frames, roughly at the same time as I did with the one above... here is a 100% zoom:
Even though the shot on the left is considerably darker, the one on the right (taken last night) has a lot more noise.
Left was shot at 100 ISO, the right at 3200, probably a bit too bright in the end..
Also, the one on the left was for 15 seconds, the right was at 10 seconds. To me when they are side by side, the left looks much better.
I think some of the problem is post processing too, but I wanted to put that shot up there to show it side by side. They both got pretty much the standard night time editing, but the different result was definitely due to the different ISO levels.
I also feel like if I gave someone who is really good in lightroom one of my raw files, and we both edit to the best abilities, I'd like to see what the other would come up with..
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Don't want to sound discouraging and I'm certainly not a pro by any means, but it almost looks like light pollution is giving you a hard time. I got pics like that when the moon was shining too brightly or half an hour before dawn.
Wait till 1 o'clock after midnight, try to find the milky way and make a pic of it. I can see the milky way with ISO 3200 and 30 seconds of exposure at F2 with very little noise. If you get much worse results than I its probably light pollution. (can't think of anything else really) Also fiddle around with different ISO settings, some cameras make a sudden big jump in noise. Don't be afraid of using longer shutter speeds (25-30 seconds) to save some ISO.
Oh, and if you cant find the milky way right away remember that it always points north.
Wait till 1 o'clock after midnight, try to find the milky way and make a pic of it. I can see the milky way with ISO 3200 and 30 seconds of exposure at F2 with very little noise. If you get much worse results than I its probably light pollution. (can't think of anything else really) Also fiddle around with different ISO settings, some cameras make a sudden big jump in noise. Don't be afraid of using longer shutter speeds (25-30 seconds) to save some ISO.
Oh, and if you cant find the milky way right away remember that it always points north.
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Yeah I use stellarium on my laptop and then find it with the compass on my watch... that's the easy part. The hard part is getting far enough from all the light...
Pin marks the spot...
So yeah... making a trip out to Colorado would be cool.... but I just don't have the time for that right now.
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@Swagger897 - You're southern exposure looks decent and you could certainly be in a worse situation. Processing makes a huge difference in the final product, arguably more so than having ideal light conditions. You are over saturating your colors, and probably making the blues brighter than you need to. Keep in mind that adjusting luminance of certain colors can darken your skies dramatically while preserving the look of the image.
And keep in mind your composition. A picture of only stars is rather bland, especially if the density is so high you can not easily find constellations to reference. If you look through my work on this subject, you'll see I often include some grounding reference to generate a visual dynamic.
And keep in mind your composition. A picture of only stars is rather bland, especially if the density is so high you can not easily find constellations to reference. If you look through my work on this subject, you'll see I often include some grounding reference to generate a visual dynamic.
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I try to tinker around with it but when I do get to the luminance sliders, it seems that some of the blue stars fall off..
And that's the other problem I have... If I took a shot with my camera leveled, all it would be is trees... Literally, everything down here is covered with trees..
I'd like to eventually get to go somewhere on the lake near me for a night and shoot down the length of it and see what comes of that... But yeah, no hills around me w/o trees... too many damn trees..
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You can use the white balance and split toning options to better control where you blues are at, in addition to using the Hue and Saturation adjustments. Don't forget to also consider Cyan and sometimes Purple and Magenta.
So don't make it level. Point it up but keep some of the trees in there. I understand you're cropping is a bit tight with the 24mm APS-C setup, but should give you some leeway. Lakes make for great shots, even with that tighter framing... an example from my 35mm F/2 on FF a bit ago.
And you need to avoid the "if only this..." mindset, which you're sliding back into now that you've got the lens that you were "if only I had this lens" about'ing
MedigoFlame
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I never really post much in the photography forum. But here's some of my work that I've done. (Quality's not great as I've taken them from my Facebook)
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Not sure if I should had of blacked all the trees out or not, but I sorta like it... Might be a tad too pink but if I waited a few more minutes it would've been a nice red...
Final Moments by Jacob Buchanan, on Flickr
edit: oh yeah, and the bottom is terrible, I can't figure out how to get rid of it with the graduated filter...
Defringe did the job (somewhat)
Final Moments by Jacob Buchanan, on FlickrDefringe did the job (somewhat)
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