amateur photo thread.

  • Thread starter Conbon14
  • 1,913 comments
  • 127,714 views
Mike Rotch
Try not to shoot with a lightsource right behind the subject (or in fact, in your frame); it's probably going to create flares on your lens image and it also makes for high contrast situations, which will probably result in blown highlights.
Click to expand...

The big issue with shooting into a light source is metering can be a couple stops off. Flaring is highly dependent on the lens, and figuring out if you want blown out highlights or foreground silhouettes is a stylistic thing.
 
You call those tilted?

How can they be of artistic value if they're not at maximum tilt?

Edit: And just where are my air vents and single Fiesta rear light? In dramatic greyscale? Chop chop.
 
Do you guys think buying a 50mm 1.8 lens would be a good idea for someone as inexperienced as me? At the moment my camera just has the 18-55mm lens it came with. There's a 50mm for sale locally for $50, was just wondering if this would be beneficial for my Japan trip? I would more than likely take both lenses as I imagine there will be a fair bit of landscape photography going on, but as I'm also going to a few car workshops and a big car/bike show in an exhibition centre, would the 50mm be a useful purchase? I don't know why I'm even looking as money is pretty tight before the trip so I couldn't afford a brand new lens but $50 second hand and just down the road seems affordable.
 
Andrew R
Do you guys think buying a 50mm 1.8 lens would be a good idea for someone as inexperienced as me? At the moment my camera just has the 18-55mm lens it came with. There's a 50mm for sale locally for $50, was just wondering if this would be beneficial for my Japan trip? I would more than likely take both lenses as I imagine there will be a fair bit of landscape photography going on, but as I'm also going to a few car workshops and a big car/bike show in an exhibition centre, would the 50mm be a useful purchase? I don't know why I'm even looking as money is pretty tight before the trip so I couldn't afford a brand new lens but $50 second hand and just down the road seems affordable.
Click to expand...
what camera do you have (Nikon I guess if the kit was 18-55(D3X00 i suppose too)).

I do want a prime eventually, but zooms are just me.. Too much planning before I take a shot. When I'm out shooting, I know what I want and sometimes I am unable to move at all (sorta like yesterday while on a plane...)
Anyways, for $50 I think that's cropped. If you ask me, I wont ever buy a cropped lens just because they will last 5x longer than my body. But if you want to try out a prime, that's a decent one to start with to see if you like them. I have a 50 F1.7 with my Minolta and like it a lot, but I don't use it as much as I'd like to..

Without double posting, here's what I got yesterday..
ATL Tower (on the bottom left there was a comm's tower and I surfaced blurred what I could)
DSC_3098_edited_Shrink.jpg


Atlanta... I really wished that I had autofocus on, but the camera wouldn't take the shot as it was pressed against the window to prevent any glare:
DSC_3107_edited.jpg
 
Andrew R
Do you guys think buying a 50mm 1.8 lens would be a good idea for someone as inexperienced as me? At the moment my camera just has the 18-55mm lens it came with. There's a 50mm for sale locally for $50, was just wondering if this would be beneficial for my Japan trip? I would more than likely take both lenses as I imagine there will be a fair bit of landscape photography going on, but as I'm also going to a few car workshops and a big car/bike show in an exhibition centre, would the 50mm be a useful purchase? I don't know why I'm even looking as money is pretty tight before the trip so I couldn't afford a brand new lens but $50 second hand and just down the road seems affordable.
Click to expand...
For $50? That's crazy cheap, I say go for it. I used a 50mm F2.5 macro lens on the photos of the leaves and of my dog. From what little time I've had with it it's been a very good addition and I plan to take it with me along with my 18-55 kit lens and one of my two 70-300 lenses.

And now Mike Rotch has me scouring Ebay for another 50mm prime lens.
 
Swagger897
what camera do you have (Nikon I guess if the kit was 18-55(D3X00 i suppose too)).

I do want a prime eventually, but zooms are just me.. Too much planning before I take a shot. When I'm out shooting, I know what I want and sometimes I am unable to move at all (sorta like yesterday while on a plane...)
Anyways, for $50 I think that's cropped. If you ask me, I wont ever buy a cropped lens just because they will last 5x longer than my body. But if you want to try out a prime, that's a decent one to start with to see if you like them. I have a 50 F1.7 with my Minolta and like it a lot, but I don't use it as much as I'd like to..
Click to expand...

The camera is a Canon 1100D. I could've gotten the lens numbers wrong, was just having a stab with a pretty ordinary memory. I might enquire, make sure it's actually still for sale and go from there.

This is the ad;



I like your pictures a lot, the tower looks awesome!
 
Andrew R
Do you guys think buying a 50mm 1.8 lens would be a good idea for someone as inexperienced as me? At the moment my camera just has the 18-55mm lens it came with.
Click to expand...
If money is tight, skip it for now. All a 50mm prime does over your zoom if give you a few more stops to play with as your zoom already covers 50mm. As you are on a APS-C camera with a cropped sensor, the 50mm with have an equivalent focal length of a full frame 75mm lens, which is very limiting if you want to do landscape work, where you need a wider angle lens.


IMO, leave it for learning on when you are not on holiday ;).

Turtle
And now Mike Rotch has me scouring Ebay for another 50mm prime lens.
Click to expand...
:sly:
 
Mike Rotch
IMO, leave it for learning on when you are not on holiday ;).
Click to expand...

Probably very good advice. I could probably better invest my time in researching more of what all the numbers even mean. Now I know how my girlfriend feels when I talk car and bike models.

I'll give it a bit more thought, thanks guys!
 
Hello everyone,
so this year I've been attending some of my local rally sprints (amateur, no racing licence) and I've been taking photographs on each one I have attended. I would love to share the photographs with you, and I'm eager to hear your opinions, about the quality of these photos. Perhaps you could give me some piece of advice on how to take even better shots. I'll post few examples and I'd like to invite everyone of you to my Flickr profile where I'll upload up to date any photos I take!
Enjoy!



















 
Crs_D
Hello everyone,
so this year I've been attending some of my local rally sprints (amateur, no racing licence) and I've been taking photographs on each one I have attended. I would love to share the photographs with you, and I'm eager to hear your opinions, about the quality of these photos. Perhaps you could give me some piece of advice on how to take even better shots. I'll post few examples and I'd like to invite everyone of you to my Flickr profile where I'll upload up to date any photos I take!
Enjoy!



















Click to expand...
Some good post processing would make these even better, but they are none-the-less interesting.
 
@Crs_D The first thing I notice is that the light is unflattering, although I'm guessing that is not your fault most of the time if not all of the time.

Swagger897 already brought up another point I would make, and that is that everything seems a bit flat, which can be fixed, or at least helped, in post processing. That said, please don't ruin your photos by making very strong adjustments.

My final piece of advice is to try and find some more interesting angles. Now, I've never been to an event like this (Although I want to quite badly) so I don't know how restricted you are but I feel like I've seen all these before because the angles are just so common. Try and go to a different spot if you can, or try something different by getting lower to the ground if you can't.

I hope I'm not coming off as too harsh, because the photos are far from bad, I'm just really nitpicky. My favorite is the 6th one, although the last one would be my favorite if the guy in the background wasn't there.
 
Turtle
@Crs_D The first thing I notice is that the light is unflattering, although I'm guessing that is not your fault most of the time if not all of the time.

Swagger897 already brought up another point I would make, and that is that everything seems a bit flat, which can be fixed, or at least helped, in post processing. That said, please don't ruin your photos by making very strong adjustments.

My final piece of advice is to try and find some more interesting angles. Now, I've never been to an event like this (Although I want to quite badly) so I don't know how restricted you are but I feel like I've seen all these before because the angles are just so common. Try and go to a different spot if you can, or try something different by getting lower to the ground if you can't.

I hope I'm not coming off as too harsh, because the photos are far from bad, I'm just really nitpicky. My favorite is the 6th one, although the last one would be my favorite if the guy in the background wasn't there.
Click to expand...
Yeah I was going to say being a perfectionist helps as you said some of the background needs to be removed from the frame and not to do post too much, or not at all if you're an anti edit guy..

I try to envision the shot before hand, like when I was on my trip last weekend. I knew I wanted a pic of the tower alone, one of the sunrise (couldn't get because of the gate I was at) and one of the airport or Atlanta taking off.. Yes they could be better but I have a picture in my mind and I'm matching the viewfinder to that image. For me it helps rather than bursting away, which my images then turn out not too well... Sadly I wish I could do the same with the pics in GT6..
 
Swagger897
Yeah I was going to say being a perfectionist helps as you said some of the background needs to be removed from the frame and not to do post too much, or not at all if you're an anti edit guy..

I try to envision the shot before hand, like when I was on my trip last weekend. I knew I wanted a pic of the tower alone, one of the sunrise (couldn't get because of the gate I was at) and one of the airport or Atlanta taking off.. Yes they could be better but I have a picture in my mind and I'm matching the viewfinder to that image. For me it helps rather than bursting away, which my images then turn out not too well... Sadly I wish I could do the same with the pics in GT6..
Click to expand...
I am kind of a perfectionist when it comes to photos sometimes, because, to me, it's the little things that make a good photo great.

I hate taking photos in GT, there's very little restrictions, and without any restrictions it becomes difficult to make any unique or interesting photos.
 
I don't necessarily hate taking GT pics, as some turn out good in which I'd never be able to actually do. But sometimes I'm overrun with ideas and loose what I originally envisioned..
 
Nice thank you for all the kind words and all the advice.
I am quite restricted as to the place where you can actually stand and take a photo, I once standed on the corner exit because I thought it would be a really really nice spot and it after a few cars, a toyota celica landed about meter away from me, because he spun out
video (I'm not in it thank to my exceptional running away skills)
DSC_0555
DSC_0556

while running away, I managed to take a shot :P

Anyway about the angles, the track is very short its about 2.2km each time and to be honest there are just a few good spots, most of it are straights or some 90' turns or chicanes, and another problem - people. Now this is a rough subject, they always stand in the place you'd like to stand in, or they always obstruct the view by leaning forward, or they just stand in some place ruining the photo. not much I could do about it, maybe just try to find a spot where they aren't visible.

If you visited my Flickr profile, you can see that I have divided the photos into separate albums, which are from different days, and on every new rally sprint I wanted to try something new, different, thats where the 'over adjustment' comes, and some of the blurry photos as I was trying different lenses.

In my opinion my photographing has got better in comparison of the 1st round (album) to the AZT sprint (another album). I could try to work on the photos in Gimp and try to get some cool effects so perhaps next time.

I'm aiming to attend any dirt rally, because it seems like you can get better shots there with all the dirt flying around, but there aren't any in my area, at least not now, when winter comes.

Next rally sprint will possibly take place next year about march or april.

Thank you again for all the things you've said. I really appreciate it!
 
Last edited:
Crs_D
Nice thank you for all the kind words and all the advice.
I am quite restricted as to the place where you can actually stand and take a photo, I once standed on the corner exit because I thought it would be a really really nice spot and it after a few cars, a toyota celica landed about meter away from me, because he spun out
DSC_0555
DSC_0556

while running away, I managed to take a shot :P

Anyway about the angles, the track is very short its about 2.2km each time and to be honest there are just a few good spots, most of it are straights or some 90' turns or chicanes, and another problem - people. Now this is a rough subject, they always stand in the place you'd like to stand in, or they always obstruct the view by leaning forward, or they just stand in some place ruining the photo. not much I could do about it, maybe just try to find a spot where they aren't visible.

If you visited my Flickr profile, you can see that I have divided the photos into separate albums, which are from different days, and on every new rally sprint I wanted to try something new, different, thats where the 'over adjustment' comes, and some of the blurry photos as I was trying different lenses.

In my opinion my photographing has got better in comparison of the 1st round (album) to the AZT sprint (another album). I could try to work on the photos in Gimp and try to get some cool effects so perhaps next time.

I'm aiming to attend any dirt rally, because it seems like you can get better shots there with all the dirt flying around, but there aren't any in my area, at least not now, when winter comes.

Next rally sprint will possibly take place next year about march or april.

Thank you again for all the things you've said. I really appreciate it!
Click to expand...
Try using Adobe Photoshop express first before Gimp. It's more of a filter tool but it has some of the basics and does a really good job. Like I said above, I already have an image in my mind, and if the image isn't exactly the way I wanted it to turn out aesthetically, that's when I'll post process some of them.

Hopefully by February I'll have upgraded to Lightroom or something better than express.
 
Looks great though! That's my favourite shot of the lot.

Also free'd up a bit of money and bought that 50mm lens last night. I had a bit of a play around last night, I think your advice was great Mike Rotch, it will take quite a bit of practice to get photos I'm happy with. I think the Japan trip will mainly be on an auto mode with the other lens. I'll have a proper go with it if I get some time on the weekend and post some results.
 
Getting rid of the people was a real pain I had to search for a similiar shot without these people on and paste the little bush with grass into that spot.
When I was adding contrast and darkness I had in my thoughts that this photo shouldn't be colorful, happy. The weather back then was harsh, it was cold and wet, so what came to my mind is that I should make it more dark than usual. I'll try doing similar thing with more photos when I find the time to do so! :)
 

Similar threads

WrxScooby
Realistic'ish Caddis Fly Pupa (Bug) I Made
Replies
0
Views
2K
WrxScooby
WrxScooby
Def-Infinity
  • Poll
Official Amateur eSports for Gran Turismo 7: Yea or Nay?
Replies
11
Views
1K
Def-Infinity
Def-Infinity
syntex123
Superimposed
Replies
2
Views
662
syntex123
syntex123
GTvon
"photo" tips
Replies
26
Views
8K
evldave333
evldave333
H
Greatest Underdog Performances in Motorsport
Replies
16
Views
2K
FGBraz
FGBraz

Latest Posts

Back