Scaff's Gallery

[Scaff]

Here we go a few shots to get started.

Fuji S2 Pro w/Cosina 19 - 35

Fuji S2 Pro w/Cosina 19 - 35

Fuji S2 Pro w/Nikon 70 - 300

Fuji S2 Pro w/Nikon 70 - 300

Fuji S2 Pro w/Nikon 70 - 300

Fuji S2 Pro w/Cosina 19 - 35

Fuji S2 Pro w/Nikon 70 - 300

Fuji S2 Pro w/Cosina 19 - 35

Fuji S2 Pro w/Nikon 70 - 300


Any and all feedback on these would be appreciated.


Ta

Scaff

 

[homeforsummer]

Really nice shots Scaff 👍

Just a question really - what shutter speed were you using for the panning shot? The slight blurring could be down to the shutter speed or it might be technique (of course, it might also be that the car was moving really quite quickly in which case I apologise for the other two suggestions!)

In any case, I've always found either 1/320 or 1/250 of a second to be best for good, clear pans, although today at a rally I went to I was using 1/200 which still resulted in clear shots (lower speeds obviously).

The static shots are fantastic though, really sharp.

 

[Scaff]

Thanks for the feedback, the panned shot was done at around 1/250, the the cars were moving very, very quickly (the 3.5 litre Renault Series is an impressively quick car).

The position I was shooting from was not ideal either, as the chain fence was right in the way.

Still a good day and quite happy with the shots I got.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Nicksfix]

Great stuff there Scaff. 👍

What race event was this ?

 

[boiltheocean]

I like the last shot, your subjects are obvious and the surround is clean which doesn't distract. The angle and composition aid that too 👍

Oh and Congratulations on the Gallery Opening and Purchase of the S2.

 

[Syntax error]

Nice start Scaff. I feel that a tad more contrast could be added, especially to the shots in the tent. But that's just personal preference. I think you did pretty well with the pan considering the hindrances you had with the fence.

👍 great stuff, look forward to seeing more.

 

[Scaff]

Great stuff there Scaff. 👍

What race event was this ?

Ta for the feedback and it was the World Series by Renault at Silverstone, they hold the series around Europe each year and its free to get tickets for.

I like the last shot, your subjects are obvious and the surround is clean which doesn't distract. The angle and composition aid that too 👍

Oh and Congratulations on the Gallery Opening and Purchase of the S2.

Thanks, really enjoyed spending a day with an SLR again, and getting back into photography quicker than I thought I would.

Nice start Scaff. I feel that a tad more contrast could be added, especially to the shots in the tent. But that's just personal preference. I think you did pretty well with the pan considering the hindrances you had with the fence.

👍 great stuff, look forward to seeing more.

Thanks for the comments.

I must admit that I am only just getting used to some of the differences between shooting film and digital and then working with the results in PS.

To start I don't want to move to much away from the original shot, but rest assured that will change. The one thing I have noticed is that digital has a much lower EV range across a shot than film does, takes a bit of getting used to.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Scaff]

Quick update, a picture I took of a friend of mine over the weekend.

Regards

Scaff

 

[Scaff]

Picked up the replacement for the Cosina 19-35 today, so I now have a Nikon 18-55, which should prove to be more flexable in use.

Quick test shot

It seems to suit the cameras metering much better than the Cosina and is much faster and quieter in focusing as well.

Very happy with, what I am sure, will be the first of many new purchases.


Regards

Scaff

 

[boiltheocean]

Congrats on the new Lens 👍

 

[Syntax error]

Congrats on the new purchase. You're white balance seems a little off on the last shot. Nice selection of vintage cameras though 👍 I'm also a collector.

 

[Scaff]

Congrats on the new purchase. You're white balance seems a little off on the last shot. Nice selection of vintage cameras though 👍 I'm also a collector.

Congrats on the new Lens 👍

Thanks guys

Most likely the walls not actually white , but that does remind me I need to get a piece of 'grey' card again, very handy stuff.

Thanks for the comment on the cameras, most have just been given to me over the years, and I have a few more than that around the house. Quite a few of them still work as well, I wonder how many modern cameras we will be able to say that about in 50 years+ time.

 

[Scaff]

I've been getting back to grips with Photoshop (which I used to use a lot for GT4's photo-mode) and had forgotten how powerful a tool it can be.

Took this at the weekend as a quick shot and it is overexposed and rather poor in composition.

However my dad is a big fan of the Avantime, so I set to work to see what I could get out of it, and quite a bit of work later we have this.

Which I think is a rather big improvement.


Regards

Scaff

 

[Syntax error]

Dramatic improvement on what started out as an average image. Photoshop is a brilliant tool just be careful not to make it your crutch… it’s an easy path to go down, I’m guilty of it myself in the past.

If you can, I’d advise investing in Lightroom. You’ll find yourself using it far more than PS especially as it is a brilliant piece of software for processing RAW data.

 

[Speedster502]

Fantastic job there, as Syntax said don't get into the habit of taking a photograph and saying that photoshop wil fix it. I don't think you'll have a probelm with that since you used to do film photography. Anyway, great editing on that. 👍

And for the record I don't have Lightroom and just use Adobe Camera RAW (Part of the Photoshop package) for editing, it isn't great but it does work and can provide some good results.

 

[homeforsummer]

Agreed with the above posts, that's a great transformation for the Avantime image. The colours have gained real depth and the contrast looks just right.

Regarding composition, I spend much more time now composing the right image before I take it rather than improving it afterwards (action shots for example - I used to spend countless hours rotating my action shots for a bit more "action" until i realised I could just hold the camera at a slight angle instead ). It's just one more thing you can do at the composition stage rather than the photoshop stage, I guess.

The portrait of your friend above is a pretty good photo too 👍

 

[Scaff]

Thanks guys for the feedback.

I normally would try and get all I need doing, done at the camera end of things (throw back to my 35mm days), and that shot I had just a second or so while no one was in front of the cars, so I just grabbed what I could.

I certainly don't want to use PS any more than I have to, or what I would have done in the past in a darkroom.

Lightroom does however look interesting (I already use Adobe RAW on CS2) and I may habe to download the demo tonight.

Ta

Scaff

 

[Scaff]

Mushrooms




Protective Goose
​

The first shot I grabed quickly just before washing so mushrooms for a risotto, the second was taken when out for a walk with my kids; The goose was getting rather annoyed at some ducks who insisted on getting to close to its kids.




Regards

Scaff

 

[dougiemeats]

I really like Mushrooms 👍 I suppose if I were to change it, I would have the stems in focus as well to show the texture and detail a little more.

Is depth of field really that shallow on large-sensor cameras? You've got it stopped down to f/11 yet the stems seem to be out of focus. Or is it because it's a close-up? I've touched a DSLR and a film SLR each once so please bear with me...

 

[Scaff]

I really like Mushrooms 👍 I suppose if I were to change it, I would have the stems in focus as well to show the texture and detail a little more.

Is depth of field really that shallow on large-sensor cameras? You've got it stopped down to f/11 yet the stems seem to be out of focus. Or is it because it's a close-up? I've touched a DSLR and a film SLR each once so please bear with me...

Its down to a couple of things, the first being depth of field. As a lens size increases in focal length (in this case 55mm or around 82mm in 35mm film terms) the DoF for a given stop gets smaller. So while f22 on an 18mm (28mm in 35mm film) may give you a potential depth of field from infinity back to a few metres, the same f22 on a longer focal length lens could be a few metres deep or even a few centremetres.

That the reason why a lot of compacts have wide angle lens, aside from allowing you to get more in the shot, they also don't have to be as accurate on the focusing side of things.

The same is true when you start shooting close up, the shorter the distance the shallower the DoF, so a short telephoto (as this was) used close up cause a very shallow DoF. Even dedicated macro lenses have to deal with the same problems.

A good example of this last one can be seen when you compare the Clio V6 shot from above with the Mushrooms shot, both were shot at f5.6, yet the longer focal length and shorter distance on the Mushrooms picture provides a much shallower depth of field.


The other issue I had here was that I just grabbed the shot while cooking, so had to use the cameras in-built flash, which is far from ideal. Front lighting is never great as it removes shadow detail, and side lighting would have brought out the detail on the stems a lot more.

If I hadn't eaten them by now I would have loved to spend some time setting them up, lighting them well and shooting without a flash, even at f22 the DoF may not have covered the full depth of the picture, that may have required multiple frames and then stiching them together in Photoshop.However my wife would alomost certainly have had issue with how long it look to cook the risotto (come to think of it so would I, I was damn hungry at the thing).

Hope the above makes sense, and glad you liked the picture, I'm very happy with it considering I only grabed it quickly and had no time to set it up (I moved one mushroom before shooting if I recall correctly).


Regards

Scaff

 

[boiltheocean]

I really like the Mushrooms shot! I love how you just took the opportunity to take the shot while making dinner 👍

Next stop Peppers!

 

[dougiemeats]

Its down to a couple of things, the first being depth of field. As a lens size increases in focal length (in this case 55mm or around 82mm in 35mm film terms) the DoF for a given stop gets smaller. So while f22 on an 18mm (28mm in 35mm film) may give you a potential depth of field from infinity back to a few metres, the same f22 on a longer focal length lens could be a few metres deep or even a few centremetres.

That the reason why a lot of compacts have wide angle lens, aside from allowing you to get more in the shot, they also don't have to be as accurate on the focusing side of things.

The same is true when you start shooting close up, the shorter the distance the shallower the DoF, so a short telephoto (as this was) used close up cause a very shallow DoF. Even dedicated macro lenses have to deal with the same problems.

A good example of this last one can be seen when you compare the Clio V6 shot from above with the Mushrooms shot, both were shot at f5.6, yet the longer focal length and shorter distance on the Mushrooms picture provides a much shallower depth of field.


The other issue I had here was that I just grabbed the shot while cooking, so had to use the cameras in-built flash, which is far from ideal. Front lighting is never great as it removes shadow detail, and side lighting would have brought out the detail on the stems a lot more.

If I hadn't eaten them by now I would have loved to spend some time setting them up, lighting them well and shooting without a flash, even at f22 the DoF may not have covered the full depth of the picture, that may have required multiple frames and then stiching them together in Photoshop.However my wife would alomost certainly have had issue with how long it look to cook the risotto (come to think of it so would I, I was damn hungry at the thing).

Hope the above makes sense, and glad you liked the picture, I'm very happy with it considering I only grabed it quickly and had no time to set it up (I moved one mushroom before shooting if I recall correctly).


Regards

Scaff

Made perfect sense, thanks so much!

 

[Scaff]

Made perfect sense, thanks so much!

No problem at all and glad to help.

👍

Regards

Scaff

 

[Scaff]

Reject from this weeks competition




and a thistle




Regards

Scaff

 

[Syntax error]

The thistle shot is pretty sweet. I think it would have worked really well in B&W. That mushroom shot was pretty cool too. For a mundane subject it certainly caught my attention and kept me captivated for a while as I looked over the shot for a few minutes (which is exactly what you want a photo to achieve). 👍

 

[Scaff]

The thistle shot is pretty sweet. I think it would have worked really well in B&W. That mushroom shot was pretty cool too. For a mundane subject it certainly caught my attention and kept me captivated for a while as I looked over the shot for a few minutes (which is exactly what you want a photo to achieve). 👍

Thanks, and good to hear that about the Mushrooms shot, always what I am for in a picture.

I gave the Thistle one a go and in straight black and white the thistle head gets lost in the background, however a bit of selective colourisation and we have quite a nice end result.

​

Regards

Scaff

 

[homeforsummer]

I agree, that works very well 👍 I can see how in full black and white you'd lose some of the detail on the top of the thistle.

 

[Scaff]

On its own it just had no point of focus, but by keeping some colour in the thistle head its made quite a nice shot.

Thanks for the original suggestion Syntax

👍

Scaff

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I think I preferred the full-colour thistle. Good shots in this thread Scaff

 

[Scaff]

Thanks Giles, and on comparison of the two pictures I still prefer the full colour one, but its was worth a play just to try out a few things in PS.

A few new ones, taken today after a heavy shower.






Regards

Scaff