Messages

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: February 24, 2014, 06:57:00 AM »

seriously quintano man your shots are like ultra sharp wtf how? i use a tripod, focus correctly, dont move the camera, have an external remote etc and its still not as sharp as that. am i being limited by my camera?

I don't know man, I just point and shoot. The ones you took look like they're pretty sharp,  What camera/lens setup are you using?

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: January 31, 2014, 09:04:14 AM »

Lookin' good with the bird shots! May I suggest you use the Rule of Thirds when taking shots like that? Also, meter off of the bird so it is a tad more visible.

thanks yo

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: January 30, 2014, 09:06:24 PM »

double post

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: January 27, 2014, 07:51:50 PM »

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 06, 2013, 01:06:28 AM »

also sorry for double posting but how do you guys get ultra-sharp pictures like Quintano Man did? it seems that my focus is always off slightly even though it looks good in the camera sights.

Also, adding on to what BluetoothBoy said: with the type of photos you've been taking (still life, I think), if you use a tripod you can set up everything perfectly.

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 05, 2013, 01:27:08 AM »

Oh yeah, I almost forgot; lovely bokeh. Just lovely. I wish I had a lens with a low enough aperture to produce that kind of bokeh. What equipment do you use? I just have a D50, standard f/3.5 lens.

I'm just using a Nikon 55-200mm lens that came standard with my D3100. Surprisingly, though, the aperture on that photo is only f8. I have found that that lens does produce a nice depth of field. Also - the green background (which is a bush. In fact, the top of said bush can be seen in my lamp picture) is about 10ft away from the foreground.

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 04, 2013, 03:39:36 PM »

Somewhat, yeah. I loved how the white flowers sat between shadow and sunlight, and I loved the contrast between the bokeh far background and the sharp, detailed foreground. I loved the balance between light and dark, and so I started editing it in post.

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 04, 2013, 01:11:33 AM »

And.... I'm back to flowers (I like this one a lot, though)

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 02, 2013, 07:53:45 AM »

Yay, lamps! If you're up for suggestions... Next time, try to maybe keep the bushes in the lower right out of the shot. This, of course, can be fixed by cropping. Overall though, great picture. You got your thirds and depth pretty spot on.

Oh wow I actually didn't even notice those bushes until just now! Thanks for the feedback :)

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: August 02, 2013, 12:42:27 AM »

I have something to share - something that isn't a flower (yay):

http://quintruplutt.tumblr.com/

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: July 26, 2013, 02:07:29 AM »

However it is suffice to say that a strong photograph will communicate a message effectively without a text accompaniment; I suppose my suggestion to you would be to, when moved to take a photo by something, either when out with a camera or not, to visualize a finished image which conveys your message or your intent in taking a picture perfectly, and use that mental image to inform every decision.

My approach to photography and general creative philosophy is that photography (well, landscape photography at least) should serve to isolate and amplify the beauty of nature. I have served a scene well if someone can look at a finished photo of mine and recognize in no uncertain terms what attracted me to it and why, it's my aim to eliminate distractions and get a "distilled version" so to speak, of my "vision" of a scene.

This is great advice - it's something that will be constantly on my mind from this point forth. I appreciate the criticism and advice. Thanks for taking your time to write such a long response, it helps me a lot.

Thanks also to everyone for the meaningful and respectful discussion which has actually changed my mind on something.

It's been very informative and helpful for all of us, I think. Thanks to you all for helping to keep it respectful.

-snip and long description-

This looks great! Good luck with the enlargement.

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: July 24, 2013, 01:23:14 AM »

However, Sirrus, let's say he looked at a flower and instead of thinking, "Oh wow, what a beautiful flower!", he thinks, "This flower looks sad to me, so ill try to capture that feeling." Obviously, I don't know if that's true, but it would fit what both he and you are saying; his reasoning for the coloring, and the general idea for photography is that what is portrayed in the photo is what you were envisioning while you were taking the picture. But don't take my word for it. I'll let Quint decide how close I got to what he meant.

This sums up my intentions pretty well.

Currently I am in a sad, lonely, depressed, and somewhat cold mindset. These are the feelings that I wanted to portray in my pictures. I specifically chose not to deal with some of the happier photographs because I felt they couldn't express my emotions. In my opinion I have expressed my feelings quite well in many of my photos. I am certainly not targeting a joyful, fulfilled audience - I'm targeting an audience with a similar mindset to mine. This, in my opinion, does not make me a bad artist. I think that's a very ignorant comment  considering that the very definition of art, "The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture", in no way suggests that a single object must be portrayed the same way by everybody, and if it isn't, that they are a bad artist. Perhaps I should have given context. I think it has to be taken into account that I've been doing this for less than two months, and these are things I'm going to learn along the way - these are things I'm learning on the way. I do, as always, appreciate the criticism. I'm sure that it will help me become a better artist.

Might I add that many of the objects I've photographed have originally seemed to portray my state of mind, and that that is what has drawn me to them.

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: July 23, 2013, 01:08:06 AM »

The "subdued" look you're going for is not good, you should stop doing it.

Here's another way to think of it: If color and form is what originally attracted you to take a picture of a given flower, why not edit to emphasize these traits? Except for some very thought out artistic decisions, it's not a good idea to edit contrary to what drew you to a scene. In fact, your editing should -always- be in line with the reason you took the picture as much as you can manage it.

I feel that I do edit to emphasize the traits that attracted me to a picture, especially with my more recent pictures. I do understand what you're saying though. In my older photos I went quite a bit overboard with the editing - to the point where it looked unnatural. Recently, I've been trying very hard to maintain the original appeal in my images, and it's something that is now always on my mind.
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate it :)

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: July 22, 2013, 03:25:51 AM »

Sorry for the double post, but I have some more to share!

This one is my new favourite:


Here are some more:




Here's my blog

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Creativity / Re: ■ The Photography Megathread ■

« on: July 19, 2013, 07:29:09 PM »

Lovin' the pics, Quint! Might I suggest, however, that you up the saturation slightly? Those flowers look a wee bit dreary. Unless, of course, you were going for that feeling.

Thanks for the advice! I was definitely going for a somewhat dreary feeling - but perhaps not as dreary as I portrayed. I'll keep that in mind next time :)