■ The Photography Megathread ■

[Tetris]

You've got some some serious talent, Tam.

[Ad Bot]

[xXBeibsFan119Xx]

Play with metering, if you're using an SLR. They may have looked like this in real life, but you can balance out the image more to get better outcome if you expose everything nicely.

I don't have an SLR. I have a point and shoot that has some manual features.


A grate. by 166291, on Flickr

[Tammy]

Made your picture more aseptically pleasing in about 10 seconds:


The rule of thirds is your best friend. It makes taking good pictures so easy it feels like your cheating.

[xXBeibsFan119Xx]

Kind of insulting that you just butchered my photo and called it better. I centered it for a reason.

[Edman]

hey does anyone know  if a nikon coolpix would be good for artsy pictures

[Tammy]

Kind of insulting that you just butchered my photo and called it better. I centered it for a reason.

No offense, but believe it or not centering things isn't a good idea. Look up the 'Rule of Thirds'. Sure, it's still only a guideline and it's good to be creative and break rules, but honestly I think your picture looks kind of alien. Like it should be a texture in a video game or 3d model. If you really think your picture look good, then that's fine, everyone has different taste.

hey does anyone know  if a nikon coolpix would be good for artsy pictures

Anything could work if your creative enough, but if you have the money and aren't afraid of getting something more advanced, look into DSLRs.

[DaSord213]

DaSord, I like the fungus pictures. The eagle ones came out a little blurry (you probably noticed), still they could look a little better if you cropped them using the rule of thirds. Also, I don't think messing with the settings is really necessary unless you are trying to create a certain effect or shooting in weird conditions. Lots of the pictures I took today were ruined because I messed with the settings too much.

I'll take the rule of thirds into mind, I didn't actually know about it until now, thanks.


And yes, the eagle pic is blurry because it was a long ways away in a tree and that's just because we were zoomed in a lot.

[Mushroom man]

I have a bunch of pictures I've taken on a new camera we got, I don't really know what most of the settings do/the best way to take pictures but some of them turn out really well. I also have a lot of pictures on the SD card that I haven't put on my computer yet.
-snip-

Mushroooooooms!
edit - I think the first one is a crested polypore, but I can't find the second :c

[xXBeibsFan119Xx]

No offense, but believe it or not centering things isn't a good idea. Look up the 'Rule of Thirds'. Sure, it's still only a guideline and it's good to be creative and break rules, but honestly I think your picture looks kind of alien. Like it should be a texture in a video game or 3d model. If you really think your picture look good, then that's fine, everyone has different taste.

Centering things isn't a good or bad idea. It's an idea. I chose to center it because emphasized the order of the wall.

[Tammy]

Centering things isn't a good or bad idea. It's an idea. I chose to center it because emphasized the order of the wall.

See, in my opinion order is boring and dull. But that's just what I think. It could be a great picture that I just don't like.

[xXBeibsFan119Xx]

See, in my opinion order is boring and dull. But that's just what I think. It could be a great picture that I just don't like.

Order is boring and dull, so why make the composition exciting when you can reflect the subject?

[Tammy]

Order is boring and dull, so why make the composition exciting when you can reflect the subject?

It's about the viewers. You want a photo to be interesting to look at in the same way you want a movie to be entreating or a joke to be funny.
I'm no expert in photography, I just thought sharing the rule of thirds with you would help a lot because it really changed how I took pictures for the better.

[xXBeibsFan119Xx]

It's about the viewers. You want a photo to be interesting to look at in the same way you want a movie to be entreating or a joke to be funny.

But I didn't want it to look interesting.

I'm no expert in photography, I just thought sharing the rule of thirds with you would help a lot because it really changed how I took pictures for the better.

I know the rule of thirds.

[Kniaz]

The rule of thirds is your best friend. It makes taking good pictures so easy it feels like your cheating.

No it isn't... It can make things look so staged and unnatural, I don't like to actively use it.

[Kniaz]

Double post because potatoes:

Tammy, stop depending on the Rule of Thirds.

Something like this, which is my own work, does not abide by the rule of thirds and still looks just as pleasent.

This picture also, which is one of my favourites, veers away from your precious 'rule of thirds'.

Just because you can break a picture into nine equal squares, doesn't mean you have to.

xXBeibsFan119Xx's original picture, with the grate centered, works much better. It emphasizes the contrast and is more drawing, where as moving it to a corner makes it lose that contrast and flow- the image becomes flat.

Stop shoving that 'rule' down our throats.

It shouldn't be referred to as a rule, I believe, as it is more of a method or mode of photography.