[anneb]

So I wasn’t here a year ago when this was discussed, and I know I would probably feel happier with some clarification, with the complexity of some of the tools that are easily available right now. I’m not totally convinced it’s worth losing much sleep over, though.

It’s a photography contest, and not a photoshop contest. But over in the darkroom, we’d be doing a lot more, and not thinking about the appropriateness, just that that’s how it’s done. I’d be doing a half dozen or more test strips, making sure my blacks are black and my whites are white, tossing little pink or yellow contrast filters in to the enlarger, and pushing things around quite a bit. Oh, and I’d probably be dodging or burning, possibly a good deal, to make it look “right.” If I shot color, I’d be playing around to make my whites white, and not pink. And if you asked any one of my instructor-types, they’d say that that’s one of the big differences between photographs and snapshots.

Film or digital, it’s still clearly to my advantage to get as much as I can in-camera before I start, and really, I think you have to- using levels and curves to make whites white, blacks black, and the contrast where you would like it, is pretty self-limiting, just as it is with film. You can only get so much from that before the image starts to degrade, and get harsh and choppy. They don’t hit your eye very comfortably; certainly, they don’t hit mine that way. If it wasn’t there before the push, it won’t likely be there afterwards, either; if the histogram is slammed too far left or right, there’s not that much hope for it.

And you can shoot a technically perfect picture, and still have it as boring as hell. Flip side, a well-composed off the cuff shot with no time to set up right might not look so nice, once it’s pushed so we can see it a bit better. In general, I’d expect neither to be stellar enough to win, but I confess, I’d rather see the second than the first. (OK, that’s not suprising, really, given how I shoot mostly. I do sports/nature/kids, meaning I often dont have the luxury of per-shot setup time. So I usually end up with best camera conditions for a range, not necessarily the one shot, so I have more ability to pay attention to composition and timing.)

[anneb]

How far away from the coast are you going, i.e. what sorts of temps are you planning to run into?

When I was out shooting nighttime (HS) football this fall, I bumped into several other photographers who had combo gloves-mittens, gloves like biking gloves, where the fingers only go up to the first knuckle, or so, and then a mitten that flapped on top of it like a hinged lid. I have been told “Hunting supply stores.” I just haven’t gotten out to really look for a pair, yet, because now it’s basketball season, and I’ve gotten distracted. One of the other photogs also recommended those insta-heat-packs for my boots. (My boots are not insulated, something that was not fun for me when field temps hovered right around freezing most of the game)

However, in general, hunting supply or military surplus shops are going to have a lot of good warm weather gear. Shooting rifles or camera both may mean lots of staking out in the cold, and needing to have lots of finger dexterity and visibility. The same guy who recommended the hunting supply was able to keep his 10yo nice and toasty warm with him on the sidelines. Go get yourself a good pair of insulated, heavily lined boots. Warm feet make all the differenc.

And I second what schnee said about popping the batteries out to keep them warm- when I was living in MN, I would walk around with the battery actually in my glove, right up against my hand, and I’d pop it in to shoot.

[anneb]

ACK! (Holidays happened. Oops. Um… I don’t seem to have pictures, and it’s Thursday.)

There’s some really really wild stuff out there, great job everyone!

Millera9, I totally love your barbie w/ trolls

[anneb]

This is going to be a fun thread. I wish were feeling creative. *sigh* After Friday the days will start getting longer.

ARRRRRGH I have NO idea what to do, and I am so lost manufacturing set-ups!

Ok, that’s out of my system. Hopefully, I’ll come up with something cool by tomorrow 😛 I can’t wait to see what people have come up with!

[anneb]

Wow- there’s a LOTTA buncha awesome stuff there! The problem in ‘chosing best’ from this set is that there’s too much you don’t want to leave out! I’d say see what you can find as the best, balanced sequence of 10, and not worry about which single 10 shots are the best, that would be very hard for most people to do, and you don’t want to insult the ‘kids’ by favoring some over others…

I really like your choice of subjects, too. You do them very well.

[anneb]

“Tuesday Morning” here in Rose Hill, which is basically a ‘reseller-of-other-people’s-overstock,’ has “Producer Barbie. She has a suit, long orange hair, and a laptop.

[anneb]

How does the Holga “look” compare to a 126 instamatic? (Juuust wondering.)

[anneb]

WHEW! Finally got my pix up… It’s been paint the kitchen week here at the B-homestead, so getting out to shoot has been difficult. But, it meant I did have at least a clean backdrop for a picture! (No, we’re not done, yet!)

[anneb]

You gotta have steady hands to get away with 1/60. I’d go 1/250, maybe even faster, shooting in shutter speed priority mode.

I disagree, esp. if you’re panning intentionally- I had decent success panning at my son’s roller hockey at much slower speeds and the 210mm f4, shutter preferred, something like 1/4 or 1/8- I do not have bionic wrists, and could NEVER get a good still shot with that setup. When you’re moving the camera to follow your target, you don’t have the same shake problems as when you’re trying to hold a camera perfectly steady.

With these, the cars are moving much faster than little kids on skates, and they don’t wobble side to side, like skaters do when they stroke. 1/8 would clearly be way too slow, since you’d not get any shape to the background. You might try following some cars at 1/100, though, and see what comes of it.

I’ve gotten some decent football pans at 1/125, too, but they’d probably do better at 1/60 or so, which would mean me doing it intentionally, not having it happen on accident. 😉

[anneb]

I like the second one best, the background works better for me, and you can see the driver a little more. Great job with the panning, too! What shutter speed?

[anneb]

The Farkamera is here with staplermofo (me) in Chicago.

How do I know if it’ll be over-exposed, underexposed, focused, etc? It’s ISO 800, but what about the aperture and shutter time? There doesn’t appear to be a flash, but there might be one hidden somewhere! It’s all so mysterious and blue.

I went and looked at the picture up at the top of the thread.
Think “Kodak Instamatic.” Or, “think of something creaky old folks around you used to use when they were kids.” Wind. Make sure your finger isn’t over the lens. Point. Shoot.

Focal length is something like 4′ to ‘becomes too tiny to see in the viewfinder.’ Shutter speed is fixed. Aperture is fixed.

I used to carry one around in my purse just in case I wanted a camera handy. “Used to,” because since I was a kid using that instamatic, I’ve had this overlearned response that after I shoot a picture, I immediately advance the camera to the next frame. So I would end up paying for processing of a roll where like every other picture was black (inside of my purse.) After a few rolls like that, I decided that was enough of that, and now I just toss my D70 in my backpack.

[anneb]

I agree with staplermofo– move so that the tree’s located elsewhere if you can. If you illuminated the car, you’ll run the risk of the picture looking like the tree is growing out of the seat!

How I got taught to tackle funky situations like this: set your aperture for what your flash wants the Aperture set to in manual mode, given your distance from the car. Set your shutter speed for exposing the picture, pretending you haven’t got any flash, or possibly any of those lights shining on the car. Then set the camera to those settings on manual, and shoot with your flash. I haven’t done this that often, since I find fiddling with flash details sometimes kind of overwhelming- I’m lousy at judging distance, and juggling pencil and paper when and it’s dark out! But the few times I’ve fought with it, I’ve been moderately happy with the outcome.

(My speedlight has a page on how to calculate aperture for the flash, in the “manual mode” section, but I’ve only ever done this with my older, non-variable-output flash, with the nice cheater-table printed on the back.)

[anneb]

Hi, welcome to 2006! We have digital cameras now. It’s sort of like a portable scanner that allows you to digitally capture an image, only smaller! And there’s no film or negatives. Ever! They’re really neat, you should get one! 😉

What? And miss out on all the fun of getting all the dust off my negatives? NEVER! 🙄

[anneb]

Yeah- I had that happen on a previous scanner. It’s nice that the lid can detach if you want to scan things out of thick books, but boy is that a gotcha.
This was an issue where it was scanning negatives, but not positives. (Oh, you mean you want this lower corner of the photo. No? Oh, you want this same lower corner, only washed out and orange? No? Ok, I’ll just crash, then.)
Downloaded new driver. It scanned in my photo (yay!) then crashed.
😕

I’m probably just living wrong.

[anneb]

I thought about the beaver dam that’s pretty close to me, but I don’t have any shots of it I really like. (Since the park is so close, I so rarely go there to actually shoot pictures, more to hang with people who want to go see!) And it’s been so crazy at home of late. I think this week calls for bringing out some of my older stuff.

So if I can get my scanner working, one will be of our home-away-from-home when we go camping.

[Author]

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