The Official "I have a question about photography" Thread

[Sergei]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Okay, I have beaten the "night pictures" discussion to death, at least for a while. I have a question about some daytime pictures, now.

In the below picture (from Philadelphia, if anyone wants to know where), I took a picture of a church. Behind it are skyscrapers. The light hitting the glass makes the skyscrapers, both to the left and in the center, seem to disappear. How do I get this to not happen?

This is a pretty common problem, and you can't really do anything to prevent it, the range of the camera just can't cover all the different gradations of light, so it has to choose what to expose correctly. In this case, you focused on the church, therefore it came out fine.

Two things you can do to fix it:
1. HDR ... a topic on it's own.
2. Expose for the brightest parts (skyscrapers in the back, in your case). Once that is exposed correctly, the church will be underexposed, but you can try to bring some of the detail back in post-processing. It's easier to get detail out of underexposed parts, than the overblown ones. But it will increase noise in the underexposed parts.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[xzmattzx]

Is it possible to create a panorama by using Infranview? How do I do this? Or, do I need to get anther program to make panoramas? What is a good program for this that is free?

[Chicagophotoshop]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

Is it possible to create a panorama by using Infranview? How do I do this? Or, do I need to get anther program to make panoramas? What is a good program for this that is free?

take a look through these....there are quite a few good programs that do not cost much at all.

http://www.download.com/3120-20_4.ht...ramic&tag=srch

I use ArcSoft Panorama Maker. and shot this just yesterday

[invincible]

Autostitch is nice and simple, but the free version doesn't come with much functionality. It does enough to make a nice panorama though.

I can also recommend Hugin which is pretty powerful but is harder to learn. You can use it for other tasks such as perspective correction.

Some tools get amazingly good output with little user intervention, and even using differently exposed pictures or pictures from lenses which suffer from falloff (getting darker towards the edges).

[dösanhoro]

I am planning getting into taking photos more seriously. I have used small digital camera where the memories of the scenes were always good but the photos not. I like to take photos from harder than average places. It's of course not on top of the Mount Everest but still these cameras are too fragile for me. One big lens where the cover gets of by itself. I am not comfortable using that when there is always fear of scratches on a very expensive camera. Is there a solution to this? A camera where you can change the lens. Some kind of lens cover? This is a big mental handicap really

Used a bicycle for transport when taking photos. Problem: After a few hours my hands shake a little so taking photos gets harder. I have always the feeling the biggest shake is caused by me pressing the button. I have tried negating this by pressing the button slowly bu building up pressure but I am not satisfied. Even tried to adjust me taking photos to my heartrate and breathing. Is there a timer where pressing the button causes the thing to take photos 0.2 seconds later or gets the photo taken at the moment??? A better button perhaps? I have started put my small camera on ledges or on a tripod and using the group photo feature. But this really bothers me when taking photos by hand and makes taking photos a hand breathing coordination excercise.

I am thankful for any advice.

[dösanhoro]

No answer to my problems. I'm not really surprised. But I still think the press a button thing is bad as it seems to cause most of the unsharpness. I need to keep trying

[xzmattzx]

I ended up using that ArcSoft Panorama Maker. I wish you could get your picture in bigger than 1/16th for free; 1/10th would've been fine. Oh well. Here's what I came up with. It looks nice.

[aleph_null]

@dösanhoro
have you considered getting a tripod? then again, going by what you have said, the tripod probably wouldn't be suitable for your work, but it's a great alternative to shaky hands. that, or getting a lens with IS/VR or what have you. that also depends on the camera you're using. some of the camera manufacturers excluding Nikon and Canon now mount the Image Shake Reduction within the camera body, thus cutting the cost of expensive glass, and having the IS/VR type of thing on at all times (personally, i' not a fan of this, it has some significant drawbacks, but whatever... let's not get into this now).

as for shooting the pics... do what snipers do (or so i heard). the moment you press the shutter button, hold your breath. certainly works for me.

@xzmattzx
have you tried using PTGui? i love it, and it's a great software. i recommend it 100%

[la wood]

i took a picture yesterday and some came out like this...







what cause this problem or any suggestion(s) on how to prevent this problem from happening? thanks...

[dösanhoro]

hazardously_wasted thank you

I am looking into cameras and photography right now. Models I have looked into right now are Fuji s5800 Finepix and also Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8. One of them I know is available at the the same price as most of those typical cameras sized like a pack of cards. From the S5800 2003 variant I have seen take good pictures. Those are probably not the best considering what people have here and on the cheaper side. I don't like the digital zooms as they are very fragile in my experience and and would want to get a lens which can be changed. Want to change options easy not with a crappy menu system. As for the stabilization I am looking into it and wonder how much of a difference would it make when taking pictures on a sunny day by hand. Plan to use one of those tiny tripods, hope it compensates somewhat for the lack of funds when taking pictures.

[friedemann]

Does someone know whatfor these light blue stickers or labels on some threads are?

[Medo]

la wood, looks like the sensor on your camera is messed up.

friedemann those are tags.

[la wood]

[QUOTE=Medo;22384370]la wood, looks like the sensor on your camera is messed up.

thanks a lot medo.by the way i'm leaving for florida tomorrow to attend a wedding and take some picture (not as professional photographer), if I'll get the same result then i knew where the problem is coming from.

to have it repair or get a new one? any suggestion???

[bylove]

I need to show this led finger light with a white background. But the light needs to be on and show a little color on that white background. If I just use a brush and white out some area around the light hitting the table then it does not look very good. I want to make a great looking photo to put on the front of this website. I would appreciate any help at all. There is a photo now on the front of this website www.lducompany.com of the finger light but they want me to change it to have a white back ground but show the color light. Thank you.

[ØlandDK]

I wanna by my first DSLR camera anytime soon and after I tried the Canon EOS 450D a couple of times I prettty much felt in love with it. But now I see that there'll soon come a Canon EOS 1000D which is pretty much a downgrade of the 450D and slightly cheaper (around 180€ cheaper). So I wanted to ask you guys if you think that the 450D will be worth the extra money?

EOS 1000D: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canon_1000d/

EOS 450D: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos450d/

...and I also wanted to know if the kid-lens would be good enough to begin with. I read both positive and negative reviews of it.

EF-S 18-55mm IS: http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/...p5-5p6_is_c16/

[Chicagophotoshop]

Originally Posted by dösanhoro

I am planning getting into taking photos more seriously. I have used small digital camera where the memories of the scenes were always good but the photos not. I like to take photos from harder than average places. It's of course not on top of the Mount Everest but still these cameras are too fragile for me. One big lens where the cover gets of by itself. I am not comfortable using that when there is always fear of scratches on a very expensive camera. Is there a solution to this? A camera where you can change the lens. Some kind of lens cover? This is a big mental handicap really

Used a bicycle for transport when taking photos. Problem: After a few hours my hands shake a little so taking photos gets harder. I have always the feeling the biggest shake is caused by me pressing the button. I have tried negating this by pressing the button slowly bu building up pressure but I am not satisfied. Even tried to adjust me taking photos to my heartrate and breathing. Is there a timer where pressing the button causes the thing to take photos 0.2 seconds later or gets the photo taken at the moment??? A better button perhaps? I have started put my small camera on ledges or on a tripod and using the group photo feature. But this really bothers me when taking photos by hand and makes taking photos a hand breathing coordination excercise.

I am thankful for any advice.

Originally Posted by dösanhoro

No answer to my problems. I'm not really surprised.

ya no kidding. I have no ieda what you are asking

[christos-greece]

Something like this, perhaps (??):
(The original pic is from www.iducompany.com)

[Taller, Better]

I will move this to the "I have a question about Photography" thread.

[MILIUX]

Originally Posted by ØlandDK

I wanna by my first DSLR camera anytime soon and after I tried the Canon EOS 450D a couple of times I prettty much felt in love with it. But now I see that there'll soon come a Canon EOS 1000D which is pretty much a downgrade of the 450D and slightly cheaper (around 180€ cheaper). So I wanted to ask you guys if you think that the 450D will be worth the extra money?

EOS 1000D: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canon_1000d/

EOS 450D: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos450d/

...and I also wanted to know if the kid-lens would be good enough to begin with. I read both positive and negative reviews of it.

EF-S 18-55mm IS: http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/...p5-5p6_is_c16/

In my honest opinion, i would get a 1000D and use that saving to buy a better lens. 24-70mm f/2.8 is a very nice lens and will last you for several years. There is not a big difference to 450D and 1000D except for the size. If you have a very strong grip and can live with smaller camera body, then go with 1000D.

There is no point of getting the whiz-bang camera body because it will be updated every year. Lens takes years to be fully updated and it lasts for such a long time because it is less electronic.

[friedemann]

friedemann those are tags.

Yes, ok. And what shall these tags signalize, what's their function?