It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
I've just made some photos for a friend - I wanted to spend more time making photos so I took a camera, a couple of lenses and a flash.
That last one was shot with the 18-70mm Nikkor. Such a cheap lens (£50 for a mint one), slow (3.5-4.5) and yet when I do bring myself to use it it's more than capable - I think this is my favourite shot of the lot, wide open at 70mm in fairly not-great light (backlit but late evening). The flash was a hard light but I turned it down and gelled it to help it sit more naturally - I don't think it's too obvious a flash was used, but it did help the edit.
They're not earth shattering images, but I am quite pleased with them - I'm happy to be taking photos again for sure.
@thePrettyDamned That last shot is great, pin sharp!
Would you say a 50mm prime lens is the right choice for street photography or would a telephoto (75-300) be better for getting close ups without being too intrusive?
Instead of asking for settings, it is actually more useful to learn about a photo asking the story behind it. What were you doing there, were you waiting for that shot, things like that.
and don't get a telephoto for candids, my observation is a lot of beginners seems to fall into this trap, their first lens is a kit lens (18-55), then 2nd lens is a 50/1.8 for bokeh then they think to "complete" their set up they need a 70-300. They all do it and you end up taking photos from far away, i mean it's great you get something in focus from far away, and at first it seems amazing thinking your phone can't do that but overtime you will realise (but the truth is most of them don't and as such, they wonder why they are not getting better and ultimately give up) is that candids taken from a telephoto lacks context, it is clear the photographer was not in amongst the action, without context you lose the story and the photo will lack soul.
A photo of a smiling child whilst might be nice to look at, but a photo of why the child is smiling is the story, capture the story.
This is is something I love and have tried but never get it right. Any tips?
When walking past this scene, I may have seen the three gentlemen to the right having a chat inside a Pret (I'm not sure if gentleman on the left was inside or out). On the upper part of the frame you see the buildings to my back, reflected on the window solely due to bright light shining on them and a deep void of darker area inside the restaurant behind the glass. This is important for two reasons.
Firstly, that's really the only way reflections like this can happen, when there is a disparity of light between what's behind the glass and what is being reflected, effectively creating a mirror and when there is a consonance in intensity of light between the reflected subject (building) and the non reflected subject (gentlemen). From a light standpoint, they both have about the same amount of light hitting them.
Secondly, because the whole thing is effectively two scenes at different focal distances. This means that the depth of field should be able to (roughly) encompass all of it.
At close distances our vision has very shallow depth of field, so when looking at this scene in real life, your eyes may focus on the gentleman or, if you look up and re-focus your eyes, you will see the buildings. Because of the camera's ability to get a lot of depth of field at once, you end up 'seeing' both scenes at an acceptable sharpness. You're in effect flattening everything.
Reflections like this happen accidentally enough that I don't actively go out looking for them, but I keep an open mind. They happen, and when they do I'm looking for the same conditions as above, dark void (which can be increased by moving the camera downwards, for example, and getting more of the ceiling as is the case for the example photograph) and bright oposing light.
The following photo, by Alex Webb, was shown to me about 5 years ago and prompted me to study a lot of work by Webb, Stephen Shore, Meyerowitz, Winogrand etc. There is a nice book by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris-Webb on photography, with a lot of useful insights - they speak very articulately about scenery, composition and feel. Just Plain Love, featuring Henri Cartier-Bresson is another worthwhile watch.
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/alex-webb-rendering-a-complex-world-in-color-and-black-and-white/
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/06/capturing-complexity-and-color-in-mexico/
The only reason I ask for settings is to learn about the structure of an image not to try and emulate it. Just knowing what aperture an image was shot at helps me to understand about DOF at differing focal lengths, I'm just trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible to help me in my photography journey. Practice is of course the only way I'll truly learn but it seems since purchasing my equipment I just don't have the time to get out, it seems like all my spare time has been eaten up!
https://flic.kr/p/MQsU1S
https://flic.kr/p/N2DwyL