Project 52 - Jan - 2019 - Tri Danimal

[Tri Danimal]

This is a place holder for my project 52. If this is not the right spot to post it, please feel free to move it. For Q1 I want to start to improve my compositions, I have a habit of not looking into my backgrounds. looking back I see I often have busy backgrounds and what not. I also have so many directions in potography I want to experiment in I dont know where to start so this should help me narrow my focus for at least 1 month at a time.

Thank you to whoever decided to step up and take me under their wing, be warned I'm going to need a lot of help.

[Rufus]

Daniel, good luck with your Project 52.

I can certainly identify with your objective. There are so many things to consider when taking a shot that the background sometimes get forgotten until the image is viewed in the computer - and then the penny drops (sorry I'm not sure what the equivalent phrase would be on your side of the pond).

One thing I often forget to do is to press the depth of field preview button, partly because it is awkward to get to.

I shall look forward to seeing what you post this year.

[Tri Danimal]

Daniel, good luck with your Project 52.


One thing I often forget to do is to press the depth of field preview button, partly because it is awkward to get to.

What is the purpose of the DoF button?

[Rufus]

What is the purpose of the DoF button?

The lens aperture is kept wide open prior to pressing the shutter in order to get as much light as possible into the image shown in the viewfinder and presumably for focussing too. When the shutter is triggered the lens is stopped down to the chosen narrower aperture which gives a greater depth of field. The preview button allows you to see the effect of the actual depth of field associated with (a) the chosen apperture and (b), if a zoom lens, the selected focal length.

A potential problem is that the preview can lead to a dark image in the viewfinder making it difficult to see the depth of field!

Live view overcomes this as the image is displayed on the LCD screen at full brightness and the image reflects the true depth of field.

Others here could provide a more technical explanation.

The above is based on my Canon 6D/2, I am not familiar with other brands.

[Tri Danimal]

thanks for that explanation it makes sense.

[Tri Danimal]

These photos were taken by me. The subjects are my wife and our good buddy out playing in the snow. I posted 3 photos but they were all taken on the the day so I thought it would be okay to share them in one post. I also have a hard time picking a single photo for these type of posts.



For this photo, I wanted to use the leading lines of the trail to have the viewer find the hikers.




For this photo, I was really in love with how the amber vegetation popped off the white snow background. It was simple and I liked it. I think the shadows are distracting, I need to think about that for the next time.




For this photo, I turned around just in time to see my buddy struggling with exhaustion and high altitude, we were hiking at about 9000ft (about 3000m) of elevation, ew live at about 300ft (100m) elevation.

[Polar01]

Daniel I can going to make a suggestion for photo 1 & 3. To my thinking the back grounds in these two shots would help with the composition simply by turning the camera on end. First image you were wanting leading lines, by turning the camera on end you would have gotten rid of a lot of useless space on the right, and made your wife more of the subject (always a good thing). For #3 by turning the camera on end you would have gotten rid of that large bright rock with is taking away from the subject.
Likely 90% of the images we see or take are landscaped ordination, why, I like to think that someone never suggested to turn the camera on end, so we never do. I always look thru the viewfinder in landscape then turn camera on end to see if there is a stronger image. I likely shoot about 30% with the camera on end.


Cheers: Allan

[Rufus]

In addition to portrait format for Week 3 Image #1, I would suggest the partial tree trunk (top left) be avoided.

[Tri Danimal]

Allan/David,

Holy crap you guys are right. I am going to try to crop these images later this evening to simulate what the portrait format would look like. I can kind of see it just looking at the photos. Those are no brainer decisions to make inthe field.

I am going to try to start to take 2 or 3 photos in portrait, I shoot in burst mode so it would literally take me 2-sec to reposition and shoot for each image.

[Geoff F]

My thoughts are along the same lines as Allan.

I don't like that bit of slanting tree in the top left corner of #1 and about a third of #3 is occupied by an out of focus rock.

However, exposure and main subject focus are good on some tricky scenes.

[Tri Danimal]

I live in southern California, which is also known as a very arid area, aka desert. We have had a freak 4-day rain storm, I walked outside on 1/15/2019 to let the dogs go potty and I noticed the water drops on our accent alights. I ran inside to get the camera and after several compositions this is the best I could come up with.

I really enjoyed the details for the water droplets on the light bulb. Please take a look and let me know what you think about the photo.

[Stagecoach]

I really enjoyed the details for the water droplets on the light bulb. Please take a look and let me know what you think about the photo.

Either your lens is soft at f/2.8 or you have missed focus, or 1/20s has caused the blur.

[Tri Danimal]

Either your lens is soft at f/2.8 or you have missed focus.

Its also very possible I uploaded the wrong photo. I captured about 10 at various angles. I'll take another look at them tonight.

[Tri Danimal]

Last night (1/20/2019) was a total lunar eclipse. I was so stoked to get out and photograph the moon after all the moon is what got me back into photography after about a 12 year break. Here is my capture of the totality event. C&C is MUCH APPRECAITED. thanks for viewing.

Images captured on Sony A7iii + mc11 + Sigma 150-600 at 600 F6.3

Process:

This is a stacked photo of 915 photos. Original capture is 2min 30sec video captured at 60fps yielding 7,500 stills. I ran the video clip through PIPP (Planetary Imaging PreProcessor) to turn the video clip into stills, as part of the PIPP process I was able to save the top 12% im the images. The top 12% was 915 images. The 915 files were loaded into DeepSkyStacker (DSS) and the best 444 images were selected to be stacked for the resulting image. For some reason DSS outputs a TIF file, I can't figure out how to load a TIF file into lightroom for further editing.

[John 2]

A lot of work but a good result. Probably the best I've seen of the phenomenon to date.

[Tri Danimal]

A lot of work but a good result. Probably the best I've seen of the phenomenon to date.

you're far too kind. most of the work was done by software where I was anxiously waiting for the results to output.

[DanK]

Quite an image!

I can't figure out how to load a TIF file into lightroom for further editing.

Same as any other kind of image. Put it into a directory that already has photos and then sync the directory from within the LR library module. Or put it in a new directory and add that. LR treats TIFFs the same as any other image type. I do this routinely after stacking in Zerene.

Speaking of stacking: I don't understand what you stacked. were you making a composite of images taken at different types, to get different parts illuminated?

I don't know what you were aiming for, but there is interesting color and detail that you could bring out by lifting the shadows.E.g., this quick, sloppy edit is just dodging with a curve limited to the botton 4th or so, with masking as extra protection for the bright areas.

[Tri Danimal]

Same as any other kind of image. Put it into a directory that already has photos and then sync the directory from within the LR library module. Or put it in a new directory and add that. LR treats TIFFs the same as any other image type. I do this routinely after stacking in Zerene.

When I import into lightroom I typically use the import module and bring in the selected folder I have sorted out previsouly.

My workflow:
take photos (captured in Raw + jpeg)
open folder in windows explorer, sort by jpeg previews
import raws of sorted photos into Lightroom
edit
export
share
drink away my shame for sharing poor quality photos, ;-)

I will have to try the refresh library technique when I get home tonight.

Speaking of stacking: I don't understand what you stacked. were you making a composite of images taken at different types, to get different parts illuminated?

No, I wasn't making a composite image for this one. I wanted to stack to get the maximum details I could get out of the photos captured. I am planning to do the same thing for 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% eclipse images I have. I am thinking I will then make a composite of the 5 images toshow the flow of the eclipse.

[DanK]

I will have to try the refresh library technique when I get home tonight.

If you are placing the TIFF into a directory already in the LR database, just right click on the folder into which you inserted the file and choose synchronize.

[rudi]

....Speaking of stacking: I don't understand what you stacked. were you making a composite of images taken at different types, to get different parts illuminated?.....

Digital noise is one off the biggest 'issues' in astrophotography. Stacking multiple exposures with the same settings is a very effectif way to reduce the noise. This can be done in Photoshop, but most likely in more specialised software like Deep Sky Stacker, AutoStackert,.....

To Daniel: Though you stacked so many images for this moon, I still find it 'noisy' and I expected to see more detail.
DSS usually does a very good job in aligning, and I have no experience with PIPP, and I guess you used a tripod, so, is it possible that your focus was not spot on ?