I took these in San Antonio this afternoon with my 5 year old Kodak PnS:

In Padova Italy


Offshore in the Adriatic Sea, you know the perfect line of clouds you see when a cold front rolls in...this is the same thing in water.


Offshore Adriatic again


Bar connected to Laven, Aker Brygge, Oslo Norway, playing with exposure time.


Totally improve shot in the Nationaltheateret station Oslo Norway.


From my 6th story balcony Huitfeldts Gate Oslo Norway


Lucchese on my balcony in Oslo


Anchor handler in the Bay of Algeciras


The Rock of Gibraltar


Adriatic Liquid Natural Gas (ALNG) regasification terminal in tow, route from the Bay of Algeciras to North Adriatic Sea, Morocco in the distance, taken from the Rock of Gibraltar.


Gibraltar overlooking the Mediterranean Sea


A bridge somewhere between Houston and Morgan City, LA...probably not a great idea to stop on a bridge at night for a photo opp?


New Years 2010!


Galveston Bay from my fat white lady


Lizard at my apartment.


All taken with an Olympus Stylus 850 SW and touched with iPhoto.

Super, the bluebonnets and windmill are nice shots!
Bootstrap, great pics - my favorites are the accordion man and Gibraltar.


Nothing artsy, but here are a few from when I was playing around with long exposures-

bq06, those are cool. What camera do you have?

I finally got some decent bald eagle photos yesterday.

From Below



Soaring



The Happy Couple

I have a Canon 20D. Per GS's advice for a dSLR beginner, I picked it up used from KEH.com last fall and a new Canon 50mm 1.8.

What do you all think? Here's a few of mine from a couple weeks ago.

Gig Em: Love that 1st B&W shot of the city. Just a classic shot that is timeless.

My computer cannot chew through all 67 full res photos at one time, so this pano was created from much smaller and lower quality jpegs. I really want to figure out how to make my computer and PS more stable so I can create the native resolution file which would exceed 230 megapixels when stitched (25,000px x 9,500px).

View of Hwy 118 from Davis Mountain State Park

I've driven that highway more times than I can count. Love that country out there.

Cool panoramic! Can anyone point me in the direction of a good tutorial for panoramics - both the photographing and processing aspects?
I read some a couple weeks ago about photographing them and it sounded like I needed a special tripod attachment so the lens is perfectly in line with the point of rotation. Is that what ya'll do?

Mine was handheld because I broke my tripod on my trip to Laredo last week. A lot of it has to do with the scene. If you have a bunch of overlapping elements (foreground/background), alignment can get to be a huge issue in Photoshop. Aligning the axis to the sensor plane is only crucial for intense foreground elements, but even that can be overcome. It really comes down to "how much time do you want to spend retouching?"

The best advice I got was from GuitarSoup (IIRC) which was to shoot vertically. From there, I determine how many horizontal strips (passes) I will make (usually one, but in the photo above four). Then I use my AF dots as reference points. I use an XTi, so I only have 9, but referencing my crude diagram below, I align the horizon or other reference point to a row of dots, usually 4_5_6 but sometimes 2_3 or 7_8 for composition reasons. At this point I have already determined the left- and right-most extents of my composition, going well beyond what I want to capture so I can crop in post.

I shoot, then before shifting the scene, see what is close to the _6 and pan 4_ to that same spot, repeating until I reach the other edge. If I am doing multiple strips, I will see what is at 2_3 then pan up until 7_8 matches.
______
|__1__|
|_2_3_|
|4_5_6|
|_7_8_|
|__9__|

I lean back, trying to keep the camera at my pivot point, but this is probably more mental than anything.

You don't have to overlap as much as I do, but I have large storage drives and 8gb of RAM specifically so I don't have to retouch as much (I keep hoping PS will let me address more than 3.25, but meanwhile, I can surf while it is processing).

The other thing that will affect your final image is the focal length. Wider shots will produce greater distortion at the edges. These are the elements that will not line up well automatically and will require you to edit the mask in the Photoshop photomerge. On the photo above, I zoomed in to 50mm instead of out to 24mm. That required A LOT more pictures, but each one is stunning in its detail and if I can process the way I want, it will print 100"x40".

Lastly, I have had a gripe with CS3 using the auto-blend feature. It works great, but if you edit the layer masks, the colors are shifted at the original mask boundary and require even more retouching. I held out on CS4, but seeing smart delete/fill, I may be upgrading to CS5 sooner than I thought.

EDIT: a little formatting here and there.

[This message has been edited by B2Ag05 (edited 4/5/2010 2:54p).]

Clyde the Dog at Orange Beach, Alabama. Not awesome photos but an awesome dog!

Jethro95, where did you find the eagles?

Their nest is on private property in a tree in the middle of a hay pasture near Marquez, TX. This was my second visit. The nest is gigantic.





[This message has been edited by Jethro95 (edited 4/5/2010 9:47p).]

Deep East Texas has springtime lawn care figured out.







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A couple of others from the same weekend


Fajitas on the grill


Jam and jell on the shelf


Kiwanis club badges on the wall


Fortune telling, East Texas style

Oh my goodness, those bluebonnets with the porch in the background would be just awesome for portraits! Beautiful!

Was just having a little fun with my sister's camera when I took this picture. I mainly like it because I was lucky enough to get the ball in the frame.



[This message has been edited by khkman22 (edited 4/5/2010 11:43p).]

Sims, did you have to photoshop the snow pic to get the sky so blue?

Yep, saturation & contrast are turned up. I wanted to see the powder behind the boarder a little more clearly

Here's one that I've been playing around with trying to go for a more artsy feel...



[This message has been edited by aero96 (edited 4/7/2010 3:59a).]

A few more from my road trip last weekend

Texas State Highway 118




Davis Mountain State Park Panorama




Davis Mountain State Park Sunset HDR




Dusk in the Davis Mountain Range Panorama




Cedar Macro HDR: I have done some macro and a lot of HDR, but while waiting for the sun to set, I had the crazy idea of doing an HDR macro




My bird ID skills are really bad. It's part of the reason I have picked up birding.




Same issue.




Sunset Panorama from the Congress Avenue Bridge - Deep in enemy territory




Congress Ave. Bridge Bats in Austin, TX - Between the bats and Home Slice Pizza, it was a well spent 2.5 hours on Congress.



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Flickr

Jethro:
Love the "soaring" picture. Very crisp and the open beak is a nice touch.

Gig em G:
Your black and whites are solid.

Your color one in the middle has great tone, and at first I thought too much saturation, but after looking at it a while, I like the intensity and boldness.

The only thing I would do differently is adjust the white balance on the first and last pictures. They feel a little cool and the sky looks a little aquamarine. If that's what you intended, or if my monitor is reading it a little wrong, then never mind. Unless you calibrate your monitor (and I have yet to do so myself) you often won't know until you print.

MW03:
I love the macro and great use of DOF. There is a consistent "mood" for your entire set. I love pictures that are part of the story, not just good pictures for the sake of good pictures.

The first two are great takes on the bluebonnet theme. Way more environment than most people think to show.


Sims:
I like your Golden Gate Bridge picture. Nice lighting and use of foreground. The clear foreground helps illustrate the haze as the bridge recedes.

aero96:
I first saw your picture on the phone this morning and I wasn't a fan, but seeing it on the computer screen helps me see what you meant by artsy. It feels very gritty and raw, but I feel as though it is between a high-ISO picture and a painting. More one way or the other would be great in my opinion, but for now I feel like it hasn't made up it's mind.



Can I just say I love this thread!

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Flickr

Great profile in your last picture. Very dramatic.

Where did you shoot these?

B2, what lens were you using on your bird shots? Were you at 300mm?

Orth, I like the ape shots as well. Same question I had for B2 - what lens? I'm trying to get an idea of exactly how much zoom you need for tight shots like those.

I used a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L with a ten year old Quantarray 2x tele-conv. I thought was going to buy a new lens soon, but the Canon 2x is about $300, so that is probably more likely.

holy smokes. that last picture of the gorilla is astounding.

Thanks. Canon 135L for all 3 of those. The last picture was at about a 4-5 foot range.

B2, these were at the Dallas Zoo.

quote:

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aero96:
I first saw your picture on the phone this morning and I wasn't a fan, but seeing it on the computer screen helps me see what you meant by artsy. It feels very gritty and raw, but I feel as though it is between a high-ISO picture and a painting. More one way or the other would be great in my opinion, but for now I feel like it hasn't made up it's mind.

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Yeah I feel it still needs some work too. I think the sky in the middle of the photo is the culprit and I'm going to redo the processing but try and split up the photo into sections to better capture what I'm going for...

quote:

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I used a Canon 70-200 f/2.8L with a ten year old Quantarray 2x tele-conv. I thought was going to buy a new lens soon, but the Canon 2x is about $300, so that is probably more likely.

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Are you saying you're replacing the Quantarray? Is the IQ not up to snuff being so old?

The age isn't that important, but the "Quantaray" part is, to me anyway. I got it at Ritz when I was in high school to boost my 70-300 f/4.0-5.6 Quantaray lens when I was shooting a Rebel G (film). The 2 stop light reduction really hurt me at 300mm because I was effectively shooting f/11. Even at noon on a cloudless day I would have to shoot ISO400 film to ensure crisp pictures, since there was no image stabilization either.

IQ is a huge deal for me, so I would like to test the Quantaray and the Canon side by side to see if it is worth it. Currently I see a lack of contrast and increased softness in my raw files. That, and I can spend $300, I don't know about $6,140 for the 500mm.

For now, there is no rush, the Quantary is perfectly acceptable. The geek in me argues every time I drag it out though.

EDIT: Quantaray with one, not two r's

[This message has been edited by B2Ag05 (edited 4/7/2010 1:26p).]

Thanks for the info on the panoramas and the diagram. I get what you're saying about lining up the focal points with the overlap and all but am still curious about the camera positioning. If I use a tripod with a regular attachment, even if I shoot vertically, will it not come out right? Do I need the special attachment?

I was also impressed that it's possible to do hand-held. It seems I wouldn't be very precise in slowing rotating the camera for a series of pictures. With a large overlap it increases the margin of error, I assume, but still. I'll have to try it out.

Finally, I have CS2 but am a total noob with it. I've never merged, blended etc so I guess that's the most intimidating thing that's held me back from attempting one to this point. I'll check out YouTube and see what I can find in the way of tutorials for the process. By the way, do you recommend 50mm as a good standard? With panoramics being landscapes usually, I guess the aperture needs to be pretty narrow? What did/do you use?


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As far as the teleconvertors, were you shooting the birds at essentially 400mm?

bq - I wrote up a bit on panoramas in the FAQ thread. Most of those questions are answered.

Now I gotta go shoot the Rockets.

Ciao!