First time shooting RAW
lizzard_nyc
Registered Users Posts: 4,056 Major grins
and with a new lens, my Zuiko 25mm f2.8.
I had a bit of a hard time getting close, as this lens demands that I get that much closer.
Mainly I want c&c though for shooting RAW and then editing--I find that I still edit my photos to look like my old high contrast b&w, seems I'm drawn to that, but maybe it's not as harsh. You be the judge--works or doesn't work? Also do the images themselves work, editing issues aside. Thank you.
1.If I had to title this one, it would be called "Stale" looks like the spark is gone.
2.
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4.this I edited with the "high contrast b&w filter" so I didnt' shoot it with this filter on, but added during editing and tweaked it a bit.
5."Crowded"
I had a bit of a hard time getting close, as this lens demands that I get that much closer.
Mainly I want c&c though for shooting RAW and then editing--I find that I still edit my photos to look like my old high contrast b&w, seems I'm drawn to that, but maybe it's not as harsh. You be the judge--works or doesn't work? Also do the images themselves work, editing issues aside. Thank you.
1.If I had to title this one, it would be called "Stale" looks like the spark is gone.
2.
3.
4.this I edited with the "high contrast b&w filter" so I didnt' shoot it with this filter on, but added during editing and tweaked it a bit.
5."Crowded"
Liz A.
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Comments
http://nikonic1.smugmug.com/
I'm having a bit of a problem with your framing:
#1: All interest is in the rightmost 2/3 of the frame; to me, the person on the left is irrelevant (aside from audience, "…no! it's a giraffe!)
#2: All the interest is in the leftmost 2/3 of the frame…
#3: The leftmost 2/3 is really great! Fabulous study! Look at the expressions! Drop the rightmost 1/3 (crop crop crop!)
#4: Even though they are looking at each other, the other stuff is getting in the way; I see a woman on the right talking through a large rectangular charcoal filter to the man on the left, who for some reason is wearing a clock on his head… (eat your heart out Salvador Dali!
#5: I saw this one in your other thread, and tried to straighten it, but couldn't improve on it! I think the horizontal bit compensates for the converging verticals; when straightened, it loses credibility - I'll post my effort here if you wish, but I think the original is great as is.
Thanks for sharing - I think you produce some really cool stuff!
- Wil
PS: I've just noticed the sign on the wall in #1, and couldn't help thinking that if the chap eating was about to become a victim, would she know what to do…
I've seen this artwork before and I wonder now if subconsciously that's what it reminded me of.
Thanks for posting this piece to link my shot to it. Love it.
I walk by that area often and I would look at it and think to myself if I could capture what I saw--sometimes it just doesn't translate--glad it did this time.
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Thank you Richard
I will post recrops in a bit. As for the shadows--I tried to go back to my original RAW shots and now they are locked up "program unavailable" so it's something new for me this RAW format and will take me a bit to learn how to work it.
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Will,
I have recropped 1,3 and 4.
1 recropped
As for the sign --I'm not sure she'd care to give him medical assistance even if she was certified to give CPR--that's the vibe I get:D .
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4.Not sure if there is any saving this shot--shot from too low I think--plus the clock halo (Dali:) too bad the sign didn't say "eggs" on it, it would have completed the Dali look ha ha.
I can't bring myself to crop 2--I just really love it--even with the empty space--I like that their elbows converge on the lower left of the frame--I don't know--I can't tell you technically why I can't crop it, but it just feels right to me.
As for the others I think they do work nicely with the new recrops. Thanks for that Will--I did say I need to learn to crop:) Makes me wonder why I tend to instinctively shoot everything with everything of importance on one side of the frame. I notice I do it repeatedly.
As for the buildings, I'm glad they are a hit, tilt or no tilt.
Thank you for your input Will.
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Me, I'd ignore most of the cropping advice - the disconnected couple? The suggestion of a person to the left tells us that they're in their own space, in a public place with other people - an important bit of information;
The two gents on the street - I like the empty space from which they're emerging.
The two women...I wish you had moved a bit to the left, to shot part of her table, which would then balance out a part of the table the other woman is sitting at.
As to the buildings....They're wonderful as a study of lines, geometry, etc. But what's really compelling about this shot are the signs on the fence, which suggest to me that the neighborhood is changing radically, and those tenements - and the old neighborhood - aren't long for this world. It's juxtaposition - and it's a key ingredient of good street photography....
"He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan
"The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
Thanks B.D.--:D
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Wil,
I should have titled this one "Choking Victim---She wishes"
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- Wil
Liz,
Great shots, but I don't think I'm seeing the original crops in the post. Thankfully, the uncropped version are in your gallery. I prefer your original compositions.
Also, now that you have some editing software and are shooting in RAW, you need to think about a workflow for your images. Most importantly, to retain the capture in it's original form and format independent of any edits. It would be a real shame to lose them.
Thank you:)
You are right, I am all over the place now with my RAW files and have absolutely no workflow---I tackle my shots in a haphazard way and somehow wind up with a result I like, but I couldn't really tell you what steps I took to get there. So establishing a workflow is key.
I am keeping all my original RAW files on my desktop--an external hardrive is my next purchase, I lost all my original photos when my old laptop crashed a couple of months ago, so lesson learned.
The original (non-cropped) versions of my shots are in this post--they are in the very first post---The other set of images are all the cropped ones. Hope that helps. If you still can't see them, they are in my gallery, titled "street or PJ 2010).
Also I decided for now to enter the "buildings" shot in the latest challenge and titled it "gentrification"--unless I get something better, that's the one I"m going with.
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Ok I had gotten a version of paintshop--but my 64 bit computer is not compatible, just fyi. I'm in the process of obtaining LR.
In the meantime, since I"m shooting RAW, my Olympus software comes with some editing tools specific for RAW (I was unable to use this feature before because my laptop ancient as it was would not support RAW photos)--after I do what I want with it on that software--such as WB adjustments, exposure adjustments making it black and white (monochrome they call it) maybe another step or two I can't recall, then I go to smugmug and use Picnik and I play there, (up to this point the photos are still too muddy and grey and picnik helps with that) but don't have any steps to follow because I use different steps in non sequential order.
BUT I will have LR shortly.
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B.D.'s advice is just about the same as mine would be as far as critique. You've got real talent and your shots are going to improve dramatically once you get a post workflow nailed down.
Look, take this advice for what it's worth. Here is an abstract outline of what you are trying to accomplish in B&W post.
- Adjust exposure so that no significant element of your image is either in a plugged shadow or in a blown highlight. When you get LR, you can turn on warnings to show you the blown and plugged areas.
- Decide on a channel blending strategy to give you the contrast you want. This is also where your image will end up in B&W. B.D. has a LR action that will do this in some approximation of TriX film. I don't know enough about LightRoom to capture my ideas, but B.D.'s action will be fine for a long time to come. See this tutorial for a high level view of what's going on here.
- Fine tune exposure with a curve of some kind to increase contrast in the most important parts of the image. I wish there were a good tutorial on this I could point you to, but there just isn't one for B&W. Maybe I'll write one.
- Maybe apply some sharpening. I think LR is limited in what it can do here.
How exactly you accomplish these things might be very individual, but you will get more reproducible consistent results in far less time if you think in discrete steps with definite goals roughly in this order. You can see my own workflow demonstrated here.Thank you Rutt,
Just from your reply here I realize I don't know anything about editing.
That warning tool sounds like a dream come true. Also I did not realize you could add contrast to a specific part of your image and not the entire thing.
I will likely live on podcasts for a bit to learn LR, and then like you and Jennifer said, I will have to develop a consistent workflow.
I will look into B.D.'s link as well as yours--I know already that the tech talk will make my head spin, but little by little it will sink in.
Thanks again.
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Hello Art,
I seem to like the dead space, it's present in most of my shots, either in front or back. I think like you said the dead space is the back gets some getting used to and there is some back and forth about it being appropriate or not. I just like the look of it, it feels right to me--but I don't know if it follows the rules or not
Thanks for looking and commenting.
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I try to buy software as a download and then burn my own copies....at least 2 if not 3 copies......then you don't have to wait for more than a few minutes for download key and then your ready to use the software.......
You need to get Scott Kelby's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 for Digital Photogs and follow his workflow, the book retails for 44.99 but at the link on amazon several used books and lower rpiced new ones also.........you will also need at least 2 external harddrives to use for archiving and working on the images....the nice thing about LR is that it is non destructive as you process the images.....then when you export as a tif or jpg that raw file remains unscathed but LR does remember what you did to it an the next time you access it.... LR will bring it up as the last process image but you can undo or go back or what ever to the totally original raw also to start over.....
Of course you can do anything in PS, but I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. Curves allocate contrast. So the classic trick is to steal contrast from less significant image elements and reallocate it to the parts you care more about. For example, a sky with no detail might be made true white and a dark area without detail you care about can be made true black. Just doing that will expand contrast throughout the remaining image elements.
Art is right about getting a good book or at least a web page or so to provide some structure to learning these things. I think there are some LR videos that might be a good starting point.