Great Photos

[Pope]

Just like to say there are some great togs on here, some of the pics of peoples z's are amazing.

I started to get into photography about 7 months ago, and would like to start taking some good shots of my Z.

I have a nikon d5000, however i expect a lot of the pics on here are photoshopped?

if not would be keen to find out what cameras people have and what settings they are using etc.

 

[inkey$]

A lot are Pope. It would seem that's often the way these days, however worth noting is the lens choice of some here. I'm started using a D90 with 10-22mm wide angle lens for those close up distortion shots which many others also use. There's some HDR experimentation going on too by the looks of things, plus good old fashioned Photoshop desaturation, curve manipulation and level adjustment.

Horses for course really. It's all about making great looking images and you could do worse that use some of the more experienced image makers here as reference for your own experimentation I reckon

 

[petach]

Hi. I use a Canon EOS50d with 10-22mm wide angle lens. I now also have a Panasonic GF2 4/3rds with 14mm pancake lens (28mm equivalent for full size DSLR). I also got a Canon FD 50mm f1.4 to fit on the Panasonic with an adapter. At its widest aperture It gives a fantastic small slash of depth of field with everything else blurred.

Wide angle is nice to get in really tight to the car and get a lot of it in the picture.

Yeah, I use PS quite a lot just to see what it can do. But most of my archive stuff is untouched (save for unsharp mask or boost colour/contrast)

 

[inkey$]

you could do worse that use some of the more experienced image makers here as reference for your own experimentation I reckon

Petach being a classic case in point, Pope

 

[Pope]

I really need some photoshop lessons as im crap with it, and not the most creative person either!

 

[inkey$]

Best advice. Experiment with the tools and see what they do. Sounds obvious but it works. Just open a photo and play. Also check out YouTube as there are loads of how-to's on there - many photo manipulation related. And its free

 

[Pope]

yeah i learnt how to change the colour of my z last night, but it didnt look to great if im honest.

 

[lacroupade]

Just like to say there are some great togs on here, some of the pics of peoples z's are amazing.

I started to get into photography about 7 months ago, and would like to start taking some good shots of my Z.

I have a nikon d5000, however i expect a lot of the pics on here are photoshopped?

if not would be keen to find out what cameras people have and what settings they are using etc.

I would do three things:

1. Buy yourself a polarising filter. Not only does it help remove some of the annoying reflection (although thats often useful) but it will help immensely with improving blue skies and greenery if you do any general landscape photography - and on holiday in foreign sunny climes it makes your skies/clouds look fantastic. A decent budget one (Hoya?) is about £35.

2. Download Picasa 3 - free from Google and has some quite useful tools for general maniplualtion and image improvement (warmify etc..) that work well at default settings.

3. Another useful cheap piece of software for general image improvement with no hassle is Ashampoo Photo Optimizer.

Lastly, you might have had a copy with your Nikon, but Camera Control Pro is a really good tool that lets you link your camera to your laptop and manage a whole range of functions and interval photography. Oh and a decent tripod will NEVER go amiss - no need to go mad but don't scrimp, make sure its fairly solid when fully extended before you buy.

 

[Pope]

Just like to say there are some great togs on here, some of the pics of peoples z's are amazing.

I started to get into photography about 7 months ago, and would like to start taking some good shots of my Z.

I have a nikon d5000, however i expect a lot of the pics on here are photoshopped?

if not would be keen to find out what cameras people have and what settings they are using etc.

I would do three things:

1. Buy yourself a polarising filter. Not only does it help remove some of the annoying reflection (although thats often useful) but it will help immensely with improving blue skies and greenery if you do any general landscape photography - and on holiday in foreign sunny climes it makes your skies/clouds look fantastic. A decent budget one (Hoya?) is about £35.

2. Download Picasa 3 - free from Google and has some quite useful tools for general maniplualtion and image improvement (warmify etc..) that work well at default settings.

3. Another useful cheap piece of software for general image improvement with no hassle is Ashampoo Photo Optimizer.

Lastly, you might have had a copy with your Nikon, but Camera Control Pro is a really good tool that lets you link your camera to your laptop and manage a whole range of functions and interval photography. Oh and a decent tripod will NEVER go amiss - no need to go mad but don't scrimp, make sure its fairly solid when fully extended before you buy.

Thansk mate I will look into this, I have a copy of Photoshop - CS5 so need to learn this, but the Picasa maybe a starting point.

Someone also mentioned to me before about the filter.

Im not sure what I got but I did buy a filter for each lense when i bought the camera, just not sure if they were polarised.

 

[shabba]

Don''t get hung up on kit, its more about knowing what to do with it than having the best camera. There is a very good car photographer from America and he uses just a Canon 20D (pretty old now) and his lenses are not expensve at all.

Best advice is play around but also read up on ISO, apature, shutter speed and such. Once you know how the camera and settings work then you have more power over your shots.