A Picture I Took 2015

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Family accident. Let's leave it at that. ;)

Not insured, I've lost coverage after the last accident (still came out ahead). The lens next to it, is my old lens, with new parts. Glass elements (all but one, which is a part of a barrel) are all good, AF motor was good, casing was good. That being said... it's pretty much a new lens, got a new serial number too. APS did a really good job fixing it. It's a good thing they are only 15 minutes away.

No clue on your Macro lens choices. Though, like you... I would also like to have the Nikkor 200mm... but it's $5k. It can wait :D
 
I meant the f/4 macro one, a mere $1.7k. Still not going to happen here any time soon.

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....

It's looking like the next glass I pick up will be a Tamron 180mm Macro. I really want something to get a better working distance for bug macros. Really want the Nikon 200mm, but for ~1/3 the price, I'm thinking the Tamron is going to be just fine (the great IQ of the 90mm has turned me into a bit of a Tamron fanboy in case you haven't noticed yet). Nikon 200mm currently going for $1750, or the Tamron 180mm for $750 (or buy used to save a couple hundred); but is the image quality of the Nikon really worth that much more?? I'm not convinced yet.

Any other recommendations for Macro lenses in the 200mm range? I've been looking and haven't seen any comparable offerings from Sigma or other 3rd party manufacturers.

Also, does anyone know of any stock macro lenses that offer greater than 1:1 magnification? I've been trying to shoot some with my reversed 20mm, and I don't think I have the skill or patience to get any decent shots with that setup. The max (not min, max) focusing distance is like 1.5" from the front of the lens, and the DOF is paper-thin. Even with a tripod I can't see how people get in-focus shots with a setup like this, especially with live subjects like bugs. Focus-stacking would be an absolute must, but finding a living subject that would sit still that long must be nearly impossible…

Just make sure the macro is sharp enough for all the new highres 24mp+ sensors. I know when the D800 first came out there was discussions about how the old macros weren't sharp enough.

Canon has a 5x lens Canon MP-E 65mm. Otherwise you are left with either 2x teleconverter to keep your working distance, or use a bellows and or extension tubes but your working distance will get closer and closer. Of course you'll need a sharp lens for both options.

You might like this site . Compares a bunch of lenses for their macro capabilities. Site focuses on coin photography.

I finally got around to developing my BW film from early April. Looking at the images I need to use my yellow filter all the time when outside. Those pictures have the best contrast and a sky that isn't blown out. Won't be taking any BW for a bit because I have some infrared color film that I'm going to use next. Hopefully the images will turn out because each frame is kind of going to cost me $1.75. Rich for my blood, but I got the film given to me for Christmas, so I only need to pay for development.

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^^ Nice DC shots! I got to visit there last year, but it was late summer and nowhere near as cool looking outside.

This past weekend I got to shoot some more macro and some infra-red. Should be posting some of those soon once I get them processed.
 
I had a blast yesterday taking the tammy 150-600 on safari! Still going through the pics, but I really like this one because it has the best sharpness I've seen in the set so far. Lots more safari pics incoming later. :D



And I have to show off a 1:1 crop while I'm at it. The low-res doesn't do this one justice. This would be a good one to print, except I don't really want a giant picture of a peacock hanging on my wall. :p


Beautiful picture. My mom loves peacocks and would put something like this in her house, lol.
 
Beautiful picture. My mom loves peacocks and would put something like this in her house, lol.

Thanks! I thought there was a way to buy prints here, btw. ;) But now that I'm looking I can't figure out how to do that. Anyone know how to get prints from 500px?
Edit - yeah, pretty sure the 500px art print store is a myth. Here's a page explaining how it works, but I can't for the life of me actually get to 500pxart.com or whatever the current equivilant is. 500prime seems to be only for licencing stock photos, no prints.

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Thanks! I thought there was a way to buy prints here, btw. ;) But now that I'm looking I can't figure out how to do that. Anyone know how to get prints from 500px?
Edit - yeah, pretty sure the 500px art print store is a myth. Here's a page explaining how it works, but I can't for the life of me actually get to 500pxart.com or whatever the current equivilant is. 500prime seems to be only for licencing stock photos, no prints.

That lizard picture is an incredible macro shot!
 
^^Still a good shot. This reminds me, I want to learn all the secrets on when to show up to get the best landscape shots. I should probably go start another thread for that...
 
You guys, I'm dying a little bit right now. I went to a job site for work today and it had the nicest mechanical rooms I've ever seen short of a brand new construction or the googleplex. I so wished I had my good camera with me, and a little extra time to take some cool shots here. So much photo potential! Old mixed with new, clean mixed with grit, colors and lines for days...

This is just a potato photo I got with my crappy Lumia 635 cam as we were walking by some of the stuff, but I really wanted to linger and take some better ones. I will be back to this site though, so maybe I can talk them into letting me take some better pics, or at least I'll have a better p&s with me to snap a few better ones on the next walkthrough.

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^^Still a good shot. This reminds me, I want to learn all the secrets on when to show up to get the best landscape shots. I should probably go start another thread for that...

It depends on what you want, really. In general, the best light IMO is going to be at the most inconvenient possible time...the early morning. And I always love to shoot at blue hour (right before the sun comes up, and right after the sun goes down) for my cityscapes. But again, it just depends on what you want. Maybe a harsh, sunny day could give you good high contrast B&W images during mid-day, for example.


Bridge over Murky Water
by David Gevert, on Flickr
 
You guys, I'm dying a little bit right now. I went to a job site for work today and it had the nicest mechanical rooms I've ever seen short of a brand new construction or the googleplex. I so wished I had my good camera with me, and a little extra time to take some cool shots here. So much photo potential! Old mixed with new, clean mixed with grit, colors and lines for days...

Oh yeah! All kinds of fun compositional stuff going on there – lots of abstract potential. It’d definitely be a waste to let all those freshly-painted lines go un-photographed. Hurry up and get more pics!

And I know exactly what you mean; when I find myself somewhere photogenic without my camera, there is a feeling of sorrow that’s hard to convey. I was out of town visiting family last weekend; we went together to run some errands in town, and half-way there the sun was setting and we passed this amazing looking farm area with haystacks and a barn on the hill. I was like – GO BACK! I need my camera for this! They were not sympathetic. :p

It depends on what you want, really. In general, the best light IMO is going to be at the most inconvenient possible time...the early morning. And I always love to shoot at blue hour (right before the sun comes up, and right after the sun goes down) for my cityscapes. But again, it just depends on what you want. Maybe a harsh, sunny day could give you good high contrast B&W images during mid-day, for example.

Good info, thanks! Yeah, I'm slowly getting better at showing up at the right times for landscapes, but the whole sunrise thing is still quite a difficulty for me. I'm trying to find some good locations around here to scout out and plan when/where/how to get the shots.

Anyways - I had some fun with IR couple weeks ago - here's some from that set. Oh, and I'm planning to head to Zoo Atlanta this Friday, so hopefully I’ll have plenty more animal shots incoming soon.

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Thanks! Tried my hand at some star photos recently too. Still haven't found anywhere around here dark enough to do this right, but the city lights of Atlanta 50 miles east made for an interesting sunset effect at least.

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Care to share how you did that? Ive been wanting to try some starry night pics too. Tried a few long exposures without reading up on it and, well they were less than stellar.
 
Well, my results aren't anywhere close to acceptable to me yet, but that was the first time I've really tried to do star photos, so it was fun at least.

I just used a tripod, tried exposures from 20-30 seconds, lens almost wide open at f/2, and set the ISO low to avoid noise. I used a flashlight to paint in the trees, and had a happy accident in that shot 'cause someone turned on their car headlights which put those light-beams across the water.

Then I just took it into lightoom and over-processed the living crap out of it. :p Cranked the clarity, brightened the colors, did several brush adjustments on different areas etc. It's on the verge of completely falling apart, but it almost works. I really hate all the blue aberrations around the stars. I could take it into photoshop and spend another couple hours to fix all of those, but I don't think I'm going to bother with that on this image.

I have a long way to go to get my star-photo process worked out, trying all the variables of aperture/time/ISO etc, but I really need to start with finding a location where the city lights aren't interfering so much. In this shot I was about 50 miles west of Atlanta, about 2 hours after sunset, and the sky looked almost pitch black when I took this shot. Then cranking everything in lightroom, that's how much light pollution I was still getting. Decided to just crank the colors and make it look like a sunset, but in truth I was facing east.

Anyhow - I should keep improving as I experiment. I'd be up for any more tips other star-photographers can share.

Edit - here's the before/after on that one for reference - cranked pretty much every single slider to an unsafe level, and added another half-dozen brush/radial adjustments on top of that. Hopefully in the future I can get them looking a hell of a lot better straight out of the camera so that won't be necessary.
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Oh, and while we're at it, here's my first ever attempt at star trails from that same night. Used the "--" shutter options and just left it open pointed straight up in the air for about an hour and a half until it turned itself off for some unknown reason. I went and took a nap, and when I came back the image I got was very disappointing, just a pinkish grey area with a few streaks across it. Luckily lightoom came to the rescue on this one too. At least with some better colors it looks kindof interesting.

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^ very cool

My next step was to try stacking with registax. I learned this program when working in the observatory in college. It works well to eliminate noise on deep space pics, not sure how it would turn out with other lighting.

I'd like to do some wide angle stuff, but with my lens I'd be at f/5 or so which is less than ideal. So, I'm stuck cranking the ISO and stacking is really my only option.
 
I find it interesting and somewhat perplexing that this HDR seems to be preferred by far over any of the other pics from that evening by those on my Facebook feed.


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Color balanced to the warmer orange side. Could do it to the previous photo also. Sometimes I intentionally warm the shadows in lightroom (like the hdr shadows in your picture).

madFive, with your evening photos you'll basically have to define what your reality looks like. The night skies are dull looking. For example, in pure darkness the milky way is bright, but our eyes can't see the color of the stars like the DSLRs can. The processing of the stars come down to a taste preference. The only thing I don't like about your processing on that photo is the blue halos around some of the stars.

Everyone, really nice photos posted recently!
 
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a few from the weekend
humming bird by J Horton, on Flickr

Moon by J Horton, on Flickr

Wow, I really like these two shots! The humming bird one probably had you sweating it out with how fast they move, just hoping you can get one to be still enough to nail the focus. I'm curious if you attempting any handheld shots with that lens or if it proved to be too difficult. (Obviously not of the hummingbird :p)


The moon one has quite a bit of detail, and yet even with almost 1800mm of reach it still doesn't completely fill the frame!
 
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