Official BeyondUnreal Photography Thread

[Rambowjo]

I went to take some pictures today, but upon arrival, I discovered that my camera had no battery charge. Ended up taking pictures with my phone instead, which turned out a lot better than I expected. I can see the appeal of having a phone with a good camera.



In the pictures I had planned I wanted to go a lot closer, and do some photos with funny perspectives, light and shadows, but it's kind of hard to work with a phone

[Angel_Mapper]

I was in D.C. for work this past week, and went sightseeing yesterday. It completely slipped my mind that it was Memorial Day weekend until I got to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier just in time for a wreath laying ceremony. It was a very humbling experience.






Also stopped by the White House. It's much smaller than I imagined it was.




Library of Congress:




Capitol building:




And the main thing I wanted to see while I was there, the Supreme Court:

[El JuaKo]

Adopted this girl about two days ago.



She was pretty scared but now she just chases people around and cries if she is left alone for a minute.





now when she is not busy trying to painfully climb on someone she is busy attacking every single object in sight





got her a cat toy but she prefers to play with that orange dart and old concert wristbands.





she is also moody if she doesn't sleep properly

[dotnetbeast]

Originally Posted by Angel_Mapper

I was in D.C. for work this past week, and went sightseeing yesterday. It completely slipped my mind that it was Memorial Day weekend until I got to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier just in time for a wreath laying ceremony. It was a very humbling experience.

Couldn't let a brotha know u was in dc?

[IronMonkey]

Originally Posted by El JuaKo

Adopted this girl about two days ago.

My daughter approves!

[IronMonkey]

More weeds:

[Angel_Mapper]

Originally Posted by dotnetbeast

Couldn't let a brotha know u was in dc?

D'oh! Well that pretty much guarantees I won't forget next time!

[Bi()ha2arD]

Looks like my old zoom lens is failing. When it is not either fully zoomed out or fully zoomed in the aperture blades make a terrifying sound when closing and the body shuts off with a "connection to lens lost, clean contacts" error. Oh well, more reason to upgrade...

[OO7MIKE]

Originally Posted by Bi()ha2arD

Looks like my old zoom lens is failing. When it is not either fully zoomed out or fully zoomed in the aperture blades make a terrifying sound when closing and the body shuts off with a "connection to lens lost, clean contacts" error. Oh well, more reason to upgrade...

Check to see if its still under warranty. Otherwise I recommend calling KEH for a quick repair estimate. If you paid more than $300 for a lens its completely worth it to get it repaired. If not, the used market is your next step. I have seen many folks out there who buy up broken camera's and lenses. They basically repair them and resell them for a profit. Meanwhile it gives you some extra $$ to fund your next purchase.

[Bi()ha2arD]

I got it for free and it's rather old. It's also not made for DSLRs and the images are not that sharp. Also has a ton of chromatic aberation. So I'm not too sad it died. Wanted to replace it anyways.

[Selerox]

Just got a shiny shiny G12

A shiny shiny G12 that would have been used over the weekend, had it not been crapping it down with rain

[BillyBadAss]

Originally Posted by Selerox

Just got a shiny shiny G12

A shiny shiny G12 that would have been used over the weekend, had it not been crapping it down with rain

Nice! It wit it in RAW mode. The results will be night and day better.

[Rambowjo]

Been looking into getting a flash and some remote triggers. Found what looked like a decent purchase at about £90. It's manual only, which might be a problem. I'm not sure I understand how much of a problem that is and what kind of limits it presents.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universal-YN...9332296&sr=8-1

And the triggers.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-RF-60...9332313&sr=1-1

From what I can read, it seems like a decent flash. Some people seemed to not like the brand. At any rate, if I get this one and eventually replace it, it will still be great for a slave-flash or whatever, like a secondary light source. I wouldn't mind trying to work with more advanced lighting setups, so that sounds great to me.

Anybody have some better ideas? I was aiming for something around $200-300, less is fine obviously.

[shadow_dragon]

First remotely clear nights in over a month so I drove down to the coast, hiked over some 500ft cliffs and tried my hand at some time-lapses.(You can up the detail)


Sadly, even going that far out of the way I couldn't avoid light pollution and despite the weather forecast I still got clouded over.
Sadly I stuffed up the first two sequences as i'd inadvertently left the camera on "Jpeg Fine". The burnt in WB causes the video to flicker as a result .

[Zxanphorian]

Originally Posted by shadow_dragon

Sadly, even going that far out of the way I couldn't avoid light pollution and despite the weather forecast I still got clouded over.

No doubt that light pollution always sucks when trying to get natural pictures/video. But sometimes a bit of cloudiness is welcomed, because you could capture the dynamics of the atmosphere that you otherwise wouldn't notice.

[shadow_dragon]

Originally Posted by Zxanphorian

No doubt that light pollution always sucks when trying to get natural pictures/video. But sometimes a bit of cloudiness is welcomed, because you could capture the dynamics of the atmosphere that you otherwise wouldn't notice.

I certainly enjoy playing with it when it's there. I quite liked the shots I got with it but I was also there to get star shots and I lose a lot of sky to light pollution.
To the west i've got a town that's, to the east is a city about twenty miles away but sticks out to sea a bit with a light house and to the north I have cliff-faces.
This leaves me with the south and then... that's where the moon rises.

I thought the middle of the south coast in the middle of an MOD firing range twenty miles away from civilisation would do the job but sadly not. :S I'll try inland next time but I've read that England is notoriously bad for light pollution.

[BillyBadAss]

Originally Posted by shadow_dragon

First remotely clear nights in over a month so I drove down to the coast, hiked over some 500ft cliffs and tried my hand at some time-lapses.(You can up the detail)


Sadly, even going that far out of the way I couldn't avoid light pollution and despite the weather forecast I still got clouded over.
Sadly I stuffed up the first two sequences as i'd inadvertently left the camera on "Jpeg Fine". The burnt in WB causes the video to flicker as a result .

Not a bad go for a first try and if you aren't making mistakes, you aren't trying hard enough. Now you know what you need to do. I say try it again, and go even farther out of town.

[DRT-Maverick]

Originally Posted by WaitForTheRain

You can buy lightening triggers for this sort of thing, however I'm not sure how expensive they are. They look a bit like a wireless flash transmitter that clips onto your hotshoe.

It's a LOT easier than that. A remote shutter release, set the camera to bulb mode and close down the F stop, then just hold the shutter open until lightning flashes, then release the shutter.

Here's the monster off Mononoke Hime.

[Zxanphorian]

Originally Posted by DRT-Maverick

It's a LOT easier than that. A remote shutter release, set the camera to bulb mode and close down the F stop, then just hold the shutter open until lightning flashes, then release the shutter.

Here's the monster off Mononoke Hime.

Also, if you don't have a DSLR, but you have a Canon Point & Shoot, I would recommend using the custom firmware called CHDK. It essentially gives your P&S DSLR features that would otherwise be missing from the camera (within the confines of the camera's hardware, of course). There are various scripts for it, such as intervalometers, and more pertinent motion detection scripts. The motion detection scripts mainly detect changes in luminance, which is obviously crucial for lighting shots.

The main drawback compared to leaving the shutter open, though, is that you may not capture the brightest part of the lightning, as there may be a delay from when the script gets triggered to when the camera actually takes the picture. But this drawback is counterbalanced by the fact that you can actually hold the camera when taking lightning shots this way; contrast this with having the shutter open, you need a tripod or a steady surface to do so.

And for the "will it void the warranty" asking folks, as it doesn't permanently overwrite your firmware, no warranties will be voided!

<Insert examples here>

[Rambowjo]

Portrait of my brother, taken with the built-in flash, using a weird home-built reflector thingy. Basically bounces the light from the flash into the ceiling, which then bounces it back onto him.

http://i.minus.com/iblTCFA86y1LEb.jpg
Reflector thingy.
This is just a prototype, I think I'm going to build a better one that sits better on the flash.
I've also ordered a proper modern flash, getting it sometime this week probably. Can't wait.