Official BeyondUnreal Photography Thread

IronMonkey · Aug 31, 2013

Aspect ratios

I note that Mike's shots are in 6:4 aspect ratio.

Is that a more readily available print aspect ratio in the US for larger prints?

As only a few places do 6:4 at 12''x8'' as a matter of routine*, I've adopted the self-imposed rule of cropping 10:8 or 7:5 (unless for the Judo club web site). I do that for shots where I expect that some parents might want to print them out for display. It can be annoyingly constraining using 10:8 or 7:5 no one likes bars on the photos..

I shot this earlier this month - a bit noisy but it caught the moment (IMHO :))

.

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/DSC_3003_V2.jpg[/screenshot]

*Costco!

Firefly · Aug 31, 2013

How did you get them to balance like that?

Firefly · Aug 31, 2013

OO7MIKE said:

You did this one especially for me didn't you?
I'm touched.
Thanks

IronMonkey · Aug 31, 2013

Firefly said:
How did you get them to balance like that?

Cunning wire work.

OO7MIKE · Sep 4, 2013

IronMonkey said:
I note that Mike's shots are in 6:4 aspect ratio.

Is that a more readily available print aspect ratio in the US for larger prints?

I shot this earlier this month - a bit noisy but it caught the moment (IMHO .

Nice shot man! Keep it up! I love a good action shot. Noise/poor colors and dynamic range go with the high ISO territory. It's a constant battle for me, but to be fair its less of a battle in the Nikon pro DSLR camp.

4x6 / 8x12 aspect ratio is what comes out of DSLR cameras. Its a good ratio and I like to keep it when I can. There are a lot of places in the states that will make prints that size for you. 4x6 are super popular. 8x12 sized prints are not because its very hard to find a frame for them.

Firefly said:
You did this one especially for me didn't you?
I'm touched.
Thanks

It was more for Yuki but, you got it bro!

IronMonkey · Sep 6, 2013

OO7MIKE said:
Nice shot man!

Thank you.

I actually caught the whole throw (been shooting Chris's Judo for quite some time so I can usually read when he's going for a throw) - see attached.

OO7MIKE said:
4x6 / 8x12 aspect ratio is what comes out of DSLR cameras. Its a good ratio and I like to keep it when I can. There are a lot of places in the states that will make prints that size for you. 4x6 are super popular. 8x12 sized prints are not because its very hard to find a frame for them.

I use 10x8 or 7x5 because those tend to be the most common frame sizes (in inches) that people like to use. I agree, 8x12 is tough to find frames for.

The specialist shops do do the less common sizes but supermarkets and the like here tend to have systems that only print a limited number of sizes (and do not, under no circumstances, mention tiff! :))

Twisted Metal · Sep 8, 2013

Question for those with Canon cameras. Is metering/auto-exposure affected by the focus mode?

In other words, if I'm in single point focus mode (one square in the center), and evaluative metering mode, will the metering still be done for the whole frame, or is it limited to that small box that I'm using to focus? I would think that it's completely independent of the focus mode, but I just wanna be sure...

I photographed a bunch of cars today. I noticed that simply moving the single focus point from a light part of the car to a dark part of the car would change the whole exposure. But I wasn't in spot metering, I was in evaluative. So what gives? Does evaluative metering give priority to the focus point?

Maybe I should've used multiple focus points? Some may say go full manual, but when I'm taking a thousand pictures, and there's crowds of people constantly walking in front of me, I have limited time to grab a good shot.

Twisted Metal · Sep 8, 2013

Also, do people typically scrutinize every single photo in Lightroom and add different touch ups to each one? Seems like it would take FOREVER.

Any tips that might enhance boring outdoor (sunny) car photos? Maybe I should just publish them as is? I never used Lightroom before. I guess I should start reading some tutorials.

Example:

theabyss · Sep 8, 2013

BillyBadAss said:
I shot this last weekend of a friend from work. She's just getting into photography and wanted me to teach her how to use her camera.

Nana by Jason_Combs, on Flickr

I was just going through some of the last pages and this one is really nice I think, BBA.

OO7MIKE · Sep 8, 2013

Twisted Metal said:
Also, do people typically scrutinize every single photo in Lightroom and add different touch ups to each one? Seems like it would take FOREVER.

Any tips that might enhance boring outdoor (sunny) car photos? Maybe I should just publish them as is? I never used Lightroom before. I guess I should start reading some tutorials.

I don't use Lightroom, but ACR processing is very similar.

My work flow is as followed:

Import all photos from shoot.
Allow Bridge to render. (not as fast as photo mechanic but more efficient in the long run)
Cull through all images and give them a rating. 3 stars means I'll be showing them to the client, 5 stars means its the very best shots and will likely spend some time in photoshop later on.
Because I am most excited about the 5 star shots I will go over those photos and demote a few to 3 stars if they are too similar. Only the best make it here because photoshop is a huge time consumer.
Grab the best shots and run them one at a time through ACR then photoshop. The best shots tend to get a lot of work done on them which can take 15 minutes to a few hours. It depends on what I want to do with them.
Save your files as PSD so you can come back later and make minor adjustments.
Then I go over my 3 star photos. Most photos from the same scene where my exposures are exactly the same can be synced up as I edit on of the photos. The settings I use on one photo are duplicated to all of the other photos I select. I believe you can do the same thing in light room as well as take it a step further. I think there is an automated processing feature in lightroom that gives you the ability to process all photos using any settings you choose. Changing the curves and the camera profile are my huge time consumers. I do the same for every photo so I might as well have bridge do it while it renders my photos.

Hope this helps. Weddings can have 500-700 photos while a portrait session may only have 60 shots.
Everyone does it slightly differently and it caters to your style and the type of photography you do.

I'm just about ready to hand off some of my wedding editing to an assistant. It takes up 20-40 hours of my time for each wedding. I'd rather spend that time shooting instead of editing. Giving up control is proving to be difficult.

BillyBadAss · Sep 26, 2013

theabyss said:
I was just going through some of the last pages and this one is really nice I think, BBA.

Thanks man.

Here's another. I shot this a few weeks ago while a friend was visiting and I was giving him the tour of the city.

A New Chapter by Jason_Combs, on Flickr

Gir · Sep 27, 2013

edit: ignore.

[GU]elmur_fud · Oct 5, 2013

So my camera is still a cellphone and my photography skills are still frankly amateur.

But my postprocessing and photoshopping skills are at least decent IMO.

This is resized bigtime due to the static nature of the SS tag on this forum. Worth a full sized view to grasp the scope.
[SCREENSHOT]http://i.imgur.com/jGcWgct.jpg[/SCREENSHOT]

This is a stock photo off DA btw most of my practice material sits on my HD as personal wallpapers for my PC or phone.

Basically I made a shortened method for hand tolling an image in photoshop for sharpening. It can shorten a couple hour project to minutes or a couple week project to an hour or two.
http://mtbp.deviantart.com/art/Subtle-Pseudo-HDR-Tutorial-374824528

Though I don't see allot of nature or architectural photography on here which this tends to work best on IMO, I thought some of you may find it interesting.

Another example... 'cause fall.

DarkED · Oct 21, 2013

Here's a few from some of our recent shoots.

Model Greg Wilson:

Rapper Jamil Martin:

Twisted Metal said:
Also, do people typically scrutinize every single photo in Lightroom and add different touch ups to each one? Seems like it would take FOREVER.

Any tips that might enhance boring outdoor (sunny) car photos? Maybe I should just publish them as is? I never used Lightroom before. I guess I should start reading some tutorials.

Example:

A few things you can do to make photos pop a little more in Lightroom - Start by turning the Contrast up a little (adjust exposure as necessary to match.) Then, adjust Saturation up a bit, add some Clarity, and turn Highlights up and Shadows down. You can play with Whites and Blacks to add small amounts of depth. Also, you can use the mask brush tool to remove/reduce the rainbow in the headlight by masking those regions and reducing saturation, if you wish to do so. With that said, I use the clone tool and mask regions very sparingly.

OO7MIKE · Oct 21, 2013

First two shots are great!

DarkED · Oct 21, 2013

OO7MIKE said:
First two shots are great!

Thanks! Yeah, the last two weren't the best in the set. I just liked the way they turned out

Oh, and:

OO7MIKE said:
Oh man, I feel ya and I remember those days...

... I used to worry about craigslist warriors, but people are smart. You can compete with the best of them. Price shoppers are not your ideal client. If price is all they care about, be glad they are not your client. Let the craigslist warriors spend all their time with crappy customers and be overworked. There is a market for everyone. hehe

Kinda forgot about that post, but you're absolutely right. Since doing a few shoots with recording artists we work with, we've actually started getting more up-market photography clients; professional people that are willing to pay for quality see the photos we've done for previous clients and it grows from there.

We still get calls from the $20 or nothing crowd every now and then. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "Some money is better than none" I'd be a somewhat well-off individual. The fact that we run our own CL ads doesn't help, but out of every five calls we'll get one serious client so the ads have paid for the time invested many times over. We simply don't budge on price anymore when giving a quote. That usually weeds out the people that aren't serious

EDIT: And you'll notice we have a proper watermark and proper branding now

_Lynx · Oct 22, 2013

Some photos from this year's business trip to Dublin

OO7MIKE · Oct 23, 2013

DarkED said:
Kinda forgot about that post, but you're absolutely right. Since doing a few shoots with recording artists we work with, we've actually started getting more up-market photography clients; professional people that are willing to pay for quality see the photos we've done for previous clients and it grows from there.

We still get calls from the $20 or nothing crowd every now and then. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "Some money is better than none" I'd be a somewhat well-off individual. The fact that we run our own CL ads doesn't help, but out of every five calls we'll get one serious client so the ads have paid for the time invested many times over. We simply don't budge on price anymore when giving a quote. That usually weeds out the people that aren't serious

EDIT: And you'll notice we have a proper watermark and proper branding now

I remember those. $20 weddings bro! Just show up, take some really great photos then hand over your photos on disk. You don't have to do any editing. I've got beer and food. You can have as much as you want. It will be a portfolio builder for you. You can use our photos for advertising. LOL

Site looks good!

I see a lot of event photos on the site. I don't see any promotional photos. They sell! Also your gallery is a little chaotic. Categories help if you are looking to get certain clients. A wedding client doesn't want to look at band photos, and a band client doesn't want to look at wedding photos. Something to consider.

_Lynx said:
Some photos from this year's business trip to Dublin

Oh wow, that is rather unfortunate for the boats. I like the story telling in this shot. So many questions come to mind.

DarkED · Oct 24, 2013

OO7MIKE said:
I remember those. $20 weddings bro! Just show up, take some really great photos then hand over your photos on disk. You don't have to do any editing. I've got beer and food. You can have as much as you want. It will be a portfolio builder for you. You can use our photos for advertising. LOL

Yep. Heard all that before, saw my photography-school friends doing lots of those 'jobs.' And, of course, they never go anywhere

OO7MIKE said:
Site looks good!

I see a lot of event photos on the site. I don't see any promotional photos. They sell! Also your gallery is a little chaotic. Categories help if you are looking to get certain clients. A wedding client doesn't want to look at band photos, and a band client doesn't want to look at wedding photos. Something to consider.

Thanks! The gallery is currently redirected to the NoDa Nites gallery, which was event coverage for an entirely different business. But we're shutting down those neighborhood divisions because the business model turned out to be way too much work for the amount of income it generates (again, small business owners expected us to do everything for next to nothing.)

I'm going to put a proper portfolio up on the Nites Studios site, I've just been so busy I haven't had the time

I'm not complaining

IronMonkey · Oct 27, 2013

Men in pyjamas

The Glasgow European Open 2013 Judo competition was held last week and these are some (still haven't finished sorting everything out) photos from the first day.

The full set can be seen on our Judo club web site (http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/?p=1630)

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/aregisitawhiteaherreroosornoespblueu73elimination/dsc_4479_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/aregisitawhiteaherreroosornoespblueu73elimination/dsc_4511_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/dwilliamsgbrwhitemmaddaloniitablueu73elimination/dsc_4634_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/ccasesrocaespwhitepzagrodnikpolblueu66bronze/dsc_5492_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/coatesgbrwhitejlefevrebelblueu66final/dsc_5627_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

Not the best of exposures but I just loved the look on this guy's face:

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/ccasesrocaespwhitenburnsgbrblueu66repechage/dsc_5129_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

And here is another of his faces:

[screenshot]http://www.clydejudo.org.uk/wp-content/gallery/coatesgbrwhiteccasesrocaespblueu66elimination/dsc_4756_v1deres.jpg[/screenshot]

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