Pic 365

Attention: Rant to come - if you don’t want to read the rant,
just start with the tips further down

I recently come across more and more Site (hence people)
on the world wide wonderweb that Snicker at Amateur Photographers
or people that have big cameras and don’t know how to really use them.

About stupid questions they ask.

Yes, in some cases (on some Forums) I want to bang my head too and yet,
I fall into that category.

I call myself an Amateur Photographer and sometimes even an Artist.
I sell my pictures since 4 years.
No, I can’t live of it, but obviously some people like what they see.

So, you know what?
I let those Pros snicker as much as they want.

I think, everyone has reasons for what they are doing and
what they call themselves and for what equipment they use.

Most of these Pros would never bother to ask for the reasons,
why I have that big Babe for example.
I’ve explained it a few times to people that asked.
But most of these big shots don’t bother, they go by

Judge without knowledge - that’s humankind

*Rant over*

Anyhow, I wanted to share with you a few things I have learned
in the last few days.
Yes, via books and magazines, another thing some big shots snicker at.

First thing:
Most of us know by now that a UV Filter in front of the lens is
an essential asset to a) protect your lens from scratches, dust and damage
and b) let’s you take shots through window glass or pools of water without
a reflection, …

What I didn’t really realize is, that a bad quality filter will
distort your shot, or in other words, it will let you loose quality.
So, if you go out and buy a filter, don’t try to safe a few bucks.
Whatever your camera and lens are capable of, will only work
really good when the filter in front doesn’t ruin it.

I explained it to my husband like this:
Imagine, you look through a window and the glass is bad quality.
What do you see?

Another thing I learned is, that your Computer / Laptop Screen can
give you the wrong colours.
Like for example, when your shots look too pale on the screen, this
might be a result of a bad calibration of your screen.
There are programs out there that can fix this.
I don’t have one yet, so please excuse me, if my colours are off

Out of a magazine:
I read that when you safe a JPG let’s say for 5 times,
you start loosing quality in the image.

One more thing:
Aperture settings

I’ve learned, or figured that I would probably have gotten better
results for my last people shots had I used a smaller aperture.
(Don’t let the ’smaller’ fool you. In this case, the higher the
aperture nr. the smaller the opening of the lens actually is -
took me a while to grasp it)
That shot above is from my day at the Old market.
It’s just cropped a bit and converted to JPG, no other alterations done.
It’s lacking light and contrast, something I would have been able to
change with the proper settings.
Moments like this one don’t always allow for that, but next time
I might be prepared a bit better yet again

I think next months challenge will be about aperture settings.

I hope I get at least one more post in about the b&w challenge though.
Due to a few things distracting me this months, I didn’t get around
to play much.
But thanks to all of you guys that DID play along !

We had a solar eclipse today, a partial one that is.
It was supposed to last 11 minutes, but I guess we were at a ’special’ point, since it lasted at least 45 minutes.
I was hoping to get ‘more’ shadow, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Now, before you go off hunting for solar eclipses to take pictures of, be aware that you can hurt your eyes AND your camera badly.
That counts for any shot you take aimed right at the sun.
It can damage the chip in your camera (not your memory card, the real expensive computer inside your cam).

Before I start listing all the points you should take care of, simply check the list over here and the guide here.
Why should I write it down, when these guys did a great job of it already?

How did I do manage to get my crappy little solar eclipse shot?
I used my ‘old’ 5MP Casio on a Monopod.
Had my sunglasses on my nose and one of my exchangeable filters for my sunglasses in front of the camera.
Not really great, but better than no protection at all

—————–

Go and watch more skies on Friday at “Skywatch Friday”

There I was.
In the late afternoon.
At the Pyramids of Giza.
Trying to take a picture of the Sphinx.

She has seen it so many times.
Waiting patiently for the humble amateur photographer to get his shot.
Against the sun.
Blown out sky.
Still. Attempting.

Back at the computer,
the poor amateur tries to save what he can.
The patient Sphinx couldn’t help him.
Even though she has seen it all before.
Many times.

———————————————

OK, silliness aside.
Here’s what I did:

Played heavily with all kinds of Levels in RAW format.
Tried to get a different background in the picture,
but for that I need to read Janice’s tutorial again.
Changed the pic to Sepia (another form of B&W).

Used Photoscape to get an old style - et voila

—————————————————-

You can participate all January long in our Black and White Photo challenge.
How?

Convert one or more of your pictures from colour to B&W, post them on your blog, come back here and leave me a link.

Now, if you want to play real nice, tell us a bit of what you did to get the result you got.
Or if you found a tutorial online and used it, link to it.
Or if you are able to, write your own

——————————————————-

Head on over to see John’s terrific tutorials on B&W conversion: Part 1 & Part 2

Janice posted two tutorials last year 1 and 2

Other participants:

Quilly already has her first tip posted and here her second

Dave and Bill are playing along.
Bill has a more from Tulsa, Oklahoma, a beautiful cutout and one from Piccadilly Circus, London and a wonderful old looking sepia here and here

Amanda shows some beautiful lights and a gorgeous Portrait and beautiful lamps and a gorgeous Portrait of her neighbour and one interesting take on hospital stuff. And here are some floral stills.

Thom shows a gorgeous Portrait and more Info about his learning curve and some flowers

The Squirrel Queen has a beautiful winter scene, b&w right out of the camera (thanks for the reminder, I need to go for that one one of these days again. Mine converts it right in the cam. Need to check the results there )

Go and Check the Sepia Scenes Meme for more Sepia Photos!