The *Official Photography Thread*

Take a look through the Lonely Spec tutorials. They also offer a cool tool to help with the focusing.

 

I use my "Live View" to view on my LCD display. Remember to turn down the brightness of the display a little so it's not so blinding. Then I zoom with the + to the max zoom, then focus on a star or a single point of light like a street light or anything that you can make out in the dead of night in the dark. Sometimes turning on the headlights helps and then you can focus on a far off tree or whatever. After you manually focus it, do not touch that focus ring. It will be set for pretty much infinity. Using a rubber band or taping it down will keep it from accidentally getting bumped and getting out of focus. Then turn off live view and shoot away. Good luck @Cuffs !

 

Yep.

Also, you will eventually get a feel of where the sweet spot is. Yes, it will change depending on conditions and time of the year, but you can do a few trial shots and check them afterward as well. The above method is better though if the conditions allow it.

Yes, Lonely Speck is fantastic. So is Photog Adventures. Both are on YouTube.

A few other things will help quality too:

Stacking images. I use Starry Landscape Stacker (Mac only, but there are others). It reduces noise in the image and makes it looks a bit more natural.

Taking a different composition for the foreground. It may require a different focus and exposure. Cut this from the frame and place it onto the final sky shot.

 

another thing that I find greatly helps those night sky-scapes... a fast prime focal (eg, non-zoom) lens. not only are these faster, with fewer layers of glass to disperse the image, but they tend to have smoother manual focus. I have two, a 20mm f/2, and a 85mm f/1.8

 

The Rokinon 14mm 2.8 is cheap and works very well too. Ideally I would like a something around 20-24mm on a full frame, but the Rokinon works well and affords plenty of exposure time.

 

I’ve got a Rokinon 12mm for my micro 4/3 camera (24mm equivalent on full frame). Great lens and super easy to set at night. Just turn the focus ring a hair short of infinity and fire away. M4/3 won’t compete against a full frame for low light but that’s certainly not the lens fault. It’s great for the money. Taken with the Rokinon, 1st is overcast morning, second full moon midnight, 3rd no moon midnight:

 

The weekly challenge was weather, so here's my junk.

IMG_8306-2

IMG_8294-2 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

Last weeks challenge submission.
IMG_8259-1 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

some other random recent crap.

IMG_8204 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

IMG_8301-1 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

 

Arkansas last weekend.

 

wishon lake, ca. fyi that giant sequoia is close to 20ft round. shot with a d3300 and dji spark

 

@azhiaziam those are great images!!
Challenge submission
IMG_8348 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

I like these clouds better, but not the image as a whole-thoughts?
IMG_8351 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

Tons of old mining remnants. One spring had a date of 1935. Pretty cool stuff.
Old cabin
IMG_8375 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

Inside said cabin
IMG_8365 by TJ Brown, on Flickr

 

I like the depth

 

Mas macro

 

Milky Way and Crescent Moon Photos last month in Utah.

 

Still haven't figured out how to embed these photospheres...
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AdXP3DgKCHrm6DYQ9

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BEdrKj5aVtj45L5q8

 

Haven't taken any photos lately besides a few on a road trip lately around the Salton Sea. That's Mt. San Jacinto on the left in the last picture

 

Some pictures from the couple months, not professional but oh well.

 

Been helping my buddy out shooting some real estate. Still working on getting the windows just how I want them.

 

Nice and sharp! You see some of the cell phone pics people put on Zillow? I mean, c'mon! At least clean off the sensor before taking the pics

EDIT:
I mean camera, not sensor.