Photog BS Arena

I'm throwing up some links to articles and common photography stuff. I am no master photographer, so if something doesn't look like a good article or has crappy info, feel free to tell me to take it down, and suggest a better one.

 

Additional astro:
http://starcircleacademy.com/
http://www.astropix.com/index.html

General landscape equipment, philosophy, technique:
https://luminous-landscape.com/

DoF calculator (you can probably find a dozen phone apps for this now, those with smartphones might want to grab one to have handy):
http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

 

Speaking of, if you haven't already seen this:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/8641194029/vandals-strike-the-racetrack-in-death-valley-national-park
I fucking hate people.

 

That's a pretty impressive review. May pick one up sometime.

 

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read some of the posts following that as well

 

Oahu Hi driving to work

 

Yeah I saw that and it really made my blood boil. On my first trip to the Racetrack last year with a few of my buddies (one of them being Nasim from above), we caught a family camping out on the playa behind the Grandstands.

https://photographylife.com/my-first-time-at-the-race-track

Luckily on our way out we were able to flag down a park ranger to report it and they were able to levy whatever meager fine against those people, but it still doesn't undo any of the damage they did.

 

For people who want to learn about using flash, especially off-camera flash, I would suggest looking through the Strobist blog: http://strobist.blogspot.com/

The On Assignment posts are really informative as far as being able to look at the final shot and be able to deconstruct it.

 

Great blog

 

Learned that my dog's tail gets the attention when the AF sensors are on auto. Checked the manual, and it explained (depending on position) that the outer sensors are either horizontal-line or vertical-line sensitive. Every picture with the tail straight up had it and the hind quarters in focus. I was switching between a single AF point and auto, for practice/learning.

Also learned the hard way that AI Focus AF won't switch to Servo mode and track a moving subject if focus on the subject wasn't established initially. I was playing with AI Focus and AI Servo AF modes to see how they worked. Lesson learned - set to AI Servo AF up front for moving subjects when I won't be obtaining focus before it moves.

I'm really digging the monopod and tilt head I got recently. I was shooting with a 100-400mm zoom and after looking at some of the pics and shooting data, I bet some of them would have been blurry handheld. That's not to say I didn't have mistakes/blurry shots with the monopod, but there were a lot less than I expected.

A few shots from today (aside from the ones in the BS thread):

 

What monopod are you using?

 

a monopod is definitely on my list. tripod is a lengthy setup and my hands tend to shake a bit

 

Oben CTM-2500. I'm a twist-lock guy, versus the flip locks. Was really leaning towards the Sirui P-326, and can't remember what swayed me to the Oben.

If I could justify the cost of a Gitzo, I'd have gone that route. My tripod is a Gitzo G224 which is at least 24 years old and still works great.

 

I should add that the 100-400mm lens I was using is a push-pull for zoom (versus a rotating ring). Because it's big and has a tripod mount ring, I was able to let the monopod do most of the supporting so that my hand was free to work the zoom.

 

got this one on the top of ophir pass before coming down in the dark. lens really soaked up the light and I successfully illuminated the sign w the ditch lights/flashlight

 

Did more practicing at the dog park... and more practice is needed. Love it when I can catch a charged moment:

 

Spent a little time in the front yard among the flowers practicing macro. Threw on my ring flash which I got last Christmas... which is the first time I've played with it since Christmas.

Got at least one decent one:



I need to play more with it, and review the instructions as I can't remember if it works as a TTL flash or not, as well as what exactly two of the buttons do.

 

Colorado Fall Colors Reporting

 

Here's a couple of my favorites from last weekend. I still need to spend a bunch more time with my Nikon learning how to use it manually. The first one is from my D3300, the next two are from my Motorola phone.