Any photographers in here?

No it's an airsoft gun. LOL. I would never use real guns in a shoot. Too much liability etc etc. Can be dangerous especially since we are all amateurs etc. I painted the orange tip black in photoshop.

good idea, especially since her finger is on the trigger all the time. i like the second shot more, in the first one her wrist and the gun seem to be bent at an odd angle.
 
I like the interior shot.

Here's one I did today.

6887906106_83efe927c0_b.jpg

Something about this shot throws me off... My eyes instantly focus to the gun.

I do love the composition of it and it has that Half-Life/End of World feeling, but something is off about it.
 
Something about this shot throws me off... My eyes instantly focus to the gun.

I do love the composition of it and it has that Half-Life/End of World feeling, but something is off about it.

Not sure man. Maybe the angle of the piece itself is square to the camera. For me, it doesn't detract away from the woman's face at all..so it never really bothered me.

As for the feel..just been trying some new post processing techniques...no skin smoothing either..it's super soft lighting.
 
i think just because we are men we are naturally surprised that the woman is holding the handgun lol... and thats why its the first thing we look at.
 
After looking at it some more, my eyes are drawn almost immediately to whatever that structure is in the middle, then down to the gun from there. Maybe that's it? The processing is cool, makes it look kind of like some kind of cg artwork.
 
nah looks like camera shake. that's a hard photo to take. slow shutter speed and long focal length.


are these from the stuart thing???

Yeah, if you look at the nose of the Mustang, its sharp (where I was tracking) while the tail is blurred. When you have an object moving on a three-dimensional plane at a high rate of speed (250+ mph), with the slow shutter speed, only the area you are tracking will be sharp. I've had a ton of shots where the tail or the left wing are in focus, but the nose is slightly blurred... Its frustrating!

The show I went to this weekend was in Lakeland, FL. The annual Sun N Fun airshow out there. Good times, but crappy weather = crappy lighting conditions. I got a few good shots, though, so stay tuned for more as I upload them this week...
 
at a high rate of speed (250+ mph), with the slow shutter speed, only the area you are tracking will be sharp. I've had a ton of shots where the tail or the left wing are in focus, but the nose is slightly blurred... Its frustrating!

I struggled a lot with that while at an F1 race, I feel your pain.
 
Yeah, if you look at the nose of the Mustang, its sharp (where I was tracking) while the tail is blurred. When you have an object moving on a three-dimensional plane at a high rate of speed (250+ mph), with the slow shutter speed, only the area you are tracking will be sharp. I've had a ton of shots where the tail or the left wing are in focus, but the nose is slightly blurred... Its frustrating!

The show I went to this weekend was in Lakeland, FL. The annual Sun N Fun airshow out there. Good times, but crappy weather = crappy lighting conditions. I got a few good shots, though, so stay tuned for more as I upload them this week...

Why were you shooting at F18? That might be your problem with the shutter speed being slow. I would try in the F8 to F12 range and get at least 1/160 to 1/200 out of the camera. That might work out better.
 
Why were you shooting at F18? That might be your problem with the shutter speed being slow. I would try in the F8 to F12 range and get at least 1/160 to 1/200 out of the camera. That might work out better.

You have to use a slow-ish shutter speed when shooting propeller-driven planes or helicopters so that the blades blur. With a fast SS they freeze and look really unnatural.
 
You have to use a slow-ish shutter speed when shooting propeller-driven planes or helicopters so that the blades blur. With a fast SS they freeze and look really unnatural.

Would 1/160 to 1/200 freeze the props? I think he has a bit of room to move on those settings though.
 
all depends on the throttle that the pilot is giving it. I've been at 1/250 and been ok. judging by the prop blur in that photo, I'd say he had the right shutter speed. any slower and there wouldn't be enough blur.
 
Would 1/160 to 1/200 freeze the props? I think he has a bit of room to move on those settings though.

I probably could have gone down to F14 (which I think I did in some later photos), but that was still giving me a shutter speed around 1/160. 1/200 is right at the upper cusp for proper prop blur. These guys are only running the engines at around 2200-2400 RPM at the most, so the propellors are spinning much slower than you think. Helicopters are the worst since the main rotors are spinning so dang slow...

This first shot from the next batch was at f/8.0, 1/500 - and you can see how the prop is nearly stopped. Fortunately, it was the whole composition I was after, not just the aircraft:


Sterman Wingover by Finktel Jr Productions, on Flickr


Like a Bird of Prey by Finktel Jr Productions, on Flickr


Short Field Landing by Finktel Jr Productions, on Flickr
 
I'm writing about the Mazda2 for the blog I cover racing with. The shots that will be in the articles are the more normal, lots of circular polarizer exposures commercial-style car photography. I decided to have some fun handheld, though, and use some heavier processing and more extreme angles for stuff I'd post on forums.



DSC_4098.jpg by maximstensel, on Flickr


DSC_4045.jpg by maximstensel, on Flickr


DSC_4180.jpg by maximstensel, on Flickr


DSC_4200.jpg by maximstensel, on Flickr

If anybody cares, all are shot on a Nikon D3s, first two with a 20mm @5.6/ISO800 and the second two with a 50mm @1.4 at ISO2000.
 

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