The Big Photography Thread

[KenElevenShadows]

The magical northern part of the Milky Way over Arch Rock, Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA. I light painted the arch, illuminating this with a ProtoMachines LLC​ LED2 flashlight. But there were other flashlights illuminating the arch as well. The one on the side and the red light were actually done by other people exploring the arch. This was originally a test shot, but I decided I liked the exploratory lights on the arch and went with this. I hope you like it as well.

Ken Lee Photography

Info: Nikon D610, Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens, Feisol tripod. 2016-09-02 21:45, 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 4000.

 

[Lindaru]

Lovely, Ken! How nice of those others to help you out with lighting.

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

That was very sweet of them, yes it was. Thank you very much!

[KenElevenShadows]

 

The Amazing Boulder House Close-Up (0683):

 

This is a house built on an enormous set of boulders deep, deep within the Mojave Desert. I illuminated the boulder and house while the camera shutter was open with a hand-held Protomachines LED2 flashlight, illuminating the interior of the house with a red light and the exterior with a warm white light.

[wjwilcox]

Here's a couple of spectacular views of downtown St. Louis as seen from the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park in East St. Louis, Illinois, 15 September 2016.

 

Dusk by Bill Wilcox, on Flickr

 

Gateway to the West by Bill Wilcox, on Flickr

[Josh Paxton]

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing. I am nowhere near the league of most people who post in this thread. But I like to take basic shots with the built-in camera app on my phone, then mess around with the levels and contrast and whatnot until they look cool. And every once in a while, in the course of doing that, I get lucky and get a result that I really like. Last night was one of those times.

 

[wjwilcox]

I like it, FunkKeyStuff! That would make a good cover for a murder mystery or detective novel.

[KenElevenShadows]

The above, including that cool street scene, look really good.

[KenElevenShadows]

 

Dinosaurs Need Chiropractors Too (4118):

 

These concrete dinosaurs were the beginning of a miniature golf course in the Mojave Desert. Begun in the early '70s by Lonnie Coffman with the help of Air Force serviceman Gregory Wicker, the project was abandoned. But the concrete dinosaurs remain. My friend Dave Dasinger and I came here on a warm summer night.

 

I illuminated the dinosaurs with a hand-held ProtoMachines LED flashlight, working slightly quicker than usual to keep the sky dark to create extra contrast between that and the dinos. All color light work was done while the camera shutter was open, and is not a post-processing creation.

[Synthoid]

I like it, FunkKeyStuff! That would make a good cover for a murder mystery or detective novel.

 

 

Yes indeed.

 

And Ken, your pics are amazing!

[KenElevenShadows]

Thank you very much! I really appreciate it.

[KenElevenShadows]

 

My photo of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is included in this upcoming book, "National Geographic Greatest Landscapes", which ships 25 October!

 

"From one majestic nature landscape to the next, this is an iconic collection of National Geographics photography of the worlds most beautiful locations that will immortalize the beauty of the great outdoors, showcasing evocativeand often unseenimages of extraordinary landscapes around the world. With vast deserts in twilight, snowcapped mountain ranges at the brink of dawn, a forest in the height of autumn colorsthese indelible images will magnify the beauty, emotion, and depth that can be captured in the split second of a camera flash, taking readers on a spectacular visual journey and offering an elegant conduit to the world around them. Paired with illuminating insights from celebrated photographers, this beautiful book weaves a vibrant tapestry of images that readers will turn to again and again."

 

https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/books/books/photography/national-geographic-greatest-landscapes

[xKnuckles]

What a GREAT page of photos!!!

 

Ken: congratulations on the book! :-) Wonderful to see your incredible photo getting some appreciation (and indeed to see it again!).

Your other photos are also amazing!

 

Bill: great night shots!

 

Funkeystuff: no need to disclaim! That is a great photo - I love the lines in it. I hope we will get to see some more of your work.....

 

 

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

My photo of an Icelandic horse is featured in the Summer Reader Issue of the Los Angeles Times, both the print and digital version!

 

 

Article and slide show: http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-reader-summer-photos-20160913-snap-htmlstory.html

 

In addition to the horse photo, I have another photo featured in the slide show at #31:

http://www.trbimg.com/img-57daff23/turbine/la-tr-summer-reader-photos-2016-035/1550/1550x872

 

 

The individual horse photo is #36:

http://www.trbimg.com/img-57dafdc4/turbine/la-tr-summer-reader-photos-2016-034/1550/1550x872

 

The LA Times were very interested in about seven of my photos initially, and having two included is pretty amazing.

 

As a kid reading the Travel Section of the LA Times and gazing in wonder at the exotic lands depicted in the photos, I so wanted to go to these places. And I've been lucky enough to do so. But having photos featured in the LA Times is beyond anything I could have ever dreamed as a kid. It's for this reason that having photos in the LA Times feels like as big of a deal to me as appearing in National Geographic.

 

 

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

What a GREAT page of photos!!!

 

Ken: congratulations on the book! :-) Wonderful to see your incredible photo getting some appreciation (and indeed to see it again!).

Your other photos are also amazing!

 

Thanks! And yeah, the people posting photos here always seem to have something cool, interesting, beautiful, and....

[Lindaru]

Congratulations, Ken, on everywhere you are being published! Great works you do! See where a childhood dream can take you?

 

Bill and FunkKeyStuff . . . fabulous on yours, too! Maybe you guys should all get together and publish a K.C. photo book compilation?

 

 

[RichieP_MechE]

Congrats on the publications Ken!

 

Welcome to the thread, FunkyKeyStuff! Nice to have some more faces around here.

 

And Bill, the St Louis pics are lovely, I especially like the one with the last hints of color from sunset.

[KenElevenShadows]

Thanks. I am excited about the LA Times and NatGeo stuff. And I'm excited about getting back out there next month to take some more night photos.

[KenElevenShadows]

Hundafoss is a waterfall in the south of Iceland in Skaftafell/Vatnajökull National Park. The name of the waterfall is derived from the Icelandic word hundur meaning dog. It got its name Dogsfall either from the swelling of the river sometimes sweeping dogs from nearby farms over the waterfall, or from a dog that gave its life attempting to rescue someone here. Depends on who you believe.

 

Nikon D610/Nikkor 28-300mm. 1.3s f/7.1 ISO 100.

 

 

Svartifoss waterfall below was located a little ways up, maybe another 20 minute hike, in the same National Park:

 

[MurMan]

I'm about to return home from a two week vacation in South Carolina. Just prior to leaving home, I managed to find a used Nikon D750 body and a Nikkor AF-S 28-300mm f3.5/5.6G lens locally in great condition. As others have said, it's a great combination. The D750 was very easy to get used to. I only made a few "tragic button pushes".

 

I'm bringing home about 400 RAW files. I'm looking for some opinions regarding image post-processing software. Based on comments in this thread and a few photo blogs, I see that a lot of people use Lightroom. In doing on-line research, I was surprised to see that the latest version of Photoshop Elements scores higher than Lightroom and PhotoPlus. I've used the older versions of Photoshop Elements for years and am very familiar with it.

 

I'm thinking that it would be best to purchase the latest version, get the NEF plugin for the D750 and call it a day. Does anyone think that this is a mistake?

 

Thanks.

[KenElevenShadows]

No. For most people, I think that is an excellent option.

 

Unless it has changed, the only "gotcha" is that it has limited capability with 16-bit files, processing the bit depth in 8 bits. This may have changed, so check into it. And it may not matter to you.

 

It matters to me.

 

I also like to work in layers, and last I checked, Elements does not do that either.

 

But neither does LR, and that certainly doesn't stop lots of people from producing amazing images.

 

For most people, Elements is fantastic. I'm just not most people, as I do star trails and need layers and prefer the extra colors for 16-bit, which can be very important for night photographers since the lack of bit depth can sometimes produce "banding" in night sky images.

 

The D750 is an excellent camera, and the 28-300mm is an excellent all-purpose "walkabout" lens that is quite sharp and flexible. I brought it to Iceland with me, and I got some great images with it.

[RichieP_MechE]

I'm bringing home about 400 RAW files. I'm looking for some opinions regarding image post-processing software.

I think it maybe depends on how you want to edit photos. My editing style is based on working in the darkroom, so I want to be able to burn and dodge, adjust contrast, etc. I find that Lightroom has worked very well for that approach. I like that it is a non-destructive photo editor, so any change you make is recorded and able to be undone with no effects at all on the original RAW file. Lightroom has added a fair number of features as well that give it some Photoshop-like uses. For example, the spot removal tool in Lightroom is basically content-aware fill from Photoshop.

 

You can download a free 30 day free trial of Lightroom, so you might as well give it a shot to see if you like it.

 

I have the Creative Cloud photography plan ($10/month for Photoshop and Lightroom) which I find to be a pretty good deal with the frequent software updates. I know not everyone is onboard with the CC approach, but I am a semi-professional so it is a deductible business expense for me at least.

 

 

[MurMan]

Thanks Ken and Richie. I think I'll upgrade to the latest PSE. Adobe releases the new version around this time every year, so I'll wait until then.

 

I've found a blog that describes some PSE 'workarounds' that allow you to process in 16-bit resolution. Makes workflow a little convoluted, but adequate for my needs. PSE has had layers for a long time, but the adjustment layers are 8-bit, so not that useful.

 

I brought my Sony Rx-100 on the trip thinking that I'd use it when out sight-seeing because of the light weight. But I found that the D750/28-300mm combo was so much fun that I didn't use the Sony once.

[KenElevenShadows]

So I know I just said I use Photoshop. I've used it for years, and am comfortable with it. But I gotta say, it is really not intuitive at all. It's a very daunting, slightly messy program. It's intimidating. I'm still flummoxed by it. I know what I need to know, but I'm hardly a Photoshop guru.

 

In my opinion, Elements and Lightroom are easier to deal with, and easier to figure out. It's more intuitive, and designed more specifically for photographers, particularly Lightroom, whereas Photoshop, despite the name, is also largely designed for people like graphic designers.

 

I'm using Photoshop CS6, by the way, so it's a bit old. But it works. At some point, I'll probably have to climb aboard the CC train.

 

The D750 seems to be one of those cameras that Nikon nailed out of the gate.

[KenElevenShadows]

Cap Rock Milky Way (4543)

 

The magical northern part of the Milky Way over Cap Rock, Joshua Tree National Park, California, USA. I light painted the rocks, illuminating this with a ProtoMachines LLC LED2 flashlight. I got the northern part of the Milky Way arching overhead, choosing to go more dark with this just for mood, just kissing a bit of the light off the rock this time. I had another one where I had a brighter light on this. Maybe it's because I'm editing this while listening to Sigur Rós, I don't know, but I'm going moody and low-key with this. :D

 

Ken Lee Photography Facebook Page (long exposures, night sky, light painting, Milky Way photos, etc.)

 

 

 

[xKnuckles]

I'm about to return home from a two week vacation in South Carolina. Just prior to leaving home, I managed to find a used Nikon D750 body and a Nikkor AF-S 28-300mm f3.5/5.6G lens locally in great condition. As others have said, it's a great combination. The D750 was very easy to get used to. I only made a few "tragic button pushes".

 

I'm bringing home about 400 RAW files. I'm looking for some opinions regarding image post-processing software. Based on comments in this thread and a few photo blogs, I see that a lot of people use Lightroom. In doing on-line research, I was surprised to see that the latest version of Photoshop Elements scores higher than Lightroom and PhotoPlus. I've used the older versions of Photoshop Elements for years and am very familiar with it.

 

I'm thinking that it would be best to purchase the latest version, get the NEF plugin for the D750 and call it a day. Does anyone think that this is a mistake?

 

Thanks.

I bought Lightroom outright. I do not like subscriptions and refuse to use them. It cost me £100 which was actually less than I thought it would be. I think it is a good programme, and I enjoy using it. It is indeed good at cataloging and organising all my photos - which is most important. However, there are a few things which I would like it to do - and which I suspect it would not be difficult for it to do - which it doesn't do. (Presumably because photoshop does them and they don't want to make Lightroom so good that photoshop is redundant... ) I have no intention of getting photoshop, so I have bought an old copy of Serif photo plus (x7) instead. It was REALLY cheap - about £12. I have not had time to try it yet, but I know I will like it as I use serif webplus and page plus and I find all the serif programmes to be excellent and extremely intuitive to use.

 

I am also eagerly awaiting the release of serif affinity photo for Windows - which should be soon apparently. I have been told that the Mac version is better than photoshop, so I am keen to get my hands on it.

 

Good luck with your shopping, Murray. It is certainly not an easy decision to make....

 

 

[xKnuckles]

Ken, CONGRATULATIONS on the LA times feature!!!

(Think we need a smilie of a bouncing camera....)

That is a wonderful achievement and I am so happy for you!

 

Your Iceland pictures are SO gorgeous!!! and also the night sky one.

[MurMan]

... However, there are a few things which I would like it to do - and which I suspect it would not be difficult for it to do - which it doesn't do. (Presumably because photoshop does them and they don't want to make Lightroom so good that photoshop is redundant... )

Anne, what things do you want to do with Lightroom that it can't do?

[KenElevenShadows]

Ken, CONGRATULATIONS on the LA times feature!!!

(Think we need a smilie of a bouncing camera....)

That is a wonderful achievement and I am so happy for you!

 

Your Iceland pictures are SO gorgeous!!! and also the night sky one.

 

Thank you very much! So glad you like them!

[xKnuckles]

... However, there are a few things which I would like it to do - and which I suspect it would not be difficult for it to do - which it doesn't do. (Presumably because photoshop does them and they don't want to make Lightroom so good that photoshop is redundant... )

Anne, what things do you want to do with Lightroom that it can't do?

1. Things which it seems that nearly every cheap photo app on my iPad can do: add text, other images etc.

2. Also I really wish there were layers .... (And of course, if there were, then #1 would be possible...)