Grassroots Photographers, post YOUR favorite photos (one per day)

Along a path to a secluded beach on St. Martin. Crumby old Nikon Coolpix.

I think it would be helpful if people posted whether they are looking for critique (general or specific), or if they are just posting the photo because they like it. A thread like this can run very quickly, and it's not worth trying to offer commentary folks aren't particularly interested in.

I am no photographer, although I keep meaning to buy something nicer than an Iphone for a camera.
Feel free to critique, ask questions, or ridicule me.

I think this is from 2007, taken with a disposable camera.

First day with a 'real' camera (rebel xti), from a track day at Nashville Super Speedway before it closed.

pentax k10d with the kit 18-55 and HDR'd to hell off the original single RAW file

Taken in Santa Monica this past April with my phone. I like taking pictures and want to get a proper camera so I can step up from snapshots to photos.

This little guy lives in my bus terminal at Battery Park. He's quite industrious, when I get in a 6am he's already out working and stays busy the whole day. There is a crate about 7 feet tall that his nest is in. If they ever open it there will be an avalanche of debris as he spent most of this past winter filling it with padding. One cold day I watched him bring almost an entire newspaper in one page at a time. I don't know what has happened to him but he is missing half his tail. At snack time he will come over and take nuts right out of my hand.

Taken with a Sony I inherited from my father when he upgraded a few years ago and a Sigma 18-200 lens. I have really gotten back into photography a few months ago. My wife complained that all I ever took were car pictures so I try to take more variety. I usually post a few bird or animal shots a week to Facebook because they have started to annoy people. https://www.facebook.com/wally.m.9?fref=photo

Mom has a squirrel in her grasp.

Canon 60D with Canon 70-200 ISM F4L. Shot in my backyard with a stunt bird.

aircooled wrote: Nice to have a preview with a shot like this, clearly metering is an issue. Sometimes it's hard to find a mid-bright point, so straddling the bright / dark line can work. Probably the best idea (if you can) is to take a few (stopping up and down) and blending in Photoshop. Clearly more difficult with something that moves.

What you're talking about is bracketing, and yes that's always a good option if you're unsure of the camera's metering of a particular shot. With digital, I was taught to expose for the highlights that's where you run of out sensor first. Once you go above 255 white, there's no more information so shoot for an slightly underexposed image and brighten it up in photoshop. Film, expose for the shadows (lean towards slight overexposure) because if no light hits the negative in the shadow area there's no details to bring up later in processing.

aircooled wrote: Do the fancy cameras have the ability to burst a few frames at different f stops?

They do, and they'll stich them together for you to make a composite HDR (High Dynamic Range) shot. You can also do this yourself later in photoshop.

nicksta43 wrote: I really wish I had enough disposable income to justify a good camera. I took some classes in highschool but nothing really stuck. I'm consistently composing shots in my head but the camera phone doesn't cut it.

Take the shot anyway. You might find yourself liking what you get. Old good film SLR's and rangefinders can be fairly cheap now, and 35mm film is still pretty inexpensive, if you want to go play with "nicer than a cell phone" equipment but don't need the instant instagram/facebook gratification.

kylini wrote: I'd love to hear more about *how* y'all took the photos you post. If the lighting was weird, how did you make the exposure? How do you get that sweet F1 motion blur? How much do you leave to the camera and how much do you manually set. Things like that.

A good starting point is the difference between a snapshot and a photograph. The former is generally trying to capture a moment or a memory as it happens. Get the family together, click. The baby did something funny, click. Oooh, look at the cool buildings! click.

The latter is about creating an image using a camera and processing tools as your medium. Capture the light, and make it do something, say something, etc.

So turn pretty flowers click

into something that feels more like summer, take out the dull, accentuate the warmth (and maybe overprocess it a little )

Taken with my Galaxy S5 in May 2014 at my sister's house in Columbia, SC. The photo is not touched up in any way. I'm pretty impressed for a phone camera.

Charlotte skyline as shot from my sisters 14th floor condo with a Samsung Galaxy Note II

For those with dedicated cameras with actual user-adjustable settings, the best advice I can offer is to work toward getting the photo as right as possible in the camera. Learn the basics of exposure first - aperture and shutter speed - and forget about all the other stuff. If you see a scene you want to capture, put the camera in manual and try shooting it at several different settings and then compare the results; it's going to look a lot different at f/2.8 and 1/1000 than it does at f/16 and 1/60.

Once you've got a handle on exposure basics, start working on setting up a shot. When you see an interesting scene, try to figure out how you would shoot it - you don't even need to have a camera with you - and why. Is aperture (DOF) more important in a given circumstance, or is a shot all about shutter speed? Having some idea about the effects those basic parameters have on photographs will save you an awful lot of time later on. Some people like doing endless post-processing; I prefer taking photos.

Y'all are making me look bad.

Don't feel bad about shooting with most modern smart phones. When Annie Leibovitz was asked to recommend the best P&S camera, her answer was the iPhone 4S. That was November 2011, and these things have only gotten better.

That said, I miss shooting my Cannon AE-1 and I wish I had a digital file of one I took in the Adirondacks a few years back.

neon4891 wrote: Don't feel bad about shooting with most modern smart phones. When Annie Leibovitz was asked to recommend the best P&S camera, her answer was the iPhone 4S. That was November 2011, and these things have only gotten better. That said, I miss shooting my Cannon AE-1 and I wish I had a digital file of one I took in the Adirondacks a few years back.

ain't that the truth. My phone will demolish my 6 year old Nikon PS on quality all day.

I wish I had gotten my phone sooner. I use the camera almost every day.

I've always liked this picture--- taken with an old Cannon point and shoot. I really need to get a real camera.....

Not a great picture really but it was taken with a point and shoot attached to one of my RC planes. I taped a servo to the camera so the arm could trigger the shutter release.

Taken with a Droid Razr through the eyepiece of a 1959 6" reflector telescope in my driveway.