Fun Pictures with Nikon

[robmac]

Great shots Jorgen - as usual. How about publishing some of your screw-ups to make the rest of us feel a bit better ;>

OT, but look at the diameter and heft of those (dual?) wheels/tillers - meant for the application of some serious torque.

 

[docmoore]

Great shots Jorgen - as usual. How about publishing some of your screw-ups to make the rest of us feel a bit better ;>

OT, but look at the diameter and heft of those (dual?) wheels/tillers - meant for the application of some serious torque.

I have to agree....wonder about a GET DPI workshop in Hong Kong...I have always thought that the best way to get great captures is to be in a great place.

Jorgen, it is so nice to live vicariously through your photos.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Mitchell]

There are dual wheels so the helmsman's weight and/or view can be on the right side according to tack and conditions, but they are also linked so they can both be manned when extra strength is needed in brutal conditions.

As much as I admire the skill and courage of round the world racers, I think they are truly nuts, a form of self torture, cold, wet, sleep deprived, for weeks at a time.

Best,

Mitchell

 

[gromitspapa]

Rode my motorcycle out to Pt. Reyes Station along Hwy 1 in Marin County, CA. From there, headed south to the Marin Headlands to take some pics of the Golden Gate Bridge. The wider shots were taken with the D300 + 17-55. All the rest were with the 70-200VR + 1.7TC, usually maxxed out. Saw these horses shortly after leaving Pt. Reyes Station:

All of these from the Marin Headlands overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge...

 

[gromitspapa]

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Gromitspapa,
I like your compressed city views, particularly the dark one. Have you tried applying a bit of sharpening? USM radius 0.3, 120% usually pulls out more detail for web display. The Golden Gate details is nice as well. Wonderful lighting

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

There are dual wheels so the helmsman's weight and/or view can be on the right side according to tack and conditions, but they are also linked so they can both be manned when extra strength is needed in brutal conditions.

As much as I admire the skill and courage of round the world racers, I think they are truly nuts, a form of self torture, cold, wet, sleep deprived, for weeks at a time.

Best,

Mitchell

Thanks all for your comments. I flew down to S'pore yesterday morning and back again last night to get a couple of shots. Many hours on public transport to see something not so public, but well worth it. Unfortunately, real action shots are only possible being on-board or from a helicopter. Alas, I had access to neither

These boats also have twin rudders, as only one wouldn't give enough "grip" in critical situations, and two angled leeboards in addition to an extremely deep keel.

I agree that they may seem like complete nuts to do this trip. The next leg is Singapore to Qingdao in China, which is rather far north, and then leg 5: 12,500 nautical miles from Qingdao to Rio de Janeiro around Cape Horn. That's over a month non-stop in a sailboat that does 25 knots in 20 knots of wind, the mainsail is so heavy that it takes six crew-members to carry it when the weather is calm and where everything is wet always. Sounds fascinating, doesn't it

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

... and another

D80 with 80-200 AF-S @ 200mm and f/4.5

 

[gromitspapa]

Gromitspapa,
I like your compressed city views, particularly the dark one. Have you tried applying a bit of sharpening? USM radius 0.3, 120% usually pulls out more detail for web display. The Golden Gate details is nice as well. Wonderful lighting

Good point. Sharpening is something I've yet to study. I've seen detailed tutorials and such mentioned sharpening certain color channels and such, so it looks like fertile ground. Bottom line, you're absolutely right. I was using the first slider to taste in the sharpening tool in NX2, which isn't scaled per your recommendation:

I'm not a fan of oversharpening, and I was trying to re-create what I saw with my eyes. It was fairly hazy and the original image took a lot of contrast via auto light levels (or the same with the Nik filter Pro Contrast) to look better. This time I set the Picture Control back to Neutral (from Vivid w/zero sharpening) before hitting Auto Levels, saved to TIFF and imported into CS3 for re-sizing and sharpening. (I backed off the contrast some in the first versions). I like this result much better. Funny how you learn a good technique and you want to go back and re-do hundreds of previous images...

 

[gromitspapa]

I did the same thing with the first image of the bridge, this time also removing the Nik GND filter I used to blue-up the sky. I think it looks more natural and better, too.

 

[Steen]

a late Christmas lighting (or very early )

Nikon D300 • Zeiss ZF 1.4/50mm • 1/200 sec. at f/4 ISO 200

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

You are right, the labels are different in Photoshop. Here it's called Amount, Radius and Treshold. When preparing images with lots of detail for web display, I generally find that keeping the radius for USM very low is the way to go, unless the photo isn't in focus or there's motion blur. 0.3 to 0.5 will do it, and then I vary intensity to adjust the end result, mostly to somewhere between 80 end 120%.

For prints, it's a totally different story.

Oh, and I never use auto anything. However clever Mr. Adobe may be, hes has probably never seen any of my photos, so how should he know how to automate them?

I rarely use levels unless there's something seriously wrong with the exposure (which I try to correct in ACR anyway). Curves is a great tool, but there's a long learning process, and I'm not even half there yet. Brightness/Contrast is a good shortcut, but it's like using a Microsoft product: lots of things are happening in the background that I have no control over.

For my taste, the dark version of the cityscape looks great now, while the other one looks a bit over-sharpened (the previous version was better), but that's my taste of course, so don't pay too much attention

I haven't been in SF in a million years. I really should take the trip sometime soon. It's a great city

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Steen,
You call that late? Here, they "celebrate" "Merry Christmas" at least until Chinese New Year, which is then celebrated until Songkran (Thai New Year) in April. Some actually keep the decorations up all year. There's always something to celebrate anyway, isn't it?

Nice photo anyway. Now I want to go to Copenhagen as well, but that will have to wait until August, when the weather is nice and I can have a hot dog and a Hof without freezing my butt off

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Rob,
I don't know if you can call this a screw-up, but here's one who makes me run around in circles :banghead: pulling out the little hair I have left :scry: Will that do?

S5 and Tamron @ 50mm and f/3.5

 

[Steen]

Those images are anything but screw-ups. I think they are very, very good.
Beautiful and calm portraits in a natural and probably somewhat chaotic real-life environment, nicely blurred out here.

 

[Vivek]

I just got to some from last year.

D300, 10.5mm​

D300, 28mm T/S, ISO2000​

 

[Steen]

Excellent fisheye capture, Vivek, not an easy lens to balance :thumbup:
And nice black and white conversions, what software and method did you use ?

 

[Vivek]

Steen, Thanks. I feel guilty that I do not use the 10.5mm often enough. It is a superb lens.

Both are using the B&W engine in D300 (I tinker with the filter settings there for a given light/subject/setting). Jpgs resized with some contrast boost.

After started using the G1, I have not touched my Nikons. Recently, I got curious and looked at some from a few months ago to look at the high ISO and noise characteristics of the D300 files. If it is image quality alone, I should not be using the G1!

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Very nice, Vivek. Close up and personal

 

[Steen]

Interesting observation, Vivek. So what we need is the D300 sensor and processor in a small EVIL Micro APS-C package, right ?
Nikon, wake up and get on the train, please