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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 25, 2015 - 07:40am PT
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There's a good question, what sites are best for cloud storage of images? I think different sites treat the files differently. I know I used to think Flickr was more accurate than Photobucket, but likely I'm just talking through my hat. I know John Scurlock, who does amazing aerial mountain photography, uses Pbase.com, which seems to have a more pro orientation. Here's a link to John's galleries in case anyone wants to check it out: http://www.pbase.com/nolock Any opinions from you knowledgeable folks?
Oh, and good job Munge, I love this thread.
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Banquo
climber
Amerricka
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Feb 25, 2015 - 07:50am PT
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Three of favorites of mine that I have posted before. I hope it's ok to repost here. First is the Alabama Hills from the NW ridge of Lone Pine Peak. Second is Old Big Oak Flat Road returning from Fireplace Bluff and lastly Mt. Shasta on a very windy April day.
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 25, 2015 - 08:11am PT
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Shot on film, almost certainly Kodak Tri-X, in 1978. Camera was an Olympus OM-1, and I think I had the 75-150mm zoom, as my other option would have been the 28mm wide angle. I never kept track of exposure details though. Negative was scanned using a Nikon Coolscan slide/negative scanner, and extensive photoshop darkroom stuff was done circa 2008 to get rid of dust and scratches and play with contrast and such. I recall spending a bit of time getting the feet right, so the toes stood out and the sole of the right foot was burned in, probably some other burning to make sure the incised graffiti was distinct.
I printed it out with a good large format printer at the Evergreen State College media lab and it made a good 11x14 print, part of a small show I did that year.
Image stored on Flickr
edit: holy photobomb! Actual size was huge, this is the reduced version
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10b4me
Social climber
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Feb 25, 2015 - 08:25am PT
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Snowhaazed, that HDR shot of Half Dome is fantastic.
Alleyehave, that first pic looks like Sail Away.
Banquo, I like the lines in your Big Oak Flat shot.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Feb 25, 2015 - 08:46am PT
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2015 - 10:12am PT
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Offwhite, thx. Glad everyone's digging it.
As for photo storage, I have no idea on quality. Flickr is nice, at 1TB of storage for no cost other than some ads that only you see if all your images are set to private and you only share the underlying path (which is against their tou, I think). I don't like how I have to pull the img path out of their custom embed links. But for on-the-fly quick saturation editing in Aviary on their system is easy.
In fact, if I had my druthers, everyone would embed their images and not upload to Cmac's storage. One, you don't have direct control over that image. Two, I have no idea how much of the image is modified versus others. Three, I have to click to get the full size image, rather than scrolling thru the thread. The reduced image that is in the post does not show off our best efforts. So I think we lose something.
one question is, how big are everyone's monitors/resolutions? I like big images and I cannot lie. With that in mind, what is an optimal resizeing for embedded images?
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10b4me
Social climber
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Feb 25, 2015 - 11:30am PT
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Feb 25, 2015 - 12:09pm PT
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MikeM, I like that shot a lot, the way it plays with perspective is great. I'm pretty sure there is a way you could play with layers in Photoshop to get the sky strip to be more reasonable looking, with out that halo, but still get detail in the dark chasm.
Looks like that big old rock is going to squish that person way out on the end of your line.
Munge, I'm really happy with 1024x768 on my monitor. I think I can go larger without problems, but beyond that it seems like more folks have sizing issues. The first time I put that bouldering shot up it was at 3700xsomething or other, a real thread killer.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 25, 2015 - 01:54pm PT
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copy that. 1024x768 seems fine for me on a 20 to 22" monitor.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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Feb 25, 2015 - 10:54pm PT
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Why not take advantage of whatever your monitor's native resolution is? If you bought it in the last 5 years its certainly at least 1920x1080, likely more like 2500x1600. Your images are way more pixels than that, appreciate them in as much glory as you can. This will help your post as well. The human eye won't see a difference between 720P and 1080P VIDEO at smaller screen sizes (sub 20 inches) but still images are a different story.
I'm about to drop coin on a 4096x2160 DCI color monitor- but this is for pro work.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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Feb 25, 2015 - 10:59pm PT
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Alao, TYeary's 3rd to last shot makes my toes tingle
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 28, 2015 - 08:57pm PT
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Ok, new meat, coming out...
Juiced this one up quite a bit. At first I didn't like the yellow in the far right skyline. But on the untouched original there is a fair bit of yellow, so I'm partial to it now.
In any event, I cropped this from the larger image because I liked how the foreground was really dark as a skyline against the rest of the background lines.
Throw down some feedback and I'll load the juiced up uncropped.
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alleyehave
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Feb 28, 2015 - 09:34pm PT
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Bingo 10b4me
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2015 - 08:19am PT
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Shot 119 images yesterday and I didn't like any of them to bother posting here.
Some in Apriority mode, some in full auto, and some using scene settings.
Feh
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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maybe you should post up a few examples of the images, Munge.
Caption each example with what your visualization was, and why the image failed. Building up experience is in large part shooting with intention, then evaluating the product against that intention.
A photog friend of mine makes the distinction between "shooting a picture" and "making an image." Ansel Adams wrote a series of books addressing the later, a summary of that process is simply that it starts with the camera and ends with the print (in this case the video display) and involves all aspects of processing the image. While specific to film and printing, the series of books can be generalized to our "modern" digital media.
Anyway, once you have some idea of the images you're interested in making, you have to be ready to start the process when the time arrives, or courageous to begin when you are uncertain. But what ever you do, do it with intent.
Here are some images that worked out...
...I was walking from Yellow Pines CG to a FaceLift event in the Village, hurrying because I could see a storm blowing in... it was late September around 6pm, the sun was setting and the light was under the clouds, which were providing a very dark sky background. I saw Half Dome through the trees and decided to make an image. I'm shooting with my LX-5, I have it set up for spot-focus and exposure so I set those on the brightest part of the scene knowing it would underexpose the foreground trees. I also set the format up to be square, it seemed the best choice for the scene, and I balanced the diagonal shadow line with the opposite tree to make a strong diagonal composition. The light had a wonderful quality that I sensed, but didn't absolutely know would provide.
f4 1/640 ISO 80 106mm
My lens choices are set by the zoom on the camera, maybe I could have done better to get more of Half Dome, the image is dark. I could work some more on it but I thought it had limited possibilities.
The next day I was walking the same path, the weather was very much the same, but the clouds were in the west and the Sun was spot lighting the Valley scene, very dynamic though. Once again I exposed for the highlights framing the scene in 1-to-1 format. This is what came out of the camera (these are the .jpg's, I also have the raw images).
North Dome and the Royal Arches
f4 1/800 ISO 80 59mm
Yosemite Point Buttress
f4 1/500 ISO 80 51mm
Both of these images are really good starting points for printing (which I did for New Year cards, a lot more work, and starting from .tif files developed from the .raw images). But the backlit screen of a monitor is kind.
In both of these images I was paying attention to the cliff details and probably slightly over exposed the meadow light.
I also didn't realize the dramatic affect of the wind, which turned the leaves on some of the trees over and revealed a highly reflective surface.
In the North Dome image I lucked out and the foreground pine tree needles are in focus, had they not been it would have resulted in a blurry blob that would have ruined the image... easy to have eliminated at the time by just taking a few steps towards the scene, which would also have required lowering a bit to get the near bank of the river in... who knows.
These were two images that I really liked, there is a third that was more difficult to use in print:
f4 1/800 ISO 80 106mm
which was the first scene that alerted me to the spot light quality...
Anyway, I've been shooting the Valley for a number of years, so familiarity is a big help, knowing how the storms move through and where the light might fall, so anticipating the lighting. But those are the only three images I took, it all happened really quickly, and I was lucky to capture some workable images.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2015 - 09:21am PT
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will do more later Ed. Good distinctions, thx!
Nice shots in the meadows. Analysis sounds spot on. Working with the limitations of the light and shadow.
I'm intentional with composition of the objects in the frame.
Leveraging in part:
rule of thirds (but not strictly)
fill the frame (based on the subject of the image)
compose with a person's face where possible
looking for colors (as a focal point)
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this just in
climber
Justin Ross from North Fork
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Cool thread Munge, some great pics here.
I am by no means a professional photog, but I do have an art degree in drawing and painting. We did critiques all the time and at first I hated them. You're putting your work on display to be ripped apart and at first my ego was defensive. Later I learned to let that go and listen to different views to see the work in a different way.
Now critiques are supposed to be critical, saying "I like it" does nothing, but explaining what you like about it or what doesn't work is the only way to give a good critique.
Munge, your above pic of flowers is a little hard to tell what the focal point is. I go between the out of focused oak and the flowers. Because the pic is divided in half diagonally, I think you should have got as close as possible to the flowers. It would make that oak even more blurred (more interesting to me) and the focal points would be the flowers and color.
This is what I mean and has a similar skyline and ground diagonal division.
I hope this is helpful.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
Nothing creative to say
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 2, 2015 - 11:36am PT
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thx thisjustin. I think you're right. I was on the way down the hill and was shooting fast.
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snowhazed
Trad climber
Oaksterdam, CA
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The sooner you veer away from aperture priority and move to manual the better, at least for landscapes, a wedding is a different story.
You will have more failures, but once you dial it in you will be better.
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