Photography thred - The Bear and Badger

Matt_82

SpaceGazelle wrote:

The cloisters! Love that bit of Glasgow Uni. Nice pics. @Matt

It's a great location. Actually got in trouble from security for shooting there. Completely slipped my mind that I'd need permission, though they were cool when I told them I was a student, not a fashion photographer on assignment.

equinox_code wrote:

I click on this thread in the hope Matt has posted.

Hah, cheers. Good timing, my hand in for this block is on Friday so I'm all done shooting for college until January. Course has been a bit odd this year. Classes have been more or less put aside in favour of studio time. I think you need a balance of both to truly learn. Hoping they'll listen to the feedback and get that sorted. Time will tell.

Anyway, here's some stuff I've done so far. Lots of B&W and mostly portrait, which is a departure for me. It's all been more natural than last year too. I enjoyed the graded unit stuff last year but not sure that combining a load of photos in Photoshop is the direction I want to go.

Roujin

You have a rather good eye for capturing interesting architectural shapes sir.

I really liked the colour bell tower one and the stairs one.

three1ne

Lovely, Matt.
Lovely Matt.

IanHamlett

Matt, please give me some tips in on post processing. For the last year I've just been giving the saturation and contrast a nudge but I've just started shooting in RAW and dicking around with curves in Polarr.

hylian_elf

Fucking hell, if I had just half the talent Matt has.

acemuzzy

FFS has your friend not heard of waterproof mascara?! Amateurs.

superflyninja

hylian_elf wrote:

Martin Freeman? Aye, his books are good, very heavy on the theory side though.

Yup Ive a few of his books. Very good. I must reread it actually..My composition is in shit these days.

Matt_82

IanHamlett wrote:

Matt, please give me some tips in on post processing. For the last year I've just been giving the saturation and contrast a nudge but I've just started shooting in RAW and dicking around with curves in Polarr.

Well I use Lightroom unless I need to do some cutting and pasting or heavy duty skin retouching in which case I do the extra stuff in Photoshop.

Best tip is to learn to read a Histogram (and keep it in mind when you're shooting) and use curves/levels to get the contrast you want without blowing highlights or crushing the blacks. That was when I had my eureka moment last year.

IanHamlett

I've ben dicking around with seperate RGB curves this week and getting way better results. I watched a couple of tutorials on how to grade the shit out of pics but they didn't have were straight onto masks and shit that I haven;t got.

Gonna have to invest in some adobe shit. i don't like giving them money.

GooberTheHat

Have you tried out GIMP before you splash the cash? It might cover your requirements and it's free.

IanHamlett

Matt_82 wrote:

GooberTheHat wrote:

I'm going to have a play with that original and see what I can come up with. You would probably need the RAW file to get it looking like that though.

Maybe one for the photography thread. Took a wee stab at it in Lightroom: RAW file would certainly have helped but you can get it looking close with jpeg. Two main techniques used here are 'lifting blacks' where you raise the black point so that the blackest black is actually grey. Bottom left point on this graph. The dotted line is before adjustments. The second main technique is split toning. In movies, a similar technique is called colour grading. The most commonly used split toning is to add an orange/gold hue to the highlights and a green/blue to the shadows. Google 'Orange and teal' to see it used in every movie ever after 2005. There are other smaller adjustments made as well of course but those are the two that got the look. If you're interested in this type of look, look up VSCO presets. Not saying this guy used them but it does have that feel to it. They are very popular at the moment with Instagrammers and young photographers.

That's what I've been doing. I've got a while to go but here's where I'm up to with one of my own. This has also given me a kick up the arse with correct exposure too. I was setting my exposure to make the picture on my viewfinder look as close to the finished product as possible. Since taking this pic I've shifted to getting as much info as possible into the RAW file.

Matt_82

I was underexposing photos for ages by looking at the jpeg on the back. These days I only look at it to see if there's something sticking into the frame that I didn't notice before. Only the histogram doesn't lie.

IanHamlett

That's me all over. I've only started shooting in RAW recently. I deliberately wanted to limit my options of fixing my fuckups.

IanHamlett

Bidding on a film SLR right now. Thinking of getting into medium format next time I've got a spare £100. Off to find out what fluids I need and shit.

IanHamlett

Fast film is expensive.

Matt_82

Film is good fun. Strictly hobby these days although I've seen a few students working with film but that's happening less and less even over the course of our time there.

I have a 35mm that I take to certain shoots and fire off a couple of shots. I'll develop them all in a few years and see what I have. The good thing about 35mm is that there's no expensive sensor to make one camera better than another so the lens plays the biggest role. I have a Nikon FG that can take the same photo as an F5. I can deal with the loss of features.

I also bought a Rolliecord TLR for college. Amazing that a camera built in the 50s still works perfectly and sets off my flashes without a battery! Much more fiddly to use the twin lenses, mind. And the viewer suffers from terrible vignetting meaning it's hard to see exactly what's in the frame.

Great to look at, mind. I wish all cameras looked like old cameras.

IanHamlett

It's that kind of thing I've been looking at. I don't want to jump straight in though so I'm fine blowing £50 on 35mm and seeing how I get along.

IanHamlett

I'm 20mins away from winning this auction. Looks like the camera's going to cost around £20 delivered. There's a 50mm f2 lens on it that I might pay £20 for.

Matt_82

Well?

IanHamlett

I'm now the proud owner of a Ricoh KR-10 with leather case.

hylian_elf

Nice!!!

IanHamlett

Can I get photo developing places to just do the negatives for me until I'm set up?

beano

Speak to Spielman lady on Renshaw Street.

IanHamlett

One of the people that works there was waving at someone they knew, I was walking past and thought it would be funny to wave back, she did not think it was funny, then I went in there to get my driving license pics done and it was all very awkward.

but good shout I'll give it a go.

@Matt, that steam train pic above. Can I get that just tinkering with curves or are you into luminescence masks and shit that I haven't got?

Matt_82

Nice camera. Dunno about developers. We have a guy at college that does it for us for free and when he was ill I used Boots. Fast and you get a load of prints too. Think it was £6/7 a roll though.

That's almost all curves with a little added clarity. There's some dodging and burning in places too. Mainly on the bottom to add vignette.

Matt_82

IanHamlett

I've seen that thrown around with an 8x10 on the left with "1 exposure - 6 are awesome".

IanHamlett

I've gone completely off the deep end. All of my spare cash has gone into darkroom chemicals.

I need to know about developing now. I've watched hours of vids about pushing film above its asa rating and a bunch of vids about stand developing with Rodinal. What I'm having trouble with is finding info on pushing film while stand developing with Rodinol.

IanHamlett

IT'S OKAY EVERYBODY, I'VE FOUND A VIDEO TALKING ABOUT DOING EXACTLY WHAT I NEED TO DO.

IanHamlett

A few minutes away from throwing my fixer on my black and white film. Fingers crossed I haven't fuckied it all up.

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