New to Photography

[The1]

another option to play with for you is to shoot bracketing.

definitly something to look up, but can yeild some interesting results and help provide a learning curve.

if you set one of your bracket shots up to be quite over exposed (or at least appears that way) and then post process that one, I'm willing to bet that one will likely end up looking the sharpest and most crisp (as long as it wasn't too over exposed) The other thing that is fun with this, if you're on a tripod, it gives you more opportunity with other photos and doing HDR in the future when you get used to all the post processing.

over all, look at the photos that come out the best, and check what settings were in the camera, then use that as your bench mark and you can improve upon it from there.

if one picture has great background blur, but stop action, all those settings will show up in your pictures data.

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by silvergray545

That's a good idea but time was a major issue. Trying to shoot 9 different cars on the highway takes quite a bit of time. But next time, I'll just need to take my time and adjust accordingly.

Note to anyone who wants to attempt rolling shots: If the sun it's directly over head, avoid taking highways that run east and west.

Start thinking about your time differently. Shooting nine cars and screwing up every shot is way worse than taking a test shot everytime the light changes.

You can learn to be fast at doing essential things. There are simply certain things that you shouldn't fail to make part of a routine. This will assure consistency and continuous improvement.

Shooting wildlife, I'll go back several times to the same spot and spend hours waiting for a particularly deer buck to show up, for instance. When the stars finally align I don't want to screw the shot up, but I have (only occasionally, thankfully) because I failed to recheck my settings.

Dave

[silvergray545]

Originally Posted by The1

another option to play with for you is to shoot bracketing.

definitly something to look up, but can yeild some interesting results and help provide a learning curve.

if you set one of your bracket shots up to be quite over exposed (or at least appears that way) and then post process that one, I'm willing to bet that one will likely end up looking the sharpest and most crisp (as long as it wasn't too over exposed) The other thing that is fun with this, if you're on a tripod, it gives you more opportunity with other photos and doing HDR in the future when you get used to all the post processing.

over all, look at the photos that come out the best, and check what settings were in the camera, then use that as your bench mark and you can improve upon it from there.

if one picture has great background blur, but stop action, all those settings will show up in your pictures data.

It's funny that you mentioned that because did some editing to a couple photos and they came out decent. Not great, but decent.

Original

IMG_1222 by dsaadeh, on Flickr

Edit

IMG_1222_Edit by dsaadeh, on Flickr

Original

IMG_1266 by dsaadeh, on Flickr

Edit

IMG_1266_Edit by dsaadeh, on Flickr

I haven't had a chance to edit this one yet but sun shining on the front of the car ruins it for me. Other than that, I don't think it's that bad.

IMG_1194 by dsaadeh, on Flickr

I know the background is a litte dark on the pictures I edited but the color on the cars really pop, which is exactly what I was looking for.

I'd like to learn how to shoot HDR. I don't really know what it is but I love most of the HDR pictures I see.

[silvergray545]

Originally Posted by dcstep

Start thinking about your time differently. Shooting nine cars and screwing up every shot is way worse than taking a test shot everytime the light changes.

You can learn to be fast at doing essential things. There are simply certain things that you shouldn't fail to make part of a routine. This will assure consistency and continuous improvement.

Shooting wildlife, I'll go back several times to the same spot and spend hours waiting for a particularly deer buck to show up, for instance. When the stars finally align I don't want to screw the shot up, but I have (only occasionally, thankfully) because I failed to recheck my settings.

Dave

That's exactly what I need to do. I need to be able to know what does what faster. Now I still have to think about what's gonna happen when I change this or that setting. Practice plays a large part in it, I believe. But like I said, the sun really screwed up my thought process. I wasn't sure what to do on the fly. But I put what I know to use.

[dcstep]

It's like sports drills. Doing a routine over and over make it a spinal reaction eventually. To get to that point you have to go out and think beforehand, "What am I going to work on today?" and not just go out and shoot in a big rush. Realize things are going to be moving fast at some points so think what you can do ahead of those times to have your camera ready and optimized for the situation.

Dave

[iBoost]

didnt go through the whole thread but if it hasnt been mentioned, check out photography-on-the.net forums.. i do a lot of reading on there and have learned a thing or two

[silvergray545]

Originally Posted by iBoost

didnt go through the whole thread but if it hasnt been mentioned, check out photography-on-the.net forums.. i do a lot of reading on there and have learned a thing or two

Thanks, I'll check that out!

[silvergray545]

I actually just made my first video edit. Check it out!