Digital Photography, a short rant..

My biggest concern is this area is that a number of people seem to feel that they have to tweak a photo by applying what seems like all the features of their photoshop equivelent and turn what may have been an average picture to something that just doesnt look natural..

Its very much personal taste, and sure, I think there are some awsome pictures made by tweaking maybe an average photo and making it awsome, but in the wrong hands (perhaps such as mine) but Ive seen so many pictures turn into down right ugly, or they got highlighted, shadowed, sharpened, bits added, taken away, to the point that so little of the picture seems in there now..

For example this (work safe) takes an average photo to a striking picture, but, its just not a photo to me any more..

Also, another example here (also work safe) this site doesnt seem to really have anything that looks remotely real on it.. Im not saying its not awsome what hes done, but, to me, thats too much..

IMHO..

If you took a poor shot, keep it to yourself, dont try and photoshop it to within a pixel of death and pass it off as "art".. please, learn to take a better photo.. Make the most of your scene with the camera, dont use photoshop to make up for the fact you didnt bother to start with..

Sure, many of my pictures wont be winning photo of the year 2008, but, I can at least sit here and know that I took them with my camera, not made them up.

On the left is a link to some recent photos, keep an eye out, or go visit other online photos I have there, you're always welcome to drop me your thoughts on some of my photos (and yes, some are kinda ugly I know that)

Playing catchup..

So.. whats new since the last post.. Oh Im so bad for leaving it till now!!!

So, this is our new friend Maddie, she is as her name implies, a nutter, a complete 100% nutter. Shes only young, she was supposed to be 6 months old, but we arent so convinced, by now she should be 7 or 8 and she still acts like 4 or 5.. it may not seem a lot of time to you and me, but, to a dog thats a couple of years almost and its that difference between 12/13 when all kids just annoy everyone, and 15 or so, when you actually find them reasonable to talk to and human.

What else, oh, my job is falling apart around my ears.. I had some hopes but they've all crashed and burned.. The short version is my jobs being split in 2, and I get a choice of doing the incredibly soul destroyingly boring version or just the incredibly boring version.. (notice there is no good version).. Both would report to the same guy who drives me nuts, and the marginally better version could involve a salary cut, so, neither option is ideal.

Hmm.. what else.. Ive decided that i need to get a faster lens for my digital camera.. the one I have is poop. For the non photographically minded amongst you, basically lenses have 2 measurements of interest.

1. its mm distance, 50mm = normal vision, <> 50 makes stuff closer
2. its "f" stop, f stop tells you how much light you lose. f1 is PERFECT, so obviously as near to f1, you can get is a good thing, then while it doesnt work logically to you and me 1.4 is half the light of f1, 2.8 half the light again etc.. Now, for short lenses like <=50 this should be a low number, as its the amount of light bouncing around that needs to go on and so on that removes light (normally), well, the lens I have is 18-50, but the F stops are 3.5 -5.6, that says at 18mm it has a low fstop of 3.5, and at 50 its 5.6, 5.6 is SLOW.

What does this mean in reality? Well, what it basically means is at any given exposure time, the higher the f-stop the brighter it needs to be to get a same picture.. So, in short, my current lens in dappled sunshine or cloud has actually told me it wont take a picture its not bright enough.. and there are rude words for that.

But the cost of the lens is a lot, when for pretty much the same value I can get a brand new supposedly lesser camera, but, the whole ease of ability to just "take the photo" seriously weighs high, when I got my current camera, I deliberated for hours.. annoyed the heck out of everyone I could about their thoughts and views.. and I guess in someways, I regret my decision, I love my camera, its awsome, it takes great photos, but so much of the time, I just wanna take the photo, I dont want to waste time swapping lenses, carrying a bag of stuff around... I just want to get the moment "Now"..