Discus-n00b
02-14-2015, 09:59 PM
I've had the idea for this thread for quite some time. I often have people asking me about my photos while praising them, and holding them up much higher than I ever would. The whole time I'm thinking they saw that one single photo, but they don't realize I have an entire folder with hundreds more that they didn't see. My mishaps, mistakes, whatever you want to call them. I don't know any photographer that is perfect, we just share our best works from each set. People that haven't spent a lot of time doing this get discouraged because they can't get a good photo not realizing that the best photographers out there might go through hundreds before they find something they feel is worthy. I am posting this thread to show some of those mistakes, or maybe some photos that I chose not to work with and the reasons. I'm not perfect neither will you, but don't let a few bad ones spoil the whole bunch! You will often find that I, like usually yourself, is your own biggest critic.
First here is a shot of some files I have backed up on a hard drive. Notice I'll shoot just about every month of the year sometimes multiple times, but just how many of those did you see? 6,287 files, 56 folders, and 130GB of pure photo files. And thats just in the span of March 2013 - October 2014 not including any specialty named folders such as the NADA show or anything more specific I do. Sorry this one may be hard to read.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c172/clemmatt/folders_zpsc7fa7dae.jpg
When I first go through a set of images I'm looking for a few key items. Good exposure, subject in frame, subject in focus, and permanent distractions in frame. By permanent I mean something I can't remove in post processing like a few dust spots or a bright pixel. Another fish cutting off half of the subject, a giant algae spot in front of the subject, a glaring sponge filter, a car moving in front of the tree you are shooting, a bird streaking through the frame, etc you get the idea. That's the stuff that you can't really remove easily during post. For the sake of bandwidth and post length I can't show you ALL of the fails I just picked some of the worst ones out of a few folders, and this will continue to grow as time goes on as well. Just know the majority of photos I take are easily trashable. I post this hopefully to break others out of their shells and post more in this new photo center, here are some of my flaws, where are yours?
So how long have you been shooting aquarium photography Matt? CLEARLY very bad, overexposed, and did I mention bad? Sometimes these are necessary however to dialing in the perfect exposure and settings. Gives you a starting point. Shoot adjust shoot.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7375/16489222326_8561483e05_b.jpg
Awesome tree frog right? Wrong. Focus is bad and camera operator is jumping on a trampoline it looks like!
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8592/16327771050_3851a9a26a_b.jpg
The Grand Canyon sure is uhhh....bright? Its just way to overexposed to work with. Can't do much at all with this one. But like I said, starting point.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7327/15892712854_1b1e07355a_b.jpg
There's wigglers here somewhere. Again just to blurry and to much camera movement to work with. Depth of field on the macro lens here just allows a very fine line to work with, you can see all of the corners are out of focus.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8605/16514341322_e1db202f6a_b.jpg
One of my more recent attempts. There's a lot of things wrong with this photo. Focus seems OK on the subject but I am picking up a lot of the stuff on the front glass (Though I can take care of that easily in post production, that's a lesson coming soon.) There is also a very distracting tank seam running down the photo, crop it to much and the fish is sitting to far to the right in the photo. Its overexposed, no details on the white or face of the fish. The orange is a bit blown out as well but a color like that is easier to work with in post than overexposing white which effectively erases all detail there. This shot came from a set where I feel like I got arguably one of my best, or favorite at least, photos ever.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7286/15892678534_d0294333f2_b.jpg
Look its a praying mantis! No, really....
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8566/16346542929_841457fa6d_b.jpg
You said 1/4th tank shot right?
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8653/16514196622_ba13e1b27f_b.jpg
We all have bad photos. Keep at it! Find that gem in the set. Every set of images I take I'm going to keep updating this and adding to it. I will make a more technical thread on correcting issues with photos both through post processing and while shooting with examples but for now I want to show you that you really only see MAYBE 1% of the photos I actually take. Its normal. The good thing about digital is you can delete them and start over without buying or replacing film!! I wanted to really post this to encourage others, especially when using this new Photo Center to post their photos even if there are things wrong. Let us help you correct them or steer you in the right direction. You are talking to the guy who sat in his hotel room 2/3 of a way through one of the most amazing trips of his life in Costa Rica scrolling through his photos and then accidentally hit YES to format his memory card on his camera......yep, all gone. Live and learn!!
First here is a shot of some files I have backed up on a hard drive. Notice I'll shoot just about every month of the year sometimes multiple times, but just how many of those did you see? 6,287 files, 56 folders, and 130GB of pure photo files. And thats just in the span of March 2013 - October 2014 not including any specialty named folders such as the NADA show or anything more specific I do. Sorry this one may be hard to read.
http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c172/clemmatt/folders_zpsc7fa7dae.jpg
When I first go through a set of images I'm looking for a few key items. Good exposure, subject in frame, subject in focus, and permanent distractions in frame. By permanent I mean something I can't remove in post processing like a few dust spots or a bright pixel. Another fish cutting off half of the subject, a giant algae spot in front of the subject, a glaring sponge filter, a car moving in front of the tree you are shooting, a bird streaking through the frame, etc you get the idea. That's the stuff that you can't really remove easily during post. For the sake of bandwidth and post length I can't show you ALL of the fails I just picked some of the worst ones out of a few folders, and this will continue to grow as time goes on as well. Just know the majority of photos I take are easily trashable. I post this hopefully to break others out of their shells and post more in this new photo center, here are some of my flaws, where are yours?
So how long have you been shooting aquarium photography Matt? CLEARLY very bad, overexposed, and did I mention bad? Sometimes these are necessary however to dialing in the perfect exposure and settings. Gives you a starting point. Shoot adjust shoot.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7375/16489222326_8561483e05_b.jpg
Awesome tree frog right? Wrong. Focus is bad and camera operator is jumping on a trampoline it looks like!
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8592/16327771050_3851a9a26a_b.jpg
The Grand Canyon sure is uhhh....bright? Its just way to overexposed to work with. Can't do much at all with this one. But like I said, starting point.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7327/15892712854_1b1e07355a_b.jpg
There's wigglers here somewhere. Again just to blurry and to much camera movement to work with. Depth of field on the macro lens here just allows a very fine line to work with, you can see all of the corners are out of focus.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8605/16514341322_e1db202f6a_b.jpg
One of my more recent attempts. There's a lot of things wrong with this photo. Focus seems OK on the subject but I am picking up a lot of the stuff on the front glass (Though I can take care of that easily in post production, that's a lesson coming soon.) There is also a very distracting tank seam running down the photo, crop it to much and the fish is sitting to far to the right in the photo. Its overexposed, no details on the white or face of the fish. The orange is a bit blown out as well but a color like that is easier to work with in post than overexposing white which effectively erases all detail there. This shot came from a set where I feel like I got arguably one of my best, or favorite at least, photos ever.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7286/15892678534_d0294333f2_b.jpg
Look its a praying mantis! No, really....
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8566/16346542929_841457fa6d_b.jpg
You said 1/4th tank shot right?
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8653/16514196622_ba13e1b27f_b.jpg
We all have bad photos. Keep at it! Find that gem in the set. Every set of images I take I'm going to keep updating this and adding to it. I will make a more technical thread on correcting issues with photos both through post processing and while shooting with examples but for now I want to show you that you really only see MAYBE 1% of the photos I actually take. Its normal. The good thing about digital is you can delete them and start over without buying or replacing film!! I wanted to really post this to encourage others, especially when using this new Photo Center to post their photos even if there are things wrong. Let us help you correct them or steer you in the right direction. You are talking to the guy who sat in his hotel room 2/3 of a way through one of the most amazing trips of his life in Costa Rica scrolling through his photos and then accidentally hit YES to format his memory card on his camera......yep, all gone. Live and learn!!