@cheesestick
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Hey, Happy Birthday, Lydia!
Thanks for all you do behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly!It appears that hot pixels are caused from long exposures, high ISOs, and sensor degradation. You’re probably dealing with the last two.
From personal experience, the other thing that can worsen the effect is usage during a session -i.e., you will notice that the 100th picture you take in quick succession will have hotter pixels than the 1st. Of course this is anecdotal and may not always be true.
Hot pixels are a common problem with old sensors. Yours, a Nikon D80, is a camera from back in 2006 to 2008, so it’s at least 13 years old.
There isn’t much you can do to prevent the problem – Hot pixels are just sensor pixels that get noisier as the sensor ages. Some cameras (I don’t know about the Nikon D80) have in-body pixel mapping or long exposure noise reduction settings that can help. I know most Canons have this, but again, I don’t know about Nikons.
Beyond that, with good hot pixel removal software, you can get rid of them easily.
Darktable’s hot pixel tool works very well, though I imagine other professional-level photo editors such as Lightroom or Affinity have good tools for the purpose also.Turning a photo monochrome is a unique and interesting idea – it just changes what you can use the photograph for. From my amateur perspective, I think you’ve nailed it. I’d hang that on my wall any day.
As for the crop, personally I like Color-Resurrection-Bay-Panorama-1.jpg best (though I’d like it even better if it were monochrome like the others.)
BW-Resurrection-Bay-Panorama-2.jpg has very little foreground content on the left, whereas
BW-Resurrection-Bay-Panorama-1.jpg has too much weight on the left, and distracts the eye.
Both feel unbalanced. The crop on the colour version (IMHO) has nailed the balance between framing and foreground-middleground-background ratio.Great job.
I find posing to be one of the hardest things to do, and usually I find that looking at other photographer’s work can give me ideas.
Another place you can go to get ideas is lenspiration.photos.
James’ wedding portfolio and, to a lesser extent, his People and Places portfolio could give you some inspiration.Great composition there!
I am no expert on lighting, but I will point out that the building is slightly crooked. The photo needs either a lens correction, or perhaps to be rotated anticlockwise a degree or so.
I am eager to hear what others have to suggest.…if they are too abstract or confusing the way they are edited?
It totally depends on what you’re using the picture for. What is the story you want it to tell? It’s a great way of rescuing an otherwise rather bland picture, in my line of thinking. I’ve done it before too; see attached.
Since leaving only the subject fully saturated strongly draws attention to it as the focus of the picture, I rather like the feel of IMG_4088 better than IMG_3444.jpg. I like that the closeup shot allows me to look more closely at the (strongly emphasized) subject.
The photo still needs a bit of fine-tuning to perfect the effect (make the second branch completely desaturated), but still, you have a great photo in the works. Great job, @jenna.
Attachments:
@laura-aome said:
Would the picture not get too light at f/4 or f/2.8 having it on the bulb setting though?
This is a question best answered by thinking about the three basic factors of image lightness: ISO, aperature, and shutter speed.
The quick answer is that no, it wouldn’t necessarily, if you balance all three settings correctly.Here is another great conversation from about seven years ago that you’ll probably find helpful.
As @jamesstaddon mention in a post about 7 years ago
Here’s a great article on how to shoot and combine star trails: https://petapixel.com/2013/03/18/how-to-photograph-star-trails-from-start-to-finish/ (I recommend you have AdBlock Plus installed for that website)
If shooting in Bulb, it’ll take a lot of experimenting. You’ll need 30min to an hour at least. This is rough on your camera. And if your tripod gets bumped for whatever reason, or your battery runs out….oh well, you have to start over.
The safest way to go about creating nice long star trails is to stack many, many 30sec exposures. It’s very simple. In Photoshop, it’s a matter of setting each layer to the Lighten blend mode.
THere are probably actually star-trails in your picture (although without having the raw photo to work on I can’t prove that), but you have so many hot pixels and ISO noise that you can’t see them.
I don’t recommend it. I have used Nikon DSLR’s for recording several times, always with mediocre results. I’d recommend finding/borrowing a video camera or a camcorder instead. Here are a few of the problems that I’ve run into.
#1. The European Union. I’m not kidding. Your Nikon camera will always stop recording at 29min:59sec, or 4 GB, whichever comes first. This is NOT a setting. An EU rule of 2007 states that “any digital still camera with a resolution higher than 800×600 and the duration of video of 30 minutes of more (at 23 fps or higher) must now be classified as a ‘video camera recorder’ and hence be taxed at a higher rate.” Major camera makes (like Nikon) make their DSLR’s so they can be sold in Europe without incurring those extra taxes.
If, of course, you are simply outputting the camera’s video signal via HDMI to a separate video recording device (i.e. OSB Studio or similar software on a computer) this isn’t an issue.#2. I’ve never reached this 30-minute limit with a Nikon DSLR, because the battery life isn’t good enough. If you’re not watching out, the camera will simply turn off (and won’t always save the video). Canons tend to be better on this. (Caveat: maybe if you have a good-quality Nikon and/or batteries, that will be different. I worked almost exclusively with lower-end DSLR’s, both Nikon & Canon)
#3. Especially, again, with Nikons, you will sometimes notice (especially if the room is hot and/or poorly ventilated) that the camera will heat up quite a bit when recording for a long time. I had one get so hot, when I was filming a baptism once, that I was scared something was melting inside. Again, maybe higher-end Nikon cameras (or batteries) are made better. It ran an error message and turned off. I am thankful it was fine afterwards. I am doubly thankful that I had a backup, a camcorder, running too.
#4. The sound quality on DSLR microphones is passive at best. Take it for granted that in an auditorium, (which are very resonant places, generally) you won’t be able to hear anything said more than 10 – 15 feet away from the camera. That goes for Canon as well. Dedicated videocameras tend to be designed with this in mind.
Of course, if your sound technician is recording the audio separately, this doesn’t matter.#5. For amateur recording, unless you have a lens with some really serious vibration reduction, and a really, really smooth zoom ring, (or a really, really steady hand) a videocamera will do a far, far better job for panning/moving/zoom shots.
Of course, if you just set the camera up on a tripod and leave it, that doesn’t matter either. But almost everyone who wants a wedding videotaped wants certain special moments caught as closeups.So although the video feature on DSLR’s is really great for brief snapshots, I thoroughly recommend the use of a video camera or camcorder for filming anything longer than 5-10 minutes.
I am no expert on cookbook photography, but those pictures look simply delicious. So you succeeded there.
Good job on using natural light.
I find the colours in tablecloth in the first picture to be just a tad too much; maybe a pure white background would be worth experimenting with. There is so much colour that my eye is not drawn instantly to the meal, but rather wanders around looking for the subject for a few seconds. It depends how much you want the meal to blend in/contrast with its background.
Of course, it’s a matter preference, as well as how this image is being used. One could argue that the image being conveyed is “This is a deliciously spicy Moroccan meal…” rather than “This is what the dish looks like,” especially given the sheer number of elements in the picture. If of course that’s what your aiming for, you’re right on the money.On the second picture, IMO, the little bit of the tablecloth in the background (against the black background) really does seem out-of-place. Choose one or the other, not both.
Happy cooking,
WilliamFor some reason the website deleted my earlier post. Here it is again.
does the dpi of an image matter?
Does the actually in-camera dpi setting matter? Very little.
Does the number of pixels per inch matter? A whole lot.
I’ll try to explain why.A digitally stored image has no inherent physical dimensions, measured in inches or centimetres. Some (not all) digital file formats record a DPI value value, which is to be used when printing the image. This number lets the printer know the intended size of the image, or (in the case of scanned images) the size of the original scanned object. For example, an image may measure 1,000 × 1,000 pixels, a resolution of 1 megapixel. If it is labelled as 250 PPI, that is an instruction to the printer to print it at a size of 4 × 4 inches. Changing the PPI to 100 in an image editing program would tell the printer to print it at a size of 10 × 10 inches. However, changing the PPI value would not change the size of the image in pixels, which would still be 1,000 × 1,000.
You shouldn’t print everything at the highest resolution possible. Even a 42MP photo, something that can reliably be blown way up, only spits out a 26-inch x 17-inch print at 300dpi. This is why standard print resolutions rarely get that high. Billboards are usually printed at just 15dpi, and bus wraps around 72 or 100dpi. However, if you’re printing a family picture for putting on your desk, a handbill, tract, or business card, people will look at it more closely, so don’t dip below 300dpi. (I.e., don’t print a 4 x 6 inch picture with less than 1,200 x 1,800 pixels.)
On the other hand, if you’re exporting a picture for use on the web, you can usually get away with a lot less resolution, from 72 to 96 dpi, as most computer/phone screens physically don’t have more pixels per inch than that.
Is there a way to change the dpi of an image?
With what I have just said, it should be obvious that you will rarely (if ever) need to. If you need a picture printed used at a specific size, at a specific resolution, just use some multiplication to find out how many pixels you’ll need.
I hope this helps,
WilliamHow does everyone get such sharp images…?
Remember, everyone gets lots and lots of blurry ones, too. You only ever see other people’s best ones! You have some great work there, keep it up.
Here’s a great blog post from lenspiration on the topic of tack sharpness.
Make sure your lenses are perfectly clean. Even an apparently small smudge, or a virtually invisible coat of dirt, can affect image quality.
No, shooting in Jpg vs RAW doesn’t directly affect image sharpness, thought it might affect smooth textures slightly (in extreme cases). RAW gives you more power over the colours in your pictures when editing them.
Your example pictures are resized to 2000 px long-edge. I wouldn’t dare give an opinion without seeing the original picture.
For your last question, use the Golden Rule. Don’t post 8 pictures when 2 would do. But if you need to post three or four, like you did this time, you’re fine just putting them in at the same time; it won’t break the website.
Yes, as @musicgal recommended, the Foundations of Photography course, though it might take some resources and effort, could be a lot of help in answering this kind of question.
I hope that helped.@lenspirationlydia said:
The only one I have experience with is the 50mm. Some people love prime lenses.
That’s me! You learn eventually to “zoom with your feet” instead of your fingers. It’s strange at first.
I was given a broken 50mm f/1.8 prime lens once. It had no autofocus, no IS, and it fell apart literally in my hand if I wasn’t careful. Eventually the thing got stuck at f/1.8! It was practically scrap, but I fell in love with it.
For separating a small subject from a cluttered background, nothing could beat that lens, not even a zoom macro. The background blur you get is AWESOME. Of course, it depends what kind of pictures you want to take. But I really believe that some of my best pictures would simply never have happened without that lens.Here’s my advice: find a photographer who will lend you two or three good, but different, lenses for a few hours of shooting. That can help in feeling out your needs/wants sometimes.
Hey, @ilikejeans123gmail-com, If you want people to more easily see to what you are referring, it might be helpful to @mention the person (by username) to whom you are speaking, and/or add a link the specific picture you’re referencing.
Have a great day.
