Here we own one of the best still cameras in the world, yet we don't tend to post stills or talk about them. I'm starting this thread for this purpose.

Keep in mind that this is not PhotoBucket. The idea is that we should only post photos that give insight into camera operation, lenses, and processing. We don't need full size, full res photos for that, scaled or cropped images will do.

Here's my contribution... Last night I shot a photo of our cat, Figaro. His black fur makes him nearly impossible to shoot well with cheapo cameras.

Lighting: Four ceiling-mounted lights were on, surrounding the subject. The ceiling is two stories above the floor.
Lens: Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF on Photodiox Pro adapter.
Operation: Full manual, using Live View Exposure Simulation. Handheld.
Focus: Manual, using 10x magnification
Settings: f/1.8, 1/30, 6400 ISO, custom WB.
Processing from RAW: Dropped the contrast slightly. Boosted the saturation. Cranked sharpness all the way to make up for slight focus/motion blur. The image is scaled, not cropped.

Using a Nikon lens this way for a photo was REALLY slow. Auto-focus, shutter priority, and IS would have really helped. A tripod wasn't reasonable, as the cat was pretty feisty and rarely stayed in one place.

The bokeh of this lens is pretty poor on the details of the gold couch pillow. Aside from that I'm happy with the lens. If I could manually set the aperture of lenses in video mode, I would definitely choose Canon lenses.

I read a photographers blog and he only shoots at dusk and dawn. This shot is why. Though I love my D80, this is from a crappy point and shoot with auto settings right at dusk after a rain storm. The sky was exactly that orangy. If you're ever looking to get a natural shot of something, try right as the sun is coming or going...

This photo was taken with a Nikon 105mm Micro Nikkor. It has glorious macro focusing ability. Fortunately my cat is a ragdoll and is very lazy. So he just sat there for me.

Lighting: day light coming through the sliding glass door, about 10 feet away.
Lens: Nikon 105mm Micro Nikkor f2.8. Used a $15 generic adapter bought off eBay.
Operation: Movie mode with Live View, handheld.
Settings: f/2.8, 1/25, 800 ISO, auto WB.
Processing from JPG: Increased exposure in Apple Aperture, then selectively increased saturation to blues to make the eye color pop.

I'm still amazed that with any of the photos I've shot with the 5D, they could be videos as well.

-steev

Great photo, Steev.

BTW, when I try to shoot outside of full manual or Live View with a Nikon lens, the shutter opens and just sits there. It would be nice if we could still get an auto exposure with a Nikon lens.

Is there something I'm missing?

Zeiss Contax 28mm f2.0

One more with Zeiss Contax 28mm at f2.0

Loving all the critters... keep 'em coming!

This is one the first images I took with the 5D Mk. II, it's last winter's Moon / Venus / Jupiter conjunction. Shot from sticks on Dec. 1st at 6pm CT, EF 24-105mm L IS lens at 32mm, f/4.0, 1/40th, ISO 2500 (was set to Auto). Standard profile, Auto WB.

Loving all the critters... keep 'em coming!

This is one the first images I made with the 5D Mk. II, it's last winter's Moon / Venus / Jupiter conjunction. Shot from sticks on Dec. 1st at 6pm CT, EF 24-105mm L IS lens at 32mm, f/4.0, 1/40th, ISO 2500 (was set to Auto). Standard profile, Auto WB.

That conjunction had me mesmerized for hours.

I got this one of the Arizona and the Missouri on Sunday. Shooting details are Canon 5D2, 50mm 1.8 Canon, ~1/1000 shutter, aperture variation mode, three-shot bracketing with 2/3 f-stop variation, polarizing filter. I was in the back seat of a Cessna that was kicking like an angry bull. I got this opportunity due to my friend, Dennis, needing more hours of instruction (Cliff, cool guy) to get his full license. This is not an easy shot to get as the only way to be on this approach is to be in a small plane transitioning through Kalaeloa airspace to Honolulu International. Small planes are sent inland to keep out of the heavy's traffic but they must swing South at the last minute and flip around to approach the runway into the wind. I shot just before this but had about a second to realize my composition was wrong. I turned the body to about 20 degrees from vertical to get this framing. Fortunately, the polarizer was rotated close enough to correct to get a bit of a color boost. Unfortunately, the windows were dirty and I didn't have any Pledge.

Great photo, Steve.

BTW, when I try to shoot outside of full manual or Live View with a Nikon lens, the shutter opens and just sits there. Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks Jon. My testing was with a rental camera, so I'm trying to remember now. I believe I was in manual mode, Live view with movie mode enabled. That way I could easily shoot stills or video with a Nikon lens. Does that make sense?

-steev

My wife shot this of me, just a few minutes ago at the dinner table. She is not really a shooter.

Available light 70-200 f2.8 L IS USM, handheld, candle light and some room incandescence lights. This is one of the best lenses and cameras ever produced for stills. Metadata included. Aperture priority set to 2.8, no adjustments. It is tack sharp even blown up almost no grain.

This was shot a few days ago, handheld 100-400 (airpump Canon lens) I love this lens, some hate the push pull focus. Metadata from Aperture included.

I use the double battery base, this makes portrait framing real easy and balanced. For sports and wildlife this is a really fast zooming quick framing lens, the IS works great. The 22Mpx makes it really easy to crop and still get a 11x14 or even 13x19 print that is very sharp w/o noise.

1 out of over a thousand shots taken last weekend with my fiancee for her portfolio. This was taken with a beloved Nikon 55mm f1.2, stopped down a little and still battling focus. There were some happy accidents though. Metadata says it was shot at ISO 800 1/320 shutter speed. I did some color balancing in Aperture and airbrushing in photoshop. Most of the bokeh and softness is straight out of the camera though.

Addition: Lighting was with 2 lowel rifa lights (1 500w, 1 250w), and a Lowel Pro light (125w) as backlight.

Critter

Nikkor 50mm f1.8 wide open
ISO 640
Shutter 1/125

A little mucking around in aperture

Great photo, Steve.

BTW, when I try to shoot outside of full manual or Live View with a Nikon lens, the shutter opens and just sits there. It would be nice if we could still get an auto exposure with a Nikon lens.

Is there something I'm missing?

Strange. AV and TV work fine for me using Nikkors and cheapo adaptors. I never shoot stills with Live View.

Here are a couple that I shot. This is a great camera for photos.

A shot I took of my kids on our way to the airport in Singapore. Just got the 5D2 the day before.

From few months ago. Trying 35mm/1.4 L... Processed in LR.
Full gallery here:
Zenfolio | FOTOGRAFIJA | 5D II: kidz (http://sisoje.zenfolio.com/p560482214)

Another time, another shoot...

Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L
1/400 sec, f/8, 38mm
Owens Dry lake, looking north to Mt. Whitney

Shot as the sun fell below the horizon w/ a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens.
f2.0
iso 400
1/100 sec

lots of cs4 action. Focus on the lens is short...need to spend the time to set it w/ micro adjust.

Black-crowned Night Heron

8th March 2009
Canon 5D Mark 2 and Canon 400mm f5.6 lens
Taken at the Typhoon Shelter at Causeway Bay, Hong Kong

Little Egret taken at Nam Sang Wai, Hong Kong using the same gear

Nice shots Bob.

Thanks David,

Although people have commented on other sites that the camera is not suitable for birds in flight, because of the slow continuous mode. Personally I love the camera.

Another shot from the typhoon shelter with Canon 400 f5.6 lens, this time a Black kite

Bob

I shot this photo at the local podunk airport with a Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF. I show two versions. One is processed only with the Canon software (contrast lowered, saturation and sharpness boosted.) The other is "Ortonized" - a process that uses multiple layers and only blurs the darks. You might need to click the photos to compare at a larger size.

In Photoshop, you make a layer from the background, then duplicate it. Set the top layer's blending mode to "screen" which brightens the picture. Next, merge it down. Duplicate your merged layer, and set the blending mode to "multiply", which will darken the result. Now apply about 20 pixels of Gaussian blur to the top layer. Boom. Ortonized.

You can do the same with Vegas. Open a project and add some video to a track. Duplicate the layer. Set the top layer's blending mode to "screen". Save the project. Open a new project. Place your previous project on a timeline track, nesting it. Duplicate the layer. Set the top layer's blending mode to "multiply". Add a Gaussian blur effect to the top layer and adjust to taste.

The effect looks better on some scenes than others. Anyway, it's something to play with...

Here's another photo shot with the same lens, indoors, wide open - and tweaked with the same process.

My little friends arrive each day for breakfast and dinner snacks.
5dmk2 with 50 MM Lensbaby Composer, dual glass element, F4 aperture plate.
Camera in Aperture mode. Probably 400 ASA. (Very overcast mid afternoon)

With 50 MM lens distance to subject about 36 in. Manual focus.

The birds are on my Vimeo home page, both 5dmk2 and Canon HF10. I'm unable to load the link to this post.

My little friends arrive each day for breakfast and dinner snacks.

Those are wild birds?! Beautiful.

-- peer

Those are wild birds?! Beautiful.

-- peer
Peer, Yes, wild, and aggressive. They eat the lot, chasing competitors off, large or small. The Kookaburra (Very Large) shuts them up however.

vimeo.com/3185936

5D MK2 + Birds.

Thanks for your comments.

Setup, Window light overcast falling on table, a small hand mirror trimmed and fastened to table via Power Tack. Lensbaby Composer 50 MM F4 + #1 tube. Av mode 1/4 sec 100 ASA. Camera on 10 sec delay, well tied down.

Minor adjustments in PSD. Highlight reduction. Face dimentions 3/4 in H 1/2 in W

Funny, I wonder why my images are at this size? Sent at 8x12 72 DPI. I thought it may have been larger than my previous contribution.!! Never mind.

My wife shot this of me, just a few minutes ago at the dinner table. She is not really a shooter.

Available light 70-200 f2.8 L IS USM, handheld, candle light and some room incandescence lights. This is one of the best lenses and cameras ever produced for stills. Metadata included. Aperture priority set to 2.8, no adjustments. It is tack sharp even blown up almost no grain.

This Is A Stunning Result. Congratulations.

Critter

Nikkor 50mm f1.8 wide open
ISO 640
Shutter 1/125

A little mucking around in aperture

5DMK2 & Aperture really worked. Good Going. Kiwi Ron.

Bringing this thread back on to the topic of cats here is a photo that my wife took the other day of The Boy. The lens is a Canon 24-105 F4L at 105mm 1/250 F4. It has not been tweaked, cropped or otherwise mucked about with. You can view the full sized 5616x3744 JPEG original here
Sample Still Photos- powered by SmugMug (http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/7956677_EaY2T/1/#516655285_o9skY-O-LB)

Cheers

Nigel

Long overdue, Chris told me when I got a 5DmII I had to contribute to this thread. Nothing spectacular; just a couple of "getting familiar with my new camera shots."
Both shot aperture priority, CR2 large and down-rezzed in CS4. "Standing guard" was the 24-105L lens at F4.0, 1/125th, 93mm focal length, ISO 400. The "Swimmer" was at 140mm on a 75-300 lens (not L glass) at F5.0, 1/1600, ISO 2000.

Here are three photos I took at the L.A. Arboretum last week. The first was set at ISO 200, F4.0, and 1/100. The second was taken using ISO 200, F4.0, and 1/250. And the last one which looks like a Van Gogh painting was taken using ISO 100, F4.0, and 1/250. Believe me I was impressed with these photos. This was my first real shooting for the 5D Mark II using the kit lense 24-105L f4 lense.

Great picture of the swimmer, Pete!

I read recently that a great photo combines fact, light and moment. In this case, the fact is that the swimmer is fresh from the water, the light is quite good with the dark background making it interesting, and the moment is captured by the swimmer's expression and water droplets that haven't yet fallen and dried.

Bravo!

It's about time, Pete! Lookin' good!

I'm diggin' the crop-ability of a 21 meg image...

105mm, f/5.6, 1/1200, ISO 100.

Stunning detail Chris! Gorgeous composition! The beauty and texture, the depth and aggressiveness to the tread cleats, the subtle range of grays and blacks, the 3 dimensional reality of the raised lettering. I can almost smell the burning rubber, but you should have swatted away that fly, just ruins it for me.

More snapshots from a visit to a family friend's open house day at her farm...

Rooster: 100mm, f/4, 1/80, ISO 125, cropped.

Mustang: 105mm, f/4.5, 1/166, ISO 100, cropped.

1st Paint: 75mm, f/5.6, 1/125, IS) 100, full frame.

2nd Paint: 85mm, f/6.4, 1/200, ISO 100, full frame.

No animals were harmed in the process... that's just water color paint, washes right off with a hose, that particular horse is very much kid-friendly and no stranger to such activities. They were emulating a Native American practice common among the Cheyenne and other nations of coloring their horses with various medicine symbols prior to hunts, etc.

Here's a recent photo from Arlington, VA. Sometimes the government limits freedoms. Sometimes property owners do. But few express such a deep lack of irony. :)

BTW, this was shot with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4. I really should have corrected the pin cushioning for the best effect. Lack of aperture control aside, the spatial distortion makes this lens less than ideal for video. It's unattractive on people as well as straight lines. It's one thing to correct on a single, 21MP photo. It's another thing to have to apply correction to every frame of video.

25th April 2009

Sukau, a 2 hour drive from Sandakan, Sabah and then down stream in a motorised canoe.

Canon 5D Mark 2 (of course) and Canon 400mm f5.6 lens (the shot is full frame and shot in RAW)

On Black: Proboscis Monkey IMG_3365xw.jpg by jingbar (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=3484947535&size=large)

Fantastic photo, Bob! I can't even imagine how it felt to come face to face with that guy. Few humans can convey that much attitude in a single expression.

The first is a shot of The Cure on stage at Coachella with my crappy kit lens that came with my 40D (it's the only zoom I had on me).

I second one is of my cat Neo. 50mm 1.4

Sigma 50mm EX DG HSM 1.4 - (If you want a fast prime that is sharp wide open, this is it.)

F/2.2
1/640 sec
ISO - 100
AI Servo AF
AF point area expansion - Enabled
Center AF point
Fill-in flash - Canon Speedlight 430EX - high speed shutter enabled

And he loves me. That's his name. Rescued last August 15th in Wyoming. He wore out my throwing arm retrieving. For Christmas, my wife bought me a "Chuck it." I can hurl the tennis ball a country mile with it, with a tail wind 80 yards in the air for sure.

Every day he runs 3-5 miles fetching that ball. He expects it. He's not going to let you forget it's time to play ball. He's gone after 80 passes at a time, but he won't quit. He runs right back with it and drops it at your feet. We average about 35-50 passes every day. I watch carefully when he shows signs of tiring. I don't want to wear him out. He couldn't be happier getting overworked, but it breaks our heart if he gets sore, so we try not to. He's about 4 years old.

He's very smart, and very affectionate, gets up in my lap still. You can nuzzle and kiss him because he's not a licker. Driving along, he puts his head on my shoulder. He's very expressive and communicative, very trustworthy, just simply a good boy.

He goes with me everywhere and I love having him. We were still heartbroken from the loss of our beloved Weimeraner the year before, weren't going to have another. And then Buddy just came to us, sent from Heaven.

He hates cats though. Hates them. And he has an unfortunate fearless demeanor, undeterred even after being covered head to tail with porcupine quills. He just can't let go. I may lose him if he persists on something that will hurt him, like a western diamondback. But Buddy has got to be Buddy.

The picture from today, Sigma 50mm F/1.4 prime, shot at ISO 100, F/2.2, 1/800th, flash fill.

http://troper10.com/_MG_1876.JPG

Sorry for my ignorance, but how are you all posting the pictures in your reply?

After you click the REPLY button, you'll get the "reply to thread" page where you type the text of your reply. If you scroll below that, you'll see an "Additional Options" section where you'll find a "manage attachments" button. (I'm not sure if very new members have this option or not.)

Can't remember but you can try to reply to as many thread as possible and see. Might only need 10 posts to get the 'Manage your attachment' function.

Yeah that button doesn't appear. Guess I need to comment a little more.

50mm 1.8 (trash kit lens) Still love it though.

Wife was backing out of the driveway, I was saying goodbye, she commented how dark the sky was, and that there was rotation. She drove away, next the air raid sirens went off. I looked out the window to see trash and debris floating in the sky. I opened some windows and doors to equalize the pressure. The phone rings, it's her screaming, "GET TO THE BASEMENT, THE TORNADO'S RIGHT ON TOP OF THE HOUSE!"



I followed her advice, went to basement and got the camera and started snapping pictures from the street. I was getting beaned by hailstones so I went inside, put on a motorcycle helmet and took some more. Safety first...

http://troper10.com/1024_MG_2259.JPG