Post Your Photos (and lens/processing info)
 

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.

Natural Lighting
 

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.

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.

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

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