[MC Mayank]

Hello folks. Well after much deliberation, confusion and eventually a successful attempt at drilling a hole in my own pocket, I got myself a D90. First chance to play with it at night. This is my first DSLR and I can say comfortably that I don't even know the P of photography. I am a big fan of the folks showcasing their talent on this thread and hope to become a student to the many masters present here.

Here are a few shots that I took tonight without a tripod. Of course to me it looks like I just blocked Dwight Howard's dunk attempt, but please let me know what I should be thinking the next time I try to be cute at night. I din't do anything here. Just set the camera on the rail and went crazy varying the stops at shutter priority mode.

No post processing simply 'cause I don't know how to just yet. Just hit the sharpening button on Picassa.

[fazalaliadil]

Originally Posted by Samurai

@Fazal: Great Shots, I especially liked the close up shots. On spot exposure, perfect eye contact, and great bokeh to boot.
@TG: The fishing shot is a very nice compo.

Thanks Samurai,
The ones that came out well were the most easy ones, My personal best eye contact picture yet is of the yellow tiger ( posted earlier on this thread) with the fore leg in the water and staring at me, (there is a difference in the stare compared to the white... it is hostile, ferocious) at that moment I remember there was shade all around the tiger but through the trees filtered a patch of light just enough to light up his face from the right side, my best ever is what I rate it as.

Originally Posted by Rudra Sen

Exceptional! Lovely composition. But this is where JPEG compression banding starts disturbing the pictures.
@ Vivek. Very good collection there boss. And have you lost some weight by any chance?

Rudra Sen,
Oh yes the fishing shot is a very well composed one, when there is such caliber behind the lens what can one expect?
If you are reffering to the circular bars/ lines in the grey sky which I presumed was due to saturation I added in picassa, then I stand corrected, as due to compression. But on the sun (the straight horizontal bands of different hues) were there which made me run for my camera and mount a 100-400 while I asked my wife to hold the sun for me a little longer. The sky was heavily overcast and only near the sun was a little tear in the clouds which made this pic more contrasting I feel

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

thanks rudra.

yes, I have been consciously keeping my weight in limit. but the pic in my avatar is optical illusion of the bulk i never had

Vivek,
What bulk???? All I see and have been seeing is muscle, on your avtar.
Very colourful pallet of pics from you.

Originally Posted by Torqueguru

@Samurai
Thank you Samu! And yes the eye contact in that shot of Fazal's is gripping to say the least.

Ok you guys are gonna massacre me for this! I could not resist building up a couple of HDRs!
Regards,
TG.

Loved the second seascape/sunset more, the vacant bench and fence give it a different character.


Mayank,
Lovely long exposures, and colourful.
Regards,

[dr_know]

Awesome shots fazalaliadil!

Heres another one from Thekkady, the processing has many flaws which I noticed after saving it but have been lazy to go back and fix'em.

[Exhaust_Note]

I have a fascination for the setting sun. Do not know the reason, but it mesmerizes me and kindles a strange sad feeling deep within.

[Exhaust_Note]

Rudraji,

Your comments and guidance are solicited for this and the "sunset" posted just before this one.

[Torqueguru]

wow! Some seriously nice photos up here! great job guys!

A couple of quadrupeds.





Regards,
TG.

[fazalaliadil]

Dr_know,
Thanks for your appreciation.
Exhaust Note,
NIce frames,The one which has the seagull in frame is my pick.
TG,
Magic as usual, Makes the horse pop out to an extnet... if viewed long only the horse feels in 3D format. Also in colour it looks more lively.
Regards,

[Samir Taheer]

Here are some photo's that i took recently - Any critisim and help with making them look better would be helpful.

[Exhaust_Note]

Thanks fazalaliadil! By the way there were no post processing apart from some cropping. Dont have Photoshop yet and the only option I have is Picasa.

Samir Taheer,
WOW! Superb clarity. It has to be taken using zoom. Which camera?

[s0uljah]

Went a little overboard with PS in this but the original had nice lighting to begin with anyway

[Torqueguru]

Lovely one souljah! It could do better with a tilt correction for the horizon though.

Heres one with no pp at all


regards,
TG.

[Exhaust_Note]

@Torqueguru: How do you manage to light up the desired area/ subject? Is it dine by post processing? I tried this a lot using camera controls but never got it right.

[Stratos]

The Angry Clouds, from my window, Nikkor 18-55mm

[Rudra Sen]

Originally Posted by Exhaust_Note

Rudraji, Your comments and guidance are solicited for this and the "sunset" posted just before this one.

Your shots are absolutely fine. You can afford to go little more on underexposure while shooting sunset. It's a question of couple of more frames.

@ Nishant, try a panoramic shot from your window. It's pretty easy to merge them on PS.

[Torqueguru]

Originally Posted by Exhaust_Note

@Torqueguru: How do you manage to light up the desired area/ subject? Is it dine by post processing? I tried this a lot using camera controls but never got it right.

If you are referring to the 2 shots I just posted now, they are both natural light. I just always look out for interesting lighting. The horse pic was clickeed at a place with lot of canopies formed by huge trees and there was a spot where light seeped through them to the ground. I waited for the horse to walk uptill that point before clicking. Also it was quite foggy too, hence the dreamy light. The second shot of the deer, was shot at sunlight, apart from an unsharp mask, nothing much was done to it. It was shot at ISO 1200, since light was really low and I was using the 70-200 lens. I mostly head out only in the evenings or mornings to shoot, u get some lovely light then.

During post processing if i need to light up a subject i use a feature in photoshop called masking, resulting in manual exposure blending. This link has a tutorial on it.

Digital Blending

A manual blending of 3 exposures of a beach along Monterey Bay . My intension was to make it look other worldly, hence did not care to make it look all that natural.

Lets take an example to make it more clear.
These are 2 exposures of another one of my horse shots.





I stack exposure 1 over exposure 2, and then apply a mask over Exposure 1 and mask out the ares i dont want to be seen. In this case i mask out the over bright areas.
Here is a snapshot of the mask.


And once that is done and the exposures are blended in with various opacity brushes, the final image looked like this.


Rudra, you are a master at this, some insight from you will be of immense value.

Regards,
TG.