Street Photography IV - DPChallenge Forums

02/09/2011 11:09:29 AM · #26

Originally posted by hahn23:

In a public place, people relinquish their expectation of privacy. It's usually best for all purposes to take candid images. At least, that's what I intend to do. When people become aware their image is being captured, they change their behavior. I'll use a 135mm or 200mm lens, so I don't have to get in someone's face, because Basic rules prohibit cropping. We have a stretch of good weather coming over the next 5 days. I know a place where there will be a lot of people on the street.... outside. I'm a wildlife photographer, so I'm going to treat the madding crowd like a herd of elk.

Good advice, I never considered the use of a long focal length to avoid the need for a crop after the fact.

Message edited by author 2011-02-09 11:10:33.

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF

02/09/2011 11:27:25 AM · #27

Originally posted by gcoulson:

Good advice, I never considered the use of a long focal length to avoid the need for a crop after the fact.

For this challenge, it's essential to compose through the viewfinder. For your camera and for my camera, we only see 95% of the image captured through the viewfinder. "The Canon EOS 550D shows approximately 95% of the scene to be captured. The 5% 'margin of error' is of little consequence in normal use, but can make framing critical subjects difficult." dpreview.com

It usually doesn't matter. But, for this challenge, one needs to keep in the back of one's mind the camera's sensor will capture about 5% more than we see through the viewfinder. Things on the border will be included in the scene, which you may not expect. Check the borders of your composed scene!

I'm absolutely sure I'll be in a small minority, but I will shoot with a tripod mounted camera. That's just me trying to avoid the need to perform a slight rotation in PP, which is prohibited in Minimal.

fotomann_forever

02/09/2011 11:37:50 AM · #28

Now, how to keep the street people from messing with the strobes. ...

Tommy_Mac

Nikon D800

02/09/2011 11:40:12 AM · #29

Yeah, it's cold out there on the street today!

Sony Sonnar T* 35mm F2.8 ZA

02/09/2011 11:41:56 AM · #30

Originally posted by hahn23:

Originally posted by gcoulson:

Good advice, I never considered the use of a long focal length to avoid the need for a crop after the fact.

For this challenge, it's essential to compose through the viewfinder. For your camera and for my camera, we only see 95% of the image captured through the viewfinder. "The Canon EOS 550D shows approximately 95% of the scene to be captured. The 5% 'margin of error' is of little consequence in normal use, but can make framing critical subjects difficult." dpreview.com

It usually doesn't matter. But, for this challenge, one needs to keep in the back of one's mind the camera's sensor will capture about 5% more than we see through the viewfinder. Things on the border will be included in the scene, which you may not expect. Check the borders of your composed scene!

I've definitely noticed this before. I'll shoot thinking I've excluded certain objects (trees, people etc), but when I get back to my computer, there they are when I just know they weren't in the viewfinder! I've figured out how much leeway I need to give now to stop that from happening.

salmiakki

Sony Alpha a7R III

02/09/2011 12:05:35 PM · #31

Originally posted by vawendy:

Originally posted by salmiakki:
And this one is minimal editing. Where's Pawdrix when you need him? (yep, not on DPC any more)

I don't even find his profile anymore...?

But he is still posting on Flickr, so have a browse.
Pawdrix's Street Set on Flickr

NiallOTuama

Google Pixel 2

02/09/2011 12:16:26 PM · #32

I'm still pretty irked about the minimal editing rules.
Grr.

EL-ROI

Canon EOS-450D Rebel XSi

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

02/09/2011 12:59:25 PM · #33

Minimal Editing is all I do... no photochop, no nothing. The only thing I need to change is shooting with raw + jpg and ensure my white balance is set and choose the correct photo style.

vawendy

Sony Alpha 1

Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS

02/09/2011 01:09:52 PM · #34

Originally posted by EL-ROI:

Minimal Editing is all I do... no photochop, no nothing. The only thing I need to change is shooting with raw + jpg and ensure my white balance is set and choose the correct photo style.

oh my!! I would have forgotten to switch to RAW + jpg!! I only shoot RAW. Thanks for the reminder!

Tommy_Mac

Nikon D800

Nikon AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF

02/09/2011 01:11:22 PM · #35

Originally posted by vawendy:

Originally posted by EL-ROI:
Minimal Editing is all I do... no photochop, no nothing. The only thing I need to change is shooting with raw + jpg and ensure my white balance is set and choose the correct photo style.

oh my!! I would have forgotten to switch to RAW + jpg!! I only shoot RAW. Thanks for the reminder!

yeah...everything I shot this morning was in RAW!...oh well.

02/09/2011 01:28:00 PM · #36

Ummm...what does this mean?? :S - "oh my!! I would have forgotten to switch to RAW + jpg!! I only shoot RAW. Thanks for the reminder!"

what do I need to do to make sure I'm complying with this rule? I have no idea.

02/09/2011 01:43:36 PM · #37

Just reading up a little on this RAW and RAW + JPG stuff, so confusing.

So on my canon, I switched to "M" mode, went to the menu, selected image quality and then selected "RAW + L." Is that fine?

02/09/2011 01:52:43 PM · #38

Originally posted by kichu:

Just reading up a little on this RAW and RAW + JPG stuff, so confusing.

So on my canon, I switched to "M" mode, went to the menu, selected image quality and then selected "RAW + L." Is that fine?

It's okay. You do need to be in one of the creative modes to change quality. You don't need to also capture a RAW image for this challenge, because you must submit a JPG original, if a validation is required. The RAW image would be for use outside of, and beyond, the purposes of this challenge.

I plan to shoot in JPG L. And, I'll be adjusting my shot parameters to help with the picture style. For your camera, parameters and picture styles. In particular, I'll be increasing the sharpness by 2 notches. My goal is to capture a sharp image not requiring additional sharpening in post processing.

Message edited by author 2011-02-09 13:53:13.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

02/09/2011 02:04:40 PM · #39

Oh I see, ok. I'll have to read up a little more on what you've posted, but thanks for the info! :)

Covert_Oddity

Nikon D700

02/09/2011 02:26:19 PM · #40

Looking forward to this one, though not as easy for me as it used to be since I don't live in the city any more!

02/09/2011 02:27:30 PM · #41

Totally never even thought about changing the settings in my camera for sharpening/saturation etc..

02/09/2011 02:40:32 PM · #42

Originally posted by kichu:

Oh I see, ok. I'll have to read up a little more on what you've posted, but thanks for the info! :)

I like this challenge because it shakes me out of my complacent routine of capturing RAW images and "fixing 'em later" in post processing. RAW images contain ALL the image data captured by camera. Processing that data on our desktop (or laptop) computers makes sense... simply a bigger, more powerful computer than the in-camera processor. However, power and flexibility engenders "sloppiness" in the field when capturing images. (I'm only speaking about my sloppiness!) I tend to drift away from the discipline I once had when shooting film. I like Minimal rules because it forces me to remember and use good shooting practices.

So, the essence of this challenge is to capture images in JPG format. This means we are going to rely more heavily on getting the shot "right" at the time of image capture. We will rely on our in-camera processing and algorithms. After all, when the camera writes the JPG file to the compact flash card, it discards 90% of the data. While JPGs can be adjusted somewhat in post processing, the flexibility is sharply diminished.

Can't crop. Can't do small rotations. Can only sharpen with blunt tools. Can't clone out ANYTHING. You'll want to give yourself the advantage of setting your shot parameters to match an end result you have pre-visualized. Just like film.

eta: Cleaning my sensor now. Don't want a good shot to have a dust bunny as a distracting feature.

Message edited by author 2011-02-09 14:45:14.

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED VR

02/09/2011 03:23:25 PM · #43

Originally posted by gcoulson:

Totally never even thought about changing the settings in my camera for sharpening/saturation etc..

Yes, I'm very new to all of these things, so this is great.

Thanks for the info Hahn - you totally cleared up a lot more for me!

littlemav

Nikon D90

02/09/2011 04:57:49 PM · #44

I am confused.. it says you may resize your picture only once.. but no cropping.. Sooo I have to take the origional image, from 4000 someodd pixels to 800... then what about saving for web? Is that counted as a resize?

vawendy

Sony Alpha 1

Sony FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS

02/09/2011 05:00:11 PM · #45

Originally posted by littlemav:

from what I understand -- saving it to web isn't changing the size of the image. I assume that it's ok in order to get it under 300 kb. However, perhaps it will already be under 300kb since you haven't done anything to it other than resize?

02/09/2011 05:00:17 PM · #46

Originally posted by littlemav:

Basically, take the JPEG straight from your camera, resize to 800 (or whatever pixel length you want for your submission) and post the web.