Autoshite photography thread.

[HMC]

+2- thats a great tutorial. Just spent a few minutes going over it all a few times. Thanks Tayne!! (just need to try and put it into practice!)

[Spiny Norman]

+2- thats a great tutorial.

+3 - As someone who learned the old fashioned way using a Zenith and other manual, mechanical clunkers like Nikon Fs and the like, I agree. That's probably the most understandable "How to do photography" in easy steps I've seen in a long time. Well done if it was your own work, keep schtum if it wasn't!

[shellac]

Some really excellent pictures on this thread - great stuff.

 

A few of mine - shot on either a Nikon D70 or D200 - except for the Scammell Highwayman which was a quick snap with an old point and shoot

 

Pioneer anomaly solved by fryske, on Flickr

 

Humber Hawk? by fryske, on Flickr

 

Drove my Chevy to the Levee by fryske, on Flickr

 

Spacious. by fryske, on Flickr

 

Potential scrap eyes the scrap. by fryske, on Flickr

 

Seddon Atkinson 401 by fryske, on Flickr

 

Foden S21 KNN616E by fryske, on Flickr

 

1967 Scammell Highwayman JRH752E by fryske, on Flickr

 

Atkinson gritter 6x6 EOY237J by fryske, on Flickr

[dollywobbler]

 

This is superb. What's the story behind the lighting?

[shellac]

 

This is superb. What's the story behind the lighting?

 

Many thanks

 

25 seconds exposure under the yard lights - that's it.

The lights had a nasty orangey cast so I had to spend a little while correcting the colours - doubly important as the lorry is orange!

[Cavcraft]

Tayne, sorry to ask but how can you manually change shutter speed please? i've read the manual for my camera (Fuji S1850) which mentions that if the camera isn't in auto then the shutter speeds vary depending on which function is selected. However reading up somewhere it said that options 'M' and 'S' have various speeds etc: what I'm too thick to work out is how to alter the speed in each of those settings please. Does that make sense mate? Sorry if it sounds bollocks, just can't get my head round it and a Google search hasn't cleared it up for me.

Thanks in advance.

 

*Edit:

 

Think I found the setting on the camera, it goes from 1.0-2,000. Mucking about taking pictures of the telly at 2,000 the telly screen just looks black in the picture and at 1.0 you can see the telly picture but it's fuzzy. Assume I'm on the right lines now? Cheers.

[scooters]

brilliant Tayne, You've inspired me to dig out the old Contaxt and the Pentax MX - I found a box full of a dozen new 35mm films - only 3 years old...

 

its amazing how digital photography has made me lazy

[Ian Mac]

I'm keen to improve my photography skills but I only have a Sony Cybershot 7.2 megapixel with 4x optical zoom and a 'smile shutter'. Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced better alternative or can I do stuff with this camera I'm unaware of?

[Spiny Norman]

Without wishing to sound like a pretentious arty twat, photography is 90% down to the 'eye' of the photographer and 10% down to the camera.

I'm guessing that Sony is a little compact camera and might not have manual control over aperture & shutter settings, but you'll still be able to take good photos on it.

 

It's perfectly possible to take excellent shots with a little compact camera, in fact the logic goes that if it fits in a shirt pocket you're more likely to have it with you than you are with a big feck-off DSLR so are more likely to get a good photo through sheer opportunity.

I've got a Nikon DSLR that spends most of its time in the hall cupboard, but I've taken some cracking shots with the 3 Megapixel camera on my ancient Sony phone.

[forddeliveryboy]

Not a patch on most of the above but I liked the contrast.

 

[forddeliveryboy]

[Cavcraft]

Cheers again Tayne.

 

Right, soz to be a pain (as per) but can someone tell me where I went wrong with these shots please? When trying on higher shutter speeds (1/2000th etc) the pictures went dark and I can't understand why!

I think these are in sequence of starting at 1/2000 through to 1/1000 I think:

 

This I think was about 1/800

And this about 1/500:

 

Other pictures came out too light, though I don't think I'd gone to the other end of the scale. this being a good example:

 

Most 'action' shots came out blurry. I chiefly used the 'continous shooting' mode in the hope that I'd get a few decent snaps, including 'high res' and up to 20 pictures in one (constant) hold of the button. Failed at this at nearly all the shots were blurry, such as these:

 

Somewhere I've got a cracker of a FAIL shot which I'll try and dig out. The foreground is perfectly in focus but the background (alas the bit I wanted) was blurred to hell.

[shellac]

On the dark ones you have not used a long enough shutter speed.

On the light ones you have used too long a shutter speed.

The blurred ones could work if you pan with the moving vehicle, keeping it in focus while leaving the rest blurred -

[shellac]

1947 Leyland Octopus by fryske, on Flickr

ERGO AEC Mammoth Major PBY354D by fryske, on Flickr

LAD collapse -- Leyland Comet in tatters by fryske, on Flickr

[Richard]

Cheers again Tayne.

 

Right, soz to be a pain (as per) but can someone tell me where I went wrong with these shots please? When trying on higher shutter speeds (1/2000th etc) the pictures went dark and I can't understand why!

 

On S mode you set the shutter speed and the camera sets the aperture to suit- up to a point. I've used a Firefox add-on called FXIF to see the EXIF data from your pictures.

 

Bridge on the right-

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 13:20:31 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 63.5mm

Aperture: f/11.0

Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)

ISO equiv: 100

 

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 13:22:20 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 5.0mm

Aperture: f/6.4

Exposure Time: 0.0005 s (1/2000)

ISO equiv: 100

 

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 13:28:34 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 5.0mm

Aperture: f/6.4

Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)

ISO equiv: 100

 

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 13:28:50 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 5.0mm

Aperture: f/6.4

Exposure Time: 0.0020 s (1/500)

ISO equiv: 100

 

In the first picture the lowest the Aperture can go is F/11 (big number = small aperture and vice-versa) because you're zoomed in. In the next three shots you're zoomed out a bit so the camera can go to F/6.4, it doesn't change on these three shots because it's already as wide as it can go. The camera will have an underexposure warning if you know where to look. In this case you need to select a slower shutter speed, as you have done. If you wanted to maintain the faster speed you could have turned the ISO up, though you might have to accept a bit of graininess. This sort of issue is always going to occur when taking pictures of moving subjects in dull conditions. 1/2000 of a second is pretty damn fast though, that's really for extremely bright conditions.

 

 

Bridge on the left-

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 14:31:30 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 20.2mm

Aperture: f/10.0

Exposure Time: 0.0010 s (1/1000)

ISO equiv: 400

 

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 14:31:43 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 20.2mm

Aperture: f/10.0

Exposure Time: 0.0080 s (1/125)

ISO equiv: 400

 

Were you in M mode for these two? I'd have expected the camera to get at least one of them right in S mode, unless there is a small range of apertures available. You have the ISO at 400 here, which lets the camera work with less light but the grain I mentioned earlier is apparent in the first picture.

 

 

Too light-

Camera Maker: FUJIFILM

Camera Model: FinePix S1730

Image Date: 2012-01-28 12:57:37 (no TZ)

Focal Length: 12.3mm

Aperture: f/8.0

Exposure Time: 0.017 s (1/60)

ISO equiv: 64

 

Maybe your camera does have a small range of apertures. At this speed it's got more light than it can handle, it's turned the ISO right down to 64 and F/8.0 must be the smallest aperture available at that zoom.

 

Look for a display something like this on your camera _ _ _I_ _ _ (sometimes stacked vertically). A correctly exposed picture should fall on the I, though in practice you often find you need to be slightly above or below.

 

Your continuous shots look like a focusing fail, the camera has focused on the background.

 

I'm even boring myself now so I'll leave it at that

[retrogeezer]

Richard is right, the S1730 camera you have Billy does not have a huge range of manual settings so you will always struggle when not using the auto mode.

 

Still good to play around with but you need a camera with a lot more manual controls to really see how they work. Although you can change the aperture and shutter speed on the 1730, I'm pretty sure it is only in a few steps so not every option that would be available between the extremes of the F range.

 

I've got a Fuji HS10 which has similar controls to a D-SLR but is still a bridge camera so you don't need to have/change various lenses.

 

Don't get me wrong, the S1730 is still a great camera, at a track day it would probably have been worth using the SP mode and putting it on sport. That gives it the auto settings for fast shutter speeds needed.

[worldofceri]

Not a patch on most of the above...

 

I think that's a terrific photo. You've certainly got an 'eye' for an interesting picture.

 

I haven't got a fancy camera but, as others have mentioned, you can get good effects with a compact camera and a little experimentation with the settings.

 

I'm quite pleased with this one I took recently.

 

 

The camera is sat on the ground with a bit of twig to hold it at the right angle. Flash switched off for a long exposure; delay timer used to eliminate wobble. That's it.

[loserone]

Can I raise this one from the dead again? Oops. I just did.

 

I've just picked up my first camera that's not integrated into a phone, and have had a few unsuccessful spotting trips over the last few nights - although a few pictures have come out alright, as you may have seen in my fairly abysmal spotting thread.

 

It seems that quick snaps at night are fairly tricky, although I've managed this one:

In auto-but-no-flash mode, with a second and a half exposure, using a wall to steady my arm - it was too far to rest the camera against it completely. Everything else has been a failure, and light seems to be key. It is, after all, what I'm recording

 

Does anyone have any tips on taking quick shots at night, or is the answer a tripod? ( Edit: I've re-read the thread again: Tripod, the ground, and painting the subject with a torch. Reet. Will try. Thanks Mr Peel and Mr Wobbler!)

 

On a less technical note, but probably more important: How do you explain yourself when caught by owners/passers-by taking pictures of cars in the street? Do you go further and tat-spot on people's driveways? Is the solution here always a camera phone and pretending to write a text message, or is there a knack I haven't yet learned for subtly spanning away with a DSLR?

[HMC]

My try, long exposure (possibly 5 seconds i think) held steady on a window ledge last autumn

[CreepingJesus]

Enjoying reading the how-to's here, thanks chaps. I've come to the conclusion that the 'settings' on my HTC are meaningless, and that the GEC compact and Fuji S1600 I have access to, are going to take some mastering!

As regards stealth snapping - it's amazing what you can get away with. I do fake texts, and flick it onto camera from the drop-down bar, grab the pic and keep moving without a second thought now. A quick getaway tactic, is to look annoyed at the phone as if it's to blame for something, then phone voicemail.

Tho', having said that, I had to dodge round a girl the other night coming out of Asda, who'd stopped dead in front of me, taken a bridge cam out of her bag, and was happily snapping the sunset. It seemed as if I was the only person who'd noticed; most people tend not to say anything about it. My other half and her mates do that kind of stuff (and much more) all the time, and rarely is anything said. I even spent a fun 5 minutes snapping the local CID in a car park for practice. Witless fuckers never even noticed.

I've only been properly challenged twice - once outside a scrappy, where the owner wondered what the hell someone in a manky hi-viz and riggers was doing snapping his long line of scrap Mercs. He was placated with an introduction to Autoshite, and the kind of people who might buy bits of scrap Mercs , for all I know, he's ghosting yet. Maybe not.

The other was by a workmate, who couldn't understand why I'd be taking a pic of a tatty tractor, at night. I explained, but he didn't 'get it', and wandered away. People are either interested, or they walk away chalking it down to your OCD or something. Two excuses I will use in future - "It's my OCD", or "Art student".

Gonna go have a cig, and practice some night shots...

[Pete-M]

Shamelessly stolen from Jon Watanape.

 

 

It's my car, so I'm claiming some credit. I parked it there.

[STUNO]

I managed this with a Brownie box camera about 50 years ago !

1962 Ardmore by stuno602, on Flickr

1962 Ardmore by stuno602, on Flickr

[willswitchengage]

Not a great photo, but a wicked location: Liechtenstein

 

 

Anybody else experimented with panorama mode? My old GE camera had it but it's now in camera heaven . It makes even the wankest of snaps look decent.

 

My set is here, this is my favourite

 

 

Also, Tayne, your photos are sick!

[trigger]

I was quite pleased with this one i took at Brooklands last week.

 

1974 BAC Aerospatiale Concorde G-BBDG by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[MonsterMaster]

On one of my many cycle trips

 

One of my dog benji

 

Took when cleaning up the streets in blackridge.

[Guest]

Gonna throw this one open again, because I'm super crap at capturing motion. Might be one for Tayne.

After the show, I followed WTC and MM5 to Higher Bebington to try and get some moody shots of the W124 hitting the high road. I had Pete's 2.8 135mm Pentacon, shooting between 1/80 and 1/100 at 800 ISO. The light was fading at this point so I had to try and keep things reasonably lit.

 

 

Told Warren to do between 20-30 mph, and this was the only shot of 40 that came out in focus. I'm still getting the hang of fully manual shooting ; having to track the car, pull focus and set the aperture was a bit of a sod. I was trying to use bits of the scenery as a focal point. And then the W124 drove past.

 

How do I get this better?

 

The show was another change of pace - I realised I'd never shot in strong sunlight before. Was running between 1/640 and 1/1000 for most shots, alternating between the Pentacon 135 and my Olympus 2.8 50 FTL and Helios 44-2. The latter takes sodding beautiful portraits but has the wankiest aperture action ever.

 

That Pentacon 135 of Pete's - fuck can it take some beautiful shots, even with a dummkopf like me at the helm. It ain't called the bokeh monster for nowt.........

[Minimad5]

Great picture

[warren t claim]

I need yellow foglamp bulbs.

[retrogeezer]

[Lord Sterling]

Bit of a cheat as I didnt take this (I was the wierdy beardy driving the thing)

 

IMG_4960.jpg by Nicholas R Horne, on Flickr

 

I like the effect in this pic, are the colours enhanced in photoshop or something?