Just had a pretty terrible experience shooting a group photo of all my mother's siblings at a birthday party. First of all, everyone had a camera, everyone was taking photos non-stop. I had been specifically asked to take this photo several weeks ago, so I was pretty much the official photographer. I should have asked everyone else to step back and wait to take their photos until I was done.
The flash from all the other cameras was constantly setting off my off-camera flash, which meant that it wasn't always ready to fire when I took a picture.
I got no time to prepare my setup as everyone had lined up for the shot before I even had my gear in place. I had wanted to try a few different lighting setups and backgrounds beforehand so I wouldn't have to figure things out while everyone was just waiting.
I also tend to forget to get everyone's attention before taking a photo.

I got one decent shot.

@Harry: Amazing! Details?

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Camera on tripod, ziplock bag with hole in it letting water out above a frying pan. Colour comes from a gift bag behind the water which the flash is firing into. Set at 1/8 power which gives you an effective flash duration of <1/10,000 to freeze the water.


Aperture set to f/22 and manually focused on where the drops were firing.

Then it's just a case of using a shutter release and trying to get your timing right, which is the hardest bit, really.

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I am uncomfortable with the analogue stick placement on the Dual Shock 4.

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So I found that Fractalius plugin for Photoshop earlier (saw something about it on reddit). Used an old photo and got a nice result:

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Nice. I like the second one a lot.

I hope you don't mind but I tried a tilt shift effect on one of your photos when I was going back a few pages.


The house already looked a lot like a model house, so it had to be tried.

Some photos from my holiday to Mexico (worst "I've been on holiday" post):

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Love the fire whipping pics!

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Come out from the burning fire, butterfly
Let me lock you in my room and keep you, for a while
You watch over me and I'll watch over you
And if you go tomorrow choke me 'til I'm blue

Some snaps from yesterday in Cardiff, although I got too distracted by the rugby and forgot to take many. Shame, as there were some great outfits on show in the crowds, and some fantastically friendly/interesting people about.



Really should have got more, but as I say, there were more important things happening.

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strawberry floatr

Well I've finally decided to get myself a nice zoom lens that will tide me over till I have enough money to get myself the canon 70-200 L f2.8 lens, and I've decided to go for the Tamron 70-300 f4-f5.6 VC lens. Took it out for a spin in Richmond park today and I'm quite pleased with the results, but the focusing is a bit erratic I found and certainly not in the same league as my 24-105mm f4 L lens. Anyways here's some sample shots from my outing today....

I'd love to be able to afford some L glass, and a Canon body to mount it on, too. Those are some nice bird shots, though. Dat duck. I never thought that much of the Tamron when I had seen it in the past, but those turned out real good.

Here are some film snapshits I took. Took these to Jessops in Southampton to get dev'd and scanned, and they're pretty terrible. Dust, smudges and streaks everywhere. I was already considering investing in some kit and chemicals to dev my own, and this has just cemented the feeling further.

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strawberry floatr

My attempts at photography on my shitty old 10MP camera.



Hope you like.

I edited some of my best photos into a video:



Also this collage:


What for? Well...

http://www.indiegogo.com/buy-me-a-lens?a=210909



Remember, share with all your friends...

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$1500? What are you buying, L series glass?

Nice video, though.



That one is my favourite of the lot. Could maybe do with a bit more contrast, but it's actually quite interesting.

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strawberry floatr

That would be nice, but I think I'd have to raise about twice that to be able to afford L glass. Indiegogo takes a small cut (4% or 9%, depending on if I reach the goal or not) and printing and mailing the rewards isn't free. I think I'll end up with about 60% of the final amount.

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I hate it when people refer to a lens as glass, it's so bloody naff

Anyway, some really nice photos being taken here and it's good for ideas!

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Thank you!

The sun was beginning to go down and we were on our way to my missus' parents house, we stopped and I snapped that. I'd like to go back there soon in the day time, before a tornado sweeps it away, and try to get some better shots from the front and other angles. It's a surprisingly rare sight nowadays to find a windmill intact like that, most you'll find have been damaged in some way.

Edit: I took three more photos of the place while I was there. They're all slight variations on the same theme really:



Any better than that first shot up there? I like the first best myself.

Haven't been out with my SLR recently, but been taking a few photos on my phone. Best camera is the one you have with you etc. Instagram's fun, can take some nice photos with it.

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The problem with instagram is that although anyone can produce nice looking images with it, they inevitably essentially all start to look the same.

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I am uncomfortable with the analogue stick placement on the Dual Shock 4.