Holiday Snaps

I think I'm going to give up on photography.

I always use having the other half in tow as an excuse for my crappy holiday snaps! Now I feel I'm about as good as PentaxExpert!

Gutted.

(PS, well done!)

Holiday snaps ? Do you say freaking holiday snaps !?!

I nearly skipped the thread because of the title ... what a miss that would have been. Some superb shots in that set. Just gorgeous processing too.

Well, this is all rather depressing. Even without my wife and children (my usual excuse for poor quality of holiday snaps) I can't get close to these images. Sadly, I suspect that if we swapped families and cameras, the result would be the same

EM

PS really enjoyed your images!

Lovely set of images with a distinct style. Well done.

Nothing wrong with the second set either Mark.

I don't think the second set is as good as the first, although that's not saying they're still not good. I'm not keen on the distortions in 1 and particularly 6. A couple of the others just seem to lack a little something in comparison with your lakeleand work. The last shot however I think is truly excellent. I might have a different view looking at these photos in isolation but I look at these with the exceptional standards you have set previously.

Cheers again - agreed Doc. I was very disappointed in the distortions with the 12-24. Tried my best to get rid of them - No1 was particularly bad. I'd never taken photos of buildings before and it was a new experience that I didn't enjoy that much due to the distortion. Not sure how you avoid it - is the idea to take them absolutely flat ie level or just use a different kind of lens.

I did say they weren't as good...

marklj has the habit of underpromising (hence the title holiday snaps) and overdelivering, certainly a good practice most of the time!

Very beautiful photos. I would not be surprised if you had a gallery somewhere selling large prints of your photos! If not, you should seriously think about it.

Now in regards to distortion, I have to ask, what lens should I keep in mind if I wanted to go widest as possible, with as little distortion as possible?

I think I read somewhere that the 16-45 was the widest you could get without having distortion.

Cheers in advance for anyone who can answer that, and I am so looking forward to more photos!

In a word: "DREAMY"

Holy moly...

Stunning set of 'holiday snaps' Mark, nice pp'ing too, loving your work.

Set 1 no 3, colour reflections and set 2 no 2 Lake Garda, being my particular favs... it was a diff decision!

(note to self... must book a holiday!)

No hassle re hijacking

The Sigma 10-20 was much the same (although to be honest I think it was better than the 12-24). Fine with routine landscapes but as soon as there is a straight line its a nightmare. I'm assuming thats the reason for tilt shift lenses. In the first picture in the second set all the buildings on the left were hopelessly skewed and the lampost looked like a truck had hit it.

Thank you, but there aren't any Mark LJ's hanging anywhere - my mum has a print that she liked but that only got printed as I was at a show and they offered to do one free

The lens correction profiles in ACR and Lightroom do a pretty good job of correcting distortion, certainly with the Sigma 10-20, as long as the camera was level when the picture was taken. I sometimes use the skew tool in Photoshop to correct distortions caused by the camera not being level, after first applying the lens correction.

Two cracking sets overall, here's hoping all our 'holiday snaps' get a boost now you've raised the bar...

I read once that the Australian Aboriginals were so easily "defeated" by Europeans because of our technology. Not by how effective it was, but just because it was so advanced they thought us some sort of gods and gave up!

I now know how they felt.

Anybody want to buy a camera...I'll go back to my old point and shoot!!

Well, as your pictures are available on 500px for purchase, that may change soon Mark