Recent batch of shots

Well hello there Pentax user community. Long time no see.

Firstly, apologies for a real lack of contribution to the forum of late. I have genuinely been the busiest I have ever been at work, couple this the fact I am currently moving house = no time for this! (Moving back to Chester).

Hopefully things will settle down soon and I can contribute more, but at the moment It's going to be akin to a bird of prey swooping down for a brief moment, and taking off again.

That being said, I've continued to take shots recently and I'd like to post some of the good ones. As usual, I'm open to constructive feedback (it's how we learn at the end of the day!)

So here we go:

Taken with the excellent Sigma 30mm 1.4 (at f1.4)



And at F2 (with a bit of Vignetting effect via Photoshop):



F2 again:



With the 18-250 at 18mm F8:



And at 250mm F10:





(I will remove the chap in the background)

The Tammy 70-300 at 240mm F8:

No comments means everyone is speechless!

Excellnt set. Love the last 4 in particular.

I wouldn't remove the chap totally from behind Iggy pop. Which I assume is a drummer with a stick up in the air. I'd just darken the flash and leave the dark bits and stick. it adds some assymetry to the shot.

Sunglasses and flat cap is perhaps a little dark, but that could be my monitors, which aren't good at resolving the very blacks

My favourite of all of these is And at 250mm F10: I love the grainy look. It could perhaps do with a touch more contrast?

I went off Iggy Pop, who was one of my childhood heroes, afer he started doing those appalling adverts, which possibly colours my view of that shot.

The first shot is a lovely portrait, but either too high key or not enough, can't make up my mind which. I think perhaps a tighter crop might improve it, it looks slightly imbalanced IMHO with her right shoulder cut off.

I really like the rain in the last one but it doesn't look quite in focus to me.

I think we'd prefer you to remove the chap in the forground

My apologies for the above post (but someone had to say it)

Is that your missus in the first shot Bob? she's rather nice, why not bring her on a Pentax meet and we can all get some snaps

And is that your child in the second shot? DONT bring him/her on a Pentax meet cos' kids are far too noisy

The dog is certainly well worth a snap or two, I think that leash could be cloned out and it would improve it enormously.

The buildings are OK too but they look a bit odd at the bottom left corner with the illusion of them curling up.

The other two are decent shots also (I wont comment any further on mr wrinkly)

What a veritable feast of comments!

Regarding the Shaun Ryder pic, it might be a tad on the dark side - I was trying to emphasise the reflection in his sunglasses as I saw that as being the key feature. Perhaps this was at the mercy of the rest of the shot.

I did take another one in colour which I thought worked quite well - again, trying to make use of the reflection:




Regarding the dog shot I actually like the leash being present; I think it aids the composition.

The Iggy shot - it hadn't occurred to me to keep the guy in the background in, but emphasise him less. Good call - I guess the temptation for symmetry can cloud us sometimes.

The Chester buildings - the combination of barrel distortion and perspective at an awkward angle does affect it. I'll sort that out in Photoshop.

The last one - yes it was very difficult to get a sharp shot as I was getting drenched and the inner elements were starting to steam up a little. I do love the rain though - I'm pleased how it came out.

And yes, the first portrait is of my wife.

Based on feedback I played around with different crops. Then I experimented with rotating it. I think this new take is quite interesting:

Hadn't realised that was Shaun Ryder...never seen him wearing a flat cap before... I like the colour version.

The picture of your wife looks bettr with the crop, but looks a bit soft and perhaps lacking contrast. Can you get back some of the highlights? I like the crop, it works really well.

Everything is dark here, including the glasses reflection. I'm a fan of emphasising this as you can see with this one from of my recent sets....





Personally I think you could leave the general light level of te photo as is, and increase the exposure value of the glasses to stand out even more. That would make a nice contrast


it can, but it's not just the symmetry, it's the hyper-cleansing of pics of real world details that can lead to their over sterilisation.

I'll readily admit I get slightly disgruntled when peeps want to clone stuff out of pics. The real world is beautiful. The trick, IMO, is to give the pic depth by bring the important bits to the fore and pushing the background stuff to the back. You can do this with shallow DOF, or in PP by pushing the subject and desaturating, darkening, etc the background.

You're taking a pic of a iggy pop in a real world situation. keep that honest and the pic works.




I prefer the original shot your esteemed partner. - It has some depth. you cropped shot is just uniformly soft all over and doesn't inspire at all

btw - i've just looked again at shots #2 nad #3,and I'm really impressed. The doggie shot has real depth and the shot of your 'young one' ? has both depth and atmosphere.

So much more inspiring than pics that are determined to be sharp all across the frame. And on that note, your Iggy Pop shot would have been better with a shallower depth of field.

I like them all, the second shot of your wife is an improvement over the first, composition wise... Iggy looks like he's been in the sun too long... I see an Iggy Pop California Raison, character in his future...

Yes the little one is our youngest, Elsbeth - just 10 months old:




Great feedback chaps, really useful.

Here are revised shots of Iggy and Shaun:






And the Chester buildings:





And the cropped shot of my wife with highlights brought in a little:




It occurred to me that I've done some more portraits recently that I haven't shared yet.

Both with the Siggy 30mm 1.4

I was after a really soft and natural shot with this one:



This one was taken in a spur of the moment:




And finally, me - I was after an Orson Welles moody B&W shot:




All said and done, I think I'm really starting to get there with portraits now (I'm by no means saying I'm an expert) but I'm very happy with my recent output. When I started contributing to the forum I quickly realised that I didn't know enough about the technique to portraits - and that ignorance meant I thought my shots were much better than they actually were. A swift reality check later, and I realised I had quite the journey ahead of me. It's by no means finished, but I think there's less ahead of me now than behind. This is of course in the guise of a hobbyist striving to improve, rather than a professional photographer!

Getting my hands on the Sigma 30mm f1.4 has been instrumental. It's an amazing gem of a lens.

You've made similar statements to this before Smeggy, about not cloning that or not cropping this and I for one call bull$%£& Some of your recent photos are so far removed from 'real world' it's not even funny. I'm not talking about cloning, but that heavy gritty PP you like so much (it looks like Nik Tonal Contrast, is it?) is hardly 'real world' (Exhibit 1, exhibit 2).

Your 'big nose' fisheye shots don't seem very real to me either

Your recent comments on Thomas Shahan's insect shots are more of the same. Complaining about his PP, and how you prefer a 'natural' look. But just look at your own photos, especially the BWs!

Don't get me wrong, I am partial to a bit of gritty BW PP myself and will often use that technique. But it doesn't mix well with grandiose statements about 'keeping it honest' and 'the real world is beautiful'.

Some nice photos in here Bob. My favourite is easily the very last one of your wife, great rock star hair and nice high contrast BW. I also like the first Shaun Ryder shot very much.

She's a rock chick herself, so it's a fair cop!

Smeggy I have to say the statement "the real world is beautiful" is cliched claptrap to be honest!

It is the choice of the photographer to interprut the "real world" as artists in other fields do. Some would say that showing everything just as it is is one approach, others would argue that highly manipulated image is another. Both are valid.

To me your Post Processing is interesting to look at but is very obviously not "real world", and I am sure that is your intention.

I recently took candids at an evening wedding reception and spent lots of time cloning out mic stands, speakers and light rigs from the pictures of bride and groom on the dancefloor. i couldn't find any beauty in them!

I don't go cloning stuff out though. That's where I find a pic dishonest.

And there isn't as much processing as you think on the second example as might think. it was an over exposed shot ( sky is washed out )

I suppose it depends on our levels where a pic crosses the line between retain a natural element to where it looks completely unnatural. Find Thomas Shahan's shot way over the top.

And sure fish eye bignose fun is never intended to be anything else than just fun is it?