Got my Macro! First shots...

TS - the more I look at the favia picture, I think it is somewhere right in between both of ours.. The more I compare mine to yours, mine looks like it is washed out with a little blue or green?? And yours came out much sharper, look at the bottom left corner of the favia... I can really get into this. How cool would it be to get paid to do this!? ;)
 
ok one more... but I think I went a little too blue on this one too. What do you think?

BTW thanks again TS for opening my eyes to PP! lol and drilling in the importance of it... I now see what all the fuss is about. ;)

IMG_0945.jpg

IMG_0945-2.jpg
 
weird... my pictures are looking slightly darker on the forum than in lightroom... same monitor... what's the deal?
 
Go 90sShooter! I've been waiting for this thread to appear. I'd ask you how you like it but you're already using multiple big grin icons. :D

That last pic looks a little dark to me.

You remind me of myself a month ago (had just received the new hardware and was very excited). Post processing (beyond cropping) was / is a new frontier. Now if I weren't able to post process a pic, I'd be concerned and possibly even grumpy.

Enjoy. Learn. Post. I'd like to see lots of cool macro shots in your currently empty gallery.

Some suggestions - switch that 50D to RAW and leave it there. jpg's are good for final delivery but not for intermediate / in process works. When shooting macro on your reef, put the setup on a tripod. Pick a software package (I'm using PS Elements) and get comfy with it, or at least until you understand why you want to use something else.

You might want to consider calibrating your monitor if you haven't done so already.

We have the same camera and lens now, so if you stumble across anything neato, please let me know! I just tried remote shooting yesterday and I'll be doing that some more. You might want to try it once you're comfortable with your new abilities and talents.
 
Thanks Reef Bass! I agree the last picture is a little dark after PP but I like the effect.

Not sure if your mistaken but I have an XSi which I believe is a 450D, not 50D. I think the 50 is far superior (and more expensive ;) ). But I will definitely let you know if I figure something out.

I will consider putting some pics in my gallery... :)

Absolute Reef - Thanks I like that one too :thumsup: My sunset is one of my favorite pieces! It is so bright, the picture does not do it justice... Maybe I should try to PP the picture and get some brilliant colors out of it.

Tran - You WOULD like that picture... :lol:
 
You're right. My bad. I was confused. :rolleyes:

That first pic is sweet. I like how the subject appears draped over its substrate. Combination of ISO, shutterspeed and fstop has yielded nice DOF and low noise.

You asked about cropping. Probably the "best" answer is whatever ratio works well for the shot visually unless you're planning on printing a specific size.

"Joe the Plumber" is probably used to looking at 4:3 aspect tvs and monitors. Many point and shoots shoot in that format. I often make prints so I'll usually crop to 4x6 or 5x7 unless I'm doing a specific 8x10 or 13x19. I do crop for specific sizes v. stretching a "wrong" size to avoid fat faces and distorted geometry that one would see if for example stretching a 4:3 image (1.33:1) to a 4x6 print (1.5:1). I don't know if most people notice or care though.

In your first shot, I'd consider cropping out some of the left and bottom edges and possibly darkening highlights a bit to mellow the upper right. But ask 10 people and you'll probably get 7 or 8 different opinions. What counts is what you like.
 
Thanks for the input! I had to crop a lot out of that pic already because the top right was EXTREMLY bright... that is where my halide focuses most of the light (round disco ball solana pendant). I didn't touch it as far as color but it could probably use some, I agree. I shot and posted these all before I figured out how to use LightRoom :)

As for cropping, I agree that keeping the original aspect ratio is ideal. I was wondering more so about resolution. However, now that I know how to use LightRoom, I will just crop there and let it do it's thing.
 
Playing with your exposure controls (removing some exposure) could help with reducing the amount of blown out areas.

Resolution wise, the easiest thing to do is to roll with whatever you're using is doing, but that's not always best. Generally the issue for me is screen display v. printing. Typical monitor resolution is 72dpi. The more resolution the better for printing. My camera shoots at 240dpi which produces yummy prints. Of course, more dpi means bigger files, slower downloads, etc.

I preserve 240dpi in my workflow and files until I get to the point of wanting to make something to post for screen display. Then I resize (not crop) with resample down to 72dpi in whatever size, such as 900x600 for 4x6 (6x4!) pics. I figure an average user is running at least 1024x768 (4:3 aspect ratio) and so 800-900 pixels wide gives an appreciable size without inducing scrollbars.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14167733#post14167733 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 90sShooter
weird... my pictures are looking slightly darker on the forum than in lightroom... same monitor... what's the deal?
Click to expand...
How are you saving these files?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14167717#post14167717 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 90sShooter
TS -...yours came out much sharper, look at the bottom left corner of the favia... I can really get into this.
Click to expand...
Take a closer look. Is the subject sharper...or is the background blurrier? ;) I made an optical illusion of the coral being sharper than it is.
 
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