OT: HDR Photography Help

[colterphoto1]

On Photography: you guys might be too young to remember the advent of music synthesizers, the first experiments were squonky sounds like R2D2 after a night of mexican and outer space whoops and such. Then as the equipment and artists improved, more natural and beautiful sounds emerged.

Personally I like my photography real. I've often joked to brides that if they wanted their faces sandblasted and heads chopped off and moved around and the background changed, why not hire a PAINTER to paint whatever artificial reality they THOUGHT they wanted their wedding to look like.

I'm subscribing to a magazine called B&W that takes us back to the roots of photography, good old fashioned black and white with interesting exposure and developing techniques. Call me 'old school' if you wish, I don't think there is much as interesting that can be conjured with a computer that can beat some of the natural beauty in the world, captured correctly.

End of rant.

[justin_tx_16]

In response to your comments on black and white photography, on keeping things natural; I agree. I am a huge fan of photographers like Ansel Adams, he was truly an artist.

I have never been one to modify my photography with photoshop unless I was doing so to make pictures fit into websites or making panoramas, those sort of things.

However, art is art and while an abstract artist's work might be considered trash by a realist, it is still art. My style of photography is something like this.

I took that picture with my Nikon 4300 in macro mode. A simple point and shoot camera, it helped me capture some really awesome pictures.

Same camera, from the balcony of our condo on Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman.

I'm pretty sure I could make these pics look even better, especially now that I am investigating HDR.

I pretty much only do macro-nature shots and skylines. I really want to do some photography of people, not portraits but "candids", if you will. In san francisco, I could probably get away with that pretty easily, but here, in Columbia, the people are less likely to let you take pics of them. I think black and white is the best way to capture someone on "film". However, when I did photography for MAC in Cali, full color was a definite, the colors MAC has created for their makeup are incredible. My ex is a makeup model/artist for MAC and the things created with their makeup really was so impressive to me.

Another thing I have wanted to do is get more artistic and this HDR is what has been in my mind for ages, it is only now that I found it, last night actually while waiting for pics to upload to flickr. Some people really over-do the HDR to the point it seems impossible to be real, but getting it just to the point before that, that's where I want to be. I'm trying to make a mark for myself out here, in a school full of photography majors, in a family full of professional photographers, I'm just trying to do something no one I know is doing. I'm sure you can appreciate that

I hope that I did not offend you and your talent with my questions on HDR; I have just tired of what I do and want to do something new and different. I do appreciate your thoughts and comments especially on lenses and any other accessories you feel are necessities. I have a tripod, UV filter, Polarizing filter and two standard Nikon lenses (one digital and one old school). I picked out a 60mm 2.8 Nikon Macro lens for digital, however it is $480, and while perhaps totally worth the money, I can't afford it. I really LOVE macro!!! But jeeze...

My uncle has offered me a Nikon D1. What are you thoughts of the D1 vs D80? I Mean, it's a free D1 but...?

[colterphoto1]

Beautiful work Justin, and sorry if I offended above. I did not know (more likely forgot) of your prowess with the camera. Great color and composition on those three shots. I agree with PS becoming another tool in our workboxes, I'm just at the cusp of being able to keep up with all the technology. It was one of the reasons for leaving Photography as a full time profession. All the changes made it very expensive to keep up. And too many kids in the sandbox ifyaknowwhatimean.

What is that last image btw, some tiny crustacean emerging from shell or seed pod?

Re: advice- get the macro if you're into macro- there is no substitute.

And a second digital body is very handy. Remember dust is the enemy. Changing lenses on location is not recommended. With the fisheye I'm back to swapping around a bit, but try to keep it to a minimum with my two bodies. Prime lenses are great but there are definitely reasons to ditch old glass for new 'digital' specific lenses. The back coating and the way the light strikes the CCD chip are critical to sharpness in digital imaging.

Film still looks better.

[Jay481985]

Film does look better still Its like CRT v. LCD and Plasma, guess which still has a better picture? Why, I say its because the technology is known.

Also I do have a macro lense that is 60 mm 2.8 but that was not digital so it woull be with the 1.4 X extention.

And my favourite was black and white film, something about it. Oh yeah a D1 take it its still a mighty fine camera.

[theryugobuddy]

A spectacular website for Nikon is kenrockwell.com. I shoot with a D70, and this site has been the finest resource for lenses, technique, and how-to's. Simple language and very helpful--he only asks for donations, but its free--