I know its not a photography forum.....

[Toytaco2]

Some more from my favorite area: Colorado's San Juan Mountains:

[caseydog]

Here are a couple from Italy...







And a photo commissioned by AuntieM when I went to New York last fall...




...I told her my hotel had a view of Lady Liberty, and she wanted a picture.

These are all shots I did for fun. My pro stuff is here (if anyone wants to hire me) http://www.pbase.com/caseydog/moving_pi ... photogrphy


Hey, ya' never know who might see this tread.

[Jst83]

Ok I love taking pictures but some of these shots are so beautiful they make me feel really amateur.
Not that I'd ever stop taking pics but help a fellow out with a few tips, How do you all get such vivid colors and depth?

[ssrjim]

Some more from my favorite area: Colorado's San Juan Mountains:

I like them. Let me see if I can find something along the same lines

[caseydog]

Ok I love taking pictures but some of these shots are so beautiful they make me feel really amateur.
Not that I'd ever stop taking pics but help a fellow out with a few tips, How do you all get such vivid colors and depth?

Okay, pick out a good digital camera, and get a copy of photoshop and learn it. If you don't want to spend 800 bucks on the full Photoshop, then go for the 99-dollar Photoshop elements.

I shoot with a five-thousand dollar camera, but I gotta' tell you, there are a lot of really good cameras out there that don't cost that much. And, you can do amazing things with your photos in Photoshop. I can do things in minutes today that would have taken hours in the darkroom in the "old days."

For point and shoot cameras, I really like what Canon and Panasonic are putting out, event though I am a Nikon Professional. Some of the Panasonic cameras use Lieca lenses.


If you want to play with HDR, then you need a camera that will allow manual exposures or bracketing. I use HDR techniques for some of my professional work, and it is fantastic. I love it, and it is not difficult -- just somewhat time consuming.

With today's technology, if you can see it in your head, you can make it happen. Just get a decent camera, and Photoshop, and have some fun. After all, if it isn't fun, why bother, right?



Note: Buy your software, don't bootleg it. Jobs depend on it.

[ssrjim]

Here are a couple from Italy...







And a photo commissioned by AuntieM when I went to New York last fall...




...I told her my hotel had a view of Lady Liberty, and she wanted a picture.

These are all shots I did for fun. My pro stuff is here (if anyone wants to hire me) http://www.pbase.com/caseydog/moving_pi ... photogrphy


Hey, ya' never know who might see this tread.

Let me try yours, have not been to Italy but have been to Canada








The last is easy

[Dee Bee]

Dome in the Connecticut State Capitol

[hiker chick]

Ok I love taking pictures but some of these shots are so beautiful they make me feel really amateur.
Not that I'd ever stop taking pics but help a fellow out with a few tips, How do you all get such vivid colors and depth?

I'm not skilled enough with photo software (and I don't have the high-end Photoshop) to make a bad photo great but I can use it to make good photos and great photos, better.

Vivid color can be attained with free software, too. I use Google's free photo-editing and photo-sharing software, Picasa. Here's the link to download it (pretty short download and very intuitive program). I found out about Picasa while researching Photoshop Elements:

http://picasa.google.com/

I use Picasa primarily to crop and straighten photos. I also use "fill" "highlight" and "shadow" to adjust the light. And I'll sometimes use "saturate" to goose the color.

Picasa's photo-sharing function is also very generous in its basic storage allotment. I presently have 35 photo albums containing about 1000 good-sized photos stored there and that's 46% of the free allotment.

"You are currently using 473 MB (46.24%) of your 1024 MB"

The photos on Gidget's website www.thegidg.com were taken with Canon point-and-shoots. A Canon SD400 and the newer (circa '06) Canon SD700is (6 megapixels with image stabilization). I bought a Nikon D90 in November and that's what my cherry blossom pics were taken with. It and the lens (18-200) have "vibration reduction" -- which makes a difference but I need to get more disciplined about using a tripod.

The best part of digital photography is you can take zillions of shots, delete most and post the best. The film era was very restrictive unless you were willing to spend a lot of money on film processing.

Another wonderful fact is the $29 8-gigabyte memory card I bought for my Nikon. In 2001 when I bought my first digicam, 8 gigs of memory would have cost nearly $6000.

The biggest memory cards widely available then were bulky 256mb compact flash, requiring 32 of them to comprise 8 gigs that now fit on a sleek tiny SD card.

That's the kind of technological progress that makes me optimistic for the future.

[48Rob]

Ok I love taking pictures but some of these shots are so beautiful they make me feel really amateur.
Not that I'd ever stop taking pics but help a fellow out with a few tips, How do you all get such vivid colors and depth?
_________________
Scott

Hi Scott,

I'm not qualified to give professional advice, but would offer some basic tips.

First one, as always, research.
The internet, in this day and age is like having teachers from each profession, hobby, and sport waiting in the next room to answer any question.

Camera's; as Casey pointed out, you don't need a 5 thousand dollar camera, but you do need to research and buy a decent one.

I have a Pentax $500 camera that is 6.1 megapixels, it is a DSLR (digital single lens reflex, manual and or automatic).
I also have a $100 Kodak easy share point and shoot (basic automatic camera)
It is also 6.1 megapixels.

They both take pictures.
I use the point and shoot for documenting things at work.

I use the good camera to take pictures that may or may not be high quality shots, depending on my skill level, and attention to detail.


Point is, camera's are like tools, you can drive screws with a ten dollar AA cell powered battery screwdriver, and you can drive screws with a 24 volt lithium cell battery drill.
As you might guess, they will both do the job, but one will do it much better and faster.

The same shot, taken with each of my cameras, is always of much different quality!
Point and shoot quality is okay to poor.
DSLR quality is good to great.
Both the low ranges, and high ranges depend on my ability to use the tool to its capacity...


Point and shoot pictures, and snapshots, are just that; a knee jerk response by the shooter to capture something in a hurry.

A good photo generally comes from the ability and knowledge to plan.

Proper light, proper placement of the subject in the field of view, proper distance, proper angle between camera and subject, and a few other things that I'm not yet well versed in...


It can seem overwhelming at first, but like anything else, if you enjoy what you're doing, practicing is quite enjoyable!

Tips abound on photography boards.
Just looking through a magazine is also a great teacher.
Look closely at the pictures; see how the light is just perfect, the background just right, the angle, and etc.

I've taken some pretty decent pictures with a 2 megapixel camera, but only when I took my time and planned the shot.

Rob

[devigata]

Burney Falls, Northern California

[dakotamouse]

I'm no pro either but I do enjoy taking pictures. The new digital cameras for dummies really help. I have a Kodak Z712.

I seem to take a lot of, what I call, flora and fauna pictures.


This is a curious jackrabbit from a late afternoon hike at Theodore Roosevelt National Park,





I am real happy with the zoom lens on the camera. Although for this little chicadee I probably didn't need it. We set up a feeder when we make camp, the chickadees move in and make our campsite their home. We are mere renters.





The zoom came in real handy with this guy. Trust me I didn't get close at all to this rattlesnake. I know compared to what you have down south this guy is a whimp but he's as big as I care to see up close and personal!




Usually I just use Microsoft Picture It's autocorrect feature for my pictures. After reading about some of the tips on this thread I did a little poking around some of the other features. With this picture the day was starting to haze up. It had been a dazzling beautiful blue sky day but by the time I took this picture it was fading. I tried working with the hue adjustment. I like how it turned out.




The zoom also comes in handy for buffalo. Smart photographers don't get close.

[ssrjim]

The way I see it is everyone gets lucky once in a while with that perfect shot. Even if it is 1% of the time. If you shoot 400 photos on a photo shoot that will be 4 really good ones, a lot of OK ones that can be fixed up in photoshop and don't bother with the rest. You just can't save a bad photo.

So what I suggest is shoot, shoot, and shoot some more.

Also get a camera with good glass and maybe you can get it up to 3%.

These were shot with a Kodak 1 megapixel camera:

[hiker chick]

Flower pics from today - with Nikon D90 and 18-200 lens:






Flowers make me smile.

[hiker chick]

Miscellaneous pics from today. Nothing like a brilliant blue sky for backdrop:

[del]

Some nice pics here.
Here is an attempt at a pic.

del