# Question for rip18 and others



## leo (May 1, 2006)

that manage to show such awesome pics, I am especially impressed with the clear bright colors in them 

http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?p=667339#post667339

I will use the pics in this thread for an example.
The colors I see, in especially the 1'st pic, is something I can not get on my digital cam except occasionally with a flower pic.

My question is is this great work a function of the DIG/SLR cameras, lens, photoshop type editing or combinations of all???

Thanks for sharing the info with us


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## rip18 (May 1, 2006)

Leo -  

Thanks for asking.  That's a good question, and I'll give you a long two-part answer.

Over the past year or so, I have learned that the quality of light that you take a picture in is probably the MOST important part of taking a good picture.  You can have perfect exposure, composition, focus, etc. on a picture in the middle of the day, & the picture won't look that good.  In the soft light of early morning or late afternoon or on an overcast day, the lighting will be much more vibrant.

One thing that I do typically do under "normal" circumstances is under-expose by 2/3 of a stop to get richer, more natural colors.  I set my exposure compensation on the camera so that it does this automatically;  if a lot of dark colors or light colors are involved, then other exposure compensation is used.  When shooting film, Fuji films typically give richer colors than the comparable Kodak films.  

My wife sometimes gets a little annoyed with me when I won't even take the camera out of the case to take a "neat" critter picture in the middle of the day, but if the light is "bad" or harsh, I know I won't get a picture that I like, so I don't even bother.  The other thing to realize is that I take thousands of pictures a year, & generally only post "good" ones - y'all don't get to see most of my "junk."

The second part of the answer is Photoshop.  If I do my job, then the only thing I do in Photoshop is re-size & sharpen.  If it needs it, I will adjust levels or boost saturation on occaission, but if I have to do that, then I haven't done my job.  The post that Leo linked to in the original post on this thread has two hummingbird pictures; the first picture is pretty much straight out of the camera, and the second picture has been adjusted.  I didn't like the background color on the second picture - a drab, brownish color, so I selected the background & boosted the green to give a better complement to the bird.

If there is any interest, I'd like to see some conversation about color rendition so that we can all take better pictures.


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## bigswamp (May 1, 2006)

Leo,

I think rip18 pretty much covered it.  I'll agree that the light you're shooting in is very important.  The problem you run into when shooting full auto is that no camera system is perfect and you have to learn those situations when you need to compensate on what the camera is telling you.  I don't know about your camera but mine has several different options for white balance.  If light conditions are constantly changing I will leave it in auto white balance and the camera does pretty good here.  I'm with rip on the exposure part.  If you get the correct exposure for your particular subject and are using auto white balance your color is going to be pretty close.  

I don't shoot flowers too much, but I will give you a suggestion to try.  First you want to check your camera's on board meter.  Set the ISO to 100 and put the camera in shutter priority mode.  Set the shutter speed to 1/100 and then meter the sky on a clear day just above the tree line ( not the whitish part or the dark blue but the light blue part of the sky).  It should give you an aperture reading of f/16 (the sunny f/16 rule).  There is a lot more to the sunny f/16 rule than just checking your on camera meter but it works for that purpose too.  Sorry this is getting to be long but anyway if your camera has auto exposure bracketing you can try that or bracket it yourself.  Go find you a white flower and shoot it at the metered exposure and then about -1stop and +1stop and look at the color of the flower in the pics.  Most likely the over exposed pic will be white and the others more gray.  Give it a try and play with different levels of exposure and soon you will learn how to compensate in certain situations.  

Does this make any sense??  You will have to get out your users manual and learn how to make these adjustments but I am sure your camera probably has them.


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## bigswamp (May 1, 2006)

for some reason I can't edit my previous post but as a side note:  I have dial-up internet so almost all of my pics that I post on here are cropped and they are all resized and the resolution dropped to 72ppi.  I have to get the file as small as possible so it doesn't take forever to post them.  Very few of them are color corrected or anything like that and if I do that from now on I will make sure I say that in the post.


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## leo (May 2, 2006)

*Kinda sorta bigswamp*



> Does this make any sense?? You will have to get out your users manual and learn how to make these adjustments



I am real slow in catching on to the things needed to know for using anything except mostly auto 

I am trying to overcome that and really thinking about taking the next step, DIG/SLR, 

Thanks rip18/bigswamp and all for sharing the trade tips, ..... BTW I copied this thread into the sticky for our forum, y'all don't forget it is there and "free" to use

Anyone else ???? Please feel free to jump in and share your tips with us


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## Hoss (May 3, 2006)

Saw this one yesterday and decided to think about it a bit before posting.  Rip18 and Bigswamp covered things pretty well.  I think the world of photography can be covered by by two extremes and everything in between, picture takers to picture makers.  Picture takers start at take a picture of anything and see what comes out and picture makers at the other extreme basically set the the stage for every picture taken, typically a great deal of effort in setting up the shot.  Most of us fall somewhere in between.  Can a picture taker get good photos?  Definitely, (my blind hog analogy that I often use on my photos is totally appropriate).  Do picture makers get poor shots?  Again definitely, subjects, conditions, and equipment don't always cooperate.  The difference is that the picture maker puts them self in a position which is more likely to produce a good photo.  All of us picture takers can get better by learning techniques applied by picture makers.  How far we want to go on that journey is totally up to us.  There's lots of times being a picture taker is a lot of fun.  There are also times that is the best we can due as an opportunity presents itself (here again, a better understanding of photography can improve our odds of getting that quick shot to come out the way we want it). 
Photography is a great hobby, learn as much as you want too to improve your skills.  There are lots of ways to learn, books, classes, DIY trial and error.  Just enjoy what your doing and share it.  That's what photos are for is sharing.
I didn't get into equipment, cause I believe that getting another camera to get a better picture is a lot like getting another gun to get a bigger deer.  Learning techniques will have a bigger impact.  As you learn more and focusing on what you want to accomplish in your picture taking adventures will drive you to the type of equipment that you need to reach your goals.
So with all this being said, you're probably wondering where I rate myself on the scale of picture taker to picture maker.  Well I think I'm a blind hog with a rabbit's foot.

Get out and take some pictures.  Enjoy the time spent and share the experience.

Hoss


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## Nicodemus (May 3, 2006)

Great thread Leo. Thanks for it and The Big 3 for answerin` some questions I had! I learned something from this.


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## rip18 (May 4, 2006)

I think all the comments are dead on to this point - except on of Hoss' ...  He might like the blind hog analogy, but he has a lot of picture maker in him....   

It just all depends on what you want out of a picture.  I was quite happy for umpteen years taking pictures to document what I was seeing & using them now & again in reports, seminars, etc.  Then somebody showed me how I could make "better" pictures and started me down this slippery slope.

I've learned more about taking technically good pictures in the last 3 years than I ever learned in the upteen years before that.

Even though most of the time, I've got a "big" camera in my truck, I also usually have one of the little plastic disposable cameras as well.  I can't think of any pictures that I took with it that I posted on here, but there are some "harvested critter" and scenic pictures that we've taken with disposables that are great pictures, underscoring the earlier comment that technique & understanding how picture taking "works" is more important than equipment.  The downside to that is that once you understand how it works, then you "want" more equipment so that you can do more...

Now as long as we've strayed that far from Leo's original question about color saturation...
I've got a buddy that I go shoot pictures with a couple of times a year.  He was mostly into scenics & flowers.  In the last several months he has gotten into wildlife/animal pics.  He made a comment just as he got started trying to take "little bird" pictures that I've thought about several times.  Basically, he said that if all the big-time, he-man deer hunters want to try something really challenging, give them a 300 mm lens, & tell them to go take a technically good, full-frame picture of a cardinal - or even more challenging, one of the warblers...  Taking a technically good picture of wild, free-ranging white-tail in a hunted population (not even limiting it to a mature buck) is a real accomplishment.  Putting lighting, ground level positioning, close enough for a bow shot, etc. into wildlife pictures (plus pushing that big, black "evil eye" camera) can make it a real challenge.


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## Hunterrs (May 5, 2006)

Good thread.  I need lots of help with my pictures.  Some very good info here.


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