Quantcast

How to take great photos of your bike?

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,100
1,150
NC
Photobucket automatically resizes and compresses large images. You should do that on your end - just get an image editor (www.irfanview.com or Picasa, whatever) and resize them to 1024x768 or 800x600 @ 85-90% compression. They'll look a lot better.

And yeah, you should always be shooting at the highest resolution your camera will handle. No point in throwing out data.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,100
1,150
NC
bjanga said:
Save your files at 100% quality if size is not an issue
If you're putting them on a website, though, the 10% compression will do a lot for the size and not a lot to degrade the image quality.

Otherwise, you're right... On your own computer, you should always save at 100%.
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,100
1,150
NC
Doesn't help :)... and the second one is out of focus anyway ;)

You should be taking pictures with your camera at full resolution. But in order to put them on the web, you should resize them and save them yourself.

Download a program and resize them down to 1024x768 or 800x600, and compress them to about 85 or 90%.

The issue is that Photobucket is ruining your pictures by using a lousy resizing method and then compressing the heck out of them.
 

tozovr

Monkey
Jan 16, 2006
409
0
ncj01 said:
well, I could put on a clinic, but here's some quickie observations, based mostly on your specific question Nate, and on the photo's you posted at the top of this thread:

1) back off, you're too close to the bike, being too close throws the bike out of porportion...zoom in if you have to, but as a rule, don't get closer than 15 feet or so
2) don't use a flash
3) don't photo it in bright direct sunlight
4) overcast, but still daylight is the best light i've found
5) stay away from mixed shadows
6) full shade is OK sometimes
7) have a simple background...in front of streets, flower gardens, etc is no good...makes it cluttered and distracting
#2 is OK if you're rocking a point and shoot, but if you have an SLR with a Speedlight type flash, just use a diffuser...it can really help in many situations and lend a cool feel as well.

#3 Again, generally you're right, but get creative...



Nice shots!
RJ
 

ito

Mr. Schwinn Effing Armstrong
Oct 3, 2003
1,709
0
Avoiding the nine to five
binary visions said:
blah blah blah
^ smart stuff here


And to add to it:
N8, purchase ACDSee Pro. For the beginning photographer with no budget or time for Photoshop it is a very powerful tool. It isn't as refined as Photoshop and doesn't allow you to do all that fancy stuff, but for basic editing, cropping, leveling, imaged correcting it is 90% as effective as PS CS2 and less than half the cost.

I believe there is a free version online, but you have enough money to pay for the full version. I'm pretty positive that any partially computer savvy person can learn it in 30 minutes.

The Ito
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
I snapped this pic following 17 miles of single speed riding on Sat morning...

I am going to mess with the colors and contrasts in Picasa later.

 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,100
1,150
NC
If you ever want a more powerful tool than Picasa, I would highly recommend Photoshop Elements. It's Photoshop for us folks who don't make our living with photography and can't afford the real deal. Last I knew it was about $90 and provides a huge chunk of Photoshop's functionality at a fraction of the price.
 

tozovr

Monkey
Jan 16, 2006
409
0
binary visions said:
If you ever want a more powerful tool than Picasa, I would highly recommend Photoshop Elements. It's Photoshop for us folks who don't make our living with photography and can't afford the real deal. Last I knew it was about $90 and provides a huge chunk of Photoshop's functionality at a fraction of the price.

Find someone who's recently purchased a Canon Digital Rebel...it comes with PE...great program...also check out Pixmantec's Raw Shooter essentials...free and a super program for RAW images.


RJ
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
ouch, that reseller rating is horrendous. i've not purchased anything from them, so i didn't mean to infer that i endorsed the vendor.

for camera stuff i use B&H mainly (have used adorama once), and for electronics it's either been newegg or buy.com.

still, i've heard rumors that a new rebel xt is out soon, so prices on existing stock of rebel xts will drop accordingly.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
well you went high-end as a singlespeed n00b, might as well stay the course and go top-of-the-line for yr 1st DSLR...

as a canon homer i'm obliged to add a 'noink sucks' bit
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
narlus said:
well you went high-end as a singlespeed n00b, might as well stay the course and go top-of-the-line for yr 1st DSLR...

as a canon homer i'm obliged to add a 'noink sucks' bit

is that so wrong..???




:hot:
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
My pro photo bud say for me to sack-up and buy a Nikon D200...
but it was waaaaaay too much for my needs...
:D

btw, the new canon body (rebel XTi) looks to be pretty damn solid and at a very competitive price. the only thing it lacks from the 30D (of which the nikon D200 is the competitor) is:

3 fps vs 5
spot metering
'control dial' on camera back
extra LCD for viewing camera settings (they are available on the main LCD)
magnesium body construction

and for ~400 dollars less you also get 2 extra MP and an automated sensor cleaning feature.

not sure what nikon features the D200 has over the 30D, but i do know that the canon sensor trounces nikon and others when it comes to low-light shooting.
 

sneakysnake

Monkey
Apr 2, 2006
875
1
NC
Ok, I have an easy question. If I decide to step up and get a digital SLR body, could I still use my 35mm lens's?
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
it really depends on the camera body and lens mount...current canon bodies can take EF and EF-S mounts, but not the older FD mounts. some other 3rd party lenses may not be able to use autofocus. it really is a case-by-case basis.