A New Post For Shutter Bugs

douglassuedouglassue
in General Discussion
I'm Doug Sue -- and have been posting on K-T. I love photography, and took it up again to enhance my motivation for travel -- I just am the kind of guy that doesn't do "culture" well, e.g., churches and museums. So, I grabbed a camera, and started shooting -- especially on Tauck Tours. My wife, although a patient Japanese woman, has to hurry me along on tours, because I'm often-times bringing up the rear, taking pictures.

Here's a couple of links, if you are a photo enthusiast, of my stuff. One is our February Kenya-Tanzania Tour. The second, I started to post, but might of been "off topic" -- we had a tornado come through my town, Oxford, Connecticut, this week, so I took pictures of the damage and the line-men putting us back together again. They loved the pics, and might even post them on their company website.

So, my point is, you can sharpen your photo skills anywhere -- be it in Africa, or at home.

Restoration:

https://iluv2fly.smugmug.com/OXFORD-RESTORATION-MAY-2018/

Africa:

https://iluv2fly.smugmug.com/Africa-Video-ver-JG/i-jq7nnj7/A

Doug Sue

Comments

  • douglassuedouglassue
    At any rate, let me say this: if you like my images, and would like to ask any technical questions, questions about my approach to photography, and so on, just ask. I consider myself an intermediate level amateur -- not serious enough to wait for hours or days for the right light, nor get up too early or go to bed to late for the same, unless I'm on tour.

    And, I know nothing about Nikon menus, and probably don't remember the Canon ones. But, if you want to discuss various issues in your taking travel photos, I'm really happy to share my enthusiasm and love for this image-making stuff.

    Doug
  • TravelGuyTravelGuy
    Doug:

    How about a non-lens question?

    I have a Canon G1 X camera. I like to add movies to my slideshow that capture the sounds heard on site. I am having trouble filtering or blocking wind noise from my audio. For example, a couple of years ago in Botswana I took a video of a thundering herd of Wildebeests crossing right in front of our vehicle. All I heard on replay was the wind whistling.

    The camera has two tiny microphone openings spaced about an inch apart over the center line of the body. It has a Wind Filter feature that doesn’t do much good. I did some experimenting with different fabrics placed over the two openings. I found that a small piece of a cotton sock works about the best (which looks ridiculous!).

    The camera has no port to accommodate an external microphone on which I could try to use a Deadcat wind muff.

    Do you have a suggestion as to how to muffle wind noise?
  • AlanSAlanS
    TravelGuy wrote:
    Doug:

    How about a non-lens question?

    I have a Canon G1 X camera. I like to add movies to my slideshow that capture the sounds heard on site. I am having trouble filtering or blocking wind noise from my audio. For example, a couple of years ago in Botswana I took a video of a thundering herd of Wildebeests crossing right in front of our vehicle. All I heard on replay was the wind whistling.

    The camera has two tiny microphone openings spaced about an inch apart over the center line of the body. It has a Wind Filter feature that doesn’t do much good. I did some experimenting with different fabrics placed over the two openings. I found that a small piece of a cotton sock works about the best (which looks ridiculous!).

    The camera has no port to accommodate an external microphone on which I could try to use a Deadcat wind muff.

    Do you have a suggestion as to how to muffle wind noise?

    I think you are pretty much out of luck. You could tape a small piece of felt or foam over the speaker holes but that might attenuate the sound though.
  • douglassuedouglassue
    I apologize for not responding sooner -- haven't been keeping an eye on this. I don't know what one can do to the camera. I haven't done it in years, but there should be software programs that can let you lower or edit out the audio and/or replace it with music, and even add commentary. It gets to be a bit of a project though.

    Doug

  • douglassuedouglassue
    edited June 2018
    Reminder/Doug’s Tips

    For those of you with heavier cameras and lenses, a skill that one might practice before going on Safari, to eliminate the blur from camera shake, is to hold the camera in a way to support it — in other words, here is how to make your body and face become two tripods!

    For you right handed guys with right-handed cameras, support the lens with your left hand, WITH YOUR LEFT ELBOW RESTING OVER YOUR LEFT NIPPLE. (I don’t know how females do it, but I’m not going there. LOL).
    The RIGHT elbow also presses against the chest.
    Squeeze your elbows together.
    Press the camera against your face — this now forms three points to stabilize the camera and form another tripod.
    The camera itself rests on the eyepiece, and some portion of the face. I wear glasses so the second point of contact is my nose. This forms another tripod.
    You position your FEET so that the right foot is forward, forming another tripod with your body, particularly if you can lean against a wall or something.
    You can click the shutter on either the out breath or the in-breath; various books say the out-breath produces less camera shake. You have to experiment and see what works for you — take a series of pictures using both, and keep lowering the shutter speed.
    Bring a plastic bag and put it in your hip pocket. If your can, use the bag for your right knee, when kneeling, to get those low-angle, really cool shots, that others don’t want to do!

    My nephew, who is a pro photographer, says how you hold the camera instantly identifies you as to your skill level. So don’t blame me for that thought. LOL.

    Doug
    I don't know how you add images to posts, so you might have to copy and paste the links below into your browser.

    [https://photos.smugmug.com/Camera-Grip-Photos/i-CFCpMpF/0/8d826380/X5/Camera Support_Side View-X5.jpg]
    [https://photos.smugmug.com/Camera-Grip-Photos/i-6KGnh3k/0/7be91d02/X5/Camera Support_Frontal-X5.jpg]
  • douglassuedouglassue
    One more tip:

    Notice that most folks' left eye are closed? I prefer to keep both eyes open. Seems we learned that in college bio with microscopes.

    One advantage, with the camera, is that you can shift attention from one eye to the other, comparing your normal field of vision and the overall picture to what you see through the lens.

    Doug
  • TravelGuyTravelGuy
    Doug and Alan:

    Thanks for your input.

    TravelGuy
  • AlanSAlanS
    edited June 2018
    douglassue wrote:
    Reminder/Doug’s Tips

    I don't know how you add images to posts, so you might have to copy and paste the links below into your browser.

    Just enclose the url of your photo between "img" (start image code) and "/img" (end image code) brackets. You can type them or generate a set by just hitting the "insert image" button (it has mountain/sun on it- see below) and can be found at the top of New Post, Reply, Quote, or Edit screens. Just make sure the photos you insert are not wider than 640 px. I was going to demonstrate using the urls you posted but your photos are waaaayyyyy too large! You can insert any web-based image, like the insert image button itself! : ~ ) or any other image-based object like the "Create Link" button.

    "Insert Image" button: image.gif

    "Create Link" button: link.gif

    Expert2013.png

    Traveler2013.png




  • douglassuedouglassue
    Here is a tip on taking Action shots, to create a blurry background with clarity on the subject. In the examples below, in returning from a advanced workshop at a Wyoming workshop on Cowboys and Cowgirls, here is what we did.

    1. Set the camera in burst mode, about 6 frames per second. Set the shutter speed to about 1/50th of a second. You can experiment with other settings.

    2. Face forward to the horizon, then turn your body to follow the subject as it moves.

    3. If your camera has a Continuous Autofocus with Tracking, try it. On the Olympus OMD, it is C-AF-Tr.

    4. I was new at it, and only got less than 30% usable images. But the results are very satisfying.

    Here are the examples:

    https://iluv2fly.smugmug.com/Select-Images-From-First-Light-Workshop-June-2018/n-F2Jkxm/

    Any questions or comments, let me know.

    Doug

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