The second entry for the “Retouch and Revisit” project by Arnoldas Ramonas.
Arnoldas went or a more saturated and colorful look. To view how he did it, click here.
The third entry for the “Retouch and Revisit” project by Tim Grimshaw.
Tim went in a different direction, creating a dark foreboding scene. To view how he did it, click here.
Well folks, we’ve received our first entry into the “Retouch and Revisit” Project and wow I’m impressed. To accompany this wonderful image, Ryan did a VERY thorough blog post on his blog, blog.rrdphoto.com. Great work Ryan D. and awesome blog post explaining how you did it. I’m most impressed with the level of detail in general and especially with what he was able to get out of the rocks as well as the dreamy feel of the whole scene. Awesome work. To check out how he did it and see this image larger, click here.
Remember, the deadline for entries isn’t until January 25th, so there’s still plenty of time to take a stab at it. Click here for entry details.
Recently, I’ve found myself looking at older photos I’ve taken, and giving another stab at retouching them. Why retouch again? Well over the last year, I’ve dedicated a lot of my time educating myself in different methods of retouching and with new tricks up my sleeve I can go back and look at older photos with a more critical eye, to make a better final image. One of my favorite retouching methods is using a series of exposure bracketed images to composite a final image.
The image above happened to be one of my favorites from this process, and I thought to myself, why not include the CameraPorn readership and see what your eyes see to make this image the best it can be. After the great fun I had with the Epic Edits Project, “Editing Brian’s Photo,” I realized that everyone looks at any image differently. Throw in 3 bracketed exposures, and the possibilities could be endless.
Full project details, RAW files, and entry information after the jump…
Continue reading ‘CameraPorn Project #1 - Revisit and Retouch’
Old Cocoa House
Canon 30D : 1/250th : f/4 : 70mm : ISO640 : Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 L
As an entry to Jim Goldstein’s most recent blog project, I’ve gone through the painstaking process of trying to pick my 10 Best photos from 2007. Let me tell ya, this was not easy. I am submitting just a bit past the deadline but I hope Jim will still accept my entry. 
It’s funny how happy hour after work on a friday can make a plan to post by midnight a bit foggy. Anyways, I’d love to hear what you guys think of my picks. All the photos after the jump!
So I made it back safe and sound from my Trinidad trip, and it was great. No gear damage or theft to report, thankfully.
I didn’t shoot quite as much as I would have liked, but it was my first major outing with the new Nikon D300 and I would consider it a success. I shot a variety of things ranging from low-light portraits to sunsets, and I did some experimenting with long telephoto landscapes as well. I continue to be impressed with the quality of the images I’m able to capture with the D300.
Photos and a list of the kit I brought after the jump…
Seeing that as I’m writing this I am mid-travel on my way to Trinidad, I felt it appropriate to talk a little bit about gear safety while traveling. As seasoned CameraPorn readers may know from previous posts, I from time-to-time travel to Trinidad (read here, here and here). This and a recent, horrible gear theft experience of a friend of mine (more on that later), got me thinking a little bit more about gear safety. Now I’m not talking about professional swimsuit photographers off to Bali, or insane conflict photographers to a war zone. I’m talking about you, and me and most of the readers of this blog… serious hobbyists, traveling for fun and shooting pleasure. For me these trips usually mean a hot, sweaty, foreign country, though the tips I’m going to share can apply to almost anything from a day trip to the desert or an adventure to remote villages in India.
And so we begin, 6 ways to keep your gear happy, safe and sound during your travels.
Continue reading ‘Wanna Get Your Gear Stolen or Damaged While Traveling? Don’t Read This.’
Canon 24-70mmL, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 0.125s
I thought I would take a little time and whip up an article about some photography basics. Please, please note the use of the word “basics” in that last sentence. If you’re been shooting for any appreciable length of time then you’re probably not going to get too much out of this. But given that we’re smack in the middle of the present giving time of year, it’s likely that in a few days there’s going to be a glut of new DSLR owners out there. What I’m aiming for is the article I wish I’d found when I first got my camera, to help explain the relationship between three critically important parameters: the ISO speed, aperture (or f-stop number), and shutter speed.
Continue reading ‘Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed - The Good Kind of Threesome’
So for the last few weeks I have been toying around with the idea of doing a holiday gift suggestion post, but until now I couldn’t get motivated to do it. Why? Who knows, maybe because most of these so-called “gift guides” are nothing more than paid advertisements and big wastes of time. So you might ask, what motivated me to finally get off my ass and do it? This…
Well, to be more specific, the first page. Now, I do love PopPhoto, and usually get a lot out of what I read there, but when this one popped into my feed reader and I clicked through, I almost didn’t make it past the first page. I mean, a 3D space navigator mouse thingie? an $80 card reader? a USB thumb drive? and a few other things that if I received I would smack someone. But seriously, what photographer wants this crap. There is a LensPen, good, at least one ray of light. Luckily, I was able to suppress the urge to break things long enough to get to the second page, and there we are, some good stuff, and the PopPhoto gift guide was saved, and actually has some really cool stuff, some of which I will mention here. If you plan on checking it out, I suggest starting on page 2
So now you are probably wondering, what do the crazies at CameraPorn think you should get for that special photographer you love? Well, everything I’m going to list are things you should get for yourself, and if you have a few bucks left over, buy your friends something. I’ll keep it short, sweet and cheap. List after the jump.
Continue reading ‘5 Little Things Every DSLR Photographer Needs You To Buy Them For The Holidays’
That’s right, I bought my first nikon… and I’m lovin it so far. Does that mean I’m a nikon guy now? Hell no! Can’t I go both ways?
Anyways, here are my first impressions:
Lots more to come on this, but in the meantime, check out the first shots here.
Just a little heads-up, due to some critical electrical systems maintenance at our data center, CameraPorn.net will be down for a couple hours tonight starting at around 9:30PM Pacific time.
And as a side note, some of you may have noticed some scary viagra and cialis links in our blogroll this morning. Apparently the version of wordpress we are running was slightly out of date, and had a little security hole. This has been fixed and shouldn’t happen again.
