₦airaland Forum

UjSizzle:
#yesfilter!

I loooove dramatic effects

That oil rig picture is epic. Great shot.

Took a few yesterday!

SmooshCHN:
Which Lockscreen would you pick?

I'd pick the 2nd one.

SmooshCHN:
Original and Retouched. Today's weather was very bad.
Crop and Other edit sliders.

Great pictures! How did you brighten the colours like that?

SmooshCHN:
Before and after.

Wow... That's what I'll call great use of the crop tool. You got rid of the distractions and made the spider the centerpiece.
I love it. I get inspired by your work.

SmooshCHN:
I don't which photo you're talking of but maybe this might help.
Reduce the shadows till you're satisfied with the noise levels. Then later you can add contrasts as for final editing. When you use contrast first, your highlights would increase in brightness increasing noise in the bright paths of your image and dropping brightness might make it look under exposed.
For noise reduction, start first with shadows you'll see the difference.
Below us an example
At "0" shadow - visible noise
At -28 shadow- noise almost totally gone.

Wow! I think this is an extremely valuable tip for us all! Gonna put this to use immediately! Thanks man!

Victoriousvic:
Nna, Na wa o.

I think your phone takes better night shots than mine. Mine is just there.

I did have to do a little editing to get rid of the noise. Increase contrast slightly, drop brightness, and add a little fade.
Still not the cleanest, but significantly better. I wanted the Moto X Style so bad, but was out of my range...

SmooshCHN:
All the way Bro. Keep up the shooting spirit

Thanks mate!

SmooshCHN:
Some shots I took over the weekend.

These pictures are all so nice... But that second one... Absolutely magnificent. I love it sooo much.

SmooshCHN:
Nice one man. It scares the hell out of me

Thanks a lot! Meanwhile, I find them so cute.

Don't like night shots with my phone, but I'll still put this here.

honsule:
How do I decrypt encrypted pictures on this phone?

Go to gallery or file explorer and pinch out, as if trying to zoom in. You'll be asked to enter your security password. You'll then see encrypted files and be able to decrypt them.

naturefellow:
Show

naturefellow:
Guess what...

Baaaaatsss!!! Nice!

Saw a gecko a few minutes ago...

Another friend's watch.

SmooshCHN:
Bokehhh!

Bokeh indeed!

SmooshCHN:
If they gave me free I won't reject that Bicycle

Nice and simple. Like it!

PapiWata:
Autofreak you have done a very thorough and skilled job of bringing this 13-year old Nissan Z car to life. There is an enormous satisfaction that comes with restoring a vehicle to its past glory both mechanically and cosmetically. You spent some serious money to revive this beast, and you will be rewarded with many miles of high performance driving. Yourself and Engineer Siena are educative inspirations to all readers of this forum who appreciate those fine performance automobiles from the recent past, and who like to see such mechanical icons given new leases of life at the hands of seasoned experts.


Back in the day I drove a 1974 Datson 240Z that I bought used and souped up with custom flared fenders, wide tires and a metallic blue paint job. I recall wheeling that Z car along US Highway 395 northbound towards Mammoth Mountain ski area in northern California.

With the exception of a couple of times when I slowed down a taste so as to avoid pursuit by CHP patrol cars laid up in ambush, I maintained a constant speed of 105 miles per hour, for well over 4 hours straight across the burning deserts and up the steep winding roads into the winter chill of the northern Sierra foothills, and brother, let me tell you, that old Z car did not complain or overheat one single time all the way there and back to SoCal.

Your Z car is a direct descendant of my old 240Z, and as such is GUARANTEED to serve you well, at all highway speeds from the mundane to the insane, with even more technological enhancements to the sterling credentials of its great ancestors comprising the Z car dynasty.

I looove the 240Z. Nissan is my favourite car brand, and I must own a 240Z.

Pray,do you have any pictures?

I grew up with Pokémon, and I love the franchise... Probably ain't many fans of the series if any at all, but I'll still put this here.

Feb 27, 1996 to now. Wow!

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/pok%C3%A9mon-is-20-years-old-today-and-its-just-183918200.html

SmooshCHN:
Yeah, sometimes it feels that way even for days. I've also not touched my camera for over 2 weeks and feel very very lazy to go out. Just take a break. The passion will resurface.

I assume this quote was actually for me...

2 weeks! Woah.

Alright, I'm sure it will... I'll just calm down a little... I'll find something nice to take a shot of.

Had this picture.... From a few days back.

SmooshCHN:
Thank for your encouraging words. You've not been posting much on the other thread. why?

Well, apart from the guitar, I've been trying to take pictures, but I'm not 'feeling' any of them if you know what I mean.

I feel that I don't have good subjects around me anymore... I'm not so excited about the pictures I've taken most recently... So I've just left em on my phone... But I'll try my best to post something tomorrow.

Edited: Just posted one though.

SmooshCHN:
Forced myself to go out cos it's just too cold.

Wow... Don't know which is my favourite... All wonderful. I think I'd say I like the middle one the best. I love the layout of those escalators as well. Makes for a fantastic shot.

That's my guitar.

SmooshCHN:
For camera I mostly use auto focus and for phone I use touch focus. This shot was taken with my phone.

Alrighty. Thank you for all your help and advice so far. Learned A LOT.

SmooshCHN:
Was out today in the rain.
Original vs Edited

I prefer the edited picture. Wonderful shot.

Do you use autofocus or manual?

SmooshCHN:
Ok, I'll try to explain more clearly.
Here as at 6 pm it's still daytime and everywhere is still bright. My final exposure was 2secs, F22 AUTO-ISO 50.
Auto ISO is used when you don't have time to manually adjust it. The camera chooses the most suitable for the scene.
First, 2secs with F/2.4 or F/4 in daytime will make the picture totally over exposed and everything should be white normally. I used F22 for two reasons
1. the camera light meter shows the scene will be over exposed if i use anything below F12.
2. For focusing; So since i'm also on the ''swinging thingies'' the camera was strapped to my neck and resting on my lap so there's no chance to adjust camera settings once there's movement. When using lower F stops like F1.8, F2, F4, F5.6 or even lower, you'll get shallow depth of field and less part of your image will be in focus unlike F22 in which everything would seem to be in focus.
If i had used F2.8, the picture would be totally white and also almost everything might be blur. If you have a camera you should try long exposure in daytime you'll see why you need F16 and above.

Ah, I completely understand now.

Lower F number is a wider aperture, let's in more light... Am I right there?

Higher exposure itself allows more light to reach the sensor, cuz you're keeping it open. I've tried increased shutter speed in day time, got a white picture as you said.

Lower F numbers also allow for shallower depth of field, they take the background out of focus. A larger F number will seemingly make everything focused.

I got it! Thanks man!

SmooshCHN:
Thanks Bro. What don't you understand? I'll try to explain better.

You said you used F/22 to aid focusing and balance exposure... What exactly does that mean? Plus AUTO-ISO, why so important?

And BTW, I love the picture of the Chinese lady. You kept your cool, and took a great picture.

SmooshCHN:
This is one of my favorite images. I'll be explaining how I shot it.

It's no doubt a slow shutter speed photograph in day time. No tripod, no solid ground.

Around 6:00pm Before i got on the horse moving whatever , I wanted to get exactly this kind of image as i imagined and i knew once this thing starts moving, they'll be no time to check for focus, under or over exposure so i manually focused on my GF, she was kind of in front of me, set my exposure to 2secs and since i knew it'll be 2 secs i used F/22 to aid focusing and balance exposure and the life saving AUTO-ISO. And when it got moving positions changed, the person i focused on was now beside me and for sure focused won't be accurate so i took like 6 shots and this one turned out well. I'll go back to try it when it's night time by summer. I think the light will make it look nice.

Interesting image.

You were on one of those swinging thingies... No idea what they are called. And I understand only half of your explanation. But very nice concept.

SmooshCHN:
Another slow shutter speed photo. Handheld. I was at the back of a taxi and the trail of lights are the street lights.
F/2.8
ISO 50
2.5secs

Your black and white images tend to always be astounding. I live the symmetry here. You're talented.

SmooshCHN:
Nice work.

Thanks!

Took this yesterday night. Pictures like this usually require completely still cameras, but I was holding it, tried my best.

SmooshCHN:
I love the pictures especially the first . Sadly it's blur. And Thanks, the first pics was taken with the Sony Z2 the rest with IPhone. A little tip for night time pics, try your best as in absolute best to make your hand stable. Or try rest your hand on something. The more instability, the higher the ISO and more noise. Which phone do you use?

Thanks! Yeah, Ill try to keep still, maybe fund something to rest on, thanks for that tip.
I use a Gionee Marathon M5.

SmooshCHN:
From tomorrow I'll be uploading few of my portrait photoshoot and the complicated shots (the ones I love the most) and how I got them.

Please subscribe and please drop your observations.

Can't wait! I'm excited for the portraits. The iPhone 5s takes mighty good pictures looking at that last one.

Realized my phone has a professional mode which allows for manual focusing... Had fun playing with that yesterday.

SmooshCHN:
1. Before I got my camera and was all about Sony Z2. It's my NL profile pics for almost a year.
2. Night time photography with iPhone 5s.
3. I couldn't get it right cos the bus wouldn't wait for me. I don't know which one's best but I'll go with the monochrome. IPhone 5s

Like I said... I love close pictures like the one of the doll...
Apparently the Z2 does well for night photography, little noise in that second pic... Wish I could say the same for my phone.
3rd one is majestic. Monochrome wins for me.

Went out yesterday night. A lot of noise in my images. Not the best for night shots.

SmooshCHN:
Like a month ago.

The colors in that first shot... Vibrant. Love it.

SmooshCHN:
You can also
1. increase your shutter speed a little like instead of 30 secs, use 15sec.
2. Sometimes what you're trying to achieve might not require that long. If the required shutter speed was 20" and you set 30, the remaining 10" is gathering light you don't need.
3. Wait till it's a little dark Magical things happen at night.

Just just playing with the settings till it's a balanced. Low ISO, High F-stop or faster shutter speed.

Wow... I'm learning a lot from you. And I'm a little lucky to have a phone where I can adjust exposure... Couldn't do that on my old one.

Yeah... I've always had issues deciding how long I should set the shutter too, hoping I won't choose too much. I guess less is a little better here than too much.

Yeah... Going out tonight... Hoping to get a better light trail than my last one. Cant wait.

Thanks for the tips man!