#aperture priority

[liamphotoatl]

(Liam Photography Podcast)

[johnzachary215]

Primes Or Zooms

I would like to ask you a question. What do you prefer shooting with a prime lens or a zoom lens?. This seems to be a hot topic in the photography community.I myself use more zoom lens’s then primes. For my Canon 7D I use a 28-75mm 2.8 and a Canon 70-200mm 2.8 for most of my shoots. As far as my fuji XE2 I use a 18-55 2.8-5.6 zoom when I’m shooting with mirrorless. The reason for me using zooms…

[zoezoegr]

Rowan & Lucy

[spgpt]

MODULE ONE ASSIGNMENT 3 The Golden Hour, Aperture priority mode, 10 photos

[blacksails2017]

someday I will get exposure exactly right to achieve the desired effect. not any day soon but some day.

[sirfrogsworth]

I just bought my first non-phone camera (Canon PowerShot SX70 HS). I travel a lot and want to take great photos of the landscapes I see. What would you recommend for someone who is essentially a novice? So far I've been afraid to change the settings from "auto" but I want to use the full capabilities of this camera!

I'm really tired and I don't have the energy to explain everything, so I'm going to give you the secret recipe to landscape photos. This works 80-90% of the time unless there are challenging variables to account for.

Put camera on tripod or stable surface. Set timer to a delay of 1 second. Put camera in Av or Aperture Priority Mode. Set f-stop to f/11. Set ISO to lowest setting. (Usually 100.) Let the camera decide the shutter speed automatically. Focus 1/3 of the way into your framing. Press the button, stand back, and let the camera take the shot.

Tripods are a pain in the butt to carry around, but they open up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to landscape shots. You can also try a little bean bag weight, railings/ledges, or those gorillapod things.

If I am feeling better tomorrow, I will reblog this and explain why these settings usually work and add some additional tips along with settings for when you can't use a tripod or stable surface.

But this should give you something to start with.

[radioradio]

Dawn and Golden Hour

This is what I set out to do two weeks ago, but the fog had other ideas.

I got to Downtown and the West End Overlook about an hour before sunrise, or the start of dawn. TIL there's three different dawns. I'm starting to take photos at the beginning of 'astronomical dawn.'

This one is wallpapered for your enjoyment.

And a few more. I swapped out between the 28-70mm f/2.8D and the 80-200mm f/2.8D here. I decided today's challenge would be to level the camera, keep the fountain center of the shot, and compose just wit the zoom.

Moving on to the Duquesne Incline overlook as dawn shifts to sunrise and the beginning of the Golden Hour. The 80-200mm lens isn't all that viable if I want to get the traditional DOWNTOWN shot. These are all the 28-70mm.

Again, camera is level, composing with just zoom and pan.

As previously, the autofocus started misbehaving again. I may need to have that lens serviced. So this last one at this spot is with the nifty 50mm f/1.8D.

FYI: everything to this point has been on the tripod at aperture priority f/5.6, ISO 200.

And finally, I move to the Grandview Ave. overlook. I've got the 80-200mm back on, and gone freehand at f/2.8, auto ISO with a minimum shutter speed of 1/125. That's about as slow as my 55 year old hands can do without camera shake. We're now well into Golden Hour.

The hardest part is it's an hour's drive each way to get here. So I spend more time traveling than I do taking the shots.

And the traditional shoutout to @sirfrogsworth for the inspiration.

[helluvatimes]

Soaring On Wings As Eagles

An immatured sea eagle learning the ropes from its parent on the Marina South coast. Photo credit: Jonathan Chua.

This image didn’t need to be cropped in post as the eagles including a third one were flying quite low at the time.

The given shutter speed of 1/500 second – I was then in Aperture Priority mode – was apparently not fast enough. A little motion blur could be seen at actual size but that wasn’t obvious here at this size.

[tomartookit]

Went out last night to chase the storms and snag lightning photos. Unfortunately, my new camera is still new to me and I botched every pic. Cant choose the exposure in manual mode? Only Shutter priority and Aperture priority on the Lumix S5II? If anyone else knows how to do it in Manual, please let me know. Anyway, at least I came out with these.

[theviceenforcer]

Team Fortress 2 - Ridiculous Ties

Whether you work for Mann Co., Black Mesa, or even Aperture Science, fashion is always number 1 priority.

[mxtxfanatic]

Just remembered a section in svsss that was translated differently and why I think the official does a better job of portraying the interiority of Shen Qingqiu as a character than the fan translation did. Here is the section directly after Shen Qingqiu kills the Skinner Demon, when it sinks in exactly what he has done:

This is Shen Qingqiu’s first time making a move to ‘kill.’ But he didn’t hesitate at all. Because firstly, this is a novel; secondly, this was a demon that had killed countless people; thirdly, if he didn’t make a move then he would have been the one to die.

Shen Qingqiu looked at the ‘Butterfly’s’ twisted limbs, a horrible sight as blood flowed from all seven apertures, overly beaten. He used the three reasons listed above to clear his mind and brainwash himself.

—Chapt. 8, fan translation

In the fan translation, the wording of “clear his mind” makes it feel like he’s trying to clear his conscious, convincing himself that he was acting justly through “brainwashing.” This makes the priority seem like settling his morality vs. his emotions. But in the official translation:

This was the first time Shen Qingqiu had killed someone. But he didn’t hold back, not even a little. First, because this was a book; second, because this was a demon who’d killed countless people; and third, because if he didn’t, he’d be the one who got killed.

Shen Qingqiu gazed down at the horrible state of “Die- er”: four limbs twisted and broken, bleeding from the seven facial apertures. He turned away, bombarding his own brain with a barrage of his three reasons until they blocked out the screen of his mind.

—Chapt. 2: Mission, official

…it is much clearer that Shen Qingqiu is not trying to convince himself of his own righteousness but, instead, is trying to block out the horror he was forced to commit for his and his students’ survival by logicing his way through the situation. He doesn’t feel like this is a book. He doesn’t feel like a hero valiantly striking down a villain in a made-up story. He feels like a man who just killed someone. And if he doesn’t want to lose his mind over it, he has to learn to cope. Thus begins his journey in dissociating by overly depending on “story logic” to soften the reality of the horrors he faces.

Shen Qingqiu isn’t blind about what is happening in the world of pidw now that he has transmigrated, and he isn’t in denial about how real the people and creatures of the world are. But the official translation does a better job of showing this nuance, which is why it is my favorite!

[canmom]

Annecy photodump 4 - assorted

This one is just straight up posting my holiday photos. But there's a few little anecdotes along the way.

On Saturday, I unexpectedly ran into a protest passing along the road between Bonlieu and Pathé (the two most important places in Annecy). I'm not entirely sure what it was they were protesting, but it was interesting hearing the familiar rhythms of protest chants with French words.

It was funny seeing Liberty Leading the People printed on a protest sign after watching a film about the context behind its painting earlier in the week.

French coppers wear these little sailor hats, upholding the tradition of police everywhere to wear dorky headwear...

I was standing by the lake trying to take a selfie with my DSLR when this guy in an Unreal Engine t-shirt sitting nearby offered to photograph me. I tried to say 'yeah so it's in aperture priority mode' to which he replied 'don't worry, I'm not a noob', switched it to manual and rapidly adjusted the aperture and exposure, and proceded to take some insanely nice photos of me.

By contrast in my own attempts, the sky is way overexposed...

So thanks, that guy! I am entirely shown up with my own camera, but one day I'll learn x3

BD Fugue is the big BD (comics) shop in Bonlieu. It's a wonderful place to just go in and look at all the enormous glossy books. For example, historical comics...

or go over to the fantasy section for some 30-odd volumes of Elfes...

There were a whole lot of similar comics to this series called stuff like 'Orcs' and 'Wizards'. (I don't remember the exact titles.) Must be quite popular!

As well as comics, it stocks books on animation and animation history. Conveniently, a lot of these are in English. I held off on buying comics in French (mostly...) but I got a very technical book on animation timing and a history of European animation, both of which I'm sure I'll be turning to a lot in the next year.

The VR room has a lot of bright coloured floors which provide some very nice examples of indirect diffuse-diffuse lighting, which is very expensive to render in games.

There's something inherently funny about seeing people immersed in VR like this.

Annecy has an abundance of old churches and cathedrals. Here's a few, inside and out...

I think these are mostly Catholic, though I don't really know enough about church architecture to say. I was a little disappointed to find out that you can't go up to that little glass dome on the roof of the cathedral, but on the other hand, it is a very pretty dome.

On another note - I've been in a number of cities over the past couple months - London, Glasgow, Belgrade, Geneva, Annecy - and in every single one I've seen graffiti and stickers saying 'free gaza'. (Though I also saw a weird little Zionist street stand with a bunch of leaflets and shit in Geneva.) Here's some graffiti in Annecy and a BDS sticker from Zagreb. I don't want to draw too many conclusions from this - the governments of most of these countries are still doggedly backing the genocide - but it does feel striking to see support for Gaza expressed at least in the graffiti culture of so many places.

One of the coolest things about Annecy is that the Alps are always kind of like... just hanging out in the background. They're so enormous it's hard to photograph them really! But here's a few shots with Alps chilling behind.

And to wrap things up, one last DSLR selfie.

À la prochaine, Annecy!

[notshelbyuwu]

HI!! PORTAL 2 x MINDVERSE :33

I'm so sorry for my cringe btw :((

What if I added 4 idiots to your Portal 2? :3

Summary: After Chell leaves the hospital she basically thinks over the events of Portal 1 for a week, not leaving Felix and their shared apartment, eventually Felix and Barmey get them to spill about what happened and she does, telling them about the advanced portal technology and the crazy evil sentient robot who killed the whole facility and tried to kill them so she killed her first, aaaaand they didn't believe her, thinking they probably got fired or they quit and was just embarrassed about it, with Gordon (who was overhearing) instigating the idea, in his words "if they were stupid enough to put a killer robot in charge of the whole facility they would've shit down a looong time ago". Chell is upset/annoyed that her friends (+ Gordon) don't believe them and, after a lot of pestering, agreed to show them the wreckage of Aperture Science.

Felix was the one to drive them there, they all travel deeper into the facility and Chell tries to find the remains of GLaDOS while the others explore, little did they know, they accidentally activate the party escort bots and get ambushed by multiple of em, being knocked unconscious for struggled against them and placed in statis in the Relaxation Centers, being mistaken for volunteer test subjects.

Chell Nanako (Attempt #4)

-The last one to wake up

-teams up with Wheatley to find her friends and escape

-Wheatley isn't too fond of the idea but doesn't try to sway Chell

-Chell was told she's only been asleep for 5 years

-won't admit it, but they actually have fun testing again

-They feel guilt for giving in and bring everyone to the facility, hoping they're not hurt or worse

-Grows attached to Wheatley because hes endearing to her, taking their mind off... Everything.

-plus, he's all she really has right now.

Gordon Freeman (Attempt #3)

-the 3rd to wake up, he was woken up by Wheatley who loudly knocked on his door

-Found an aperture science jumpsuit and boots in the closet

-Gordon saw how incompetent and wreckless Wheatley could be and ditched him at the first opportunity, choosing to traverse Aperture by himself

-actively avoids Wheatley

-stole a red portal gun from a tall deactivated robot

-ties his portal gun around his waist with a belt

-while traveling through what was left of Aperture, he came across the Oracle Turret, Gordon had never heard a turret speak like it did, so he took it with him, the turret helping him avoid danger while saying the vaugest and foreshadow-y things

-carries the turret on his back with a blanket

-Gordon is trying to find everyone, but his main priority is finding Felix.

Felix Freeman (Attempt #2)

-2nd to wake, Felix woke up on his own and looked around to see nature taking over his room

-Felix has no memory of who he is or where he is but he's absolutely terrified and tries to find a way out, ultimately giving up after what feels like days

-he camps out in the back rooms of Aperture, near some of the ramblings of Doug and a Chell mural

-Felix gets dresses and leaves him room, basically trying not to trip over a vine or fall in a hole.

-found a prototype portal gun in a pile of rubble, had no idea what it was and almost shot his head off

-ran into a companion cube and found it strangely comforting, he doesn't take it everywhere but comes back to it when he needs to calm down

-Felix sometimes runs into Doug Rattmans writings and secret rooms, he has no idea what they mean but it causes him to be super paranoid and suspicious of anything, getting an awful feeling about his situation

-recognizes the woman in the art, he finds them slightly comforting

Barney Calhoun (Attempt #1)

-first to wake up, Wheatley broke his door down and scared the hell outta Barney, also found vines growing around and almost grabbing his legs, ew

-was told to get dressed and he did, got a two piece jumpsuit instead of a one piece jumpsuit.

-immediately asked Wheatley what was happening and Wheatley told him they were escaping, when asked where his friends were, Wheatley, very bluntly, said "I don't know- probably dead, a lot of people died in their room, no one even told me the power went out in some rooms!" And this freaked Barney out, refusing to believe his friends were all dead

-this lead to Barney leaving Wheatley to find someone, anyone. He didn't want to believe that he was all alone in this

-he tied his jacket around his neck like a cape as a way to comfort himself

-found a blue portal gun from a small deactivated robot

-heard a small almost soft voice greet him from around the corner, as he turned the corner he ran into a turret that began to open fire at him, he just barely took cover, but not before a bullet grazed and scared under his left eye

-absolutely hates turrets, thinks the innocent voice they use is cruel considering how dangerous they can be

[sophios-draws]

untitled fic

rattmann pov. set in my au in which he goes into cryosleep after p1 and is woken up by glados post-p2

(539 words)

After what must have been several days of constant, laborious testing, it ends. Upon completing the last chamber the doors open to reveal a hallway, instead of the usual elevator. I heft the portal gun in my sore arms and step into the hall. I don’t contemplate whether this is a good choice. She would not leave room for choice. I jump at the sound of a wall sealing off the entrance behind me. The hallway is short and closed on both ends, like a shipping container. And like a shipping container, I feel it rise and spin in transit. I brace myself against the wall. Then it stops. One end of the container-hallway swings inward to reveal a room. I stumble blindly towards it. A slight misalignment in the floor between the hall and the room causes me to trip and fall. The portal gun clatters on polished linoleum.  “Don’t drop that. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device is difficult and expensive to repair. And we’ve been running short on technicians.” Of course. Her. I look up to see two glowing yellow eyes searing into mine. She is standing next to Chell, who is also staring at me, but with a much softer gaze. I scramble back onto my feet and assess my surroundings. The room appears to be an office turned into a makeshift dining room, with a cluster of pushed-together desks surrounded by chairs.  And then it’s my turn to stare. Because on the table, there is a cake. My first thought is that it is poisoned. That idea is promptly rejected, seeing Chell has already helped herself to a slice, frosting smeared across her lip. It is a priority of Hers to keep Chell alive and well.(Was that not my priority, too?) “This cake wasn’t supposed to be for you; it was her idea to bring you here. So go on, steal the fruits of my labor. Which you don’t deserve.” Chell glances at me apologetically and motions to a chair. I place the portal gun on the table and all-but collapse in my seat. With the adrenal vapors wearing off, I can feel my appetite returning.  I’m so, so hungry. Chell tentatively hands me a slice on a paper plate. I cannot resist. Using my grimy hands, I scarf down the cake without a word. Perhaps it is just my extreme hunger, but the cake tastes heavenly. The layers are soft and spongy, the frosting not too sweet, and the cherry filling can only be described as perfect. My eyes well up with tears. I hastily blink them away, but a few manage to escape down my cheeks. I expect Her to throw some rude remark at me, but She just continues to watch in silence. My animalistic hunger is momentarily mollified enough for my thoughts to return to Her.  It is a ridiculous idea that She would have any interest in a human activity such as baking (especially without the ability to eat). We programmed the Intelligence Core to recite a cake recipe for this reason. It was useless information to Her. Yet here I am, gorging myself on a real cake that (supposedly) She Herself made.  For Chell. Just for Chell.

[postoctobrist]

It’s really not okay that you’re encouraging people to get into film photography. You know that it makes one irresistible to beautiful women. These poor people are totally unsuspecting and have no idea the women of their dreams are going to appear and fall deeply in love with them. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go explain to my weed-smoking girlfriends how my Minolta X-700 is an early example of a camera with an aperture priority mode.

it’s for their own good

[sirfrogsworth]

Peter McKinnon did a video with a photographer named Garrett King. And he just went on a very long rant about lazy photographers who use Photoshop and "fixing it in post."

He continues... "You can't do that in film. You can't just make a bad decision and say "Oh, I'll fix it in post." (Not true. There was plenty of editing in dark rooms in the past. And now you can scan a film photo and literally manipulate it like a digital photo.) Fix it in post drives me nuts. That statement is so played out. It drives me nuts that people say that. Cuz dude, I don't work that way."

He also says that choosing film is the "hard path" and keeps talking about how lazy photographers who photoshop are.

I love film photography. I have an old Minolta that my mom gave me that I hope to restore and use someday.

But film photographers drive *me* nuts sometimes.

IT'S NOT A COMPETITION!

BOTH THINGS ARE COOL!

This idea that their way of making art is more valid or authentic than my way of making art is just a continuation of an old school mentality that really needs to die. There are still some photographers who will bully people because they use autofocus or aperture priority mode.

I actually think learning to be really good at Photoshop is much more challenging than learning to be good at photography. Sure, there are fields like photographic microscopy and product photography that require years to master, but I've been learning Photoshop for 20 years and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of what is possible.

I have seen people with near 0 experience take an amazing picture.

I have seen people who barely know how their camera works take consistently good photos. It's the "using only power chords" version of photography.

But I have never seen someone with 0 experience photoshop something artistically impressive.

When people say "that looks Photoshopped" as if that is an insult, it really breaks my heart. Photoshop was a huge reason for my success. My ability to lay in bed and make funny things was essential to building my blog.

My post on Karl Taylor's Clinque photoshoot had so many comments saying his work "looked photoshopped" and it was a little frustrating.

Firstly because he actually sculpts with light and isn't actually very good at Photoshop. When he takes a picture, it pretty much looks like that from the start. The rest is just minor compositing work and blemish removal.

And secondly, because that kind of product photography predates Photoshop. Karl was doing this when Photoshop was just a baby.

In fact, still life photography was inspired by Dutch paintings of fruit and shit.

They were all, "I cannot stand sitting with another yappy model for days on end. I'm sick of people. I'm just going to paint *stuff* but with really amazing lighting."

But it is also frustrating because there is this mentality that digital tools are lesser. As if digital artists just press a few buttons and cheat-code their way into good images.

It's the same mentality people have about CGI. CG artists are the modern day sculpturists. They do the same thing as Michaelangelo or Rodin, just with different tools and in a different medium. Oh, but they also animate their sculptures in thousands of frames in multiple dynamic lighting environments all while maintaining photorealism.

To me, Thanos is just as artistically impressive as the statue of David or The Thinker.

Blair Bunting is a very talented photographer who mixes incredible photographic technique and lighting with his amazing photo manipulation skills.

And while these photos may not be as "authentic" as that film photographer's picture of a dude sitting on a truck...

I can assure you no laziness was involved in Blair's process.

Also, I really didn't want to bring up disability. But it is really difficult for me to do the physical process of photography. Sometimes I do not have the energy to get the perfect "in camera" exposure. Sometimes I won't even check my settings and I will snap a picture knowing that I can make it cool with editing. I just look at the histogram, make sure the data I need is there, and do the rest on my computer.

During my adventure to photograph a bridge in Alton, I was only able to take 6 photos. Usually I will take hundreds in a session. My fatigue got the better of me and I nearly had to go to the hospital after walking up a hill. (I was having a bad day. I'm better now.) I didn't get the photos I wanted to get. And on the way down that hill, as I was out of breath, I pulled out my phone and tried to snap a pic of something cool I saw in front of me. The phone had been set 2 stops underexposed from a previous shot and so the picture was pretty much all in shadow. And because I was walking super slow, I had just missed the sun over the horizon.

But it's a RAW file. And I knew I could probably do something with it. I could "fix it in post." Not because I was being lazy. Mostly because I was trying not to hyperventilate. Apparently, my body can't handle slight inclines any longer.

And this is what I came up with.

I'm not saying this is an amazing photo. And it would have been really cool if I hadn't missed the sun. But this is what my eyes saw as I came down the hill and I was able to recreate that with digital tools.

I think that is pretty cool.