The Photo Club - Street Photography

Other than exposure to photography in car magazines (namely EVO, who's 'toggers are epic in every way), I don't really go searching for names to photos. Also, I don't follow photographer's work because it always seems detrimental to my esteem.

I get a few inspirations from browsing redbubble. I could get names, but it would be very time consuming. I might come back to that later.

With that, I love being round the photography section of this website, so I'll have to say I take most influence from you guys.

Notable people (picked out for featuring more style that a few others).

Sweetshop: Awesome is an overall generalisation of your work. You hit the nail on the head when it comes emotion and tone in the images, and you have prodigal technique with shooting and pp. That set featuring the art museum really blew me away.

F1GTR: Wow. Not around here nearly as much as I'd like, but you make up for it when you are. Your sets really capture that atmosphere around your subjects and locations. Your pp is somewhat unique, very fitting, and puts most of us in the shadows. The tones that you get are something I have had a stab at replicating. Awesome stuff.

TVR&F_F: Really amazing work. The angles and some of the smaller details you focus on are brilliant. Of course having amazing subjects helps the impact of your work (I can only dream of going to the FOS), but your composition/framing is usually new and refreshing, and the tones you use are really deep and easy to the eye. Magazine/wall poster worthy.

Syntax: Maaaaaaaate....the pro. Erm. Outstanding level at all times is all I can really say. Trackside technique is amazing, as is your pp (I really don't know how to do what you did with the S2K in your gallery - with the many layers). You are one of the people that is detrimental to my esteem. I am always amazed (yet expect nothing less) when I look at your stuff. Also, I am terribly, terribly jealous of the kit that you use. I guess it’s one of the perks of the trade. :P

SPhilli911: Always a extremely high level coming from you. There is a very good reason why your Countach made it to the cover of the 2010 GTP calendar. Other shots that really impressed me include the SLR B&W in the city (another contender for the calendar) and the GT3 rear shot from not too long ago. You have that ability to make a huge impact with your shots. They have that quality about them that I look at them simply for fun.

Moglet: Another one of those who should hang around here more. Some of the stuff you come up with is amazing. I seem to remember a rustic tractor in your gallery that really amazed me. You also have that ability to see something in the everyday stroll and make an awesome photo out of it. I most of the things you see every day, but I couldn't frame it nearly as well as you, mostly because I wouldn't think about taking a shot of it in the first place. So props to you for seeing things I don't. :P

Mclaren: Not always as hot as some all the time, but when you get it, it’sgotten, and no-one can get it better. Some of the shots in your gallery are outstanding. Namely the ones that I picked out (especially the "Go baby, go" and the ACR Viper as some of the ones that REALLY stand out). I really envy some of the stuff that you produce

LongbowX: Mood is defiantly your forte. You have that skill to change how the subject is viewed by your awesome pp techniques. Your framing is faultless, and you always bring new stuff to the table, which is awesome and broadens view how what can be done and how something can be portrayed.

NISMO: Your full sized work is great, but it’s your model stuff that truly amazes me. The lighting, the composition - so subtle, yet have so much impact. Imagine if someone have you a supercar and a studio to work with. :drool:

I might have left people out and this is probably because your styles are developing or are like the above mentioned artists. It’s the people above whose work I am constantly impressed with and whose work pushes into new styles and techniques.

God job everyone. 👍 👍 👍
 
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Syntax: Maaaaaaaate....the pro. Erm. Outstanding level at all times is all I can really say. Trackside technique is amazing, as is your pp (I really don't know how to do what you did with the S2K in your gallery - with the many layers). You are one of the people that is detrimental to my esteem. I am always amazed (yet expect nothing less) when I look at your stuff. Also, I am terribly, terribly jealous of the kit that you use. I guess it’s one of the perks of the trade. :P

Flattered that someone looks at my work for inspiration. :cheers: By the way, most of my gear I buy used and from overseas. At the moment the AUD is strong against the USD so most of my recent acquisitions are from there. It is definitely worth looking at what is available around the world as there are some great bargains out there.
 
It's been a while so I'm going to bump this up with a new topic. File formats, What is your preferred format to work in, benefits and disadvantages of each.

Shooting in RAW should be standard but after that you have choices to make. I currently save all my edits in Photoshop quality-12 JPEG however I've heard that within a few years a noticeable loss in quality will appear, should I switch to PNG? Looking at it from another angle though, JPEG is best for the web so would it be more beneficial to save in both formats? I feel that with the cheap price of external HDD's file size is no longer a valid argument in this case.
 
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I currently save all my edits in Photoshop quality-12 JPEG however I've heard that within a few years a noticeable loss in quality will appear
You make it sound like it's going to degrade by itself, which of course, it does not. ;) It will only degrade if you keep editing and saving it (as that will require decompression and recompressing). Which is why I keep it in an uncompressed format (like TIFF) until I'm done editing.
 
You make it sound like it's going to degrade by itself, which of course, it does not. ;) It will only degrade if you keep editing and saving it (as that will require decompression and recompressing). Which is why I keep it in an uncompressed format (like TIFF) until I'm done editing.

Ahhh I was aware that it degraded with consistent editing, which I why I only save a finished product as a JPEG. However I was also under the impression that it just degraded after a while of storage on a HDD, clearly I was mis-informed.
 
This website here seems to have some real good information on the file formats even though some parts of the website is a bit dated. Personally I use png since you gain quality(vs jpg and gif) while you still save space vs tiff. I still haven't used RAW yet since I don't have a camera with that capability.
 
I use Lightroom, so everything stays in RAW until I choose otherwise. My geotagging app adds XMP sidecar files, but Lightroom hoovers these up and embeds all the information they contain into its database.

So I can do WB, exposure, keywording, levels, and other adjustments all in Lightroom. It records the changes in its database, not in the RAW files, so the editing is fully non-destructive.

If I want to go outside of LR's capability, I export a copy of the image to PSD. I then work exclusively in PSD with this image. Saving in Photoshop automatically reloads the edit into Lightroom.

I only ever go to JPG when I'm exporting from Lightroom for distribution.

Also, I obsess about damaging the original images. I don't really give a care about file size, until such time as I'm exporting to JPG.
 
I use Lightroom, so everything stays in RAW until I choose otherwise. My geotagging app adds XMP sidecar files, but Lightroom hoovers these up and embeds all the information they contain into its database.

This is one of the great things about shooting in RAW. I do the majority of my edit in Camera Raw so everything goes into an XMP, then if necessary I'll finish it off in Photoshop or just save as a JPEG.

I may start using Lightroom again as I need to find a solid way of organising my photos, however I'll save the organisation debate for the next theme.
 
I tend to personally go from using a RAW then processing it in Photoshop and saving as a quality 12 JPEG. I would use Lightroom and use a similar technique to Giles...if I had it :lol:
 
I use jpeg unless I'm shooting landscapes or something I know that'll need more than usual PP. My workflow is the same regardless of what file format I use: Lightroom (quick fixes) -> Photoshop (for finer tuning, also some plugins work faster in PS than LR) -> Export as jpeg.
 
Good to see the discussion thread up and running again, I was only just thinking about it the other day and thinking it would be nice for someone to breathe some life into it.

Now to get on topic, interesting to see what everyone else here is doing. I keep all RAW files no matter how bad they turn out. This has the negative effect of having something close to two terabytes of storage data now but it's well organised so that's not an issue.

File format conversion will depend on what I am doing. Jobs for companies tend to end up in PNG format or TIFF if it's an advertisement, if I'm doing a racing set, I tend to do quality-12 JPG and then scale my shots down in photoshop for flickr. Personal shots (ie.family & holidays) I tend to just do in quality-12 JPG. These are just general situations but obviously flexibility is the key. Some publishers I deal with only like files in particular formats and sizes with what appears to be little regard for quality while others don't seem fussed by any format given to them as long as image quality is paramount.


At the end of the day, I think the most important thing is to keep your RAW files in case you need to go back to the file for whatever reason.
 
Well I don't think anymore contributions are coming in so I'll move onto the next theme: Organisation.

My current organisation system is pretty weak, I have folders such as landscapes/cars etc but I often find myself in a situation trying to fit certain photos into certain groups. Not to mention the dreaded "SORTING FOLDER", meant as a dump until I sort but I never really have. With my collection growing rapidly I'd like to know what everyone else does to keep on top of their images. Give me file naming, folder structures, programs used, etc.
 
All my photos are sorted chronologically using lightroom. It goes Year -> Month -> Date, but I have a feeling that upgrading to LR3 messed a few folders up, so I'll have to fix that next time I cull photos.
 
I'm in the same boat as SsU so I'm also very interested in how to best go about fixing this self-inflicted predicament.
 
When loading my shots from my card to the PC, I load them straight into folders titled as follows: 2010_11_23_WHAT_EVER_I_SHOT_RAW and a corresponding JPG folder as well. The all files end up sharing the same file name with the folder so as to reduce any confusion. If you do it at the time of loading the shots across from your CF card, filing doesn't turn into a daunting and tedious task. I also keep a master file spreadsheet with descriptions to help easily find work I have done in the past. Also I set the camera to RAW + small JPG. I can then use the JPG to quickly find it's corresponding RAW file with ease with out the need to load hundreds of images to lightroom.
 
I personally have a folder inside the 'My Pictures Folder' which state the year, the inside that the event is stated, usually (although depending on the event) I will do another folder inside of that showing the name of the race that I was watching at that particular moment in time. As an example I have My Pictures/2010/Silverstone/FIA GT Qualifying Race, or if its a holiday or something like that I would usually do My Pictures/2010/Lake District/Day 1. I have one area on my hard drive for the JPG's and then also in the 'My Picture' section I have a folder entitled RAWs, but then inside of that I use the exact same foldering system as for JPG's, so it would look like this My Pictures/RAWS/2010/Silverstone/Paddock. Then of course each insidividual photo has it's own number as well (usually IMG_9834 or something like that). Hope it makes sense.
 
My photos are stored in quarterly chronological folders (e.g 2010.01.01 to 2010.03.31) in 'My Pictures Folder' then get imported into lightroom in the current location. To help find specific photos I add multiple keywords to each photo in lightroom when I'm importing them and then just filter on the relevant keywords when I'm searching.
 
On my SSD, I have a folder "Camera Uploads". All photos go in here in folders by date, so 2010\06\26. I only shoot RAW, but if I've been geotagging the photos, they come in with an XMP sidecar written by Geosetter.

I run this on the flash drive because I'm moving the files around, keywording, sorting, rating and culling. The Lightroom database (300MB) and the thumbnail cache (32GB) are on here as well. It makes for a very fast Lightroom experience.

On my data drive, I arrange photos by subject, so: animals; architecture; events; motorsport; people; places; plants; products; sports; transport

Within these I categorise according to the specifics of the subject. Motorsport events are always "year-location", and then within these are folders for the formula. People subdivided into Family, Friends & Others.

You get the idea!

None of this makes up for a good keywording regime. Using Lightroom (or your Digital Asset Management tool of choice) allows you to search your images quickly, and with only as much information as you need. Keywording also makes your images easier to find on the likes of Flickr, which makes you easier to find as a photographer. I try to get a decent stab at a keyword set at import time. Lightroom helps with this as well, auto-populating a list of popular or suggested keywords.

However, I've a big legacy to catch up on. Probably only 20% of my catalogue is keyworded.
 
I've gone with organising by Year/Month order with the exact date in the filename, letting Lightroom handle everything. I had trouble importing the majority of my RAW files, for no obvious reason Lightroom decided to make 29 copies of the file with the correct naming system in place then it tells me it couldn't rename the file, even though it did! Lightroom decided to catalogue the second copy of each RAW so I had to manually delete all but the original RAW then point Lightroom to each individual RAW.

After all that was over I realised that it completely skipped two folders, one being my latest landscapes, ie my only landscapes! I had RAW's and jpg's in that folder but when it came to importing Lightroom would only show the RAW's and refused to take the jpg's when I clicked or dragged them into the import window. Only after importing the RAW files did I find that Lightroom also renamed the jpg's (which is what I wanted it to do) and moved them with the RAW's, however it gave me no indication it would!

It was a serious pain in the ass however I already feel more comfortable with this setup and I'll probably spend loads of time tweaking it tomorrow.

Quick Question: Is there anyway to integrate jpg files into RAW sidecars after import? I've got loads of jpg edits sat right next to RAW's that didn't integrate because I named them slightly different, they are now named the same but won't integrate.
 
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I'm a mixture of organised and disorganised with my photography. I have a "Photography" folder inside my main Pictures folder with a bunch of files in, like so:

org.jpg

Some are dated if it's an event I've been to a number of times so I know which year is which, but other than that if I'm too bothered about a date I can check the photo data.

Most files have a separate folder inside called "Edits" which is where all the "improved" photos hang out. I shoot in JPG rather than raw, so storage space isn't an issue and some folders have every single photo in there twice as I always keep the originals.

Currently just under 32GB and just over 15k files.
 
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Lenses! A decent glass will outlast 3 or 4 bodies so it's worth picking the right one, what is everyone's opinions on the best lenses on the market?​
 
I absolutely love my 70-200 2.8 is L.

Every time i go to an event wether its a music or car or something else i always say to myself im going to use one of my other lenses but always use this.

Just something about the effect and colours that come through on the L that just seems to beat anything else i have which to be fair isnt much :lol:

Doesn't like tripods though and this was with my 450d! The tripod cant even cope with the gripped 7D and this lense :lol:

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I absolutely love my 70-200 2.8 is L.

Every time i go to an event wether its a music or car or something else i always say to myself im going to use one of my other lenses but always use this.

Just something about the effect and colours that come through on the L that just seems to beat anything else i have which to be fair isnt much :lol:

Doesn't like tripods though and this was with my 450d! The tripod cant even cope with the gripped 7D and this lense :lol:

4284844212_6db0363cfa.jpg

That IS a nice lens.. borrowed one from a friend for a weekend, yeah the tone of the photos is good.
 
I just love my Sigma 30mm f/1.4. It's such a versatile lens and I keep it on most of the time. The Sigma 50mm f/1.4 is a gem too, even sharper than the 30mm. And my 70-200 F4/L is simply amazing. If you want a cheap 'L', this is the one to get.
 
I used a Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM for pretty much all my shooting. Lens are expensive and I have other things in which I have to spend money on. Maybe once I get settled I can get some better glass for my camera. I really want a 50mm lens and maybe a 70-200 or something like that for telephoto.
 
I really want a 50mm lens
A 50 prime can be had for a song but go up rather quickly after that.

At this point, and quite possibly for all eternity, I don't foresee myself throwing down for any L glass. I like taking pictures of my kids but as that's more or less where my shooting stops (ie - no income from it) I just can't justify ~3 times the price for a lens.
 
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