[Patriot]

Shouldn't the surface of any pool of water be strictly horizontal?

Such a composition gives a better perspective..

[Hattifnatt]

Hattifnatt, love the street shots in Havana, nice work.

Nice pictures of the old American cars, but I did notice that the buses are newer, the yellow one is on a US made International cab and chassis.

Thank you both. There are newer cars in Havana as well, the city is so eclectic.

Few pictures of a blind couple that I met on the streets. In the second picture, the man stepping in from the left was just about to offer them some money.

[Rondec]

Valley at Dawn.



Seneca Creek Bridge.



(both shot with DFA 24-70)

[kengoh]

OOF Rings shot with DA35 Ltd Macro

[Erictator]

Eric,
It might be a coincidence but I thought your colors, especially butterflies colors were stunning lately !
And super Sharp as well...

Thanks DimC!

[normhead]

Shouldn't the surface of any pool of water be strictly horizontal?

In short, no, unless the edges of the pool are horizontal. Perspective means a horizontal pool who's edges are at an angle to the film plane will not appear to be horizontal, either to the eye, or to the camera.

And in any case, there simply are no rules about such things, in photography what's best is what looks best to the viewer. Sometimes that involves images at crazy angles.

[jabobby]

@Erictator, Regarding the question you posted I wish to state one more thought that I attempted to say but more implicated in my last response. For the frame size photos that you have been posting IMHO the focus is every bit as perfect as the colors. Perhaps if you were going to have that last photo made in to a very large print then better focus would be required, but at a general size it needs nothing more, it is excellent. Photos of butterflies is new to me and I am still learning to compose the images much like I would a landscape shot. To me you did an outstanding job of composition to make the the entire image a more complete & beautiful picture. Each person has to decide what is the first priority for the image they wish to present, is it focus or composition. And I guess that depends on the subject and the statement one wishes to make with the photo. For me most of the time composition comes first.
Looking at new monitors I considered buying a UHD one, but that would have required my upgrading the graphics card & even the computer. The new monitor I purchased is far better than what I had, especially for the color. Considering the monitor that you just purchased I have no doubt you are going to really enjoy viewing any photos. As others have stated, all the members of the forum have different monitors, therefore the images will appear slightly different. So I will say again Eric, on my screen your complete & beautiful pictures look wonderful.
Best Regards, Bob

[Erictator]

@Erictator, To me Eric the colors look superb, but the focus only appears good, not excellent. I down loaded that last shot you posted, then zoomed in to pixel pick and the focus lacks a bit in my opinion. Noticed you shot that @ f 5.0, I think that f 6.3 would have been better, and of course f 8.0 would provide even better depth of field, and the shutter speed does well @ 1/500 or slightly higher so you could drop down from the 1/1250. Of course all this is just my old opinion and what has worked for me. The monitor I am viewing this on is a relatively new Dell U2412M which I color calibrated with a datacolor spyder 5 express. But like I said, your colors look great. Hope this helps, I am going to look back at some of your earlier post for comparison and might comment again later.
Best Regards, Bob

Thanks Bob!

In hind sight, mentioning focus was probably a misnomer, as the only real effect on output that anyone else would notice is that I might get choosier about what I share (as in, posting a whole lot less now that I can see the focus errors), since the monitor doesn't take the pictures and by the time I am viewing them it's too late, heh heh.

I have tried in the past for a little more DOF with flutterby's at the expense of shutter speed, and I found the motion blur to much more objectionable to my eyes than the shallow focus. The real answer here for moving targets might be a little flash, though I usually avoid unnatural light when I can.

The real difference in output is probably the colors and brightness, shadow levels, etc. Before, I would see banding, like in the reds and wasn't sure if it was in the RAW or my display just couldn't handle the full gamut. It made it especially difficult to judge what I was posting. With the new display's 1.07billion color depth, the banding is gone and I get a lot better feel for what I'm turning loose.

The big thing I didn't realize how bad my old FTN panel was until I ran it side by side with the new IPS display. I was planning to run the old display as a second monitor just to run the news or weather channel on in the background occasionally, as just an entertainment screen to not interfere with my work screen, but OMG, YUCK! It is so dim and blotchy I have no idea how I processed photo's on it before! The fluorescent back lights must be nearing end of life, because they also flicker randomly as well as being dim. My headache's and eye strain are much improved now.

Thanks again,
Eric

---------- Post added 09-30-17 at 10:21 AM ----------

Your colors look great to me!
I use a 24" Asus Color Perfect monitor. Colors are indeed perfect.

Male Cardinals come in a wide range of reds...from deep dark red to an orange tint, and several shades in between. The K1 Does great reds and can get all the different shades just right.

From this afternoon...a "medium low red" Cardinal.


"Medium dark red"


"Dark red"


You need a good monitor to benefit from the K1's great color rendering. It was wise of you to spend some cash on a good monitor!

Regards!

Thanks Rupert! Your Cardy's red's are spot on from over here. Nice work.
Eric

---------- Post added 09-30-17 at 10:23 AM ----------

Overall I really like your colours in these shots. Monitors and screens vary so much you cannot control how your image appears on every device that a viewer might use, but the aim of using a quality monitor and monitor calibration will make sure you present something that will suit a range of target devices. I think it is useful to switch to other (finished, reference) images with different colours and switch back, return to an image after a rest etc as well, since the eye gets de-sensitised to the same image colours after a while.

John

Thanks John! So true. I do try to take in some reference images occasionally for a sanity check. Heh.
Eric

[beholder3]

in photography what's best is what looks best to the viewer

Agreed. The fact that I made the comment should give a hint on what I as viewer think is not best.
Obviously - as any judgement - that is purely a personal opinion.

[versatile]

Thank you both. There are newer cars in Havana as well, the city is so eclectic.

Few pictures of a blind couple that I met on the streets. In the second picture, the man stepping in from the left was just about to offer them some money.

Great series, but the 3rd one is simply magical! Great shot <3

[Erictator]

@Erictator, OK Eric, I downloaded several of your posted shots from 9/19, taken @ f 4.5, 1/800. Even copied them over to my old computer which I built from scratch 10 years ago and has a 9 year old Dell monitor. Looked at the images on both computers & both monitors, and the results are about the same: your colors look fantastic; the focus to me not so great. To view the full image posted the focus appears excellent, start to zoom in and the sharpness & detail drop. The closer viewed the less focus. On the older 3 photos the contrast seems a bit high to me but the colors look every bit as great as the photo you just posted. So I guess my final comment is ( color & focus about the same as a month ago ). Most likely some of the very experienced pro photographers on this forum will provide a far more accurate answer. Keep in mind what WPRESTO stated, for certain color is not displayed the same on different monitors but, might be close.
Best Regards, Bob[COLOR=Silver]

Sorrry, I didn't mean to work you that hard.

As far as zooming in and the image falling apart, that is probably a more to do with my heavy handed post processing, and also cropping down to smaller than APSC while using higher ISO's on many of the shots posted. As others have noted, if you are going to be cropping FF to APSC or there about, you might be better off with a 24MP K3II than a K1... and in some cases I agree, but I fear my shooting style of "get the shot at all costs using central AF points, and deal with framing it in post" would just mean that I'd be using even less pixels of an APSC cropped further to cell phone level sizes in an image, so I am pretty sure I'm in the right place with owning a K1. ...I think... maybe...

I've had the display about a month or so, but this last batch, posted over the last couple weeks are the first I processed on the new display.

It's good to know about the colors and contrast, and that does help.
Thanks again,
Eric

[normhead]

Agreed. The fact that I made the comment should give a hint on what I as viewer think is not best.
Obviously - as any judgement - that is purely a personal opinion.

In the image you commented on , making the water line horizontal would tilt all the vertical rock formations, ... also just a personal opinion.
Including lines on an angle is a feature of the Five Basic elements of Visual Communication.



It's unfortunate but of the things on this page, the only thing people pay any attention to is the rule of thirds, which is probably the most restrictive.

[Erictator]

@Erictator, Regarding the question you posted I wish to state one more thought that I attempted to say but more implicated in my last response. For the frame size photos that you have been posting IMHO the focus is every bit as perfect as the colors. Perhaps if you were going to have that last photo made in to a very large print then better focus would be required, but at a general size it needs nothing more, it is excellent. Photos of butterflies is new to me and I am still learning to compose the images much like I would a landscape shot. To me you did an outstanding job of composition to make the the entire image a more complete & beautiful picture. Each person has to decide what is the first priority for the image they wish to present, is it focus or composition. And I guess that depends on the subject and the statement one wishes to make with the photo. For me most of the time composition comes first.
Looking at new monitors I considered buying a UHD one, but that would have required my upgrading the graphics card & even the computer. The new monitor I purchased is far better than what I had, especially for the color. Considering the monitor that you just purchased I have no doubt you are going to really enjoy viewing any photos. As others have stated, all the members of the forum have different monitors, therefore the images will appear slightly different. So I will say again Eric, on my screen your complete & beautiful pictures look wonderful.
Best Regards, Bob

No worries, I totally understood your responses. Thanks for taking the time to comment. A lot of smoke and mirrors goes into the final output, but I think we are all trying for similar end goals and output.

As for the UHD display, I had a TON of reservations, mainly because of font size and screen scaling for doing my "day job"... but I have to tell you, I am tickled pink with the decision. I am still not sold on 4K, but I can tell you that screen font scaling at 150% on a UHD display works perfect for my eyes and equals text size of my old 1080 HD display without jaggies or trashing the fonts like the old days. There are NO scroll bars when viewing pages like on a 1080 display when scaled up, which was my big fear. The difference in viewing pleasure is huge, and I have no regrets.

FWIW, I had to drive my new display with my onboard Display Port, as the on board DVI or HDMI or VGA on mine don't go up past 1080, and only by dumb luck (and help from a forum member to make me look) did it turn out that my PC does support UHD, but only on the Display Port.

Eric

[Erictator]

Fuzzy wuzzy bee... I always have a hard time deciding, focus on the antennae or the eye's?

Pentax K-1 Tamron SP AF 70-200mm F2.8 Di LD [IF] Macro ƒ/5.0 200.0 mm 1/800 iso250

[fs999]

I've been meaning to ask, but got sidetracked with the storm... has anyone noticed a difference in my color or focus accuracy as late? Better, worse?

You need a good monitor to benefit from the K1's great color rendering. It was wise of you to spend some cash on a good monitor!

A good monitor is not enough. As johnc said, you need a calibration system. I have Colormunki which also works for prints...
And the monitor must have IPS technology (In Plan Switching) !

Superb reds Rupert !

1. FF Mode • 100 ISO • Pentax DA* 200mm F2.8 ED SDM


2. FF Mode • 100 ISO • Irix Blackstone 15mm F2.4 • Topaz Labs Texture Effects 2


3. FF Mode • 100 ISO • Irix Blackstone 15mm F2.4