Nightshots:

Tripod, low ISO, Long shutter, play with aperture settings till you get a feel for it.

Car: White balance is off, centered subject (yawn), stock angle like you just walked up and took a snapshot, tripod again.

 

Not true on the ISO speed.

Shooting a lower ISO keeps noise from showing up and is preferable to high ISO because the lon exposure will add even more noise to the already noisy ISO setting. Best to keep this as minimal as possible.

Also DL Noise Ninja and get familiar with it for noise reduction or you can use Neat Image. Both can be found available from the usual sources.

 

Hey, thanks all for all the tips! I will read up on things and see how it goes. I was just bummed because I spent a lot of time and took like 20 pictures and it looked really good when I was there, they just turned out really bad.

 

Thats how it goes a lot and trust me we all get our share of on site "keepers" then get homw and realize even PS can't save the shots we liked on the tiny screen. I probably throw away more personal favorites for just that reason

 

I always knew I wasn't that great then I talked to my friend who I consider to be very very good. I asked him about a particular picture. It was at Button Willow and he was able to get the reflection of the berms on the door of the car. I asked if he put it on continuous mode and that's the one that came out. He replied, no. He only uses continuous mode if he wants to combine the shots.

I was shocked. He was shooting single shots. He also only take 2 512MB CF cards and shoots about 2GB or so. He has so many more keepers than when I shoot 4GB of pics

In conclusion I suck at taking pics

 

When I shoot for the mag I take 3 gigs worth of cards and six batteries for the camera and about 24 for the flash. I tend to shoot single shot mode as well and have just learned how to read the histogram and adjust on the fly. After a while you learn which directions you should and shouldn't shoot (high sun etc.) and how to compensate for it.

This last run I went on yielded me more keepers than throwaways because I am becoming far more comfortable with my adjustments and angles, the fash has also helped me to up my number of keepers as well.

It's a tough learning curve really and the more shots you take the more you get to recognize these things. Another thing that is hard to do is be a harsh and honest critic of your own work. Every once in a while I second guess myself and process a shot I think is a throwaway and it turns out to be a worthy keeper...just takes practice, lots and lots of practice.

I am far from saying I am great because I still am constantly improving every time I go out and I still screw up more than my fair share of shots.

 

How do you read a histogram?

 

There is an article on Dpreview I believe about reading histograms but basically the left side is black and the right side is white center is midtones.

what you want to do is have even dispersion along this line without sharp spikes or large empty spaces once the graph begins as well as nothing to the extreme of either side. Best way I have found to get used to reading them aside form shooting and looking on camera is to open images in PS and open the levels adjustment to see the dispersion along the graph line.

 

My camera shows me the histogram of pictures if I want after taken. I also take at least 3 shots of a subject if its something important. Pretty much 90% or so of the pics I take are keepers. I very rarely ever have a pic that I don't think is or people think isn't as well. I have a 512 card and hardly ever fill it up, but I have over 600 megs of pictures already.

 

I miss the days of 512 cards Now a lo tof times I end up filling at leas 2 gigs if working and 1 gig if doing personal shooting such as skate shots or art shooting