Shutter Nirvana

It's about time for APRIL CHALLENGE SUBMISSIONS

2009-05-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

busy busy.. that's all I have to say. Where has the month gone. We're already half way into May and I realised we hadn't posted out submissions for April. *sigh* Well.. we waited a month and a half for this one, hopefully the next one will be on time.

So what are you waiting for.. enjoy the submissions!!!

Braden

Frank

Ryan

Bob

Traci

FINALLY MARCH SUBMISSIONS!!!

2009-04-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the delay. I got side tracked and realised I had left something undone. But this is what you've waited all month for... so here they are.

As usual a gallery has been created and which you can find at March Submissions
Here are the submissions for Movement and Squares. ENJOY!!!

Adelvon

Frank

Jenifer

Justin

Tom

Suranga

February 09 Submissions... Better Late than Never!

2009-03-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

Here are the February Submissions. Critique as you wish!

A gallery has been created and which you can find at February Submissions
Here are the submissions.

Adelvon

Frank

Ryan

Traci

Suranga

Braden

Steph

March Challenges!!

2009-03-02T08:20:00.001-08:00

Good day Everyone!

February has come to an end and March has finally arrive!!! So everyone knows what that means... NEW CHALLENGES!!!

The new challenges are as follows:

Challenge 1.SQUARES Brought to you by Suranga, who btw produced that beautiful Travel Photography Tutorial. Please go take a look if you haven't already! ; and

Challenge 2. MOVEMENT Brought to you by Jenifer one of our newer members from last month!

Submissions of your photos should be via e-mail (nirvana.shutter@gmail.com) by 11:59pm on March 31, 2009.

HAPPY CLICKING EVERYONE! We all look forward to seeing what photos will be produced this turn around!

Travel Photography 101 - Advice from a Fellow Traveller

2009-02-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

There’s no doubt that memories gained from traveling last a lifetime. One of best ways to capture those moments is through the creative use of your camera. The goal of this article is to highlight my personal approach when it comes to travel photography.

Quality over Quantity
I often see travelers solely concerned with capturing that next great picture while forgetting to take-in the experience and ambiance of an exotic locale. I tend to find my best shots develop as I take time experiencing my surroundings before reaching for my camera. The initial perspectives you gain might hinder you from a truly extraordinaire picture. Take the following snapshot as an example. This picture was taken in Washington, DC while commuting through the metro. If I hadn’t taken time to study my surroundings and caught the metro as soon as it arrived, I would have missed out on this shot.

DuPont Circle Metro Station, Washington, DC.

Taking that great landscape shot
Landscape photography is an excellent way to capture the diversity of this world. The best results for me usually involved a wide depth of field; lower the aperture (higher f-stop) to get an endlessness feeling transcended through the photograph to the person viewing it. Take the picture below as an example. It was taken on the Salinas Salt Flats in Northwestern Argentina. I used a low aperture so that the viewer would immediately notice the crusted ground in the foreground and then follow the pattern into the distance to get a felling of infinity. I also made use of the rule of thirds when it came to the sky and mountain background, which added significantly to the composition of the shot.

Salinas Salt Flats, Argentina

Tailor your shot to the time of day
Sometimes it’s impossible to wait till dusk to get opportune lighting conditions for photography. You have to be able to adjust to your surroundings and pay particular addition to the light available. This can often be a blessing in disguise, switch things up and try to suit shots for the time of day. An example I have for this is this picture I took immediately after sunset in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Wat Phra Singh, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Tripods make a world of difference
There are some highly practical travel sized tripods available on the market that severely cuts down on storage space in your pack. One that comes to mind is the gorillapod manufactured by Joby. I had one with me on my recent trip through SE Asia and it came in handy for a number of shots that turned out to be keepers. I wouldn’t have been able to take this shot at “The Peak” in Hong Kong without it.

View of Central and Kowloon from “The Peak”, Hong Kong.”

Work for that “wow” shot
Everyone wants that breathtaking shots from their vacations. The standout shots don’t come easy and often come by inadvertently stumbling upon a sight. Take this picture from a long weekend trip to New York City. Originally, I intended to walk through Central Park to midtown and I happened to pass by the reservoir at a perfect time of day to take this reflection shot. What you don’t see is the fence I’m propped up against trying to avoid countless New Yorkers taking their morning run directly behind me.

Central Park Reservoir Reflections

- Suranga Samarakoon

This tutorial was provided by Suranga Samarakoon. I met Suranga at work about a year ago and was blown away by his photography. Suranga is what I call a man of the world. After showing me his latest photos from his travels through SE Asia this past year, I had to ask Suranga to write a tutorial on Travel Photography.

- Frank L.

Rules

2009-02-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

Ground Rules

1.Type of Cameras?
All cameras allowed; not just for dSLRs. This group is about the photos and not about the type of camera you have. Every camera is capable of taking a good shot. It's up to the photographer to compose that shot and to know their camera well enough to do so. But that's a learning process that we can go through as a group.

2. Monthly Challenges:
Every month two challenges are announced via e-mail and posted on the website. For each challenge members can submit two photos per challenge for a total of 4 photos per month. To submit your photos, just e-mail them into nirvana.shutter@gmail.com where our magic fairies upload them to the website.

Challenges are "Flexible". It is not mandatory to complete every challenge, but you'll benefit the most by doing your best to complete as many challenges as possible; even when you are on vacation and assuming you have internet access to check the blog.

3. Post production Explained
It's up to the member to be as creative as they want.

Minimal post production is allowed. When I say minimal, I'm putting a time limit on it. 5 minutes is the maximum a member is allowed to work on a weekly challenge photo in a post production program (not including resizing). Once again no artificial artifacts are allowed. Levels/Curves modifications are ok if you can do them in ten minutes. The idea behind this is to force a member to try and take better pictures right from the start. This way they'll be employing more photography techniques into their pics rather than rely on a program to do all the tweaking.

Again what are the basics?
1) Cropping
2) Resizing
3) Contrast
4) Slight Exposure modification
5) Sharpening
6) Saturation
7) Black and White Conversion

4. Submission Guidelines

Resize your photos to 1600 pixels max on the longest edge of your photo and e-mail into nirvana.shutter@gmail.com. If you can't resize no worries, we'll do it for you!

February Challenges, Announcements, Stuff - In no particular order!

2009-02-01T21:51:00.001-08:00

Hello All!

A few announcements before we get to our February Challenges.

January's submissions have been processed and are up on the website. Here is a link to the post

http://shutternirvana.blogspot.com/2009/01/january-2009-submissions-wooohoooo.html

There is also a link to a gallery for just the January submissions on the right hand side under links. Feel free to check out the photos.

I want to commend everyone who participated this month with truly spectacular shots. I can't tell which shots were taken with a dSLR or a point & shoot camera because they all look professionally done. Give yourselves a pat on the back. If anyone would like to comment on the shots that are posted up or critique any of the shots feel free to do so. All you need to do is click on the post link and scroll down until you get to the highlighted comments link. Click on that and type in your comment. Please list who the photo is by and which photo of theirs you are commenting in your writeup.

Well let's get to the February Challenges without further delay. Considering February is all about Valentine's our themes are going to be...

LOVE!

BED!

Now keep in mind with these themes that they can be very open and some of our viewers may be sensitive to some of the shots you may be thinking of. Go ahead and take whatever shots you want but when you are uploading or sending them in, please let the administrator know that you're going for something provocative so that we can post it in the appropriate section at the time.

As always 2 shots per theme may be submitted by the end of the month by either uploading or e-mailing your submission to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

Also, this month the Calgary Banff Photography Festival is happening. www.exposurecalgarybanff.com

I'm planning to head down to Art Central this Thursday (Feb 5, 2009) after work to check out this big photography shindig. If you're interested in meeting up and checking it out, send an e-mail to the group's address.

Other things to look out for this month:

- Keep February 21st open as this will be our meeting date for this month.

- The Exposure Photography Festival is happening so we'll be sending out spontaeneous e-mail times for meeting up and checking stuff out. Keep an eye out for Shutter Nirvana e-mails in your inbox

- New Questions & Answers will be sent out through e-mails as well as posted up on the website

- New Tutorials will be sent out through e-mails as well as posted up on the website

P.S. A shout out to Traci for pitching in and organizing Shutter Nirvana stuff with me. Thx and much appreciated.

As always, I look forward to seeing your shots for this month and happy shooting!!

Frank

Shutter Nirvana

January 2009 Submissions!!!! wooohoooo...

2009-01-30T19:51:00.000-08:00

Alright everyone, we're coming to a close for the first month into 2009. So just a recap what our themes were... SNOW and PRIMARY COLORS brought to you by the School of Laxshimalla.

A gallery has been created and which you can find at January Submissions
Here are the submissions.

Adelvon

Frank

Ryan

Traci

Victor

Braden

Steph

Shutter Nirvana 2008 Gallery

2009-01-02T14:00:00.001-08:00

The link for all the photos from 2008 can be found at

http://choyexposure.com/web/ShutterNirvana/2008%20Gallery/album/

click on Shutter Nirvana 2008 Gallery on the right hand side on the
website under links

Happy New Year & New Challenges!

2009-01-02T13:18:00.000-08:00

Hello All and a very Happy New Year!

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays as much as I am. Well it being the new year and all, one of my resolutions was to revive Shutter Nirvana and keep on top of it this time around. We've got some great photos on the Shutter Nirvana website and I'll throw up a link right after this e-mail to them. You'll find the link under the links section on the right hand side.

Our January Challenges are...

1) Snow: Because we have so much of it

2) Primary Colors: Because snow is so bland. These are red, blue, & yellow!

Remember, when photographing snow in sunny conditions to overexpose your camera by at least a stop. The way your digital cameras try to judge a scene is to look for neutral gray in the scene. As a result, when the camera is faced with an overly bright scene such as a winer scene, it'll deliberately try to underexpose the image giving you a flat gray scene as opposed to the bright white scene you see with your eyes. Mess around with your exposure settings, who knows maybe that's the shot you're going for. Happy Shooting!

Quick Refresher on the rules "Guidelines":

1) Two photos per challenge and you can submit one or two challenges.

2) Photos are due at the end of the month and are to be submitted via e-mail nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

3) Photos should be resized to 1600 pixels in the longest direction and submitted. Don't know how to do this? Don't fret, submit your full photo via e-mail and we'll do it for you.

4) Be creative, or not. Whatever you want.

5) Post processing should be kept to a minimum. 5 minutes max.

It would be nice to have a gallery link up at the end of every month like we had it going before, but we'll see how it plays out.

Also, if you've got questions, don't hesitate to e-mail them into nirvana.shutter@gmail where one of our qualified individuals will provide a response.

Would you like to see a tutorial on something? E-mail your ideas into nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

Have fun, and we all look forward to your pics and to the New Year

November Challenges

2008-11-03T19:27:00.001-08:00

Hello All!

Forgive the lack of words in this e-mail as I'm only typing w/ one arm.

October's Challenges are now over. Please submit your photos to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com as soon as possible in order for the moderators to post up the photos.

That being said, October was an exciting month w/ plenty of new questions available up on the site.

November's monthly challenges are

Roads

Below Zero

Up to 2 photos per challenges may be submitted to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

Keep your eyes open for questions that may benefit you as well as new tutorials.

Enjoy!

- Shutter Nirvana

5 Tips for Point & Shooters

2008-10-09T22:56:00.001-07:00

Here are 5 quick and easy tips to keep in mind next time you lift your pocket cam up.

1) Lots of Sunshine, Lots of Auto!

Keeping the camera in Automatic Mode is a good idea with pocket cams. Where they excel or do their best is when they are used in bright sunny conditions. Keep it in Auto Mode as much as you can during the day. Try to use available soft light. The sun has a lot of strong harsh light that cast ghastly shadows on people and subjects. Try to walk around your subject and getting a different angle of lighting. There's always a good angle, it's just up to you find it :)

2) Auto Sucks - Snow Scenes

Now that winter will be hitting us soon, we'll be getting into our winter challenge themes. As a result this will involve some shooting of the white stuff. Your point and shoot camera fails miserably here. The newer camera models are getting better at this, but it's still a good idea to know what to do when your snow scenes are looking a little dull or gray. Your camera reacts to the amount of light coming in. Snow conditions are bright and as a result the camera thinks the scene is too bright so it underexposes the image. The result is flat photos. This is what you do to override that.

Keep the Camera in Auto Mode. Look for the EV (exposure value) controls. It will normally be at '0'. Tell the camera to overexpose the image by going to +0.3 or +0.7 depending on your camera model. Take your shot and look at your LCD and you'll notice your snow looks white!

3) Pop up the Flash!

The sun is behind your subject, or you have an amazing subject in the background but you want some detail in the foreground, say having a person not just be a shadow in your photo. Pop up the flash or set the flash to on. The camera will expose for the background but will add the flash to lighten up the foreground subject (usually a person). I know it's weird saying pop up the flash in the middle of the day but trust me, it'll do wonders for your photos. If the photos look like they have too much flash, dial down the flash power or set your camera to rear sync flash or 2nd sync curtain.

Before Flash

After Flash

4) Awesome Sunset/Night Portraits?

This one may require a tripod if you've got shaky hands but if you don't, try this one out. It's very similar to number 3), in fact it's really the same tip. You have an amazing sunset but you want your significant other in your photo to be something more than a shadow in the sunset or to show up in the night shot but not look like a deer in the headlights. Or you want the background to show up vivid or to even register some detail. Switch your camera to night portrait (even if there is available light) and or also pop up your flash.

This shot was done just after the sun had gone down. I put the camera on my bag as a makeshift tripod and set my camera to an equivalent of the night portrait mode for point and shoot cameras.

Sunset Shot

5) Light is key!

Available light is the most important part for point and shoot cameras. It has to be a good amount of light especially with indoor shots. Avoid using the flash if you can, but if you can't use tips 3) & 4). When shooting indoors and you really don't want to use flash, try to turn on as many lights as you can. Get your subject near lamps that are off image. Try to avoid shooting in dark conditions with your point and shoot otherwise you'll notice a lot of noise in your photos. Unless of course, this is what you're gunning for... To each their own.

I hope these 5 tips help just a little bit more with your everyday shooting.

Happy Shooting,

Shutter Nirvana

Question - Different Lenses, Human Eyes??

2008-10-09T22:18:00.001-07:00

Question
--------------

What's the difference between different camera lenses?
i.e. 12mm vs 30mm vs a 50mm, etc... etc...
What does the Human Eye usually see?

Answer
---------------

Good question and it's all the more confusing when relating it to full frame sensors.

Ok right off the bat let's get something established. Cropped Sensor equivalent is the Full Frame rating x the cropping factor. So a 18-200mm lens on a full frame camera is really a 27-300mm lens on a dslr body.

That being said, there are three ranges in lenses.

- Ultra wide angle
- General Zoom
- Telephoto

Ultra Wide angle lenses are lenses that are less than 18mm on a dslr and less than 27mm on a full frame camera. Ultra wide angle lenses give you about 105 degrees (sometimes more) viewing angles. They give your shots crazy amounts of barrel distortion but it's like shooting a panoramic shot without taking multiple shots. Keep in mind with wide angle lenses, when shooting a subject, the subject will look further away than they actually are. This is a side effect of the effective focal length of the lens. Basically, wide angles make distance between
your subject and you seem vast.

General Zoom lenses fall in the range of 18-70mm (dSLR) or 27-105mm (Full Frame). These cover some wide and some telephoto. They're the in between lenses and are quite useful for about 85% of your shots.

Telephotos are lenses greater than 70mm (dslr) or 105 mm (Full Frame). These beasts sometimes come with their own stands depending on how much zoom you have (i.e. 500mm). The thing to note about telephotos is that they essentially are magnifying the image. As a result, it will make everything in the photo appear closer to the photographer than it really is... You say Duh? What I mean to say is that, your subject will look close, but anything in the background will also look like it is right behind the subject. I will post up example photos to describe this a bit better. This effect is called perspective compression.

There is one other category of lenses which is mostly for professional photographers or people with lots of money. This category is called prime lenses. These lenses are dedicated focal lengths... i.e. 50mm, 35mm, 85mm, etc... They have no zoom and therefor less moving parts
inside the lens. This means less chromatic abberation and also larger apertures. They are great lenses but they are obviously not as flexible as zoom lenses.

To answer your question directly, a 12mm lens is ultra wide angle lens. It's equivalent to 18mm lens on a dslr. 30mm falls into the general zoom category. 50mm starts falling into the telephoto range. With the above effects of each lens category explained, you can make
your lens choices wisely with the new knowledge.

I can go on and on about lenses, but I'll leave it at that for now. I'll get some shots into the post to describe the perspective compression.

The human eye views about 20-22mm in terms of focal length. We can also perceive 324 Megapixels and we have an incredibly high dynamic range. If someone could use our eyes as cameras, we'd have amazing shots.

Happy Shooting,

Shutter Nirvana

Question - Full Frame Cameras??

2008-10-09T22:04:00.001-07:00

Question

------------
What's the Deal with Full Frame Cameras?

Answer
------------
The question is really Full Frame Vs. Cropped Frame.

First off what is your camera? SLRs (Single Lens Reflex) cameras were traditionally full frame. In the olden days, film was usually shot on 35mm negatives. Now when the initial switch to digital occurred the image now had to be captured on a sensor. Initially the cost of making the sensors was incredibly expensive as it was new technology. Ideally you would want the sensor to be the same size as the 35mm film cameras so that you could use your lenses to capture the entire image. This proved to be too costly to manufacture so companies generally agreed to offer cropped sensors. Smaller sensors meant less price. You still get amazing quality out of the smaller sensors but the switch to digital had come at a cost.

The same lenses that you would use on a 35 mm film camera now had an issue on dslr. For example say you have a standard 18-200 mm lens. Now take a dslr that has the sensor reduced by 1.5 times in physical size than a 35mm sensor. When you look through the viewfinder what you're seeing is a magnified image. The cropping factor means your image has been magnified by 1.5 times. Take a look at the two images below to get an understanding of what I'm talking about here.

35 mm Equivalent (Full Frame) shot at 18 mm

Cropping factor of 1.5

dslr Cropped Sensor Equivalent shot at 18mm (equivalent to 27mm)

Notice how in the full frame version you have a wider angle shot. You see a lot more in the photo. Now when you look through a dslr even though you have the same lens attached, you're seeing a lot less at 18mm. Why? the sensor is smaller so it can't see as much of the image. Notice also how the image is now more "zoomed in". This is called the magnification effect. Your 18mm lens now becomes a 27mm lens.

So what are the pros and cons of full frame?

Pros: Much wider angle shot with your lenses. An 18mm lens is a true 18mm. More resolution in the shot.
Cons: Bigger/Heavier camera and freakishly expensive.

Pros and Cons of Cropped Sensor Cameras?

Pros: Lighter, smaller, cheaper cameras. Lenses give you more telephoto zoom. i.e. a 18-200mm is really a 27- 300mm lens.
Cons: Dedicated lenses must be bought to work with cropped sensors to refract and concentrate light on smaller sensor. Need a dedicated lens for wide angle shots.

Bottom Line is get Full Frame cameras such as (D700, D3, 5D Mark II) if you're doing commercial studio shots, high end wedding photography, landscape photography. Generally full frame cameras give you sharper control and more dedicated resolution.

Hope that Helps,

Shutter Nirvana

October Challenges - Purple, Festive October

2008-10-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Just in case you missed it, we have now switched over to monthly challenges. You have one month to submit however many photos you want up to a maximum of two photos per challenge. Do one, do both, it's up to you!

Challenge 1 - Courtesy of Steph
Purple

Challenge 2 - Courtesy of Traci

Festive October

(i.e. Halloween, Thanksgiving etc...)

Submit your photos via e-mail (nirvana.shutter@gmail.com) by or on October 31st.

I will send out a reminder e-mail in two weeks.

We look forward to seeing your photos

-Shutter Nirvana

Shutter Nirvana - Changes and Announcements

2008-10-05T13:45:00.001-07:00

Hello All,

The general complaint has been that the weekly challenges don't give enough time to complete the challenges and any photos being submitted are really counterproductive. We've all got busy lives and I can relate to that. So... we've decided to make a few changes.

Announcment 1

First off the weekly challenges are officially dead. Well I shouldn't say dead, but they are being put aside and we're going to try something new. Instead of doing weekly challenges, let's do Monthly Challenges! Basically this is how it will work.

At the beginning of every month, two challenges will be announced. Each member can decide to do only one challenge or do both. For each challenge each member can submit up to a maximum of two photos.

I.e.

If only one challenge is chosen, a member can submit either one or two photos for that theme.
If both challenges are chosen, a member can submit 2, 3, or 4 photos.

So if a member only wants to get in one photo in by the end of the month then great. If they want to do more then also great.

Each member has until the end of the month to submit their photos via e-mail (nirvana.shutter@gmail.com).

You will be receiving another e-mail shortly for this month's challenges, (I know I'm already a week late)

Announcement 2

We've also decided to open up the site for questions and answers. If you have any question, no matter how silly you think it is (when it comes to cameras even the simplest questions can have complicated answers) go ahead and e-mail your question to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com The question will be posted up on the blog along with the answer for others to see as well as a response will be e-mailed to the original questioner. No names will be posted up and the question will remain anonymous.

We've already had a couple, which you can view at:

http://shutternirvana.blogspot.com/search/label/Questions

So now that the changes have been announced I'll get working on the monthly challenge e-mail.

Happy Shooting!

Question - Wide Angle Lenses with VR/IS?

2008-10-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Question
------------------
Hey,

Are there any wide angle lenses with VR or IS available on the market?

Answer
------------------
I'll answer from the Nikon perspective as I have a Nikon Camera but the answer is relevant to both.

Well besides the 17-55 f2.8 VR, nothing! Generally speaking companies don't
really see a demand for VR or IS on the wide angle lenses. Wide angle being
anything lower than a 18 mm on a dslr (equivalent to 27mm on full frame).
The reason being that VR is generally attributed (at least in the minds of
the companies) to taking shots of people with low light or long telescopic
zooms so that you don't get camera shake when you are at 70mm plus (To get
no camera shake introduced in your photos with telephotos or the zoom end
of your lenses, you have to shoot at a shutter speed of at least 1/zoom mm
i.e. 1/200mm which really means 1/300mm on a full frame camera, so shutter
speed on dslr with a zoom of 200mm will have to be 1/300). Adding the VR
allows you to reduce that by a few stops depending on lighting conditions.
I.e. you could get away with a 200 mm zoom at a shutter speed of 1/250 or
even 1/200 and still have sharp images.

So why not the wide angle? Wide angles distort people's faces so bad that
the people shots don't make sense. You're not zooming so VR isn't need
there. Photographers are generally taking pics of still life i.e.
buildings, landscapes, and cardinal rule of photography when taking these
shots is to use a tripod for crisp photos.

So long answer short, nothing yet!

As a side note,

For point and shoot cameras the widest angle you can get equivalent to dslr lenses is generally 27, 28 mm. You can buy wide angle attachments for the fancier cameras such as the Canon G9.

Question - Focussing and Metering?

2008-10-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Question
------------------------

Hey, random question.

You know how your metering and autofocus are set on a half pressed
shutter (I guess in settings you can change that). What do you do if you want to
meter 1 place and focus on another if it's done at the same time? If you
change the settings so the half press only does one, how do you set the
other?

Answer
------------------------
I'll answer this question two ways. First way being the fast/doesn't always work/quick candid shots way, and the next when you want precise control and know exactly what you want.

Basically what you're describing is metering off of something in your picture, setting your camera to those exposure levels and then focussing on another part of your scene.

1st way

Set your camera to center weighted metering or spot metering (for really
difficult lighting situations). Next find your AE-L button (you may have to
configure a function key to be AE-L) or Lock slider (I know this exists on
the Nikons, not too sure on the Canons). AE-L stands for auto exposure lock. Next point your camera at what you want it to meter off of. Press and
hold the AE-L button or slide the lock slider into the lock position. Now
recompose your scene and press half way to focus camera on your subject
and take the shot! I know it's not exactly fast sounding, but it is quicker
in implementation.

2nd Way

Welcome to the wonderful world of manual photography.

To do this, you have to venture away from the program auto modes and
shutter modes. Set your camera to spot meter, meter off of something
(you want neutral gray tone). Change Aperture and Shutter speed to expose
your light meter to balance. Then move to your subject and take the shot. Why
do I like this way better? I can play with depth of field or shutter speed
however I want to get the desired affect.

For Point and Shoot Cameras,

It depends on the camera model. The generic Cameras usually can only focus and meter when the shutter button is pressed halfway. For more advanced cameras such as the Canon G9 and the Nikon P60, you will be able to do what I described above.

Week 5 Results - Curves

2008-09-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

Week 5 pics (Curves) are now up.

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Week 4 Results - At Play

2008-09-28T21:18:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

Week 4 pics (At Play) are now up.

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Steph

Week 3 Results - Surprise

2008-09-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

Week 3 pics (Surprise!) are now up. Weird Photos...

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Ryan

Week 2 Results - Moods

2008-09-08T20:38:00.001-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

Week 2 pics (Moods) are now up. We had some very similar shots going here...

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Braden

Traci

Week 3 - SURPRISE!

2008-09-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

I'm glad to see people are using the group's e-mail address to send in
their photos. Thank you. Week 2 is just about wrapped up here and
we're already onto week 3!

Photos will be put up on the blog site, http://shutternirvana.blogspot.com
either tonight or tomorrow to showcase the submissions.

And now on to next week's challenge...

Courtesy of Vic, next week's challenge will be SURPRISE!

As always, you have one week to complete the challenge. E-mail your
photos to nirvana.shut...@gmail.com

Happy Snapping

Oh and please... No shots of upskirts or anything. That's not the
surprise we're looking for...

Week 1 - Circles!

2008-09-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The newly kickstarted week 1 challenge pics are up (circles). Had some interesting shots on circles... They're everywhere!

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Traci

Week 2

2008-09-02T22:38:00.001-07:00

Hello All and welcome new members!

Some quick announcements:

1) Week 1 Challenge is over! Thank you to all who submitted their
photos. They will be up on the blog soon enough.

2) Shutter Nirvana now has it's own e-mail address located at
nirvana.shut...@gmail.com

Yes, that is right, it's nirvana.shutter, not shutter.nirvana.
Apparently that e-mail address was already taken. From now on, instead
of uploading to the FTP site, you can e-mail your photos directly to
the group e-mail address. The administrators will then upload the file
to the FTP site for you. Of course, if you like to upload directly,
feel free to do so :)

And now... for this week's challenge! Traci picked this one and I
think it'll be an interesting one to see photo'ed out.

Week 2 Challenge is MOODS!

As always, you have one week to submit your shot. Once again, you can
either e-mail your photo to nirvana.shut...@gmail.com or upload to the
FTP Site.

Show us your moodiness!

Weekly Challenge - 1!

2008-08-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

As I look back from our week 1 challenge to week 11 challenge, I've noticed a vast improvement in those who participated.

Now because Summer has been insanely busy for everyone and people were disappearing left and right (Myself included) the weekly challenges have stopped coming through and the group has come to a stand still. I've heard from a few of you that you're still not happy with your shots and that you want something more from your photos. Well, let's keep this going and I encourage you to participate as much as you can to get the most out of the learning experience. The tutorials will start coming through again once we've got the first couple of weeks under our belts again. Since we are resurrecting this, I've decided to start the numbering off again at week 1 to encourage newbies to join us from a fresh start.

And with that long winded speech, I now present to you our weekly challenge...

Let's keep it simple

CIRCLES!

When you've got your photo, e-mail it to Shutter Nirvana or email Frank or Vic

or

upload to our ftp site. (Email Frank or Vic for further details)

Good Luck!

July 2008 week 11 results

2008-08-11T23:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The eleventh weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (under construction buildings). Both entries have similar themes this week.

A gallery has been created which you can find here (coming soon).
The original files can be found here. (coming when I get back to Calgary)

Frank

Vic

July 2008 Week 10 Results

2008-07-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The tenth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (light).

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here. (coming when I get back to Calgary)

Becca

Frank

Vic

Week 11 Challange

2008-07-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge shall be half-finished buildings!

July 2008 Week 9 Results

2008-07-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The ninth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (wind). Sorry about the delay, but I think we've all been pretty busy.

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Belated Week 10

2008-07-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

week 10 will be light because this is late i think next wed would be a good dedline but if the next person could still post week 11 this coming tues that would be great lets not let this fall apart because Frank's out of town. Have at 'er

Updates!

2008-07-06T09:37:00.000-07:00

Well as most of you know, I will be leaving this monday for a three week vacation to the land of curries. Assuming internet access is readily available, I will still be participating in the weekly challenges. However, as of Monday I'm placing Frungie in charge. Remember to keep taking photos! I know cause it's summer you may feel less inclined to take photos. But think about how many awesome photo opportunities are even more prevalent during this season! Either way, enjoy your July! I will be back at the very end of it.

If anyone is interested my Travel Blog is at Frank's Travel Blog

Happy snapping!

Weekly Challenge 09

2008-06-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Boys and Girls,

Continuing with my personal Captain Planet theme from week 3, this weeks theme is something invisible. Going with the hot russian character Linka, this week's theme is.......

WIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

June 2008 Week 8 Results

2008-06-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The eigth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (workplace).

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Weekly Challenge 08 - Workplace

2008-06-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

And I quote her royal highness, Madame Yeung

"Hey shutter gang

in honour of the beautiful weather we are unable to enjoy
this week's challenge is

the workplace

have fun!

Stephanie Yeung"

Try not to get fired over taking your shots...

Monthly Meet - 02

2008-06-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Folks,

We won't be meeting this month. Unfortunately it's crazy busy for everyone and some people won't be in town. We'll host two monthly meets next month!

"Press my shutter... halfway"

June 2008 Week 7 Results

2008-06-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The seventh weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (feet).

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Week 7 Challenge

2008-06-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

All,

Last week's challenge was intended to be a gag. But instead it turned out to be a fun challenge. So, this week's challenge will be what I originally intended it to be last week. This week's challenge is.... FEET!

Please no foot fetish pics. Keep em clean.

Back in Business!

2008-06-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

Alright folks...

That was an awkward couple of weeks without pictures to look at for a photo group... Anyhow we're back in business baby! I just saw the plant and insect pics. Amazing shots guys! All of you took very unique shots and I like how everyone's is different.

Now for a few tidying up announcements.

First, a big thanks to Vic for allowing us to move to his server for hosting. Way to go banana boy!
Second Welcome, Keegs, Julia, and Uzi to the group. Hope you get some good things out of this. And Keegs, please stay the hell away from my sister!

Finally, last week's challenge is now wrapping up. Now because it was such a unique challenge, we should have a unique critique. I want everyone to go and comment on their pic and explain how their picture relates to a Norwegian Walrus.

I look forward to your BS!

June 2008 week 6 results

2008-06-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The sixth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (Norwegian Walrus). As an added features, all photographers need to explain how thie photo relates to norwegian walruses in the comments.

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Keegan

re-upload images

2008-06-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

Please send me all your past images so i can reupload them.

I just bought my own site so i will be hosting everything for us. the address is www.choyexposure.com, should be up in a couple days, take me a month to upload all my own pictures.

May 2008 week 5 results

2008-06-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The fifth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (insects/bugs).

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Keegan

May 2008 Week 4 results

2008-06-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The fourth weekly entries are in and have been uploaded (plants).

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vic

Keegan

Week 6 Challenge!

2008-06-03T20:31:00.001-07:00

Folks,

This week I figure we should go for something really unique. This week's challenge is....

Norwegian Walrus!!!!!

I look forward to your pics.

server update 2

2008-06-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

So, hosts are being stupid still.

i've set up a temporary one using my ISP. So, email me your plant and insect submissions and i'll do the rest for now. hopefully the host gets their act together.

Week 5 Challenge!

2008-05-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Hey All,

This weeks challenge is "insects" since it's spring time and flowers are blooming.

Vince

RE: server update

2008-05-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the update Vicky.

Hold onto your plant pics or take better ones. The deadline will be extended until we have the server back up and running. Until then, move onto the next challenge, which is pretty tough. I won't steal Vince's thunder so keep your eyes open for his announcement.

server update

2008-05-26T18:50:00.001-07:00

Our server has been down for a while and is in the process of getting restored, should be up in a couple days.

May 2008 Week 3 Results

2008-05-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The third weekly entries are in and have been uploaded.

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Please do a review on your designated photo.

Becca – Frank Photo
Steph – Vic Photo
Vic – Vince's Photo
Vince – Steph’s Photo
Frank – Becca’s Photo

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vince

Vic

Keegan

Week 4 Challenge

2008-05-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Our challenge this week will be ... Plants! Large or small, part or whole just some form of plant life.

Have fun :)

Monthly Meet - 01

2008-05-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

My fellow Photorinos,

The time of the month is almost upon us. As mentioned to you unofficially this month's meet will be at the Lilac Festival on May 25th at 1:15 pm. We will meet at Vince's church (I still have to get that address off of him). We will then walk around as a group and take photos of the festivities.

Wait, there's more! Considering it's our first time meeting and what not I've decided to split up the meet into two different dates. On Friday the 23rd, I'll be throwing a workshop to prep ourselves for Sunday's festivities. The workshop will be held in my basement with a presentation. The time to be at my place will be 6pm. We'll order in some pizza or have a little something going on the barbecue.

These are some of the things the workshop will cover:

Proper ISO settings
Proper White Balance settings
What's the best automatic setting to keep on your camera for all situations that could arise
Portrait compositions

If there are other things that you'd like to know about let me know and I'll address them that night.

I look forward to seeing you Friday and Sunday next week.

Cropping

2008-05-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

CROPPING

You’ve just taken this great picture capturing all the detail in the scene and now when you look at it it’s suddenly lacking that spark of the better photo that it could be. It’s turned into the little photo that could.

What happened? There’s either too much distraction in the picture or the subject is suddenly uninteresting. Here are four examples of cropping:

EXAMPLE 1

Before

After

The cropping method used here to get rid of any distractions (this being the horse and the leftmost window pane) and to focus the viewer on the subject. The lighting on the couch and on the curtains is what gives this shot an added feel.

EXAMPLE 2

Before

After

While the subject matter is interesting, it’s too far back and doesn't focus on the direct subject matter. “Cropping in” was used to zoom in on the subject and make it the focal point of the picture. "Cropping in" is the official term used for this procedure. Keep in mind, you want to always try and shoot at max megapixel res so that you have the flexibility to crop in without losing too much detail.

EXAMPLE 3

EXAMPLE 4

Lastly crop using the rule of thirds! These are the final crops from the original images. I'll let you imagine where the lines are.

While striving to avoid cropping is ideal, it can be used to save a picture or to make it something more. Also, if you are intending to print your pictures, keep in mind cropping may make it harder to fit onto standard print sizes such as 4x6 or 8x10. As always with photography, try to think ahead and control the outcome. Enjoy.

May 2008 Week 2 Reviews

2008-05-13T17:49:00.001-07:00

Hello All,

Keeping with tradition please do a review on your designated photo. Comment on Weekly Challenge 2 completed.

Becca – Vic’s Photo
Steph – Frank’s Photo
Vince – Becca’s Photo
Vic – Vince’s Photo
Frank – Steph’s Photo

As always, don't rip into each other!

Week 3 Challenge.....

2008-05-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hello Boys and Girls,

With week2 officially done, it's time to start off the week 3 challenge. I was going to go for a Captain Planet theme (too bad Earth Day already past), but decided to restrict it a little more, so this weeks theme is.......

WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May 2008 Week 2 Results

2008-05-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The second weekly entries are in and have been uploaded.

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
The original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vince

Vic

Keegan

Victor's week2 pictures

2008-05-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

While I wait for the rest of the enteries to be uploaded, here are my other shots.

click here if you want to see.

Once the others are uploaded, I will post them and make a gallery.

new ftp info

2008-05-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

hi boys and girls.

I changed the ftp info to reflect the proper name of the group.

login is now: shutter
password and address the same.

It should be up and running by sometime tonight.

Posting and Commenting on our Blog Page

2008-05-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

Posting and Commenting on Blogger

First, go to the sign in page. www.blogger.com

Next Type in your username and password and sign in.

You Should have Shutter Nirvana as a blog already. To create a new post, click on new post.

Create your post and click on publish.

To Comment on someone else’s post. Go to that post and scroll to the bottom of it. Click on Comments.

Type in your comments and publish it. Voila.

Cool article

2008-05-08T11:05:00.001-07:00

Funny pictures, have a look.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=562561&in_page_id=1770

New Website

2008-05-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

After discussions with Vince, he finally convinced me to use google pages to create a website so that it's easier to find tutorials and random postings. You can find the website here Shutter Nirvana . It's very basic right now, but we'll start fancying it up as we go. Steph is in the process of creating us an official logo. We're on our way to the big times baby!

Weekly Challenge #2 - Windows

2008-05-06T20:25:00.001-07:00

Hello All,

Just to make it official, this week's challenge given to us by Steph is Windows! As always photos are to be posted by Sunday 11:59. I know I'll be up at 11:30 trying to figure out how to take my shot. Happy Window Hunting!

Vic gets to pick next week's challenge. Then Becca, then Vince.

Corrections

2008-05-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

Oops, So this blog is called Shutter Nirvana and not Photo Nirvana. I will make the changes to the naming tonight (the login for the ftp will be the same since i'm too lazy to change that).

I believe it is Steph's turn to suggest the next challange?

That is all, carry on.

May 2008 Week 1 Results

2008-05-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

Hi Boys and Girls,

The first weekly entries are in and have been uploaded.

A gallery has been created which you can find here.
These were made a little smaller for faster loading and easier viewing, the original files can be found here.

Becca

Frank

Steph

Vince

Vic

Keegan

I have also uploaded my other random shots here if you want to see.

If you guys want to do this for your other shots as well, upload them as a sub folder with your name in the appropriate weekly challenge directory (i.e. photonirvana/2008-05/week1-stripes/NAME and i will get on it.

Free Photo-editting tool

2008-05-04T22:37:00.001-07:00

Hey guys,

For some quick and easy edits, as well as resizing, check out "The Gimp". It's a free photoshop-like program which maybe useful (i think PC and MAC).

http://www.gimp.org/

For creating the web galleries, we are now using Web Album Generator as it is free.

http://eunq.com/
http://www.ornj.net/webalbum/index.html
http://www.stegmann.dk/mikkel/porta/

First gallery coming up shortly.

Upload to FTP

2008-05-04T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ok boys and girls,

I setup the FTP server. You'll need to get an ftp program (ie, smartftp, cuteftp, leechftp...ect)

ftp address is: dmitribobko.com
login is: photo@dmitribobko.com

I will email out the password for security.

The root directory will have all the months, and inside that will be folders for each weekly challange. Upload you photos (drag and drop) to the appropriate challange. Also, follow the naming conversion "name"-"##".jpg. Remember size limitations that Frank has set out "maximum 1600 pixels in anyone directions. I.e. Horizontally 1600 pix or Vertically 1600 pix. The image size should then be constrained 500-800 kB max"

Storing your Pictures

2008-05-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

Weekly Challenge 1 has ended and the pics are uploaded to our ftp site. While we're talking about storing pics, this is a good opportunity to discuss ways of storing your pics.

PERSONAL STORAGE

What I like doing is using external hard drives. One to store my pics on and the other one is used to back them up. There's nothing worse than losing a day, week, month, or a year's worth of pictures that you can never get back. Trust me, I know! Now because I'm a dSLR shooter, I shoot all my pictures are in raw format. I convert each picture to 8-bit tiffs and 100% quality jpgs and store them in separate places.

Why tiffs? Jpgs are known to have a shelf life of approximately 7 years if you open them up and do some editing. Every time a jpg is saved, bits are lost. Doing this more and more will result in an error "File is corrupted. Unable to Open". Tiffs are non lossy formats and are excellent for editing as they retain all of the information when the pic was first taken. However, Tiffs do take up a lot more space and if hard drive space is an issue then, I would suggest keeping an untouched copy of your jpgs and an editing version of your jpgs which you can open and edit at your leisure.

For point and shoot camera shooters, often jpgs are the only format you can shoot in. To preserve as much information as possible, shoot in the largest megapixel resolution available in the camera. This will insure that the jpg will hold the most information.

As far as organization of your pictures go. What works for me the best is to organize my folders as below:

Folder - Month, Year
Folder - Tiffs
Folder - Jpgs

Of course many programs such as iphoto and picassa already do this for you so if you use any of these programs then what I'm blabbing is of no use to you. Then again it could be. While I do recommend programs such as iphoto, picassa, and lightroom, I also like to be in control of how my pictures are stored and where.

ONLINE STORAGE

Now if you're ready to take the plunge and venture forth into the internet to do posting, there are a lot of photo sharing sites such as Flickr. Course you have to pay a little for these sites, but for 2 bucks a month, it's hard to go wrong with one of these sharing sites. Not only do you get to meet other photographers, but you have unlimited storage and can share your pics with friends and family that way. They have great editing, organizational, and slideshow tools. You could also get your own server and host your images there as we have done with this site. The advantages to hosting elsewhere is that you can post to blogs and websites without having to worry about how much space you're taking up. For example, this is my photo blog Frank's Photo Blog using flickr as my photo hosting site. This is a long winded topic in itself and I'll elaborate further in future posts. Hopefully this is enough to chew on for now.

Rule of Thirds

2008-05-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION

The rule of thirds is something that's frequently used in photography. It's a good rule for quick compositions and to make a photo interesting to a viewer's eyes. To use this rule, you can either mentally picture a 3x3 grid on your subject or look through your viewfinder with the "grid display" feature on. If you have a point and shoot the "grid display" feature should also be available to display on the LCD.

INTERSECTING LINES

Now that the grid is on either mentally or physically, the idea is to line up your shot so that your subjects fall on the intersecting lines or the four intersections. Take this shot of Vince for example. I've kept the top right intersecting lines on Vince's eyes so that your eyes are drawn to him as the most interesting subject in my composure. I've kept the other intersection on my coworker in the background to give the picture some depth. Placing the subject of your photo at any one of the 4 intersection points draws the viewer's attention exactly as you want it. That's pretty much it to the intersecting lines.

FILLING THE THIRDS

Another way to use the rule of thirds is to place your subject matter in one third of the picture. Pick any third of the picture and place all of your subject matter in there. Depending whether you place your subject matter in the top or bottom thirds, changes how much you see above or below the horizon. This can be a cool effect to mess around with.

GENERAL "RULES OF THUMB"

Now, I tend to eyeball my thirds lines when taking a quick shot. Here are some good general rules of thumb that I setup with every shot.

I generally place people off the center of the shot and on one of the vertical lines.
For landscapes, I try to fill a third of my picture. If I'm showing off the sky then the lower third will be my horizon and below. If I'm showing off what's on the ground then all my sky is the top third.
When taking a closeup shot of someone, I imagine both of their eyes on the top two intersections, and the mouth in the bottom third

Keeping the rule of thirds in mind has become second nature to me. Every now and then I try to break it because you can get some dramatic shots that way too. Enjoy.

Image Upload Rules

2008-04-29T19:22:00.000-07:00

First, some reasons why I want pics uploaded.

Share with the group.
See your progression.
At the end of the year we as a group will make a photobook(s) which will be the Shutter Nirvana Portfolio. Each member owns the rights to their pictures and agrees to have their pictures used to promote the group (free of charge). This will include the usage of their images on other websites such as facebook to promote group growth. Any due credit received will be directed towards the respective member.

Image sizes are to be maximum 1600 pixels in anyone directions. I.e. Horizontally 1600 pix or Vertically 1600 pix. The image size should then be constrained 500-800 kB max.

There are a lot of programs to resize images, but if for some reason you can't, send the pics to nirvana.shutter@gmail.com

Some More Ground Work

2008-04-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

I got asked by Becca if I viewed the weekly challenges as a competition. The simple answer is no, I don't. If someone takes an amazing picture then good on them. However, no one should feel pressured to take better pictures or discouraged from taking pictures. Everyone is allowed to progress on their own terms. The whole idea is to learn from each other's unique perspectives. In fact I won't condone it as a competition. lol

Criticism is allowed and I think we should all do so. Criticism should be positive, encouraging, and constructive, not insulting. If it isn't, I'll send the blog enforcer Vic the Bulldog.

Post Processing??

2008-04-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

So I was asked an interesting question by Vic about how much post processing should go into the picture. At first I thought he was referring to photoshopping different colors and light levels and what not. To answer that initial thought, anything is allowed. Basically anything photoshop can do you're allowed to modify your picture to your heart's content. Keep in mind though, the idea behind this group is to be able to take good pictures so that you minimize post processing. Do try to keep that in mind when framing your shots. The more time spent in the field taking a good shot, the less time you spend in front of a computer trying to figure out how to make that picture look better.

Now Vic replied back with an interesting concept he had for the first challenge. He wants to make one photograph out of 24 different photographs. I think this idea is really good. However, I think we should make the group's focus on taking 1 good picture and less about post processing. Initially 1 photograph for every challenge. Eventually do what you want.

I'll get to post processing in further posts and provide some suggestions for what to do. Things like B/W conversion, HDR, etc... Feel free to do so.

Weekly Challenge #1 - Stripes

2008-04-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

This week's challenge is stripes! Don't settle for the first shot you take of stripes. I want everyone to think about it all week and I encourage everyone to take more than one shot of "stripes". Take your camera everywhere with you! At the end of the week pick your best one and upload.

I'll get Vic to post about uploading once he figures out if we can mooch off of Dima's server.

Once again, TAKE MORE THAN ONE PIC!

Good Luck!