tho's photography

black n white photography

2005-12-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

i've been doin some readin on some black n white photography the last few days, grayscale images has always inspired me, how they get all those all different black tones, just amazes me.

These photos are the first few ones i work on to get a feel what it was all about. maybe its abit dark :) but i like my black to be pure black and white to be white as possible. i guess i like contrast images. and i guess it all depends on how u want ur subject to be seen. maybe it gives more meaning to a less impressive image :)

The photos was taken with my D70 with a 50mm f1.8 lense. A SB-800 flash was used, bounced with the soft box on it. Selected shutter speed was 1/250s as it perfectly sync with my flash. Aperture set to 2.2 verses 1.8, to get more focus on both of his eyes. All photos were shot on RAW mode, as i wanted as much as detail on it and just incase i wanted to change my exposure.

I guess digital photography is all about post production nowadays. so here's some detail on how i got this result in CS2.
i corrected some miner changes to my exposure in the raw converter, disable the sharpenin feature on it, cause i didnt want any sharpenin on it yet. In PS, i used levels to adjust the colour and tones on it. i prefer curves to levels cause it gives u more control over ur image, but in this case i didnt want the image that fine tuned, i just wanted it to see my end result as soon as possible.
After i got a satisfying result onto it, i made a adjustment layer (hue/saturation), labelled as the filter layer. Then i made another copy of the filter layer. on the copy layered i made the saturation to -100, mode normal, this converts ur image to greyscale. On the filter layer i changed its mode to color and then i played around with the hue to get more tones to the final conversion. Its pretty powerful as u can played with each color channel on it and add colors with the eyedropper to give more tones to the selected color. Finally after i got a satisfying result onto my eyes, i flatten the image and did my sharpenin on it.

BlacknWhite conversion method was learned from
http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

the kulhi II

2005-10-01T23:24:00.000-07:00

just opposite to the kulhi to the main land. the place is crowded with snails and the crabs in many different colors come out when the tide is low.

a maakana on a dead coconut tree.

the kulhi

2005-10-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

taken on the amazon forest in addu, kulhi / maldives :) its a nice place to video and photograph. This was taken while we were doin a self promotin video documentary on the kulhi. Had to be there around 5.30am to 7pm everyday for more than 7 days. Had our backpack and portable chairs hang around our back, ofcourse with lots of tuna cans, breads, water and sometimes noodles. there were 5 of us on the set. everyday we go to a different location on the kulhi.
The weather is very unpredictable, in the morning its starts to rain quite heavily just in seconds without much clouds on the sky. and if it starts, it doesnt stop for sometime cause theres hardly any breeze.

The first day , we didnt had any thing (sathari gadu) to protect our equipments, it nearly made it very costy when it started rainin suddenly. Had to cover our cameras and stuffs with the chairs we had, which was not fully waterproof, had to hold the chair like 20 minutes on them before it slow stopped. Luckily only thing which got abit damage was my mobile phone - nokia ngage. The phone was not workin for a couple of days, when it did, i wasnt able to use number '6' on it. I'm still usin it, who needs number '6' huh, 6 is hardly used by any game on it, except fifa 2005, which i dont play that much. :) and i dont need a mobile in nepal, i use it as a clock up here hehe :) and play some games when i'm bored or listen to some music.

city of bangkok

2005-09-19T01:11:00.000-07:00

sculptures in bangkok

2005-09-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

children have a tend to play anywhere / on anything

2005-09-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

Taken in Dhaal atoll, was there photographing how the atoll had been effected by the tsunami.

this photo was taken just around 6pm, slow shutter with a higher iso.

addu kulhi 'wider veiw'

2005-09-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 with VR

2005-09-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

kathmandu / nepal

2005-09-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

even monkeys bow down to their gods, maybe its just drinking holy water from the temple.

zoo birds

2005-09-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

reflections

2005-09-02T03:26:00.000-07:00

reflections are beautiful in the morning or late evening light.

abstract views

2005-09-02T01:10:00.000-07:00

colours/contrast do really come out with higher ISO, ofcourse with abit of noise to hassle with.

Moju in addu.

nae with the glasses and ika behind him.

wildlife in kadihera

2005-09-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

fishball :) thats what i call it, it was caught on our net when we were tryin to catch our lunch, the fishball was release after a few shots.

The Eels, eatin away the fish we threw off.

kadihera trip in addu

2005-09-01T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is Hoga, a friend of mine living in addu.

The light is really cool for photography around
the atolls, maybe its cause of unpolluted air and clean environment.
Bottom: taken with the standard d70 kit lense.
Top: with the zoom lense 70-300mm f/4-5.6G

Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8D AF VR Zoom

2005-09-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

This is Seytu, one of my friends, he is a free diver and a free man :)

The lense i used to shot this is an expensive one, which i borrowed from a friend of mine. its a heavy one, but the colours / contrast is very nice on it and ofcourse the focus was really fast and accurate. i had it for 2 days, i guess u would have to get used to the lense, with the VR and the fixed 2.8 aperture all the way (fast lense). nice cool lense, wish it was abit light and cheap :)

Would be posting more shots taken on this lense abit laterz.

Nikon D70
Both shots taken on f2.8, the close up was handheld with a shutter 1/40 with VR on (indoor).

big cat

2005-08-31T18:36:00.000-07:00

wish i was in an african jungle chasing the wild animals. well! someday huh

This was taken in Kathmandu zoo.

maakanaa

2005-08-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

the scenery was awesome but i didnt like the zoom lense i had (70-300mm nikkor). it didnt give as much detail as i would have like on the subject, anywayz, its a 100 dollar lense, cant accept much out of it on these situations.

Location: Addu Kulhi
Nikon D70

kathmandu

2005-08-31T06:45:00.000-07:00

tested to see how well the canon stitchin program combine the 3 photos i had taken. It did a quite good job on it, but had to do a bit of cloning though in PS.

Shot on: canon s70, iso: 50: shutter: 1/200 aperture: f8

Katha Katha

2005-08-30T03:34:00.000-07:00

testing my new canon s70, seems a good camera, comparing to my d70, hardly a match for it, guess prices of the two tells the difference sometimes.
shot on: canon s70, iso: 50, RAW format, convert to jpg using PS
compare to my D70 the noise level is like using ISO 400 on D70.

nepalese face

2005-08-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

i found the golden child!

silky water

2005-08-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

this was taken when we were working on a project in Hilton, Maldives (Making of Underwater Restaurant). This guy coming 2wards the jetty, couldnt resist capturing this.

catch for a living

2005-08-28T22:03:00.000-07:00

test
male', some fishermen bringing their catch