Photoclubalpha

Some photos around Ginza a few days ago taken with my Canon S95.

Trying to figure out which ticket to buy at the subway station



Lovely young lady engrossed in her iphone in front of a handbag shop



Dad and son sitting on the curb -- almost surely waiting for Mom

Excellent street and documentary shots.

Agree with Doc. Excellent street shots. I loved the first one for the drama it conveys, the second one for the
subject and the third one for expressions on the father and son. Bored and happy to even pose for the camera
while waiting.

Sury

Fab shots Henry - great street pictures

Second pic is a great catch

Thanks, everyone. I often walk around with a camera here in Tokyo so I have a ton of street photos.

"Oh my, that is so hilarious! I love friends who can crack me up."



Having a very bad day in Shinjuku



He lives a life of intensity

I am amazed at the quality of the images. They have 3D (life like) effect and are very clean. Do you post process and if so, would you mind
sharing your recipes?

With best regards,
Sury

I like your photos from Japan a lot. In March I spent a week in Tokyo. What a fantastic city. Keep your photos coming.
The first one brought back memories while I was spending much time trying to figure out the proper ticket I need.

Cheers

Marcell

sury wrote:I am amazed at the quality of the images. They have 3D (life like) effect and are very clean. Do you post process and if so, would you mind sharing your recipes?

Sury, it must be my new super-expensive Leica lens that you are seeing. Isn't 3D one of the things people say about those lenses? Actually, the second set of 3 were all taken with the el-cheapo Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens on the G3. The first set of 3 were all taken with my little Canon S95 digicam.

Yes, I do a small amount of pretty simple post-processing for every photo I put on my website. I shoot raw and then go from there. I never batch process so each photo is handled individually. I don't have any special recipes, just basic stuff, done to taste. If you have a specific question I will try to answer it though.

Marcell Nikolausz wrote:I like your photos from Japan a lot. In March I spent a week in Tokyo. What a fantastic city. Keep your photos coming.
The first one brought back memories while I was spending much time trying to figure out the proper ticket I need.

Marcell, yes, Tokyo is a fantastic city and there are so many photo opportunities here. We plan to head back to the U.S. in a couple of weeks though. The last 6 months being back in Japan has been fun.

bakubo wrote:

sury wrote:I am amazed at the quality of the images. They have 3D (life like) effect and are very clean. Do you post process and if so, would you mind sharing your recipes?

Sury, it must be my new super-expensive Leica lens that you are seeing. Isn't 3D one of the things people say about those lenses? Actually, the second set of 3 were all taken with the el-cheapo Panasonic 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens on the G3. The first set of 3 were all taken with my little Canon S95 digicam.

Yes, I do a small amount of pretty simple post-processing for every photo I put on my website. I shoot raw and then go from there. I never batch process so each photo is handled individually. I don't have any special recipes, just basic stuff, done to taste. If you have a specific question I will try to answer it though.

Henry,
Thank you. I don't know enough to ask specific questions, honestly. It is those compacts uh!!! Well, your talent for capturing moments is very impressive and insightful to me. Helping me to look at things differently, whether it is rituals in Hawaii or street shots in Tokyo. Thank you for that opportunity.

With best regards,
Sury

sury wrote:Thank you. I don't know enough to ask specific questions, honestly.

I don't have a specific thing I do to each photo. I adjust various things depending on the photo and sometimes play around with it for a few minutes to get it looking the way I want. Usually just 2-5 minutes per photo. Even if I kept notes about exactly what I did for one photo and told you it wouldn't help much because the next photo I work on would likely have somewhat different things done to it. All I can suggest is that you look at some of the post-processing tutorials on the internet. I see people refer to them from time to time. There are webpages with info and also sometimes I see people post links to videos. I haven't watched them, but I bet they would be useful for people trying to learn how to do things since you can see the effect on the image in the video as things are done to it. I have seen people post links for Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, Aftershot Pro, Paint Shop Pro, etc. If you search on youtube or using Google you can probably find lots of stuff. Good luck!

Also, if you have an image you want people to help you with you can post it on the forum and request that people work on it and tell you what they did. I have seen those sorts of posts on forums before.

Over the years I have gotten better with the post-processing, even though I am far, far, far from a master at it, and sometimes I go back to photos I did in the past and redo one or two. I redid a photo of the Grand Tetons I took with my A700 in 2009 a few days ago and got better results. In that case it wasn't that my post-processing skills had improved so much, but that the software had. The newer ACR handles the A700 blue skies better now than it did in 2009. I found that back then even though I had tried to ETTR (expose to the right) at ISO 160 that many times the blue skies would be very, very noisy. It turns out that several people here posted about how the red channel was particularly noisy in the A700 and that caused blue skies to be a bit of a mess. Converting to B&W often made the problem even more noticeable with more problems. I finally just converted to B&W and then darkened the skies to almost black so that you couldn't see the mess. Well, I reconverted one of those photos a few days ago with the latest ACR and the result was much better!

sury wrote: It is those compacts uh!!! Well, your talent for capturing moments is very impressive and insightful to me. Helping me to look at things differently, whether it is rituals in Hawaii or street shots in Tokyo. Thank you for that opportunity.

We are starting to miss Hawaii. Maybe we will get back there later in the year, but now we are ready to do some other things for awhile after we leave Japan soon. If I am not mistaken, you are in California, right? I lived in Silicon Valley for 12 years so I know that California also has many, many great photo opportunities. Of course, you need the time to take advantage of them!

Sister and brother all alone in Shinjuku



Big tree growing at a Y-intersection in Bunkyo-ku



There is something about riding the subway that just makes one so sleepy

More wonderful pictures from Tokyo Henry - I particularly like the subway shot

I agree with about post-processing - it tends to evolve. I have found the Adobe tutorial videos on their site very useful, as well as picking up a lot from people on this site over time. My basic approach since starting to use Lightroom is from the Adobe tutorials, and the ones from Scott Kelby et al. on his site.

Any clues as to where you are going to visit next

That is a great series Henry. You really have the ability to capture greay, natural moments. The processing on the Big tree in a Y intersection is great processing. You most always pick the right way to go with photos, regarding B/W or color. I agree that post processing is a journey, and it is useful to go back to old photos with new skills. John

Interesting Tokyo street snippets Henry.
Greg