New Camera!!!

BlkMagik79 · Post by **BlkMagik79** » 07 Nov 2007, 07:45

My father just retired and decided to get into digital photography, therefore has been taking classes for it and has bought lots of new equipment. After returning from his photo safari in Ecuador he presented us with a new Nikon D40x with permission to use any of his "extra" lenses as we need them.

I finally decided to play with it this evening and thought I would share some pics with everyone!

I'll start with some catfish:

Corydoras trilineatus

C. delphax and C. trilineatus

The Angelfish

Cyprichromis leptosoma "Sumbu"

The fry

Male & female Cyprichromis with "Tanganyikan Banded Eel"

"Tanganyikan Banded Eel"

Richard B · Post by **Richard B** » 07 Nov 2007, 13:10

Really cool photos!

D'ya fancy popping round to take some of my Synos?

jopbgon · Post by **jopbgon** » 07 Nov 2007, 16:21

Nice fishes thanks for sharing!!!

BlkMagik79 · Post by **BlkMagik79** » 07 Nov 2007, 22:44

Richard B wrote:Really cool photos!

D'ya fancy popping round to take some of my Synos?

I still have to actually catch at least one of my Synos out and about so that I can get some shots

sindeon · Post by **sindeon** » 07 Nov 2007, 23:44

nice pics great quality /appluads

Haavard Stoere · Post by **Haavard Stoere** » 07 Nov 2007, 23:54

These are really nice photographs Lori.

Do you use Adobe photoshop or similar program?

I took the liberty to make a small serie of pictures to illustrate. How you choose to modify a picture is somewhat about personal style. Less is always better. The modifications were made in CS3.

Original:

I used healing brush and stamptool to carefully remove dust "snow" from the picture. The picture was quite clean to begin with.

80% autolevels

Smart sharpen levels amount 303% Radius 0,3 pixels
Smart sharpen or USM (unsharpen mask) must be used very carefully and only on the final size. The picture cannot be resized after sharpening.

Seedy · Post by **Seedy** » 08 Nov 2007, 02:12

Haavard,

I actually did the post processing on them, and I appreciate the suggestions and feedback. I like the idea of using the spot healing tool to clean up the "snow". I think my monitor is too bright because everyone always wants to lighten the photo's I edit. I think I need to compare the pics on an old CRT monitor instead of the new widescreen LCD monitor that I use.

As for the "unsharp mask" I did use some on the pics after I cropped them to 650 px wide.

If you would like an unedited version of the picture to play with I can email it too you.

Colin Keightley · Post by **Colin Keightley** » 09 Nov 2007, 21:56

To tell if your photo is to dark or too light use the histogram. In photoshop dont use auto levels open up the manual levels. If the histogram is bunched to the left it is underexposed and if its bunched to the right it is overexposed to correct this there are 3 triangles under the histogram. If it is under exposed (bunched left) then pull in the right hand triangle to the start of the histogram and if its overexposed (bunched right) then pull the left hand triangle in. Sometimes pulling them in to the edge of the histogram is too much so then just choose a happy medium.