A year with 400D and 17-85mm C&C please

[ziggy25]

A year with 400D and 17-85mm C&C please NEW
ziggy25 - 57 mins ago
Hi all,

I bought my 400D around this time last year. Before the 400D, i owned a Canon IXUS 750 for about 3 months and a Fuji S9600 for about 2 weeks then sold it off.

I've put together some of the best shots i've taken and would like some feedback from you. I will appreciate any feedback on things you think i need to improve, e.g. composition, post processign etc. and what you think of the photos in general.
Here is my gallery.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ziggy25/

All photos upto page 14 were taken with the 400D and the 17-85mm lens. Page 14 to 17 were taken with the IXUS.

I dont own any other lens other than the 17-85mm but will be buying the 50mm 1.8 next week hopefully as i think it might be usefull.
Thanks

[a race fan]

Man, I just checked out your first year over on your flickr page. Great shots in there. Some of my favorites were the guys doing the graffiti and the London Eye at night, also Tower Bridge at night was perfect.

As far as C&C, I think you put all the good ones in there. A few of the bridge that was broken.. Blakriars (I think) was a bit boring, but honestly that was it.

Nice stuff!

Barry

[shrike]

Nice. I am in the same boat with a 400D for the last 6mos. My favorite of your shots are on page 6 and 7, the dusk and night shots. They evoke emotion which is one of my criteria for really liking a photo. I think some could benefit with some straightening of the horizon in PS and possibly some perspective correction on the leaning of some of the tower but other than that...(pretty small nit to pick). What post processing are you using? Do you shoot all these in RAW and use ACR 4? What workflow has worked best for you?

[ziggy25]

Man, I just checked out your first year over on your flickr page. Great shots in there. Some of my favorites were the guys doing the graffiti and the London Eye at night, also Tower Bridge at night was perfect.

As far as C&C, I think you put all the good ones in there. A few of the bridge that was broken.. Blakriars (I think) was a bit boring, but honestly that was it.

Nice stuff!

Barry

thanks im glad you liked the photos. The broken bridge is an idea that i got from a picture i saw on flickr. see this shot http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayodeok/2105722224/

I have been there so many times to try and recreate the shot with the bridge as shown in the above link but i cant seem to get it anywhere close to that. I think the difference is that the guy who shot the above photo went under the bridge but i didnt because i think you can get arrested if you go over the gate. Maybe there is another route somewhere that i dont know about :)

Oh and the guy used a 5D and a 24-70mm f/2.8L USM :). Ill keep trying and hopefully i will get it right. :)

[ziggy25]

Nice. I am in the same boat with a 400D for the last 6mos. My favorite of your shots are on page 6 and 7, the dusk and night shots. They evoke emotion which is one of my criteria for really liking a photo. I think some could benefit with some straightening of the horizon in PS and possibly some perspective correction on the leaning of some of the tower but other than that...(pretty small nit to pick). What post processing are you using? Do you shoot all these in RAW and use ACR 4? What workflow has worked best for you?

The dusk and night shots are also some of my favorites. I look at them and think to my self "Did i take that shot?" :)

I agree with the straightening as i did notice this in some of the shots. Most (if not all) of the shots are shot in jpg and post processed in lightroom. i only started shooting RAW recently and i find that you get better results with RAW especially when it comes to recovering blown out highlights.

Here is what i do to all my photos

- Import into lightroom
- Edit photo (White balance, Curves, Exposure, Saturation etc). I read somewhere that the adjustment controls (For exposure, wb, level etc) in lightroom are placed in the order they are in for a reason. When adjusting a photo, all i do is i start from the top control (i.e. white balance) and work my way all the way to the bottom (Sharpening). Most of the time its usually WB, Exposure, Recovery, Contrast, Vibrance/saturation, Tone curve, Noise reduction and sharpening. I dont use all of them all the time. If i dont need to adjust the exposure then i ignore the exposure control and just go to the next one.
- Export post processed photos to TIFF format
- Use photoshop to run an action that batch resizes and add a border to each image and saves as a jpg.

I dont use photoshop for postprocessing because i find it take too much time. Lightroom allows me to use all types of files (RAW, TIFF, JPG etc) seemlesly. I only use photoshop for batch processing and doing things that i cant do in photoshop. None of the photos on the flickr gallery were processed in photoshop. All were processed in lightroom. I used photoshop to batch resize them and add the borders.

[michaelb]

The 17-85 gets a bad rap, but you show here what great stuff this lens can do. Love your architectural and flower shots; nice work.

[Gintaras]

ziggy, great stuff, i like the images and style. close ups and city skapes are my favorites, i also like light in some your photos where vivid colors are placed against darkened shadows, not sure if this was intended but looks very nice.

[Zoinac]

I should never have looked at those photo's, just reminds me of what I learned after my trip to Europe.. you can leave London, but London never leaves you. What I wouldn't give to live there! :D

I do like the shots, even if they make me jealous.