Pics of New York Trip

[Eric Portelance]

Few pics of my trip to New York I did a few weekends ago. I might scan a few more later. Keep in mind my scanner is a piece of junk and so was the camera I was using (didn't feel like carrying my Nikon F70 around).

Corner of 5th and 32nd - Near Macy's and Empire State Building

Canal Street in Chinatown

Chrisler Building in distance

Shot from Empire State Building looking towards financial district (WTC)

Also from top of Empire State Building. Looking towards midtown.

 

[Eric Portelance]

Empire State Building with steam coming from sewer

Flatiron building on corner of 5th and Broadway

Ground Zero fence...don't see much.

 

[Eric Portelance]

Some random park...forget where it was.

Restaurant from Seinfeld, but everyone knew this already

Little square where we stopped for a few minutes along 5th avenue near Empire State Building.

Aircraft carrier museum - USS Intrepid...it was actually raining at this point.

 

[Eric Portelance]

I'm really regretting not taking my good gear because this horrible camera underexposed all my best pictures. All you photographers, tell me what you think.

If there's demand, I might scan some of my better work.

 

[Ian]

Those are some excellent pictures Eric! I am heading there this December and I'm looking forward to it very much! If you get a chance to scan in any more pictures that would be great!

 

[muckshifter]

Hey ... Great stuff

... keep 'em comming.

 

[1nteger]

Great pics...love the city-scapes...astonishing to think the twin towers are no longer there. The one in the park that you couldn't remember the name of...they all looked like they were really curious who was taking their photo.

 

[Quadophile]

Even though you did not take your F70 with you you managed very well! Infact, these are very good shots indeed, albeit a couple which look somewhat washed out, but that is not your fault I guess.

Keep shooting!

 

[Eric Portelance]

Originally posted by Quadophile
Even though you did not take your F70 with you you managed very well! Infact, these are very good shots indeed, albeit a couple which look somewhat washed out, but that is not your fault I guess.

Keep shooting!

They probably look washed out because of my Photoshop work. My scanner scans everything too red (it's a parallel scanner....give it a break ) and it doesn't scan too sharp. I also brightened them up a tad because they were too dark. Oh well, the actual pictures are a bit better. Next time I'll bring my S45 which I'll be buying soon or maybe my F70.

I don't have any other pics of my New York trip (that are worthy of showing as many are underexposed), but I'll scan some of my other pictures later, taken with my old Pentax.

Ian, if you want any reccomendations or information on the city, feel free to PM me, I'll point you in the right direction.

 

[Eric Portelance]

Originally posted by Quadophile
Even though you did not take your F70 with you you managed very well! Infact, these are very good shots indeed, albeit a couple which look somewhat washed out, but that is not your fault I guess.

Keep shooting!

Would you mind telling me which ones you think are washed out so that I can try and fix them? Also, which ones are your favourites. One of my goals was to try and get contrasty shots. I posted a few of them in a photo forum and the guys said my contrast was great and I had good white balance. Any suggestions for future reference are appreciated, Quad.

Keep in mind it rained half the time, so the light was pretty bad in most of these shots.

 

[Eric Portelance]

Originally posted by 1nteger
Great pics...love the city-scapes...astonishing to think the twin towers are no longer there. The one in the park that you couldn't remember the name of...they all looked like they were really curious who was taking their photo.

I think it's the park right near the New York Library, actually. And yes, I also noticed those guys look like they want to beat me up or something. They have very menacing looks.

 

[Quadophile]

Originally posted by Eric Portelance


Would you mind telling me which ones you think are washed out so that I can try and fix them? Also, which ones are your favourites. One of my goals was to try and get contrasty shots. I posted a few of them in a photo forum and the guys said my contrast was great and I had good white balance. Any suggestions for future reference are appreciated, Quad.

Keep in mind it rained half the time, so the light was pretty bad in most of these shots.

The ones you took from the top of Emprire state buiding seem to have the problem, I could make out that the sky was overcast and the intensity of light after the rain really increases, the digital camera I am afraid is not able to cope with these lighting conditions the way a film camera can. The contrast ratio of film is still far better than what the CCD can handle. That is why I already mentioned in my post earlier that it may not be your fault. Nonetheless, you can tweak it in photoshop if you work a bit on it, but it is very time consuming.

If I were to pick just three I would point the finger at the pic with Tom's Restaurant and the two just above and below it. But that is just my opinion and you or others may not agree.

I do not think you need any lessons in photography. However, since you asked for any tips, although I am hesitating but like to say following:

You pictures in the begining of the thread seem to loose out on a focal point, sort of cluttered and one tends to look for the main subject or interest, which I feel is missing. The exposure however is good and color saturation also OK.

The photo with the fence in the background can look much better if you can crop the top and sides and just have the fence in the entire picture, it will be more appealing, I guess.

Just my 0.02 worth.

 

[Eric Portelance]

Originally posted by Quadophile


The ones you took from the top of Emprire state buiding seem to have the problem, I could make out that the sky was overcast and the intensity of light after the rain really increases, the digital camera I am afraid is not able to cope with these lighting conditions the way a film camera can. The contrast ratio of film is still far better than what the CCD can handle. That is why I already mentioned in my post earlier that it may not be your fault. Nonetheless, you can tweak it in photoshop if you work a bit on it, but it is very time consuming.

Actually, all the pictures were taken with a small Minolta automatic film camera, which is why a lot of them have lighting issues. I had no control over anything. It wasn't a digital camera (I scanned all the pictures...the prints look a tad better).

I really appreciate your comments, especially regarding a focal point. Any tips on how to improve this? I'm constantly trying to improve. It's pretty tough trying to find a focal point in such busy surroundings. Your eye easily gets distracted with all kinds of things popping up. I really like the Flatiron building picture, personally (your eye kind of seems to want to follow the curves of the street up to the building), the Empire State one looks kind of cool. I think I have an eye for photography, but it's probably just practice. If I scan some of my older pics, would you mind taking a look at them and commenting?

Don't really like the fence picture at all. I was intent on not taking a picture of Ground Zero because there were no good viewpoints of it. I just took this one quickly as I was leaving, just so I wouldn't regret not taking one later, for some reason or another.

 

[Quadophile]

Eric,

I am very sorry I was under the impression that you used a digital camera, nonetheless the problem is there. I guess the quality of the lens on the small automatic could be one of the reasons, if you were using the F70 with a prime lens you would surely get better shots considering the lighting was tricky.

If you need me to guide you, I would actually like you to go through the two articles I did on photography, which sum up exactly what the problem with the initial picture is. If you have read them, I urge you go ahead and read them once more. On this thread I am actually trying to convey to you what I already have mentioned in those articles.

Let me know what you think and if the articles make sense or not.

Let me be very clear on one thing here, after doing photography for good 30 years I still take bad pictures at times, I still make mistakes in terms of composition and I still am in a hurry to press the shutter! We are not perfect, cameras are not perfect, we just have to do our best!

The moment in time cannot be captured again, you can either do better or worse BUT you cannot repeat the shot!

 

[Quadophile]

Sorry forgot to include the links to the articles in the previous post

Why am I taking this picture?


Is there an artist within you?

 

[Eric Portelance]

Thanks for the links, Quad. I read your articles with great pleasure. I already knew a lot of the stuff, but my focus will now be to try and integrate them more into my photography. I kind of stopped taking pictures for maybe 2 years, but I'm getting back into it this year. Looking at what I consider my "best" pictures, a lot of them were taken when I was 12-14. Quite funny, actually.

Now I'm looking back at my New York pics to see if I integrated any of the techniques you speak of in your articles and how I could improve on them. I noticed that my Flatiron picture has some good leading lines/curves in them.

That's it for now. Maybe when I get around to scanning some more, I'll scan some of my dad's work. He used to really be into photography. Did a lot of black and white in the day. I think he has some real nice ones that he took in France.

 

[Quadophile]

Eric,

I am glad to be of assistance!

I really look forward to seeing some of your Dad's work and your work too!

 

[pat]

Hi everyone

I always enjoy looking a photographs, the more the better
I live in such a small town, it's hard to conceive something as huge as New York, oddly, it looks beautiful.