Mindcrime's Efforts

[Mindcrime]

Ok, be nice as I've only had my SONY DSC-P73 for 20 months and I'm still not sure what I'm doing

Anyway, some of these piccies are old, as far back as August/Spetember 2004 when we first landed in Toronto. I know a few of them have noise, but what can you expect for a point and shoot? Anyway, I'll post them in date order and see what you think. ANY and all comments will be welcome, and advise more so. I dream of owning a DSLR but the prices over here are just silly at the moment, a Nikon D50 with an 18-55MM LENS is over $1000, so I'll have to stick with what I have for now. So here goes:

CN Tower taken from Toronto Island


Toronto City Skyline from the Island


CN Tower from seating in the Skydome.


Wonderful Casa Loma. These are the stables and garages. I really like the colurs of the brick work and the contrasting blue sky.


Casa Loma from the South Gardens.


Niagara Falls. This is the closest you can get without going over!


Sun set after a really hard rain.


Now this is the noisy one. The moon was that thin that it was hard to get a good shot. I did the best I could.


A few months later, pitch black night, and the moon is made of cheese!


A day out at Toronto Zoo and this was the best shot I could get. I like the detail in the skin of the young elephant.


From a trip to Fenway to watch the Mighty Red Sox. Matt Clement is the pitcher and I messed around in photoshop for this effect. I like it.


A macro shot of some berries taken xmas day 2004. It was very cold but I couldn't resist this shot. Again photoshopped.


And finally, a close up of some chrome from Daytona Bikeweek. I love the colours of the exhaust system and the shine of the chrome.


All have been resized to 800 on the longest side using Irfanview, it does take away some of the colour and sharpness of the photos, most noticeably on the the 2 that have been photoshopped. I've tried to sharpen them in Picassa and they just wouldn't upload and look good (I even tried PS Elements 4). So some tips would be helpful.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

Some nice pics there. Didn't you find it really terrifying at the top of the falls...Just driving along that road at the top scared the crap out of me....

Gordon

[Mindcrime]

I loved the Falls but we stayed on the Canadian side (not allowed over the border for some stupid reason?) Just listening to the water is worth the visit, but to see the 'power' of the falls is amazing. The photo above was taken hanging over the railing, you were just far enough away to not be able to touch the water . I have some taken from the Maid of the Mist but they're not worth posting, though the video clip I took is pretty awesome! I'm going to go back this year and do the jet boat ride further down the river. Now that will be an experience and a half!

After posting these piccies I came to realise that after being here for 20 months I have very little to show of Toronto, which is criminal as the architecture and life is excellent. I need to get out more.

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

My In Laws live in Burlington and my sister in law and family used to live up off The Danforth. I like the place.

Gordon

[Mindcrime]

Originally Posted by Gordon @ Convergent AV

My In Laws live in Burlington and my sister in law and family used to live up off The Danforth. I like the place. Gordon

Wealthy In-Laws then, eh? Burlington is a lovely place for a stroll along the Lake and there's a cracking bistro called Pepperwoods overlooking Lake Ontario; great beer and superb food. The Danforth is a great place for a night out, especially if you like Greek!

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

That's what everyone says... Last time i flew in to see them the guy at customs asked where I was staying.. I said with my in-laws in Burlington, "Wealthy then" he says.....er...no...they have a very modest house down by the lakeshore beside some Fxxk Oxx large houses up the road.

Yep I have to admit having some nice Greek food over at that end of town....

Now, lets stop talking about Toronto and start taking about the pics. I like the moon ones....and I've a question about the baseball one. It looks like you were down low in the stands. Did you pre-book to sit down there or did you just turn up. I've only been to one Bluejays game and loved it but I can't remember if we were given tickets by Melanies relatives or if we booked up ouselves

Gordon

[Mindcrime]

The picture of the tower was taken from ground level in the Skydome. I was seated 8 rows from 1st base, I could virtually reach out and touch the players. It was my first time in the stadium and as I was looking around noticed the tower above and thought it would make a nice shot. I had to really twist around to get the shot and there was no way I could get all of the tower in. I recently used the clone tool in PS to edit out a wire stretching across.

With regards to the tickets, I pre-booked all 3 games in advance ($75) but never got the same seat. The following 2 games were 14 rows from the front. Still allowed some photo op's. The stadium holds 50,000 and only ever gets half that, unless the Yankee$ or Red Sox are in town, so you can pretty much walk up and get good seats for any game. I'm back there end of this month to watch my Bo' Sox play.

The first picture of the moon, the slither, I took about 10 different shots of it with various zooms and exposure and aperture settings. This is my fave because of the gradual tint of the evening sky. Some of the others have come out with a blue tint, I took one in sepia mode which looks ok, but not as good as this. I had never seen a moon so thin before and it was really quite low in the sky. I guess being on the 21st floor helps with this kind of shot.

The cheesy moon was really an error on my part. I noticed the yellow moon and decided to mess with the camera and altered the EV (?) setting to a minus setting, hoping to let more light in and get the night sky and lights in with the moon. So, as I didn't know what I was doing it looks like the night is pitch black, which it wasn't, and the moon is a vivid yellow. I now know how to set the EV setting correctly!

[Biscuit761]

Great pics of Toronto, one of the places I want to visit one day

Bill

[Mindcrime]

Here are few photos using my new D50. I'm still getting used to a D-SLR, so hopefully I can produce better shots very soon. Only work done to the piccies is altered the levels slightly to compensate for over/under exposures, cropped and resized. Only 'major' piece of PS work is on the St Lawrence Market photo due to the sky being totally overexposed and I tried to bring a bit of blue back to it. Think I may have over done it (?)

Toronto's very own Flatiron Building. From memory, I think this was built before the 'famous' flatiron building in New York.

I like the almost 3-D effect that focusing on the flatiron has produced and also the sheer size of the TD Towers.




Another shot of the Flatiron Building from a different angle. This is a very photogenic building.



A zoom shot of the top of the TD Tower. This building has some nice angles at the top of it, just makes that bit more awkward to get a decent shot.



And the obligatory view of the CN Tower. For reference, I was about 400 metres from the TD Tower, which in turn is another 800 - 900 metres further on.




The aforementioned St Lawrence Market. The sky came out very over exposed but was actually a shade of blue very close to how I have PS'd it (check out the reflection of the sky in the apartments to the left of the market; it's close). A great building to visit if you're ever in Toronto. Great food, great smells, and very hectic.



On the walk home I came across a courtyard which had glass walls to create a sound buffer from the main road. The glass had patterns on to simulate running water but were too difficult to shoot due to the sun, so I made do with this shot. I just liked the way the sun caught the prism.



And finally, we had a great sunset last night. I used the 55-200 lens to pick out the plane (it was a good 3-4 miles away). I just like the colours in the sky.



Just thought I'd share a few I took as the everything else was naff

[Bristol Pete]

Nice start mate. Wow, what a place to live too, I must drop by some day and stick some Queensryche on the tape deck for us to chill out to over a few beers. Silent Lucidity...what a tune

[Mindcrime]

Cheers Pete. Hey, if you ever get over to Toronto give me a shout. There are some very very interesting people to photograph over here!

[imcarm]

I love the way that Flatiron Building just jumps right out of the shot Mindcrime. Some great shots there mate

[Mindcrime]

2 new photos taken on my recent trip back to the UK. There is a great bronze statue of Dixie Dean outside Goodison Park and I took these 2 close ups of the great man. I did soem full length shots of the statue but I prefer these2 mainly for the contrast with the sky.

Both taken in RAW and I tweaked the levels in RAWshooter. Just resized for posting purposes.

EXIF for both shots is:

Exposure: 1/500
Aperture: 5.6
Flash was used
Focal Length: 55mm