I'm famous! Err...

[pphaneuf]

Apparently, one of my photos is going to be on the print poster for a conference happening in Montreal, the 3rd Canada-America-Mexico Graduate Student Physics Conference!




Montreal Skyline (original)

Comments

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing pic! Congrats :)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I just added a link to the original, BTW.

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

That is an amazing pic! Where was it taken from?

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Flickr is magic! Click on the photo, then, on the lower right of the Flickr page for it, you'll see a "Taken in" line in the "Additional Information" part. If you click on the "map" link, you'll see the place I took it from.

From there, you can also explore other photos I've taken in that area, and if you click the "clear all" link at the bottom, you'll see photos by anyone taken in that area.

It can be pretty cool to explore places you know, to discover photos of place you've been, taken by all sorts of people... Try it, it's fun!

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Ooooh I didn't see that! I really want to find a good spot to take a picture of the skyline. I will have to check that out and plan a visit! Thanks :)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Here's another, taken here.

I also took this one from here.

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Wow... Those are some amazing pics. You have an excellent eye and an excellent camera. ;)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

It's more about the tripod than the camera, really, to be exact! With a good, solid tripod, setting the ISO to the lowest setting, you can usually get pretty decent pictures similar to those, with some practice. You might have to fiddle around with the EC (exposure compensation), and make sure the flash is OFF, too. Have fun!

But it's true what they say: location, location, location!

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Yeah I tried all that from the spot where the old wall was in the Old port area, looking onto the city. Craig was impatient and I couldn't get the settings right without really taking the time to mess with it. I got one or 2 decent pics but I didnt really have time and I don't think my camera is that good. Its a Nikon Coolpix L4. It has a bunch of settings on it that you can mess with like the EC and ISO you mentioned among other things. But I can't really make heads or tails of it LOL

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Well, okay, I didn't say it, but it also takes patience! That photo they used for the poster, took about 10 minutes to take, and I went rather quickly, because it was during a very cold winter. That was close to the water, the wind was howling, my tripod was in a couple of feets of wild snow and it was about -40 Celcius with the windchill factor!

It really takes a solid tripod, though, for this kind of night photography. If I had the choice between the most modern high-end digital camera with no tripod, and a 30 years old film camera with a tripod, I'd take the latter in a flash. Without a tripod, it doesn't matter, it's just hopeless (well, okay, with a really good camera you could have something you could look at on the computer, but you'd never dare hang it on your wall).

For the ISO, it's easy, the lower the better. This increases the image quality, in exchange for slowing down the shutter speed, (but that's okay, because you have a solid tripod, right?).

With the EC, well, it'll be a matter of playing around for a while, hence needing some patience, particularly at first, when you get a feeling for what it does.

I also forgot another secret trick: those photos aren't really taken at "night", but rather, in the hour just after sundown, early if it's pointed opposite to the sun, or a bit later if toward where the sunset was (like in this case). That's another thing where patience comes in, because you can actually sit there, not really taking pictures, but waiting for the right moment, where the light is just perfect, taking a shot once in a while, looking at it and... hmm... no, not yet, a little darker.

If you're nuts, you can also get before sunrise, but I'll deny ever having done it. :-P

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Wow! I plan to get a new camera soon (this year) and hopefully a digital SLR. I'm so sick of point and shoot!

I messed around with the settings a bit and got a decent pic from it, but I can't find my tripod, so I will have to hunt around for it and go from there. I found out that it was my old camera that I could adjust the ISO on and my SIL took that to school with her and it was stolen, so :(

I am going to copy this and keep it to remember. Thanks for the tips! I really appreciate it :)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

sfllaw uses a point and shoot and does pretty good work!

You probably can adjust the ISO on your current camera, I do not know of any digital cameras that can't. But the tripod, you really can't do without!

[my-fair-kadie.livejournal.com]

Yeah Canon's are pretty amazing camera's. I really want to get one!

I looked through the menu and I didnt see it but I will look again. I am going to have to look for my tri-pod. It's somewhere around here.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

The Nikons are good too, quality-wise, from the reviews I've read, but from those I tried the user interface was really confusing and complicated. As in, I know that the camera can do this, but I don't know how! You have to hold three buttons while shifting a wheel, standing on one leg kind of deal... :-P

Reading the user manuals for digital cameras is always recommended, but for Nikons, it's practically mandatory.

[peaceful-dragon.livejournal.com]

F'in A!

Great job.

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[girlintheclouds.livejournal.com]

le awesome! not to mention le sexy! (oh wait, that's that photographer) ;)

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

LOL! Thanks!

Photo

[(Anonymous)]

Salut Pierre,

As tu pris cette photo quand nous sommes allés ensembles et il faisait un frois à pierre (Phaneuf??) fendre?

Je suis allé sur le site et le poster n'est pas le même... Ils semblent avoir préféré une photo différente (croche en passant), es-ce seulement pour le web?

Jean

Re: Photo

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Oui, c'est belle et bien une des photos que j'ai prise avec toi et Joëlle.

Je crois bien que c'est seulement pour le web, le poster en question va être imprimé. Ça serait cool si je pourrais en obtenir un physiquement, t'as pas des contacts à McGill? :-)

Re: Photo

[(Anonymous)]

Je vais demander à Pat, il est encore là.

Jean

Re: Photo

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

Merci!