Category: Photography

I recently decided to get some small canvas prints done to sell at my local tourism office. Artscow.com had a special offer for 8″ x 10″ stretched canvas prints at $US9.99 delivered to my door. I live in Australia so this sounded like a good deal. Printing on canvas is a good option when you want your photographs displayed proudly without the hassle of getting them framed.

They arrived after about 2 weeks and seemed of reasonable quality. Unfortunately when I went to deliver them, it was raining slightly. Although the prints were inside a plastic bag, in the process of unpacking them a few small drops of water got onto one of the prints. To my horror, as I brushed the droplets off gently, the ink just lifted off. Needless to say the prints weren’t required by my cusomer until a solution can be found to make them more water resistant.

After some testing, it appears all canvas prints aren’t created equal.

Here is a video showing how easy the Artscow prints are to damage with even a small amount of moisture.

Here is another night photo I made (yes ‘made’ is how professional photographers like to say ‘took’, so I’ve read). This was also shot with the Nikon D40 with 18-55mm kit lens. The setting this time were ISO 200, 18mm, F4.5 @ 30 seconds.

Adjustments I made in Aperture 3.0 were straightening, crop, definition, vibrancy and shadows.

Here is the photo as shot from the camera.

I’ve been sidetracked with other projects for a long time as you can see from this blog. It’s a shame because the site gets thousands of visitors a month without any attention. What I’d like to do is put photos I’ve taken here to get feedback and hopefully improve my photography. Even better, please send in photos you have taken with a short explaination of how you went about it. Your photo will be displayed on the fron page and hopefully get some creative feedback.

I’d like to also include screencast videos showing what adjustments are made on the computer once the picture is taken. I think that would be invaluable in learning what can be done and how to improve the process.

Let’s start with one I took recently.

This was shot after midnight on my trusty old Nikon D40 with 18-55mm kit lens. This camera is usually aways with me as I just keep it in the car for such occasions. The settings used are ISO 250, 18mm, f5, @ 30 secs. I had to use a tripod obviously but it’s only a light one which is always in the car also.

In Aperture 3.0 I straightened the horizon, added some definition and vibrancey and pulled up the shadows. I also sharpened up the clouds on the horizon using the brush tool.

Let me know what you think, it’s hard to put this stuff out there for criticism but in order to get better it must be done.

Feel free to send your pics with a description of how you created the image to admin@cybercam.com.