Photography tips 101: Shooting people (Please try to avoid this habit)

I've been spending a lot on photography magazines back in the day before internet was glorious, this been going on for years, and i dont just stick to one company's mag, there were a few, imagine how much money spent, i could have used it to buy more cameras?? hahaha... but i be honest, reading them magazines do taught me a lot, theres a lot of tips and tricks but still if only internet was there back then at least i can use them money to satisfy my GAS hahaha.

So yeah, reading them magazines there's a tip that i always stumble upon, when shooting people, try not to shoot that have lampposts, trees or flagpoles sticking out of the top people's heads. Once you noticed em its kind of distracting and for me it kinda ruined the shot. Believe me even the pros are fell into this habit. Let me screenshot what i got from Techradar since they said it nicely. 

taken from/credits to Techradar

That is a good tip. Believe me it is distracting when you have a subject with something sticking out of their head. Just take a look that pic above. Sheeeessshhh.....

So when i shoot i try to keep in mind and use this tip but sometimes i do still have photos of people with something sticking out of their head. grrrr....i guess i aint paying attention to details. But i have reasons/excuses, hahaha, im handholding a baby on one hand and the camera on the other and i wanted to be quick. but nevertheless still came back with this ruined shot hahaha. so the lesssons we can get from here is you can use Sony A7S one handed with the 35mm 2.8 lens. 😜😏

here's mine, just recently....

To the untrained eyes, it looks fine but after you read this tip, its a fu***n distracting! If only i moved a bit to the right or left. its worst when its at the center, narrow straight line sticking out of the head.
(Hello, i have a lamppost out of my head)
(Hi, I'm a lamppost stand)
(Hi, i'm a ............... OK OK WE GET IT!!!)

But yes thats your tip of the day!!

I'm a sucker for presets.

I'm a sucker for Lightroom/Photoshop presets. Period. I'm just too lazy. One-click-boom. Thats why i love VSCO presets. They are so worth it. Recreate film looks, polaroid looks.... ya know, those vintage looks. But at the moment, i'm done with film looks, i got a bit tired of it. But thats today, maybe tomorrow i'm back into it. Right now, i'm into those contrasty but desaturated colors. I was actually looking for a tutorial on recreating that look when i stumbled upon free presets for Lightroom. See, i'm not that lazy, i want to learn on how to recreate those looks but instead i found presets thus diverted me from learning to just using the presets. Lazy over learning. Nice.

While browsing the internet, i found presets and tutorials but mostly free preset on creating gritty, grungy look, which is the look im into right now, some are really nice which made me search for more free presets all over the net. Who doesnt like free stuffs right?

While on the topic of grunge look, I also stumbled across a bloke named Dave Hill. Though his pictures are nice but not really my type, i mean i really like it but i'm not gonna use it all the time. and then there's the DRAGAN effect too. Based on my findings these free presets that tried to recreate the grunge, dave hill and dragan effect look are mostly pushing the sliders in lightroom to the max!

Highlights pushed to 100
Shadows pushed to 100
Blacks bring down to balance the look
Clarity pushed to, yes you guess it right, to 100. I love pushed clarity. Gave that painted look
Vibrance pushed to 100
Saturation pull to taste, -50, depends on how unsaturated look you're looking for.
Exposure to taste.

Some presets pushed the sharpness too hard, like 80, but for my taste i pulled a bit and just play around with it.

Let's use a sample image i've downloaded from Robin Wong EM10. I hope he don't mind. This are not my photo. It's Robin's.

Original File 

This is my Bleach Bypass look, i've edited from Lightroom's own bleach bypass preset 

 Not too forget, the "300" look, i found this lightroom preset on google

I called this my Wannabe Dave Hill look although i adjusted to my liking. I dont remember which preset i based this on. but i adjusted it to make it less painted effect.

*I based this on the Grunge preset i found on google*

Some may dig the look, some may not. Its for fun, sometimes i just want to push the files to never before land lols.

Comparing ISO noise between Fuji X100S and Olympus OMD EM10

Okay,
First off, this is gonna be an apple and oranges comparison.
Some will say these are 2 different cameras but they both take pictures.
Coming from a straight Jpg shooter only, no RAW involve.
I just want to compare how Fuji and Olympus tackle ISO noise.
This is not even a high ISO test.
I always had in mind that Fuji is better than Olympus.
First sign showed me, Yes, its true Fuji is better.
But i always read online that some claimed Olympus is on par with Fuji.
Or at least, its negligible.
That i find it hard to swallow.
Is my OMD settings wrong? someone please shed a light...please.
The noise on my OMD pictures are too obvious to ignore, at least compared to a Fuji.
You see, i owned the Fujis first and then OMD second, so my view is coming from a Fuji ISO perspective. My eyes probably got used to Fuji's quality.
But everywhere i read on the internet claims OMD is on par with Fuji... did i say that already?
You see my disbelief?
It could be the complicated menu of the OMD or wrong settings or thats normal OMD ISO...
Maybe i need to shoot RAW but then i just want to shoot JPGs.
Fuji JPGs is awesome.
Based on my ISO findings of these two camera, it only matter if you print large.
Do you ever print your photos?
Well i do though mainly just normal 3Rs, 4Rs.
It didnt matter. The OMD will do just fine.
But there's always a corner in my mind that knowing the noise on the OMD makes me frustrated.
i just cant brush it off.
Knowing its there, it just unease you.
Its like having a dead pixel on your camera. You cant see it. But you know its there. And over time you'd know the location of the dead pixel everytime you look at your pictures.
I cant keep sliding the luminance noise slider all the time...everytime i import new OMD pictures.
And if you slides too much, you lose details and the skin tones will get smooth and painting like effect.
Some claim Fuji has noise reduction in camera which you cant turn off but hey, the picture is still awesome.
Enough me whining let show you photos already.
Exposure is different but i just wanna show you ISOs

The first photo is from OMD. OOC. Large SuperFine.

OMD EM10

Noise reduction AUTO

Noise Filter LOW

ISO400 

Can you see how grainy the skin tones? 

Its not the grain that really bothers me, its that over sharpen kinda effect noise that really really bothers me.

This is Fuji X100S. OOC

ISO500

There maybe noise reduction in camera here but at ISO500, this is just clean.

Excuse the exposure settings. These are OOC. i could brighten the OMD pic but lets just leave it like that.

So let me ask you Olympus OMD users.... is this noise normal? or i had my settings wrong?

Is there any way to improve my OMD Jpg settings?

I did read Olympus OMD sharpening could exaggerate the noise. i haven't fool around with that kind of settings yet. Mostly default except for the noise settings above.

Note: i also like the fact that i can easily get the look that i wanted with manually setting exposure quickly on my Fuji.(if you get what i meant. i dont know how to explain it). i dont have to adjust the flash brightness. Just play around with the shutter speed and ISO. There! Or maybe i already know my Fuji well. i'm already one with my Fuji, He's the one. Blue pill or Red pill. Down the rabbit hole. Oh sorry my mind wanders to the Matrix.

PeeKaBoo ....

Unintentional....but works with the title..

Puzzled? Let me explain...

I was uploading a photo to my 500px , it looked like this in the website (black and white category)

See there?

As you can see its all blacked out on 500px website, it looks like there is something wrong with my picture, and viewers would also think either its just an all black photo or corrupted photo.

But actually if you're really intrigued and clicked on the picture, actually its a picture of ...

PeeKaBoo!!

my kid.....
right at the bottom of the pic...

It was unintentional, but somehow coincidentally works with the title!

The real story was, i'm tryin to do a self portrait but with manual focus and no help it was PITA to nail focus so i asked my kid to stand in and adjusted focus and took her picture along the way.

Portrait

i've realised that i have been recently posting about my GAS... Too much GAS to ramble about... now lets just post pictures from my Fuji x100s....

Starting with this portrait.

i love black and white pictures. dramatic ones too. But i'm no expert. I find my black and whites pictures are kinda dull and lacking. Being the lazy me and pampered by VSCO, i just used a preset in VSCO and do some dodging and burning. i think this is an agfa 200 preset if im not mistaken. This is a cropped version which i kinda liked, the closeness of the face, i think i like tight cropped portraitures. Although on 500px, they liked the full uncropped version better.

i guess its just a matter of taste.