Invertalon

The watermark was reduced in size quite a bit, just not on the ones uploaded here since it would take so much time to replace. But they were adjusted and reduced to be less bothersome on my page and the remaining updates I will post.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your kind compliments! I really enjoy my Tokina... You can't beat the performance for the price. I got my 12-24mm for just over $300, and I could not be happier. I also tried out the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 but only had it a week or so, because the price did not justify it over the 12-24 honestly at the time. I am now thinking about trying it once again though, as I would of loved just a tad wider or even the faster lens this trip... Exposure compensation is extremely important! Some of my shots I used as high as +2 stop with my wide angle, as the sky really underexposes the foreground. I base my adjustment off the histogram, most importantly. Telephoto lenses need less adjustment as the subject usually fills most of the frame, but same idea! In lightroom, I only have my default adjustment on saturation to about +4 I believe, and Vibrance at +3? Very minor! The camera JPEG's probably apply more than I do from RAW. The parks are so bright and vivid, very little is needed. Just try to expose the best you can and they should be vivid enough! As far as the blue skies, have you tried a circular polarizing filter? They are the best tool to get rich, blue skies... Along with reducing reflections on metallic objects and glare. They help a ton! I would recommend trying one out if you can! The B+W and Hoya multi-coated filters are some of the best that I have used. And yes, all my shots were in RAW. Lightroom makes it so simple to process the images... Just import all the raw files, do your editing (or assign a default adjustment to all of them) and export when complete. It will resize, add watermarks, etc... It will even do lens corrections (distortion, vignetting, color fringing, etc...) Processing ANY file from RAW will look MUCH superior to the out-of-camera JPEG image. Even if you do not touch the default adjustments... They will be sharper, have more dynamic range, less noise, etc... The list goes on! It is a must IMO! Have you tried lightroom at all? You can try it free for 30 days, and if you are student you can get a real nice discount on the cost of it. Lightroom can also export directly to Flickr for you, makes it SO easy! My next update should be tomorrow hopefully! My flickr page has almost all my chosen photos up at this point... Almost! I will for sure have more up throughout this week Thanks again! Let me know if you have any other questions, I would be glad to help at all!

Honestly, the parks themselves are vivid. I really did little to no saturation adjustments for 95% of my photos beyond my default settings. The key to these photos, is known as "ETTR" or exposing to the right. Basically, using exposure compensation as your "main exposure tool" while taking the photo, you overexpose them. You pull out more detail this way in your RAW image. You get brighter colors and more detail in the shadow areas this way. In post-editing, you bring the exposure down, as well as play with the highlight, brightness, darkness and shadow sliders to get a balanced image. Using this method usually yields bright, vivid colors and nice dark shadow areas. But like I said before, I really did not push the color saturation on almost any of these. Proper exposure does most of the work, and you have to be in control of your camera if you want that (not in AUTO mode)... The best method is either "Manual" or "Aperture Priority" for the most control. To be a little more complex, you really need to pay attention to the image histogram if you have one on your camera, this shows the balance of dark to light areas in the image, as well as any clipping on either end (where you lose all detail in the highlights or shadows, usually non-recoverable in editing). This is what I use 95% of the time when reviewing my images after I taken them, and the only true way to check if your exposure is good. As the LCD is never all that accurate, especially in the sun and various light conditions. But to summarize, overexpose the image without clipping highlights, bring the exposure down in editing and finally do level adjustment to get the look you want. This is basically how I do it, among other adjustments (white balance, cropping, recovery, noise reduction and sharpness). I will try to answer any further questions if you have any. Appreciate the compliments!

My white point is fine, and the monitor was just re-calibrated prior to editing. I do agree some still need adjustment, and I just did re-edit some of the Universal and IOA ones that needed it and reuploaded the edits to flickr. But like I said, I rushed through to get them done quickly as school was starting so I did not get to take the time I wanted. The reason some may be bright is because I slightly overexpose all my images when shot, to get more detail from the shadow areas. In post-editing, I bring the exposure back down. Leaving me with less noise, more image detail, and more editing power. I just did not have them all complete prior to uploading on here. My Flickr page like I said, the exposures have been further edited bringing down the brightness on a few of the images. And the watermark is staying. They are not that bad to look beyond, honestly. And you are right that theft of these photos are unlikely, true, but it is just in my workflow for all my images. And I am adjusting it to be less bothersome in the images. The first set was quite bad in size but has been adjusted since! I would re-edit the ones I have posted here, but the upload process is a pain on this website so it is not worth the hassle

Haha thanks! Yeah, I know many are on the border of being over exposed, but many I did like that to pull out some more detail from the shadows along with color. I am still tweaking the images a bit, but with school starting I will probably have less time to edit the some 2,300 images I have! So I rushed a little bit... On my calibrated monitor though they look good, a little bright on some but the light was harsh on some days so the sky is totally blown out. Still working on them though Next up is more IOA and Tampa Zoo!

My favorite for sure was BKF... Remember that acronym?? I miss it So first would be BKF... Errr... Dominator... Followed by Kraken, Hydra than Medusa.

You know, I wondered the same thing. My previous watermark in Lightroom was always the same size regardless of orientation of the photo. When I changed/updated it, I may of changed some scaling or something because the landscape ones are so much larger than the portrait orientation. I will for sure look into fixing that!

I answered that in my opening post ^ As far as the watermark... I know they can be annoying and I try to make them small enough to not be distracting, but not small enough that they can be easily edited out and such as well. There is a LOT of photo theft out there, and if somebody wants to buy a photo or ask permission for one, I would be happy to reduce the size or eliminate it all together. For for general viewing, I just prefer to keep it on there. There is a lot of time put into these photos, and the last thing I want is somebody to steal them. I will look into making it less obtrusive though for future uploads.

WW1, I went to the parks for an entire week, so had plenty of time to get on everything! A few days the stuff in HP was walkon (along with rest of the park) but for the most part it really was not busy at all outside of HP. I only rode Forbidden Journey twice though, as the screen sequences made me very sick (never that much on a ride before). Too bad, the rest of the ride was awesome. I just wish the whole ride could of had "real" scenes and none of the out of focus screen parts I just uploaded 180+ IOA pics to my Flickr last night... I will throw up more on here in later updates, but for those who would want to see them now... I should have Universal uploaded later today as well. Thanks for the compliments!

In no specific order: Great Bear Raptor Manta Wildcat (Hershey) Thunderhead Phoenix Dragster Raging Wolf Bobs (old PTC tracks, prior to retracking)... Never had so much fun as I did on that ride! Dueling Dragons Diamondback

Sorry, but all images have been removed. ADMIN EDIT: Please read page 4 and you can see why this guy got all butt hurt and removed his photos. Personally, we think it's a real "douchebag" move of the guy, but you'll see on Page 4 what all went down.

I hope to have it up sometime soon... Maybe by next week at the latest. But for those who don't like HP, there are plenty of photos that have nothing to do with HP!

Here is a shot from my upcoming IOA/Universal/Florida Zoo's Photo TR...

I did, my mistake. I read it wrong.

I guess you would have to avoid the whole park, then. Considering the whole park is fantasy/make believe. And sure it will be busy this year, but it will get better once the hype dies a bit. It is crammed though, for sure. It does not make the area any less impressive from an architecture and design standpoint! And I agree about forbidden journey... I enjoyed the actual set parts, but the video sections were terrible. Made me quite sick as well.

I can understand that, but really, the whole "non marketable" really means little to my experience. I can see what you are saying though. And I can't see really how anybody can dislike the area, regardless of whether they enjoy the movies/books or not. I did not watch a single movie, or read a single book until two weeks before I visited the park. But honestly, the design and theme is just awesome regardless of if you like the HP franchise or not. The castle is incredible visually, and the detail is just amazing throughout the area. I would bet if that area was exactly the same as it is now, just a "custom" design by IOA/Universal (pretending HP never existed) that those people who are such haters would be loving the area. It is only because it is related to such a franchise that I am sure there is a nice little bandwagon following suit of people who are against it. And to go as far so say HP has turned you off from even stepping foot in the park?... Really? Wowwwww. I am not trying to change anybody's opinion on the area, or the park for that matter. I can really care less how people feel about it, just like I am sure people can care less about my opinion. I just think so many of the comments here are a bit extreme and immature in many ways. But I guess you always have those who feel the need to be "rebels"...

HP is a much superior island than LC ever was IMO. LC was decent but really nothing that made me go WOW. I would of liked they replaced the Superhero part though versus LC if they had a choice, but I highly doubt that.

I rode it yesterday for the first time and it... sucked. Simply put, the first drop and first element is fun, the rest has poor pacing, awkward elements and a poor layout. The ride has a shimmy the entire ride and my music did not work. Very disappointed to say the least, and I generally like most any ride. Very few that I do not like, but this one I really never have to ride again. And I rode this at night, probably the best time to ride. I wish universal chose another manufacturer honestly... I did like the concept and theme though.

I just arrived in FL on Friday and checked out Harry Potter that night... I must say, the area looks incredible. I have yet to check out all the stores and whatnot, but the area in general is VERY well done. The Forbidden Journey ride I am very mixed on. The "real" scenes were excellent and a ton of fun. The video sections, to me, were terrible. The video looked low quality, and made for a nauseating experience. I thought they would of been able to improve the video quality a bit after all these years... The way they integrated them was good, but ugh, I just did not like at all. Much better ride if they did without IMO, and just used a ton of actual scenes. I know you need the storyline, but still... But yeah, after the first ride I was quite sick due to the video sequences. Butterbeer is incredible. I am surprised how good it really was to be honest. Can't wait to get some more! Finally rode Rip-Rockit after three times being down there since it was built... I was not expecting much, and the ride did not deliver at all for me. I found the first lift, drop and first element fun... Then the rest of the ride was very "meh". Awkward pacing, too many breaks and just bland. I really wish B&M got this contract... Overall though, the new area is awesome. Whether you enjoy HP or not (books, video, etc...) the area is awesome, and superior to the one it replaced.

Honestly, do you really need 1,200 HDR images? ^^ Usually, they are best left to images that you are not able to get due to high dynamic range. People do them just be "cool" and give the image a crazy look, but proper HDR is just enabling more stops of dynamic range by underexposing (for darks) and overexposing (for lights). Blending them in a way that is more natural to our own eyes, which has quite a high dynamic range. You can always batch process in Photoshop though... You basically make a "recording" of what you do to process images. Once complete, you save it and can apply it over and over with identical settings to a batch of images. Not sure how well it will work with HDR, but I am sure there is a way to do it. Just google "Batch process HDR photoshop" and I am sure you will get plenty of results! Hope this kind of helps with your question. I am sure there are ways to batch HDR if you really took that many, but you honestly would take that many HDR images? Considering most "real" HDR (not pushed in post from a single image) is done via three different bracketing images, and in low light probably need the aid of a tripod and shutter release. In nice light you can hand hold pretty easily and let PS merge them for you using continuous burst, though. The best HDR looks like no HDR at all...

Ahh that may be why. The EXIF may show only one of the exposure points for that image if done via HDR. I have tried doing a few HDR in the past but I always end up butchering it in someway. I should practice it a bit more though, but to the point the image looks natural and really does not look HDR at all. Those are the best IMO. So many people think its all about making some terrible image from pushing the limits just about everywhere on the image. Have you tried exposing to the right for lower noise? Using higher ISO but purposely over-exposing the image, and bringing back down in post? That makes for a much less noisy image at higher ISO. I have a few I took at ISO 12,800 that look excellent using this method, here is one example from a Halloween party (along with EXIF) Camera Model: Canon EOS 7D Lens: EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Focal Length: 102.0mm Focus Distance: 2.86m Aperture: f/2.8 Exposure Time: 0.0050 s (1/200) ISO equiv: 12800 Exposure Bias: +0.67 EV Metering Mode: Center Weight Exposure: aperture priority (semi-auto) White Balance: Auto Flash Fired: No (enforced) I used no noise reduction other than some conservative reduction in Lightroom 3... Full size it looks a little noise (obviously), but resized for the web it looks excellent considering the light and ISO used. You have many excellent images though in your TR... Some of the best I have seen on this website IMO.

He used a T1i along with the the EF-s 18-55mm lens. Great shots. Makes me really excited for this Friday when I get down there! I will be down in Orlando from Friday through the following Sunday... So quite a while. I have all my camera gear ready to go, along with over 40GB of Compact Flash cards...

You have some nice shots there. Great perspectives. I am heading down to IOA/Uni this coming Friday for 8 days and bringing all my camera gear with me, will have a field day down there. Now I just have to add, as I am a photography-junkie: I don't know how serious you are with your camera (if you are big into it, or just like to have a nicer camera than a point-n-shoot but checking out your flickr it seems like you are pretty serious about it), but as just a suggestion looking at the EXIF data in your images, you could of got much sharper images if you bumped up the ISO or lowered the aperture a bit on some of those shots, where your shutter speeds dropped to as low at 1/10 or so. They all look great resized (what camera doesn't!) but full size many of them seem to have a lower shutter speed then you could of easily got by getting those shutter speeds up a little and not sticking to ISO 100. The 450D can handle easily up through 1600 or so, don't be afraid to use it! Many of your images have great processing on them, they look processed but not overly done which is nice. Many people go way-overboard or do it poorly. Great TR though, makes me very excited for HP next week. I watched every single HP film in the past two weeks (including the one in theaters now) for the first time to enjoy the experience more. I really loved the movies, and makes me really excited to go check it out. Thanks for sharing!

Good video, but my only suggestion is to lay off all the effects. It seemed a bit "effect heavy". Also, I think coaster videos have a bit more personality when you allow the raw audio to bleed through a bit, versus muting them all together. Other then those small things, it was a good video!

I hear you!! I just got two mega-millions numbers tonight... Hoping one day to hit it! My odds are as good as anybody else, right??? hahaha I would be happy to drop out of college and just peruse my passions... Cooking, photography and traveling... Maybe go to flight school... Buy a private plane... Why not??? Screw the engineering!