How do you frame a photo that it’s divided into nine equal parts — long thought of as the ideal composition by photographers? Twelve Giz readers gave it a shot (tee hee!) in this week’s shooting challenge. Check out all the results below, and don’t forget to click on each image to see the full-size photo.
Jason
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After thunderstorm start to the weekend a short drive up the F3 was a must to Somersby Falls, where the sun broke through the clouds while I was shooting.
Equipment: Nikon D300, 12-24mm f/4 lens, tripod. 5 exposures (-2ev to +2ev) captured RAW, processed to TIFF using PSE, HDR tone mapping using Photomatix.
Alex Fagan
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Camera: D90 @ 63mm
Shutter speed: 1/6sec
Aperture: f32
ISO: 200I wanted to grab a pic of the sun rising between the cloud layer and ocean. The weather wasn’t as agreeable as I’d hoped, but it broke into thirds pretty nicely.
Kevin Cheng
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Camera: EOS 7D with 24-105mm IS USM, CPL
Settings: f/7.1, 1/125 sec, ISO 100A little homage to that quirky car company Saab.
Not generally a fan of taking a photo of a perfectly clean car — I feel it is too sterile.
Nathan Zeppel
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Taken with a Canon 550D and Canon EF-S 17-55mm IS USM Lens @ 55mm.
ISO 100, f/2.8 @ 1/1000 secWas out on the beach on Saturday night for a good mate’s 21st party. He does it yearly on the beach and had an amazing party full of beach volleyball and cake. Beach was perfectly facing west, so got to take a few good pictures of the gorgeous sunset and resulting cloud colours! Have only had my camera a week, so starting off joining the shooting challenge when its on composition is certainly challenging, but fun nevertheless =]
Zac Lloyd-Jones
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This picture was taken at Etty Bay, in far north Queensland, just after the sun came up early this morning. Given the fact that the stinger nets are up this time of the year made it a little restricting where I could take the shot as its only a fairly small beach. The tide was a bit too far in for my liking but there’s no controlling that :P. I used my trusty Nikon D90 with a Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 with a Hitech 2 stop neutral density grad and a Hitech 3 stop neutral density filter. The camera was held steady by a Manfrotto 055XB tripod with the 804RC three-way head while I slowed the exposure down. It was so bright at this point that I had to stop my lens down to f/14. ISO was down to 100 (Low1) and a 0.6-second exposure. WB was set to 4600k. Lens was set to 12mm (my filter holder is visible at 10mm). I edited the shot in Adobe Lightroom 4 beta by boosting the contrast a little, taking some detail back from the highlights and the shadows and tweaking the colours a little.
Upali Wickramasinghe
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Sony A77 with Sigma 70-200/2.8 HSM II, f/5.6 1/500 ISO320.
This was taken at the Australian Open. Although one might think this does not fit the rule of thirds, I’d like to say why it fits the given theme. Check where the ball is in the picture. It is in the lower intersection of the right third, but that is not the exciting part. Can you see that the ball is inside the racquet, within the fraction of time when it starts to go back, basically being “burried” in the strings. Now this is why I find this shot exciting, the “right moment” of time. Thus making the ball the star here not Novak :)
Pete Aitchison
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Canon 60D
ISO 125
180mm Macro
1/200secAttempted to get this bloke’s torso in the first third with the ‘tail’ taking up the rest. He let me get lots of shots of him and even gave me the time to aim off a 1:1 where most were around 1:1.5 and 1.2. Very grateful for that.
Oliver Sugden
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Camera: Canon Kiss X4 (550D) with Magic Lantern custom Firmware
Lens: Samyang (Bower) 35mm F1,4
Iso: 160
Shutter Speed: 1/2000
Aperture: F2,0My news lens arrived in the post this week, and I was very excited about it, so I took it into the backyard to do some test shots. I saw the flower and set about taking a shot with my tripod. The Samyang (Bower) lens is manual focus so it allowed me to focus on the flower accurately with ease, and with the fast aperture rendered the background as wonderful green bokeh. Following the rule of thirds, I tried to place the flower along the vertical third line on the right hand side just to see how it would look, and I was pretty happy with the result .
Joe Lim
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This picture was taken at Nightcliff, NT. It’s still the wet season and the sky is cloudy. I was driving along Casuarina Drive then I came across this bridge at Nightcliff. I took some pictures using the RULE of THIRDS. Here’s my attempt. Please comment :)
Take with Nikon D5000, Sigma 18-50mm f2.8
Setting: Aperture priority, f11, shuttle 1/640s, ISO 400
Ben Vawdrey
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Canon 550d w/50mm f/1.8 II Prime @ f/2.8, 1/320th, ISO 800.
I bought this lens only a few days earlier and was having a bit of fun in the studio whilst taking some photos for my band. Aside from this new lens, I only have the normal kit lenses which only go down to f/3.5, so being able to go right up to f/1.8 was a lot of fun for me, and I went a bit crazy with short depth of fields.
I didn’t really have this challenge in mind, but when I pulled the photos up on the computer this one just stood out to me.
The highlight on the upper right intersection along with the strings across the upper third and the focus point on the lower intersection just seemed to work out nicely.
What topped it all off for me was seeing myself in the reflection on the chrome bridge. I thought it was really cool and overall and interesting shot, particularly for something that wasn’t really thought out at all.
Iain Oliphant
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Took this photo up at work in the Pilbara the other night. Came out of my room, saw the clouds forming and grabbed my camera to take this. Fiddled around with a few filters after I took it and ended up with this. Taken on a EOS500D, ISO100, Stock 18-55mm lens.
Peter Bradbrook
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I used a Canon 5d Mark II with a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. This was shot at iso 100, f/2.0 and 1/50 sec. There are the most amazing and interesting people in the city, and I was fortunate enough to snap this one off while he was in mid performance. Being a city person, I’ve always been stunned by it’s aura, yet never felt out of place.
The Other Luke
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:07 PMVery good Guys. Great Photos.
Chris Staring
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:46 PMWow, these are all great photos, which leads me to think that these were probably not taken within the week of the challenge. Usually the photos are quite average with a few good ones here and there…
Jason Fleece
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:54 PMChris I can assure you that the image I submitted (waterfall) was taken within the week, it was actually taken on Saturday afternoon. It is a small waterfall at the Somersby Falls area.
Zac3200
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:22 PMMine was from the week of the contest too. Hell, I’ve not even had that lens I shot with a week! Bit disappointed that the top and bottom of the picture got cropped but oh well…
Jason Fleece
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:28 PMI too agree about the cropping on the article page, however the full size pic is uncropped when you click through.
Pete
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 8:31 PMI took mine on Saturday.
Danny Allen
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 2:48 PMAmazing pics guys
olly
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:01 PMExcellent shots! There’s some pretty talented photographers who check Gizmodo
Lachlan Bromage
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:30 PMPete Aitchison – good stuff.
Pete
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 8:32 PMThank you very much. Loving the macro at the moment. Trying to figure out how to do it really.
Oliver Sugden
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:31 PMThanks for putting mine up. They are all particularly good images this week,
I can assure you my photo was taken last week as I didn’t even have my lens before then
light487
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:48 PMGreat photos people, I particularly like the HDR stuff by Jason and Joe, as well as the ace sunset by Zac..
I always wondered how to do the “misty” water of a waterfall.. I kinda fingured it had something to do with blending multiple shots but couldn’t quite work out how to do it myself.. it’s one of my favourite types of desktop wallpapers and photo subjects in general.
The “bridge” by Joe is a great blend of modern (but not too modern) architecture set on a natural landscape, very interesting foreground colours on the beach with a dynamic and mysterious sky. One thing I would have loved with this shot is if the entrance and ending of the bridge had met up rather than being slightly askance, so that it had more of an M.C. Escher feel to it.. but it’s still a great shot.
The sunset by Zac is not your ordinary and boring sunset. The lighting is really dynamic across the whole picture and gives an almost nebula-like effect to the sun rather than going for a more traditional round sun with flared edged.
Great stuff.
Dave
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:56 PMmisty/ creamy water is done by a long exposure probably using an ND filter to keep the sun in check ;)
light487
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 3:58 PMAlso.. just wanted to say that while I find Iain’s HDR interesting.. the clouds in particular, I just find the whole thing a little too busy for my tastes. Too many subjects.. or perhaps a lack of primary subject in the shot.. nothing that my eye gets led to and ends up focusing on other than the clouds themselves.. which again are very nicely rendered.
In regards to Kevin’s shot.. I really like the sparkly reflections off the numbers and how the numbers look very clean against the dirty background. I like the idea that you have attempted to capture the dirtiness of the car but I think that the individual dust/dirt particles are too separated and distract my eyes too much.. whereas a more evenly distributed amount of dust/dirt would have looked better I think..
Anyway.. still great shots, both, just wanted to offer some constructive criticism.. *shrugs*
Max
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 1:19 AMTo be honest, that’s my opinion for all three HDR photos (or at least, the three obvious ones). While I think HDR can be effective if used sparingly, I hate the overprocessed look you get when you overdo it. I mean, I get that that was the look all three were going for intentionally, and as with all things, it’s a matter of taste, and certainly I can appreciate them from a technical standpoint, but… blegh.
Sorry if I’m sounding too negative, you’re all way better than me simply for getting off your arse and actually submitting something, I just hate this current trend of overusing HDR and can’t wait for it to end.
light487
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 1:37 PMYer.. I’m just the opposite.. I love the hyper-reality of the HDR.. not HDR is over the top, as you imply, but the stuff that is really grabs me.. *shrugs* :)
Jason
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 11:02 PMTo get misty waterfalls you want to get as long an exposure as you can. A must is a tripod, and a remote release is VERY helpful (or if the camera has it, a delayed shutter release). Without filters you want your aperture with the biggest number it will do (in my image it was f/22, which resulted in a 5 second exposure at 0ev, normal metered exposure).
Images taken later that day with another lens had a filter so dark, that to focus the lens I had to remove the filter. It is a -9 stop filter, Hoya NDX400, and at f/22 I had to do a 2 minute exposure. This is where manual mode on a camera becomes essential, along with remote release.
I hope this helped.
Jason
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 11:07 PMSorry, forgot to add this link: http://500px.com/photo/4488859
This is the 2 minute exposure I mentioned. No HDR this time, just a single image.
smurfydog
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 9:48 PMGreat shots everyone!
And in reference to a comment I made a couple of weeks ago about horizons in photos, it was especially great to see all the submissions had dead straight horizons! It really makes a difference.
As for light4787′s comments above on HDR, I’m not too enthusiastic about HDR myself, purely as a personal preference. But then that may be simply because I’ve never made any great HDR images myself, and not for lack of trying! I tried and tried and was never happy with my results.
The entries here however are very good. (although I’m not sure that Iain’s pic is HDR – He mantions filters in his write up, not HDR. )
TheBludger
Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 8:25 AMJoe, nice pic of my local Jetty. My first reaction was “hey that’s my picture, but I didn’t submit this week”. Then I looked more closely and realised it was an HDR and I don’t do that either.
I hope you got out this week to see the jetty and cliffs there being pounded by the storm swells.