035 Misc Photography Crew

[steffo99]

The ”Monk Cellar” and Gutekällaren – turn into clubs on the weekend..the right one for young ones and left one for a little older ppl. The Monk Cellar still has 12th century floors at the bottom.




My Cabin at ”Visby Strandby.”




St. Olof Church ruins

[steffo99]

Holy Water Receptacle



Botanical Garden...

[PhDPepper1111]

lovely!!

[steffo99]

Getting a bit more into the on1raw program so went back to go over my favorite picture again.






Original and first time edit.





After getting into it a bit more – might overdo some aspects, but trying to hold back as well. Might go back again and tweak it a bit but like it though. Started saving my own edit presets, so hopefully can cut down on future processing time as well.



Started looking into good photo-printers and found one to possibly get in the future:
https://uk.pcmag.com/printers/132185...-photo-printer

Would be fun to just be able to print out some favorites and actually hold something in your hands. Plus thinking I could combine the hobby a bit that way with another hobby I've been slacking off with lately - woodworking. So can design and make a few different types of frames as well. Maybe even do a nice inlay (wood/metal/epoxy) describing the picture/title - not sure if that would work. I don't expect to be able to sell anything....would just be a bonus if it happened down the line.

lovely!!

Thanks again btw!

[steffo99]

Fun AI Tool:

Moved up my zoo trip a few more days, but have had time to explore this fun AI program in beta, which can be used to restore faces from older pictures and thought I would share some of the results below. Very easy todo – provided the link to the page/online program below if anyone wishes to have a go. I started simply by taking cell phone pics of some older family photos and then cropping them a bit in an editing program. If you don't have one, it is easy to use something like:
https://pixlr.com/se/x/

Then just pull that image into the linked page below.

Restore face:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/saMapkkSlyc
https://github.com/TencentARC/GFPGAN
https://huggingface.co/spaces/Xintao/GFPGAN




Grandfather on dad's side - 40's.


Grandmother on mom's side at age 17, in 1933.


Mom – 50's


Mom – 1942


My peak days, 1995 (at FAU, FL).


Makes you wonder what will be possible in the future.

[steffo99]

Went to Nordens Ark
https://en.nordensark.se/

Planned to stay for 2 nights but added an extra one due to poor weather. Used Nikon D810 and 200-500 mm/5.6, and second day added a 1.4 teleconverter. The teleconverter sure let me get closer, but also changed how the autofocus behaved and made it much more difficult on moving targets. Some shots are through fences and stuff so could be better. Anyhow, enjoyed it and here are some pics (edited with on1raw):




Lynx, iso 12800 but editing cleaned it up nicely.





Amur Leopard





Snow Leopard









Amur/Siberian Tiger




Red panda





Pallas Cat

[steffo99]

Asiatic Wild Dog

[steffo99]

[steffo99]

Maybe I'm posting too much, but hope it's ok. Used the Restore face AI program I spoke earlier on again.
https://replicate.com/xinntao/gfpgan

This time on an old album with most pictures from the late 19th century – 1910's, I think. The most recent pic in there was from 1920. The album belonged to my grandfather's (on mom's side) mother, and there are barely any names written down so we don't know who they all are exactly – just that they are relatives. The originals were all tiny and not very sharp, but the program brought some of their faces back to life. 2 pictures are from some that went to the U.S. - says New York on a small frame and can see the flag in the background.






These two are photos from the U.S. Send back home.








Wondering if some native Same blood here - the shape of the eyes look very asiatic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi

[steffo99]

Edit: So weird, looks alot like me in my teens.












The program has improved from taking 1/3 of the pics to about 2/3 and turning them into something useful - biggest issue seem to be that it's shifting the position of the iris/pupil on several shots.

[Cantplankwell]

Ruined barn on the slope of Mt Fortin, Val Veny Italy, I think this was at about 1800m elevation. Taken with my Iphone 13.

[steffo99]

Ruined barn on the slope of Mt Fortin, Val Veny Italy, I think this was at about 1800m elevation. Taken with my Iphone 13.

Beautiful place and picture. Got the clouds so well as well.

[steffo99]

Getting more reach:

Thinking animals and wildlife might become a big one for me and I've kept looking for ways to get even more reach. Have the Nikon 200-500 mm 5.6/VR with a 1.4 TC and it can yield good shots - you miss some this way but maybe can get used it more. Doesn't work with quickly moving targets as AF turns slow and you get that focus hunting. But if I can just get a handful good ones in a day I'm happy.





Got this with the 200-500 and the 1.4 tc, so happy as hell....but also missed a bunch due to bad af.



The new 800 mm lenses are obviously too expensive, and pretty big. The older ones don't have the VR I enjoy now and possibly only the 1.25x tc that came with them.

The 1.7x and 2x tc to my current lens makes the AF not work at all – and lose more light etc., but still an option.

Got me thinking of ”cheaper” crop cameras instead to add 1.5x to the 700 mm. But thought how is this different to just cropping in on my full frame camera and luckily found this video which could be interesting to some folks here, given that even on forums there seems to be different views.


Edit: Sorry put up wrong vid at first....



Really considering getting the Nikon D500 later on just for these type of shots. It works at f8 with teleconverters, unlike the other nikon crop/DX ones, and brings other upgrades to my current full frame such as 4k video etc. On ebay can get one for 700 usd so thinking that might be an option vs spending half a years wage, lol.

An extreme option could also perhaps be the sigmonster 300-800mm (about 2k usd used) with a 2x tc and the crop 1.5x of the nikon d500, for a total of 2400mm. But would need a tripod for that and not sure if worth it overall (would bring it to f11? and possibly not quite as sharp etc as a native nikon lens.)

Let me know if any of you had thoughts around this or any advice. Thanks.


Was looking into getting a trip just for the schönbrunn concert in Vienna, and googling European zoos, I just found out they have the number one ranked zoo (out of 126) for the 6 th year in a row - also the worlds oldest one still in use (since 1752). Right there in the same spot as the concert, Schönbrunn. I have to make this trip somehow.
https://www.zoovienna.at/en/

[jmelanson]

Young Peregrine Falcon

[steffo99]

Young Peregrine Falcon....

Beautiful shot and animal, such symmetry and perfection in the feathers and shape – hope I can get to see some birds like that in the future. Been looking at some places like this in Denmark, and it's close to the nice beaches on the northern coast with cabins etc closeby so might make a short vacation out of it.
https://eagleworld.dk/en


Found some more childhood pics today and just quickly ran them through the ”restore face AI” again to get them much improved from small ”blurry” pics. Doesn't always work and the eyes often get messed up, but sometimes it works really well. So sharing a cute one.



With my 2 older sisters – unfortunately they are not on good terms with each other today, but hope that can change with time. . Edit: I quickly did 2 things in on1raw as well to improve light and reduce noise.

Been looking at our domestic version of ebay and will proabably buy a whole lot of older magazines to try and restore some pics of old movie stars etc....and our old heavy weight champ from the 50's....being that the copywrights etc should have well run out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingemar_Johansson

Pics like these....(ran them through the same program but were very small originals) after beating Floyd Patterson he became a super star here and even got some simple Hollywood parts....





My dad always had stories about these guys and another one that became european champ in a lighter division - all grew up where he did and they were probably miscers of their day. So hoping to find better pictures of them to bring them back. I was at the same club (Redbergslid) as them when was 17 or so, but it wasn't for me at the time - did much better in track (3 national medals for my age group).

[mtpockets]

[steffo99]

Almost time to start taking some shots again as nature is coming back to life.

Got an e-mail from the photo magaizine I subscribe to informing about a competition – last year was street shots but now it's wildlife. Never thought about this kinda thing being a newb and all but thinking I can submit some I took last summer, just for the heck of it. You can win 1500 euros (no chance I guess), but need to advance to some euro round where 60 different magazines look at it, lol.

One is supposed to submit very small pictures (5-8 of them), surprisingly, only 800 pixels on the longer side, but have larger versions ready if they request them.

Edit:

Did the best I could with some novice editing skills and took some tips I've seen on youtube etc – then submitted these to the competition. Think I got some colors better than before, added some rays of sun and ever so slightly darkened a few corners.

[steffo99]

Today in slottskogen, Gothenburg.

[steffo99]

[steffo99]

[steffo99]

[steffo99]

Went to Gothenburg Natural History Museum today and figured I at least share pics of the blue whale. It beached here in 1865, and I believe they even had a cafe' inside of it at first. It was a young animal and they say it's the only one in the world that has been set up this way.










Got to use the godox hotshoe flash for the first time and it worked out well I think. Luckily they don't mind you using one in there. Couldn't back up more from certain angles so it takes up a bit much of the screen, lol.

[steffo99]

It's Mother's Day here on Sunday the 28th, so send this one of grandma in 1933 to have it developed and framed as a present. The last version of this pic I showed her made her a bit teary eyed. Posted this image before but now found a way (there were even more I haven't explored yet) to colorize it.







Steps Taken (started with 5 inch pic):

Restore face AI – experimental website a few months ago (forgot the website but have it saved somewhere)
Editing and resize AI round in ON1Raw editing software
img2go website, colorize image function – from bw to color
Another editing and resize round in ON1RAW now that there was a color base to start with


ON1RAW is also getting a restore face AI function in June so it will be interesting to see how good it is as the option I used months ago wasn't perfect and left some weird results and unwanted effects.

[steffo99]

Not photography, but posting this before and after anyways. Sat and worked an hour or so in ON1RAW on a text-to-image generated pic I did last year (pretty sure they can get even better now). Wanted it a bit over the top dramatic and slightly improved in some details. Close up it may have gotten worse in some sense, not sure. Yup, see it now - will change back some things there. Well, it's just playing around. Going forward it will be fun to see what these new tools can do when working together - should be great for some creative fantasy stuff at least.







Edit:

Cleaned up and edited 2 more from last year – really like the first one.

[steffo99]

Original








Really happy how this one has turned out so far, improved on it for a second time and got a bunch of white "dust" off his jacket. Grandmam's father (on mom's side.) Enough work for tonight - need my bed here soon.


Edit: Spend another 3 hours trying to get the colorized version as good as I can - not a hundred percent happy yet and need to fix the ear. Then revisited the bw I thought I had completed last night but got a better version done. It never ends, lol. Think I will print the bw today anyways.

[steffo99]

Went to a botanical garden today . The place is so big I only went through part of it. Got to experiment and play around with the hotshoe flash again, and at lower settings it sure can help sometimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothen...tanical_Garden

[steffo99]

[steffo99]

Went for a nature walk and some good food closeby this old mansion. Posted some of it last year, but here it is again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnebo_House

[steffo99]

Stensjön lake.

[steffo99]

Practiced some editing on old photos tonight. Was excited to try the newly released Restore Face tool in ON1RAW, but that turned out to be crap. Just gave me weird faces on small pics and mostly plastic faces with strange eyes on larger photos. Couldn't use it at all on this Chaplin portrait taken off the internet.

Been going over a few thousand old postcards sold here in Sweden to find material to restore – trying to find gems not widely available on the internet already. Slice of life stuff looks most appealing, but they seem far and few in between. The girl above is on a postcard from 1904-1910 the ad said. Not actually buying the postcards, just dowloading pictures the sellers put up, lol.