THE Orlando Photo Thread

[bic]

Bic. I just wanted to say thanks to you for your updated construction photos of The Vue as well as The Plaza. Nice work man.

Thanks!

[Tim3167]

OT, but hey Tim, what camera are you using?

It's a Nikon D50 with the 18-55 mm kit lens.

[RestedTraveler]

It's a Nikon D50 with the 18-55 mm kit lens.

I've been following your photos, too! That camera does a very nice job. I've been considering getting one, too. Nikon just chopped $100 more off of the price, so it almost makes it worthwhile to get the kit with both the 18-55 mm and the 55-200 mm lenses. Very tempting, especially seeing the great shots that it captures! The camera is only part of the puzzle though...the big piece is the person behind it. Beautiful work!

[iris32]

Maybe your birdy got that info from a cover story that ran in the Sentinel about a week ago. Median housing prices have skyrocketed across Orlando during the past two years (increasing 55% on average), with one exception.

And I'm quoting from the article here:

Only one ZIP code in all of Central Florida actually recorded a decline in its median home price during the past two years: 32801, the very heart of downtown Orlando. But that's only because a cascade of apartment-to-condominium conversions starting in 2004 have flooded the market with hundreds of relatively small and inexpensive "homes" for sale; while the median price per dwelling is down, the average price per square foot in the city center was up 44 percent during the same period.

All of their data came from the metro Orlando realtors association, and it said that from October of 2004 to October of 2005, the median cost of a home/condo in downtown went from $250,500 to $227,891 -- a 9% decline.

However, the price per square foot across the 32801 zip code went from $175 to $227 -- a 29% increase. As you can see from the quote above, the increase was even higher in the business district.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom...builder-navsrvc

I have during these past 2 years found those articles in the paper very misleading.

I bought a house in that zip code 2 years ago (2004) and have been following the median housing pricing vs. the homes being sold around the neighborhood.

The Orlando Sentinel has been great at covering news about the big condo boom in the area, but has done a poor job at covering information in regards to Single Family Homes.

There is one trend that the Orlando Sentinel has not mentioned and it is the renovating/remodeling of either historic homes or upgrading from homes that are 20+ years old.

Many of those properties that I have seen sold for a lower (but close) to the median sell price, are homes that needed some serious renovation and/or were condemned due to irreparable damage. If they were to take a closer look, they would see that the sales price covers mostly the expensive lot value instead of the value of the building.

1/2 the buyers have been selling those properties at a large profit (after renovating the places), and this process takes about a year or so due to the restrictions of the Historic Preservation Board, others (as in my case) have taken our time to fix up the place, give the shine back to those original wood floor, bring back the beautiful wood-work-detail and put some TLC to those historic homes.

I bought my house for 200k less than what I can sell it for right now, but it will not be part of the statistics the Orlando Sentinel uses, since I am planning on staying here for as long as I can.

There are many different factors to look into than those from the new condo boom... which I have not yet seen the media take into account when looking at the home sales price of areas like College Park and the 32801, 32803 zip codes.

[facilities man]

iris32 you're right on target. The same is true with Winter Parks 32789 zip. A disproportional number of houses being sold the last two years are tear downs or houses needing complete rehab. The lower prices for those houses brings down the reported median and does not reflect the true value of homes in the area.

Conversely, the condo median prices are probably overstated due to the large number of new, higher priced, properties selling verses older, lower priced, existing condos.

[pomegranate]

Interesting point.

I would add that a

Edited January 31, 2006 by pomegranate

[iris32]

Now, apologies for replying off topic; I'd like to echo those who appreciate the great photos appearing on this thread lately.

You are absolutely right!

I did mean to make a comment on the pics.

They are amazing!!!!!!

Thank you guys for sharing them with us. I don't think I will ever have the opportunity of seeing a city grow so much in such a short time... I luv it!!!

So much that I keep changing the wallpaper of my computer to display the latest and greatest pictures

Thanks!!

[Tim3167]

Quick grab shot playing with a longer lens

My Flickr Pictures

Edited February 2, 2006 by Tim3167

[bande_originale]

PTP update, 2 February 2006

[Marky30]

Oh my. Now that is a very good picture Bande. Excellent composition. Thanks for the post.

[sunshine]

almost look like a big city

[prahaboheme]

I like the pertruding glass section going up on the North tower, kind of wish there was more of that, less pre-cast.

[demon]

almost look like a big city

Imagine how it will look with 55W in the shot.

[prahaboheme]

Imagine how it will look with 55W in the shot.

And Dynetech...

[bulldogger]

And Dynetech...

I'm pretty sure Dynetech would swallow up the whole left side of that picture. Sweet. Dude.

[Camillo Sitte]

PTP update, 2 February 2006

Nice pic!

Please forgive the presumption but you are like 95% there. Bite the bullet, buy CS and live happily ever after.

Cheers!

[Tim3167]

I remember years ago beofre all of these wonderful projects we are now watching around town, I would check the GSA website for any news on the Orlando Federal Courthouse as part of the national project to build new courthouses all over the country. I thought that it could be a huge project for Downtown Orlando considering some of the other federal courthouses being done in other cities. If it wasn't for our huge boom going on this project as it turned out would be awfully damn depressing. What an eyesore. It looks like a prison.

[bande_originale]

Nice pic!

Please forgive the presumption but you are like 95% there. Bite the bullet, buy CS and live happily ever after.

Cheers!

Thanks, as always, for the photoshop tips. It is more glamorous this way. But I have to say the original photo, grey and flat though it may be, is really what the scene looked like: those ominous clouds that brought in Friday's rains were rolling through. It was less of an issue to the north (see the B of A shot below), but the lower part of downtown had effectively zero highlights.

This is a new camera (finally bought the DSLR a few weeks ago) and I'm still tinkering around with exposure bias-- of about 40 taken from that point of view this was the most accurate, or at least the most balanced.

I've followed some of your photoshop techniques, but I never quite get the same results. Curves contrast editing, a little saturation (usually positive, though negative helps if the shot is taken in yellowy interior light), and maybe a sharpening. But they're never quite as springy as yours: how do you achieve that 1970s World Book Encyclopedia look? You know what I'm talking about-- high-contrast, a hair short of simulated overexposure, but very vivid, immediate images.

NB: I do use CS on most of my photos. That night shot across the lake with the orange and purple twilight that I posted before Christmas was painstakingly cleaned up, although with the low aperture range on my little point-and-shoot (it doesn't stop down below f/8), the overexposure and flare from the uplighting on the buildings were always going to be a part of the image.

[bande_originale]

I remember years ago beofre all of these wonderful projects we are now watching around town, I would check the GSA website for any news on the Orlando Federal Courthouse as part of the national project to build new courthouses all over the country. I thought that it could be a huge project for Downtown Orlando considering some of the other federal courthouses being done in other cities. If it wasn't for our huge boom going on this project as it turned out would be awfully damn depressing. What an eyesore. It looks like a prison.

Agreed. The courthouse, as the French would say, totally sucks. What's worse is the assault on urbanism (not that there is much urbanism around there, mind you, but this isn't a promising start to rebuilding that part of town). The blast zone setback requirements place what is effectively a prison 15-20 feet from the street, adding nothing but vacuity to an already weak context. The culture of civic works in America died just after World War II, and the corpse was already starting to stink by the time of Model Cities and Boston's new government center. But this is below what I expected, even considering where we'd be on the declining trajectory 40 years later.

[Camillo Sitte]

Thanks, as always, for the photoshop tips. It is more glamorous this way. But I have to say the original photo, grey and flat though it may be, is really what the scene looked like: those ominous clouds that brought in Friday's rains were rolling through. It was less of an issue to the north (see the B of A shot below), but the lower part of downtown had effectively zero highlights.

This is a new camera (finally bought the DSLR a few weeks ago) and I'm still tinkering around with exposure bias-- of about 40 taken from that point of view this was the most accurate, or at least the most balanced.

I've followed some of your photoshop techniques, but I never quite get the same results. Curves contrast editing, a little saturation (usually positive, though negative helps if the shot is taken in yellowy interior light), and maybe a sharpening. But they're never quite as springy as yours: how do you achieve that 1970s World Book Encyclopedia look? You know what I'm talking about-- high-contrast, a hair short of simulated overexposure, but very vivid, immediate images.

NB: I do use CS on most of my photos. That night shot across the lake with the orange and purple twilight that I posted before Christmas was painstakingly cleaned up, although with the low aperture range on my little point-and-shoot (it doesn't stop down below f/8), the overexposure and flare from the uplighting on the buildings were always going to be a part of the image.

The thing with a DSLR and CS [or whatever imaging program one uses] is that ideally you are just trying to get back to the original scene.

I understand what you say about how the original is closer and all but, while it may have appeared darker, the "new" detail and saturation was there originally as you can't really add those things in post.

Look at how much more detail there is in the clouds. I assure you that the human eye could see that detail at the time you made the exposure. Look also at the shadow areas, the trees which are now defined branches and leaves instead of green blobs. That too is the way that it actually was.

Most DSLRs have a pretty strong filter covering their imager which tends to rob an image of a lot of depth and sharpness. IMHO it is critical to use post to bring these back to the front otherwise most images look simply fake [unless you are going for your own personal artistic effect].

I have found that white balance is critical [big surprise]. And finding the best conditional WB settings for your specific camera is crucial. I have found that almost every Nikon DSLR [i have a D200, D100, and D50] all work best outside using "Cloudy-2" [unless you WB for each image which would be ideal].

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

Edited February 6, 2006 by Camillo Sitte

[Camillo Sitte]

I remember years ago beofre all of these wonderful projects we are now watching around town, I would check the GSA website for any news on the Orlando Federal Courthouse as part of the national project to build new courthouses all over the country. I thought that it could be a huge project for Downtown Orlando considering some of the other federal courthouses being done in other cities. If it wasn't for our huge boom going on this project as it turned out would be awfully damn depressing. What an eyesore. It looks like a prison.

The GSA under its former director really did sponsor some good architecture. When the Orlando Federal Building was first being designed the new federal building in San Francisco was in our studio at the time.

The original design for the Orlando building was a reasonably elegant glass box, particularly for Orlando.

However the head federal judge [can't remember her name] who holds a lot of sway over these projects, was this hard core conservative who wanted a Mediterranean/Casa/white stucco/red-tile roof thing.

It was her dislike for "liberal" modernism that is responsible for what we have here now.

Edited February 6, 2006 by Camillo Sitte

[bande_originale]

The thing with a DSLR and CS [or whatever imaging program one uses] is that ideally you are just trying to get back to the original scene.

I understand what you say about how the original is closer and all but, while it may have appeared darker, the "new" detail and saturation was there originally as you can't really add those things in post.

Look at how much more detail there is in the clouds. I assure you that the human eye could see that detail at the time you made the exposure. Look also at the shadow areas, the trees which are now defined branches and leaves instead of green blobs. That too is the way that it actually was.

Most DSLRs have a pretty strong filter covering their imager which tends to rob an image of a lot of depth and sharpness. IMHO it is critical to use post to bring these back to the front otherwise most images look simply fake [unless you are going for your own personal artistic effect].

I have found that white balance is critical [big surprise]. And finding the best conditional WB settings for your specific camera is crucial. I have found that almost every Nikon DSLR [i have a D200, D100, and D50] all work best outside using "Cloudy-2" [unless you WB for each image which would be ideal].

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

I sent you a message as not to hijack the discussion board with camera talk any longer. Check your inbox (there should be a notification somewhere, probably in the top-right of the web browser).

And to the board, let the photos resume!

[bande_originale]

OK, this is it, I promise.

Camillo, how about this?

Before (taken today at lunch):

After:

I discovered Shadow/Highlight in PS. Is that how you're getting your effect? Tried more with white balance, but today was just too bright. Circular polarizer is on the way!

[Tim3167]

That second one doesn't look right at all. Looks like a superimposed effect. Is the first one before any post proccessing? The contrast almost looks a little too high on some edges. Of course that my be horsecrap as I am just learning how to achieve post processing.

I need to go out and buy Elements as a first step. I was using Nikon Capture but my demo has run out and since I don't plan on using much RAW until I learn more I don't think Capture buys me anything Elements doesn't.

By the way, love that Bank Of America shot!

Edited February 6, 2006 by Tim3167

[bulldogger]

You guys that feel like you have to make your photographs look a certain way have to realize something. You alter your graphics depending on the job you are working on. Since you don't do graphic design, you think that one person's idea of a perfect 100% picture is what all photos are supposed to look like. Don't bring yourself down.

Your original that was altered by Camillo, made the orange barricades look red and the lights on top of the SunTrust Tower too lit up for a dark photo. If it was that light outside (which it wasn't) then you would never see that much yellow and white light for that matter. You have to make adjustments in your camera before you take it. Just like computing... GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Either change your white balance or you should be able to change the exposure. In this instance, either should work.

And I think your photo was perfect for that day. I went outside and that's how it was... overcast. Don't beat yourself up. Play with your PS settings to get different effects, but don't think that there are any rules that you must follow.