KevinFRK

Amusing effect, suiting the subject. If you had the patience, some of the yellow on the building to the left presumably ought to be possible to mask out from having any colour.

Nice shot, and interesting to see a Jackdaw with such odd feathers (given they "ought" to be black and a bit of a darker gray around the head). Also, was this taken inside a food court or similar?

Because you presumably post here to share something you think others might like/be informed/be enlightened by and this doesn't appear to be doing that at the moment. However, if not posting for that reason, I suppose I can go hunting for the Block User option.

While I share the question "Why?" I might hazard a guess that there's almost an echo of the colours of the Sainsbury's sign with the colours of the tarmac and its white and yellow lines, or even of the pale blue car and the sky - I could almost imagine a "I like it but I don't know why" mood.

But then, same poster as "11 miles to the city" two days ago.

Photos of reflections can do wonderful things, as here!

Oh yes, and also of only realising in post-propressing that the shot isn't quite as good as you hoped when you did it.

To tell you something you probably already knew, your depth of field is too short in this one, and you needed to increase the aperture or move back, so that you get the full glory of the fluffiness on the right.
Really nice subjects, though!

Interesting to see a technical use of photography posted here.

And good tutorials you'd care to recommend that explain what they are trying to achieve? I just have a self taught process with Canon's DPP4 on RAW format, only working on brightness, as follows:

1. Turn on any over/under-exposed markers
2. Move the left slider to the right until it reaches non-zero parts of histogram and/or get under-exposed markers, move back a "bit"
3. Move the right slider to the left, unless reaches non-zero parts, or get over exposed markers - but go further if its only sky, and you don't care about it
4. The tricky bit, move the centre slider to the right if the picture seems "washed out" and to the left if there's too much dark in the part of the picture you care about - this is extremely subjective

Doing this, you make greatest use of the range of tones (shades, whatever) that the end JPG can offer, and get the detailed tone changes in the zone that matters... maybe.

Using the general brightness slider achieves similar but distinct effects - you might mix and match

This sort of activity should work in any tool. You might be able to do it for selected areas or colour, but I don't/can't. You might be able to tweak the curve more precisely, but likewise I don't try.

Those are the tools to play with (might also be called Gamma Adjustment), but I think in this particular case, because of those lovely areas where the sun is shining through, having the rest of the body dark (and the sky bright) works really rather well.

If you know the focal length, good - I just remember the first time I went well below 50mm!

You know the events and their constraints: I mentioned it because the monopod is just to provide a rest, and not actual support it can be really light and collapse down pretty short. Sort of thing that can dangle from a belt.

And enjoy the party!

Advice you are probably already aware of (as IAMALlama has already given excellent technical advice):

• Whatever you go for, do an experimental run in comparable conditions beforehand. Preferably two or three, especially if the event is important to you. Learn the lens and its quirks, and what post-processing can save.
• Have you ever tried a monopod to address handshake? Much less in the way than a tripod, yet almost as good.
• Focal length dictates the best distance at which to take any scene to "Fill the frame" (and v.short can also get a little disorienting). The resulting Depth of Field, which others have mentioned, also has an impact. Think about the sort of photos you are after, and make sure in particular those 24mm lens meet the requirement.
• Think about backup kit and accessories (batteries, cards, ...).
• Make sure you also enjoy the event, not just get photos of it!