In this thread, we post photos!
All photos are welcome, though most people post with the intention of receiving criticism so that they can become better photographers.
Please do not spoiler your photos as that defeats the purpose of the thread.
For photography newbies:What type of camera should I buy?
This can't be answered the same for every person. There's little difference in the photo quality between most major brands (Canon, Nikon, etc) so it comes down to price and personal preference. Make sure your camera lets you control settings like shutter speed, aperture, and ISO and preferably lets you capture images in RAW format. Other than that, get a bit of hands on time and see how the camera feels to you. Also remember that if you're buying an SLR, camera bodies come and go but lenses usually last while. For this reason it might be worth it to buy a cheaper body and spend a bit extra on some lenses.
Speaking of lenses, which ones should I buy?
Most kit lenses are a good starting place, though you'll begin to find them more limited once you're more comfortable with your camera. A good entry level prime lens for Canon cameras is
this little guy. Other than that, you'll probably want to pick up a telezoom lens with a macro feature. This should get you set for a long while.
Any good books/sites I should read?
Lots of people recommend
Understanding Exposure or
the first Ansel Adams book. Don't bother buying any book that tells you how to use your specific camera model. All of that information can be found in your user's manual.
How do I become awesome at arting?
The best advice I can give is: keep taking pictures. That being said, don't just randomly point your camera at something and hit the shutter button. Stop for a moment to think about why you're taking this picture. What are you trying to show people? Is the current lighting/angle/etc going to help you show that? If so, proceed. If not, adjust your settings or body to capture it another way.
Resources/Tools:Lightroom - Awesome software for managing your photo collection and editing RAW files.
LR Mogrify - Unfortunately Lightroom doesn't have a border option so use this tool. It also does watermarks and the like.
Canon Firmware Update - Unofficial firmware update that allows more options one some Canon cameras.
Strobist - Fantastic source on getting into off camera lighting. Don't be put off by initial complexities. It'll come.
Flickr - A free photo hosting site. Also has a pro option if you like. There's also a
PA flickr group.
Phorumr - If you're using flickr and Firefox, this script auto generates the code you need to paste into the forum.
Photoshop Pyramid - Helps regulate your daily dose of Photoshop.
A DIY plexiglass frame - Nifty.
DIY Bokeh - A neat DIY to getting bokeh shapes.
There's also a great write up from Pope:
Some Photography Stuff
Types of Lenses:
Prime Lens - A lens with no “zoom.†While this might limit composition choices, it also usually means the lens is “faster†(meaning can achieve larger apertures, usually 2.8 and larger (2.0, 1.8, 1.4, 1.0, etc). The wider the aperture, the more light gets in and therefore the faster the shutter can be which is why primes are considered faster.
Zoom Lens - Any lens that can span a range of focal lengths. For example: 18mm-55mm. There are zooms in every category (normal, telephoto, wide, and macro).
Telephoto Lens - A lens that makes objects in the photo appear larger than they were to the naked eye. This is akin to being “zoomed in.†These lenses are comparable to physically moving closer to the subject. Some distortion can occur in the form of “compressing†the distance between objects.
Normal Lens - A lens where objects in the photo appear to be the same size as when seen by the naked eye. This lenses do not change your perceived distance from the subject.
Wide Angle Lens - A lens that shows a wider field of view than the naked eye. This is comparable to being further from the subject. Some distortion can occur (with a fisheye being an extreme example). Foreground objects appear disproportionately larger than background objects.
Macro Lens - A specialty lens that allows focusing on objects MUCH closer than with other lenses. Favored for all closeups (insects, flowers, etc).
Other Terms:
DOF - DOF stands for Depth-of-Field or Depth-of-focus. This describes how much of the shot is in focus (a plain perpendicular to the lens).
Focal Length - The size of a lens. Controls how “zoomed in†or “zoomed out†the picture is. On a 35mm camera a 50mm lens is pretty ‘normal’ and an 85mm lens is a short ‘telephoto’ and a 20mm lens is ‘wide.’ On a lower-end SLR a 50mm is a little bit telephoto.
Crop Factor - The ratio of size of the field of view between various cameras and compared against a 35mm film camera as the baseline. A typical digital SLR has a crop factor of 1.6 (meaning the field of view of the digital chip is smaller than a 35mm film frame). This affects the field of view offered by lenses. For example, a 50mm lens on a typical Digital SLR (DSLR) would be the equivalent of an 80mm lens on a 35mm film camera. A 200mm lens on a typical DSLR would be the same as a 320mm lens on a typical 35mm film camera.
Aperture - The aperture is the size of the opening of the shutter when it fires. It is measured as a fraction (so that 4.0 really means 1/4.0 and 16 means 1/16 and 1.8 means 1/1.8). The smaller the number, the wider the aperture. The wider the aperture, the smaller the DOF and the more light that gets in so the faster the shutter needs to be set.
Shutter Speed - How fast the shutter fires. Conventional wisdom dictates that a camera can be handheld at a shutter speed equal to 1/x where x is the focal length of the lens. For example, if shooting with a 100mm lens, you can handhold the camera up to 1/100 sec. Anything slower (1/50 sec, etc) would need to be balanced on a tripod or monopod or other stabilizer.
ISO - How sensitive the chip is to light. The higher the ISO, the faster the shutter can be set at. ISOs over 200 can start to introduce digital noise (comparable to film grain) with more noise coming from higher ISOs.
Exposure:
There are 3 major factors that affect proper exposure: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture. Adjusting any of these factors affects exposure unless compensated for by either of the other settings.
For example, take the “sunny 16 rule.†The sunny 16 rule is a generalized rule of thumb for achieving proper exposure in sunny conditions. It states that you set the shutter speed to 1/ISO (ie - if using ISO 200 then set the shutter to 1/200 sec), then set the aperture to 1/16 (f-16 or f/16). So a proper exposure would be ISO 200, 1/200 sec, F/16.
Now if you wanted to change the shutter speed because you are using a 300mm lens and don’t have a tripod you could set the shutter to 1/400 sec. This would unbalance the above equation, so you could then compensate by raising the ISO to 400. Now you have ISO 400, 1/400 sec, F/16. Both this setting and the one above give the same exposure.
Depth of Field:
Depth of field is affected by two details: aperture and distance between the camera and the subject. Of these, aperture is the factor that gets manipulated most often when trying to change depth of field. The wider the aperture, the smaller the depth of field. When a lens is “wide open†(using the widest possible aperture, the smallest number) is has the smallest DOF. This is useful for blurring backgrounds and drawing focus where you want it. On the other hand, the smallest possible aperture (anywhere from F/16 on most lenses to F/22 or even F/45 on some lenses) gives the longest DOF. This is most useful in landscape photography where the ideal is to have ALL of the scene in focus.
Distance between camera and subject becomes an issue when shooting Macro photography specifically. When the lens is w/in mere inches from the subject then even a “normal†aperture like F/5.6 can yield a small DOF (a scant couple millimeters). To get all of a macro subject in focus it is usually necessary to shoot a F/8 or F/11 or smaller. This results in slow shutter speeds (see above) unless additional light is brought in (ie - from a flash). Slow shutter speeds increases the chance for motion blur (especially on a breezy day or when the subject is animate, ie a butterfly).
Posts
Happy Holidays, everyone!
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
I'm off to New Mexico today (sorry again Prosp!). Hopefully I'll have some good stuff when I get back.
Badass.
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All of this, plus great cropping/comp.
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Thank you! It was one of the most frustrating self portrait shots I've ever done, but I finally landed one I liked.
It's like James Bond turned into a photographer.
Edit: And I just noticed Ryctor is another Oklahoma PAer. We need to make a club or something.
Two new ones from me taken at around 4 this morning.
Flyingman, I like the both in concept a lot. #2 works for me all the way around, but in #1 the tilted horizon (right side is lower than left) makes me feel a little wonky and that doesn't match the overall mood of the piece.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Cool, so it wasn't just me, I'll straighten the horizon. Me and my partner were staring at it for about 10mins trying to decide whether it looked right or not.
Really lost the intensity of the blue sky due to Internets. Straight from my camera though.
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OR
My boyfriend. This was for a contest.
Both are old pictures.
repostin' dis
great shots everyone!
Also if I could see the whole picture on my screen that might help as well, so please post them smaller. Laptop monitor is small
I'll have you know that Batman does not smell.
He has an musky scent of cinnamon and motor oil.
Yours Sincerely
Bruce Wayne.
Prosp - Maybe the blue lost intensity, but it's a very pretty picture.
Vee - I like them both! I tend to prefer more polished pictures, but those both work really well in my opinion.
Projek - I like subject (especially his expression), lighting, and comp but the focus really bothers me.
Dagook - HAHAHAHA! I love it! Did you (or anyone) by any chance see the "I love satan" picture on Flickr Explore recently? It's a little girl who misspelled santa and it's adorable.
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i guess i'm just delusional :S
My first cyanotype!
Flyingman: I like the crane picture but I wish there was just a little more brightness so we could see more of the crane on the right.
Virum: #1 its very minimal and great. The second is too cluttered.
Dude, you BotP'd yourself!
I really like this. The gray-tones are terrific and the DOF does a nice job of subject/background separation. Very nice.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Thanks in advance.
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Wide end:
17-55 2.8 - $$$$$
Sigma 10-20 - Very popular, reduced in price to something amazing like just above $400
Tokina 11-16 2.8 - extra speed might be useful for some, supposedly superior optics to the Sigma, hard to find...
14-28 2.8 - FX sensor compatible, Insanely priced, but this is the pro choice, even on crop sensors
18-55 AF-S ED II (non-VR) - Just over $100 new. Supposedly superior optics to the VR, I own this and it works as a decent walk around
Mid-Tele's
50mm 1.8 - of course, need internal focus screw or else manual focus only
24-70 2.8 - FX compatible, even more $, supposedly best optics of any zoom lens
28-80 AF-G - Can find these used for like $50. Honestly, mine is almost as sharp as my 50mm in the center. I don't use it much because it is not wide. At all. Screw type focus
105mm AF-D Macro/Micro (non-VR) - Again, better optics than the VR supposedly. Screw type focus. A tad pricey as well...
And of course, if the person never plans on doing professional work, just get the 18-200 and be done with it. You don't get the crazy distortion of an UWA is the only thing they'd probably miss...
Ah snap sorry forgot to mention he has a D40x yeah.
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EDIT: Looking a little more critically, I think you captured terrific atmosphere in #s 4,5, and 6. All three have cool detail in the sky that adds to the cool shots of the house. In all three I think they would benefit from a perspective correction in photoshop to straighten the horizon (I know that recommendation is cliche and easy to make, but it's rare that I see a tilted horizon that adds to the mood of a picture, usually it merely reduces the picture's impact and makes it feel more like a snapshot to me). But yeah - all the shots look great, and 3-6 look great and carry great mood.
It was foggy this morning, and I am a crazy person who endangers everyone on the highway.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Pope - you're absolutely right. It's on the 5d body. Kinda the reason I went from cropped to full frame and got the 24mm. I found that most of my shots from the 17-55mm lens I had on the cropped sensor were at the wide end.
So now I use my legs for zooming.
I agree with you about the horizon. I'll fix later today and reupload.
Edit: Nice tree in the first one. The second would look much better if you used a telephoto and knocked out the background with a shallow DOF, it's a little busy right now.
This photo thread has started off pretty fantastically.
Sorry I've been so absent -- I've been super busy, so I haven't been able to catch up on the threads, and I feel shitty about posting photos when I haven't checked out everything I've missed.
But I'm caught up on this thread, so here's a photo!
Post-processing by not-me
And something else
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I definitely like the clutteredness of it
I should probably point out: post-processing on the first one was not done by me (and I love what the person did with it).
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I do too, actually. The clutteredness is kinda the point of the photo (to me).
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
The second one is very nice.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
I love your first photo pope
I am debating on picking up an Xti and some lenses and seeing what I can do.