Beginners Crash Course in photography...written by a noob for noobs

[golfinz]

Originally Posted by TurboFan

Try a higher ISO number. Or turn on some lights! If all else fails, you need a speedlight.

Was my "suggestion" close? I keep forgetting about the damn ISO

[TurboFan]

Originally Posted by golfinz

Was my "suggestion" close? I keep forgetting about the damn ISO

Yes, aperture then ISO, unless you are concerned with DoF. Then ISO first. We can discuss the effect of aperture on picture sharpness in the intermediate thread.

Originally Posted by golfinz

So to set the white balance, you just get a white index card/a piece of white computer paper and shoot it and then that is the default/auto white color?

Basically. You need a heavy piece of paper, something that won't allow the light to shine through. It also needs to fill the frame, but focus isn't an issue.

[golfinz]

Great! I will add those when I get to my computer (on my iPhone now)

Other than what has been discussed where should we go from here? What about some generic/basic settings for the apeture, ISO, shutter in generic situation bc I'm sure you guys have a starting point for when you know you will be in a certain situation. For example, if your shooting outside and it's sunny with no clouds, do you have go to settings that seem to work?

I feel that maybe just a generic jumping board for settings would be helpful, then we experiment on our own to figure out what looks the best and what doesn't.

[TurboFan]

whew, that's a tall order. I started by shooting an old Nikkormat. No AF, no motor drive, no nada. It was very advanced for its time because it had TTL metering. Sort of. It even had split ring focusing. Thing is a dinosaur, but I love it.

I remember taking 40-50 rolls of film to the lab to have developed, maybe get them to print me an 8x10 proof card for each roll. I couldn't afford to have all the rolls printed, so I'd look at the negatives on a slide board. Maybe even set them in slide holders - you want to trip people out, project your negatives with a slide projector . After a while, when I had some money, I'd buy different photo mags each month. I'd read those, try out some different things, experiment a bunch.

About 5 years ago I got a Nikon D100. I went crazy learning all kinds of new things. I'd shoot 500 frames a week, easy, just learning more and more about what I could do, trying new lenses, etc. I shot 100,000 frames on that camera in 2 years! Still works great, talked to the girl I sold it to and she took it in for routine service - clean bill of health.

All that is to say there comes a point when you need to get off the bench and get in the game. I learned a lot by trying to make an image and failing, trying again, failing again, etc. Each time I'd stop and think about what I was doing wrong, where my MMF could be, and go try again. But each time I would come back to these basics. I still do when I'm getting setup for a shoot. Experience lets me get close on aperture, ISO, WB, shutter speed, etc, but I still meter for final exposure, think about how my camera is setup, and then take 20 shitty pictures while I dial things in. I guess digital makes us all a bit lazy, but at least I'm not going broke in my laziness anymore!

To answer your question, there is a common saying called "Sunny 16" or in other words, f/16 on a sunny day. Shooting on snow? Better stop it down a couple notches.....then you better watch out for shadows....oops its dark....adjust your aperture again, because you want to keep your shutter speeds at a minimum of 1/focal length for a hand-held shot......adjust again because most lenses perform best at their middle aperture settings....adjust again, my camera only goes to 1/8000 for shutter speed.......etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc....

[Seminole]

Thanks for the input guys! Sorry about the thread jack.

[golfinz]

Finally got my D90...have taken about 300 shots today just messing around between the A and S setting. I love this thing!! One question that seems to be frustrating, I am a noob remember lol, when Im inside and Im taking a picture of my dog for example and I dont want the flash (I dont want her lit up because I like the light already in the room) my pictures come out black? Im using the Apeture priority because I want her clear and the background faded out...do I need to raise the iso?

[TurboFan]

A bunch of things you must remember....

1. You like the light in the room, but your eye is far more sensitve to light than the CCD in your camera. So what looks like enough light to you may not be enough for your camera.

2. In the viewfinder of the camera are little squares. If you are set to spot or center weighted metering, a different square is highlighted when you press the different directions on the control pad on the back of the camera. The camera uses this square to determine what you want to meter and focus upon. If you move the square to the edge or corner, the camera will meter for the corner of the image.

I bring this up because if the square is not on your subject, the camera will meter for whatever the square is upon. If your dog is center of the view finder, and the illuminated square is on the edge, your camera will make aperture priority determinations based on the edge of the image.

3. When you are using TTL (through the lens) metering, the camera is metering for 18% grey (a light grey color to us). However, the camera doesn't see color, it sees light intensity. So experiment.

4. Skip A and S settings. Go straight to M. Learn to shoot in manual mode, and you will learn how to use your camera.

5. Metering - put the square in your view finder on your subject and lightly depress the shutter release. There should be a little bar graph in the bottom of the view finder. Adjust aperture and shutter to get to a metered exposure. Later, you can build in an offset for metering if you find your camera meters a little light or a little dark (it does).

6. Speedlight - If you manage your white balance and flash bounce, you can get your speedlight photography to look like natural light. You need an external speedlight that can bounce off the ceiling, or a diffuser box, to avoid harsh shadows. The built-in speedlight on your camera will not work for this.


Lastly, to answer your question, you may need to increase the ISO setting. However, make sure you are metering the correct object in your view finder.

[golfinz]

Well...leaving for yellowstone tomorrow at 6am. Ive got a good amount of practice with the camera already, hope to get more acquainted with it over the week and to bring back some good shots.

Here is a shot of my car with my new wheels:

[TurboFan]

Very nice. Post processing?

[PNF]

actually, A or S (if you use Canon), functions are great depending on the situation.

When I shoot sports-related photographs, I use shutter priority a lot, just because there are certain shots I want to capture still and some shots I dont, and on manual mode, it will make me "miss" the shot I want if I keep adjusting for the shutter/aperture. So, I wouldnt say dont use A or S mode, but you need to know what you're shooting.

Also, if you go in and out of a building a lot when you shoot (i.e. on sight seeing vacation), it is good to set on Aperture priority mode, which I use fairly often just for general purpose, and I dont hve to do too much and adjust all the time.

When I shoot something that I know that I will do some processing or just want to get "the" shot, then I use M then adjust it from there.


On the ISO, rule of thumb for me is if I am shooting interior, I use ISO400 at most or sometimes 800, depending on the importance of the photo I guess.

Shooting outside, I always stay at 100 or 200 at most.

I have pretty fast lens, so I can afford to stay at 400 or under doing interior shoot as I have a 17-55 f2.8 for general purpose lens and also 50mm f1.4 and 70-200 f2.8 IS.

So, good lens can help you a lot in terms of the setting flexibility.


PS. The above knowledget are EXCELLENT!! Those are perfect for those who just begin in photography and those are all you need to know when you start out. You dont need anything else.

once you master all those, then you can start thinking above of the TTL lighting/exposure/metering algorithms and etc to think about the photo.

Personally, I use ETTL mostly on my flash and I find canon camera body + speedlight 580EX II do very good job in calculating what I need. (plus I'm lazy shooting in Multi/M or TTL modes most of the time anyway).

[LaYzEe]

Originally Posted by golfinz

You brought up a good point about RAW vs jpg, and here is how I understand it (may be completely wrong though): jpg files are MUCH MUCH smaller than RAW files and from the minimal knowledge I have acquired, the differences are when you edit a jpg file you lose some clarity but with a RAW file, you can edit it as many times as you want and the clarity stays constant. Is that even remotely close?

+1

thats how i understand it too...so i hope its right?

as for me, i use jpg becuase its just more convenient to open in PS...lol. yeh i know im layzee

quick question though, i just downloaded noise ninja via bittorrent...any of u guys use this program? i heard good reviews of it and i used it on a few pics and it does take out some graininess, imo.

[golfinz]

Originally Posted by TurboFan

Very nice. Post processing?

Thanks. Very little post...I just have a trial version of what comes with the d90...capture nx I think. I've been able to change the apeture/shutter speed/ISO and adjusting the exposure in the camera so I don't need a lot of post work

[TurboFan]

I love captureNX. It's great for a nikon.

[TurboFan]

I missed this

The apeture often controls the Depth of Field...DoF. DoF, basically, is what is in focus in the picture; a shallow DoF means the closer objects are in focus and the background is blurry...a larger DoF means to more of the picture is in focus. The lower the apeture (lower number/larger opening) the more shallow the DoF/the closer objects are in focus and the background is blurry. The higher the apeture (higher number/smaller opening) the more the entire picture is in focus.

That's not entirely true.

You can focus on anything you chose, even with a wide open aperture. The depth of field is relative to the distance of the object focused upon to the focal plane. You could have something way off in the distance in focus, and something up close could be out of focus. However, when most people talk about depth of field, they are talking about having something up close in focus and something in the background out of focus.

I might re-write the bolded section to say

fewer objects will be in focus, with either the foreground or background being blurry

[dcstep]

Here's a nice discussion of exposure, with examples:

Shutterbug Re Exposure

Dave

[golfinz]

Originally Posted by dcstep

Here's a nice discussion of exposure, with examples:

Shutterbug Re Exposure

Dave

Nice read! Added ISO discussion on my first post.

As an update for myself, I started shooting in manual mode two nights ago (my night shots of my 335 are in the picture forum) because I needed too in order to get the shots, A, S, or Auto just didnt cut it. Ive been playing around with it a lot more and I now can somewhat put the pieces of Apeture, SS, and white balance together to get a good shot. Now I just need a strong editing software to perfect the pictures.

[dcstep]

Originally Posted by golfinz

Nice read! ... Now I just need a strong editing software to perfect the pictures.

I've got Photoshop CS4, and it's really good for heavy editing, BUT I find DxO's Optics Pro superior for RAW conversion and batch process of hundreds of images at a time. DxO has camera-specific and lens-specific correction at each focal length and each aperature, making a good zoom look like a set of prime lens. It does dynamic range expansion (highlight recovery), geometric correction and allows for tuning saturation, contrast, etc., etc., all in a batch mode.

With DxO I'll spend an hour setting up maybe 200 images, straightening horizons, adjusting saturation to taste, dealing with brightness issues, etc.
Then I run the batch while I'm doing something else as the program spends about a minute each on each image.

I use PS for cloning out unwanted components, making more dramatic color changes or even combining images. The things that I do with DxO in one-hour would take many hours in PS, but PS does have a much larger palette of possibilities. I really recommend both, since they work together seamlessly. The two programs are at the ultimate ends of the spectrum in ease of use, with DxO being very user friendly and PS being incredibly complex, requiring serious training time.

Dave

[TurboFan]

Originally Posted by golfinz

Nice read! Added ISO discussion on my first post.

As an update for myself, I started shooting in manual mode two nights ago (my night shots of my 335 are in the picture forum) because I needed too in order to get the shots, A, S, or Auto just didnt cut it. Ive been playing around with it a lot more and I now can somewhat put the pieces of Apeture, SS, and white balance together to get a good shot. Now I just need a strong editing software to perfect the pictures.

Before you go crazy in post, try a few high quality filters for your lenses. I have a couple I like. One is a warming circ polarizer, another is a -2 gradient filter and the last is a blue gradient. You can get some crazy blue skies with the blue gradient filter. Love all of them.

[justakid88]

stick

[Augenbrauezug]

This guide was perfect to help me get started!

I also found this to be helpful and a little more in depth, a great 2nd step.

http://berniesumption.com/photograph...ide-for-geeks/

[The1]

I'm surprised nobody (even the guys who used to run film regularly) haven't pointed out the exposier sample button on the body of the cameras...

it's by no means a perfect sample that it gives, but it can give you an idea if you are shooting a bit dark or narrow on depth of feild.

It's a good tool for someone who might be learning, if you don't want to rely on the light meter 100% especially since the light meter doesn't show DOF where the sample button can.

[InCityPhoto]

Not sure if this has been posted but if you are just starting out, go pick up this book.



Great VERY easy to understand book about everything exposure.