The Photography Thread 2

[Brad]

It's all about balancing the 3 things that govern how an image gets picked up by your sensor and prioritising. Such fun!

[speedlolita]

Well yeah, I know that but I've kinda gotten used to manual at this point. Still, I definitely see why someone would use Av. It definitely is fun though. If only I had a better vision for taking pictures of things.

[Brad]

Same issue I have! I've taken hundreds of perfectly exposed photos of scenes that no one would ever want to view :-)

[speedlolita]

I guess you need a "creative vision" or something like that? Maybe I'll get the hang of it in time, playing about with depth of field can be fun though.

[Brad]

PM me your address and I'll lend you this, which I've found to be very good:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-See-Creatively-Bryan-Peterson/dp/0817441816

[fishbowlhead]

Well yeah, I know that but I've kinda gotten used to manual at this point. Still, I definitely see why someone would use Av. It definitely is fun though. If only I had a better vision for taking pictures of things.

I stick to AV mode these days, being able to control aperture quickly but not having to worry about getting the exposure dial correct for every scene you wander through is much easier, especially if your going in and out of buildings and the light is changing constantly.


An iPhone5 pic from nevis, got some more nice scenery ones and a candid of my pal to upload to flickr still.


d7000 shots.

[speedlolita]

Really amazing shots, must have been amazing just to view through your eyes too!

From what I have seen of the iPhone 5s too, the camera seems rather good for a mobile phone.

[Anpanman]

Thanks all for the words, I’ll try and get some samples uploaded over the weekend if I get the time, I'll also put some thoughts up on the D610.


Yakumo, there is a story to the 200mm. I originally bought the VRI version just as the VRII was launched as it dropped in price (it’s actually more expensive now by around ?1k than when I bought it).
Anyway last year it developed a fault out of guarantee and after repeated attempts Nikon UK couldn’t fix so in the end they sent it to Nikon JP but without any promise of them being able to fix it, so they offered me the VRII as a swap for the cost of the repair which was under ?150, I of course said yes.

[Yakumo]

Wow, you lucky bugger, what a great deal you got and also how nice of Nikkon to offer you VRII. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can pull off with that set up.

[Anpanman]

Cheers Yakumo, yep Nikon have had some bad press in some quarters but for me they've been excellent. Was considering jumping to Canon but their customer service ensured another sale of a camera body and lens for them.

Talking of which, so…the D610.
Not so good things;
The viewfinder focus points as anywhere online will probably tell you are far too centric, it’s obviously much better than one central spot but I have struggled a few times with it and have had to focus lock – shift position – shoot to get a pic I wanted. Just will have to live with it I suppose. Be interesting to see how I cope with the plane shots, should be ok but it certainly could be better.
Colours out of the box are ****e – well certainly skin tones are, our daughter looks like she has a terminal illness using the stock settings. I ‘upgraded’ from a Fuji S2pro which in my mind the Fuji’s just can’t be beaten for out the box colours.
Luckily the Nikons like I suppose other DSLR’s have tonal settings you can play around with and save etc and I’m now pretty happy with the settings I have.

Good things;
Other than the above – WOW! I honestly in my wildest dreams didn’t expect the quality of shots I’m getting, I realise I’m upgrading from an eleven year old DSLR but I thought the shots would be similar but just bigger (6mp v 24mp) – how wrong I was.
When you look at what this camera can do in the lab (dxomark etc) and when at base ISO it puts the D4’s of this world to shame it really is a shame that it is marketed as a poor man’s or beginners full frame.
Just a point on the FF – looking through the viewfinder brings back all the good memories of film shooting, it’s like being at the cinema compared to looking down a toilet-roll tube on the Fuji.
Loads of great features but the best is the auto-ISO. Even our six year old point and shoot Lumix has an auto ISO setting but Nikon take it a step further here as it will automatically map to the focal length of the lens for handheld shooting, so for example with the 28mm the feature will kick in if the speed required or set is under 1/30 sec, with the 200mm 1/200 sec and so on, but it goes further as you can basically say, ‘right today I’m shooting some action so I need a speed faster than handheld’, the system with then lock in one or two stops more depending on your preference so the 28mm goes to 1/60 or 1/125 and the 200mm 1/400 or 1/800. You can also tell the system to go the other way if for example you are using a mono/tripod.
You can also lock the system to a headline ISO of your choosing, so if you don’t want to go over 1600 ISO it won’t.
You can even use the system in manual, just choose a speed and aperture and let the camera sort the ISO, I basically leave it on all the time.
I’ve found the system seems to be almost stepless when use, so it doesn’t go from whatever base ISO you start with say 100 then go 200, 400, 800 etc. I got shots taken at 180, 250, 320, 900…
I’ve not tried the Hi ISO settings but even shots I’ve taken at 6400 exhibit less noise it seems than at 400 taken with my dear old Fuji.
Finally, in the hand it’s very comfy and easier to carry all day than my previous, it is a tad on the small side but thankfully for me it’s not the genuine ‘small’ form factor of other models.

[speedlolita]

Even with my 70D, coming from a Nikon D60 the difference was night and day in terms of low light performance. All the other settings too, and the difference between those two camera is a mere 5 years, though I suppose the D60 is lower end.

Have you played around with any high speed shooting yet? I find this to be a massive difference between my older camera and my more modern body.

[Garf]

One from the weekend - first time out with the camera in about 6 weeks..

Harbour by GarySmith70, on Flickr

[MartyG]

Moon was pretty bright last night, got a shot with my Nikon D70 and 200-400mm lens - not the best camera to use for this really, but that's the camera the lens is attached to. I will get a good moon shot one day ...

[fishbowlhead]

You don't realise how quickly the moon moves until you try to take a good picture of it.

[Anpanman]

Have you played around with any high speed shooting yet? I find this to be a massive difference between my older camera and my more modern body.

Only a little, but you are right, my Fuji was 2fps with a buffer of about five shots in RAW, the 610 is 6fps and a RAW buffer of around 18. As soon as you touch the release two shots have gone...amazing.