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(OT) photography/video
i just took up photography 
i’ts something i’ve wanted to take a little more serious for a long time so i can shoot video footage and stills to put my own music too and maybe even others music..
there’s a lot of language to learn here with this world, but i’m going to try to gather as much as i can and shoot azillion images while i learn what works and how it all works..
just got a decent entry level nikon d3500 for my bday, which seems to get a lot of praise for what it can do especially for a beginner just starting out. i’ve used the diana f+ for a long time and of course my iphone camera but i figured it was time to get something with more features to dive deeper..
any other photographers in here? id love to see your work / youtube / ig stuff and anything on the web that you find is a good resource for learning as well just any random chat on the topic!
Comments
My second passion. I'm doing it since I was a child.
I'm rarely posting images on public sites but if you want to know anything that Google can't answer, feel free to ask! I've had all kinds of cameras, lenses, software, done a lot of experiments with night and available light shots, panos, gigapixel images etc. and my girl friend always has to be very patient when we're out and I've got the cams with me 😁
Still in the darkroom here - though not as much these days since taking up music again. Studied fine art and documentary photography at Uni (when you could!). Did assist a pro wedding photographer for a year or so but not my thing so just do it as a hobby these days.
I have a few examples of my prints on Flickr.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajmillerphoto/
Any questions you have I’ll help if I can.
I’d say the mechanics are easy to suss out but composition is the thing to get right - learning to frame a shot (works for both stills and video). When people tell you composition doesn’t matter believe me it does. Learn the basics of composition (rule of thirds etc) then put them behind you! Then, when you develop you own style of composition it will be underpinned by the solid basics. Hope that makes sense?
I do like taking shots of mostly landscapes and nature while I'm out and about, but it's all only with my phone camera (iPhone SE). I do try to use software to make the best of it though (manual HDR composition, mini-tripod when necessary, etc.)
https://www.instagram.com/lordlandscape/
I still like my iPhone 3gs cam a lot for it's immediacy and 'half sharp half grainy' shots
But I can't deny my roots from traditional photography (meditation in visuals...).
After reading about adapting manual lenses to digicams, I took the plunge with a small EPL3 by Olympus and it turned out to be a 100% hit of the nail.
The cam is set to 'no lens', manual exposure, no noise reduction, stabilizer off... and just delivers pictures. No motor noise, no in and out moving of the lens (saves battery, too).
Plenty of 'old' quality lenses available - I'm as happy as can be and really enjoy shooting again.
(in the age of film costs were about $1 per shot... with Kodachrome or Fuji Velvia)
Really enjoy photography, currently have four cameras, 3 digital ~
Fujifilm XE3
Fujifilm X30
Ricoh GRII
And one 35mm film camera ~
Lomo LCA
Really like the results of shooting film but the costs are somewhat restrictive.
I've been into photography since I was a kid.
I've posted some stuff on my website:
B&W film is my favourite medium. I have one digital camera, my iPhone (main camera these days!) and about a thousand film cameras.
I processed a bulk loaded roll of HP5 last weekend, in rodinal (equiv). To test the meter in a Ricoh RF500 (comparing with a Weston Euromaster). First dev since my scanner broke a few years ago.
Another life-long photographer here, all for fun apart from a few gigs here and there. I love black and white photography and, until recently, shot all film, but am now using about 50/50 film and digital. I don't post many of my images, but here's a gallery of a recent trip home to England:
http://www.djcphoto.com/index.php/england-2020/
I also like photography, I have a darkroom and use an old Leica plus a rolleiflex with film. Bresson is an idol of mine. Check his stuff out.
this is cool to see here and very inspiring for a noob that’s still figuring out aperture , shutter speed , iso and everything else! i’ve got a good grip on the terms and sorta when to flip the settings... i’m avoiding all the auto stuff this camera has because i feel i have a good sense of composition and framing from being a life long artist, not saying i can’t improve i def need to lol but i am just saying i don’t want the camera doing the work for me while i work on composition and the like... i’m going in this with the, im up to be challenged mind set.
i think the best way to understand it all is to just blaze thru sd cards of practice... doing close ups, long shots, fast targets, slow targets...
i feel like i’m learning distance shots quicker than close ups...i can’t take Good pic of my coffee mug to save my life but i can capture the suburban landscape decently with some kinda perspective and focus...funny cuz with my iphone the close ups are a bit easier cuz it does a lot of the work...
what would you guys say has been your biggest challenge and or your biggest struggle with this skill??
btw i’m going thru all these links and super impressed with a lot of these shots... you guys are really making me want to get out there and shoot!
i’ll continue to revisit them as the days go on but def wanted to say there are some very impressive images here!!!
i’m excited to learn this as i need something to clear my mind from just doing synth stuff and focus on a different area
Biggest challenge/struggle is always ‘subject’ for me. Suppose it comes down to the motivation for taking photos. At uni had projects to work on and I got into that frame of mind - some conceptual stuff which I enjoyed. I was living in Manchester U.K. at the time - cities are great subjects, always changing. We moved to our current rural location in North York’s and it was a big change for me subject wise. There’s only so many trees, streams and sunsets I feel I can photograph without getting bored. I think that’s one of the main reasons I came back into music.
i can def see subject being something as a challenge in many ways... and having to go from what you originally liked about photography, like nature shots then being burnt on it. maybe switch to more action shots, to try a new challenge or something you haven’t yet.
to me i think editing will be a big challenge, i don’t have any experience there only with music...and i often wonder how much of a great photo is really great due to proper editing as opposed to the raw original picture
also i do want to stick to ios for my photo editing, i am not going to mess with my laptop haha not for a while, maybe if i get really awesome...
so i’m open to ios recommendations for editing apps, id spend up to 60$ probably
I'm not using iOS apps for editing except the native photo editing which is sufficient for many common corrections, which I use for editing the iPad photo album.
If you want everything iOS then make sure you have a look at Affinity Photo.
How much you gain with RAW depends on how good well your camera processes the RAW image into JPEG, manufacturers are still quite different there.
Check out the full review of your camera on dpreview.com, on the Image Quality page you can compare manually Adobe-processed RAW with JPEG out-of-camera at different ISO settings. Many people say that RAW is the only way to go but my take on it is that it isn't always necessary. Just do both in the beginning so you get a feeling for how much you really lose without shooting RAW.
About close-ups:
You will need a high f-stop number and still, if your plan is to get a close subject with some relevant depth completely sharp from front to back, you'll need specialized software that can take multiple shots with different focus spots from front to back done on a stable tripod and merge them into one sharp image.
You will prefer to do the individual shots with an average f-stop number because although you get the best depth of field, most lenses are less sharp at the highest f-stop number.
I took up photography about 7 years ago, and have been fortunate enough to win several competitions - winning a fair bit of photography gear and enough cash prizes to fund some hardware synths (plus a small steady stream of income from listing photos on Getty Images).
But my interest has trailed off a bit as I've become more obsessed with synths the last year or two.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/84018718@N07/
High f-stop numbers are very different on a digital sensor because film has a random pattern, while digital sensors use a grid structure, which leads to interference.
In most cases up to 5.6 is safe, 8 is kind of boundary and beyond that blur sets in.
A sharp lens at 'full open' is an expensive thing.
An often overlooked feature is the number of blades used in the diaphragm (effectively the shape of the 'hole') which plays an important role how out of focus content is pictured.
The attribute is named 'bokee' (great, pleasing, annoying, smooth, whatever...)
It depends on the lens construction, too - not only the blades.
Thank you very much
that’s what i was messing with today just taking the same photo over and over again with differnt f settings, iso and and shutter speeds... i def got my best pics outdoors with an over cast around 5-7 , but i kinda overwhelmed myself with the process haaha i need to write down my experiences as settings...
so basically l need a good software to take all my pics and kinda blur them into the final product that most likely one shot isn’t going to be good consistently good enough
that’s kinda where i have been trying to stay 5-8 but as a noob i’m testing all the things.. i just have a couple of kit lenses that came with the nikon d3500 , i assume they are more all around lenses than specialty lenses... but maybe thats good for starting out... i’ve been looking into the nikon AF-S DX Micro NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G for close up shots but ima wait until i know more and watch some reviews
one thing i’ve tried to understand is , the lenses have an f# and the camera lets you set and f#... is there some kind of range you should stay in based upon the lenses #? or is that not really related
Oh yea, that's an essential choice not only for the depth of field (try it live with a closer and a more distant object) but also for image quality.
A few excellent lenses have rather consistent IQ over a relatively large f-stop range but most (usually but not necessaeily) cheaper ones don't.
Check the lens reviews on imaging-resource.com and see the lenses tagged "Lab tested" for sharpness, vignetting and CA charts at different f-stops.
Some lenses have quite a narrow range of "good" f-stops and I've even glued a little post-it between camera back alt tiltanle LCD so I can look up optimum f-stops for different lenses.
If you think about macro, make sure you not only check out typical macro lenses but also others with a macro function.
That's how I ended up with the fantastic Sony G 90mm F2.8 macro telephoto lens. A fast (both low f.stop and fast AF) lens that doubles as a great Macro lens.
I'm usually trying to find the best compromise between image quality, flexibility when shooting and low lens count.
I might be an exotic in that I find DSLRs totally inappropriate for how I use lenses, I rather prefer the cameras to be as small as possible so I always have a body attached to every lens.
The best photographer can only do so much if he's not quick enough to capture a passing motif.
The 2 Kit-Zooms seem to be quite solid lenses (according to comments), but I couldn't find any details.
Your cam has an APS-C sensor, so any 'classic' lens will have a focal length of 1.5x what's printed on it.
Those lenses from the film age were designed for full frame 36x24mm (twice the size of APS-C), which means they had to keep up IQ over a larger area, the edges being most critical.
But since APS-C crops that part of the image completely, you only use the 'best part' of the lense's performance.
Such lenses are very affordable, but you loose auto-focus and auto diaphragm control.
Auto-Exposure is still possible by setting the cam to aperture priority (it will then alter shutter speed matching whatever aperture you manually set).
There are adaptor rings for almost any mount to your Nikon format, starting at about $20.
I mention this option for 2 reasons: price and 'picture character'.
My current zoom was $10 from a thrift store, just picked it as something to start and didn't expect anything from it (Exacta budget brand). But recently got compliments by my neighbour (shooting with a Sony full frame) for the IQ of some shoots.
The lens definitey has it's flaws and is a mechanical nightmare, but I learned about it's strengths and weaknesses rather quickly.
Modern lenses are technically great and (most) even picture sharper than life... while a lot of oldies have a kind of painting the image. That doesn't mean they blur, but colors and contrast are somewhat different.
Expect $100-200 for excellent classic lenses, $500-1000 for modern types.
What kind of closeup shots ?
Is it about Objects in 1-3 ft distance or macro of like bugs and flowers ?
The latter case is very specific for it's extremely short field of focus if the target moves.
You often don't focus at all but just move the cam a tiny bit.
I'm not shure if auto-focus is of much help in that scenario because the cam doesn't know about your specific target.
It's different from the standard face recognition and eye focussing technique of modern devices.
Imho it's easier to use a longer focal range for near objects. I often shoot with an effective length of 150mm from about 1ft distance (the macro setting of the zoom).
that sony lens sounds really great! now can you use sony lenses on nikon camera..do they fit? is it considered blasphemy 🤣? i don’t know these things cuz they aren’t synths lol
i’ll def check out that website and see what people think...i want to make smart choices here as i still want most of my money to go to music gear 🤣 and i’m sure i’llwant a better camera someday, this one should be good for a while as i figure it all out.
right now i have two lenses which are probably pretty basic in terms of whats out there.
what do to guys think about auto focus anyway? i have it turned off as i was trying to not have the camera hold my hand too much... but as i read online it seems a lot of people use it and say that this nikon camera has superb AF ... but i have nothing to base it on in personal experience.
and i want to do close up nature shots and cigar shots , beer shots ..etc still objects mostly...i can’t seem to get good result from my current lenses but i’ve barley had enough time to really dig in and try...
A good lens is pretty important, fixed lens give better results than zoom lens and also helps in the study of photography.
I would suggest that to start with, set the camera to Aperture Priority mode. Let the camera choose ISO so that the shutter speed doesn't go too low (this will probably default to about 1/60 which is fine to start with).
Now, when you change the aperture you will learn what effects different apertures have on your image.
Buy yourself a 'nifty 50' if you want to get really shallow depth of field as you'll find your kit lens a bit wanting in this department. A 50mm f1.8 prime lens is about as cheap as lenses get and are usually fantastic quality.
In Aperture priority mode, when you feel you want to override the built in meter, just use exposure compensation instead. You will probably want to override the meter for things like backlit subjects, when the meter doesn't know if you want a silhouette or you want to expose for a subject not the background (in which case the background will probably blow-out to white).
By using exposure compensation you will learn how your meter works. The EXIF information will record the compensation so you can see what effects your changes have, and when the meter was right and when you were right to override it. Meters are usually very good, but they can't be right all the time and there are times when you want creative control over a scene and may want it to be darker/lighter than mid grey. (Meters are set to average grey over the whole scene -- so a white cat in a snowstorm would be a grey upon grey. Same for a black cat in a coal shed -- you need to know when to take control).
When people take landscape photos, it's quite common to bracket, so you take one photo as per meter, then one (or more) longer and one shorter exposure using the compensation dial. For a landscape I'd do zero, +1 stop and -1 stop on a tripod and I'd shoot RAW so would be able to reclaim highlights and shadows if necessary.