Photography

[canadianoverlanders]

Here, I shot this years ago with a Nikon D3000 and an 18-55 kit lens. Photography is a lot about what you do, not what your camera can do.
View attachment 35977

Did you get some help to explain everything the camera does or did you just learn by doing? This old dog can learn new tricks, any suggestions? Thanks.


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[WUzombies]

Did you get some help to explain everything the camera does or did you just learn by doing? This old dog can learn new tricks, any suggestions? Thanks.


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I read some really good books like Understanding Exposure and shot hundreds of thousands of frames working on specific skills and techniques I wanted to try to master. I've since wrote my own beginner's how-to photography book that condenses a lot of how I approach photography into easy to digest and understand (ex not overly technical) pieces to Take Control of Your Camera.

 

[Steve]

@Just_us Here's a link to a Kindle book that might be interesting for you. I've not read it, but based on a friend's suggestion, I just bought it to peruse. http://amzn.to/2g6wnfd

I've since wrote my own beginner's how-to photography book that condenses a lot of how I approach photography into easy to digest and understand (ex not overly technical) pieces to Take Control of Your Camera.

 

[WJ - Firefly]

@Just_us Here's a link to a Kindle book that might be interesting for you. I've not read it, but based on a friend's suggestion, I just bought it to peruse. http://amzn.to/2g6wnfd

Thanks Steve!

 

[Scott Murray]

Here are a few of mine from Tasmania.

The Boat Shed - Cradle Mountain Tasmania by Scott Murray, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott Murray, on Flickr

Untitled by Scott Murray, on Flickr

Overland Track by Scott Murray, on Flickr

 

[WUzombies]

@Just_us Here's a link to a Kindle book that might be interesting for you. I've not read it, but based on a friend's suggestion, I just bought it to peruse. http://amzn.to/2g6wnfd

Thank you!

 

[Justin Roach]

I've been in photography for a couple years now and have a D3300. Last year I got the sigma 17-50 f2.8 and I love it. Good camera to start out with and love the lens. I highly recommend better glass over a better body.

Here are a couple of my pictures from camping trips, let me know what you think :).

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[Terry Pickens]

I've been in photography for a couple years now and have a D3300. Last year I got the sigma 17-50 f2.8 and I love it. Good camera to start out with and love the lens. I highly recommend better glass over a better body.

Here are a couple of my pictures from camping trips, let me know what you think :).

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Yes better glass any day than a better camera. My son has the same system you do, with the addition of a Nikon 35 f1.8 and he loves it.

 

[WUzombies]

Yes better glass any day than a better camera. My son has the same system you do, with the addition of a Nikon 35 f1.8 and he loves it.

I have the same Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 and the Nikon 35 f/1.8 DX lens. To add to that list the Nikon 12-24 f/4 is absolutely amazing and one of my all time favorite APS-C landscape lenses. Tokina offers a similar lens for less than you'll find the Nikon offering, but I haven't run that lens before and couldn't directly recommend it. I have a Tokina 16-28 f/2.8 that I love, even though it has some odd artifacting (rainbow lens flare off of lights, especially at night)



Sigma lens:




Nikon 12-24:

 

[Terry Pickens]

I have the same Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 and the Nikon 35 f/1.8 DX lens. To add to that list the Nikon 12-24 f/4 is absolutely amazing and one of my all time favorite APS-C landscape lenses. Tokina offers a similar lens for less than you'll find the Nikon offering, but I haven't run that lens before and couldn't directly recommend it. I have a Tokina 16-28 f/2.8 that I love, even though it has some odd artifacting (rainbow lens flare off of lights, especially at night)



Sigma lens:

View attachment 36178
View attachment 36179

Nikon 12-24:

View attachment 36180

I also have a Sigma 10-20 f3.5 and that is also a fantastic lens. My bag also consists of theNikon 35 f1.8, 50 f1.8, 85 f1.8 and my travel lens is a Sigma 18-250 f3.5-5.6. Lenses I use most are the 35mm and 10-20 mm.

 

[toxicity_27]

On our honeymoon to Western South Dakota we took around 300 pictures. My wife used the camera on auto (she wants to learn more), and I was able to do Shutter Priority and play around with it to see how it affected the photos. Was great fun learning how to use it more. Now I want some different lenses to do more video, and zoom on stuff since the kit 18-55 leaves a lot of room for improvement.

These are the lenses I'm looking at. Thoughts?

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/20067/af-p-dx-nikkor-10-20mm-f%2f4.5-5.6g-vr.html

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/20062/af-p-dx-nikkor-70-300mm-f%2f4.5-6.3g-ed-vr.html

 

[Steve]

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-pr...-p-dx-nikkor-70-300mm-f/4.5-6.3g-ed-vr.html

The 18-300 is a *much* nicer lens. You can then sell the 18-55 to make up for some of the difference.

 

[toxicity_27]

The 18-300 is a *much* nicer lens. You can then sell the 18-55 to make up for some of the difference.

Are you talking the ~$1000 lens, or the ~$700 lens?

 

[Steve]

$1000 lens

^^
[EDIT]

Actually, probably either. I didn't realize they had two of the same range in the DX lenses. Either would likely be a big improvement. I had the $700 18-200 10 years ago on my D200, and it lived on the camera 99% of the time.

 

[Boort]

@toxicity_27

These are the lenses I'm looking at. Thoughts?
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/20067/af-p-dx-nikkor-10-20mm-f%2f4.5-5.6g-vr.html
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/20062/af-p-dx-nikkor-70-300mm-f%2f4.5-6.3g-ed-vr.html

I've been shooting the full frame 70-300mm for about 10 years, as much as I like this lens for a single lens solution I'd recommend the 28-300mm VR version that was released a few years ago. For what I like shoot (except nightscapes) this lens would be the only lens I'd need.

I would suggest that you look at the DX equivalent 18-300mm VR ( http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/2216/af-s-dx-nikkor-18-300mm-f%2f3.5-6.3g-ed-vr.html ) In most cases you could mount this lens and never take it off. (for $300 more you can get the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR which buys you about 1/4 stop of light at the long end, and I'd hope some sharpness and less vignetting but I've not shot both side by side.)

If you would like something that is a bit lighter (on the neck strap and wallet) check out the 18-200 VRII ( http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/2192/af-s-dx-nikkor-18-200mm-f%2f3.5-5.6g-ed-vr-ii.html ) Trading less on the telephoto end for weight and size reduction.

On the wide end of DX I can't make any recommendations other than to say that with modern software, and a piece of paracord you can set your zoom to the 18mm setting, F/8 and shoot a quick 3 frame pano to get wider in many outdoors situations.

Boort

 

[Steve]

and a piece of paracord

Care to expand on the technique you're referring to?

 

[Boort]

Care to expand on the technique you're referring to?

@Steve

Gladly. Prep the paracord as follows:

1. Cut a piece of paracord about as long as you are tall.
   
2. Tie a stopper knot (1/2 hitch, Squareknot, etc...) at one end.
   
3. Tie a slipknot in the other end so the tail of the slipknot adjusts the size of the loop.
   
4. Stand on the end with the stopper knot and locate the slipknot so that it is about shoulder height when the rope is taught.

To take the Pano frames:

1. Put the loop around our lens, snug it up around the middle of the barrel.
2. Drop the knotted end to the ground, let it hang plumb, step on it.
3. Hold Camera in Vertical/Portrait orientation, Focus and frame the left most shot of the pano. Take picture.
4. Keeping the cord taught, and plumb pivot around the cord to the right until whatever was center right edge is now centered in the viewfinder. Take picture.
5. Keeping the cord taught, and plumb pivot around the cord to the right until whatever was center right edge of the previous photo is now centered in the viewfinder. Take picture.
6. Repeat Step 5 until you have the frames you need for your pano. Be sure to get an extra frame on each end.
7. Take a pic of your finger or lens cap to mark the end of the pano.
8. Use your favorite pano stitching software to stitch the pano together. (I've used Lightroom select the frames, <Ctrl/Cmd>+M, Merge to pano in Photoshop or hugin http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ )

This works well for single row panos as long as you have a static scene and nothing too close in the foreground. With some practice it can be used for multi-row panos as well (by tilting the camera within the loop then pivoting around)

Here is an early example of my results, 6 frames Shot with a Fuji s3Pro and the Nikon 70-300mm at 70mm, from Boreas Pass CO

Basically out of LR with some Cropping to get rid of some waviness around the edges.


Here is another from Trail Ridge Road in RMNP about a year later, same gear, 15 frames (Orig 26,562x4449 pixels):

You can see that I forgot to take the camera off Aperture priority mode and the exposure got off in the middle. This can be fixed with a little work in PS or LR but I wanted to show an example of the untouched stitch from LR. The waviness in the sky boarder can be repaired with PS/Content Aware fill and I'd likely crop the bottom off.

Let me know if you have any questions.
Boort

 

[MOAK]

Moak is confused and hopefully someone can un-confuse me. My images are all shot in either J-peg or RAW on my Sony A-65. In order to submit photos to most all publications they are asking for at least 300 PPI. My photo app on my mac is only reproducing at 72 DPI My image sizes vary widely from 6,000 x 4,000 down to 4,000 x 2,900 I've seen that an image of at least 3240 x 4320 is needed to produce 300 PPI. If I send the big files is the receiver going to get the 300 PPI out of them? Or, must I purchase an upgraded photo app for my MAC in order to convert to 300 PPI? and if so, which one? This is all new territory for me. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Fujichrome. Thanks for all your responses in advance.

 

[Boort]

@MOAK

Moak is confused and hopefully someone can un-confuse me. My images are all shot in either J-peg or RAW on my Sony A-65. In order to submit photos to most all publications they are asking for at least 300 PPI. My photo app on my mac is only reproducing at 72 DPI My image sizes vary widely from 6,000 x 4,000 down to 4,000 x 2,900 I've seen that an image of at least 3240 x 4320 is needed to produce 300 PPI. If I send the big files is the receiver going to get the 300 PPI out of them? Or, must I purchase an upgraded photo app for my MAC in order to convert to 300 PPI? and if so, which one? This is all new territory for me. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of Fujichrome. Thanks for all your responses in advance.

PPI stands for Pixels Per Inch. If your image is to be printed at 4"x 6" then you need an image that is 1200 x 1800. Your image examples of 2,900 x 4,000 should be printable at 9"x 13" in 300ppi and 4000x6000 at 13"x20"

72DPI is the resolution of normal monitors (other common higher resolution screens include 92, and 100 dpi)

Boort

 

[Steve]

Gladly. Prep the paracord as follows:

Ah! Using the paranoid as a reverse support of sorts, keeping the lens pointed at the same vertical angle. Gotcha! Much like a sling on a rifle. I thought you were using it for some sort of indexing during rotation or something similar.

I always have my tripod in the vehicle when I'm out, which works as long as the head is level.

I haven't done a dSLR panorama, as I don't have any stitching software for the Mac. Thanks for the Hugin link. I'll give that a try. I used to take handheld panoramas with my old Canon Elph, stitching with the included software, but that's been *many* years ago. And I always used horizontal, not vertical framing. Interesting method!

Thank you!