Photography Questions and Tips

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iflyforpie
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by iflyforpie »

sky's the limit wrote:I always said the same thing, "I'd love a wide angle, but for the money...." Now I find some of my best shots of any given trip are from the 14-24.....

stl
It's funny because I am thinking the same thing. Unfortunately my DX Frame will make it harder for me to get a wide angle, so I am going to go telephoto for my first add on (300mm effective for 200mm price!).

Hopefully I will get some pictures on here soon, but I'm just playing right now...
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Dust Devil
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Dust Devil »

iflyforpie wrote:
sky's the limit wrote:I always said the same thing, "I'd love a wide angle, but for the money...." Now I find some of my best shots of any given trip are from the 14-24.....

stl
It's funny because I am thinking the same thing. Unfortunately my DX Frame will make it harder for me to get a wide angle, so I am going to go telephoto for my first add on (300mm effective for 200mm price!).

Hopefully I will get some pictures on here soon, but I'm just playing right now...
Keep in mind if you go wide angle and have the need for on camera flash you will have to get an external speed light in order to avoid the shadow cast from the lens showing up in your shot from the built in flash. The external flash (that attaches to the hot shoe) will lift the flash up high enough so it doesn't cause the lens to cast a shadow in your picture.
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Rowdy
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Rowdy »

Any of the canon folk care to point me in the direction of a solid portrait lens??
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duramaxguy
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by duramaxguy »

wow just discovered this great thread!!! lots of good info.

I just made the upgrade from my old pentax optio W10 point and shoot to a Pentax K-x DSLR. Cant wait to start shooting!



TM
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atpl53
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by atpl53 »

Rowdy wrote:Any of the canon folk care to point me in the direction of a solid portrait lens??
When taking pictures of people, you don't want to be too close to them. Getting too close results in a perspective that exaggerates noses and other body parts. Staying out of their personal space is also a concern. An uncomfortable subject will not likely photograph well.

On the other hand, you don't want to be too far from your subject. You want to be able to communicate freely (without needing a cell phone, two-way radio or a megaphone). You may also have other obstacles preventing you from backing up (such as a wall). Moving back too far can result in a featureless compression of the subject.

Conventional teaching is that the 85-135mm focal length range is ideal for portrait photography (field of view crop factor included). I generally agree with this teaching. I will often use a wider focal length for full body portraits and group pictures and a longer focal length range for tighter-framed portraits such as head shots.

Unless you are using a backdrop, you will probably want to blur the Background. A wide aperture and/or a long focal length makes this possible. Wide maximum apertures also make low available light portrait photography possible.

My personal favorite portrait lens is the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM Lens. It is sharp, versatile, fast focusing, and has excellent background blur quality. It is not inexpensive or light. Image stabilization allows indoor available light shooting with this lens. Some may find the 70-200mm focal length range a bit long but I personally would rather have a slightly long focal length range than a slightly short one.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by sky's the limit »

atpl53 wrote:
Rowdy wrote: My personal favorite portrait lens is the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM Lens. It is sharp, versatile, fast focusing, and has excellent background blur quality. It is not inexpensive or light. Image stabilization allows indoor available light shooting with this lens. Some may find the 70-200mm focal length range a bit long but I personally would rather have a slightly long focal length range than a slightly short one.
When I still had my Canon gear, that was my favourite lens too. Now it's the Nikkor version of the same.

stl

This is one from that lens, in N. Vietnam a few years ago when my wife was working there.

IV5A9339.jpg
IV5A9339.jpg (205 KiB) Viewed 5965 times
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Rowdy
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Rowdy »

Ahh Good info :) thanks a ton guys.
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northern33
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by northern33 »

Here's an odd question for you...

A busy winter has prevented me from making an upgrade on my camera (currently using a Canon Xsi). STL had me convinced on the Nikon with some good glass, but just didn't have time to do it! Have short listed the new one to either a Nikon d3s, Nikon d700 or a Canon 5d mkII, . It's Nikon all the way for the superior job they do on portraits. Not sure if it's the facial recognition they have, but from some of the shots I have seen personally, they do a better job than Canon. I have 4 kids, so I have lots and lots of opportunities and requests to capture the 'kodak-moment'. The Nikon seems to win on this one. However, the Canon has me re-thinking my purchase with their 1080p video.

You see, then I wouldn't have to carry around a video camera for those moments that stills just can't capture. I know the video is restricted to 4mb, but most of my video is likely only that long anyway for the moment. Canon shoots 1080p and the 3Ds shoots 720p. Not sure if the potential rolling shutter effect negates the usefullness of the video on either. Incidentally I just read that the last episode of House was shot entirely using the Canon 5d...

So then I am either jumping past the d700 to the d3s just cause of video, or picking up the Canon 5d.

Love to hear some opinions. I don't have enough equipment to stay brand loyal to Canon, so it really just comes down to the best solution. Most of my stuff is getting pics of the kids. This includes portraits, just goofing around and some sports.
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northern33
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by northern33 »

Made the plunge with the Nikon D700. I realized that the video on Canon and Nikon isn't quite as simple as the handycams yet. Also picked up a 50mm F1.4 and 70mm-200m F2.8 AF-S lenses.

Can't wait to see the difference in the full frame sensor.
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iflyforpie
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by iflyforpie »

I found the video on my D5000 disappointing, even worse than my old Sony DSC-V1.

It is 1080p and 25 FPS (most Canons only do 20 FPS and my Sony only did 15), but because the focal-plane shutter is incapable of these frame rates, the exposure is done digitally. This means props turn into venetian blinds and there is quite a bit of distortion when panning (a la cheap cell-phone video).

Good for in a pinch videography, but no replacement for a video camera...

As much as people pooh pooh the live view, I find it really good for pin-sharp manual focus by using the live view zoom.

As far as point and shoot, 100% satisfied with the Nikon. I gave up Canon because I was sick and tired of them spending forever to make up their minds to take a picture...
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northern33
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by northern33 »

Thanks, that was what I was afraid of. Someday they will get it right and we won't have to carry around two cameras!
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Slats
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Slats »

The girlfriend got me an Olympus Stylus Tough 8000 for Christmas and it is a great little point and shoot. 12 megapixels, waterproof, shockproof. Goes everywhere with me; I love it. Takes a lot more pictures than the D80 these days.
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_secti ... oduct=1448
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enbt
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by enbt »

MapleFlag wrote:At the risk of insulting STL and the many other amazing photographers in this forum; the pictures are spectacular, I am looking for advice on a "point and shoot" camera. You know, a drop it in the bottom of the flight bag kind of one. The last camera I purchased was an Olympus OM-2, it did have an autowinder!!!! Please help a photo-challenged pilot to join the digital era.
I picked up a Canon powershot G11 for that purpose. A point and shoot can't be beat for convenience, you can take it everywhere unlike a SLR which I would bring only if I knew there was going to get a chance to use it. Missed out on a lot of good shots that way. The only downsides I find with point and shoots is they are slow to respond (not good for action shots) and sometimes have focus issues especially with any sort of backlighting. Still for what you describe it's the way to go.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Dust Devil »

enbt wrote:
MapleFlag wrote:At the risk of insulting STL and the many other amazing photographers in this forum; the pictures are spectacular, I am looking for advice on a "point and shoot" camera. You know, a drop it in the bottom of the flight bag kind of one. The last camera I purchased was an Olympus OM-2, it did have an autowinder!!!! Please help a photo-challenged pilot to join the digital era.
I picked up a Canon powershot G11 for that purpose. A point and shoot can't be beat for convenience, you can take it everywhere unlike a SLR which I would bring only if I knew there was going to get a chance to use it. Missed out on a lot of good shots that way. The only downsides I find with point and shoots is they are slow to respond (not good for action shots) and sometimes have focus issues especially with any sort of backlighting. Still for what you describe it's the way to go.
You happy with the G11? I was kicking around the idea of getting one.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by enbt »

Yeah, very much. Like I say I find it slow to respond but that's just because I'm used to an SLR with almost no shutter lag or delay between shots. The things that sold me on it were that it shoots raw and I could attach filters to it. It has quite a lot of features some of which my SLR doesn't even have and some of which I didn't think would be useful. The swivel screen for example is handy in a lot of situations. It's got a fantastic macro mode. The face detect timer mode works well. Generally it's well laid out with the program, exposure compensation and ISO all having dedicated dials on top. There are a few buttons on the back that are right where your palm normally rests when you hold it, so it's really easy to hit those accidentally which drives me bonkers, but other than that it's got a real good, solid feel to it. It would be nice if the zoom had a bit more range too it's 28-140mm equivalent I believe.
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iflyforpie
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by iflyforpie »

I don't know if any current point and shoots have a manual focus option but that is what I used on my Sony to get rid of focus lag. Pretty much everything related to aviation can be shot at infinity.

What I used to do with my Minolta XG-1 (still have it) at airshows was set infinity on the manual focus to one side of the depth of field range for the aperture I was using (fancy for 1978 with aperture priority and 2 fps external autowinder :D ). I wouldn't touch the focus ring for the entire show. Sure wish there were numbers on my Nikon lens that would let me do this so I could hand bomb it. Every so often in the plane I will get a bug smash or perspex reflection that confuses the focus and ruins the shot.

Another advantage of point and shoots is most have higher sync shutter speeds. Focal plane shutters on DSLRs can only be totally open for 1/250 to 1/500 of a second where smaller leaf shutters in point and shoots can go up to 1/1000. At higher speeds than the sync speed, the focal plane shutter lets light in through a small slit that forms from the rear curtain closing right behind the opening front curtain. Things that are moving at high speeds are exposed at different times (at the sync speed of the shutter), causing distortion like this...

Image

This is one of the reasons why STL says helicopters look best at 1/125... But if you truly want to freeze action, the DSLR is at a bit of a disadvantage...
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enbt
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by enbt »

Interesting info about the different shutters.

The G11 has manual focus.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Prairie Chicken »

Try to find a point 'n shoot with a viewfinder ... most screens are impossible to use in bright sunlight.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Fling Wing »

Wondering what would be recommended as a good intro SLR. $500 or less would be the limit. I'm kind of looking at the Nikon D50, but wonder if that older technology is any better then a $400-$500 point and shoot these days. I like the fact that most point and shoots now have HD video capability, and like said are easy to slip in the pocket, but I'd like to have more control over settings than just the ISO, and zoom.
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Re: Photography Questions and Tips

Post by Truckpilot »

For all you Nikon shooters out there, check out" www.nikon-digital.ca", a Canadian site where loads of advice can be found from some pretty talented folks. We're also friendly...
Tell 'em I sent you...
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