photography examples and learning

Here's couple of my efforts messing about witha nikon d90, i just getting into photgraphy so almost complete novice.
Havent touched these pics at all.


My cat saffie...

[fizzwheel]

Originally Posted by Filipe M.

I'm sure Fizz will come along shortly with his view on this subject too as I believe he has already made the jump.

Yep I did a while ago. But it was for a specific reason. 200mm is just not enough at Donnington 2 layers of catch fencing / long distance from the track wasnt giving me the pictures of Rossi et all I wanted. The 200 was just about but relied on zooming / cropping afterwards if you wanted a close shot, and I like to let the camera do the work rather than faffing about with the pic afterwards.

TBH the difference betweent the two is image quality as well as the extra tele length. the 70-300 takes a much better picture, the image just looks better to my eye. Its also a faster lens, i.e. it autofocus' on the image much faster than the 200mm does.

However the 300 is just to big to lug about all the time. Its OK if you can pop it into a rucksuck, but it just doesnt fit in any of my normal camera bags. Its also much heavier than the 55-200 lens I have.

Its just about how much budget you have and how much you'll use the lens, I find myself reaching for 70-300 alot, even if I dont use the full zoom on it alot of the time, simply because it takes a much better picture.

If you can afford it, get the 70-300 IMHO, That way you wont be left thinking "I want more zoom" like I did when I got the 55-200mm

Heres a pic of the two, so you can see how much bigger the 300mm lens is.

i find my 300 is attached to my camera nearly always, the range is just so much better for for what i use my camera for, it is big and awkward to carry but like said the range usage is just so versatile its what i need most.

Originally Posted by mr.anderson

On the post processing or even primary processing, what are the options?

Anna, you mention Lightroom - that's about £230. Someone else recommended Aperture which is £130.

Are either of these products something that a beginner could make use of, or are they a bit too advanced and should I stick with gimp (free) for the time being?

Both LightRoom and Aperture are digital darkrooms and library management tools. They are both great tools and it really comes down to how you want to manage your libraries, and which you like using more. If you have a Mac or are successfully running OSX86, then it's worth downloading a trial of Aperture. I use Aperture on the mac, and love it.

I use LightRoom on the pc, but generally only for quick edits/imports where I'm not concerned with keeping the images archived in a library.

On the whole, I prefer Aperture, but that's probably because I've spent more time with it.

Neither of these compare in the slightest to Photoshop or Gimp, which are designed for images manipulation. While there is always a little cross over with tool sets, repairing skin blemishes in Photoshop is far easier, with more powerful tools than in Aperture or LightRoom.

Gimp, while a very good piece of free software, lacks Photoshop in ease of use, tool set and variety of tutorials available.

If I could find a job using photoshop all day long, I would probably be a happy bunny.

I'd strongly urge any of you using Photoshop, LightRoom or Aperture, to take a look at lynda.com, or drop in at our house for a brew.

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

Heres a pic of the two, so you can see how much bigger the 300mm lens is.

Oops, seems like we're not talking about the same 55-200 then, yours is the non-VR model! My bad, I thought you had the other one.
In that case I'm not surprised you are enjoying your 70-300 VR that much, then, not only you have much better optics but also the vibration reduction, which can give much sharper handheld shots at medium-slow shutter speeds.

This is the one we were talking about, mounted on Anna's D60:



As I said, it's a very cool lens for a starter kit, but the 70-300 VR blows it out of the water (I'm still saving for mine, so if someone wants me to make a detailed review of one I'll PM my address so you can send me one! ... doesn't hurt to try now, does it?! )

[Drew Carey]

Cheers all, brilliant advice about them both. Think that for what we are planning, which is catching nice family moments, nice scenic shots and some bike shots etc; then the 200mm VR will probably suffice to begin with. I think the price difference is just too much to justify our starting out.

Having looked at the second hand lense prices, if in the future we do want to make the jump up, then like Filipe, we will just save some money and sell the 200mm to cover some of the cost.

Just looking forward to recovering from my op so that me and Lily can go to some of the nice local countryside and start our photography learning process. lol

[mr.anderson]

I have the AF-S DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G G ED VRII, which I decided to go for instead of the 18-105 that comes with the camera as the kit lens. From my (limited) experience, it's a very handy lens to have for everyday use, only a very small amount larger than the 18-105mm when at 18mm.

[mr.anderson]

Here are a couple of B&W shots from today. Again, a subject that I know very little about - what do you think of my first efforts?

They were both taken at ISO 3200 in an attempt to create a bit of noise, especially for the 2nd one, but that didn't seem to be as strong as I had imagined it would.

[mr.anderson]

Originally Posted by boot

Both LightRoom and Aperture are digital darkrooms and library management tools. They are both great tools and it really comes down to how you want to manage your libraries, and which you like using more. If you have a Mac or are successfully running OSX86, then it's worth downloading a trial of Aperture. I use Aperture on the mac, and love it.

I use LightRoom on the pc, but generally only for quick edits/imports where I'm not concerned with keeping the images archived in a library.

On the whole, I prefer Aperture, but that's probably because I've spent more time with it.

Neither of these compare in the slightest to Photoshop or Gimp, which are designed for images manipulation. While there is always a little cross over with tool sets, repairing skin blemishes in Photoshop is far easier, with more powerful tools than in Aperture or LightRoom.

Gimp, while a very good piece of free software, lacks Photoshop in ease of use, tool set and variety of tutorials available.

If I could find a job using photoshop all day long, I would probably be a happy bunny.

I'd strongly urge any of you using Photoshop, LightRoom or Aperture, to take a look at lynda.com, or drop in at our house for a brew.

Cool, thanks - will do some free trials over the coming weeks.

Thanks for your advice all.

I really like the first of these two shots, it's very interesting, and of all the images so far in this thread, I would say this 'speaks' the most.

For noise, the creativity of a high ISO film for black and white, cannot be reproduced with digital. With digital, you're best aways attempting to shoot with the lowest ISO the you can, and adding the film noise in the digital darkroom, where you have a lot more control over it, and will be able to reproduce with practise, very convincing 'film noise'.

You have good contrasting colours and textures, however they're a little flat. Opening these in an editor, the histogram shows so room for a 'levels' boost. I've done this to both, and also very slightly adjusted curves. You can see the difference, it gives the images a little more punch.

Understanding the histogram and what it tells you, irrespective of whether your shooting for black and white or colour, is an important part of digital photography.