Photography chat thread - for all who are into Photography in whatever form

[Selks]

Just starting a thread for all folk who are into photography - whether you are a happy snapper wanting to improve, a serious shooter, or somewhere in between.

Lets chat on here, share tips, techniques, dilemmas, ideas, show our photos if we want to, discuss cameras and equipment, support and encourage each other.....or just chat whatever photography related chat you might feel like!

A good tip if you want to take a shot and you really should be using a tripod but you don't have one available is to breath in, hold your breath and put your elbows together, your hands are often much steadier like that, ofcourse it won't work for very long exposures but if your just at the edge of needing a tripod it often works :)

My intention was to take my proper camera out with us today but it is hellish light, direct sunlight and everyone is wearing sunhats to add to the light problems! I live in Sweden and the light here is very special but it is really challenging in mid summer (in the day, the good thing is it is light nearly all the time so evening shooting is not a problem!) and in mid winter when it is dark all the time! We are going to the lake this afternoon so I will possibly take my camera and take some photos in the evening.

Ooh, as Mrs Merton used to say - time for a heated debate...

To filter or not to filter...

The original purpose of the UV filter was to cut through the haze that you often get at altitude - the blue cast was always a lesser issue IMO. It's not strictly true to say that digital cameras aren't susceptible - both CCD and CMOS sensors have sensitivity from 190 nm upwards. But in practice these days it doesn't seem to be an issue unless you are literally at the top of Kilimanjaro.

The reason I use a UV (or other) filter on the front of all my lenses is simply protection.

I have had two occasions where a £1000+ lens has been saved by a £50 filter. Both times were in southern Africa (FB's travel tip #4 - Africa hates your kit).

But there's also continuous, insidious damage on a daily basis, especially if, like me, you tend to be - ahem - a bit gung-ho about getting the shot...

If you use a loupe or strong magnifier to look at the front element of a lens which is a few years old but hasn't been protected, you'll tend to see lots of tiny little marks - in contrast I have lenses which have been behind filters for 30+ years which are still perfect.

Now I've heard modern people say that you shouldn't care about this - your lens is basically a consumable item which you won't be using in 3 years time anyway - it doesn't need to last 50 years like they used to. But old habits die hard with me.

The counter argument (usually without any empirical support) is optical degradation - but I use Hoya Pro-1 filters (multicoated both sides) and can see no optical degradation whatsoever. It's trivial to perform your own tests and make your own mind up. If I can't see any difference in a 36 Megapixel image at 100% then I'm happy.

selks the economics in your case may be different. You've got a lens which will cost just £229 to replace and a 52mm Hoya Pro-1 UV costs £25 - yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice...

But when you mentioned 'Hebrides' it brought back memories of wind, lashing rain, mud, and bobbing around in boats being sprayed...

Ooh - another good way to protect your lens is to keep the lens hood on all the time. My only issue with this is that it makes your camera look much bigger and more impressive and more of a 'target' in certain environments.

Brilliant FBX, thank you. I was hoping you'd join us on this thread! . And you could well be right about the lashing rain, wind, bobbing around in boats etc....

But......lens hood? What is this thing?

Ikea, thanks for the stabilisation tips

selks a lens hood is the wierdly shaped bit of plastic that goes on the end of the lens to shade it from the sun. Maybe you don't get one in the D3300 kit - I guess you can't expect everything at that price.

Fortunately, if you're not travelling alone, you don't need one. If the sun is behind you, no problem. If the sun is anywhere in the 180 degree arc in front of you just get a DP to hold their hand up so that the end of the lens is no longer in direct sunlight - whilst keeping their hand out of shot, of course. If you find it makes no difference - don't bother.

tbh for a modern f3.5 lens like yours I doubt you really need one.

Ooh I've just found you so coming to join in. I'm a keen happy snapper although somewhat unmotivated in the last year or so since getting my new camera (Canon 650D) as I thought I was being clever in not getting a kit lens and using my old lens -and the two just don't seem to work together Whereas with my old camera (Canon 350D) I would get pretty much every shot in focus as a starting point, with the new one I'm lucky if it is 20% of the time which is very disheartening. When they're in focus they are good - but the rest vary from being soft to completely blurry and impressionistic. Old camera had to go as the flash had broken.

I used to go to a local camera club but had to give up when ds2 came along and never got back to going as the logistics were just too tricky.

I like taking all sorts of pictures - the dc (when they're not looking!), landscapes, macros of flowers, quirky details from life, anything really!

There's way too many of my photos on here:

and here's a couple to make this post look pretty

Doh. I forgot to add my flickr link after all that

These are my photos: www.flickr.com/photos/83208002@N07/

ilkleymoor...fast shutter for drops of water :D

I have lens hoods on the zoomy and the fifty, not on the standard one. If I remember to put them on I pretend to be a paparazzi.

Some cool photos there, Zipzap.

Not sure I will bother with a lens hood right now. The camera didn't come with one, and the camera bag I've just bought won't fit the camera in it with one on. Seems to only be an issue if shooting directly into the sun?

Right I've decided on one extra thing I'd like to treat myself to for my Scotland trip - a macro lens. Can anyone recommend a decent entry level macro to fit my Nikon D3300?
I'm off to google.

..........or do I need a macro lens actually? I would like to take some close up shots of the machair flowers. Would my lens be up to it? It's got the standard 18 - 55mm lens on it. How close up can you shoot with that lens?
Thanks. I'm thinking FBX might have some interesting comments on this..

Just checked, that lens has a minimum focus distance of 25 cms....good enough for most plant shots apart from ultra-close ups??

If you want to experiment with close-ups without too much outlay you could get a set of extension tubes.

selks

"Would my lens be up to it? It's got the standard 18 - 55mm lens on it. How close up can you shoot with that lens? "

If I'd been here at the time I could have made a sarcastic comment starting with "remember when I asked you to look at the writing around the front of the lens..."

But good to see that you've worked it out for yourself.

25cm is about as good as it gets for a standard lens.

At every turn your traditional photographers instinct to get more specialist kit is stymied by how amazingly good the latest standard kit is!

zipzap

"with the new one I'm lucky if it is 20% of the time which is very disheartening."

I suspect that there may be a fault in the lens or maybe even the new body.

Canon often get criticised for not caring about backward compatibility, but an EF lens from your 350D really should work perfectly on your 650D.

I would do this test -

First download and print off a test chart - e.g. like this one

Stick the chart to a wall.

Setup your camera on a tripod, or if you haven't got one, on a chair or table with a bean bag or unopened bag of lentils or something. The idea is to eliminate any camera movement from the equation.

Focus on the centre of the target, then take 10 shots with the self timer (this again minimises the risk of camera movement).

Every single shot should be in pin-sharp focus. If they are not then I think it indicates a fault in the autofocus mechanism of either the lens or camera.

Just marking my place. Haven't read the thread yet but bought myself a DSLR last year and whilst I love what it produces in auto mode, I really want to learn more. I shall read with interest.

many thanks FBXL6 (I hope I've remembered that right!) - I'll have a go at that this week (depends on how much time I can wrangle while the dc are on half term!)

In the mean time, I've been enjoying looking at everybody's photos on here

I've been birdwatching this week - hence the theme to two of these! THe other one is an attempt at playing with some ideas- I love the patterns water makes in all its forms.

Queen
The Heron picture is gorgeous, the triangle sort of shape the replection creates really works well.

DH and DD went to the MCM comicon this weekend and DH got lots of photos of people in cosplay and lots of email addresses to pass pictures on so he is working hard at editing the photos to send on.

Third time lucky! Not having much luck trying to post to this thread although that probably has more to do with my dodgy computer than anything.

I have read this thread properly at last and feel a bit of a fraud for posting but I want to start using my DSLR properly so I have to start somewhere. There are some fantastic photos on here though.

I have a Nikon D3100 which was cheap and cheerful and bottom of the range but it got decent reviews and there was a sale on when I bought it so I thought why not! I moved up from a bridge because I was getting frustrated with the lack of manual options so it was an improvement on that. At the moment i would love to do more macro stuff and was very interested to read about the extension tubes rather than having to save up for a macro lens. I will have to look into that.

Here are a couple of mine when I was having quite a good day.

More gorgeous photos, I'm really enjoying looking at these. (Btw, if anyone needs their birds/other wildlife identified, I'd be happy to help.)

I didn't get out this weekend, but am off to the Farne Islands next week, so hope to come back with lots of pics of puffins and other seabirds.

bertha how did you get such a blank background behind your eagle-bird creature? It looks really effective.

You can get a blurry background by a) taking the shot with a large aperture ie a low f-number, b) using a longer focal length, eg if your lens is a 55-200mm, stand further back and use the 200mm end and c) making sure there's a big space between the subject and the background. This might be helpful: depth of field tutorial.

I am a total amateur with a snappy digital camera. I want a DSLR and am interested in learning how to photograph macro. I am very frustrated as I have the desire but not the cash to back it up! I think I would also benefit from an evening school to explain what the heck I'm supposed to be doing. I like taking pics, but that is where the skill currently ends .