Ya, I definitely want to be mike when i grow up.

I'm looking to replace my kit lens on my Canon Rebel xsi, what would you guys consider a good general purpose lens?

Is there a specific focal length you normally shoot at with the kit lens? Why are you looking to upgrade?

Keep the kit lens and get either a telephoto (like a 70-200) or an ultrawide like a 10-22.

The kit lens' sharpness and color reproduction is more than adequate, the only time it's a bit bothersome is when you need to shoot indoors without a flash or are shooting fast moving subjects.

If that's the case I'd get a Canon 17-55 2.8 or Tamron 17-50 2.8, but in my opinion that's a bad purchase given that you already have the kit lens which covers that length.

And thanks everyone for the comments re: the snowboarding. I wish I was more cool and less nerd, though.

Well lately its been screwing up. I'll take a picture and a screen will pop up that says communication error with the lens and the lens contact. Really annoying, I don't know how to fix it, so I figured its time for a new one.

are all those shot at northstar?

try a q-tip with rubbing alcohol on the contacts, just enough to dampen the swab should do the trick. obv make sure the camera is off

I'm trying to decide on a new camera. I really want a touchscreen model so its between these 3:

Canon SD3500
Samsung TL240
Sony DSC TX7

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I didn't get too many comments in OOT so I'm re-posting it here.

I think one of the things that makes food photography difficult is the fact that the places are dark, and you don't really have room to setup some kind of soft lighting without a lot of bulky equipment. The flash up close ends up altering the natural color of the food and changing the visual aesthetic.

I think for subtle shooting at the table, you'd probably want to go with a fast prime lens, since they'll have wider apertures to allow more light in. I'd also consider a small table-top tripod that you could use to keep the camera stable and allow a longer shutter speed to let more light in without causing blur.

Mike, I really dig those action shots you got there. Definitely a unique perspective!

I'm a cinematographer, photography is a passionate hobby of mine. I didn't really get into it until recently. Which may seem strange given my profession but I came up doing camera operating and the such, just never took up photography as a hobby. That is until I dated a girl who owned a Nikon D40...and one night I started playing with it and my eyes were open haha.

Here are some quick samples of some shots of mine, I'm going to upload higher rez ones to my website within the next couple days

These are from a while ago, I don't remember many of the details but they are mostly from that D40 with the stock 18-124mm lens, me just playing around and experimenting mostly.

Also, I recently got a Droid Eris ...hadn't upgraded my phone in a couple years and am amazed at how good the cameras are on these things nowadays...5 freakin mp's now, here are some shots from it (edited via PS mobile)

So did you get the third free spin bonus?

I'm a hobbyist photographer. To be more precise I enjoy taking photographs on vacations and when I am going somewhere. It's possible I will get more into taking photographs just to take them, but currently I lack creativity and require inspiration to take photos.

All of that aside, my question is - can someone explain the advantages of a prime lens for someone like me? Aside from being able to take better photo's inside because of the increased speed, what else does it grant me and is it worth it.

I have a Nikon D40 and am seriously considering purchasing the AF-S 35mm F1.8 lens for about $260CAD.

edit: Currently I have the Kit 18-55mm lens, that I got sand in when we were at the Coral Pink Sand Dune State Park and I recently ebayed a 55-200mm zoom.

If you're going to get a prime lens, and have no specific need for 35mm over 50mm, i would get This One instead. It's cheaper, and is very good for the price.

The 1.8f lens will allow you to toy with Depth of Field much easier/better than your kit lens. Your kit lens is not capable of opening nearly as wide as the 1.8, when a lens is open wider, the effect is that anything outside of your focus area becomes "blurred" like in the below picture (hopefully hotlink worked)

I have no specific need for a 35mm over a 50mm, other than I primarily do a lot of landscape photography, although I would use this new lens to play with photos like the one you posted. (I understand depth of field, which is one of the reasons why I want a prime).

I've looked at that 50mm lens previously and I have discarded it because it won't autofocus with a D40 camera. Manual focus just seems... silly to me.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm

The first 50mm lens I have found that will auto focus with a D40 is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-50mm-1-4...3087527&sr=1-1

Which is a lot more money than the 35mm auto-focus capable lens. Honestly, this is the main reason why I am considering the 35mm instead of the 50mm. Do you guys think this reasoning is a mistake?

edit: I should note that amazon.com will not ship anything except books to Canada so the best price I can find for the above lens is about $550CAD.

Just got my first real tripod. Pretty stoked. This was the most compact and lightest I could find, and it almost comes up to head height. I figure I won't mind shelling out the extra money when I'm lugging it up a mountain.



Specs and Review: http://porterscamera.wordpress.com/2...fiber-tripods/

Went to the zoo yesterday for some practice shots but it started raining pretty quickly. Thoughts on this original/edit?





A few other things that came up:

-With the histogram should I be trying to get it as close to the right as possible without hitting the right side or just making sure it doesn't hit the right side (blowing out the whites I think) then editing later?

-Is it fine to walk around in auto mode, especially as a newb?

-Is using AUTO ISO a bad idea?

-Is using a laptop as the only backup fine? Ie moving photos from CF card onto laptop and removing from CF card. I will have a 32 GB card and 2 16 GB cards so that should be about 6400 photos. Maybe keep ones that are likely good on CF card and backup and ones that are meh just backup and delete from card.

-For action I should be using shutter priority, continuous mode, and AF sensor mode where you can choose the sensor?

-For still I should be using the "S" mode and auto AF sensor?

-Best situations to use aperture priority vs. shutter priority?

-Any suggestions for post processing? I have no idea what I'm doing and just went into Lightroom and fooled around with random things till I thought it looked a bit better. Any specific Lightroom features to either use a lot or not usually mess with?

I'm rejoining the photographic community in general, so this is me brushing off old info. Take it with a grain of salt

You left about 15-20 IRE open in your edit, which significantly reduced your dynamic range. I'm iffy on the green tint you gave it. I think maybe half or two thirds of that rebalancing would be preferable, perhaps with a secondary correction solely to the greens to bring out the background and thinginhand. Also maybe a spot correction in the upper left corner to bring out the marks on the glass since I think those are an interesting part of the picture that in the edit look a bit washed out.

As it is, the face doesn't look properly in focus, or perhaps you didn't shoot fast enough and he moved it. It looks more like a movement blur, so next time increase the shutter speed: Good idea when shooting a subject that can move unexpectedly. Basically, you should have (manually/mentally) prioritized your aperture and shutter speed here, then dialed in your ISO (as is, you didn't lose much info on either end, so congrats on that; it looks properly exposed for the most part, maybe a little loss on the highlights).

I feel like walking around in auto mode is only going to hurt you, newb or otherwise. You need to be practicing setting up your shots and learning the ins and outs, and auto mode is anathema to that.

How you compose the picture with the histogram is going to depend a bit on the camera/compression. If it's raw footage or very lightly compressed (I'll assume this is the case), general advice is to shoot as flat as possible and edit it properly in post. A flat histogram would look very spread out without too many spikes. Spikes are a lot of times lost information, and you want to avoid that, at least while taking the shot. Histograms aren't really the best tool, but a lot of times they're all you have. Don't rely too much on yours, and trust your eyes a bit more. Really, just make sure you're not clipping/crushing much; and if you can, see if you can spread any clumps out if there's not much info on one end of the spectrum. Let your eye decide if the info you're going to lose doing so is important enough to keep (or if it will even make a noticeable impact).

Backup however you feel comfortable. It's basically a matter of budget and risk aversion. I'm not sure why a laptop as the only backup would be an issue: theft? Probably 90%+ of your pictures are going to be tossers anyway unless you only take single shots of any given scene.

Regarding priority, I would suggest running with full manual if you can.

For post, get a book on color correction or advanced photo editing. It's not something you can go through in a few posts.



RE lenses (earlier post): for a safari, get the longest zoom you can budget for, and figure out a system to support the camera since at a long focal distance, hand held is not going to hold up (maybe doing a really good job bracing on the window will). Basically, try out your bracing/support method before leaving, and if it doesn't work with your longest shots, buy some gear. Also, go for the TC. At this point, you shouldn't be too worried over the minor image quality issues a TC will bring with it, and you'll have plenty of light, so go for it. You can always return it or ebay it if you don't like it.

LOVE both these shots

Laptop: just meant that maybe I should have even another method like those portable Epson hard drive things

Lens: I've got the Nikon 200-400 and sort of wrote off getting a TC because of thom hogan's (www.bythom.com) comments about using it with that lens and, separately, using it on safari. however, it couldn't hurt too much to get and plan on not using unless i figure out it's necessary. but then if i'm using a 70-200 and 200-400 i'll have that large 80 gap at 200-280

Priority: I think I'm too new to go full manual

Histogram: way to fix this aside from moving the camera is through the EV adjustment, also changing shutter speed/aperture?

ISO: so if I'm shoot in shutter mode I'd set the shutter speed to what I need, say 250, then keep adjusting ISO until there's enough light? what about EV here?

Post: will definitely get a book or do some major tutorial reading soon. It's pretty much mandatory to process everything right?

Why? I suppose if your internal HDD has 3GB of space left, yes, but I'm working with the assumption that you bought your laptop in the last 5 years and haven't filled it with 80 movies and 50 albums.

I'm not seeing an 80 gap. I'm not sure how much you'll get out of the 70-200 since I believe safaris will keep their sweet distance from the subjects. Still, good to have. That said, if there is an 80 gap, I wouldn't worry too much about it, you don't need every single focal length to take good pictures, and by the time you switch lenses, your subject might have moved farther/closer anyway.

This is exactly why you have to practice at manual. You're not going to figure out how to balance all this by having the camera do the tricky part for you (setting the exposure through the non-prioritized options). At least try to go full manual for 50% of your shots, and do your auto thing on the other 50%. At least then you're guaranteed to have 50% of your shots properly exposed.

I'm not sure about your camera, but on some the EV adjustments can cause some serious clipping. Personally, I would only consider aperture/shutter speed/ISO. If you want good DOF, prioritize aperture; good action shots, shutter speed. It varies by camera, but try to keep ISO 800 and lower; higher can start to produce some nasty noise.

This is one of those, I'm a bit rusty things (and used to film), but EV is a priority mode only on your camera, yes? You're basically just telling the camera that its default exposure for a given shot isn't right, and are telling it to adjust itself. Depending on your priority mode, it will change one/both of the other two values to do so. This is for when you're not happy with the default output in a non-full-manual mode.

On other cameras, this EV stuff could mean in-camera gain control, which really shouldn't be used since it's better done in post. Someone else feel free to wade in, as this gets into the technical side of things regarding different cameras and firmware.

As to the rest of this comment: this is why full manual is best imo. If you have a mode where you can determine two of the big 3 exposure aspects (shutter/ISO), and then you still want to change your exposure, and if your camera uses EV to affect the untouched settings, setting EV is just a roundabout way of setting the aperture. Personally, I wouldn't ever let a camera set my aperture, nor my shutter speed. The first has a huge effect on the shot's DOF/sharpness, and the second can be vital if in motion or shooting such a subject. Assuming your lenses aren't high quality, you'll probably want to stop down heavily at such tele ranges to maintain sharpness. Since it's Africa during the day, you can probably do f/16 and then pick maybe 400/400 for shutter/ISO. Your lens might be a bit dark, though, so probably not 400/400. f/16 might be excessively restrictive, though, so I wouldn't use that as a 100% rule on such a shoot, especially because tele shots and shallower DOF can produce some great shots, which f/16 is going to really hurt/prevent. This also brings us to ND filters. Get a couple of varying strength to free your aperture up in high lux environments. This will be an extra $40-100. Make sure, as with all extra glass, that they're multi-coated and from a good manufacturer (B+W are the ones recommended for a lower price point to me a lot, but I'm not expert on all the different brands).

It's not mandatory since a lot of new cameras come with pretty solid built-in shooting modes, but it's usually highly recommended. I mean, your gorilla pic was in definite need of post work. Some of your shots will need it more than others. If you're shooting for post, remember to shoot flat. This will produce a fairly unattractive picture out of the camera, but the point is to give you as much info to work with during post as possible (and you can always keep the raw file and rework it later once you've got your post skills up; you can't ever/usually go back and retake the pic, though). Flat means a neutral shooting style (neutral/faithful are usual terms), lowest contrast, lowest sharpening, lowest saturation settings in the menu. Due to compression, some cameras aren't best to shoot flat like that, but this is something you'll need to find out about your particular one.

If you shoot 50% auto and 50% full manual, you'll have 50% pics that are "pretty good" out of the camera and 50% that range from "tossers" to "needs a lot of work but is v promising". This approach also gives you good baselines to work with when you're doing post: the auto version is the camera's best, try to beat it. As your skills improve, you will be able to.

Basically, you're going to be on safari, and will probably have a TON of time to practice with all your settings and the pics they produce to figure these controls out. You really can't ask for a much better way to learn photography.