Ken Rockwell annoys me at how he overhypes new stuff trying to make money off his links. He does have some really good reviews but he has turned into a bit of a schill. Not shooting in raw is just lol. I don't care how good you are at balancing your colors.

He does know his stuff tho

Not just your opinion, IMO. I still find him to be a useful source, though, as I gather you do too..

All very nice lenses (except perhaps the 18-105 being merely nice).

You've got a DX body but nothing longer than 158mm EFL!


A crop sensor body is for taking shots like this puffin dodging a humpback's plume:


taken from shore at the most easterly point of land in North America,

or this wild bald eagle, whose breakfast I interrupted.

ssup ppl, i'm just getting into photography atm and stubmled across this thread by chance. i bought myself a nikon d90 with an 18-55mm lens last year and have been tinkering around with a bit since, but all the settings can be kinda overwhelming (i was too young to get into manual slr cameras - only had crappy digital runabouts). anyone got any suggestions with what settings to muck around with to get good results, just as a basic way of getting into more *advanced* settings? was thinking of doing a course as well coz i find it a really fun pasttime but would like good results - anyone done one and have a good experience?

here are some of my favourite pics from my recent holiday to europe - all are unedited -

san giorgio maggiore, venice


campo dei fiori markets, rome


modica, sicily

very nice, i'm going to try and post a bunch of useful tutorial videos as soon as i get a chance.

I have been watching tons of tutorial videos the last few days but here are some of my favorites.


D7000 tutorial
(what all the buttons do)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bZ0z5nRxkw

second part of the tutorial he goes through all the settings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qx3X...feature=relmfu

This guys tutorial is supposed to be about wedding photography but it's really more about portraiture and using lighting which I found very informative. Some of the early videos are very basic and boring but he gets into some really good stuff and way to get things done on the cheap or make equipment. His play list is in reverse order unfortunately.
http://www.youtube.com/user/canthonyphotography

I will post some others if I can find them

dx/fx lens cropping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQbGO...eature=related

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/02/27/...ending-launch/

omg it's finally coming

To do more advanced things, one has to know what is going on. If you don't know about about how ISO, shutter speed and aperture affect exposure, how aperture affects depth of field (or even what "depth of field" is), or how shutter speed affects the capture of moving subjects, do some google searches to find some simple tutorials Also, make sure you know how to read the current settings for these three factors on the control panel and in the view finder.

One of the first things you can do is get out of Auto mode. One of the more "advanced" things many photographers do is to shoot in one of the four advanced exposure modes. P, S, A, and M.


The D90 has three types of exposure mode on its exposure mode dial: auto modes, scene modes and advanced modes. The two auto modes are Auto and no-flash auto. In these modes, the camera does all the thinking. The user just points and shoots. The thinking the camera is doing is asking itself a number of questions like these:

• What type of scene is this?
• Do I need a fast or slow shutter speed?
• Do I need a shallow or deep depth of field?
• Where should I focus?
• How much light (what exposure level) do I need?
• Do I need to use the built-in flash to get the best exposure? (in no-flash auto mode, the answer is always "no").

The camera makes its best guess as to the answers and sets ISO, shutter speed and aperture accordingly.

When you choose one of the scene modes, (portrait, landscape, close-up, sports, night portrait), you are answering the first question yourself, and this helps the camera make up its mind about the answers to the other questions. In portrait mode, the camera will choose a large aperture, to get a shallow depth of field. It may use the flash, even in daylight, if the face of the subject is in shadow. In landscape mode, it will pick a small aperture, to get deep depth of field, and turn off the flash. In sports mode, it will choose a fast shutter speed, to freeze action.

In the advanced exposure modes, you get to make all or nearly all of the decisions. P mode is like Auto, except that after the camera makes its guesses about what the settings should be, you can adjust them. In S mode (Shutter priority), you choose the shutter speed. The camera still decides what the correct exposure should be, and picks the aperture that will give that exposure with the shutter speed you chose. If you increase the shutter speed, the camera will increase the aperture, and vice-versa. One generally chooses S mode when subject motion is an important aspect of the picture. Use fast shutter speeds to avoid blur and feeze action, and use slow shutter speeds to empahsize mottion by showing blur.

In A (Aperture priority) mode, you choose the aperture and the camera sets the shutter speed to get what it thinks is the correct exposure. For portraits and closeups, a wide aperture (small f-number) gives a shallow depth of field. This will cause anything not at the same distance to the camera as the subject to become blurry, leaving the emphasis on the subject and minimizing distractions in the background. For landscapes, a small aperture (large f-number) will keep both near and far elements of the picture in focus.

In M (Manual) mode, the camera does not adjust either the shutter speed or the aperture. It is up to the photographer to set both. This mode is most useful when the photographer wants to make the decisions about exposure.

In all the advanced exposure modes, you can adjust the ISO level to make the camera more or less sensitive to light. You can also set an exposure compensation level, to adjust exposure by a specified amount from what the camera thinks is best. You also get to choose where the camera focuses.

Doing advanced stuff is really just a matter of making more of the decisions about how the picture will be taken. Here's an example:

I like the subject matter of your Campo del Fiori market pciture. If I had been making that picture, my thought process might have been something like this:

What sort of picture is this? It isn't about action or movement, so shutter speed will not be very important. It will be about choosing how much of the scene is being emphasized, so I will shoot in A or M mode to control aperture. Do I want to document all the variety of different produce being sold? If so, I want a very deep field of focus, so all the produce, at least as far as the next pole, will be in sharp focus. To get this I will set a small aperture - perhaps F/11 or f/16. Or do I want to do a still life of the foods in the pan? In that case I will want a shallow field of focus so only the items in the pan will be in focus. I'd probably start with the widest aperture I could get (unless I had a very fast lens). Ideally I'd want to get a bit less depth of field than in your shot. Or do I want to show the foods in the pan in the context of their environment? In that case, I'd want about the same depth of field as in your shot, or maybe just a bit more, so the left foreground was a bit sharper. There isn't an unusually wide or narrow range of tonalities, so I can probably trust the camera's suggested exposure, so I won't need M mode. There seems to be enough light on the pan that I won't need flash, and besides, I don't want the pan's chain casting a harsh shadow on the pomegranates behind it. Having chosen my exposure mode, I select the aperture, frame my shot, set the focus point on the second pomegranate from the left, and shoot.

At this point, I have taken a picture, but I am not done. I check the picture in the viewfinder to see if it looks OK. I zoom in to different parts of the picture to check if things I want to be in focus are sharp and things I want to be out of focus are blurry. I check the histogram to make sure the exposure is good. If the depth of field isn't right I adjust the aperture. If the exposure isn't right I dial in some compensation. Then I shoot again and repeat the checking process.

Beyond this there are a few other adjustments you can make. If you are not handling tone curves in post-processing software, but shooting JPEGS, you might want to think about adjusting the white balance. You can also select or cusomize a Picture Control to select how the RAW file will be processed into a JPEG. For scenes with very large or very small ranges of contrast, you might want to learn about the Zone System and using the camera's spot meter to help you make exposure adjustments. You can learn about bracketing shots, for exposure or white balance. If you don't have post-processing software, you can use your D90's retouch menu to make adjustments to the shots you have taken

I really like this one

said "wow" as i was scrolling

Just got back from a photo tour with Marc Adamus (same guide I've been on two others with). He's completely geeked out about the D800. He's going to switch from Canon to Nikon for it. He says it's going to have a legit 36 megapixels, which they said couldn't be done on full frame.

Yeah me too.

Very nice, I like that a lot.

I really like how the rain makes it look grainy, and the focus on the black object in the background is pretty great

i actually added some film grain for effect in LR4

Sweet shot! I do find the blown out highlights a little distracting though. Also I'm curious as to what it would look like with a little more of the foreground cropped out.

Some photos from Hong Kong

flying in

I was thinking that too

Some of my stuff

Cool stuff! My favorite is the one of the gelato. The texture and color came out beautifully!

ya, that one was actually taken with my iphone4 and not edited at all.

Lightroom 4 has been released

I understand Photoshop CS6 is expected to be released later this year too.

Anybody have any information on what are the most common photo editing tasks that cannot be performed in Lightroom 4, but can be performed in Photoshop?