Photo Noob Thread

[fragglerock]

Use the timer to eliminate vibrations from pushing the shutter, also look for a "mirror lock up" function that moves the mirror out of the way long before the shutter is opened, again to remove vibrations from the camera.

[Sng]

I had the camera on the table (don't have a tripod yet) and as for minimun focal distance - that may have been the problem. How do i find out what it is?

It's a nikor 18-135mm

http://www.photokina-show.com/0072/nikon/s...ondxnikkorlens/

Focusing from 45cm (17.7 in.) from the subject through the entire focal range

Assuming it's that lens.

[And]

http://www.photokina-show.com/0072/nikon/s...ondxnikkorlens/

Focusing from 45cm (17.7 in.) from the subject through the entire focal range

Assuming it's that lens.

Yep, so sticking it 10cm away was probably root cause of fail. Thanks boffins.

[And]

sorted

[rev-happy performance]

Yeah, you could use exposure bracketing (It's called AEB in Canon camera's). The camera then takes for example 3 photo's, and then you can layer them in software.

If you're lucky you can try and do it from a single RAW file, but the amount of dynamic range is probably not sufficient (which is what you're seeing in your photo).

BTW, generally, don´t increase your contrast if you want both the ground and the sky in such condititions - you'll just more easily blow out the sky because you're then pushing the available colours into a smaller "range" of colours. You can see this if you view the histogram of the file.

The max information in a single photograph you can get on the spot is by looking at the histogram, you want it to expose to the right but not have it overexposed, as then the ground is exposed as much as possible.

Hope this makes sense a bit

[PeteJ]

I'm off to Silverstone next month (as I imagine others are!), any tips on motorsport photography? I'm very tempted to buy a new lens but not sure what to get either....is 200mm enough or should I go 400mm?

[And]

Yeah, you could use exposure bracketing (It's called AEB in Canon camera's). The camera then takes for example 3 photo's, and then you can layer them in software.

...

Thanks that makes sense, but my camera doesn't do bracketing, to my knowledge, (nikon d60) unless it does and i've just been stupid?

[Looper]

Thanks that makes sense, but my camera doesn't do bracketing, to my knowledge, (nikon d60) unless it does and i've just been stupid?

No, it doesn't do it, it's a big annoyance for me too on my D40x as well.

It's not impossible to do handheld if you're careful - shoot in shutter priority, take your 'correct' shot then click the exposure dial a click or two either way and shoot over and under exposed. Then use Photoshop or something like Photomatix to merge them.

With your shot there, you could try masking the sky, correct your exposure on the pillars, then adjust the sky. It might be a lost cause if the exposure was way off though.

It's worth getting Photoshop proper and shooting RAW (I'm assuming Elements doesn't have RAW support?) - you have so many more options when it comes to a slightly incorrectly exposed image and to get the best out of good ones.

[And]

No, it doesn't do it, it's a big annoyance for me too on my D40x as well.

It's not impossible to do handheld if you're careful - shoot in shutter priority, take your 'correct' shot then click the exposure dial a click or two either way and shoot over and under exposed. Then use Photoshop or something like Photomatix to merge them.

With your shot there, you could try masking the sky, correct your exposure on the pillars, then adjust the sky. It might be a lost cause if the exposure was way off though.

It's worth getting Photoshop proper and shooting RAW (I'm assuming Elements doesn't have RAW support?) - you have so many more options when it comes to a slightly incorrectly exposed image and to get the best out of good ones.

I suppose it's what I get for buying the entry level camera, it's quite difficult to predict what you will need on a camera when you haven't owned one before, all part of the learning curve. Still, it's probably less of an annoyance than i think it is, if that makes sense.

RAW, think elements supports it, will check, i need to use it more instead of aperture i think.

Sorry if this is a really daft question but how do i mask the sky? is there a magic select tool? or do i have to manually select the areas?

Need to play i think.

[Agent L]

I'm off to Silverstone next month (as I imagine others are!), any tips on motorsport photography? I'm very tempted to buy a new lens but not sure what to get either....is 200mm enough or should I go 400mm?

I've written up motorsport tips loads of times but the forum isn't working too well for me today so I can't really search for them.

Where are you sitting and what day(s) are you going? I'm going on Sat for quali by the way!

I was there for a test day last year and found 200+ my 1.4xTC to be just about enough at the few places you can get close'ish to the track. 400mm is going to be a lot better. Good luck affording a decent one though, what about hiring?

As for actual shooting tips. AI Servo, choose the focus point that composes the shot you want, TV mode, shutter speed for F1 will need to start about 1/500 and then get slower as you feel more confident panning, they are FAST so the usual slower pans I would do, down to 1/60th, WILL NOT WORK!

Does this link show 4x F1 shots? That's what I managed with 280mm on a crop body last year. The ones from Abbey are more than close enough, the ones at Luffield were mega cropped. I would like a 400 for this year but no cash at the moment.

[Looper]

I suppose it's what I get for buying the entry level camera, it's quite difficult to predict what you will need on a camera when you haven't owned one before, all part of the learning curve. Still, it's probably less of an annoyance than i think it is, if that makes sense.

RAW, think elements supports it, will check, i need to use it more instead of aperture i think.

Sorry if this is a really daft question but how do i mask the sky? is there a magic select tool? or do i have to manually select the areas?

Need to play i think.

For sure, it's not an issue at all.. and to be honest, I think learning how to do it yourself will make it all the sweeter when you get a fancypants camera that does it for you.

Masking wise... there are a bunch of ways to do it (unhelpfully). The magic wand with low sensitivity will pick up the blues and whites without too much trouble - if Elements has a 'Quick Mask' setting in the toolbar that's probably the easiest way of drawing in the fine detail after using the magic wand to get the big sections.

[And]

Cool, cheers for the tips.

[PeteJ]

I've written up motorsport tips loads of times but the forum isn't working too well for me today so I can't really search for them.

Where are you sitting and what day(s) are you going? I'm going on Sat for quali by the way!

I was there for a test day last year and found 200+ my 1.4xTC to be just about enough at the few places you can get close'ish to the track. 400mm is going to be a lot better. Good luck affording a decent one though, what about hiring?

As for actual shooting tips. AI Servo, choose the focus point that composes the shot you want, TV mode, shutter speed for F1 will need to start about 1/500 and then get slower as you feel more confident panning, they are FAST so the usual slower pans I would do, down to 1/60th, WILL NOT WORK!

Does this link show 4x F1 shots? That's what I managed with 280mm on a crop body last year. The ones from Abbey are more than close enough, the ones at Luffield were mega cropped. I would like a 400 for this year but no cash at the moment.

Hey mate,

I'm going from Friday to Sunday, Copse corner.

The telephoto I've been looking at is the Sigma 120-400 f/4.5-5.6, which I've used quickly under the wrong conditions (macro ) but its a great lens - the IS is astonishingly effective at 400mm. It's going for under £600 on onestop which is pricey but just about do-able. Not sure how much I'll use it after the event though which is an issue, I'll have to see if the local camera shops do rentals.

Thanks for the tips, I'll get out practicing shooting seaguls or boy racers.

[Agent L]

Hey mate,

I'm going from Friday to Sunday, Copse corner.

The telephoto I've been looking at is the Sigma 120-400 f/4.5-5.6, which I've used quickly under the wrong conditions (macro ) but its a great lens - the IS is astonishingly effective at 400mm. It's going for under £600 on onestop which is pricey but just about do-able. Not sure how much I'll use it after the event though which is an issue, I'll have to see if the local camera shops do rentals.

Thanks for the tips, I'll get out practicing shooting seaguls or boy racers.

Someone's got money to spend

I don't think we're limited as to where we go on the Sat, didn't buy the tickets myself so no idea what the deal is. Never been to copse so can't comment.

Seaguls are really hard to shoot when in flight and relatively large in frame so a good start to practice on them. Good luck.

[RJames]

Shutter Speed will control ambient light, where aperture will be used to control the amount of light the sensor will see from the flash.

But this isn't actually true.

As stated previously in the thread:

Shutter Speed - This is how long the shutter stays open for.

Things to consider:

- Each speed step is typically a full 'stop'. A stop is double/half the previous amount. E.g. 1/60th lets in half as much light as the next stop down (e.g. 1/30th) and twice as much as the next stop up.

- The slower the shutter, the more camera shake (from your hands) will appear. The rule of thumb is 1/focal length. So if you're shooting with a 50mm lens, camera shake is a risk at slower speeds than 1/50th. At 200mm (rather zoomed in), 1/200th is where your risk starts. A tripod / fixed surface will overcome this completely.

- The slower the shutter, the more movement or action will be blurred. Equally, a fast shutter will freeze motion or even water / etc.

Aperture - This is how wide the shutter opens to when it opens.

Things to consider:

- Each aperture step is typically a full 'stop'. Each step on the scale lets in half/double as much light as the next/previous aperture setting.

- The wider the aperture, the narrower the depth of field. At truly wide apertures, like f/1.8 and f/1.4, a very narrow field will be in focus. Most objects/faces won't be 'all' in focus if shooting them close up at these apertures. E.g.: subject's nose is in focus, ears are not. At narrow apertures, the depth of field will tend towards infinity - i.e. everything after a short distance in front of the camera can be brought into focus at the same time.

- Aperture is confusingly often talked about in speed-related terminology, but this is unrelated to the shutter speed. E.g. most lenses can operate at any speed, but people will still refer to a lens as 'fast' or 'slow'. A 50mm f/1.8 prime is 'fast' because it opens all the way up to f/1.8. A kit lens that only can go to f/4.5 might be referred to as 'slow'.

- Most lenses have a sweet spot for sharpness related to the aperture set. E.g. a lens might be pin-sharp around it's mid range (f/8-f/11) but softer at each end, especially wide open. Another advantage of a 'fast' lens that goes, say, to f/1.8, is that it'll therefore be sharp at much wider apertures too (e.g. starting at f/3.5), whereas an f/4.5 lens might only be sharp from f/8, say.

ISO - This is how sensitive the film is. At least that's what it used to mean, now it's how sensitive the pixels on the photosensor are.

Things to consider:

- Each time the ISO doubles/halves, you're doubling/halving the sensitivity of the sensor. Lots of cameras default to 1/3rds of a stop for this setting now though. e.g. (800, 1000, 1250, 1600, instead of just offering 800/1600).

- The higher the sensitivity, the 'noisier' the final image. Noise is *usually* undesirable, and results from cross-talk between the sensitive photosites on the sensor. I.e. when the sensitivity is turned way up, the tiny pixels all can start interfering with each other.

[This is why high ISO on compacts (tiny tiny photosensor and therefore pixels) looks so much uglier than high ISO on SLRs. It's also why high mega pixel compacts are a hiding to nothing. More MP but the same size sensor = more noise. You may get an enormous 6000px image, but it can be unusably noisy.]

- Noise can be programmatically smoothed out in the likes of Photoshop. The built in noise removal is pretty crap though- personally I use the Noise Ninja plug in. As a side note, you should be at the very very least sharpening all your photos in post processing- the reason for that is another story though...

...so every time you adjust the ISO from 400 to 800, or the shutter speed from 1/60th to 1/30th or the aperture from f/5.6 to f/4 you're achieving the same thing- doubling the amount of light that's captured by the sensor. The difference is in the artistic effect, and tradeoffs you make by choosing which element to adjust in a given situation.

PHEW!

[RJames]

Anyone got a link to a decent tutorial for flashes? Ideally a Speedlite.

Off camera baby:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

Check out the strobist group on Flickr too...

[And]

PHEW!

[round of applause]

Very useful thanks.

[RJames]

Use one all the time IMO.

It will act as a protector to the glass and stop the light hitting the glass as best it can.

Googling this will show a lot of people who do use their lens hoods 100% of the time. They can protect the lens front and they do avoid stray light that you might not notice is ruining your shot until after - and they should remove/limit lens flare too.

However, what you don't often read is that you can lose about half a stop of speed through them (since they obviously do reduce the angles that light can enter the lens). Worth bearing in mind. I never use mine in a low light situation (e.g. shooting gigs or indoors at night).

[fragglerock]

However the flash from a flash gun is massively shorter even than a very fast shutter speed, so you can adjust the impact of the ambient light by adjusting the shutter speed without effecting the amount of flash light that ends up on the sensor. Adjusting the aperture effects how much light is getting through to the sensor and so both flash and ambient are effected, but if you shut the aperture down a stop and up the shutter speed a stop the ambient will be identical but the amount of light from the flash will be reduced. Of course you still get the changes in depth of field from changing the aperture.

This is the main lesson from Strobist imo

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/light...-flash-and.html

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/light...flash-with.html

[RJames]

Oh, right, THAT

Yes, to sum that up: at speeds slower than about 1/60th the slower you go, the more ambient light you'll let in relative to the flash....

That's what all the slow-synchro and 'rear curtain' flash stuff is on your spanking new SLR. I wouldn't worry too much about it YET though.

I'd set the flash to rear curtain and leave it there. It'll look better for 95% of shots.

[Dork Knight]

I use manual on my flashes, so in a controlled (dark) environment I just whack my shutter speed up to 250th or there about (I don't want to worry about ambient light at all) - Then I select the relevant aperture for the flash power.

So as you say, the more ambient light you let in (using the shutter speed) the more the flash blends with the ambient - Pretty much the opposite end I stick to, as an example this was shot at 250th one afternoon out my back garden;

Not a great shot I know, but an example to show a subject lit during the afternoon with a high shutter speed while drawing in relevant ambient light.

As the ambient light starts to disappear then you would need longer shutter speeds to bring that in, well, if you want the ambient light.