Slr cameras?

[biggaz]

Just bought a Canon 1000d slr, well me mother has for xmas for me lol so i wanna get some info on using them properley and basics on taking good pics.

I realise that it all takes time, skill etc but understanding the camera and its settings will help. Ive read a bit already but keen to learn more Anyone reccomend anywhere? Or a good book?

Cheers gaz.

[Oli]

Alright Gaz!

im in a simlar boat, just picked up a nikon recently, best way ive found to get to grips with it is taking simlar photos, but on different setting/ shutter speeds etc etc.

that way you can see the difference first hand, and gradually develop a better understanding of the camera and what it can do.

before buying my camera, i got a bit of advice from muska on E38, he recomended a photography book, ill try and dig out the title....

[andyp]

likewise, ive had a nikon for a couple of weeks now, and still getting used to it.

[biggaz]

Cheers lads, ive read a fair bit about aperture settings and shutter speeds etc, basically to know what all the numbers mean lol Depth of field an all that bulsh lol Like you say though i think taking the same pic on different settings will probably be a good way of understanding it all too.

Oli the title would be cool cheers

[Silver!]

When I bought my Canon S3 I found a site that sells camera courses in PDF format.

Realy useful and not that expensive. You can buy a book, but i bought the PDF and got it printed at work.

I'll see if I can find the link...

....here goes, http://www.shortcourses.com/store/, no 1000d listed but I thought I put it up for reference as there are also some none camera specific short courses.

There are some good photography forums out there with advice, tutorials and some allow hosting.

R

[treblet]

The best book I ever bought while I was studying photography was "the complete encyclopedia of photography" by michael langford, its really good and tells you everything you'll need to know about the relationship between shutter speeds and aperture and depth of field as well as lots of little tips. Its written for using with film but essentially its the same principal only with digital you dont have to wait to see what the images are going to come out looking like!

Try not to rely on the fact that you can see what its going to look like once youve taken it, you'll get far better photos if you can understand shutter speed and aperture and are able to make it look how you want and can get it right the first rather time than firing off 20 shots and then hand picking the best one, anyone can take 20 shots of the same thing on different settings, but with a bit of know how you can maybe reduce that to 5 shots and pick your favourite from them, it means you have more memory to take more photos and less time to spend deleting all the crappy ones when you get home too!

If you want any more tips on anything or cant get your head around anything give me a PM and i'll try to help you out

[Little Man]

One of the best moves you'll ever make is joining www.TalkPhotography.co.uk - the knowledge on their is beyond immense, they're a friendly bunch and anyone is welcome.

Aside from that, you'll just pick it up as you go along, but you need to get out/play with the camera at every chance possible to do this. Another bit of advice is try not to run before you can walk, learn the camera, learn the settings, understand how it all works, THEN start trying the fancy ****.

If you learn the camera, learn the technique and then put it to work, you'll become a better photographer for it.

Photography mags are another good one, especially for learning, just have a gander in the shop at which one takes your fancy/will help you most at that point of where you're at skill wise, theres plenty on offer.

[dougless]

My ‘back of the envelope’ explanation. Please feel free to correct me if I have misled anyone on any of the details.

To begin with, in photography you are balancing the time the shutter is open (shutter speed) with the aperture (determined by F stop) to get the required amount of light onto the film/sensor.

If the shutter is open a long time (slow shutter speed – anything over 1/60th second), more light gets in. If the aperture is wide open, more light gets in. Conversely if the shutter is open a short time, less light gets in and a smaller aperture also lets less light in.

If your subject is moving around, you need a fast shutter speed or it will blur; if it is stationary you can slow down the shutter speed. You balance this with the aperture setting. However the wider the aperture, the shorter the depth of field will be. The depth of field is the part of the picture that will be in sharp focus. To maximise how much of the image from the camera outwards is in focus you use a big F stop (small aperture). If, on the other hand you want to emphasise the subject and blur the background/foreground you would use a small F stop (large aperture) and focus carefully on the subject to make sure they were in the sharp zone.

Two more factors need to be factored in, available light (night, dusk, overcast, cloudy, sunny etc.) and film speed (iso number). I think most of us understand available light but film speed might need a further explanation. The faster the film (or sensor setting), the higher the number; this number is an attempt to quantify how quickly the film (or sensor) will absorb the available light. So in practice, for snaps in poor light a 400 setting would be preferable but in strong light go for 100 or less. The higher the number, the more graininess you will tend to get.

ps – graininess is like pixilation, can be fun but not always what you want if you are aiming for maximum detail.

[treblet]

all correct, you sir get a gold star!

[biggaz]

Cheers people, some really usefull info here.

Ive had a bit play over the weekend and slowly learning more, usually by mistakes

Cheers gaz.

[Silver!]

Cheers people, some really usefull info here.

Ive had a bit play over the weekend and slowly learning more, usually by mistakes

Cheers gaz.

Thankyourself you're learning post digital!

Mistakes were expensive when playing with film.

[treblet]

Thankyourself you're learning post digital!

Mistakes were expensive when playing with film.

Bloody right they were, and learning how to print in colour was even more expensive and even more frustrating, thank god for photoshop!!!

[dxg]

I'm still working out how take anything decent on the camera I recently acquired from a member on here, oddly enough.

I've got the framing and the composition down pretty well, I think, as people have said I'm good at that no matter what camera I'm using. However, just trying to get the right balance of all these technical factors (and even just holding the camera still enough) is proving somewhat of a challenge.

Edited November 30, 2008 by dxg

[Unheard]

Much of what you will find in books still refers to Film unless you get newer publications that spacificaly cover digital

but the still dont cover the difference as much as they should.

On the face of it digital and fillm may appear the same but they are not. When Pro's first started using digital for press shots

they were using the digital cameras in the same way that they used the film cameras and the pictures were shockingly bad.

You have to treat digital as a new format and not expect it to have the same nature as film it recorsd light differantly. Digital is more like shooting

on slide than film anyone that has ever shot on slide will know its not that forgiving if you cock up. The main tip to remember about digital is that you are more likley to be able to recover an under exposed picture than an over exposed picture and somtimes you will want to under expose to save you highlights from blowing out.

Once the highlights are blown out there is no data stored to work with its a destroyed image. Same for the shadows but they are more forgiving you are able to push them a bit more than highlights. Its also very stupid to think that you have to get every image spot on to be able to print direct from the camera. It was never the case with film so should not be so with digital. A good lab technician would make adjustments to get the best from you pictures, post processing.

I dont know one photographer that does not post process images. If you in very bright sunlighet it is sometimes in your favor to knowingly underexpose you images to save the image from blowing out then run them through a batch to bring the brightness up again not vastly under exposed but just enough to control the highlights.

Even some old school photographers still dont understand digital vs film. I was talking to a portrait photographer a few weeks back. He had gone to india and taken some fantastic portraits of the people over there for a gallery exhibition but i was a bit disappointed that he had not paid more attention to the highlights of his images. When i commented about using a fill flash with defuser to cut the extreme contrast so the camera could handle the dynamic range he pulled a blank at me. I had to explain why using fill flash is by no means evil when shooting digital. In certain situations its the only real way to compensate for digitals poor ability to record high dynamic range images its a godsend. There is a strange misconception that using a flash will make a portrait look flat but it could not be further from that if the flash is being used correctly as a fill flash.

There are other things about digital to look out for that may not tally with film such as the depth of field. Most digital cameras use a smaller area for the sensor than 35m film this due to a few factors power consumption, cost of materials and failure rate at production bla bla bla. Unless you have a full frame camera the sensor will be smaller. This will mean that a 18 -70 lens is not really 18 -70 as it was on a 35m camera it also effects the depth of feild.

As a sensor or film get larger the depth of field get more shallow. So with most DSLRs you get more depth of field than you would on a 35m camera for a given F stop. If that is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion. I like it most of the time but then i can fake DOF in photoshop to the point no one can tell so its not something i have to worry about if i drastically need a shallow DOF. From an art point of view it can be annoying but with longer lenses the DOF

This link explains it quite well http://www.photokaboom.com

The best way to learn and remember is to know what you should do but learn what not to do. Play with the camera and find what will not work this may sound crazy but when you come to a new situation if you know instantly that something is not going to work then you focus more on how you can get the image to work. Getting a bad image is important in the learning process and digital is really very good to learn on as you can fail endless times and it will not cost anything.

Rather than changing the aperture and shutter speed in M mode to compensate for an over exposed or underexposed image you can use the EV mode

i dont often use fully manual unless i am using a Canon with my nikon flash or if the camera is in the studio set with a light meter (even then i use EV)

Nikon has M P S A manual modes on Canon they are M P Tv Av (there are more but they are the most well known manual modes)

M manual (You have full control)

P priority ( Camera Balances the Shutter and Aperture )

S / Tv Shutter priority (Gives you control of the shutter and the camera calculates Aperture)

A / Av Apature Priority (Gives you control of the Aperture and the camera calculates the Shutter)

All the manual modes allow full control of other manual aspects of the camera

Depending on the situation or what i want to control i will usually use P S or A

This is where EV really comes in. It lets you over ride the exposure and have more creative control, faster control over how you want the image exposed. You can react to changing light like a passing cloud or reflection that has just appeared or just make an image darker or lighter to preference.

It is also an important part of avoiding blown hi-lights or muddy shadows.

If you wanted to shoot say a galvanized bin siting in a garden with the sun hitting it you instantly know that the bin is going to be the brightest spot in the picture. you may also know that the metering in you camera will over expose the main item of interest that you want to capture (the bin). Now the metering mode will be a factor in this but lets say its on spot and is reading off of the bin. Instead of changing the shutter speed or apature the camera has already calculated for the picture you just set a negative value in the Exposure Compensation. By doing this you can get the exposure of the bin how you want rather than what the camera is telling you that you need.

In a wedding shoot the bride is always the hardest person to shoot. She will most likely have an insanely white dress but at the same time is the

most important person to capture on camera. What you do is set the camera to spot and meter the light off of the dress but then compensate if you want the image a dat brighter or darker by using the the EV. With Digital you tend to take a shot assess the light then tweak accordingly.

Something to remember is that there is a big difference between dark / light image preference and over and under exposed images.

Photography is the art of capturing light and everyone will have an idea of what is correct.

Much of my personal photography tends to be what would be considered by some as under exposed but that is the look i am after as the images follow

a pattern. I am using photography to capture strong shapes and lines and that is the main element of interest to me. it is viewed best in most cases with very strong blacks as a defining edge.

Some people will always shoot with a stile but you have to except that not everyone will like that. My view is that if you are aware of how a camera scientifically works and you are also aware of what is tecnically a good exposure and frame then anything you do to brake the rule on purpose is your creative influence.

Years back i went to a photography club and they were churning out technically fantastic images but for me it was insanely boring to sit and view them. I can get a good picture i have been doing photography since i was very young and its been something all my family have done. I like to come up with images that make me happy and that only really comes when i try something i know is very hard to capture. I love shooting direct into the direction of the sun with objects obscuring the sun its self but the light flooding around them. I usually don't even use A DSLR for that as it makes it even more fun to capture a good image on a camera that is incredibly hard to capture that sort of image on.

With photography you either take an image to please yourself or someone else document or report something, convey an emotion challenge someone's thoughts. It does help if you know what you are actually taking an image for. If it is just to impress someone on an internet forum be prepared to be disappointed unless you subject matter is strong and something that interests the audience. Cute fluffy animals are your best bet there

The internet is a very good place to free there is endless information. Most book stores will have good book on photography and they all

cover the same basic things such as shutter speed aperture film speed DOF.

My view is the most important thing to learn first is how the camera works and how light works. How a CCD records light, what white balance is, why a lower aperture number causes the blur known as depth of field. Why a cloudy day creates an image with less dynamic range and a sunny day high dynamic range all that stuff.

If you learn all the science first you can then understand what you are doing with the camera in your hands rather than standing there just wishing that

it will all click. If your really serious about learning fast one of the best ways is to find someone that rents a studio. If your willing to take an interest studio owners love to teach (well they do with me). Studio photography is really not that hard as you control the light but its a really good place to learn everything in a controlled environment.

DSLRs have so much on them so play and learn one function as a time or you will fry your brain. I now get disappointed i cant find functions i don't know so i keep finding myself in Jessops playing with the new cameras i cant afford haha.

I have finaly decided on a new camera i like and fits my needs after looking for 2 years Nikon D90 now i need to find the money

Edited December 3, 2008 by Unheard

[biggaz]

Wowsa, a lot of info there, Very interesting cheers mate

[EaRNi!]

i have just got an SLR canon, i am finding this all very useful. cheers guys