Well heres a few pictures out of the random that i actually took to be good.





Also wheres a good place to look online for Canon camera accesroies or just camera accesories? I googled it but not a whole lot came up that was decent. Anyways leme know whatcha think.

 

they reduce sun glare. Sometimes you can get a perfect shot but then you got a glare from the sun that doesn't fit.

 

Ah ok, so any input on the above pictures?

 

hopefully not too harsh, I know when I look back at my first photos I would be embarrassed by some of them today, and some of the best improvements I have made have been because of a photo class I took a year or so ago where I got true honesty critiques from an instructor. Sometimes harsh but really helps me to look at and evaluate photos and look for key things that make up a solid composition.

2nd one is kind meh because of the glare on the glass, circ polarizing filter and you could eliminate that and see what is in the glass, but still feels like just a random shot.
3rd one would be cool with a slower shutter speed to give the water a misty/flowing look. Also maybe shot in a portrait direction rather than landscape to go with the waterfall direction.
4th one looks cool with the extreme of the colors of dirt and the sky
1st and 5th indifferent on.

are you shooting in auto mode or M mode yet?

cameta camera, amazon.com are places I get stuff from.

 

Agree with this guy.

Have you yet to figure out what the different modes are on the camera? As far as the M,A, S, and P settings? If not, then that should be your next thing to learn. Because with those you will refine your skills to being able to shoot in full manual mode (M-mode).

 

I agree on the picture with the sword, i knew because of the glass that the shot would be nothing special whatsoever. The waterfall picture was actually taken with quite a slow shutter speed, and i did take one vertically instead of horizontally, i just didnt upload it. Sadly the 4th one with the dirt and the tree, that photo was taken with a high contrast setting i believe but it did turn out nice considering i took it while riding a train. The 5th i agree im indifferent on, the first is one of my favorites if it were that the concrete were brighter, and because if you looked to the left you saw all of honolulu. Most of my shots have been in manual mode of some kind, ive used auto mode for maybe 50 photos? Ive either use Tv mode so i dont gotta worry about F# and auto iso depending on the light, also on dark photos ill mess with White balance and etc. Thanks for the info though. I would love to take a photography class and see what its about but, i wonder how much did it cost?

 

Be wary of certain "photography classes" offered at your local community schools. My wife went to a class and the instructor was all about display pics. and arrangements. More like a painting class. He wouldn't go into detail about camera settings and such. She was very unhappy, but she did learn some stuff. Most stuff about cameras can probably learned by these guys on here, and the internet.. Trial and error too. there are so many variables to getting a great shot.. I haven't found it yet...

 

This is the way i generally do it.

A (aperature priority), This is my buddy, about 90% of my shooting is done in Aperature priority with full control over ISO (i generally dont use auto iso), This is what i shoot in when doing event photography, bar photography, non-studio portrait work, and sports / action shots. I feel most comfortable controlling the speed of the shots as well as the DOF with this mode.

S (shutter priority, Tv for you canon folk) i almost NEVER use this. Normally if i want full control over the shutter ill just go full Manual mode. My biggest concern is controlling the amount of noise and the depth of field, i dont want to leave the aperature decision to the camera, nor do i want it ******* with my ISO, i understand better than the camera does which trade-offs im willing to take when it comes to ISO speed and shutter speed. But i refuse to let the camera control the DOF.

P (program mode) i have no idea what the point of this is, its pretty much full auto, This is what i started out with when i first started shooting, once again, i never use this anymore.

M (manual), I like shooting manual when I can control all aspects of the shot, or when i need to control exactly what the camera does because i understand that the cameras meter does not understand what i am trying to achieve. This is what i shoot in when shooting Macro shots, water drops, studio light portrait work, astrophotography, landscape photography, or any kind of trick photography or long exposure photography, or any type of photography where the scene is not constantly changing.

AUTO and SCENE modes, these are to be used if you have little to no interest in learning to be a photographer and would rather just have high quality snapshots of your kids, friends, family, adventures, etc. There is nothing wrong with this, not everybody wants to be a photographer.

It is VERY important to understand how to shoot in full Manual mode, if you are not capable of shooting in Manual you need to practice, if you can walk in and shoot in Manual and not blow the shots or have to chimp the screen to know you got the exposure down then you have a pretty good understanding of exposure.

It helps to understand exactly what the camera is attempting to do when you leave it control of something, it is trying to take the entire scene or certain samples of the scene, it gets a numeric value of the entire scene and based off that value will either attempt to raise or lower the exposure to get a neutral 18% grey balance. This is why shooting birds in the sky will often give you a pure black bird, the metering system sees a ton of light, assumes it is way over exposing the image then will dial down the exposure by altering the aperature or shutter speed in order to get what it believes to be a proper exposure, which results in a properly exposed sky but a dark bird, and depending on the f-stop light difference between the bird and sky it may be too broad of a range for the camera to even be capable of achieving the image. Cameras are limited in thier dynamic range, which is why a HDR techniques are so popular.

I can shoot in full manual just fine, but as i said earlier 90+% of the time im shooting in Aperature mode, by adjusting ISO and Aperature i guide the camera to get the shutter speed in the right place. Some people feel a real photographer needs to shoot in full manual 100% of the time, for this i say "horse ****". The camera is perfectly capable of assisting you, as long as you know when to tell the camera "NO! DO IT LIKE THIS" Let the camera be an aid, not a guide, you must lead.

I can go out and shoot motocross in full manual, but if i let the camera figure out the shutter speed at my guidance i will get more keepers because i can focus on composition and the creative side of photography. I understand what the camera will do with my selection and i can get the camera to behave exactly the way i want without worrying about shutter speed.

One of the reasons i mention motorcross is you have a VERY dynamic shooting situation, the background constantly changes from dirt to sky to dirt to sky, this is where an assisted mode like A priority is worth its weight in gold, I dont care how good you are in manual, your results will fall flat on thier face compared to mine if you shoot full manual and i shoot in Aperature priority in something this dynamic.

Modern DSLRS have excellent metering capability and can damn near read your mind. Learn how to work without it, then you can appreciate what it does for you and understand why it is doing what it does, then you will know its limitations and weaknesses. But once again, it needs to be used to assist, not to guide you.

 

Here is a perfect example of where shooting full Manual will screw you up.

These are not the same guy, but it was shot from the same vantage point, (im at work and im stuck with what i have loaded on photobucket) shooting in burst while tracking this guy would be almost impossible with MANUAL mode.

Image one 1


Image 2, that sky comes into frame AWFULLY quick, trying to monkey around with the needed adjustment to either Aperature or shutter to make a manual adjustment to that bitchslap of light your sensor just recieved would result in a lost shot, using an assisted mode it adjusts as needed instantly resulting in a good shot.



At the same time, Shooting this image is all but impossible unless you are going full manual.



and this...

 

solid points jack. I do agree, that you don't always need to use full M mode, I just push it on new people to use it a lot as it is a great way to learn the functions of the camera since if you don't set it up right then your shots will come out looking poopy, but using Aperture priority mode is a great tool especially when you are in a time sensitive changing situation.

btw did you shoot that 2nd to last shot of the milky-way? I have been trying to dabble in astro-photography but have not gotten enough time to get out and pull off a shot like that yet.

 

You have to find a black zone, google up "Dark sky finder" and you will find a light pollution map, that image in particular is 70 miles east of denver shooting west. the glow in the horizon on the left is Denver, on the right is colorado springs.

once you have a pitch black zone, you have to keep in mind the longer the exposure the more chance the stars will trail, some people like the trails, i preffer to get pin point stars

I shot that image with my D90, 12-24 F/4 Tokina on a tripod. at 12mm ISO 3200, 30 seconds, F/4, all noise reduction shut off.

the wider the angle the longer you can shoot without trailing the stars. a 200mm focal length can only do a couple seconds before it starts to trail.

ISO 3200 works out there because it is so damn dark you dont get much noise.

The 2nd star shot was shooting at the same area east on another night where the moon was up. I used my home built barndoor tracker for that one and did a 77 second exposure. With my barn door tracker i have successfully managed a 8 minute exposure at 50mm without star trails.

if you have never seen one, this is what it is...

Two pieces of wood hinged together, the motor drives the 10-32 threaded brass rod 1 rpm with the stepdown in the gearing. The distance of the rod to the hinge along with the thread count factor into the goal of opening this thing up 15 degrees per hour.

Polars works as the alignment center, so you align the hinge with polaris (north star) and aim it due north with a compas, then angle your tracker the same degree as your latitude, in this case i aim it around 36.9 degrees upwards i believe.

When you turn it on, it opens 15 degrees per hour so.... 360 / 24 = approx 15. 15 degrees per hour of rotation.

In the end, what this does is it moves they camera to compensate from the rotation of the earth which causes the stars to trail. So i can shoot low iso long exposures and get very very clean highly detailed shots (way way way better than i have shown so far) of the stars and ****.

and it ******* works too. lol. The only problem is i finished it about a month ago and it has been too ******* cold to drive out to the middle of nowhere to get these images. My main goal with this setup is to photograph the nebulas within orions belt, which fills a good amount of the frame at 200mm. ill need about 40-50 images, plus tons of extra shots called lights, darks, and biases, which all get fed into a stacker program that will pull a very clean crisp image of the nebulas around M42 and B33.

I have a whole astrophotography thread on Nikoncafe, but i think you have to sign up to see it, but here is the link...

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/sho...d.php?t=284580

 

dam aren't you the creative one, lol. Yeah I have tried a few stand still shots, but anything pushed pass 30-40 seconds starts to show some trailing. I have only tried it in the middle of a "dark city" but definitely want to get out to a dark zone and try some more out. Yeah I am constantly on canon forums oogling at some of the shots people pull off using those stacker programs and using those sky trackers you built yourself, soo cool what you can capture with a camera.

 

Damn jack...****. Is your career photography? The 3rd shot on the first post you made is ******* unbelievable. And an 8 minute exposure, thats insane. I cant even set my camera for that long, my max is 30 seconds i believe. And again max ISO is 1600 for me. Ill have to make an account on nikkon cafe to read up on some of this stuff.

 

if you go past 30 sec to "bulb" you can keep it open as long as you want with either a remote shutter release with a lock option (shutter lock) which is what I use ($15) or you can rig something with a ball of paper and a rubber band to hold the button down.

 

Nah man, it is just a hobby of mine, thank you though!


***.


sorry, had to throw that in, been spending too much time on the Nikon forum boards, everyone there is so polite, i have to indulge while im here. lol

 

Hmm i just realized thats a nikon board, think they would care or are they pro nikon and flame canon? And id call that one hell of a hobby, **** dude. And yeah i just realized the bulb thing.

 

nah the people on there are just far far more delicate than the people on here. i got complaints about my screen name Jack the Ripper.

i finally had them change it to Ed Gein

******* idiots
lol