Hey all,
I have recently taken the plunge into purchasing a 'proper' camera. Having always had a bit of a thing for taking photos of basically everything and anything, a while ago someone suggested I look to getting a dedicated camera instead of just using my phone! I did some research and thought about the photos I like to take and the conditions I want to be able to take them in.
I spend a lot of time outdoors these days, and it often ends up with me getting stuck in the rain - so one of my top priorities was getting a camera that could withstand the rain. Other than that, I wanted one suitable for beginners but versatile and hopefully good to learn some of the tricks of the trade with. Did some research, and found out that really there were only a few such cameras within my price range (which topped out at around £500). After plenty of reading I concluded that the Pentax K-50 was the one to go for. Its a weather resistant DSLR with good reviews praising the image quality and features that punch above the price bracket, and perhaps most importantly how suitable it is for beginners!
Now, the idea of this thread is simply to have a place for me to post my experiences as I learn the basics. I've been chatting a lot to DZ in the Google Hangouts chat, and he suggested we bring the conversation here, just in case anyone else could benefit from the questions I ask and the answers he provides! The man sure knows his cameras, after all. I will update the thread every so often with thoughts and comments, and hopefully a few pictures to show what I have been up to.
And please, anyone can feel free to chip in and offer advice, feedback, or simply to correct anything I get horribly wrong! I really am a beginner here, and welcome the help :) So far I love the playing around I have done with my new toy, and hope to learn a lot more about it and taking pictures as I go on.
The camera arrived a few days ago, with 2 Pentax weather resistant lenses -
18-55mm, F3.5-5.6 AL WR
50-200mm, F4-5.6 ED WR
To put it simply, so far I have learnt that the 50-200mm lense is a zoom lense (fairly obvious), and that the F values represent the possible range of the aperture (do correct and phrases I am misusing, already I am not sure if aperture is correct here!). So the F values represent how much light is getting in to the sensor, and of course the sensor is what records the picture :P
Lower F values mean wider apertures, so the widest I can have with these lenses is 3.5, and the narrowest 5.6. If I wanted to shoot in lower light conditions, a lense with a smaller F value would be beneficial, right? I've played around taking some shots at night, and found that in such situations, either increasing the ISO level (sensitivity? not really sure what exactly ISO is...:P) or leaving the shutter open for a longer duration increases the light in the final product. Of course, with this you really have to be taking pictures of something static - any movement with the shutter open longer creates blur, which of course sometimes is desired and sometimes is not. Still playing around with ISO levels to see what difference they make.
I will stop writing now as it is way past my bed time, but just one question before I go... I am a bit stuck as to what the AL and ED letters refer to, any help there?
Cheers!
I am glad this moved here, the poor guys in the hangout with us!
I think you got a bit of a bargain with the Pentax and you can easily mount old Pentax lenses on there for some cheap manual fun which will have very good image quality and bang for your buck. Its debatable if the quality of the glass you put in front of your camera has got any better over the years and many old lenses are prized still.
It is a shame however that you went for a camera system very much in the minority. if you would have bought a canon you could have just borrowed stuff, but having a water resistant body and all of the entry level lenses being water resistant is pretty useful and Pentax does have some nice creative mode features which for a beginner can be fun!
AL will mean it contain aspherical elements which are used to give you better corner sharpness (corner Image resolving quality) and are normally used on lenses that have the ability to go wide (zoom out).
ED will mean it contains extra-low dispersion elements that will help to reduce colour fringing on telephoto lenses (zoomed in lenses).
Buy a prime 50mm on the cheap if you can as its will teach you so much and will have the best IQ and bang for your bucks out of anything on the market. Plus its great in low light and an ideal beginners portrait and macro lens (to go with your macro tubes).
The Aperture is measured in F-stops written as f/ and will be quoted as the maximum light that is lent into the lens (T-stops are the actual measurement for the light transmitted through all of the elements but we will ignore this for now). If a lens has a single Aperture value quoted like f/1.8 then this is the maximum aperture (widest) that this will be and this is constant. Primes lenses which do not zoom will always have a constant aperture however zoom lenses (lenses which you have the ability to zoom in and out with) can have two number after the aperture like f/3.5-5.6. This actually means that the lens at its widest (18mm on and 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6) will be at f/3.5 and at its longest it will be a more narrow f/5.6 which will let less light in. Anything in between will change normally in a third of a stop increments. What you had said above Ben is that your lens is between f/3.5 and f/5.6 is not correct, that’s as wide as it can go depending on the focal length on your zoom (ben you can test this by putting your camera in Aperture Priority mode “A†on the dail and zooming the lens all the way to its widest, 18mm and setting the aperture to as low number as you can at f/3.5. Now zoom in slowly and you will see the aperture number creeping up until you are zoomed all the way to the most narrow end where you it will change to f/5.6). Your lens actually has a minimum aperture of f/22 to f/38 depending on the zoom range where the hole is going to be very small and not let much light in at all.
Now why do we are about Aperture? Because the Aperture controls the amount depth of field (the amount of an image that is in focus). With a lens at its widest open (low F number) the camera will be able to take a picture of the shallowest depth of field that you can create; so less will be in focus in front and behind the photo plane. This can be used to blur out backgrounds and give emphasis to a subject by isolating it’s from its surroundings. What you need to remember is that the subject needs to be perpendicular to the cameras plane to get it all in focus if this is the case (or you can use a tilt shift lens but that’s complicated and for advanced shizz). At its narrowest opening (highest F number) you will have the most of the scene in focus that is possible that that focal length but not much light will be getting through. We will discuss the relation between the ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed later. I have also over simplified the Depth of field as there is a link between the focal length which we need to discuss later have that effects the Depth of field even at the same F-stop.
Aperture is measured in stops. Each stop will let in double the amount of light so to maintain the same exposure while changing the Aperture you will need to half or double the shutter speed depending on which direction you want to go. See below:
Aperture f/1.4 f/2 f/2.8 f/4 f/5.6 f/8 f/11 f/16 f/22
Shutter speed 1/2000 1/1000 1/500 1/250 1/120 1/60 1/30 1/15 1/8
The f numbers are the powers of the square root of 2 counting up from 1 (actually some lenses can go wider than f/1 but we won’t go there as the maths gets complicated).
Typically cameras can increment in a third of a stop intervals so you have some more fine control over the amount of light you let into the camera.
To be continued….
DZ
What I'd like to know is what to do with my photographs after I was on deviant art for 6 years but recently left what's the other alternatives, I don't really understand the point of Flickr
Between Smilodon and DZ (and others) I'm sure you'll get a handle on it.
All I can say about Smilo is that he's now the professional photographer of choice for all my clients which specifier photoshoots - and remains the same even when we've stopped working with them. I think one of my Danish clients is slightly in love with him tbh by the way she exudes about his work :rolleyes:
DZ is one of the most devoted amateurs I've seen (in so much as it's not his job) - he would be perfectly credible as a photographer except he does have an inclination towards wearing American Football Cardinals shirts!
Kind of you to say that Pen. Smilo is the best person to talk to anyone definitely about photography as he is a pro.
I am not a pro... Not sure if I would want to be as I may lose some enjoyment. Friends and family have started to ask me to take pictures at their weddings and important events and I really don't like the pressure of a formal gig paid or free.
Quote from my photographer from his blog (http://www.ryanjarvisphotography.co.uk/carleigh-toms-wedding-madingley-hall/) about my wedding:
This wedding was also somewhat unique in the fact that I met my match when it comes to being a ‘camera geek’. Tom certainly knows his cameras and from time to time he’d guess which lens I was using; and he knew why I was using it. I felt like the magician at the kids party when the lad in the front row keeps telling everyone how the trick was done. Knowing Tom was into his photography in a big way meant I felt that little extra pressure to impress my couple.
I do like teaching photography to people however, particularly the science behind it all (including the physics and maths which are pretty cool). Just how a digital camera sensor works is pretty mind blowing when you take the time to look into the technology. Couple that with lenses and manipulation of digital images and your onto a winner in terms of an area where you will still be learning after 50 years. There is always something new to try.
Its a great hobby. But expensive when its not your main gig and you want good gear!
DZ
Welcome to the world of photography, now give your creditcard to your wife/girlfriend for safekeeping :D
so we have a in house canon club then?.lol
welcome to the club. chaos.
No Canon here, i shoot Nikon :narnar:
Pentax.
Another Canon user here!
Quote from: Deminion;385994No Canon here, i shoot Nikon :narnar:
What he said
Smilo's Nikon as well I believe
Sony...
Nikon also
All brands have their pros and cons and are all in roughly the same ball park with their performance.
Nikkon have the D800e and D810 34MPix beasts and normally a half of a stop better ISO performance over the canon's in the same class.
Canon tend to have better AF performance on their higher end models and have a superior movie mode. They also have the widest range of lenses.
Pentax offers the best bang for your bucks at the low end and have the most "creative" and pro style features like AF MICRO-ADJUST, weather sealing on all of their cameras. They have a very limited and expensive set of lenses however in terms of pro glass.
Sony has all of the advantages of a DSLR without the R part. The Sony mirrorless full frame sensors are very cool in terms of features as you can display everything under the sun on the EVF. They are light small and compact.
I personally am committed to canon gear as I own a lot of lenses now for their APS-C and full frame systems however I have a Pentax-Q which I love due to its small size and features.
DZ
Canon FTW.lol
Ok, thanks for all of the replies :)
I've had a great time with the camera so far, have taken lots of pictures and even started editing them in lightroom. Question about this, is this a good base to start with some basic editing? And any tips on learning the ropes on what makes a 'well edited' photograph? Is there a certain common ground to it, or is it more personal preference? Oh, and for reference I have been shooting in raw from the word go, and I assume this is why I am able to make changes, discard them, and return to original to start again so easily with lightroom?
Also, I have been experimenting with controlling my aperture manually and notice the relation between shutter speed, focal length and aperture that you pointed out. I think now I understand some of the more basic functions of the camera too. So when I want to force a certain depth of field, aperture priority is best, for example. Priority = control given to the user, the camera does not attempt to interfere with the value you set. I've played around in low light and with the blub exposure (which I have gathered to mean the shutter remains open until you tell it to shut again).
I have been looking at some prime lenses, Tom, as I am interested in palying around with shallow depth of field shots etc. I was thinking of going into a second hand shop (we have one in manchester) and looking at some lenses there, as I already know they have some primes that would fit my camera mount. Any tips on what to look for in a second hand lese, to avoid buying a stinker?
Once I have a few nice pictures, perhaps I will put some up here for some feedback. Thanks again all.
http://photoserge.com
This guy is very good, lots of videos on you tube
Apologies, I kind of missed this thread. Great to hear you're camera'd up and photographing. I live half my life inside Lightroom so if you have any specific issues, questions etc let me know. Three good first things to know, and while you may already be well aware of them they are...
1. The one initial caveat that tends to get a lot of people is that Lightroom doesn't import your photographs 'into' Lightroom i.e it doesn't make a copy specifically for itself. If you use Lightroom to download pictures from your memory cards (and you should), Lightroom will copy the raw file from the card to the location you specify on your drive, and then remember where that location is inside it's database. Should you delete that file then Lightroom will lose access to it, as will you. There's no second 'Lightroom copy', just the file on your hard drive. So make backups outside LR
2. Likewise if you move a raw file on your drive from folder A to folder B in Windows Explorer or Apple Finder then LR will not be aware of that and will lose the image. You will have to point Lightroom back to the file in it's new location. So it's a very good practice to only move picture files within Lightroom's Library module. This way Lightroom will know where files have been moved to.
3. Lightroom is 'non destructive'. This means that LR doesn't ever write anything to your raw files. Any edits you make go into it's catalog (database) almost like a list of instructions. If you turn a picture black and white all LR does is show you what the picture would look like if it was black and white. The raw file is still colour. This means you can get as crazy as you like and you will always have the original raw file safe on your drive. Only when you are finished and you 'export' your file will LR actually make a copy of your raw file with the edits applied and then spit out the result as a jpeg or tiff etc. This is why when I do a commercial shoot I edit my pics, export them all as jpegs, send them to the client and then delete the jpegs from my drive. If the client loses their images I can just export them again as jpegs, send them off and once again delete the jpegs. The raw file stays pristine on my hard drive and the edits I make stay in LR's catalog (database). I currently have 47,000 images in Lightroom and not one of them is a jpeg file. So edit pics, print them, post them here, add them to your web portfolio, Flickr etc and then delete the jpeg files. Saves huge amounts of space.
Regarding the discussion about brands cameras are sort of irrelevant. Their shutters will only fire so many times and then they will die and go in the bin. So their sort of consumer perishable and it's not wise to get too attached to them. However good lenses can last for ever. I shoot Nikon mostly because they haven't altered their lens mount since 1959 and so their are vast amounts of outstanding second hand lenses out there at a fraction of the cost of new ones. Canon, while an excellent camera manufacturer, has changed it's mounts several times in the past. I had film lenses from the 1990's when I bought my digitial cameras so it seemed obvious to stick with Nikon. Plus I hate white lenses :norty:
A well edited photograph is whatever looks right to you. It's not much of an answer but basically it's true. There is no magic formula for great post processing. A tip or two learnt from bitter experience are...
LR is laid out in a roughly logical order, so start at the top and work down the right hand side in the Adjustment Panel.
Don't feel you have to use all the sliders. If you use more than about three or four on any one pic it probably means it's a crap photo and you should bin it.
Develop a sensible naming structure for you images. hdhdy7482376498327.cr2 isn't a very good choice. But something like
gdt_cornwall_20140712_001.cr2 probably is.
gdt means it's one of my photo's not something sent to me for editing or restoration
cornwall or whatever is the location or subject matter
20140712 is the date
and 001 002 003 is a sequential number (which you can automate in LR's import dialogue box) to create unique image files.
I store files in folders as follows year / subject or client / location i.e. 2014/Ingersoll Rand/London Eye/
Choose something similar for you naming convention and save it as a preset.
have fun shooting :D
Great post smilo thanks for the help.
The lightroom info is useful stuff. Can I just ask, is there an easy way to compare before/after with lightroom? Also, I see that by reading metadata from file I restore the edits to the original. If I SAVE metadata, does that overwrite the RAW file with the edit?
Before after stuff. In the develop module at the bottom left corner of the main image you will see a small rectangle box and just to it's right a second box with two 'Y's in it. Click the tiny arrow to the right of the Y box and select 'before/after' You'll see the original image and your current edited version. You also have a 'history' panel on the left that shows every edit step you have made, if you click on any edit step you will see your image as it looked when that edit was made. Just remember to click the last edit step before you exit the history panel otherwise your image will continue to appear as it was at the step you clicked on, which can get confusing.
Metadate isn't actually anything to do with the editing of the image. It's additional data about the image file such as camera make and model, the date and time the picture was taken, the lens used, the aperture, keywords added etc. It's additional information that is stored with the raw file but isn't actually part of the image itself. For cr2 files it will be stored in a file called "the name of your picture file.xml". If you change metadata it will update the xml file. So for example if you add the keyword 'tree' and remove an existing keyword 'oak' then the raw file will add the new keyword and forget the old one. Xml files are also often referred to as 'sidecar files' as they sit next to their partner raw file on your drive. This is another reason why it's always best to move files between folders and drives using LR as it will move the companion xml file as well. Move the file in Windows explorer and it will leave the xml file behind, which LR will not then be able to read. For jpeg, psd,dng and tiff files LR writes into the actual file itself and not an xml file. This is because these files are open source and easy to write too by other apps where as cr2 and nef files are proprietary and not so easy to write too without corrupting the file! This is one of several reasons why I convert all my images to the open DNG format rather than leave them as Nikon NEF files (another conversation :) )
If by metadata you mean stored edit steps such as cropping the image, adjusting the brightness and boosting say the blues then this is never written to the raw file but stored separately in LR's catalog (database). If you open the raw file in another application it won't see the edit steps you made in LR just the original file.
In LR you never have to SAVE your work as in 'save file as...' because LR adds the edit to it's database as soon as you make them. So make a dozen edits to a file and then just shut LR down. Everything is stored in your database. You only really save a file when you export your file out of LR as a jpeg etc. It's therefore a good idea to back up your LR catalog (database) to an external drive as often as is practical, which for me is at least once a day.
Wow, what a fantastic program. Really easy to use and hard to mess up with!
So at the moment I am storing my RAW files on an external drive, and lightroom is installed on my C drive. Will the files lightroom creates that include all the editing data be stored on the C or external drive? And, how large will these files be? My C drive is an SSD, and I don't fancy lightroom writing and deleting large amounts of data to it every time I use it, as of course SSDs are not great at handling such...
Lightroom stores all your edits for all your images in
one single file and not separate files of each image. This file is usually called "Lightroom 5 Catalog.lrcat" that file will have everything LR knows about your images, where they are, what edits you have made, what collections they might be in etc. So it's a very good idea to back it up when you exit LR to an external drive. The file itself can get quite big mine is about 1.5 gigabytes. You can set LR to backup automatically when you exit the program. it will create a fresh backup each time though so after a while you can have lots of backup files. I tend to delete them all except the most recent four or five.
You want this catalogue file on your SSD (it defaults to c:/users/"you"/Pictures/Lightroom) and the backups saved to your external SSD. Having the catalogue file on the SSD will make LR run much faster than if it is on an external HDD. LR will also make preview pictures of your raw files. This makes zooming to 100% and seeing your edits very quick. I set LR to create standard sized previews that are 2048 pixels along the longest side (you should pick something at least as large as your screen resolution) and to automatically delete them after 30 days. You can tweak your settings in edit/catalog settings - file handling tab.
The little XML files that store the image files metadata are tiny and only a few kb's so don't worry about them, although they do need to be located in the same folder as the image. So in your case they should already be sitting on your HDD not the SSD.
You should also think about backing up your pictures as well to a second drive. If your external HDD goes bang you should have a backup saved somewhere.
As an example my set up is
- LR programme on the C drive.
- LR catalogue on the C drive backed up to an external HDD every time I close LR. I keep that last for our five copies and delete the rest once a week
- Active images (the images I'm working on at the moment or which are with clients for review etc) on my C drive backed up daily to the same external HDD as the catalogue
- Inactive images (older images going back several years that I might want to work on or have access to) on a second external HHD, backed up to a third external HDD. Also stored off site on Amazon Glacier Archive Service.
- Archived images (client images that I'll probably never want) stored off site on Amazon Glacier Archive Service.
I have no xml files to worry about as I work in the Adobe dng format that stores metadata inside the image file.
Not much time so speed typing excuse the spelling and jibberish.
As Smilo says back up your picture and lightroom CAT in as many places as possible. The catalogue is both your best friend and possibly the most annoying thing about lightroom as its a single point of failure and it cant easily be shared over a network to parallelise work etc as its a single file so it will get corrupted. Kinda why no one uses DBA files on disk any more and uses MS SQL server.
As long as you have the catalogue then you can add the images from any other drive as long as all of the photos are in the same root then its fine so it doesn't matter how far down you go or if its on another drive you can restore the images from another drive just by pointing it to the top level folder where your images are.
C:\Photos\LANXIX\123456.raw
D:\PCBACKUP\2014_03_12\Lightroom\LANXIX\123456.raw
As long as you have all your images under a common folder like photos or light-room in the examples above your fine and can easily archive and re-link to find images automatically.
If they are all over the disk you need to change this ASAP to be all under a single folder but as long as you keep the structure the same below that single folder your good.
Now your not going to necessarily take all of your photos with you all the time but sometimes you don't want to delete images they might not be your best work but you may want to use them in the future. In which case is remove them from my catalog but don't delete them off the the disk. To avoid carrying around 500 Gigs of photos around just to view perhaps 5 Gigs you can export the the catalog and images within that catalog or a subset of those and it will copy the .cat and all of the images replicating the file structure to another drive. i use this all the time and a lot of professionals use this to share work as it copies images and changes to the images and only the images you want. Great if you are a backup tog on a shoot and someone else will be fine tuning for you!
I don't delete anything only choose to import into lightroom from disk if the image is really a keeper. This means i dont have millions of images in my lightroom cat but a lot of disk. I like this a lot as my workspace in lightroom is clean with detailed metadata on all of the keepers which i am proud of.
My setup :
1. Images on 2TB internal E:/photots
2. Lightroom .cat on internal 1TB D:/lightroom
3. Lightroom .cat backups on E:/lightroom_backups
4. Backup of all images on 8TB NAS
5. Backup of lightroom .cat and images on 3TB USB3 HDD attached to PC
6. Export of all images in lightroom cat and lightroom cat itself for laptop - for showing friends and family and working on photos when I have time
7. Export of all images in lightroom cat and lightroom cat itself for 21 inch tablet - for showing friends and family and working on photos when I have time
I don't use DNG like smilo as i dont import directly from the camera into lightroom. i have a separate setup to drop the files into a watched folder using the CANON software so it will replicate to me NAS and PC external drive automatically. So i import and do not copy when in lightroom so no conversion (still .CR2). The meta data stored in the folder doesnt worry me.... It depends on your workflow you have there is no right or wrong way. Most people copy off the camera into lightroom but I am backup heavy and I had alot of photos already not in lightroom form years of shooting so i kept my workflow.
As for second hand lenses.. get a 50mm prime f1.8 and be done with it. In terms of what you are looking for there will be dust inside of the elements. it wont affect optical performance too much unless very heavy. Scratches to the front and back elements are more of a concern and you need to look for them.
You need to check the AF motor on the lens to ensure its pretty accurate. test this from up close and far away as some lenses have a range where they simply will not work (a sigma I had that issues one time and it got binned by the manufacturer as anything between 25 to 30 feet it couldn't focus on). Check mainly with the center Af point but also test with other Af points as there use a different part of the curved lens. If its a weathersealed lens check the diaphragm on the back to see if it has an nicks or marks on it. If there is a heavy vinaigrette you don't want the lens either.
Most importantly check sharpness of the lens wide open and about f4-f8 where it should be its sharpest. For a prime this should be pretty much pixel perfect when focussed correctly with extreme detail like pores on skin and small hairs on the face etc.
Will cover more points when i have the time.
DZ.
I have a canon 500d my lenses are a 18-50 kit lens and a 70-300 zoom I also use magic lantern firmware ,I use the canon software for viewing my pics or the windows picture viewer.
Thanks Smilo and Dz,
At the moment I have the following set up -
1) Lightroom and CAT on C drive
2) RAW files stored on D drive (internal)
I will take heed of your advice and once I have properly fiddled with some of my pictures, I will get into the habit of backing up the CAT and RAW files onto an external drive, I have a 1TB USB 3 one I can use for that. I also have another 1TB drive in the PC not currently being used for anything, so likely I will backup the same thing there.
Oh, and my camera also produces DNG files, so I take it that is why i haven't seen any of these XML files either, like you mention Smilo.
And I will play around soon so I can find a good method of selecting only the pictures I really want to keep in my lightroom catalog, as I am a bit obsessive and don't like the catalog cluttered (sounds like I want it similar to how you have it DZ!)
As we said in the hangout DZ, I think a prime lens would be great for me, but I will probably wait until I can afford to grap the pentax AF lens, as I don't fancy losing the AF only to then find I miss having it. Would rather spend 100 once, than 30-40 quid only to then want to spend the 100 down the road anyway!
One other little question then, can someone recommend a good way for me to put my photos online, in a way I can easily share them with friends and family, etc? Basically, what free (or cheap) online service is the best for this sorta thing? I don't mean that I want to backup the photos there, or store the full size large files, just good quality uploads that I can view and link people to with ease.
Flickr,
Deviant Art
500px
are three that come to mind with Flickr being the simplest and most accessible
New shinyness! (well secondhand).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2714[/ATTACH]
But my 70D is back with Canon so i cant put it through it paces till I get my main body back.
DZ.
Sweet lens, looking forward to seeing some test shots!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
So for those of you who want to travel light this is what my new "portable" setup looks like.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2718[/ATTACH]
Remember its all about the glass and less about the body.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2719[/ATTACH]
Seriously though.. Kinda useful having a small 18 MPix APS-C mirror-less camera that you can attach your canon lenses too.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2720[/ATTACH]
If you want one they are going cheap at the moment and you can put magic lanturn on them to turn them into a bit of a beast.
DZ
Lots of great info here. Like most of you, I'm a keen amateur, and have been since I did a bit of photography at college years ago. Then it was just B&W 35mm so we could develop the shots, and since then I've always had a camera. For ten years I've had the same Kodak digital, and took some decent pictures on it, but I've always wanted a 'proper' DSLR. Last year I was able to buy a Cannon EOS 600D, and also bought a great little book called 'from Snapshots to great shots' which is aimed at my camera, so any stuff regarding menus and other settings is all what I will see on my camera. Very useful.
Hopefully this year I'll get more use out of it and learn a bit more about using it.
It'll be nice to share photos and get some feedback from the more experienced guys here too :)
I do have a deviantart account, but I'd not recommend using it to share stuff with family..they 'ahem' cater for all sorts on there lol. I used to use Photobucket, but tbh I can't remember what upload limits they have, so it may affect the quality of your prints. Just my tuppenth ;)
Hi all, I'm really new here but this topic is right up my street - I'm a long time shooter and lover of the arts. I'm down to share some images, techniques or ideas.
Wow, almost four years ago I started this thread! I thought it about time to post some down the road reflections on my experienced with photography, which I have fallen completely in love with.
First of all, photography as a creative medium. Well, in my mind I divide it into two (inseparable) parts. The science, and the 'art'. The science, I love. From starting here four years ago with f numbers and exposure triangles, I went deep down the technological rabbit hole. From reading up on optics to better understand how my lenses focus and depth of field works, to reading (borderline academic papers) about iso variance and invariance and how this affects my night sky shots, I've read up on so much of the science of photography, and loved every minute of it.
The art I find much harder to grasp. It doesn't help that I'm likely a very harsh self critic, but I often find myself feeling as if I'm struggling to find that creative magic. It happens, and I get more pictures that I'm happy with now than I did even six months ago, but it sometimes feels like it doesn't come naturally to me! The upside here is I feel like I'm constantly learning, and that my pictures today are better than yesterday's. Regardless of these frustrations, I love the trying, thanks in part to my love of the technic craft involved. I'm well aware that for many, the technical is not a significant part of the thought process, and that the creativity and end result will always be more important. I get this - it doesn't matter too much if you understand things like hyperfocal distances as long as you can point the camera at the right things and get the shots you want. This is even easier with modern technology that can do a lot of the work for us, but personally I can't (and wouldn't want to) separate the science from the art, I'm too interested in the former.
Now next up, I couldn't write about photography without talking about gear.. And yes I've developed a serious case of GAS....... Gear acquisition syndrome, of course. I think the most important thing I've learnt is that the gear doesn't really matter too much.. Sure, there are some cameras and lenses better suited to certain jobs, and at times there's no getting around this. For 'normal' everyday use, though, the differences can fade away somewhat.
When I upgraded from my kit standard zoom, I read review after review and ended up getting a Sigma 18-35 f1.8 Art lens. I got this as the reviews were all blown away by its quality, there simply wasn't another zoom like it. I was happy as Larry, until I started to use it. Why? Well, that f1.8 comes with a cost. It's huge, and it's heavy - it is simply no fun to carry around all day. It's also restrictive. 35mm is a great focal length* (my girlfriend is just getting into photography, and I got her a 35mm prime as a starting point). Is it sharp, high contrast, minimal distortion and CA? Sure. It takes beautiful photos. The thing is though, for my use - and by that I mean viewing my photos on digital devices and printing no larger than A4-ish size prints, it's just not necessary. I recently purchased a Tamron 17-50 f2.8 on ebay for 1/7th the cost of the sigma (it's well used, but in no way that affects the photos), and the pictures it takes (with the aforementioned viewing conditions) are almost indistinguishable from the Sigmas.
*I'm still shooting APSC, so keep in mind that's a 50mm lens in terms of full frame field of view.
I still use my Sigma when I have the time to really set up the shot (it has some focus woes - a huge part of why I downgraded to the Tamron for my walkaround lens.. doesn't matter how sharp the lens is if it doesn't focus), but the Tamron has replaced it as my day to day lens. It's great! If I were starting over, I'd never bother with the Sigma. I'd still upgrade to a constant f2.8 zoom from the comparatively slow kit lenses, but I wouldn't spend a fortune just for something shiny - in this case it ended up being only a nuisance to use. Marketing will tell us we need that sharper lens or that wider aperture, but it really pays to think carefully about how you want to use the lens, and how you will view the photos afterwards.
Now with the sensible out of the way, let me say that despite all I've just said I'd still have a room full of 50 lenses, each more impractical than the last, if I could. It goes back to enjoying the craft of it. I just love some of my lenses for how they are made and what they do. The list of gear I'd love to own doesn't seem to get any smaller no matter how sensible I try to make my purchases. Instead I'd just leave more of it at home during those longer trips away, and only take out the more niche or 'better quality' stuff when I've got the luxury of time and a car boot to lug it all around in. There are some photos I've taken that we do want to print in larger formats, and lenses like the Sigma enable that without any sacrifice in quality, but for a 6+ month tour of Asia I'm not convinced that these few examples are really worth the negatives! It goes back to that question of what you want to do with your work.
Well that'll do for now. Maybe some of you have found this relatable. I'm sure I'm not the only one here to go on a similar journey. We (technologically minded folk, as many keen PC gamers are, I think) tend to love shiny things, and photography can offer these in abundance. I'd more than suggest anyone looking for a new camera or a new lens to post up here about it first, maybe you can learn from our mistakes to save yourself some cash and end up with the gear that actually best suits your needs! I will say again that I love photography, and love the tech involved. I'll no doubt ignore all of my own advice and stockpile ridiculous lens after ridiculous lens as I continue to enjoy the art, but hey we medics have always erred towards do as I say and not as I do, right? :flirty:
For any interested, here's a list of my current gear, and the excuses I tell myself to get a good night's sleep.
Pentax K-3 - my dad took my old K-50 and I upgraded to Pentax's (at the time) top APSC camera. I can't for the life of me remember why, but I'm glad I did. I adore this thing. It is built like a tank, has survived tropical monsoons and my everyday abuse with barely a mark to show for it. It packs a feature list that punches well above it's weight, and I'd recommend it or its successors to anyone. I specifically didn't go into camera brands as I believe they are all more than capable of producing beautiful photos in the right hands. Sure there may be pros and cons, but unless you're spending thousands on the top of the line cannikons or mirrorless bodies, you're compromising somewhere. This pentax has been wonderful to use, and although the lens line up may be more limited than its rivals, there still seems to be a 'lens for everything', so I can't say I see it as a problem going forwards.
Sigma 18-35 f1.8 - I've said enough in the novel above. Would not buy again, even if it does have the potential to take truly incredible quality photos. I'll likely sell this and buy a wide angle prime for astrophotography instead, as this is really the only thing the Sigma beats the Tamron on by a large enough margin for my personal use.
Tamron 17-50 f2.8 - A cheaper and nicer to use replacement for the Sigma above. I'd buy another if this one got thrown off of a cliff, or something...
Pentax 50-135 f2.8 - Equivalent to the 70-200s in full frame field of view, this lens is great. It's compact enough given its focal range and aperture, and takes beautiful photos pretty much throughout the range, wide open. I've printed fairly tight crops of images shot at f5.6 and f8 and they have surprised me with their quality. At these apertures this lens works wonders.
Pentax 200 f2.8 - I love animals, particularly birds, and the above lens just doesn't get me in close enough. This prime is as sharp as the Sigma, and has buckets of character. I fall in love every time I use it. Its fairly big and heavy, but I still don't regret travelling with it - its just such a joy to use whenever I find the chance.
Pentax 300 f4 - I got this in the black Friday sales for a great price. Its currently sitting in the UK some 7,000 miles away from me. I can't wait to see what it's like on a trip out to the woods.. I just hope I find it 'enough' of an upgrade in reach compared to the 200.. I may end up selling one of them, we will see.
When I'm back in the UK, I'll edit and post some of the highlights from our travels here. Then perhaps it'll be time to arrange a dMw photography field trip, ey? :norty:
Now I hope this wall of text doesn't break anything...