Any photographers in the house?

I decided to play around with HDR post-processing trying to not make them look like awful HDR but still having the benefits.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/qMe5g6m.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/JF1oBMS.jpg)

What do you think?

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I decided to play around with HDR post-processing trying to not make them look like awful HDR but still having the benefits.
What do you think?

Definitely liking the first one - it has a textural look to it that's visually arresting.

Man. Wildlife photography is a pain in the ass. When it works it's awesome. When it doesn't you want to beat your camera against a tree. (Hmm, that would be a great photo.)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Vbl3yVh.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/8TPeIjH.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/uocrdM1.png)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/EwF7RbM.jpg)

Images taken at the Vancouver aquarium.

Hey gang.

Christmas at Chez Jonman this year is photography year. My wife is getting me (a notorious awful photographer) some photography classes, and I'm getting her our first DSLR. We have a friend who's a keen amateur photographer and has recommended us what he calls "your first real camera".

I wonder if any of you who are similarly knowledgeable would like to chime in?

Canon D3400 with a bunch of extras: $649

Is that overkill? Or is it a reasonably entry-level package? Better options?

He also recommended the next lens to buy, though I think I'm going to hold off for 6 months as I suspect we'll already have our hands full getting to grips with the camera.

Spoiler:

There’s an interesting backstory to why we’re doing this. Because of an essay that went around Facebook earlier this year, my wife realized that she has aphantasia, that is, no mind’s eye, no visual memory, and cannot summon mental images whatsoever. She describes it as “having no visual past or future” – her visual experience of the world is limited to the exact instant of the present. It’s actually been a really interesting journey as we’ve been realizing how that ties into other aspects of her life. To pick an easy example, it’s why porn is baffling to her. She has no visual memory of the things that make her hot under the collar, so exposing herself to those images doesn’t “click”. It’s why visual art does nothing for her, while music can move her to tears. It’s why she has difficulty following plots of movies, particularly ones in which there isn’t a lot of dialogue. Chekov’s Gun doesn’t work for her.

Talking to her about what her memories feel like has been illuminating. We shared recollections of the same events, and while my recollection is about what actually happened, based on the visual memories I have, hers is about what people said during the events, and how the events made her feel. We joke about it being why she’s such a chatterbox and an extreme extrovert, because when she’s by herself, there’s nothing for her to make memories out of – that time alone literally ceases to exist for her the second it’s over.

Anyway, with us having a young kid, she realized that she would literally be missing out on making memories of our kid growing up, so she resolved to become a wicked photographer and take a metric buttload of pictures.

Jonman wrote:

Hey gang.

Christmas at Chez Jonman this year is photography year. My wife is getting me (a notorious awful photographer) some photography classes, and I'm getting her our first DSLR. We have a friend who's a keen amateur photographer and has recommended us what he calls "your first real camera".

I wonder if any of you who are similarly knowledgeable would like to chime in?

Canon D3400 with a bunch of extras: $649

Is that overkill? Or is it a reasonably entry-level package? Better options?

He also recommended the next lens to buy, though I think I'm going to hold off for 6 months as I suspect we'll already have our hands full getting to grips with the camera.

That camera should be just fine. If you're mostly wanting to take pictures of people, you will want that 35mm f/1.8 lens right away. Maybe even find a package that doesn't have the other lenses. That's the lens that's going to give you good portrait shots with the blurred background that look professional and it's something you can't fake with a phone camera. Those other lenses aren't gonna do that.

To get those pictures it's really simple. Just put the camera in aperture priority mode. Set the aperture to f/1.8-2.2ish depending on how much you want blurred and take your picture.

I'm not sure how the ISO performance is on that camera but you can have that compensate for a lot of low light situations. Have your photographer friend walk you through setting that up. Basically you can change some settings where you get grainier but still clear photos because your shutter speed doesn't go into the crapper when the light conditions are sh*tty.

What are you hoping / expecting to photograph the most? Given you get outside more than many but also have a little one might influence the suggestions.

The link you provided is to a Nikon (not Canon) but is a great package for pretty much anything you want to do until you get more obsessed If you have access to Nikon or Canon lenses already that might influence things too.

Rahmen wrote:

What are you hoping / expecting to photograph the most? Given you get outside more than many but also have a little one might influence the suggestions.

The most? Our kid. She's a painfully photogenic tiny person (which she sure as sh*t doesn't get from either of her parents )

While I am a get-outside person, I'm also a do-stupid-hard-stuff-and-sweat-everywhere-while-doing-so person, so I don't honestly see myself lugging the $600 camera while clambering up mountains.

And we're starting from nothing - the sum total of our current photographic equipment is 2 iPhones.

tuffalo - great feedback on the extra lens - I hadn't quite put together the fact that that was going to be the one that would get the most use for us. I suspect our friend told us that and I spaced on it.

Jonman wrote:

tuffalo - great feedback on the extra lens - I hadn't quite put together the fact that that was going to be the one that would get the most use for us. I suspect our friend told us that and I spaced on it.

Yeah, that's basically the lens I got my brother and sister-in-law to buy for their equivalent canon slr because they have a couple kids. My sister-in-law gets some great pictures with it. You probably won't even use the other lenses if you're taking family photos.

The good news is, it's really easy. Just follow those "instructions" I posted and you'll be a "photographer" immediately. They should really put that in the manual.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

That camera should be just fine. If you're mostly wanting to take pictures of people, you will want that 35mm f/1.8 lens right away. Maybe even find a package that doesn't have the other lenses. That's the lens that's going to give you good portrait shots with the blurred background that look professional and it's something you can't fake with a phone camera. Those other lenses aren't gonna do that.

I'm not sure how the ISO performance is on that camera but you can have that compensate for a lot of low light situations. Have your photographer friend walk you through setting that up. Basically you can change some settings where you get grainier but still clear photos because your shutter speed doesn't go into the crapper when the light conditions are sh*tty.

.

Hiya. What Tuffalo has said.

I'm Canon through and through, but that's just personal choice sure the nikon fine.

My main interest image wise is gig photograpy which is a little specific, but the lens with that starter package would be no use to me in low light for the reasons Tuffalo mentions.

Prime lens like the 35mm recommended to you the way to go for that kind of thing and they are also quicker so able to catch action more effectively and in good light portraits as again mentioned.

I was doing it all wrong for a fair few years, before I took a gig photography workshop about 3 years ago where received the best bit of advice on kit - "get yourself a cheap prime lens" (for Canon this is the nifty fifty, a 50mm f1.8 lens that's only about £60). Not only is it more suited to low light conditions, more importantly because no zoom it makes you think about where you're standing position in relation to the subject and composition of shot. Basically you do the work, rather than the camera doing it for you and a great way to improve as a photographer. Since that advice haven't looked back, if starting out, I'd pass that advice on.

Also worth keeping in mind cameras like that starter Nikon, and the Canon I use are cropped sensor or APS-C cameras. So for example when that lens says 35mm it's actually more like 50mm lens, a 50mm more like 70mm and so on, when compared to a far more expensive full frame camera. You basically multiply your lens mm x 1.6 for Canon, I think a little less for Nikon.

My dream is a full frame camera!

One other option if it's mainly for the kid photos would be to look at some of the mirrorless cameras. They will be lighter and you might carry it around more. There are few trade offs worth looking into and I unfortunately can't recommend a specific one.

(but you can't go wrong with a starter Nikon or Canon)

Mirrorless here.
Using the Olympus OM-D EM 5MkII. I came from a large Nikon setup that I sold to go M4/3. I am happy with the smaller size of the body and lenses. I can essentially fit the same amount of gear in a bag half the size.

If you're shooting kids don't forget that you won't always be up close for portraits. Think of the action in the playground shots where you may not want to get up close physically. The 2 zooms in that package will serve you well over the years. They may not offer the fast aperture to get action to freeze in lower light but that just means you'll need to plan your photos. Bright days at the park and you'll be good.

Funny you should bring this up today. I've been getting email harassed by the Nikon store with their Christmas deals.
You can get that 3400 with the 18-55mm kit lens and whatever zoom lens that probably was for $600. Their lens deal on the 35mm f/1.8 doesn't seem to be much better than the Amazon price. I don't know if the sale works out to be better, but it's worth checking out if you go the Nikon route.

It has been said before +1 on the good prime that is close to "normal" vision. Either a 50mm for a full frame camera or the equivalent for a crop sensor which is usually a 35mm. I personally am not a big fan of zooms other then when I cannot get closer by moving. The 50mm 1.4 I have on my aging 5d is what lives on my camera all the time. I carry a telephoto zoom in my bag in case the subject is farther away but rarely take it out.

Ah, I was writing the post abive when kid was mentioned. For days out with the family, I was finding the DSLR way too bulky and a hassle to carry around whilst chasing a young un around. So on recommendation if a pro photographer friend got a Fuji x100. The original, so it has some quirks but used it was only £200 a couple years back. f2 and 23mm (35mm equivalent) gives great results mucking about outdoors, as well as family occassions indoors in lower light. The only downside is fixed to that 35mm and lens not interchangeable... But it is a really nice retro looking camera and nowhere near as intimidating for the subject compared to a whopping great DSLR + lens. For this reason the series used a lot by street photographers apparentlly, do a search for x100 groups on flickr, plenty of pics showing blinding results. If anything however it is trickier to use though than the regular canon because of interface, but I believe that all been sorted in later versions.

Waffling a bit.... basically, it's done the trick as an out and about with friends and family camera.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

Funny you should bring this up today. I've been getting email harassed by the Nikon store with their Christmas deals.
You can get that 3400 with the 18-55mm kit lens and whatever zoom lens that probably was for $600. Their lens deal on the 35mm f/1.8 doesn't seem to be much better than the Amazon price. I don't know if the sale works out to be better, but it's worth checking out if you go the Nikon route.

You just saved me $50 + the price of a case, Tuffalo.

$10 of which I'm paying back in the form of a copy of Fragments Of Him, off your Steam wishlist, which, incidentally, one of my high school friends made.

That's awesome! Thank you so much.

This is not to dissuade you, but I wanted to give my +1 on Rahmen's point of going with a mirrorless camera. I, too, have an Olympus OM-D (mine's the plain E-M5, not the mark II).

My biggest reason for doing so was the weight -- and to a lesser extent, size -- of true DSLR cameras. I knew that if I got a DSLR, I just plain wouldn't carry it with me as much, because I wouldn't want to lug it around. And if I didn't carry it around, why did I even get it?

If I was planning on being a pro, that's another matter, but my goal was to get high-quality photos with family, on vacations, etc. and my choice to go mirrorless has proven to be a good one. I've used friends' SLRs and there is honestly no way I would take that thing out for multiple full days of seeing sites on vacation without ending up with back or neck problems.

The sensor size is smaller, but unless you're printing posters, it is not an issue in the real world. There is still a huge range of lens options including super high-quality primes that rival the SLRs.

Ranger Rick wrote:

This is not to dissuade you, but I wanted to give my +1 on Rahmen's point of going with a mirrorless camera. I, too, have an Olympus OM-D (mine's the plain E-M5, not the mark II).

Just to get back on this point, this is all solid gold.

My main reason (well, my wife's main reason - she's likely to be the one that gets the most use out of it) for sticking with a DSLR is our previous exposure to a similar (but fancier) one. My wife's boyfriend of a few years rarely had his DSLR out of arms reach, and she started picking it up and shooting regularly too. She got the bug, and from her experience, SIZE WAS NOT AN ISSUE.

(LOL)

Yeah, that is totally cool. The best camera for you is the one you're gonna use, whether it's a phone, a point-and-shoot, or an SLR.

Familiarity is a great motivator, so if she's got something she's already comfortable with, then please ignore my advice.

Got a 70-300 lens for a Black Friday gift to myself. Thanks to schedule and injury, I haven't had much of a chance to take pictures with it, but here's a couple I'm happy with so far:
IMAGE(https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/15590756_10154802513068718_5904649883437507025_o.jpg?oh=d5042c89a40293ced7838fb9e51e17a0&oe=58E2DD42)
^^ above was edited in Lightroom on my phone in the dark last night, so the exposure may be too dark

IMAGE(https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/15288450_10154750154968718_5017074794299517080_o.jpg?oh=bf5850d9c8fe8ab948ae0971fc025408&oe=58EA171A)

Just got a Canon TOS Rebel T6 from Black Friday my self. Been taking photos alot these past 4 or 5 months. But hoping this new camera will make a great difference in quality. joined /r/photoclass2017 on reddit to learn more about photography.

Took this on Christmas Day of one of my cousins. Best photo I took all day.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/AQmz9Hr.jpg)

I did do a little bit of post editing. But cant wait for the spring, and hit my local trails again, with this thing.

Agu_Sakku wrote:

Took this on Christmas Day of one of my cousins. Best photo I took all day.

Cool! That turned out well. For portrait stuff, my advice is always to get a 35mm or 50mm f/1.4 or f/1.8 lens and stick the camera in aperture priority mode. Use apertures of 1.4-2.2 and you'll get that nice blurred background behind the person. It's super easy.

If you want to play around with settings a little more, the other main thing to figure out is auto ISO since DSLRs have crazy good ISO performance these days, and it'll compensate for bad lighting. Just use auto ISO with the minimum shutter speed at like 1/125-1/250 or somewhere around in there. You can also set your max ISO. I think I went with a max ISO of 5000 which is ridiculously high but totally works and just adds grain to the photos which I kind of like because it sort of looks like film grain.

How's that DSLR working for you, Jonman?

I had a big scare with my D7100 and put it away for awhile because I didn't want to deal with repairing it. The autofocus stopped working, and it looked like a part might be broken on the mount where the lens connects that physically drives the autofocus. Today, I started taking it apart to see if I could find which part broke. Took out 3 screws from the mount which loosened it up and apparently a button thing was just stuck, and it popped back out. Put the three screws back in, and everything is working beautifully. Problems solving themselves is the best thing ever. It doesn't happen often, but when it does...

I spent the repair money I expected to spend on a 18-105mm multipurpose zoom lens. You can get them for $200 on ebay vs the $250 on Amazon. I don't have a decent multipurpose lens, so this will be nice to take pictures of things and landscapes which my 50mm isn't good for.

I was wondering what the current best place is to both store and show off photos. Something with a community that could provide feedback and encouragement. My dad is really into photography now that he's retired (he did photography as a young man a long time ago) and he's looking for somewhere to put his work online.

So far the only really applicable places I've been able to find are Instagram (something he's not particularly into) and 500px (which seems better). Is Flickr still a thing to use? Or what's the current word on the topic of social network style photo storage and gallery?

Two batches of photos from Saturday:
SFW - nature photos from the Central Park Zoo, shot with a 75-200/F 4.0 telephoto
https://www.facebook.com/rob.starobi...

NSFW - nerdy burlesque photos from D20 Burlesque (theme of Slash fiction), shot with 50mm Prime
https://www.facebook.com/rob.starobi...

I desperately want to upgrade my camera body from the T3i, but finances make it unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe if Canon drops a 6D Mk 2 that reviews well and is sorta affordable.

Tanglebones wrote:

I desperately want to upgrade my camera body from the T3i, but finances make it unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe if Canon drops a 6D Mk 2 that reviews well and is sorta affordable.

Getting up into the prosumer territory with a body that's maybe $1000 or more is worthwhile if you can swing it. I got that D7100 way back when which is still a crop sensor, but the performance and features are exactly what I needed, and the body still isn't gigantic.

The main nice things are way better ISO performance which can compensate for bad lighting and some dedicated buttons/wheels. Having a dedicated wheel for adjusting the aperture is a godsend. The burst mode stuff is nice too.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

I desperately want to upgrade my camera body from the T3i, but finances make it unlikely for the foreseeable future. Maybe if Canon drops a 6D Mk 2 that reviews well and is sorta affordable.

Getting up into the prosumer territory with a body that's maybe $1000 or more is worthwhile if you can swing it. I got that D7100 way back when which is still a crop sensor, but the performance and features are exactly what I needed, and the body still isn't gigantic.

The main nice things are way better ISO performance which can compensate for bad lighting and some dedicated buttons/wheels. Having a dedicated wheel for adjusting the aperture is a godsend. The burst mode stuff is nice too.

Yarp. I also want to go full frame though, so that limits me. As I see things, my choices are to wait and scrimp for a 5D Mk IV, wait and scrimp for a super-discounted 5D Mk III, or hope that Canon comes out with the 6D Mk 2 and it's amazing and cheap both (cheap being $2000-2300ish)

Yeah, diving into full frame drives that price up lots. Oof. I don't regret not going that route because it's cheaper and I don't do thaaaat much photography.

maverickz wrote:

I was wondering what the current best place is to both store and show off photos. Something with a community that could provide feedback and encouragement. My dad is really into photography now that he's retired (he did photography as a young man a long time ago) and he's looking for somewhere to put his work online.

So far the only really applicable places I've been able to find are Instagram (something he's not particularly into) and 500px (which seems better). Is Flickr still a thing to use? Or what's the current word on the topic of social network style photo storage and gallery?

Does he primarily want to share for personal enjoyment or for potential professional use?

Rahmen wrote:
maverickz wrote:

I was wondering what the current best place is to both store and show off photos. Something with a community that could provide feedback and encouragement. My dad is really into photography now that he's retired (he did photography as a young man a long time ago) and he's looking for somewhere to put his work online.

So far the only really applicable places I've been able to find are Instagram (something he's not particularly into) and 500px (which seems better). Is Flickr still a thing to use? Or what's the current word on the topic of social network style photo storage and gallery?

Does he primarily want to share for personal enjoyment or for potential professional use?

Mostly for personal enjoyment (i.e. amateur), but he'd like to have feedback.

In that case, with Flickr being part of Yahoo and featuring some uncertainty 500px has a free model that probably works for him and still presents the photos well with little tech knowledge on his part.