Photo competition winner

[DTBA]

nicci check your phone

 

[Nicci]

Ok thank you!! Im busy reading up on this now as we speak. I will eventually figure out which lens I need to buy / hire. Thank you for the tips / advice.

 

[bwana]

In other words, it facilitates bokeh-whoring and shooting under lower light conditions with the same equivalent shutter speed and ISO.

What the heck is bokeh-whoring? DOF is something any photographer worth their salt needs to know how to control. Sure, it's easy to get carried away and shoot everything wide open but it's usually just a stage.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/learn-photography-concepts.htm

Looks like a good start.

Yes, but while the internet is a great resource it's no substitute for taking a course with a decent photographer.

Ok thank you!! Im busy reading up on this now as we speak. I will eventually figure out which lens I need to buy / hire. Thank you for the tips / advice.

Hiring lenses is a great idea.

Since this is going to crop up eventually. . . I'm also going to suggest when it comes to RAW vs JPG you stick with JPG for now.

LensLust. It's real.

lol - aint that the truth.

 

[SlowInternet]

congrats Nicci

 

[nanonyous]

What the heck is bokeh-whoring? DOF is something any photographer worth their salt needs to know how to control. Sure, it's easy to get carried away and shoot everything wide open but it's usually just a stage.

And it's far too easy for someone to get stuck in the rut of always shooting everything wide open. Even on a 3.5-5.6 or 4-5.6 variable-aperture lens one is most likely to be shooting at the widest aperture for everything without taking note of whether or not what you want or need to be in focus is going to be in focus. That's why you can learn how to control your DoF without having to use a long focal length wide aperture lens.

Yes, but while the internet is a great resource it's no substitute for taking a course with a decent photographer.

Another great place to blow a lot of money for no good reason. You can learn better and for free by looking at what others are doing and trying to understand how they're doing that, and looking for readily available, free resources, that will teach you everything you need to know and then some. Going for a workshop or a course with another photographer is a great way to spend a lot of money to get a rehash of what your camera's manual teaches you, or maybe some concepts ever so slightly 'more advanced' than it.

Youtube, google and sites like 500px. Only tools you need to learn with starting out.

Hiring lenses is a great idea.

If you want to burn money without knowing why you're doing it... It's a great idea if you're in the market for something specific that's crucial to the task you're trying to perform but need to compare a few lenses to determine how they are in terms of real-world use, not just test-charts found on the internet. It's also a great idea if you're a photographer profiting from their photos that can deliver consistently good results that knows "today is the day that I will have to rent x to perform y to get result z". Otherwise it's a money-waster.

Since this is going to crop up eventually. . . I'm also going to suggest when it comes to RAW vs JPG you stick with JPG for now.

No. If anything, shoot RAW+JPEG and become self-critical over which photos to keep and which to delete. Completely botched, blurry photo? Delete it in favour of the one that isn't. General snapshot, like the jpeg result enough? Delete the raw. Great photo, would like to keep it to do things with later? Keep both the jpeg and raw or just delete the jpeg.

Shooting in only jpeg is like limiting yourself to a polaroid camera with variable film paper that keeps spitting out its own results without you having much say in what the end-result is unless you spend a few minutes fidgeting with settings on the camera. Shoot raw now, worry about composition, lighting, perspective and exposure now. Worry about tweaking your colours and tones later.

 

[Fudzy]

Software is quite important these days too.

 

[bwana]

And it's far too easy for someone to get stuck in the rut of always shooting everything wide open. Even on a 3.5-5.6 or 4-5.6 variable-aperture lens one is most likely to be shooting at the widest aperture for everything without taking note of whether or not what you want or need to be in focus is going to be in focus. That's why you can learn how to control your DoF without having to use a long focal length wide aperture lens.



Another great place to blow a lot of money for no good reason. You can learn better and for free by looking at what others are doing and trying to understand how they're doing that, and looking for readily available, free resources, that will teach you everything you need to know and then some. Going for a workshop or a course with another photographer is a great way to spend a lot of money to get a rehash of what your camera's manual teaches you, or maybe some concepts ever so slightly 'more advanced' than it.

Youtube, google and sites like 500px. Only tools you need to learn with starting out.



If you want to burn money without knowing why you're doing it... It's a great idea if you're in the market for something specific that's crucial to the task you're trying to perform but need to compare a few lenses to determine how they are in terms of real-world use, not just test-charts found on the internet. It's also a great idea if you're a photographer profiting from their photos that can deliver consistently good results that knows "today is the day that I will have to rent x to perform y to get result z". Otherwise it's a money-waster.



No. If anything, shoot RAW+JPEG and become self-critical over which photos to keep and which to delete. Completely botched, blurry photo? Delete it in favour of the one that isn't. General snapshot, like the jpeg result enough? Delete the raw. Great photo, would like to keep it to do things with later? Keep both the jpeg and raw or just delete the jpeg.

Shooting in only jpeg is like limiting yourself to a polaroid camera with variable film paper that keeps spitting out its own results without you having much say in what the end-result is unless you spend a few minutes fidgeting with settings on the camera. Shoot raw now, worry about composition, lighting, perspective and exposure now. Worry about tweaking your colours and tones later.

I'm sorry but we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Nicci, just have fun - you'll figure it out eventually, if you want to.

 

[nanonyous]

I prefer disagreeing on the basis of breaking things down with reasoning and understanding things from the ground up.

Why pay someone to teach you what you can learn for free?
Why rent what you don't even understand the purpose of?
Why buy things which you don't know the purpose of?
Why intentionally limit yourself instead of using what's available to you and understanding why you're using it in the first place?


Also Nicci, don't bother getting a UV filter for your 18-55mm. The lens itself isn't worth spending the money on and a cheap UV filter is only going to screw with the final images' quality. Additionally, your lens' front element isn't nearly as sensitive, let alone likely to cause issues from scratches etc as you might think.

http://www.lenstip.com/113.1-article-UV_filters_test.html
http://kurtmunger.com/dirty_lens_articleid35.html

I've done tests similar to those seen in the second link above on my 18-55mm. You need to do quite a lot to the front element of that lens before you're going to have any significant issues with your images.

Here are my 18-55mm and 75-300mm's front elements. I've had and used extensively both lenses for the past two years without a UV filter on, and the only mark I have on either is a small one on the 18-55mm where something landed on the lens while I was using a cleaning pen that I accidentally brushed - I've never been able to find any effects from that small scratch in my images.

18-55mm
75-300mm

Ignore the general haziness in these, that's from hand-holding a lens to get the photos with since my adapter hasn't arrived yet and my other lens is out of commission right now.

*edit* On the note of lenses' front elements, though, never, and I mean but never, blow with your mouth onto the lens to wipe things off. There's far more acid in your saliva/breath than you might think, and that stuff can gradually chew away at the coating on your lens that's in place to help reduce flaring. Get a simple blower to blow dust and other particles off the element when you want to clean it, and just use something like one of the lenstip pens if you need to get rid of smudges. Blow first, blow+lightly brush, once all dust is gone gently use the lens cleaning tool to get rid of smudges.

You're not getting rid of the smudges so much for the sake of sharpening things up as getting rid of colour casts, flaring and contrast drops.

 

[RanzB]

You can learn about DoF just fine without using a 50mm f/1.8... Now, becoming indoctrinated into believing you need the max bokeh evahr for every single photo only alltimes or your photo is automatically **** - that's something you're only going to get by primarily using wide-aperture lenses. Learn about working with light, composition and subject matter first. Learn about using colour to your advantage or primarily shoot with a black and white scene while using raw so you have colour versions of whatever you shot at home, but see the result in black and white on your camera to learn about contrasts. Learn about perspective and how it can affect your images.

Don't rush out and get a single prime thinking it's magically going to force you to learn any of these things at all, because it won't. It's going to force you to be aware of the fact your lens is very difficult to manually focus with if you're on a small viewfinder crop camera without a decent focusing screen and that you keep needing to step back because your lens is too tightly framed on crop for what you're shooting a lot of the time. Neither of these are qualities unique to this lens; the former is even to a very large extent applicable to the 18-55mm kit lens.

The point of the 50 is that it's an excellent way to learn about DOF and how to control it. Something you're not going to learn by taping the 18-55 at 50 and shooting at f/5.6. It's also the sharpest, fastest lens you can get at the price.

FWIW - the 18-55 is a sharp enough lens but it has it's limitations and flares like a mo-fo.

I agree with both of you, weirdly. I don't think she should be buying any lenses at this point, but at some time, she should get that 50 1.8, it's like a rite of passage

All beginner photographers need to be bokeh-whores for a little while at least, just as they should be Max DOF- whores for a bit, and natural light whores for a bit, and flash whores for a little bit. Playing with all different types of photographic techniques for a length of time is a good way to become proficient in most techniques.


@Nicci - Regarding the classes, don't rush into anything at the moment unless you're 100% sure it's what you want. There's a buttload of information on the internet that wasn't readily available to photographers not too long ago, so take advantage. Youtube can teach you the basics and beyond, but it won't help if you aren't attentive. Depending on how you learn, a class might be good for you, but honestly, most will just charge you a few thousand bucks to teach you what I learned on youtube in 3 or 4 days.

 

[RanzB]

Nicci, just have fun - you'll figure it out eventually, if you want to.

Exactly. There's ton of entry-level cameras in the classifieds because people got a camera and didn't bother learning how to use it. If it's something you really want, you'll get there.

 

[undesign]

All beginner photographers need to be bokeh-whores for a little while at least, just as they should be Max DOF- whores for a bit, and natural light whores for a bit, and flash whores for a little bit. Playing with all different types of photographic techniques for a length of time is a good way to become proficient in most techniques.

+1000000, I like that

And +1 for photography class. Read what you can find - books, internet, magazines, rss feeds - and they help a lot, but a class is something different you can do in addition to self-help. Real conversation with a pro, shoot and instant feedback, debate and conversing with class mates, playing with other equipment etc adds another dimension that can greatly increase your learning and interest.

And +1 for jpg, don't bother with raw for now, it just adds an unnecessary complication.

Also agree with previous posters, your kit lens is not half bad, you can take great shots with it, so go and enjoy it. If the urge hits you to drop cash, like in NOW, get the Nifty Fifty a.k.a. Captain Plastic a.k.a. 50 1.8. For a grand it adds a few extra dimensions to your photographic journey - low light shooting with a fast lens, "foot zoom" because of fixed focal length and bokeh whoring (which is fun in the beginning ). If money is not an issue you can of course get the brilliant 50 1.4...beautiful lens with...nah never mind.

Go out and shoot, shoot, shoot...

My complete amateur big photo enthusiast 2c

PS nanonymous, I'm pre-empting your reply with a tl:dr

 

[johanopperman]

Don't put the camera into manual, it's purpose defeating. Manual is used for difficult situations or when you know exactly what settings you're wanting to use for a given scene already. It does nothing but convolute the learning process by forcing you to waste time fiddling with settings when you really should be focusing on the actual picture you're trying to capture. Aperture priority if your focus is on a specific depth of field, shutter priority if your focus is on a specific shutter speed, adjust ISO to suit your conditions or leave it on auto. Otherwise you use Program mode as your effective 'greenbox' or full-auto mode, as it still affords you flash control and choosing metering modes yourself.

And personally I wouldn't get a 50mm f/1.8 if you're just starting out. Yes, you're going to get björkeh and a half, but a narrow DoF does not automatically a good photo make. Yes, the lens is a great performer, but also flares like you wouldn't believe even with its hood. By the time you understand why you want or 'need' the bokeh you might as well go for the 50mm f/1.4 USM instead and gain a focus window and full-time manual with a focus ring that isn't horrendous to use manually, along with quicker, more precise AF and a lens that doesn't flare to hell and back. The poor man buys twice.

You can learn the finer points of exposing correctly when you've got the basics of what makes for decent composition and lighting. The best, most fitting exposure in the world isn't going to mean a thing if your photo itself contains nothing of interest or has no aesthetic merit otherwise.

Also, the camera's manual - sit down with the camera and read it cover to cover while trying things out. Don't be afraid to press buttons - you cannot break your camera by doing this. Just don't try to turn the focus ring on the 18-55mm while it's in AF and make sure to change it to MF before putting it in a bag or otherwise stowing it somewhere.

Had a long reply typed out which somehow got lost when I tried to post it.

I'm not going to retype everything, except that I take offense to the condescending tone in your post. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but take exception to the way in which you did. Therefore, this will be my last post on this subject and indeed my last correspondence with you.

Just to summarize my original post:

I did NOT tell her to buy everything. I just said she needs to befriend her bank manager now already as soon she'll be WANTING to buy more and more (as we all do).

I did NOT suggest the 50/1.8 for the narrower Depth of Field (and please, DoF and bokeh - notice spelling - is not the same thing. Quite different actually). It was on advise from a friend, Mark Thomas (RIP) that I bought the 50mm prime. Not only does it give you the extra stops to experiment with, but most importantly it forces you to move closer or further from a subject, thereby changing your viewpoint and forcing you to think about the composition, as opposed to standing in one place and just zooming in and out to get the subject more or less into the frame, but from the same vantage point. Also, you should know a lens always focuses at wide open, therefore a f/1.8 lens will focus at 1.8 even if you're shooting at f/32. Makes a helluva difference in low light conditions when your camera is trying to focus at f/5.6 instead of f/1.8.

As for manual mode: yes there are two schools of thought on this one. I am from the full manual mode because quite frankly it forces you to learn the basics. Also, what happens too often is that a person shoots in aperture priority....camera was on spot metering for example and was metering from a darker spot, thereby calculating a slower shutterspeed and you end up with an over-exposed photo and can't figure out why. What people then do is playing with the exposure compensation....which in effect is just forcing your camera to use a slower/faster shutterspeed than calculated so you could just as well have been in full manual from the beginning. Also, in manual you will learn to use the exposure meter of your camera. And once you start doing flash photography, there is effectively no alternative than to go full manual, so why not learn that from the start?

Going full auto (groenblokkie mode) is like using your new DSLR as an over-priced point-and-shoot. What a waste of money. You want control over everything in your photo, why let the camera decide on it all?

We fortunately agree on one thing: shoot in RAW from scratch.


Anyways, even my summary is very long (imagine how long my original post was!). I will leave it at that, I'm withdrawing from this topic. Please feel free to dish out as much advise as you possible can and help Nicci enjoy her new camera.

 

[nanonyous]

PS nanonymous, I'm pre-empting your reply with a TLR

I've said my piece. If people want to blow money senselessly, I'm not going to stop them no matter how much reasoning I try to use.

@johanopperman

I'm not using a condecending tone, I'm being frank. My reference to people suggesting she should go out and buy this, that and the other thing wasn't referring specifically to you - it was referring to everyone, including me, making such suggestions. I suggested two (expensive) flashes - she might end up never really using flashes in her photos but could go out and buy it tomorrow because she's excited and someone on a forum she frequents suggested it.

And quite frankly, manual doesn't force you to learn the basics, it forces you to waste time. Your metering mode is still going to come into play while using manual metering - if you don't know how your camera is metering, how can you even begin to comprehend the purpose behind the little needle moving back and forth while changing your settings and slightly moving the camera? Using a priority mode and objectively thinking about what basis of settings you're working from, understanding how it is your camera is currently metering and how your movement of the camera might affect that metering, by pointing it at different things, is far more valuable than being forced to sit and think "hmm, my needle just went lower, maybe I should use a wider aperture, slower shutter speed or higher ISO..." - meanwhile all that happened is you accidentally pointed the camera towards a darker scene than you were originally metering for from fiddling with a limited set of difficult to reach controls.

As for the focusing, the center point on a 500D only focuses up to f/2.8 and only that point is cross-type. You can get that with the 40mm f/2.8 STM which has even better image quality and isn't quite as tight framing-wise as the 50mm on a crop camera. Yes, it costs more, but its build quality is also drastically higher, so it'll last you longer.

As for your reference to flashes - by the time she's using more than one flash one would hope she's learned all there is to learn about aperture vs shutter speed vs ISO and flash powers, along with metering. Otherwise, she's using a TTL flash and a camera that will automatically adjust things to accommodate the flash to try and get as correct an exposure as possible automatically, unless she forces it to behave differently.

And where did I suggest she use full-auto? I suggested she use program mode over full auto if she wants an 'automatic' mode...

 

[Nicci]

I'm sorry but we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Nicci, just have fun - you'll figure it out eventually, if you want to.

Thank you Bwana. Everybody is talking things that I still need to learn. I came across a decent photography book for beginners earlier, and I will ask tomorrow at the shops for some courses that I can do on weekends. I know what ISO / aperture / shutter speed etc is, I learned it on my other camera, but it will be a total different ball game with a dslr camera. I am very positive that I will get to know everything I need to know

 

[Nicci]

I prefer disagreeing on the basis of breaking things down with reasoning and understanding things from the ground up.

Why pay someone to teach you what you can learn for free?
Why rent what you don't even understand the purpose of?
Why buy things which you don't know the purpose of?
Why intentionally limit yourself instead of using what's available to you and understanding why you're using it in the first place?

Ok, let me explain

1. I believe it will be easier for me to have someone show and teach me the basics. With this knowledge I can then go and read up, but I will then have a better understanding.
2. I won't rent until I am completely comfortable with the camera, and know which lens does what and what lens I need to get to get the job done
3. I will not buy anything, until I know exactly what i need
4. I am not limiting myself

I might not always have the best things to say, or express myself very well, but I have a good head on my shoulders, and I grasp things fairly quickly, pair that with determination and passion, well, I think I will be ok! I will most probably still ask a few questions, but I think not to make myself look like a fool, I plan to get a tutor to show me everything

Remember, most of the things you guys talk here, it's the first time I hear of it, so take it easy on me!

 

[nanonyous]

1. http://www.youtube.com/user/TheSlantedLens/videos?flow=grid&view=0 and your camera manual. Someone 'showing you how to do these things' is literally going to be no different than having someone read the manual to you.
2. Okay
3. Great
4. By shooting only jpeg, even if starting out, you re effectively limiting yourself when your camera makes available to you a mode that shoots simultaneously in raw+jpeg. Knowing what can be done with your resulting image is as important to your learning about proper exposure is as proper exposure itself is in the first place.

If you get the wrong tutor, you'd be making yourself for paying someone money to teach you things you could have as quickly, if not more quickly, learned by yourself by simply paging through your camera's manual. With the exception of being given access to lighting equipment you simply don't have and having someone explain how to use the hardware, not the techniques, a tutor is giving you nothing you couldn't get out of free to access youtube videos where people are doing exactly the same thing.

And don't worry, I'm not taking anything out on you, I'm taking things out on people making suggestions that I deem wasteful and potentially damaging to your learning process. I don't know you from adam, so I don't know what you might end up doing and who's advise you may end up listening to, so the best I can do is be as clear as possible on why I'm suggesting things or shooting suggestions down - rather than saying "go get 50mm f/1.8 because nifty fifty forced footzoom brojkeh* DoF phase focusing lowlight creativetool". Understand first, blow money later.


*christ, do some of you honestly think I don't know how to spell this and that I don't know what the terms 'depth of field' and 'bokeh' mean? My saying 'bjorkeh' is a personal joke of mine, as I intend on someday getting a photo of Björk with intentionally missed focus with a narrow derp of feel so that she'll be out of focus, and I intend on labelling the photo "Björkeh".

 

[undesign]

?

 

[Nanfeishen]

Congrats on winning

1. I believe it will be easier for me to have someone show and teach me the basics. With this knowledge I can then go and read up, but I will then have a better understanding.
2. I won't rent until I am completely comfortable with the camera, and know which lens does what and what lens I need to get to get the job done
3. I will not buy anything, until I know exactly what i need
4. I am not limiting myself

^
Good for you

If your location is C.T. check out or visit here, http://www.photographicgear.co.za/
the guy who runs it is pretty decent , and always seems up to a chat and an offer of some nice advice to newbies.
Also:
Bellville:
http://www.cameraworld.co.za/Home/tabid/104/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=UnitCost,ProductName
Century City Vicinity:
http://www.studio22.co.za/
They often have some nice sales

When and if you decide to invest in lenses, dont forget to consider both Sigma and Tamron as well, they both make Canon Mount lenses, sometimes often better priced than the Brand itself.

Good luck, and have fun

 

[nanonyous]

With reference to undesign's suggestion, be very careful of some Tamron and Tokina lenses. Their quality has gone up significantly in the past years, but one specific lens as an example from Tokina is their 16.5-135. It's terrible. It's incredibly heavy for what it offers, extends very far with a large front element that makes the whole thing very front-heavy, has an insanely short focus throw (the amount the focus ring can turn from side to side - as you can imagine, a longer throw means finer control), the focus ring sits right next to the zoom ring and *moves* during focusing. It's slow to focus, inaccurate, hunts a lot even in decent light (can't lock onto anything), and this doesn't even take into consideration its image quality, which is pretty much terrible.

For Tamron it's basically just a matter of quality control. Ideally, wherever you buy it from, you get to test the lens in the store before going home with it, and they have a return policy in the event there's something about the lens that seems off to you. The same applies for Sigma, just to a far lesser extent these days.

 

[Shake&Bake]

Well done - enjoy snapping!