Photography Skills

[Dan M]

In May I lost my Favorite camera in the housefire I suffered. I had a cheap pocket camera that survived but it just didnt do what I wanted. Yesterday I found a decent deal on my 1st DSLR Camera. A Sony A200. It does more than I know how to do. Can anyone give me some hints to good books or videos or what ever on how to use this thing. the Sony book is a hard read even with a magnifying glass. here is my 1st 2 pictures. A model 48 that I picked up for a good friend who just had a kidney removed. Figured he needed some cheering up.

thanks

Dan

 

[cmort666]

I've got a Canon Digital Rebel Xt. I simply can't take a decent picture with a point and shoot. I was brought up on 35mm SLRs.

Go to a bookstore or a camera store and look for model specific books on your camera. That's what I did with my Canon and had good luck. I think the one I got was in the "Magic Lantern" series.

A good general treatment of digital photography is "Digital Photography" by Eismann, Dugan and Grey. It's an excellent book that covers all aspects of digital photography, including depth of focus, white balance, and retouching. I also was amused to find some example photos taken of the Cleveland skyline.

I'd also read photography magazines such as "Shutterbug" and "Popular Photography". They usually have useful hints about hardware and accessories, lighting, composition and editing.

By the way, your Sony is really a Minolta. I have a Minolta XG1 35mm SLR that I bought in the PX in Korea in '81. When I started looking at DSLRs a few years ago, my first choice was Minolta. The first Minolta DSLR I saw was $5,000. A few years later, the price had dropped substantially. When I really got serious about getting a DSLR, I couldn't find ANY information about Minoltas. I hadn't read photography magazines in years, so I was out of the loop. It turns out that Minolta had sold their entire photography operation to Sony. By that time, I'd settled on the Canon. The Sony/Minoltas have a good reputation as I recall, so you should have a good camera.

 

[NCTexan]

You look like you're doing pretty well with what you already know. I can't wait to see what you do when you're "trained".

 

[Dan M]

cmort666, thanks for the Info. back in the 70's I took some photography classes and had a Minolta slr35 too. I loved the camera. Dont know what ever happened to it. So I am extremely pleased with your info. I will go down to the bookstore here in Tucson today to see what I can find.

NCTexan, thanks but all camera on this pic. put on Auto and pointed and clicked.

thanks

Dan

 

[fyimo]

You are already taking really good pictures so you just need to learn some of the fundamentals to take even better pictures.

1. Keep the background in your pictures clean and simple with little distractions. The eye has a way of focusing on what it see's and it's funny as it tends to find the distracting things in images first.
2. Learn to judge the quality of light and learn to determine if it's cool or warm looking. The cool light then to have too much blue in it and makes objects look cold. Warm light has a slight yellow cast to it and is great for people shots and landscapes. Pictures of objects are better in Neutral light because the colors are truer.
3. Focus as close as you can to eliminate as much of the background as you can. You are actually cropping in the camera.
4. Learn to shoot your camera in aperture priority whenever you can because that controls the depth of field and how deep the focus zone is. Things in front of the zone or behind it will be soft and out of focus. The wider the aperture like f2.8 has a very narrow focus zone so parts of the gun will be in focus and some out.
5. Most modern digital cameras to day have the sweet spot in the lens at f8 so when you can use that f stop because it's the best that lens can be in terms of sharpness and color resolution.
6. Get a good photo software package like Photoshop and buy a book to learn all the tools. You will be amazed at the things you can do to an ordinary in focus picture to make it look way better then when you started.

Most of all practice, practice, practice and study your results so it becomes a learning process.

You can email me if you need any other questions asked.

A couple of my photo pictures
17-4

K22

 

[cmort666]

cmort666, thanks for the Info. back in the 70's I took some photography classes and had a Minolta slr35 too. I loved the camera. Dont know what ever happened to it. So I am extremely pleased with your info. I will go down to the bookstore here in Tucson today to see what I can find.

NCTexan, thanks but all camera on this pic. put on Auto and pointed and clicked.

thanks

Dan

Stuff disappears sometimes. I used that Minolta to take pictures of the North Korean guard posts and guards in the DMZ in 1981. I still have the camera. The tripod I used is just GONE. I have NO idea what happened to it. It was with me when I moved to Cleveland from Chicago, from Cleveland to Fremont, and from Fremont back to Cleveland. I used it to take pictures at Camp Perry 5-6 years ago. It just vanished.

Get yourself some good image editing software. You can really improve or even "save" marginal shots. I consider Photoshop HIDEOUSLY overpriced. I use Corel Photopaint. A year ago, it was about 1/6th the price of Photoshop, WITH the entire Corel Draw X3 suite. The only drawback is that most of the photo editing hints in the books and magazines are Photoshop oriented. You can usually do the same things with Photopaint, but need to "translate" the jargon and commands. I like to do moderate white balance, contrast, and color corrections, but you can go overboard. Some editing tips in the magazines seem more dedicated to digital art OUTSIDE of the camera rather than real photography.

 

[rags]

NICE Dan!!

 

[kennyb]

i also had the minolta xg1....still have it but needs parts...after retiring i opened a photography studio...haven't found a digital camera yet that can touch a medium format hasselblad....i also use one dslr nikon and several nikon film camera's (f5 and f100) as mentioned read a lot and practice

 

[red14]

I have a Sony SLR. It is an adjustment from film. Sometimes it fights you to take a picture. Just be patient, take time to learn, it's a good camera.

 

[PALADIN85020]

There are many aftermarket user guides that are better, I think, than the factory manuals. For example, I found David Busch's guide to the Pentax K200D to be excellent; it was published by Course Technology, a division of Cengage. I suggest you Google the name of your camera, and you will probably come up with several aftermarket guides.

 

[Smith357]

I've been a shutter bug since high school and had plenty of camera gear over the years, one thing I learned is you don't need a $2000 camera to take a million dollar shot. Todays mid range digital point and shoots have a vast array of features that were unheard of back in the film days. I have found also that I have learned far more from just snapping pictures than I ever learned from a book. The books did give me a point of reference but then I took it from there.

For product photography lighting and setting up the shot are key. Your pictures look great with excellent composition, but there are minor refection issues with the gun catching some off color light most likely from you. I have found on bright blue guns a piece white poser board in front of the subject will solve these errant refections and give you even lines as in fyimo's shots.

 

[cmort666]

i also had the minolta xg1....still have it but needs parts...after retiring i opened a photography studio...haven't found a digital camera yet that can touch a medium format hasselblad....i also use one dslr nikon and several nikon film camera's (f5 and f100) as mentioned read a lot and practice

There are digital backs for the medium format cameras, definitely Mamiya, probably Hasselblad as well. Very expensive, but extremely high megapixels.

 

[cmort666]

I've been a shutter bug since high school and had plenty of camera gear over the years, one thing I learned is you don't need a $2000 camera to take a million dollar shot.

The best pictures I ever took I made with a Vivitar semi-auto 35mm SLR. I took a bunch of pictures at Camp Howze, Korea and up in the Chorwon valley. My mother pitched them because they were in b&w, which she thought was "ugly". I might have the negatives somewhere...

 

[Dan M]

Thank you everyone for your great advice. I went to Borders this afternoon and found a book specific to the Sony A200 written by Alan Hess. Very easy reading and will practice in between chapters.
As far as Imging software I use Microsoft Digital Pro and find it very easy to use compared to the others mentioned. I have an older copy of Corel around here somewhere but it seemed too unfriendly to me.

Thanks again

Dan

 

[kennyb]

There are digital backs for the medium format cameras, definitely Mamiya, probably Hasselblad as well. Very expensive, but extremely high megapixels.

yes...hasselblad has one...its $10,000+

 

[Sven]

Dan, you've put me to shame! I bought my wife and I a Cannon EOS Rebel SXi about a month ago, and I haven't taken a nice gun pic yet! Shame on me! I might have to correct that oversight as soon as I get home from work tonight!

She's been busy taking pictures for our church photo directory (I think about 150 so far) and has used Photoshop to adjust exposures and even to move faces from one photo to another (like when a kid is smiling in one shot, but not in the shot that everyone else is smiling nicely in). We've also taken lots of pics of grandkids and have practised with the macro, shooting wildflowers. Definitely time for the guns!