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Camera is hard to use.. but ill get there..

a photo i took tonight using my $5 tripod. cant seem to get everything focused, nor do i know how to use this but anyway

Critise away!

Kris, you may need to tell us a bit more about your settings for us to be able to help.
Not a bad attempt anyway.

In my opinion you are well on the way - great shot..what apart from focus aren't you happy about? Have you done much/any post production ehancements? Nice in my humble camera-less opinion.

I dont know what the settings are now, ive deleted it from my Camera.



It was on P mode, exposure was +0.7 I think. Everything else was auto I believe.

In this type of photo you would probably be better off using Aperture priority, that way you can set a small aperture to get better depth of field. Slow shutter speed is not a problem because you are using a tripod.
I think on P the camera would have chosen a wide aperture.

not too shabby!

for focusing remeber that the phase detection system the d70 uses works best on vertical lines... so find one.. keep shutter 1/2 depressed (or go to manual mode) and compose image

For landscapes such as this - I'd set the focus to hyperfocal distance, close down the aperture, and fire away. Also keep out of matrix metering. Centre weighed would be better IMHO.

Great effort Kris

If you have Photoshop or Nikon Capture, open the image in one of these & the settings information should still be there with the file.

IMO a little more DOF & you would have nailed it, great work

Start shooting in A, it’s basically the same as P but with more control.

Cheers
Ray

Thanks for the input, although some of the settings you've mentioned I dont understand their meaning, ill read the book and see.

I will look more into the A mode also, I managed to find the settings for the previous shot which wasnt as good but are the same.

Nikon D70
2004/10/07 21:00:09
JPEG (8-bit) Fine
Image Size: Large (3008 x 2000)
Lens: 18-70mm F/3.5-4.5 G
Focal Length: 18mm
Exposure Mode: Programmed Auto*
Metering Mode: Multi-Pattern
3 sec - F/3.5
Exposure Comp.: +0.7 EV
Sensitivity: ISO 200
Optimize Image: Soft
White Balance: Auto
AF Mode: Manual
Flash Sync Mode: Not Attached
Color Mode: Mode Ia (sRGB)
Tone Comp: Auto
Hue Adjustment: 0°
Saturation: Normal
Sharpening: Medium low
Image Comment:
Noise Reduction: Fixed Pattern


No processing, just resized and posted here.

What is DoF ?

Depth of Field

Hope this helps (HTH)

Geoff.
http://www.pbase.com/d70geoff

Lol.

(Laughs out loud)

Kris, when you put the camera on "P", it automatically chose the settings of 3sec F 3.5 if you used "A "you could have chosen F 8, the camera would have selected the appropriate shutter speed for you - around 24 sec. and you would have got the result you wanted.
Hope this makes sense.

Kris,

I like the image, but by your own admission, thee's some basic photographic knowledge that seems to be missing here. This is not, by any means, an attempt to belittle or criticise you, but rather simply a way of asking whether we perhaps need to identify some skill sets that the membership base here might be lacking, and arranging some technical sessions to specifically address those shortcomings.

It's been quite a while since I've needed to prepare these sorts of coursenotes, but that's no excuse for me either.

I know we have a couple of other technically competent people on the forum, and I'm wondering if we should prepare a a couple of courses that travers stuff like ...

Exposure basics
DoF
Relationship between Dof/Aperture/Exposure
Composition
Flash techniques

what else ?

While I'm thinking in terms of stuff that applies in both the digital and film world, clearly stuff that only applies to digital would also be appropriate.

Ideas?

Comments?

Offers to assist?

Expressions of interest in participating?

Sounds like a great idea..and one never stops learning . Cheers.

Gary,
Few things I'm thinking of additional to yours:
Histogram (Understanding/ Reading/ correcting)
EV compensation for both Camera and onboard and SB-800 flash.

and perhaps we can start the first subject one at a time and subject by subject at the meet at my place by end of the month, or if there're number of peolpe greater than 5 or 6, then I'll find a place with projector and roomy than my granny flat.

I'm in for supporting this short course.

Also there's a play in NC and PS/PSCS for PP as I posted long while ago,
Printing can be added into it also

Gary, I am all l for this and would be happy to help in any way I could, though I would not want to lead people into my own blind alley of lack of knowledge.

Maybe we could give different people a section to write up (maybe copy)?

I would see PP - including photoshop, NC, etc - as a whole different set of courseware. Likewise, printing would probably more appropriately fit within this region.

Consider that on the one hand we have the making of the image - getting something that we see into the camera, and doing so so that our digital negative is of the best possible quality.

And on the other hand we have the post-processing of that digital negative, be that using PS, NC, whatever, and preparing it for display, either by printing, web display, or whatever, and given that the digitial negative might be in great shape, or like me.

I know that I'm always reminding Leigh to, with his silver halide images, to ensure that he gets the best possible negativbe he can. if the negative is good, then you have a far better chance of pulling a good photo from it. But if the neg is too thin, too dense, or lacks an effective contrast range, you're only making the task of getting that great image just that much more difficult for yourself.

In this regard, there is nothing much that is different when it comes to digital photography, and it's our knowledge of the basic techniques - exposure, lighting, composition, even just how to hold the camera properly and how to release the shutter smoothly - that all contribute to the quality of our negatives, be they halide or digital.

Gary,
Agreed all of your POV. is it your intention for a courseware or a short course?
What my thoughts are:
Many tutorials, books, article have been writting about these topics in the past and our forum also have many links posted in Important Link section, our members are mainly people have to get to work in the morning and coming home when the sun goes down, apart from their daily job they have few other commitment with family and their private, sometime people don't have time to concentrate in reading and find out what wrong they have done or how to correct it?

I think the short course in a day or half a day, we normally call it as a meet or a workshop, in those few hours we try to gather few technically competent people on our forum to help other to achieve their objective of learning curves and people can practice with a small group of people so it will be a quick way to learn rather stick our nose on a book or an article, and we can start at the basic thru the advance. There's also time for discussion and practicing what people have learnt.

I have bunch of ideas & would like to make a contribution to this community.

Birddog,

Birddog114 wrote:I think the short course in a day or half a day, we normally call it as a meet or a workshop, in those few hours we try to gather few technically competent people on our forum to help other to achieve their objective of learning curves and people can practice with a small group of people so it will be a quick way to learn rather stick our nose on a book or an article, and we can start at the basic thru the advance. There's also time for discussion and practicing what people have learnt.

I have bunch of ideas & would like to make a contribution to this community.

Yes, all of this, plus I like Glen's approach of having perhaps some members volunteer to investigate and prepare some of the courseware for this.

We could perhaps instigate, as a first point of reference, a system whereby a few of us act, together, as mentors, guiding those who might volunteer to research and prepare the papers. That way we could ensure that (hopefully) there's a common set of standards in terms of layout, language and expression, as well as a high standard of content.

It would be open to the volunteers to present their papers (if they felt comfortable doing this) or else one of the mentors would handle that task. FWIW, I have plenty of experience in the role of mentor and speaker, and this is not too different from a model that was used by CA in preparation of papers for their major conferences (that I've spoken at) over a number of years.

Your point regarding other commitments that we all have is valid, and I would only encourage those who are prepared to do this, and can handle the extra commitments, to join in the research/mentoring/preparation side of this.

All members would be welcome - and encouraged - to participate to the best of their ability however, in whatever capacity they felt comfortable.

How is that sounding?

Gary,

First of all! I'm in and ready for this, whatever role I can take/ help/ support than I'll.

Secondly, I think we will have a meet soon to discuss more with interested members.

Thirdly, I would like to hear our member's opinion on this subject.

Sounds like a great idea to do some courses 'in-house' with members.

I would be willing to write something up for composition if you like, after all, that's what photography is all about and is my favorite subject/pastime.

I will get to work on it...............hmmmmm need a sexy female model for instructional purposes....now where can i get one of those for free....

Killakoala wrote:Sounds like a great idea to do some courses 'in-house' with members.

I would be willing to write something up for composition if you like, after all, that's what photography is all about and is my favorite subject/pastime.

I will get to work on it...............hmmmmm need a sexy female model for instructional purposes....now where can i get one of those for free....

Hey Killakoala,
Work hard and we try to hire for you one!!!!! How's the Manoora? Is she ready to sail?

Hey Killakoala,
Work hard and we try to hire for you one!!!!! How's the Manoora? Is she ready to sail?

Well, let's just say that things are not going according to plan. However, we remain optimistic and hope to sail soon. But realistically it will probably be later rather than sooner. The ship is showing it's age.

There are some very pretty young women on the ship so maybe i can talk one of them into modelling for me

This would be a great idea, because I have no idea about the topics that Gary mentioned. I'm only young (23) and this is my first DSLR or digital camera in reality (775 was a p&s camera and i never fiddled with settings) so im as newbie as they come..

Id love to do this, but Belmore is VERY far

So if I can learn about this camera and photography, I'm happy to do a shortcourse on basics of TCPIP, Configuration of Cisco/Juniper routers and Foundry switching. Quite happy to delve into BGP or anything else related





... not that anyone else would find this interesting except birddog

Killakoala wrote:

There are some very pretty young women on the ship so maybe i can talk one of them into modelling for me

Why not, Great ideas! Let me know and I'm in with it..