Legendary's New to Photography Thread!

[Legendary]

So today I went and treated myself at the boxing day sales to a Nikon D3100 with the 18-55mm lens and the 55-200mm lens.

I love looking at other peoples photography, car related or not and have always wanted to be able to do it myself but have been unsure about spending so much on getting started. Today I figured why not, might as well!

So I took a good couple of hundred photos today, mainly on auto settings as I am getting used to how it all works. If you take a quick look in my car thread (link in the signature) you'll see that I do need to start learning what to do with the lighting settings as some of it comes in too much. I have an idea of what to do there, experimenting would help but I didn't get around to that today.

Anyway, this is the place i'll post some of my better work I guess, starting with best ones to come out of today.

That one isn't the best but I like the concept.

That's the personal favorite from today.

Constructive criticism is welcome, just don't destroy me on my first day .

 

[phillgt2002]

The lily pad photo is by far your best.

 

[Ibonibo]

Very nice mate.

You won't regret your purchase.

For the beginning, stay on auto if a shot is important. If you want to experiment use full manuel, play around with the different settings and learn. After a while, you will be comfortable shooting in manual.

I started manual quite late (1 year after purchase).

Also important tip: Use Raw to shoot your pics.It's like a negative, you have a lot more information in the file to play around in post. Nikon codecs or Windows Raw camera codec will show you your shots in windows without the need for an other program. Raws are bigger in size, but hdd or GB are not expensive anymore and get cheaper with time...
Nice program to start post is lightroom. Not expensive, not very hard to understand and a lot of possibilites.

 

[Legendary]

Very nice mate.

You won't regret your purchase.

For the beginning, stay on auto if a shot is important. If you want to experiment use full manuel, play around with the different settings and learn. After a while, you will be comfortable shooting in manual.

I started manual quite late (1 year after purchase).

Also important tip: Use Raw to shoot your pics.It's like a negative, you have a lot more information in the file to play around in post. Nikon codecs or Windows Raw camera codec will show you your shots in windows without the need for an other program. Raws are bigger in size, but hdd or GB are not expensive anymore and get cheaper with time...
Nice program to start post is lightroom. Not expensive, not very hard to understand and a lot of possibilites.

I played around with light and stuff tonight, got a feel for what the shutter time and stuff does. It's quickly become apparent that to do any kind of night photography I'll need a tripod, I had to lean it on myself or random objects to keep it still.

Interestingly, someone else told me the exact same thing. To shoot in raw and to use lightroom. I have cs5 at the moment but Im sure I can easily get lightroom up and running. I have heard it is a really good program.

 

[AMG.]

Well once you manage to get away from AutoEverythingMode you may want to read up on [post=7906964]this[/post] and [post=7916205]this[/post].

Nice pics by the way. Try not to always put the main subject in the middle and always check your background for intrusions.

 

[Legendary]

Those two posts were a really good read, I think I understand them. I'll have to go and give it a try later!

 

[Ibonibo]

I played around with light and stuff tonight, got a feel for what the shutter time and stuff does. It's quickly become apparent that to do any kind of night photography I'll need a tripod, I had to lean it on myself or random objects to keep it still.

Interestingly, someone else told me the exact same thing. To shoot in raw and to use lightroom. I have cs5 at the moment but Im sure I can easily get lightroom up and running. I have heard it is a really good program.

Yeah a tripod is always a good start, and no matter which one you get (big or a smaller one), it's always welcome. I just got my third tripod. A big- good one, a joby pod (gorilla pod) and a small one. It's never wasted money

Photoshop does the job too for raws. When you put a pic in, it automaticly starts the Raw"program", where you can edit it a bit and then continue in Photoshop. In the Raw section of PS, hold down alt to open the picture as copy in photoshop. Try a bit out to see for yourself what I mean.

PS is for the more deep, extensive Post-proc.
LR is better for batch PP or smaller PP and generally does the job for 75-90% of the pics. Also very good to tag multiple images.

A lot of people use it also as Picture Manager, though I prefer do it manually in Windows with folders...

Try out, play around, and beware the first hours will fly by so fast....
Lots of people

 

[Legendary]

I did grab Lightroom today, it's fairly easy to use and makes a considerable difference .

Here are a couple of the better ones from today. I did try to do a bunch with the subject away from the center as well (most not uploaded) and they turned out alright.

That's off the center and actually almost looks like the tree is giving the finger .

 

[35mm]

I have a feeling it won't be long before you have this thread full of excellent shots.

Nice start. 👍

 

[Legendary]

I have a feeling it won't be long before you have this thread full of excellent shots.

Nice start. 👍

Thank you! 👍