More serious photography - where do I start?

[Ari]

Inspired in great part by some of the photos on here, I'm interested in getting more serious about photography.

I currently have a Canon G6 which achieves fairly decent results, but nothing like the quality I've seen within this forum!

I'm guessing the next step is a DSLR and a camera course.

Would appreciate any tips, thoughts or pointers to aim me in the right direction.

[Dogsey]

Ari said:

Inspired in great part by some of the photos on here, I'm interested in getting more serious about photography.

I currently have a Canon G6 which achieves fairly decent results, but nothing like the quality I've seen within this forum!

I'm guessing the next step is a DSLR and a camera course.

Would appreciate any tips, thoughts or pointers to aim me in the right direction.

Try a DSLR and practice before you pay for a course, I would guess that almost all the people on here are self-taught, at least for the first couple of years.

As for which DSLR to go for, we'll need a budget and an idea of what you like taking photo's of to start us off.

[GetCarter]

/\ what he said.

Adding:

I think 1 hour working stuff out for yourself is worth 10 hours of any course being force fed. You find the need to improve your technique, you work out how to do it ... that's when it sticks in the brain.

Asking others to point you in the right direction is, of course, invaluable. As and when you encounter a problem, just ask in here (there are some very knowledgeable people in here - not me of course, I just wing it).

[Crafty_]

You cold always start practising with the G6, stick it in the manual/semi auto modes and learn exposure/play with DoF and so on. For a little outlay you can get adapters for the G6 to let you start using filters with it..

Ultimately you will probably end up with a DSLR, but you don't need one straight away.

I agree with the reply above, I think most people are self taught from reading online and/or books.

Edited by Crafty_ on Monday 8th August 21:10

[mattdaniels]

Dogsey said:

Try a DSLR and practice before you pay for a course,

I'd disagree. Buying a carlos fandango camera doesn't make you take better photos.

The camera is just a tool. Learn how to use the tool you've got. Then you're in a more informed position from which to decide if you want to get a better tool, and why.

[mattdaniels]

Crafty_ said:

You cold always start practising with the G6, stick it in the manual/semi auto modes and learn exposure/play with DoF and so on.

This.

[Ari]

Hmmm... interesting advice. I think I may get a book and have a fiddle with the G6. No good playing with the F stop if I've absolutely no idea what an F stop is.

(What is an F stop anyway, and do I even have one on the G6?)

[Ollerton57]

F stop is the aperture i.e. how open a lens is. Think of the pupil of your eye. When it's dark, your pupil is large to allow more light in (low F stop number e.g. F1.8), when it's bright your pupil is small to limit the light (high F stop number e.g. F16).

A low F stop number results in a shallow depth of field - those images where only one thing is generally in focus and the background is blurred. A high F stop number results in a large depth of field where the majority, or all, of the image is in focus.

I have no idea if your camera has an aperture priority mode (AV), but use it if it does and have a mess around. You'll quickly see the difference.

Obviously the higher the F stop number, the longer the shutter speed (to get the correct light exposure) and vice versa.

[Ari]

That's fantastic, thank you!

Yes, my camera does have an AV mode so I'll have a play with that.

So far the only "non standard" (ie not just leaving on "auto") thing I've tried is the TV setting, which seems to be the shutter speed (and I guess that varies the aperture automatically to compensate?) I obtained a tripod recently which is what prompted me to have a play with the settings for the first time.

I took it to London and ended up with (amongst others) these, which I was pleased with for a first attempt (and is what's sparked me to want to do more).

For these all I did was twiddle the shutter time and press the button (I used the 2 second timer to eradicate any shake).

Incidently I tried to do some day time long shutter speed shots of moving traffic and just got a white out, could the aperture be brought into play to make daytime photos of this type work?

Edited by Ari on Tuesday 9th August 13:25

[Ollerton57]

Ari said:

That's fantastic, thank you!

Yes, my camera does have an AV mode so I'll have a play with that.

So far the only "non standard" (ie not just leaving on "auto") thing I've tried is the TV setting, which seems to be the shutter speed (and I guess that varies the aperture automatically to compensate?) I obtained a tripod recently which is what prompted me to have a play with the settings for the first time.

I took it to London and ended up with (amongst others) these, which I was pleased with for a first attempt (and is what's sparked me to want to do more).

For these all I did was twiddle the shutter time and press the button (I used the 2 second timer to eradicate any shake).

Incidently I tried to do some day time long shutter speed shots of moving traffic and just got a white out, could the aperture be brought into play to make daytime photos of this type work?

My pleasure.

That's a good start on the pictures that you've taken, a good knowledge to use the 2 second timer!

TV is shutter priority and will adjust the aperature automatically to suit.

In regards to the whiteout, was that also using TV mode? If so, it may be that you're selecting a shutter speed that's too long, that even when the camera uses a high F stop too much light is getting in. If that's the case, the only things you can do to stop the whiteout, is use a quicker shutter speed or use filters to reduce the amount of light that can get into the lens - Google ND10 filters for an example.

[Ari]

Yes, I was using the Tv function and just dialing in 5 seconds (for instance, tried other intervals as well) but white out every time.

I suspect I may be broaching the limitations of the G6 trying to get long shutter openings during the day.

Your advice (which I found really interesting) has prompted me to order this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Collins-Complete-Photograp...

Hopefully it'll give me a few more pointers.

[Simpo Two]

Given your knowledge, very good results. Now you have to remember how you did it and grasp what was going on in the camera, so that you can reproduce/modify it in future and move forwards.

NB It even looks as if you've been twiddling white balance...?

[Ari]

No, just the Tv control (as far as I'm aware at least!)

[Ari]

A few more recent efforts here:

[Ollerton57]

Ari said:

I suspect I may be broaching the limitations of the G6 trying to get long shutter openings during the day.

One note of caution - an SLR will not allow you to use a longer shutter speed during the day, if anything, you may get the opposite as the sensor is larger (I'm guessing). 5 seconds is a long shutter speed though, you'll find that you'll only need a fraction of that to capture movement in daytime shots.

Hope you enjoy the new book

[Ari]

I think I was hoping for long streaks of traffic like you can get at night. Unrealistic probably.

[Ollerton57]

I'm afraid so. You'd find that as it's bright outside and with no 'dark sky, bright head/tail lights' you wouldn't see any evidence of cars even if the image didn't wash out. You could try 1/100 as a shutter speed as an example to get movement - but you won't get 100 metre trails.

If you go to Flickr and have a look at light painting for example, you will see images where people have moved around objects with a light to 'paint' them, or where the make shapes with light. In those images and where a person has moved, you will not see them exposed e.g. they will be invisable in the shot.

[Ari]

Ah, fair point. So even if I'd made it work I'd have just ended up with slightly blurry empty roads!

[Simpo Two]

Ollerton57 said:

Ari said:

I suspect I may be broaching the limitations of the G6 trying to get long shutter openings during the day.

One note of caution - an SLR will not allow you to use a longer shutter speed during the day, if anything, you may get the opposite as the sensor is larger (I'm guessing).

I think he means that a DSLR might have a longer diallable shutter speed (depends on make/model).

Ollerton57 said:

5 seconds is a long shutter speed though, you'll find that you'll only need a fraction of that to capture movement in daytime shots.

If you want a certain length 'trail' then the exposure time required is the same regardless of whether it's day or night. Problem is that at night the car lights are making most of the exposure; in daytime the car isn't adding any more to the exposure than the surroundings. So the cars will be blurred but the surroundings will be sharp (assuming you use a tripod and the surroundings are not moving, eg trees).

[Ari]

All makes sense, thank you.

The max shutter (exposure?) time on my G6 is 15 seconds, presumably on a "proper" SLR this can be longer? Certainly some of the photos I've seen of aircraft taking off at night for instance must have been taken over more than 15 seconds I should have thought.