Tell me what to start on!
Discussion
Chaps,
Bought a Nikon D5000 yesterday at Jessops - £499 with twin lens (18-55 and 75-200 VR) on a deal they have on at the moment.
Dying to get started trying different things with shutter,aperture settings and generally 'playing' with it to get to know what it does; never having had anything more complicated than an Olympus Trip before.
Thing is, I am completely daft when it comes to subjects. What should I do? I want something that will show me the difference in what I do with shutter speed and aperture settings, etc. I thought about standing on the roadside and randomly shooting at cars passing, but thought I might get mistaken for a grumpy old git complaining about speeding.
Can anyone give me some useful advice please?
Bought a Nikon D5000 yesterday at Jessops - £499 with twin lens (18-55 and 75-200 VR) on a deal they have on at the moment.
Dying to get started trying different things with shutter,aperture settings and generally 'playing' with it to get to know what it does; never having had anything more complicated than an Olympus Trip before.
Thing is, I am completely daft when it comes to subjects. What should I do? I want something that will show me the difference in what I do with shutter speed and aperture settings, etc. I thought about standing on the roadside and randomly shooting at cars passing, but thought I might get mistaken for a grumpy old git complaining about speeding.
Can anyone give me some useful advice please?
Pop down a local park, take images of ducks etc.
Is there a nature sanctruary / zoo / your in Devon so isn't there a butterfly farm there?
Dartmoor would be good, look for the stone circles. Coastal, take pics of old fishing boats maybe.
I'm nowhere near good yet, but I have improved a lot by practice, practice, practice.
My best advice though is to take every image in RAW, it's a revelation once you start editing the pictures.
Is there a nature sanctruary / zoo / your in Devon so isn't there a butterfly farm there?
Dartmoor would be good, look for the stone circles. Coastal, take pics of old fishing boats maybe.
I'm nowhere near good yet, but I have improved a lot by practice, practice, practice.
My best advice though is to take every image in RAW, it's a revelation once you start editing the pictures.
itsnotarace said:
I am a professional thanks
So why are you giving that kind of dodgy information out?It takes a hell of a lot of practice and effort to get to your level. The OP is going to want some nice images to print out in the mean time.
Every book / magazine I have read has said use RAW, I have pestererd several people who know what they are doing and have made a living from DP and one thing they emphasised was to use RAW.
It's like people who poo poo HDR, the idea is to make images that pleases the person taking them.
If the OP wants to make images that pleases others he would have bought a D3 and wouldn't have asked this question as he would be a pro like you.
Zaxxon said:
So why are you giving that kind of dodgy information out?
It takes a hell of a lot of practice and effort to get to your level. The OP is going to want some nice images to print out in the mean time.
Every book / magazine I have read has said use RAW, I have pestererd several people who know what they are doing and have made a living from DP and one thing they emphasised was to use RAW.
It's like people who poo poo HDR, the idea is to make images that pleases the person taking them.
If the OP wants to make images that pleases others he would have bought a D3 and wouldn't have asked this question as he would be a pro like you.
To be honest he has a point. RAW is definitely the better choice but the is zero point in shooting in RAW if your not going to be post processing your images, in fact your images will look worse! For someone who has just bought there first SLR getting to grips with the camera will probably be enough, let alone learning post processing at the same time! Personally i would suggest shooting in jpeg until you have got to grips with all the different functions of your camera as well as composition, exposure etc. Once you have got the hang of it, move over to shooting RAW and learn the art of post-processing!It takes a hell of a lot of practice and effort to get to your level. The OP is going to want some nice images to print out in the mean time.
Every book / magazine I have read has said use RAW, I have pestererd several people who know what they are doing and have made a living from DP and one thing they emphasised was to use RAW.
It's like people who poo poo HDR, the idea is to make images that pleases the person taking them.
If the OP wants to make images that pleases others he would have bought a D3 and wouldn't have asked this question as he would be a pro like you.
RAW is just a tool in your photographers toolbox. Your histogram is another.
You wouldn't use a sledgehammer to change a bathroom tap, so why everyone waxes lyrical of using the photography equivalent (RAW) is beyond me.
If you really need 10Mb+ RAW images of generic walkabout pictures of ducks then you go ahead. It's an extra step in post processing and you will run out of diskspace very quickly. Personally I find both tiresome.
Shoot RAW when you absolutely MUST have the best quality photos, for everything else, JPEG is fine even with a post processing / sharpen and save as JPEG again.
Displaying photos for web at 800x600 = JPEG
Generic walkabout photos = JPEG
Shooting a unique event (wedding, newborn baby etc) = RAW
Shooting something like a sunset where you want to spend extra time in post processing, or don't want to use histogram = RAW
Learn and trust your histogram.
HTH
You wouldn't use a sledgehammer to change a bathroom tap, so why everyone waxes lyrical of using the photography equivalent (RAW) is beyond me.
If you really need 10Mb+ RAW images of generic walkabout pictures of ducks then you go ahead. It's an extra step in post processing and you will run out of diskspace very quickly. Personally I find both tiresome.
Shoot RAW when you absolutely MUST have the best quality photos, for everything else, JPEG is fine even with a post processing / sharpen and save as JPEG again.
Displaying photos for web at 800x600 = JPEG
Generic walkabout photos = JPEG
Shooting a unique event (wedding, newborn baby etc) = RAW
Shooting something like a sunset where you want to spend extra time in post processing, or don't want to use histogram = RAW
Learn and trust your histogram.
HTH
itsnotarace said:
Forget RAW, shoot JPEG and practice. Relying on post processing to fix errors in the field is really noob.
My vote too. Newbies have enough to worry about without trying to understand/process RAW as well. Same reason learner drivers don't take their test in a Ferrari.Plenty to learn about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, composition, histogram, depth of field, focal length, camera shake and what all the buttons do. When you've learned all those, THEN worry about RAW if you need to.
Simpo Two said:
itsnotarace said:
Forget RAW, shoot JPEG and practice. Relying on post processing to fix errors in the field is really noob.
My vote too. Newbies have enough to worry about without trying to understand/process RAW as well. Same reason learner drivers don't take their test in a Ferrari.Plenty to learn about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, composition, histogram, depth of field, focal length, camera shake and what all the buttons do. When you've learned all those, THEN worry about RAW if you need to.
GetCarter said:
Simpo Two said:
itsnotarace said:
Forget RAW, shoot JPEG and practice. Relying on post processing to fix errors in the field is really noob.
My vote too. Newbies have enough to worry about without trying to understand/process RAW as well. Same reason learner drivers don't take their test in a Ferrari.Plenty to learn about aperture, shutter speed, ISO, composition, histogram, depth of field, focal length, camera shake and what all the buttons do. When you've learned all those, THEN worry about RAW if you need to.
I muse admit lately if just out and about with the family I'll leave the camera shooting JPEG+RAW simultaneously because sometimes when you are just taking a 'snap' you don't want the hassle of shooting in RAW. If I am on my own I will always use RAW because I have more time to set shots up and walk around looking for things.
I wish I had used RAW from the start. I have quite a few pics that I was taking 6 months ago when I started that I would love to have a fiddle about with now in RAW but can't.
My Camera takes a RAW shot and a high quality .JPEG shot at the same time. So i can look at and play around with the .JPEG if I want to. But keep the RAW for when I get home .
Storage isn't an argument as it's so cheap now.
And there is time to learn how to post process as you do it when your not taking pics as you won't be doing that all of the time. When i'm not taking phots, it's nice to have a play about with them in Photoshop.
Just my 2 pence as someone who is new to the hobby and has recently gone through what the OP is about to.
My Camera takes a RAW shot and a high quality .JPEG shot at the same time. So i can look at and play around with the .JPEG if I want to. But keep the RAW for when I get home .
Storage isn't an argument as it's so cheap now.
And there is time to learn how to post process as you do it when your not taking pics as you won't be doing that all of the time. When i'm not taking phots, it's nice to have a play about with them in Photoshop.
Just my 2 pence as someone who is new to the hobby and has recently gone through what the OP is about to.
itsnotarace said:
You can still edit JPEG in photoshop. Just don't keep re-saving changes to the same file.
A s
t photo in RAW format is still a st photo 
Yeah no sA s
t photo in RAW format is still a st photo t, any other pearls of wisdom regarding Photshop you want to share with class oh professional one?I have many standard quality phots from when I started, any s
t gets deleted and a handful that I was lucky enough to get almost spot on, that handfull could be tweaked a little further if they were RAW.Another vote for jpeg.
I've only just gone to RAW this weekend because (i'm deluding myself) it's time to move up a notch. I've shot jpegs for 5-6 years lol.
My biggest advice for a new person, is stick with Program mode for outdoor stuff, Green mode (idiot mode) for indoor stuff especially if you want to use the flash. Indoors is an exposure nightmare, so let the camera worry about it.
I've only just gone to RAW this weekend because (i'm deluding myself) it's time to move up a notch. I've shot jpegs for 5-6 years lol.
My biggest advice for a new person, is stick with Program mode for outdoor stuff, Green mode (idiot mode) for indoor stuff especially if you want to use the flash. Indoors is an exposure nightmare, so let the camera worry about it.
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