New DSLR Camera--Tips for a Beginner!

[Jennifer Palmer]

Again, thanks so much everyone!

I started practicing last night, and everything is too bright. But I'm learning! I'm trying to get as much practice as possible before this coming weekend which looks like it might lead to my first long distance chase of the season!!!

This may seem like a dumb question, but I'm terrified of getting it wet in the field! How do you guys protect your camera from rain? With my POS I wasn't as concerned since it was so small and it was easy to protect quickly if the rain started picking up.

Also, I found a great site, which some of you may or may not know about.. http://froknowsphoto.com/

I learned a lot just from the "beginning" video for the D3100!!

As far as lenses go, I think I'm going to get used to what I have before I go for another lens. Now that I have taken my first photos, I realize I need to take one step at a time, which is tough for me!

 

[Greg Campbell]

I wrote this for another forum but thought it might not be too far removed from this thread.

Cool. Now, go out and shoot the dumb thing. Just go out, look through the viewfinder, live in the viewfinder, be the viewfinder!, and compose images. Don't fret that your lens is 'too slow' or that it doesn't have a red line around it; don't worry that your pickles aren't sharp enough. Think about the subject, the weather, how the afternoon light will change as the sun sets, etc. Look for contrasts in texture, color, light, shape, etc. Lear to 'see.' This will teach you how to photograph. Learn to trust your sense of aesthetic. Shoot what looks good to you. Do not try to consciously follow lame-brained compositional 'rules' like the 'rule of thirds' (ROT), these will just stifle your artistic judgement and hinder your shooting.

Needles to say, spending hours fiddle-farting with photochop and comparing manufacturer supported 'performance' indexes like DXO-Mark is not photography. I know these things are exactly what 90% of the dorks you'll find on-line and at 'camera clubs' will babble about. Ignore them. IMO the whole concept of "photography" has been taken over by marketing monkeys the gear whores that couldn't make a pretty picture to save their lives. Don't let these clueless fools tell you you 'need' some magic bit of expensive crap that will supposedly make your pictures better. If, after 6 months, you identify some shortcoming in your equipment, you can consider getting another lens, etc. Until then, I think any new photographer is far better off just using what they have.

'Seeing' is 85% of photography, but you DO need a certain level of technical edufication. At the risk of sounding like a raving lunatic, may I suggest an ancient book available at most libraries, "The Camera," written by some old fart named Adams. Aside from being a swell photographer, Ansel also writes an excellent instructional book. The Camera will teach you about apertures, depth of field, lens considerations, etc. These principles are nearly a century old but they are universal and timeless and you really must understand the concepts behind them before you can hope to make technically competent photos. You might look up "The Negative" as well - it talks about exposure, dynamic range, etc.

In the meantime, visit http://www.pawprint....calibration.php and take a stab at setting your monitor's gamma, black and white points. It may not be possible to get them all dialed in perfectly, and don't worry if you can't, just get close. If you want to fiddle some more, a more involved page is http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

I do suggest you start shooting in RAW mode after a while. Use the camera's RAW editing software (Nikon's is more than adequate) and teach yourself about setting white point and black point for the images you shoot. This and some minor color correction and mild curve tweaking will make your pictures look substantially better.


"Go now Grasshopper. Guard above all things, the purity of your vision."

 

[Darren Addy]

What Bryan said

Yes, the camera can do everything for you including wipe your nose. But until you understand the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and ISO and what difference they make for the photo you are taking, you are really just a button pusher. It isn't that hard. The book the Bryan linked you to is universally regarded as a good 'un.

 

[Drew.Gardonia]

I've been dying to get my hands on a DSLR for quite sometime. My previous camera was horrible at taking weather photos, because it has this ridiculous "face recognition" software that cannot be turned off (at least by any way that I have found), which means cloud shots look grainy, but that tree in the foreground or the spot on your window when you forget to roll it down looks amazing!

Anyway, last night, I got the Nikon D3100!!! I'm so excited, and I have a lot to learn about DSLR cameras! The main reason I got the camera is so my weather shots look like something and for lightning shots!

Do you guys have any tips? Any good links or info for weather shots? What about lenses? It came with an 18-55mm lens.

Thanks in advance!!!

first off you need to learn how to use the camera. get the shutter speed, iso, and aperture down, the rest is cake.

Highly Recommend you get this book. Diamond Mine of good info, and beginner knowledge

http://www.amazon.com/Nikon-D3100-D...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300228784&sr=1-1


Post Note: This book is in all honesty what should have come with the camera. Throw the stupid manual in the trash, because this book is eons better than the manual. It explains everything and more!

 

[Jennifer Palmer]

What Greg wrote is pure gold up there!!! Hahahha!!!

I'm out of town on business right now, but I am dying to get back out and play with my camera! First stop, the Chickamauga Battlefield!! I may even post some of my photos for critique/suggestions if you guys don't mind!

 

[Rob H]

Raw mode is almost critical for the types of lighting you get with storms - you have so much more control over the picture, and it really only involves a day of sitting down and learning how to process raws well. Once you learn the aperture/shutter speed/ISO correlation you'll probably want to open up your aperture all the way and shoot on aperture priority mode because getting enough light without motion blur will be more of a concern than depth of field. During daylight, lock your ISO at the base (usually 100 or 200), and let the shutter speed be the only thing that needs to be adjusted. Once you get closer to dusk, your shutter speed will inevitably drop below 1/50, at which point you either need to use a tripod or allow your ISO to go higher.

As for the rain.. shoot out of a window, or don't position yourself in the rain. With a NE-moving supercell, you should be fairly dry a few miles to the SE. You'll eventually get rain, but the same rain that gets on your camera will obscure any tornadoes you want to shoot so it's in your best interests to get out of the heavy rain. And don't use auto focus when moving or shooting through a window or you'll end up with a fuzzy shot most of the time.

edit: I missed John's post originally, so I apologize if it's kind of similar. AP mode is really awesome for chasing though, so it probably bears repeating

 

[Steven Howell]

Congrats Jennifer!

I love my Nikon D70 and have been shooting with that for 6 years. I started out with a point and shoot too, but the darn thing would not let me take lightning pictures which is what I was driven to do.

The D70 is a dream, it doesnt have all the bells and whistles like the newer cameras, but it does everything I need.

Like another poster said, DONT SKIMP ON GLASS! Unfortunately, we cant all afford Nikon Glass, jeepers its expensive. I settled for a great brand in Tokina, and have a 28-80, 80-200, and working on procuring their 12-24, although, I like Skip, have heard rave reviews about the new Tokina 11-16.

I am hoping to have better luck this year at capturing a photo of a supercell and a possible tornado, than previous years! LIGHTING LIGHTING LIGHTING!!! or FAST LENS FAST LENS FAST LENS!

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[Jennifer Palmer]

TONIGHT! I shoot the moon!

I'm excited to practice at night!!! I hope I get something decent out of it!

 

[Jennifer Palmer]

This is my best pic of the night!

 

[Skip Talbot]

Nice shot, Jennifer, and thanks to everyone else for the tips as I'm still very green with my first DSLR as well. I was also out messing around with the moon tonight. i don't have a telephoto lens, just a 10-22 wide angle, but I thought it would be amusing to take some shots of the soon to be "super moon" and make it look not so super.

http://www.skip.cc/temp/moonhdr.jpg

Two exposures shot at 10mm, one with a shutter speed of 1/250 to get the moon and the other at 30 seconds to get the foreground (some extreme contrast there). I did an HDR merge on the two to make my first HDR image as well.

 

[Steven Howell]

Well Skip, and Jennifer, I heard on the radio today, that tonight, the 19th, should be the largest moon in like 18 years...get your cameras ready! I know I will be!

 

[Steven Howell]

"Two exposures shot at 10mm, one with a shutter speed of 1/250 to get the moon and the other at 30 seconds to get the foreground (some extreme contrast there). I did an HDR merge on the two to make my first HDR image as well."

Skip, how do you do HDR? I want to learn how to do that? I heard something like bracketing, but I was never much good at that.

By the way, interesting photo, I like the warping around the edges, gives it an eery kind of feel.

 

[Matt Tottle]

Another DSLR greenhorn here! (although not to SLR in general, but it's been quite a while so I'm rusty!) Just got my K-x yesterday and I've been playing with it all day. Had some really nice results.. And I've learned a lot from "Fro".. Skip thats a really funky effect doing the HDR with that big of an exposure gap!

Here's my moonshot, .8" exposure @ f/22, ISO 200, 200mm. Hopefully tomorrow will be less cloudy and I can get some cool star shots too.

Here's another one I did while I was outside tonight.. I wanted to get a car going by with the head or tail light streaks, but after 20 minutes and not a single vehicle, I figured I'll try another night.. This was the closest I got, if you look all the way down the street, you see the tease I got, but he turned left 3 blocks down. There was also a break in the clouds big enough for one lonely star to shine through. I do have to say though, having shot film SLR, it's so gratifying to not have to pay to have film developed only to find you had a bad setting or the mirror slap blurred your zoom shot..

This was a 15" exposure @ f/9, ISO 400, 18mm. I did tweak the white balance in Lightroom because the streetlights are yellow and it was really harsh. But other than that, it's unaltered.

 

[Jennifer Palmer]

Nice shots, everyone!

I figured out last night I REALLY need a zoom lens to shoot the moon, but I had a good time! I hope it's okay to post some of our favorite shots in here. I don't think we're too off topic!

I appreciate any suggestions, criticisms, or whatever!

One more from last night:

 

[Skip Talbot]

Well Skip, and Jennifer, I heard on the radio today, that tonight, the 19th, should be the largest moon in like 18 years...get your cameras ready! I know I will be!

Yeah, I wanted to make sure I'd be able to take a decent picture of the moon tonight so I was practicing last night, even though there is going to be no appreciable difference in the size of the moon from last night to tonight.

Skip, how do you do HDR? I want to learn how to do that? I heard something like bracketing, but I was never much good at that.

By the way, interesting photo, I like the warping around the edges, gives it an eery kind of feel.

You autobracket a few images at different exposures, usually three with one image a normal exposure and the other two are usually +/- up to a couple stops in brightness. Then you use some software like Photoshop or Photomatix to stack the images and tone map them so that all the under and overexposed areas of the image come into the normal 8 bit range of your monitor. In this case I did only two images and there are something like 13 stops between the two images. I combined the two images in Photoshop and then manipulated the curves so that just the very brightest spots on the image come down to the normal range of the image. The only place you're seeing the image with the faster shutter speed is the moon and one of the lights on a garage to the right.

Nice shots, everyone!
I appreciate any suggestions, criticisms, or whatever!

The moon is really hard to shoot because of the extreme contrast. I'd suggest dropping the shutter speed so we can see some detail in the moon, but then we'll probably lose that color in the sky and the tree branches/foreground.