OS Photography Club

[Blzer]

Re: OS Photography Club

Wildlife.

[RockinDaMike]

Re: OS Photography Club

Shot with my Nikon D810 and the last one with my DJI Mavic Pro. My favorite lenses are my wide angle lense 14-25mm Nikkor and 85mm Nikkor for portait. I also like using my 28-300mm Nikkor that came with my D610 a lot especially for nature and if I'm gonna do random walk around shots.

I also use a 50mm Nikkor lense which I highly recommend because they have very good bokeh and very cheap. Great to use for portrait and taking pics of your kids. The cannon version is also great so definitely the first one to get after your stock lense.

[jct32]

Re: OS Photography Club

Love the shots of the islands. Very beautiful.

[jct32]

Re: OS Photography Club

Time to add some more of my fun. I did my second women's game last night and I think I am getting significantly better. The first half was a little rough in terms of good photos but I really got my settings dialed in during the second half. I still have a couple of shots that are soft and I need to get a little better of making sure the focus is set right.

Anyways, here is the link 1/29 Game

and some of the photos

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Photography Club

Welp. Finally dove in to the deep end. Ordered a Nikon D7200 after a little bit of research, but that seemed to be featured/name-dropped a lot and was reviewed well. It's features are still fairly current despite the model itself being a couple years old. I also ordered two lenses: Tamron 70-300mm and a Yongnuo 50mm Prime lense (which is still being shipped).

In the meantime what lenses do you guys like running with? So far I've been shooting things in the yard with varying success just using the auto function. Obviously I want to get off of the auto setting and get to know the camera on a manual operation level. Any recommendations for photography basics would be great. I have to download the manual and haven't had time to go through it at all yet. I also found some good tutorials for the camera itself.

[p_rushing]

Re: OS Photography Club

Welp. Finally dove in to the deep end. Ordered a Nikon D7200 after a little bit of research, but that seemed to be featured/name-dropped a lot and was reviewed well. It's features are still fairly current despite the model itself being a couple years old. I also ordered two lenses: Tamron 70-300mm and a Yongnuo 50mm Prime lense (which is still being shipped).

In the meantime what lenses do you guys like running with? So far I've been shooting things in the yard with varying success just using the auto function. Obviously I want to get off of the auto setting and get to know the camera on a manual operation level. Any recommendations for photography basics would be great. I have to download the manual and haven't had time to go through it at all yet. I also found some good tutorials for the camera itself.

I have a Sony, so I have 2 Sony lenses. Just easier without adapters. I have a 70-200 and 10-18(?). I could probably use another lense in the 30-50 range, but I wouldn't use it much. I really would like one that goes to 400, but not going to spend the money.

While auto may be looked down on, there is nothing wrong with using it. It's going to get most pictures right and unless you are picky or trying to get certain effects, then it generally is great. Focusing is also great unless you have multiple focal points and need to choose a different one or different area to bring into focus.

I generally use auto focus and use the focal point on mine to tell it where to focus. Then I can make slight adjustments as needed or force it to keep the same focal length for fast moving shots.

I do a lot of landscapes with bracketing, so auto may only work for the ground or sky. I usually put it in auto, see what it says and make adjustments for the full panoramic shot I'll end up with. That's one thing you can do in auto because you want the images at the same setting for each shot or the colors will not match up when you merge them.

You can also try different auto modes where it allows you to set 1 parameter and then it picks the rest. You can use that to control iso or speed, etc.

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[RockinDaMike]

Re: OS Photography Club

Welp. Finally dove in to the deep end. Ordered a Nikon D7200 after a little bit of research, but that seemed to be featured/name-dropped a lot and was reviewed well. It's features are still fairly current despite the model itself being a couple years old. I also ordered two lenses: Tamron 70-300mm and a Yongnuo 50mm Prime lense (which is still being shipped).

In the meantime what lenses do you guys like running with? So far I've been shooting things in the yard with varying success just using the auto function. Obviously I want to get off of the auto setting and get to know the camera on a manual operation level. Any recommendations for photography basics would be great. I have to download the manual and haven't had time to go through it at all yet. I also found some good tutorials for the camera itself.

Awesome man, really recommend the Nikkor prime lenses. I know you just got a 50mm but the Nikkor one is amazing and not too expensive. Even if you find them used, they are so well built.

The beast that I have is my wide angle Nikkor 14-24mm. Most of the pics of my Instagram below uses that lens.

I also use 28-300mm for my zoom lens and it works well. Keep in mind the ones I posted are for FX cameras where yours Fresh is a DX camera.

One I would highly recommend for you Fresh is the Nikkor 35mm 1.8. It’s cheap and the portraits you get from it are fantastic. I use this mainly for kid photos or anything you want a good bokeh.

I also have a 50mm and 85mm prime lens. The 85mm is over kill though. I aa a

If anything have a good prime lens for portraits, zoom and wide angle and you’re set.

Here’s a YouTube channel I follow for all camera tutorials.

https://youtu.be/_Kw3P1yRwL

Take a bunch of pictures of the same thing with different settings. Don’t use automatic, you gotta understand what aperture , iso and shutter speed will do for each picture.

Always shoot RAW. Get the highest file you can because you’ll kick yourself in the future for not taking the best picture possible to edit once you get the hang of it. Once you make it a jpg you’ll have a little to work with.

Lighting is just as important as the subject. You’ll be happy on sunny days.

Anyway, have fun and shoot everything. You’ll be amazed where you’ll find art. Just be careful , it’s an expensive hobby




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[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Photography Club

While auto may be looked down on, there is nothing wrong with using it. It's going to get most pictures right and unless you are picky or trying to get certain effects, then it generally is great. Focusing is also great unless you have multiple focal points and need to choose a different one or different area to bring into focus.

Thanks. I know auto has it's place and is helpful, but I also don't want to depend on it and use it exclusively. My goal is to understand how everything works and how they interact. True, auto will certainly be a helpful guide in the beginning.

Awesome man, really recommend the Nikkor prime lenses. I know you just got a 50mm but the Nikkor one is amazing and not too expensive. Even if you find them used, they are so well built.

The beast that I have is my wide angle Nikkor 14-24mm. Most of the pics of my Instagram below uses that lens.

I also use 28-300mm for my zoom lens and it works well. Keep in mind the ones I posted are for FX cameras where yours Fresh is a DX camera.

One I would highly recommend for you Fresh is the Nikkor 35mm 1.8. It’s cheap and the portraits you get from it are fantastic. I use this mainly for kid photos or anything you want a good bokeh.

I also have a 50mm and 85mm prime lens. The 85mm is over kill though. I aa a

If anything have a good prime lens for portraits, zoom and wide angle and you’re set.

Here’s a YouTube channel I follow for all camera tutorials.

https://youtu.be/_Kw3P1yRwL

Take a bunch of pictures of the same thing with different settings. Don’t use automatic, you gotta understand what aperture , iso and shutter speed will do for each picture.

Always shoot RAW. Get the highest file you can because you’ll kick yourself in the future for not taking the best picture possible to edit once you get the hang of it. Once you make it a jpg you’ll have a little to work with.

Lighting is just as important as the subject. You’ll be happy on sunny days.

Anyway, have fun and shoot everything. You’ll be amazed where you’ll find art. Just be careful , it’s an expensive hobby

Thanks for the advice. The 7200DX seems to be compatible with a lot of the FX lenses as well. At least from what I've found thus far. Now that I have the lens in hand (still waiting on my prime - should be here within a week) I realize I probably bought them *** backwards. Instead of searching for lenses for certain things that I enjoy shooting (see below) I basically just researched good lenses to have a versatile bag. Which isn't terrible to have on hand I suppose.

So far I've been shooting a couple pictures out in the yard with the Tamron 70-300mm. We have a couple frogs that live in our pond in the back yard so that's been cool finally getting some decent shots of them. I need to learn how to judge light especially when my subject isn't in the same area as me. I went outside a couple nights to try and get some shoots of the moon. All I got was a blurry white blob on black lol. Everything looked great in my viewfinder so I'm not sure where the separation occurred.

I haven't done much with the macro portion of the lens (180-300mm), but the macro stuff interests me greatly - like opening the door to another world.

Anyway, for the most part my shooting primarily composes of:
landscapes (particularly mountains or wide open beaches)
plants (I grow roses all around the house so there's plenty of appealing subjects)
animals (typically small animals like the frogs mentioned above. Birds are great. Anything else I have little luck in encountering (or luck in missing depending on the animal))

Of course I want to use the camera to capture family memories, too, so I'm guessing that's where a 35mm or that 50mm prime lens comes in?

These are the actual lenses I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm also highly anticipating Blzer's response lol.

We're going to the beach in August and are doing pirate Christmas pictures. So my goal is to at least have enough figured out to do some decent (self) portraits. I'll probably buy the remote control accessory to help with that.

[RockinDaMike]

Re: OS Photography Club

Night time photos you’re gonna need a tripod and a remote compatible to your camera.

Basically your gonna shoot a long exposure photo that keeps the lens open for a period of time like 30 to 60 seconds and the camera can’t move whatsoever so holding it is out of the question. You can also do some awesome time lapse videos too.

If you live out in the country you can take some fantastic sky photos with the lack of light pollution.





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[p_rushing]

Re: OS Photography Club

Night time photos you’re gonna need a tripod and a remote compatible to your camera.

Basically your gonna shoot a long exposure photo that keeps the lens open for a period of time like 30 to 60 seconds and the camera can’t move whatsoever so holding it is out of the question. You can also do some awesome time lapse videos too.

If you live out in the country you can take some fantastic sky photos with the lack of light pollution.

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You can also delay the firing a few seconds so that any movement stops. Need a tripod that has a hook to help weigh it down with your camera bag for stability for long shots.

Look into HDR or bracketing shots if you do landscapes and night shots. Takes a bunch of shots at different exposures and then in software, you merge them together to get the a better looking picture. I usually do 5 shots, but it depends on the differing level of light in the area. If you want to capture all the details you can go up to 9 or so.

Try them both out, but I like bracketing more. It does take longer to shoot and editing, but the end result are beautiful images. You can get more of the details with bracketing than with just a long exposure. Plus you have to worry about blowing out the highlights if the exposure is too long.

[jct32]

Re: OS Photography Club

Over time you will probably want a faster lens.

I do mostly sports photography and recently got the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM and that thing is amazing.

It's really about lighting. You want to have that ISO as low as possible so you can get photos with less noise and you usually adjust the shutter speed as required. It's a balancing though, especially with inside sports. I can't always keep the ISO minimum because otherwise I would have a 1/20 shutter speed and that doesn't work. You will get the balance of it the more you practice.

In other news I spent the rest of the spring semester after basketball doing softball. Even talked to the athletic department and did some (free, I know I'm horrible) work for them and got my photo on the website once. I also got to shoot the first and second rounds of the Men's NCAA basketball tournament in Tulsa, it was a ton of fun.

I'm working on getting a portfolio together from all my stuff so far. I won't always be in school and have access to these events. I'll post some of my better photos here when I get my portfolio done.

[jct32]

Re: OS Photography Club

Okay I promised it. Here is the image dump of some of my favorite from the NCAA tournament.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Photography Club

Nice shots.

It's been a little over a week so far. My other lens finally came in on Friday. It's a Yongnuo 50mm F1.8 Prime lens - so basically just a "plug and play" type compared to my other. Obviously more of a point and click type of lens so that's what I've been doing with it so far. So far it's been flowers in the yard and some recent Pops collection. It has a significantly lower F-stop so I've been playing around with that a bit. It's fun to see how much light you can control just by messing with one aspect (Aperature) and letting the camera automatically adjust for the other two.

My other lens is the Tamron 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Macro Zoom Lens. This is a decent lens overall and a good mid-range lens with the sweet spot seemingly to be the around 85-200mm. Macro kicks in for the 180-300mm range and so far it seems fairly worthless. I imagine most macro photograph is done fairly close to the subject. Of course there could be a time when I want to macro from distance, but in my backyard won't be that time. Even so shooting from distance for a macro I would assume I will need a tripod to stabilize the camera for less blur. I think it will be a good starter lens for portraits, mid-range wildlife, and closer landscape shots. Not exactly what I was hoping to get out of it initially (was hoping for more on the end range of the zoom rather than the midrange), but live and learn right? Then again I'm still experimenting with it and there might be some good shutter/aperture combos that would alleviate some of the lens' shortcomings.

I ended up watching a way too long overview on the camera that was informative, but basically one long commercial for this guy's book. He did have some good pointers and key settings so I'll have to go back and jot down those notes. For the most part, however, it seems the auto functions will give the best exposures. My goal for this week is to start to go through the manual and see exactly what all I can do. I've become fairly comfortable shooting in Aperture mode.

I contacted a friend who is really heavy into cameras and photography last week and he was giving me some advise on lenses. Basically you pay for quality (obviously) and parts. He said anything below $250 most likely will be plastic. Anything higher than that should be glass and metal. But perhaps most importantly is the F stop number and basically trying to get that as low as possible (within a budget of course). He also pointed me in the direction of some better lens for whenever I'm ready to upgrade: Nikon AF-S DX 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 VR and a Tamron 90mm F/2.8 Macro Lens.

Anyway. I need to pull my pictures off and reformat my starter memory card and start shooting RAW.

What online photo library are you guys using? I don't really want to upload everything/anything to Facebook to share with friends and family. Any photo editing software you guys recommend?

When I am ready for more lenses what are some things I should be considering and looking for? Is the best way to determine what lens I need to basically google, "How do I photograph ____" and fill in what I want to do with it? For example, Macro photography. What kind of lens is best for that? Or landscapes? Etc.

After spending time with the camera for awhile the following photography interests me the most:
Landscapes
Flowers
Pets/Wildlife
MACRO/Action Figures
Star Trails/Moon/Astrology pictures (this just sounds really cool)
Portraits

Basically - how would I go about searching/find what lens would be best for one or more of these? I figure my "kit lenses" will get the job done relatively well for most of those (for now), but when I'm ready I would like to know what I want or what to look for at least.

In a couple weeks we will be going to the beach and we will be doing pictures for Christmas cards. Any recommendations for a remote control and tripod? These things will be needed for night-time shooting as well from what I've read so far.


TL: DR: Recommendations for photo sharing/editing? What to look for when shopping/researching lenses? Recommendations for tripods and remote control shutter releases? To UV filter or not?


I'll try and upload some shots later tonight.

[p_rushing]

Re: OS Photography Club

The lower fstop definitely makes the lenses better. You really pay though. My zoom is f/4, the 2.8 one is around another ~$1,000 for it. Another option is image stabilization in the lens or in the camera. Some offer lens without it.

I'll post what I use when I'm on my PC later, but here are the basics.

Lightroom for cataloging
Photoshop for detailed edits or creating images

Amazon Photo for backup & sharing, it is free for prime and allows unlimited full res (so raw images). I store my raw files and my edited final version jpeg for sharing.

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[jct32]

Re: OS Photography Club

I use Lightroom almost exclusively. Especially since I try to rush to get them to the athletic department after a game. I don’t tend to do a lot of editing in it but mostly just crop and small corrections.

I’m probably going to learn how to use photo mechanic because if I ever want to do work with a wire service I’ll need to know it.

Lastly good heads up on amazon Photo. I had no idea about that.