General Chat / The Offical Photography Thread

beautiful picture Magnus. the composition is stunning and really works well with the square format. also, that orange background does wonders for the picture.

- it does not support the Nikon CLS
- the body is really small in size (to small for the 70-200 2.8 or other teles to handle it well)
- the top display has no light
- it is worth than the D70 at IR shots

you are totally right about it being personal preference because for me the great thing about digital is the size. (i have my hasselblad if i wanted to lug around a lot of extra stuff) i shoot most of my stuff with either my 50mm f1.8 or my lensbaby and enjoy getting up close to my subjects so the tiny format is less intimidating. also, it does support cls or else i would never use flash. and the top display having no light is a legitimate complaint, but i use auto-iso anyways. either way i love the d50 and will not trade it in till Nikon can give me a small dslr with an on-board af motor.

It does not support Nikon CLS.
You can of course use a flash with the D50, but CLS (Creative Lighting System) - which is used for wireless flash controll - is not support. You need a SB800 or SU800 on the camera to fire other wireless flashes with iTTL.
Not really sure how it works manually ...


What Hasselblad are you using?
Do you have a digiback for it or are you using film?


Thanks for your comment on the picture. I like to see you can follow the composition I was going for.

I may be confused on CLS, but: http://photo.net/bbo...g?msg_id=00JQN0

as for the Hasselblad it is a 70's 500C/M with a A12 back (i wish i could afford a digital one), waist level viewfinder, and a Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2.8. pretty much the most standard Hasselblad you can get, but the quality is still amazing as one would expect. working with film is still fun though (cross-processing, etc.) and it puts a lot more pressure on composing everything perfectly the first time.

Frank Skomial pretty much answered it on the link you provided.

If I had the room and time to work with film I would love to work with a Hasselblad aswell. I was already thinking about getting 500C/M, but as you said digibacks are way too expensive ...

Played around with some birthday presents (Nikkor 70-300mm f4/5.6, Infrared Filter, Fisheye Adapter, Holga, and Alien Skin Exposure 2) today and here are the results sans the Holga stuff:

https://webspace.ute...nce/cross_cows/

The 70-300mm was surprisingly nice especially for the price ($95). The only thing I could knock on it for was the fact that past 200mm and wide open it gets rather soft. Also, the AF is so slow it is not even worth using except to get the focus exact. MF to get it close than kick it over to AF to get it exact is what I found most effective. Either way it is a solid bargain lens to go with my 50mm f1.8, 85mm f1.8, and 28-80mm f3.3/5.6. Also, Exposure 2 has some amazing presets for those looking for the cross processed look in Digital and the Black and White settings make it much easier to get the look you want rather than messing around in Photoshop.

Congrats on your birthday. Guess I am a little late ...

The AF 70-300 G is a solid lens, I would have prefered the Sigma 70-300. Both are rather soft wide open, but the latest version of the Sigma seems to be a tad better than the Nikon, but probably around $150.
However, the AF would be faster on a camera with a stronger motor. Just saying ...
I am about to get the AF-S 70-200 2.8G within the next half year, but that one is really expensive. AF-S makes it a lot faster though and 2.8 is great at 200mm.

Infrared photography is something I want to do for a while now. A lot of people use it to make bad photos look good, but I am certain you won't. Looking forward to the results.

Never heard of Alien Skin's Exposure 2 software. All in know is that most German photographers use DxO. Not sure which is better but seeing the prices DxO won it seems to be a great product, though Exposure 2 claims to be the best ...

The post processing of the pictures you are showing looks pretty good. Playing with cross post processing at the moment aswell. How did you create the effect?
Only negative point about the pictures. I never liked cows.

So I got a D40 for my birthday, and I'm really impressed so far. I've already had a run-in with dust on the low-pass filter, which you can see in the photos, but after stressing out and reading through the manual and half a dozen websites I took the blower to it and got it out.

Here are two photos, shot with the lens that came with it (AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm). It was an overcast/rainy day so I didn't get a chance to take it outdoors. This is the best I could come up with, hah.





Any suggestions are welcome as photography is brand new to me.

lol, gir, I was gonna say just get a nice Canon point and shoot (i.e. one of their A- series or IS- models), but if you can just get a D40 for your birthday, that works too. It's small enough that taking it along for travel isn't too cumbersome, though you might want to practice the standard "take a picture of yourself and your friends while holding the camera" thing, since it's clunkier on an SLR.

Excellent first shots, though. Love the flowers.

That said, the best suggestion for photography that I can make is this:
Look at other people's photos and figure out what you like, then look for similar settings and take photos over and over again, slowly developing your photographic eye and sense of style over time, and slowly creating your own preferences. Just do it. A lot. And figure out what general subjects you enjoy shooting and go wild. Eventually, you'll find yourself developing tendencies. I, for example, often like to ram up my photo vibrancy and am not opposed to oversaturating a picture a little bit or adding more contrast. Others might not like this. But it's all in each person's eye.

Photography really is one of those things that can bring drastic improvement simply with repetition, assuming you're thinking about what you shoot and how you frame it as you shoot.

--

General things like the 1/3's rule and framing and composition can be found via any Google search, and are things you'll probably discover with time anyway. In general, centering things usually makes it not interesting. You want to generate visual movement and dynamicism, which means framing it so that the viewer's eyes sort of move around and explore the picture. Try pictures from non-traditional angles (get really high or down low). Tilt the camera. Play around. Find out what works. For every great shot, you're probably going to have ten or a hundred so-so ones. Don't be discouraged. Finding the gem is how you improve.

BTW, Cork, you certainly love photography don't you? Everyday I sign onto facebook its 'Albert Lam has added a new album! X trip to somewhere!'

The answer is yes.

Lately, I've been getting more into people photography, portraits, and candids, because that's an area I'd like to improve upon. I've always seemed to have an eye for static landscape and shots w/o people, so I want to broaden my horizons and basically branch out into all sorts of subjects.

It's still just a hobby, but who knows... one day, maybe I can earn a bit of money on the side from this. And even if I don't, I know I don't have to buy artwork if I don't want to, because I can frame my own shots.

I have to admit the quality of the photos on there are brilliant, even if its just a game of frisbee

Thank you!

Thank Nikon.

I went to this local national park with with my girlfriend earlier today since it was so nice out. Figured I'd bring the camera.
Here's my favourites of the bunch:

Thank Nikon.

Oh believe me, I most certainly do.

A couple of months ago, a friend of mine (and fellow photographer, except he's way better than I am) started a job at Nikon as technical support or something like that (basically he's one of four people who pick up the phone if you're in the continental U.S. and call Nikon with questions about some product). Once his company discount takes effect, I think I'm going to ask him to start buying a couple of lenses for me. Cameras aren't discounted that much, but apparently, lenses are.

Get him to hook me up with one of those 50mm f/1.2. Used one recently and those motherfuckers produce some sharp images. Supposedly it is Nikon's sharpest lens when used at f/2. Also, I recently had to put together a portfolio of 20 images for the next photography class in UT's sequence so I will post that up when it is completed.

Sounds interesting. Though I would not like to do the job. But I will come back to you once I got a question.

Talking about buying lenses in the US, I have some questions for you.
Can you please check your warranty card (D300 & 18-200) and tell me if it says US warranty or world-wide warranty?
I probably will have to get the Mack 3 year warranty anyways, but it would be good to know nontheless.
Seeing how low the dollar is at the moment it might be proftiable to get the 70-200 2.8 from where you live, Al.

Probably have some new pictures I am allowed to publish after next weekend. If the weather turns out well I will be at an ornithological station for eagles and will get a chance to test the 70-200 2.8. Already looking forward to that.

Thanks in advance,
Magnus

From my recent trip to Florida:





When I resiszed them, it made them look blurry...

Nice picuters, mainly the one of Florida...
accidental:



and this is from my last vacation in France: