some new pics
06-18-2010, 07:24 PM
#1
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: IN
Posts: 99
some new pics
got a hand-me-down dslr from my mom after she bought a new one and i'm just now starting to use it. its an older nikon d70s. would eventually like to get the most out of this camera but for now, these are just shot in auto. any tips and tricks are welcome. getting a lot of grainy photos especially in the darker or black areas, and i've tried to adjust the iso but??? i'm still brand new to this...
the two pics are about at the same angle but thought i'd post them both...
the two pics are about at the same angle but thought i'd post them both...
06-19-2010, 08:04 AM
#5
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Corpus Christi, TX
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Well, if you are having problems with grainy-ness, ISO is a good place to start. I used to shoot a lot of photos on a SLR before there was such a thing as a DSLR, and I developed all my own film and made my own prints. Now I have a DSLR and life is much easier. On the older cameras, the ISO was controlled by type of film you used. The higher your ISO, the more reactive the film is to low lighting conditions. So if you were shooting at night or dusk, you would want a 800-1600 ISO film. However, the way they magically did this with old film was to put more light reactant particles in the film, a lot more. This made the image form on the film much quicker with the same shutter speed. But when you have that many more particles, it can make the image grainy. So if you are shooting in good lighting conditions, you want to use a 100, 200, or 400 ISO to get much crisper images without the grainyness. On DSLRs, this is a digital process that you can set in the camera, so just be smart about what lighting conditions you are in before you shoot. Also, a trick on DSLRs that I didn't have on my SLR is you can digitally set what type of lighting conditions you expect on the camera, so if you are using a flash, if you are in florescent light, or if you are in direct sunlight you can tell your camera so it expects it, and that will help as well.
Now there are other variables you can adjust as well, those being the shutter speed and the aperature setting. These have to be varied along with exposure time to take good photos. Basically, you have to put light on the sensor (since you don't have film) to make an image. If you put too much light, the picture will come out too bright, and not enough it will be too dark, and this means you will have to spend extra time in the dark room (or photoshop in this case) trying to fix your mistakes. If you have a high shutter speed, the shutter (a door to let the light on the sensor) will open and close quickly, not letting in a lot of light. To compensate for this, you have to open up the aperature. Think of it kind of as blinds, the further you open the blinds, the more light you let into the room. If you open the aperature all the way up, you are going to want a quick shutter speed. The reverse is also true in both cases. On your DSLR, you should have the option of shutter speed priority, aperture priority, and full blown manual. Stay away from full blown manual until you really know what you are doing. If you go into aperture priority, and set an F-Stop (aperature setting) numerically low (F-Stop 5.6 or something as opposed to F-Stop 32) the blinds will be mostly shut. Since the camera is in Aperture priority, it will automatically force a shutter speed for the appropriate F-Stop you've selected. The beauty of a low F-stop is that you can control what's called depth of field. That is how much of your picture is in focus, and how much is out of focus. You can make it so that you have a 3 foot deep window of something being in focus, and everything before and after that will be blurred out. You can turn the focus on the lens to move that 3 foot window in and out, so you could focus on the spoiler, or turn the focus ring and maybe blur the spoiler and focus on the front grill instead. I love taking shots like this because you can have the whole car in the shot but draw someones eye to the detail you want them to notice. If you set the F-stop numerically high, everything will be in focus, so you can take landscape type shots where you capture every detail. Those shots bore me when I'm feeling creative, but lots of people have made lots of money on landscape shots, and there is nothing wrong with them, just not my cup of tea.
Here is an example of having a small window of focusing with everything else blurred to focus the view on what you find interesting:
Here's one where the f-stop is more wide open and everything is in focus:
The shutter priority works the same was as aperture priority, set up whatever shutter speed you like, and it will auto adjust the aperture for the correct amount of light to enter the camera for good exposures. Shutter speed adjust whether you want to freeze or blur motion. A high shutter speed (really fast clicks) can be used to make helicopters in the air look like the are on the ground with their rotors frozen in place, a slower shutter speed can cause motion blur on the rotor and you realize it's in the air. If you slow your shutter speed down, and can keep you subject in the same spot in you lens for the entire exposure, and the subject is moving, you can make the subject (say a S197) look frozen while the background (say a Camaro getting passed) will be blurred. This can make for cool shots, but it will take a steady hand to blur what you want to blur. These take practice.
Okay, I was a bit long winded here, but I hope that helps.
Now there are other variables you can adjust as well, those being the shutter speed and the aperature setting. These have to be varied along with exposure time to take good photos. Basically, you have to put light on the sensor (since you don't have film) to make an image. If you put too much light, the picture will come out too bright, and not enough it will be too dark, and this means you will have to spend extra time in the dark room (or photoshop in this case) trying to fix your mistakes. If you have a high shutter speed, the shutter (a door to let the light on the sensor) will open and close quickly, not letting in a lot of light. To compensate for this, you have to open up the aperature. Think of it kind of as blinds, the further you open the blinds, the more light you let into the room. If you open the aperature all the way up, you are going to want a quick shutter speed. The reverse is also true in both cases. On your DSLR, you should have the option of shutter speed priority, aperture priority, and full blown manual. Stay away from full blown manual until you really know what you are doing. If you go into aperture priority, and set an F-Stop (aperature setting) numerically low (F-Stop 5.6 or something as opposed to F-Stop 32) the blinds will be mostly shut. Since the camera is in Aperture priority, it will automatically force a shutter speed for the appropriate F-Stop you've selected. The beauty of a low F-stop is that you can control what's called depth of field. That is how much of your picture is in focus, and how much is out of focus. You can make it so that you have a 3 foot deep window of something being in focus, and everything before and after that will be blurred out. You can turn the focus on the lens to move that 3 foot window in and out, so you could focus on the spoiler, or turn the focus ring and maybe blur the spoiler and focus on the front grill instead. I love taking shots like this because you can have the whole car in the shot but draw someones eye to the detail you want them to notice. If you set the F-stop numerically high, everything will be in focus, so you can take landscape type shots where you capture every detail. Those shots bore me when I'm feeling creative, but lots of people have made lots of money on landscape shots, and there is nothing wrong with them, just not my cup of tea.
Here is an example of having a small window of focusing with everything else blurred to focus the view on what you find interesting:
Here's one where the f-stop is more wide open and everything is in focus:
The shutter priority works the same was as aperture priority, set up whatever shutter speed you like, and it will auto adjust the aperture for the correct amount of light to enter the camera for good exposures. Shutter speed adjust whether you want to freeze or blur motion. A high shutter speed (really fast clicks) can be used to make helicopters in the air look like the are on the ground with their rotors frozen in place, a slower shutter speed can cause motion blur on the rotor and you realize it's in the air. If you slow your shutter speed down, and can keep you subject in the same spot in you lens for the entire exposure, and the subject is moving, you can make the subject (say a S197) look frozen while the background (say a Camaro getting passed) will be blurred. This can make for cool shots, but it will take a steady hand to blur what you want to blur. These take practice.
Okay, I was a bit long winded here, but I hope that helps.
06-19-2010, 08:10 AM
#6
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Corpus Christi, TX
Posts: 129
Oh, and one more quick note, if you have too much or too little black in a picture, that can be fixed in post processing, with photo shop or some such program. There is a free version of photoshop out there (it's a third party open source deal) that is just as powerful and free, but I can't remember the name right now. In the old days, we would use the darkroom to figure out exactly how light and dark we wanted our pictures and then expose the prints for however long we needed. Now a days, you just plug it into photoshop. Don't be ashamed or think that you are ruining your pictures by adjusting darkness and contrast in photoshop, because that is what we used to do in the dark room using filters, shadows, and exposure times. In fact if you aren't editing your contrast and darkness levels in a photoshop type program, you are really only half doing your job. That being said, most picture I take digital I don't run through photoshop out of laziness, but if I run out and take artistic shots, I force myself to photoshop them for basic darkness and contrast before I make prints. It really makes a world of difference.
Just FYI.
Just FYI.
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