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Photography Equipment & Software Thread

rundll

By rundll
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Steve007

Steve007

Posted
Posted

good work Steve007. switch that puppy into Aperture Priority / Shutter Priority Mode STAT (thats the A or P on the top dial) basically one gives you control of the shutter (for freezing motion or having motion blur, and the camera sorts everything else out for you)or the other gives you control of the Aperture - letting you control the depth of field and how much forward and back from your focus point, is in focus)

they're like stepping stones into full manual mode. also, put your camera into manual ISO mode. have low/200 for brightness, and bump it up the darker it gets.

Thanks for the tips :)

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Nicky

Nicky

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another great tip for a new person getting into photography. when you look through the viewfinder, it'll look like this. take note of number 11. this scale will show you wether you're overexposed or under exposed if its to one of the edges. perfect exposure is bang in the center. when you look at different things, you'll see this scale move around. some times you may want to off-set this if you want to have bluer skies while shooting darkish foreground for example and you can notice that it'll move in "stops"

ZD3100VFCALLOUTS.GIF

edit: this is critical to take notice of when you make the switch to Manual. as you can basically follow that scale, to get properly exposed pictures every time.

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fragglerock

fragglerock

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Getting the marker to the middle of the exposure meter only gives "perfect exposure" if the cameras computer has got the calculation right, and most often it has not.

The camera has to try and guess what the scene looks like, and it generally guesses that you are taking a picture of a blank grey square. If this is not the case (dark room, snowy scene, bright sky) then you need to estimate how wrong it is getting it and 'compensate' using the marker as a guide (eg for snow the camera will try and underexpose (giving grey snow) so you must overexpose by a stop or a bit less to get white snow) The other way for dark scenes if you want to keep the moody darkness.

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Nicky

Nicky

Posted
Posted
Getting the marker to the middle of the exposure meter only gives "perfect exposure" if the cameras computer has got the calculation right, and most often it has not.

The first part is true. And if you're a nikon shooter using Matrix mode, most often it's got it just about bang on. Nikons Matrix metering on the latest models especially is amazing.

But the rest of your post is brilliant for these new guys to follow. We'll not boggle them too much at this stage with exposure compensation on top of all this. :ph34r:

on the d3100's i Think the exposure adjustments are only active when you're in full manual mode. in A/P modes you only have to worry about your framing and Shutter/Aperture accordingly.

going back to metering though, if you're in manual, there should be a button to press in i'd imagine which - while held in will give you access to the jog wheel on the camera to adjust the value. Although not actually having a 3100 on me, i can't be sure of, but it's a similar concept as to how the Canon 450d handled only having one jog wheel.

There are a few differnt options as far as Metering (light calculation for proper exposure)goes. You should have 3 options. Matrix(scene / evaluative) mode, which will work out most of the scene and add it to your focus point and calculate it from there, there's Spot, which will meter the area right under your focus point, Theres Center Weighted Metering which will take the center point, and an area around this, to give a slightly more balanced metering of a target point.

the more you play and use them, the better an understanding you'll have.

If you had a dark room, and a small well lit...thing in the center of the room, and you just wanted to focus on the lit thing, say a candle, you'd not bother with Matrix mode, as it'll suggest you need a longer exposure. So you'd use Spot metering and target it on the wax. You'd get the bit you wanted metered properly, the wax, the candle would look ace, and you'd probably have a black background for everything. just like fraggle rock was on about.

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Fletch

Fletch

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I joined the local camera club and the average age of the members was about 150, there were some interesting people there but it was mostly a case of the same old faces winning the photography comps and a talk by an external photographer each week, no trips or models so I've not been back since the start of December.

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Fletch

Fletch

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Posted

I joined the local camera club and the average age of the members was about 150, there were some interesting people there but it was mostly a case of the same old faces winning the photography comps and a talk by an external photographer each week, no trips or models so I've not been back since the start of December.

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Fusty Gusset

Fusty Gusset

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I rooted through some of my old stuff in my Mum's attic last week and found my old Canon T70 with it's 50mm 1.4 FD still attached, I've so many happy memories and wicked shots with that lens, I absolutely loved it.

Anyways I've ordered a moderately priced MFT/CAN adapter to check it out on my GF1....exciting :) Now I need to dig out all my other old glass and get to the Charity shop.

How many 4/3 owners do we have in here?

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footle

footle

Posted
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good work Steve007. switch that puppy into Aperture Priority / Shutter Priority Mode STAT (thats the A or P on the top dial) basically one gives you control of the shutter (for freezing motion or having motion blur, and the camera sorts everything else out for you)or the other gives you control of the Aperture - letting you control the depth of field and how much forward and back from your focus point, is in focus)

On Nikons it's usually A for Aperture and S for Shutter. P is Programmed Auto.

I'd also investigate the Auto ISO option if you're taking shots indoors without flash (check the Paper Manual - but you'll be able to set it to a Minimum shutter speed (e.g. 1/60) and a Maximum ISO that'll it change up to (probably 1600 on the D3100, it'd have been about 400 on my D60 a couple of years back!)), but remember to turn it off when you go outside.

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TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap

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Well, no hot women unfortunately. No women at all in fact. Apparently there are a few female members, but they weren't in tonight. Mainly old, bearded geezers. Some very talented people though, and it was quite interesting. I'll give it another try in a couple of weeks and then I'll decide whether or not I'll sign up.

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Nicky

Nicky

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On Nikons it's usually A for Aperture and S for Shutter. P is Programmed Auto.

I'd also investigate the Auto ISO option if you're taking shots indoors without flash (check the Paper Manual - but you'll be able to set it to a Minimum shutter speed (e.g. 1/60) and a Maximum ISO that'll it change up to (probably 1600 on the D3100, it'd have been about 400 on my D60 a couple of years back!)), but remember to turn it off when you go outside.

Sorry, i didn't check. I didn't / don't bother with them. i just went straight into Manual.

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The Fox

The Fox

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So yeah I kinda forgot that there's a duty free Dixons at Stansted. Could've saved £40 on the D3100 by getting it there rather than Amazon. Oh well. :<

I haven't really used it yet but my gf seems suitable impressed so far. She certainly enjoyed tinkering with it.

What's a good recommendation for a beginner's book on improving your eye for a good photo and so on? I saw one suggested earlier ITT and can't find the post now.

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

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The Photographer's Eye is great - all about composition, and the lessons apply to any camera. Understanding Exposure is good, but heavily biased towards shooting in full manual while using spot metering, and to be honest that's not necessarily something you'll be wanting to do when you first get a DSLR - plenty to learn anyway.

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