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OT: Photography


Narcosynthesis

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I remember a couple of topics on camera's and digital SLR's so hopefully you guys might be able to point me in the right direction here

 

I have been playing about with digital camera's recently, and want to get my dad's SLR film camera out and give it a shot to see how it compares and what results I can get from it, but am still a bit of a n00b when it comes to setting up the camera for shots and how to work it all

 

The camera I have (a Canon eos650) is supposed to be fairly good for automatic stuff, so basically point and shoot, but if I want to get into it a bit more I would really like to know a bit more of setting it up, even if I do end up using it on auto half the time

 

I will admit to working in a photo lab, dealing with film processing and all that, so I know odd bits in detail, and others am pretty ignorant

 

Are there any good places on the internet to take you through everything and get you going? (I guess there must be some sites like the forums here for camera's and photography)

 

David

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yeah man if you have any specific questions feel fee to PM me...I've been a pro shooter for over ten years

 

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the forums online.

 

Best advice I can give...is not to worry about spending lots of money on gear if you're an amateur...You can take beautiful photos with the camera you already have...I would suggest staying away from film because of the cost...If you can shoot digital go for it...Hell, I think the little 300 dollar canons are kick ass

 

best of luck

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I already have the camera sitting about, so it is partly an experiment to see how the photos come out - one thing I am wanting to do is to compare different camera's taking the same photo (a film SLR, newer 5mp 'compact' camera, and older (with larger lense) 3.2mp camera) and see how the quality varys, if it is a lot better and I get some good results, I might stick with it and see how it goes, if there isn't too much different I will probably stick to playing about with digital

 

I don't really have any particular questions, more as a rough guide to how you would go about setting up a camera, so if I took a nice landscape on a sunny day or whatever, how do I figure what settings to use (f stops and shutter speed and so on) relative to the film, or how about photos of a plant or something else - how do I go about setting that up?

 

I do realise automatic modes take care of most of this, but I just want to at least have the knowledge of what it is doing and how it is setup myself, even if I don't actually need to use it

 

David

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If you want a good primer on photography, I like this - it's for digital, but it covers basic photography ideas (EV, stops, etc.) that are universal.

 

http://dpfwiw.com/exposure.htm

 

The Fred Miranda forums are pretty popular - www.fredmiranda.com

 

DP Review's forums are popular too, but it's more digital camera types.

 

As for image quality, if you pick good pro print film or slide film, the quality is excellent as far as grain and noise goes. Supposedly in a 35mm slide the resolution is equivalent to about an 8 megapixel camera. Obviously, the lens, post-processing and the photographer will go a long ways to making an image look great, regardless of the capture medium.

 

[shameless self-promotion]

My Web site is www.dustinmielke.com - if you care

[/self-promotion]

 

Feel free to ask anything.

 

Dustin

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Originally posted by i_wanna_les_paul

If you want a good primer on photography, I like this - it's for digital, but it covers basic photography ideas (EV, stops, etc.) that are universal.


http://dpfwiw.com/exposure.htm


The Fred Miranda forums are pretty popular -
www.fredmiranda.com


DP Review's forums are popular too, but it's more digital camera types.


As for image quality, if you pick good pro print film or slide film, the quality is excellent as far as grain and noise goes. Supposedly in a 35mm slide the resolution is equivalent to about an 8 megapixel camera. Obviously, the lens, post-processing and the photographer will go a long ways to making an image look great, regardless of the capture medium.


[shameless self-promotion]

My Web site is
www.dustinmielke.com
- if you care

[/self-promotion]


Feel free to ask anything.


Dustin

 

Some cool photos you have on your site there, nice work

Are you using anythign special there? the colours seem very vivid and bright, or is that just the result of good lenses and equipement?

 

I was probably going to get 200 isa Fuji film, as thats probably the best I have at work (a chemists photo lab) and seems to be the favourite of the 'better' photographers, good stuff? I know you do get slower films (better for enlargements and big stuff) but we don't seem to stock it any more (though I could order from elsewhere if I wanted to)

 

I know at work there are some crap out of date films we have been usnig for testing the processors are clean after maintenence and so on, might see if I can nick a couple to play with (I know the results will be crap, regardless of how well I do, but it will give me a bit of an idea

 

One thing I was wandering, can you switch lenses mid roll? to my knowledge you were always able to switch to let you choose lenses as you go, but someone the other day told me that apparently that can ruin a few of the exposed fromaes next to the shutter.

 

David

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For everything film photography, the forum to see is the Analog Photography User Group, or APUG

 

Then there is Photo.net which is pretty good...

 

And for the bit of Shameless self-promotion:

 

Mamut Photo, which deals with ultra-large formatphotography, is my brainchild, and my own photography work can be seen on my website:

janvanhove.com (Caution: there is nudity, so it's far from work safe...)

 

And I'd be happy to try and answer any question you have through PM... (I've been a serious photographer (not a pro, though...) for almost 10 years now...)

 

PJ

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Originally posted by Narcosynthesis



One thing I was wandering, can you switch lenses mid roll? to my knowledge you were always able to switch to let you choose lenses as you go, but someone the other day told me that apparently that can ruin a few of the exposed fromaes next to the shutter.


David

 

 

Of course you can, that's the whole point of an interchangable lens camera... If you want to be absolutely sure not to ruin anything, don't point the shutter directly into the sun and you should be OK (and I don't even see how that could affect a few frames...)

 

You can't open the back of the camera mid-roll, of course, that will ruin things, but changing lenses on a 35mm SLR is nothing to worry about...

 

PJ

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Originally posted by Narcosynthesis



Some cool photos you have on your site there, nice work

Are you using anythign special there? the colours seem very vivid and bright, or is that just the result of good lenses and equipement?

 

Those were all shot with a Canon 20D digital camera and a decent lens, taken in RAW format and adjusted later. Basically, I adjusted them to have a color closer to Fujifilm, Kodachrome or any other highly saturated, high-contrast film.

 

It's also the result of waiting for just the right light and living in Montana. :)

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I was informed by my friend that the shutter only covers the frame of film in use, so popping off the lense can uncover a bit of the frames either side and destroy them, which did seem like a mighty silly idea to me at the time, and against the idea of interchangeable lenses (great idea to only get one lense per film...)

 

He is one of the 'I do photography at college so obviously know lots more than you' types...

 

The site at http://dpfwiw.com/exposure.htm seems very useful, and has a lot of information (I didn't really understand the idea behind AE modes and so on, which that explained - lett you choose the f stop to suit the picture, and the camera compensates the shutter to get the right amount of light on the film for its speed)

It does get fairly heavy going further down, but very cool nonetheless, cheers

 

David

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Now just go out and take pictures. Photographers can be worse than bassists when it comes to forums. They'll sit around all day and talk about how much superior their $4000 Leica lens is on their Canon digital SLR compared to $1500 Canon L-series lenses.

 

At the end of the day, just get out and shoot. If you're happy with what you do, end of story.

 

That's what I did today. Had some good photos. Happy shooting!

 

Dustin

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Originally posted by i_wanna_les_paul

Now just go out and take pictures. Photographers can be worse than bassists when it comes to forums. They'll sit around all day and talk about how much superior their $4000 Leica lens is on their Canon digital SLR compared to $1500 Canon L-series lenses.


At the end of the day, just get out and shoot. If you're happy with what you do, end of story.


That's what I did today. Had some good photos. Happy shooting!


Dustin

 

 

 

+1000000 on the going out and shooting part! That's the only way to get better!

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