Digital SLR / DSLR Camera Question / DSLR Thread 2

[ASADO]

I like that last one.

what did you use for the background? just turned out the lights. or some board covered in black cloth?

Living room blanket and candle holder to hold the Nacho mask.

 

[machete]

nice.

my kinda setup. use what ya got

 

[Storm Shadow]

Can someone give me advice for night shots? The color balance is always screwed up and very orange... those damn mercury vapor street lights. I think I've tried most of the white balance settings but they still seem to be different than in real life.

Should I do a custom white balance?
Can I fix it in Photoshop?

if your in cam WB doesnt do it use photoshop.

 

[Storm Shadow]

I have a lens question for you veterans...

One thing I really love about my 50mm f/1.8 lens is the way I can create a shallow depth of field to make my subjects pop off from the background. And really, most photography I have been observing lately--especially AP and photojournalism photography--makes use of this technique.

After a thousand shots on the 50mm 1.8, I am starting to find creative limits, namely:

- As it's a 50mm lens (75mm when you factor the DX crop), the field of view is very narrow. Some times I would love to have a much wider angle and still have the same shallow depth of field. What lens would I use?

For example, if you could take a guess, what kind of lenses produced the following photographs, with a much wider angle than 50mm/75mm and a nice shallow DoF (below). Credit to Zoriah, one of my favorite photojournalists.

get a fx format cam?

 

[VeloceMoto]

get a fx format cam?

Really? Is that my best solution?

I would like an FX camera, believe me, but it seems used bodies are more than my entire setup! D70, two lenses and an SB600 flash--i.e. $800.

Maybe all I need is a DX wide angle that goes to 2.8, as BrassPremier mentioned.

 

[BrassPremier]

I'm in love with my Tokina 11-16 2.8. Been getting a lot of great shots with it, not too expensive ($550). When I got it though, was really hard to find them in stock.

theres the nikon 14-24 2.8, but thats around $1500 and is more suited for FX cameras

Nikon makes a 12-22? lens, but its not a 2.8 if thats important. I work all day so I seem to end up taking shots at night a lot and I enjoy having the option to shoot at 2.8

Sigma makes a 10-20mm 4.0-5.6, but again its not 2.8. It's also the cheapest ultrawide zoom you can get new

Just a side note, those primes I mentioned before ranging from 24-35mm arent really considered wide angle when used on the DX cameras, but they will give you that 'normal' view you wanted to get out of your 50mm. Again, look them up first as I really don't know anything about those lens in particular

 

[mosquito]

Can someone give me advice for night shots? The color balance is always screwed up and very orange... those damn mercury vapor street lights. I think I've tried most of the white balance settings but they still seem to be different than in real life.

Should I do a custom white balance?
Can I fix it in Photoshop?

If you can't set the white balance to a particular color temp, just take a couple of sheets of printer paper with you and use them to set your custom white balance. Two sheets on top of each other reflect the ambient light better than one. Also, if you can stand right under the mercury vapor lamp you can point your camera at it and set the white balance through one sheet of paper. (Though in both cases it'll be a *hair* off since a lot of paper is slightly yellowish.)

Once you get a good setting you should be able to just come back to it.

 

[mosquito]

... For example, if you could take a guess, what kind of lenses produced the following photographs, with a much wider angle than 50mm/75mm and a nice shallow DoF (below). Credit to Zoriah, one of my favorite photojournalists.

...

Just guessing but those look like they're Full-Frame 28mm at about f/4 and f/2.8 and at about 2.5 and 5 feet from the subjects.

Being able to do stuff like this is why I love my 17-55mm f/2.8 lens on my D200. I still *really* miss being able to shoot at f/1.4 though. (For darkness an extremely short DoF.)

<ETA>

I have a Nikon 12-24 f/4 lens but I don't carry it around and use it as much as I'd hoped I would. Most of its range overlaps the 17-55mm and it only opens up to f/4. If I'm in the car, no biggie, but on the bike carrying a third lens is tough.

If you want to do things like those photos for 'not much money', I'd say look for a used manual prime lens in the 15-25 mm range that opens up to at least 2.8 and get close to your subjects.

 

[VeloceMoto]

Is it me, or do photojournalists make heavy use of wide-angle lenses? I am noticing it everywhere now.

Maybe I just secretly want that Tokina 11-16 and I am trying to justify it.

 

[masameet]

Yes, they do.

If you ever get a chance to see Kim Komenich's Pulitizer pictures of the fall of -- gee, I already forgot his name! -- oh, yeah, Ferdinand Marcos and the rise of Corazon Aquino, you'll see he used his 20 mm lens a lot. The edges of his pictures (black and white, as I seem to recall), where people's heads and faces are just slightly pulled apart , tell you he's not using a 24 mm lens.

Any lens that helps a photojournalist tell a story is the right lens. Takes a lot of practice to know which lens to use. Plus most working photojournalists carry at least two cameras to shoot with. And no student of photojournalism can disregard the great Robert Capa's words: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." The "You are there" feel is what makes photography undeniably important in our lives.

Photos are all about impact, emotion and graphic lines.

And it seems, VeloceMoto, you are observant enough to be a good student, which usually leads to becoming a good photographer. That's great. Go for it.

 

[mosquito]

Also, FWIW, if you want to make monochrome images, I suggest shooting in color instead of using a built-in monochrome feature. During your processing you can apply different effects using the color info that wind up acting like you had used differently colored filters when you originally shot them.

 

[Cycle61]

Can someone give me advice for night shots? The color balance is always screwed up and very orange... those damn mercury vapor street lights. I think I've tried most of the white balance settings but they still seem to be different than in real life.

Should I do a custom white balance?
Can I fix it in Photoshop?

Shoot B&W

Or you can basically accept that night shots under sodium lights will have an orange color to them. Our eyes are used to seeing that color at night. Set your WB to 2500K and go for it.

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." The "You are there" feel is what makes photography undeniably important in our lives.

This. Wide angle, and get ridiculously close to your subject. I don't recall if I've posted this picture already, but it's with a 17-35 at 17mm on a full-frame body. I'm literally almost under the brim of this guys hat. Definitely less than a foot away from his face.

 

[BrassPremier]

Yea if your subject doesnt mind a big ass lens in their face, wide angles are fun for closeups

 

[mosquito]

Wait, that's not you??

--

Really though, what was the context of that shot?

 

[Cycle61]

Yea if your subject doesnt mind a big ass lens in their face, wide angles are fun for closeups

He doesn't have a right eye. Didn't mind a bit.

 

[VeloceMoto]

BrassPremier, Mosquito, Masameet, Cycle61:

I have committed an error. You guys are right about having to shove the lens in the face of your subject for wide-angle shots to work out. Yesterday I played around a bit my the kit lens at 17mm (DX). Man, you have to get REALLY REALLY REALLY close! Who was I kidding, I don't need an 11mm! Seriously, I think DX format 17mm is going to be fine for now. I feel like I've discovered something new--and it's free! It's not just for tall buildings, I can use it with the camera positioned really close (like Cycle61's example) and get a really good shot. The D70 kit lens focuses down to I believe 1 or 1.5 feet so one can get really, really close! I particularly like how the background is expressed in these types of photos, especially portraits.

 

[masameet]

Well, no, you don't have to "shove" a wide-angle lens into your subjects' faces. You need to respect your photo subject too, ya know. (If a pro says, in critiquing your pix, So you kinda like Diane Arbus, huh?, you know you're not being fair to your photo subject. :|) And after a while some of them will tire of your camera and presence and will protest; and then you'll lose them as photo subjects. Not good. But an unwilling photo subject makes a shitty photo anyway.

You can approximate the same kind of look or feel with a longer lens. In this respect it's how you frame the image.

I think learning to "see" with a full-frame DSLR/SLR and prime lenses will teach you how a particular lens "sees." Anyway I always thought the 85 mm lens on an SLR approximated the human eye's view more than the 50 mm.

 

[mosquito]

Actually, VM, I think you hit one of the main reasons I suggest people learn with primes instead of zooms. You might want to try this as an exercise: Pick one focal length and use that for the next 100 (or 200 or 500) shots, then pick another and repeat. By doing that you learn what the lens does at that focal length in a variety of aperture / speed / ISO settings and you begin to learn what you can and can't do with it.

I didn't see what lens you have, but try these focal lengths if you can: 17, 35, 55, 85, 135 mm.

In addition to learning how to use a particular lens, the other reasons for learning with primes are to not treat the zoom like a telescope (i.e. just to 'get closer'), (generally) better image quality for the price, (generally) larger apertures and ranges. The real benefit of having zooms is not having to carry around so many lenses.

And, yeah, I totally agree with masameet. When I use the DSLR at social events I try to sit back and not put it in people's faces. Having a big honking camera out has enough of a social impact. I also try not to move around *too* much 'cause some people really don't want their photo taken. (Yes, honking is a technical term.)

 

[BrassPremier]

Yea you don't have to get right in someones face for a shot, it just has a cool perspective to it. Things close look huge, things a few feet farther away look a mile away

 

[masameet]

Click for some great pix.

(But if you're on a Mac, you might be able to see the pix via Safari rather than FF.)