I'm a photographer!

[Zoesmama03]

I mentioned this story a couple weeks ago, so if you've already read this, please skip to the next reply.

I was at an event where this woman was carrying around her Nikon and a HUGE lens, walking all around taking pictures of this & that. She would spend most of her time outside, but sometimes she's come inside to take photos, too. I was totally intimidated by her & her huge lens.

Well, I finally got the courage to go up to talk to her. She's a news photographer, and she was carrying the 70-200mm lens, which is a very popular $2000+ lens.

She was trying to take photos of something indoors in the lower lighting area, but she kept getting frustrated at how blurry her pictures were turning out. And she didn't know how to fix it.

Turns out, she was using the "P" mode (Program mode, which is a little more advanced than regular Auto mode) the whole time. The shutter speed that her camera was choosing was WAY too slow for the situation, causing all her indoor pictures to be blurry. I could even HEAR the shutter speed clicking slooooowly.

So I suggested that she switch her setting to Manual, and I suggested a somewhat faster shutter speed (about 1/30 - 1/60), and she was totally thrilled that the indoor pictures were finally turning out!

She's had her Nikon camera for a year. As much as she loved the camera, she admitted that she was gonna to take a Nikon class later on to learn about the camera.

What got to me was that (1) she was making money as a news photographer, and didn't know how to take photos in more complicated lighting situations, whereas I'm hanging around doing this as a hobby, and I was teaching her how to use her camera, and (2) just cuz someone's walking around with a HUGE lens doesn't mean they know what they're doing.

In the end, it is possible to have all this dSLR gear and pretend like you know what you're doing. ("you" in the general sense, not "you" specifically)

When I looked back at everything, I felt really silly being intimidated by her & her huge lens.
​

So true though. I'm one of them at times. Although I would have known what you suggested so I dunno. It does make you wonder how she got her job. Maybe she was employed with them already and they just said OOOH you got a camera do this for us.


What always gets me is when someone that is not experienced barely with P&S cameras says wow what camera do you have? or I want your camera. Like it has a little man inside that does all the work for us. LOL I struggled to learn some of this stuff and I hate for people to assume its my camera.

 

[Groucho]

I mentioned this story a couple weeks ago, so if you've already read this, please skip to the next reply.

I was at an event where this woman was carrying around her Nikon and a HUGE lens, walking all around taking pictures of this & that. She would spend most of her time outside, but sometimes she's come inside to take photos, too. I was totally intimidated by her & her huge lens.​

I missed this story the first time. Don't be intimidated - especially in low-light areas, you will get better photos with a small, fast prime due to them being faster. A 50mm F1.4 may be relatively tiny but can use a 4x faster shutter speed and get the same exposure as an F2.8 zoom!