The Learning Curve

[dukehoopsfan]

I will be looking forward to learning from all of you - I was surprised by husband and kids with a Canon Rebel XS - and I admit it is VERY overwhelming!

 

[NLD]

Okay I'm in. Got a Nikon D60 over the summer but just now read Understanding Exposure and things are finally starting to click. During the summer and fall I was on auto mode all the time.

Never used anything but a point-and-shoot prior to this and didn't know the first thing about ISO, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, etc. This is a VERY steep learning curve.

 

[NLD]

Question:

Looking to buy my second lens sometime soon. Right now all I have is the 18-55 3.5-5.6 VR kit lens.

For the next lens, I'd like to buy something to replace my kit lens as a walkaround lens--but with more zoom

OR

Something that will perform better in low light (faster)


I'd love the 18-200 VR Nikkor but it's a little pricey for me right now. Was looking at this Sigma as an alternative:


http://www.cameta.com/index.cfm/fa:display.showprod/Sigma-18-200mm-f-3-5-6-3-DC-OS-HSM-Zoom-Lens-Nikon-AF/productid:28151/

Anyone have this lens? Is it vastly inferior to the Nikkor 18-200? I know the Sigma is slower--how much of a problem would this be for a general walk-around lens?


Should I just save up for the Nikkor?



As far as low-light: I know about the 50 mm f/1.8 but it won't autofocus on my D60. Not sure I want to buy something right now that will only manual focus. I'd really love the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G, but again that's getting pricey.

What would you do? Save up, or buy a Sigma?

 

[annnewjerz]

Question:

Looking to buy my second lens sometime soon. Right now all I have is the 18-55 3.5-5.6 VR kit lens.

For the next lens, I'd like to buy something to replace my kit lens as a walkaround lens--but with more zoom

OR

Something that will perform better in low light (faster)


I'd love the 18-200 VR Nikkor but it's a little pricey for me right now. Was looking at this Sigma as an alternative:


http://www.cameta.com/index.cfm/fa:display.showprod/Sigma-18-200mm-f-3-5-6-3-DC-OS-HSM-Zoom-Lens-Nikon-AF/productid:28151/

Anyone have this lens? Is it vastly inferior to the Nikkor 18-200? I know the Sigma is slower--how much of a problem would this be for a general walk-around lens?


Should I just save up for the Nikkor?



As far as low-light: I know about the 50 mm f/1.8 but it won't autofocus on my D60. Not sure I want to buy something right now that will only manual focus. I'd really love the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G, but again that's getting pricey.

What would you do? Save up, or buy a Sigma?

I also have the D60 and the Nikon 18-200mm VR. I think it's great as a walk-around lens, although once you get something faster, you may find that you are a bit spoiled. For what it is, it's great. Lightweight, takes nice quality pictures (although it is slightly soft at the 200 end) and the VR works great. When I was looking into this lens a few months ago, everyone told me to save and get the Nikkor because it is a better quality lens. That being said, I have seen a few people on here looking at the Sigma in the past few months (or people that have it) and they seem to be equally as delighted. They both get good reviews. It really depends on what you want. If you want a larger collection of lenses quicker picking quantity over quality (in a sense) off-brands are definitely a good selection because oftentimes, the Nikon lenses are far more expensive. If you are looking for quantity and can fend off your NAS for as long as possible, I'd go with the Nikon over the Sigma...but I am a little bit biased having the Nikon myself.

As far as the 50mm f/1.8 goes, I think it is well worth the money, even if you have the D60 (which I do). You can find them used for well under $100 - I believe I got mine used from a local camera store for $85...which has been some of my favorite money I have spent photographicaly speaking. I haven't taken that lens off of my camera since mid-October with the exception of a day I was doing a shoot for someone's Christmas card. I

t isn't extremely easy to focus quickly - that's something you'll have to practice at. At f/4 and above, it's very easy to focus and at f/1.8 it's still do-able, you just have to make sure you are focusing on the right part of your subject (i.e. a dog's face rather than his paw) otherwise with the shallow DOF, you may end up with a photo that looks out of focus. The D60 has a "focus" light in the viewfinder. Twist the focus ring on your lens one way or the other and when you are getting close to proper focus, it will blink faster and faster until it finally becomes solid, indicating you are in focus and you can take your shot (although I admit, sometimes I still take it while it's blinking).

Good luck and happy shopping, hopefully you are content with your decision once you make it!

 

[NLD]

Thank you very much for the review and info, annewjerz.

I guess I just have to do some pondering and decide for myself... leaning towards getting the 50 mm 1.8 now (might be good for me to learn to manual focus, anyway?) and then saving up for the Nikkor 18-200.


Still mulling it over.

 

[annnewjerz]

Thank you very much for the review and info, annewjerz.

I guess I just have to do some pondering and decide for myself... leaning towards getting the 50 mm 1.8 now (might be good for me to learn to manual focus, anyway?) and then saving up for the Nikkor 18-200.


Still mulling it over.

I think mulling it over is the best decision (and one that I am rarely ever capable of ).

I really like manually focusing now that I use it more often and I do agree that it is a skill you may want to learn anyway. The 50mm f/1.8 is a good way to find out if you like it or not...it's inexpensive, good in low-light and if you decide you don't like manually focusing it holds its value well. You can either re-sell it (and probably not lose much of what you spent) or hold onto it in hopes of upgrading to a body that has a focus-motor in the body one day (like the D80, D90, D300, etc), whereas I just purchased the 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro that I have to manually focus. If it was my first MF lens and I decided I didn't like it, that's a much more expensive lens to throw in the "oh well-lesson learned" pile.

Good luck!!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

At least I think it's new.
How do you guys know when to use exposure compensation? Whenever I try to use it, the pictures don't come out right. And sometimes it'll look in the camera meter as if the exposure would be too dark and then it ends up blown out. I think the only time I used exposure compensation that the pictures came out okay was when I was using my D80, 50mm1.8 on the POTC ride. I noticed that some people use it when using tripods w/ longish shutter speeds -- so why would you do that? Couldn't you just slow down the shutter speed even more or open up the Aperture more? Can anyone help me figure out what the heck it's for and why it's there?
It's been a while since anyone has posted to this thread... Is anyone out there still reading?

 

[JoeDif]

Check these out.

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/995/EXPOSURE/EV-compensation.html


http://www.vividlight.com/articles/1603.htm

 

[spinetnglr]

Exposure compensation is not always an easy one to grasp and I still have trouble with it sometimes. The way I try to think about it is this: The camera is going to always expose for 18% grey so if you have a subject that is mostly light tones such as a white sandy beach or snow covered field the reflection of the light will fool the meter that there is way more light than there really is. Consequently it will underexpose the picture so you have to compensate by adding more light by +1/3EV, 2/3EV, +1EV or more in some cases. If you have a subject that is mostly dark tones the camera is exposing for less light than there really is so it will overexpose the picture making your dark tones look washed out and not as saturated as they should. In this case you have to compensate by -1/3EV -2/3EV -1EV or more depending on the compensation. The really tricky part comes when you have for instance a very bright sky and a dark subject. The brightness of the sky will cause the lens to stop down and it will expose for the sky leaving your subject in the shadows. You can compensate for it but in most cases you will end up with a blown out sky. One way to work around that is with a graduated neutral density filter that makes half the frame darker and lets you expose for the subject.

I hope some of that is helpful to you. I am by no means an expert but I recently took an online class and we had to do an assignment for compensation. Experiment with your camera. Find a subject with mostly light or white tones and take a picture. Then adjust your compensation to +1/3EV and take another and keep taking pictures by increasing your EV by 1/3 stop. Take 4 or 5 shots this way and compare them.

Here are the shots I took for the class for white or light subjects. The white door looks grey and dingy the way the camera saw it. But when I compensated by +2/3EV the door appeared as it really was, a bright white.

Before compensation:

After:

You can do the same experiment with a mostly dark tone subject and compensating to the -EV side in several shots and see how the darker tones in your pictures with compensation are more saturated and less washed out.

Sorry this got a little long but I hope it helps you a little with compensation.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Check these out.

http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/995/EXPOSURE/EV-compensation.html


http://www.vividlight.com/articles/1603.htm

Exposure compensation is not always an easy one to grasp and I still have trouble with it sometimes. The way I try to think about it is this: The camera is going to always expose for 18% grey so if you have a subject that is mostly light tones such as a white sandy beach or snow covered field the reflection of the light will fool the meter that there is way more light than there really is. Consequently it will underexpose the picture so you have to compensate by adding more light by +1/3EV, 2/3EV, +1EV or more in some cases. If you have a subject that is mostly dark tones the camera is exposing for less light than there really is so it will overexpose the picture making your dark tones look washed out and not as saturated as they should. In this case you have to compensate by -1/3EV -2/3EV -1EV or more depending on the compensation. The really tricky part comes when you have for instance a very bright sky and a dark subject. The brightness of the sky will cause the lens to stop down and it will expose for the sky leaving your subject in the shadows. You can compensate for it but in most cases you will end up with a blown out sky. One way to work around that is with a graduated neutral density filter that makes half the frame darker and lets you expose for the subject.

I hope some of that is helpful to you. I am by no means an expert but I recently took an online class and we had to do an assignment for compensation. Experiment with your camera. Find a subject with mostly light or white tones and take a picture. Then adjust your compensation to +1/3EV and take another and keep taking pictures by increasing your EV by 1/3 stop. Take 4 or 5 shots this way and compare them.

Here are the shots I took for the class for white or light subjects. The white door looks grey and dingy the way the camera saw it. But when I compensated by +2/3EV the door appeared as it really was, a bright white...
...You can do the same experiment with a mostly dark tone subject and compensating to the -EV side in several shots and see how the darker tones in your pictures with compensation are more saturated and less washed out.

Sorry this got a little long but I hope it helps you a little with compensation.

Thanks for all that great info! It makes it a lot easier to understand. I'll go reread those links now to make sure I'm understanding this right. It seems to be the opposite of what I thought it should be. Spinetnglr, what online photography class did you take? I've been thinking of taking one too. I'm just not sure I have the time...

 

[spinetnglr]

Thanks for all that great info! It makes it a lot easier to understand. I'll go reread those links now to make sure I'm understanding this right. It seems to be the opposite of what I thought it should be. Spinetnglr, what online photography class did you take? I've been thinking of taking one too. I'm just not sure I have the time...

The course I took was at betterphoto.com and it was a course specifically for the Nikon D40 but alot of the info applies to photography in general like the lesson on exposure compensation. I just finished another course on beginners Photoshop and learned a lot in the 4 short weeks the course lasted. The courses there are a little pricey I think but the individual critiques and attention you get from pros is excellent. Both instructors I have had so far have been very accessible and willing to help you work thru any problems. This last course the one student was really having difficulties working thru a problem and the instructor told her if she just cannot get it he would be willing to call her and walk her thru the steps by phone.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

The course I took was at betterphoto.com.

Thanks for that info! Too bad they don't have a class for the D90.

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Have any of you used the New York Institute of Phtography? I've been thinking of trying them out. Would love to hear some feedback....

 

[spinetnglr]

You might be able to pick up some useful information on the D90 from Ken Rockwell's site. Some of the things he writes you have to take with a grain of salt but for the most part the facts he gives are right on and I have learned some things about the D300 by reading his pages on the camera. You can find his version of the D90 users guide here:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d90/users-guide/index.htm

He has a very large site with lots to look at and read including comparisons of cameras and such.

 

[bob100]

You might be able to pick up some useful information on the D90 from Ken Rockwell's site. Some of the things he writes you have to take with a grain of salt

also keep in mind
(1) Ken Rockwell is paid to recommend certain cameras, equipment and websites
(2) Ken Rockwell believes space aliens and their spaceships are here on earth
e.g. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nm/aliens/index.htm

of course (1) and (2) are not mutually exclusive and if you get a good pic of a UFO alien with his advice - big bucks !!

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

You might be able to pick up some useful information on the D90 from Ken Rockwell's site. Some of the things he writes you have to take with a grain of salt but for the most part the facts he gives are right on and I have learned some things about the D300 by reading his pages on the camera. You can find his version of the D90 users guide here:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d90/users-guide/index.htm
He has a very large site with lots to look at and read including comparisons of cameras and such.

Thanks, I checked it out. It had some pretty decent info regarding the D90 settings.

also keep in mind
(1) Ken Rockwell is paid to recommend certain cameras, equipment and websites
(2) Ken Rockwell believes space aliens and their spaceships are here on earth
e.g. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nm/aliens/index.htm
of course (1) and (2) are not mutually exclusive and if you get a good pic of a UFO alien with his advice - big bucks !!

Thanks Bob100. I'm thinking maybe he's into Scientology or something? (Don't they believe in Aliens and that they inhabited Earth or something like that?) They were nice photos though...

 

[spinetnglr]

also keep in mind
(1) Ken Rockwell is paid to recommend certain cameras, equipment and websites
(2) Ken Rockwell believes space aliens and their spaceships are here on earth
e.g. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nm/aliens/index.htm

of course (1) and (2) are not mutually exclusive and if you get a good pic of a UFO alien with his advice - big bucks !!

LOL I did mention that anything that could resemble an opinion should be taken for its entertainment value if you can call it that. But the info he has there on where to find certain settings and just a general overall guide on camera functions is easy to understand and I have found some of it to be helpful with regards to my D40 and D300.

 

[Groucho]

Regarding the exposure compensation thing... basically, you use it when the camera is not able to choose the correct exposure on its own. This usually happens when the photo is mostly black or mostly white, and it tries to over- or under-expose to bring out detail in the black or white area, meanwhile losing detail in other areas of the photo.

EC is necessary sometimes but it's also kind of a "band aid solution" - sometimes you can fix the problem better by getting the camera to do a better job metering right off the bat rather than telling it that it's always wrong. You do this by changing the metering mode; most DSLRs let you choose between spot metering, center-weighted, and the entire frame. Spot metering is best when you're focusing on one bright object surrounded by darkness (like on a Disney dark ride, for example), center-weighted is a good overall choice, entire frame is kind of like the "auto" mode - it does all the thinking itself.

So, spot metering is best for certain situations, but not so good where you might have a variety of brightnesses, like in an outdoor shot. This can sometimes lead to an overall underexposed photo if it metered off one small relatively bright object in the frame.

Thanks Bob100. I'm thinking maybe he's into Scientology or something? (Don't they believe in Aliens and that they inhabited Earth or something like that?) They were nice photos though...

Scientology teaches that a space warlord named Xenu was battling thetans, imprisoned them in a volcano on Earth, etc - I don't remember the exact details, but the basic gist of it is that when you join, they start "auditing" you and the higher you get, the more "engrams" (repressed memories that suck away your powers) you release, and you are ranked at an OT (Operating Thetan) level. Eventually, theoretically, you are "clear" and are told the very secret Xenu story. Your wallet is also pretty clear by now, too!

My memory is a little fuzzy as it's been a little while since I was really keeping tabs on them, but it's a morass of doublespeak and crazy science fiction notions. Check www.xenu.net to see lots of information. Scientology tends to focus on getting celebrities to join as a way to evangelize - plus, celebrities tend to have a lot of money and often are pretty accepting of whatever people tell them, so they're easy marks! Needless to say, IMHO it's all pretty bonkers.

Yet, I enjoyed reading L Ron Hubbard's 10-volume Mission Earth series...

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Regarding the exposure compensation thing... basically, you use it when the camera is not able to choose the correct exposure on its own. This usually happens when the photo is mostly black or mostly white, and it tries to over- or under-expose to bring out detail in the black or white area, meanwhile losing detail in other areas of the photo.

EC is necessary sometimes but it's also kind of a "band aid solution" - sometimes you can fix the problem better by getting the camera to do a better job metering right off the bat rather than telling it that it's always wrong. You do this by changing the metering mode; most DSLRs let you choose between spot metering, center-weighted, and the entire frame. Spot metering is best when you're focusing on one bright object surrounded by darkness (like on a Disney dark ride, for example), center-weighted is a good overall choice, entire frame is kind of like the "auto" mode - it does all the thinking itself.

So, spot metering is best for certain situations, but not so good where you might have a variety of brightnesses, like in an outdoor shot. This can sometimes lead to an overall underexposed photo if it metered off one small relatively bright object in the frame.

Thanks for the info regarding EC. So say for example if I was shooting a picture of Mickey during F! then spot metering and underexposing would help to better bring out his facial features? I can't wait to try it.

<snip>...Your wallet is also pretty clear by now, too!

My memory is a little fuzzy as it's been a little while since I was really keeping tabs on them, but it's a morass of doublespeak and crazy science fiction notions. Check www.xenu.net to see lots of information. Scientology tends to focus on getting celebrities to join as a way to evangelize - plus, celebrities tend to have a lot of money and often are pretty accepting of whatever people tell them, so they're easy marks! Needless to say, IMHO it's all pretty bonkers.

Thanks for the xenu.com link also. It's got some pretty interesting info about it.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Thank you for reviving this thread and the thoughts on exposure compensation.

I knew what EC was and why people would use it, but I couldn't seem to bring the whole exposure/EC thing together on my own camera.

UNTIL I had a revelation after post 331 on this thread - I couldn't understand whay Bryan Peterson kept saying "indicating a correct exposure" in his book and people here explained it to me.

That made a HUGE difference in how my everyday pictures were coming out. It took a little while to work with the details of it on my own camera, but once I did there was no going back (to overly dark or overly light pictures much of the time).

The most frustrated I was prior to that was one night my kids' guitar teacher invited us to a local pub to watch him play. I even took a tripod that night but none of my shots were decent, and it was because I couldn't get a proper exposure. I was guessing at it, that's why. Once I learned of that "bar", it changed the way I took pictures. Had I known this that night, betting good shots still may have been challenging, but not impossible. That was the closest I came to chucking the whole setup in the trash to be done with it.

Once again, indebted to my PB buddies.

So now, it's easy. It also brought me in to using Manual mode because that was how I first learned to use it, until I figured out how to use it on all the other modes. Heck, once I learned how, I simply explained it once to my 11yo and he got it right away.

I hope this helps someone else.