Topic Wiki

Quick tips on random subjects that come up in between classes (will add as we go along):

Food photography tips
Newborn photography tips

Table of Contents (I'll change each line to a link as we go along.)

Introduction

1) Choosing a camera: Point and Shoot vs. Mirrorless vs. DSLR
2) Camera specs: What do they mean, and which ones matter to me?
3) Exposure Basics Part 1 - the shutter speed/aperture/ISO triangle
4) Exposure Basics Part 2 - getting to know your mode dial, and other exposure controls
5) All about memory cards
6) Using ultra-wide lenses





Lenses 101 - technology, terminology, and specs, zooms vs. primes, basic/advanced/unique lenses

Lighting 101 - focusing specifically on easy to afford and easy to use setups
Small flash - on camera, off camera, modifiers and accessories
Studio strobes
Continuous lighting - fluorescent, LED, and halogen
Basic light modifiers - umbrellas, softboxes, gels, reflectors
Basic supports - lightstands, umbrella brackets, backgrounds, etc.

All about accessories - memory cards, tripods, bags, filters, remotes, adapters, grips, geotaggers, and more)


So I bought all my stuff - now what?

What makes a compelling photograph?
Depth of field
Composition basics - rule of thirds, perspective, framing
Advanced composition - negative space, inclusion and exclusion, compression
Light - natural, golden hour, basic flash usage.

Let's start shooting...

Kids:
In the park
Playing sports
At home

Landscapes and wildlife:
"Grand" landscapes
"Intimate" landscapes
Seascapes
Waterfalls
Cityscapes
Wildlife
Birds in flight
Shooting in bad weather

Portraits:
Babies and newborns
Single person - indoors
Single person - outdoors
Families/siblings/groups
Natural light
Artificial light - simple
Artificial light - complex
Mixed light

Others:
Close up and macro
Product photography

How do I...? (Some specific scenarios/techniques - Basic)
Shoot out of a plane window?
Shoot underwater?
Shoot compelling black-and-white?

How do I...? (Some specific scenarios/techniques - Advanced)
HDR
Long exposures
Light painting
Twilight landscapes
Milky Way
Star trails

Basic editing concepts:
Exposure
Contrast
Clarity/sharpening
Color
Layers and masking

Poll

What type of camera do shoot with?

Point & Shoot - basic (Canon Elph style) or Smartphone
122 (36.9%)
Point & Shoot - advanced (Canon S100 or G Style)
52 (15.7%)
Mirrorless
26 (7.9%)
DSLR - consumer (Up to a Nikon D5200 or Canon Rebel)
74 (22.4%)
DSLR - prosumer or pro (Nikon D7000 or Canon 60D and up)
29 (8.8%)
P&S, but I plan on getting an SLR or Mirrorless in the near future
28 (8.5%)

Total Members Voted: 275

Author Topic: Learn Photography Master Thread  (Read 357900 times)

Offline BarryLincoln

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #760 on: February 08, 2015, 03:30:32 PM »
Looking for an expert's opinion - I have a t3i and my setting are set for super fine, large images that tend to be 4-8 MB each.  Now after 1000s of picture, space is becoming an issue.  For a casual, family photographer, what's the optimal setting to keep the camera on - want to preserve the integrity of the pictures, but also don't want them to take up a ton of space... thoughts?

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #761 on: February 08, 2015, 04:18:06 PM »
Looking for an expert's opinion - I have a t3i and my setting are set for super fine, large images that tend to be 4-8 MB each.  Now after 1000s of picture, space is becoming an issue.  For a casual, family photographer, what's the optimal setting to keep the camera on - want to preserve the integrity of the pictures, but also don't want them to take up a ton of space... thoughts?

A 2TB hard drive costs under $100 and holds hundreds of thousands of pictures...
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Offline BarryLincoln

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #762 on: February 08, 2015, 04:25:40 PM »
A 2TB hard drive costs under $100 and holds hundreds of thousands of pictures...

Recommendations for a good external hard drive? Seagate? Western Digital? Others?

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #763 on: February 08, 2015, 04:38:47 PM »
Recommendations for a good external hard drive? Seagate? Western Digital? Others?

I use those as well as Toshiba.

But you'd be better off asking in one of the computer threads, you'd probably get better advice there.
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Offline Fan of Dan

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #764 on: February 08, 2015, 11:56:53 PM »
Talking about space is it worth it for me to store all my pics after I am done in LR plus the originals from before LR editing? Right now I keep all my original RAW files plus the finished product after I export from LR and I was wondering what others do. Thanks!

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #765 on: February 09, 2015, 12:16:37 AM »
Talking about space is it worth it for me to store all my pics after I am done in LR plus the originals from before LR editing? Right now I keep all my original RAW files plus the finished product after I export from LR and I was wondering what others do. Thanks!

Depends. For family and candid pictures once I'm happy with the edits I get rid of the RAWs. For landscape or similar photography I will keep the RAWs of all my picks, as well as some which may have "potential". I find that with each successive iteration or LR/ACR I am able to do things with my pictures which hasn't been possible till now. Many of my favorite pictures are those which were hopelessly lost (i. e. a landscape shot at ISO 6400 and was chock full of noise), but were able to be rescued once the technology improved.
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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #766 on: February 09, 2015, 12:39:41 AM »
Depends. For family and candid pictures once I'm happy with the edits I get rid of the RAWs. For landscape or similar photography I will keep the RAWs of all my picks, as well as some which may have "potential". I find that with each successive iteration or LR/ACR I am able to do things with my pictures which hasn't been possible till now. Many of my favorite pictures are those which were hopelessly lost (i. e. a landscape shot at ISO 6400 and was chock full of noise), but were able to be rescued once the technology improved.
That's seems like a great strategy. This way you aren't inundated with endless amounts of raw pics yet you retain the option to improve the ones that you feel with better technology you'll have better results with. Going to start doing that, thanks!

I recently came back from safari and I am trying to put together a video from all the video my wife shot along with the photos I took. I basically want to do some minor video editing as well as mix the photos with the videos. Is there a good program to do that in that I won't need to shell out a lot of money as well as go through a steep learning curve for something I doubt I will do that often? Thank you!

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #767 on: February 09, 2015, 07:32:32 AM »
That's seems like a great strategy. This way you aren't inundated with endless amounts of raw pics yet you retain the option to improve the ones that you feel with better technology you'll have better results with. Going to start doing that, thanks!

I recently came back from safari and I am trying to put together a video from all the video my wife shot along with the photos I took. I basically want to do some minor video editing as well as mix the photos with the videos. Is there a good program to do that in that I won't need to shell out a lot of money as well as go through a steep learning curve for something I doubt I will do that often? Thank you!
Windows movie maker is the very basic one to do it and comes with every Windows computer. You can also use Adobe Premier Pro which is much more advanced, if you know how to use it but that's not cheap though. If you happen to have an ASUS computer you can download for free Asus Video Manager which is also a good program for free.

Offline wysiwyg

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #768 on: February 09, 2015, 09:37:18 AM »
That's seems like a great strategy. This way you aren't inundated with endless amounts of raw pics yet you retain the option to improve the ones that you feel with better technology you'll have better results with. Going to start doing that, thanks!

I recently came back from safari and I am trying to put together a video from all the video my wife shot along with the photos I took. I basically want to do some minor video editing as well as mix the photos with the videos. Is there a good program to do that in that I won't need to shell out a lot of money as well as go through a steep learning curve for something I doubt I will do that often? Thank you!

Blackmagic recently released Davinci Resolve in a lite version; it's supposed to be quite good, haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet... it may have a steep learning curve...

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #769 on: February 09, 2015, 08:18:53 PM »
Windows movie maker is the very basic one to do it and comes with every Windows computer. You can also use Adobe Premier Pro which is much more advanced, if you know how to use it but that's not cheap though. If you happen to have an ASUS computer you can download for free Asus Video Manager which is also a good program for free.
Thanks I started playing around with Windows movie maker looks like it's pretty simple to add video and pictures however I haven't seen if there's a way to fade the videos and make the transition between still and video smooth.

Blackmagic recently released Davinci Resolve in a lite version; it's supposed to be quite good, haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet... it may have a steep learning curve...
Thanks for the tip - I read a great review about this program online I think I will try it and see if I can figure it out. Seems like there's more potential than the windows alternative so I am going to give it a try and worst case I'll go with windows.

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #770 on: February 09, 2015, 08:20:57 PM »
Thanks I started playing around with Windows movie maker looks like it's pretty simple to add video and pictures however I haven't seen if there's a way to fade the videos and make the transition between still and video smooth.
Thanks for the tip - I read a great review about this program online I think I will try it and see if I can figure it out. Seems like there's more potential than the windows alternative so I am going to give it a try and worst case I'll go with windows.
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Offline efflpetzel

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #771 on: February 10, 2015, 01:33:05 PM »
whats the best way/program to convert a few hundred pics from raw to jpeg

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #772 on: February 10, 2015, 01:52:28 PM »
whats the best way/program to convert a few hundred pics from raw to jpeg

Straight conversion without any edits? The software that came with the camera should do it.
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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #773 on: February 14, 2015, 07:03:25 PM »
When taking pictures in a dim lighted room with a flash (without lighting equipment) is there a way to avoid shadows?

Offline A3

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #774 on: February 14, 2015, 07:11:12 PM »
Are there any lessons on flash?
The flash settings go from +1 to -1. With 20 points in between. How do I know the best settings.

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #775 on: February 14, 2015, 07:18:47 PM »
When taking pictures in a dim lighted room with a flash (without lighting equipment) is there a way to avoid shadows?

If you have only one light source you'll have shadows. You could minimize them by bouncing the flash.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2015, 07:28:02 PM by ChAiM'l »

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #776 on: February 14, 2015, 07:22:17 PM »
If you have only one light source you'll have shadows. You could minimum them by bouncing the flash.

And by putting more distance between your subject and the wall (if that's where the shadows are).

A diffuser will also make the shadows less harsh.
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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #777 on: February 14, 2015, 07:23:51 PM »
Are there any lessons on flash?
The flash settings go from +1 to -1. With 20 points in between. How do I know the best settings.

There's never a "best setting"; it wholly depends on the situation.
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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #778 on: February 15, 2015, 02:01:34 AM »
I hope my question is not too annoying, and I hope I merit an answer:

Say one has a budget for a camera of up the $800, and they walk tomorrow into a camera store.
Purpose of the camera would mostly be for travel, and capturing life's precious moments.
Which camera would you recommend for them considering they are for the most part an amateure at photographing?

A) <$800 budget.  B) <$600 budget.  C) <$400 budget.

TYVM in advance!

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Re: Learn Photography Master Thread
« Reply #779 on: February 15, 2015, 02:32:42 AM »
I hope my question is not too annoying, and I hope I merit an answer:

Say one has a budget for a camera of up the $800, and they walk tomorrow into a camera store.
Purpose of the camera would mostly be for travel, and capturing life's precious moments.
Which camera would you recommend for them considering they are for the most part an amateure at photographing?

A) <$800 budget.  B) <$600 budget.  C) <$400 budget.

TYVM in advance!
Here is my advice. To answer your question B) <$600

There is obviously no "one answer that fits everyone", but i would get (or more accurate "got") a standard mirrorless camera with about 10-16 mp. 5X+ optical zoom and a (at least) 24-64 mm lens. Make sure to do your own research, don't rely only on the merchants words.