Learn Photography Master Thread

[Mordy]

Can you recommend a faster lens (on a budget) that would be easy to use and understand for a starter?

I'm not as familiar with the pricing on NEX lenses, but the 50mm F/1.8 is usually one of the best starter lenses for low light. The Canon and Nikon versions of this lens are usually around $100, but it looks like Sony wants quite a bit more for their native one according to my Google searches. You could save a lot of money with a non-native one + adapter, but that isn't easy for a beginner anymore.
Maybe Fishy has some suggestions, since he actually owns and uses NEX cameras (its one of the few camera mounts I don't currently own a body with!).

[noturbizniss]

I've noticed that when taking pictures with the flash in the shoe on my t3i, even when I have the camera mode set to auto, and the flash on TTL, the pictures tend to be overexposed, and I manually have to step the exposure on the flash down anywhere from 1-3 stops. Is this normal? I have a yongnuo flash.

[avadah]

I have the Sony HX50V and I see now that it's not such a good camera for taking pictures indoors of an infant because the pictures tend to come out blurry when she moves. Is there any setting I could change to help that?
Thank you.

[askmoses]

I have the Sony HX50V and I see now that it's not such a good camera for taking pictures indoors of an infant because the pictures tend to come out blurry when she moves. Is there any setting I could change to help that?
Thank you.

Try the action shot setting. Most P&S will have them. Should speed up your shutter speed.

[avadah]

There is a setting for shutter speed. If I speed it up what should I set it to and what about the ISO?

[Achas Veachas]

There is a setting for shutter speed. If I speed it up what should I set it to and what about the ISO?

Covered really well here.

[avadah]

Covered really well here.

Thank you, and Something Fishy.

[bsimchatomid]

First of all, thanks for the kind words. I think I get on Fishy's nerves sometimes (all in good fun), but I'm happy people are actually learning from our discussions!

Meanwhile, no- I don't think you made a mistake getting the NEX. Its a fantastic camera, but I think that kit lens isn't doing you any favors in low light.

If I'm not mistaken, at the widest zoom it only opens up to f/3.5, and if you zoom in it can be as small as F/5.6 (yikes!). That's actually pretty standard for a kit lens, but that also means you're going to have to rely on higher ISO and/or super slow shutter speeds, which equal grain and motion blur respectively. A larger sensor with larger photosites (such as a full frame Canon 5D) can push ISO without as much noticeable grain, but on smaller sensors you need to keep that ISO down.

While a smaller point and shoot camera may have granted you a faster lens (S110 opens up to F/2.0 on the wide end), investing in a faster lens to go with the NEX3 will give you much better pictures in the long run.

In my personal opinion, kit lenses are like the half-filled ink cartridges that come with printers. They're enough to get you started out of the box, but pretty soon you're gong to want to replace it with something better.

Thanks Mordy, actually you already made the toner comparison, it was one of my main hesitations knowing that I will probably have to invest in another lens which brings up the price of the camera. I did some research and came across this lens on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-E-mount-50-mm-f-1-8-OSS-Lens-for-NEX-cameras-NEW-SILVER-SEL50F18-/281281983627?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item417db6748b 
Is this what I'm looking for?

[Mordy]

Thanks Mordy, actually you already made the toner comparison, it was one of my main hesitations knowing that I will probably have to invest in another lens which brings up the price of the camera. I did some research and came across this lens on ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-E-mount-50-mm-f-1-8-OSS-Lens-for-NEX-cameras-NEW-SILVER-SEL50F18-/281281983627?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item417db6748b 
Is this what I'm looking for?

Yeah, that looks like it would work well. Looks like a great deal but its got 3 days left, I'm sure it will jump up in price at the end.

Sorry if I repeat myself sometimes- I moderate a film making forum and contribute to Q&A cinematography groups. I sometimes forget what I previously posted where.
I get asked the same questions a lot, so I should be allowed to repeat answers too.

[RJ898]

Here are some of mine, the power of RAW!

[RJ898]

OK, these are from a while ago taken with a T4I 18-135. I've since switched to a mirorless system (specifically Lumix GH3 (thanks mordy)).

Now I want these two lenses

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/865111-REG/Panasonic_H_HS12035_Lumix_G_X_Vario.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/768816-REG/Panasonic_H_X025_Leica_DG_Summilux_25.html

At some point down the road I would love to get these too

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1000625-REG/voigtlander_ba425m_nokton_42_5mm_f_0_95_micro.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/754598-REG/Voigtlander_BA305A_Nokton_25mm_f_0_95_Lens.html

Any corporate sponsors?

[askmoses]

Here are some of mine, the power of RAW!

Beautiful stills from the best videographer around!

[A3]

Speaking of raw... Is there ever going to be a lesson on raw:? Or is there one already?

[RJ898]

Beautiful stills from the best videographer around!

Raw means that you have access to the raw sensor data in post production. When you shoot a jpeg, the sensor sees the light and then processes it into a jpeg. In that process it throws away a lot of the data that it saw. Gives you an image that your computer can see without any special software and relatively small files but because all the raw data is "baked in" to the image, you won't have too much control over it in post.
When you shoot raw, the camera keeps everything the sensor sees, resulting in much larger file sizes and not worth it unless you actually plan to do something with them once you get home.

[jaywhy]

OK, these are from a while ago taken with a T4I 18-135. I've since switched to a mirorless system (specifically Lumix GH3 (thanks mordy)).

Now I want these two lenses

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/865111-REG/Panasonic_H_HS12035_Lumix_G_X_Vario.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/768816-REG/Panasonic_H_X025_Leica_DG_Summilux_25.html

At some point down the road I would love to get these too

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1000625-REG/voigtlander_ba425m_nokton_42_5mm_f_0_95_micro.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/754598-REG/Voigtlander_BA305A_Nokton_25mm_f_0_95_Lens.html

Any corporate sponsors?

I would highly recommend the Olympus 12-40 2.8 Pro. I use it with my GX7 and it is an awesome combo. Also cheaper than the Panny lens.
I'm not sure if your camera has IS built into the body, if it doesn't then it may make sense to go with the Panny as the Olympus lens isn't stabilized.

[RJ898]

I would highly recommend the Olympus 12-40 2.8 Pro. I use it with my GX7 and it is an awesome combo. Also cheaper than the Panny lens.
I'm not sure if your camera has IS built into the body, if it doesn't then it may make sense to go with the Panny as the Olympus lens isn't stabilized.

that's the issue. IS on Panasonic is in the lens.
I do video for a living and my main camera is the GH3. I use a lot of manual lenses but I'm looking at these lenses specifically for photography and I want the stabilization...

[A3]

Raw means that you have access to the raw sensor data in post production. When you shoot a jpeg, the sensor sees the light and then processes it into a jpeg. In that process it throws away a lot of the data that it saw. Gives you an image that your computer can see without any special software and relatively small files but because all the raw data is "baked in" to the image, you won't have too much control over it in post.
When you shoot raw, the camera keeps everything the sensor sees, resulting in much larger file sizes and not worth it unless you actually plan to do something with them once you get home.

Thank you.
So all the software that one can use would be multiple lessons on its own?

[jaywhy]

that's the issue. IS on Panasonic is in the lens.
I do video for a living and my main camera is the GH3. I use a lot of manual lenses but I'm looking at these lenses specifically for photography and I want the stabilization...

Ah gotcha.
My GX7 has IS built in so it works for me.

[Something Fishy]

Here are some of mine, the power of RAW!

First off - beautiful pictures. Very well done.

Couple of thoughts:

The pictures you uploaded were at full size, which means that they're impossible to see when they're embedded in the post - even zooming my browser out all the way still only showed part of each picture. I find that uploading a 1024px wide picture works well most of the time:









I'm surprised that you weren't able to bring back the highlights in the parrots' faces in post. Unless the picture was overexposed by 4+ stops, the RAW file should have had the missing info. Otherwise it's a great, well composed picture.

The sunset I like a lot, but I wish there was some foreground to anchor it. A bit of beach, some rocks, or part of a boat would have made the picture much more immersive to the viewer. I also like the detail in the water, but I can't help but think that a slower shutter speed would have made for a more interesting shot - it would have blurred the waves and allowed the water to reflect more of the sunrise.

The waterfall picture is amazing, especially the detail in the rocks on the upper right corner. Again, a slower shutter would have made the water look better. The composition is fabulous, except for the very top - I wish you hadn't cut off the top of the right falls. The light is soft and lovely, perfect for this type of shot.

I love love love the Road To Hana picture. The muted colors is not a treatment you see too often in this shot, and I think it works really well. It's a great way to differentiate your picture from the many others taken from this spot. The composition is spot on - from the bushes in the foreground (love that splash of red!) to the tree framing the left. The horizon is a drop crooked, but not to horribly. Also, if you would have raised the camera a couple of inches higher, you would have separated the top of the foreground bush from the far beach to create a smooth, continuous flow, mirroring the road above.

The one big issue this picture has is halos. This is completely due to post-processing, and could (and should ) absolutely be avoided. It's mostly apparent where the center of the mountain meets the clouds, and where the mountain intersects with the horizon. There should be a smooth transition, not a glow. You could also see a bit of it in the one blue spot in the sky.

But again - it's still a lovely picture that I wish I had taken myself . The reason I'm harping on this one so much is because I really like it

[Something Fishy]

Speaking of raw... Is there ever going to be a lesson on raw:? Or is there one already?

It was covered briefly already, but yes, there will probably be a dedicated lesson on it in the future.

RAW: Many advanced P&Ss and all mirrorless and DSLRs are capable of shooting in the RAW format, as opposed to just JPEG.

What's RAW? When the camera takes a picture, the sensor captures a huge amount of data. It then passes all that to the processor, which 'finishes' the picture. It'll apply color correction, contrast adjustments, sharpening, noise reduction, and a hundred other things. When it's done it'll save the file to the card as a finished JPEG file, and throw away all the original sensor data. Usually, the camera is pretty good at figuring all this out and delivering good results. However, what if you want to make these decisions? What if the camera keeps on putting out pictures that you feel are too dark, or too vivid? Sure you could edit them in Photoshop later and try to fix it, but instead of working with all the data that was actually captured, your working only with the little bit of data the camera saw fit to include in the JPEG file.

This is where RAW comes in. Simply put, it's the raw data as captured by your sensor, with nothing thrown out by the processor. What this means is that you make all the decisions, not the camera. If you shoot in RAW you will have to edit each and every picture, since the camera doesn't do it for you. This is obviously quite time consuming - I personally have about 20000 RAW files waiting to be edited. The advantages are enormous though - since you're working with so much data, you could do amazing things which the camera would never have figured out on it's own.

Have a look at this picture below - the first one is how the camera decided it should look, and the second one is after I took the RAW file and made the decisions myself. There's no Photoshop wizardry happening here; all I've adjusted is exposure, contrast, sharpening, color, etc. - all things the camera usually does by itself. (The only 'Photoshopping' was removing the small (hardly visible) sign on the bottom left and the dark spot in the center.)





Besides of the obvious issue of having to edit every single picture, there are some other drawbacks to shooting RAW. By virtue of the file containing so much info, the files are also HUGE - my Nikon D600 gives me less than 600 RAW shots on a 32GB card, compared to over 2000 JPEGs. And due to the large file sizes, shooting RAW is slower than JPEG. On mirrorless and DSLRs that's not so much of an issue as the cameras are built for that, with a P&S the slowdown will be quite noticeable.

Most cameras that shoot RAW also allow you to shoot RAW+JPEG - this is the best of both worlds, the control of RAW but the convenience of a ready JPEG if you can't or won't want to edit every picture. The downside of this is that it takes up even more space, and it's even slower.

In order to edit the RAW files, you'll need special software. The best RAW editor/converter is Adobe  Lightroom or ACR (Adobe Camera Raw, part of Photoshop). A camera that shoots RAW will usually include a basic converter too.

But in the end, there's a reason most pros shoot RAW full time - it just gives them more control and options.