Gear question of the week!!

So, you've decided you want to take a step up and make the lead from point and shoot to a Digital SLR (DSLR). Ok, now what..?

Now, i'm going to take a guess and say you're not looking for a camera body for professional reasons, so this is geared at someone newer to the market, and this is simply how I personally would conduct my search.


My first step would be to see if anywhere local carries them, and start there.

If you want to keep it to something you've held before (and for a first camera i would highly recommend this), then start out by seeing what you've got available locally.

The first real step is to decide canon or nikon. Now, you can start an entire war on which is better , but frankly, for all practical purposes between similar models there is no difference in image quality. Yes some models between the brands offer a mix of features that the others don't, but these are more personal preference than anything.

If only one brand is offered locally, then start there.

The next step is to pick a price range. As a start, in addition to the camera body, you'll also need a charger for the camera/battery, a download cable, a memory card, and a lens to get you started. Most camera kits come with all of this, or all but the memory card. For those starting out, picking a kit is often the best way to get started as it will also come with manuals and most/all of what you need.

So you have a price point picked out, now what?
I'd start online for this step, but the local store works as well. Check out all of the cameras that fit into this price range, and put the list together. Check out the fetures that each offers and see what you do/dont want/need (this can cheapen things up as well as narrow your search).

Some of this may not matter/you might not know what any of the tech specs mean, in which case ask some questions or dont worry about it.

Some things to consider, are you going to be making huge prints? (is so some thought on mega pixel is a good idea), are you going to be doing a lot of night/low light shooting (if so check reviews on image noise), sports or other high speed shooting? you'll want to find something with a higher frames per second shooting rate.

The next step, and personally i think the single most important one outside of price, is to go handle them and see what feels good, fits, and what does not.

Some cameras have controls in different locations, menus are setup in their own ways (personally i prefer the way nikon does their menus and is the main reason i shoot with them). See which brand offers the menus/controls that you like the feel of, and how each camera feels. yes they do feel and handle differently.

Quality wise, if you are just going to print up to say 11x14 or just over that, ALL of the DSLRs out now will do more than you could ever ask for from them. Even some of the older 4mp cameras will print photos if you are smart fairly large (i've gone to 18x30 with a 4.1mp camera and had the prints look amazing).

Check reviews of the models you are looking at and compare them. The single best site out there for this is Dpreview.com and is your best friend when shopping for a camera.

With the models out now, pick one that feels good to you, and you are comfortable shooting with. They can all do more than most of us will ever be able to get out of them.

Project #2: Color, lines, contrast, and composition.

All,

This one will let you get out of the confines of any camera limitation you might have, and gets on to the fun parts!

Before we get into the meat of this one, a quick tip to remember.
For this project (and many more down the road) its the rule of thirds.
This is a pretty simple concept and one that can help make most of your photos stronger.
It is simply putting the main focus of your image somewhere off center. image if you will a photo with lines breaking it into 3rds, both horizontally and vertically. where these lines meet is where you'll look to place your main focus of the image. Look at many great photos and they work this way rather than having the subject dead center. It does a better job of leading the eye around the image, and is often much more balanced.

Now, as with any rule in the arts, it's often meant to be broken and can be to great effect, but pay attention to how and why you are doing so.

Alright, onto the project.

Lets start with color.

There are so many things you can do here, that we'll just address the broad points.
You can make color the focus of the image in and of its self, without something else going on.
or you can use selective color, where you have a small splash of color in an otherwise drab background (think a pile of brown leaves with one bright red on sitting in the middle, or a rose growing in a field of green grass, that one small spot of contrasting color pops out and becomes the focus of the image).

The photo below shows how color becomes the main element of the image:




This photo shows how having just a splash of color draws the eye into the image (note it does not have to be a color and black and white image to function like this):


Some things to keep in mind with color:

-Colors will look their brightest and most vibrant in slightly underexposed settings vs over exposed (think evening or morning light, not the hard midday sun)

-Colors will look brighter on overcast vs sunny days, as the lower light levels will make them "pop" more.





The next area we'll take a look at are lines.
Lines can do any number of things within an image but are important to help guide the eye around the frame. They can be found in any number of places in day to day life, and themselves can be made the focus of the photo.
The photo below shows how lines can be used to pull the viewer in, in this case the edge of the dock running back into the setting sun:


The use of lines can be simply form related where they are the subject of the photo (such as with patterns, etc) or they can help within an image of something else (the edge of a persons face, a handrail on a set of stairs, etc). Just pay attention to how they move through the frame and try to use this.


Next, we'll look at contrast.
This is something you'll want to pay attention to in almost all photos. In simple terms contrast is simply the range from light to dark in a photo. An image with pure whites and pure blacks will be high in contrast, while one with less difference between the two will be lower in contrast. This can be the differences between light and dark areas, white and black, or between colors.


The photo below shows fairly low contrast (notice there are really no pure whites or blacks):


This next photo shows a normal range of contrast from white through black and everything in between, there are the highlights, shadows, and a good range of mid tones:



This last photo is an example of a very high contrast photo, there is little here outside of pure whites and blacks:




With what we've already learned about exposure, and the basics of color, lines, and contrast outline above, you're now ready to start putting some of these ideas together in your photos!

Happy shooting.

Project 1: Shutter Speed and Aperture.

For the first project we are going to work through Creative ways to use shutter speed and aperture to effect how a photo looks. (project details are at the very bottom)

As was mentioned in the previous post, the two of these are very strong tools in effecting the appearance of a photo by dictating how much of the photo is in focus, and what elements are frozen in place or left to blur due to movement.


We'll start with aperture as it has a bit more that comes into play in the learning curve.

Everything starts with your focus point (are that you are focused on).

Quick note, the numbers below are made up for this example, but their relationships/how they work remain true

We'll used a fixed object (a tree in this case). That tree is 100 feet away from you, and you are focusing the lens on it.
At any given F-stop 1/3rd of the area in focus is on the near side of your focal point, and 2/3rd's on the other side. So 10 feet on the near side of the tree remain in focus and 20 feet on the far side. As the F-stop number increases (from say 5.6 to 18) the aperture opening is getting smaller, and more of the area is coming into focus. Now we have 40 feet in front of the tree in focus, and 80 feet on the far side.

If we open up the aperture to a wider setting, say F/2.8, the field of focus narrows, to say 5 and 10 feet respectively.

Now two things to keep in mind here that will also effect the amount that remains in focus

1: Length of the lens you are using. All else remaining the same, the longer the lens in MM, the less depth of field you'll have in your image

2: The distance from camera to subject. All else remaining the same, the further from your camera the subject is, the larger the depth of field will be.

Here are two examples of photos with a large and shallow depth of field.

In the first, we see a fairly shallow depth of field:



Here in the second, almost everything remains in focus:




The second area we are going to use this week is shutter speed.

Shutter speed is a fairly easy one to understand. The faster the shutter speed, the most motion stopping abilities it has, and the slower it is, the less it can freeze. The object being photographed has the amount of time that the shutter is open to move across the frame, and thus what shutter speed you need to freeze it will depend on how fast its moving, its direction relative to the camera, and how far away it is.

An object moving across your field of vision will require a much faster shutter speed than one coming at or away from you, as its position will appear to be changing much faster. The further away from you it is, the slower you can go shutter speed wise as well, as its relative speed to will seem lower.

As a general rule shutter speeds should always be at least as fast as the length of the lens you are using to avoid bluring from camera shake (in other words if shooting a 50mm lens, a shutter speed of at least 1/50th of a second is recommended).

Regardless of lens length, handholding under 1/30th of a second will result in bluring of an image and some form of support from a tripod/monopod/rest is needed. (note this does not account of IS lenses or larger formats).

Here are a few examples of shutter speeds being used for creative effects:

Here an intermediate shutter speed was used, note the slower moving parts of the birds are in focus, while the faster parts have been blured:




Here a fast shutter speed was used to freeze the subject (note the drops of water in the air around matt reed):




Here a very slow speed was used to allow the moving part of the subject to blur:




So for this project, the 4 photos you are looking for are:

Two for shutter speed showing a fast and slow shutter speed, and how they each show movement (you'll need some form of moving subject for this, an athlete, car, water, etc)

Two for aperture, one showing a large depth of field, one showing a shallow depth of field.

Post to the BT forum and we'll talk about your photos as we go along.

Good luck all.