New camera, realised how bad I am at taking photos...

[BossFox]

Straight to the point, for my 40th I've "upgraded" from a Nikon D3200 to an D810.

I have also got myself the Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 lens to go with it.

Still got my Nikon 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 lens I had before.

 

Clearly the D3200 is very easy to use, if you leave it in auto mode.

The D810 has already made me realise how much knowledge I lack on taking a good pic with a great camera.

 

So I am in need of assistance of where to read/learn how to use this thing which I've just spend a fair amount on and my picture quality has actually gone down in the process.

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Richard

[glenmc]

I've found this forum to be a friendly helpful one, you should be able to pick up some pointers there.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/

And there are some very good tutorials on there as well, starting right from basics up to advanced

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

[Raymo]

Hi Rich, can I just ask what you used the d3200 for (ie) happy snaps in full auto mode or did you delve into the manual operation, understanding the workings of the camera etc?

[BossFox]

Hi Rich, can I just ask what you used the d3200 for (ie) happy snaps in full auto mode or did you delve into the manual operation, understanding the workings of the camera etc?

I did use some of the user definable settings but clearly not enough as with the 810 I seem to be suffering with more noise/graining on the images.

The "happy snaps" setting did result in good images on the 3200, better than "happy snaps" mode on the 810. (IMO)

Obviously now I realise the camera is probably beyond my abilities and I need to bring myself up to speed.

Happy Snap, D3200.

Happy Snap, D810. Seems to have more noise in any light.

Have fiddled with various settings and been through manual and can't seem to improve it.

Surely I don't need some form of mega-flash?

[JulieD]

Were those two pictures taken at the same time of day in the same place?  What were the exposure details for each of them (ISO, aperture & shutter speeed)?

[littleade]

I don't have a Nikon, so forgive me if I don't get the teminology quite right. I assume for image size you're in fx for full frame with L selected for large file size? To get you started try shooting in P mode with your ISO set at 400. With your f2.8 lens it will be fast enough to get you some decent results. You can move to 200 if the light is really good or the other way if the light is not so good. In general you should always have your shutter speed higher than the focal length you are using. On a FF DSLR its easier to work out as there's no conversion factor to consider so if your lens is set to 70mm then you need at least 1/70 of a second, if its 28mm then 1/30 is the bare minimum you should be using, though the higher the better as far as avoiding camera shake is concerned. If you double the shutter speed (say from 1/60 to 1/125) then you have to open the aperture to twice it's size ( say from f11 to f8) opening the aperture decreases the depth of field (going from f16 to f11 to f8 to f5.6 etc) while goong the other way increases it so at f2.8 your depth of field will be shallow compared to say f16, so f2.8 is good for isolating subjects say someones eyes, where as f16 is good for landscapes. It looks the dogs though Richard. It's one of those interests that can become consuming, so be careful! Might be worth seeing if there's any photo courses being run local to you either catering for small groups or 1:1 as you'll learn lots if you pick the right one. The modern cameras are so clever with their built in programes now that most people can get decent results, but your beauty is aimed sqarely at the professions so Nikon as catering for a different client, but thats not to say you can't get some brilliant results with a bit of effort. Good luck.

I forgot to add in P mode normally cameras will pick a happy medium of aperture/shutter combination. If you depress the shutter release 1/2 way down it should show the combination its chosen in the viewfinder. You should be able to use the toggle wheel by the shutter release button to increase the shutter speed/open the aperture and vice versa. The beauty with digital is you can see the results straight away which is great when you're experimenting or trying to understand what it will do in certain situations.

[BossFox]

Might be worth seeing if there's any photo courses being run local to you either catering for small groups or 1:1 as you'll learn lots if you pick the right one. The modern cameras are so clever with their built in programes now that most people can get decent results, but your beauty is aimed sqarely at the professions so Nikon as catering for a different client, but thats not to say you can't get some brilliant results with a bit of effort. Good luck.

 

I found a local professional photography company that do 1-2-1 courses, so I've booked a day early in January.

Explained exactly where I am with my kit and what I want to achieve.

Not too bad at less than 10% of the cost of the kit either.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply.

[littleade]

You're welcome. They should be able to show you more in a day than it would take you months to learn on your own and save you going down blind alleys and making avoidable mistakes. They will be able to point you in the right direct on other kit too such as lenses and a flash. Depending on what you want to do with the images and whether you want to work with the raw files or just the jpegs etc they should be able to advise you about imaging software and what would be best for you. Next on from there is the computer/monitor choice including calibration so what you see on the screen is what will ultimately appear in print should you decide you want to put stuff on the wall and which printers to consider if you intend printing yourself.

The good news is although it can be an expensive hobby it won't be as expensive as cars (for you!) And getting some decent images of the family will please the other half. Good luck.

[Raymo]

Initial thoughts on the grain problem is that if your in full auto mode then maybe that includes auto ISO which will compensate for lower light conditions, I generally set my D700 to ISO 200 and leave it there for most occasions, as Littleade has stated "P" mode is probably your best to start off with and it will give you a very good start point with regard to image quality, the 1 to 1 lessons will be a good start as well. As you may of probably realised its quite an in depth hobby and it takes a long time to get your head around learning and being competent with the camera whilst also having to learn about depth of field, composition etc, then in among all that as well you have to learn Photoshop or any other photo editing program you choose lol, bit of a headf**k but its deffo worth keeping at as when it all comes together the results are really excellent. My take on it is learn a little........often, I also found a really good site a few years ago called kelbytraining.com  and it has a multitude of professionals who make videos for the site, whether they be Pro Photographers for whatever subject takes your fancy (ie) weddings, Wildlife, Landscapes etc & there's Photoshop guru's as well as a host of other topics and the best is that you can learn at your own pace, its a pay monthly thing $20 I think which equates to about £13, which I feel is nothing for the quality of what's on offer ( hahaha no I dont work for them :-) ) hope this helps in some way.

[JohnMcL7]

Your second Fabia picture which was taken with the D810 has far too high a shutter speed if the picture EXIF is correct, it's showing at 1/1250 which mixed with the small aperture would likely mean the camera has had to significantly increase the iso speed which means more noise.  In a static shot like that there is no need for a high speed shutter, a much lower shutter would be fine which would have decreased the noise.  The smaller F11 aperture (a big F number means a smaller aperture) is a good choice for that scene though as it means more is in focus even though you lose light to the lens.  If you were taking a picture of a person and wanted the background softer you'd want a larger aperture (small F number) as that reduces the amount of the scene that is in focus.

 

I personally think the aperture-priority mode is good to start with (and mostly stick with) because the choice of aperture on full frame can make a large difference to the outcome of the photo, it's always a tradeoff between how much light you let in and how much of the scene you want in focus.  I don't know if you're shooting raw or jpeg, if you've not been shooting raw before it's probably worth getting to grips with the camera first but I'd definitely recommend moving to raw at some point.  I couldn't be bothered with raw before I went with Olympus but I find the upper level Nikons have poor jpeg engines so the shots straight out of camera do not look good, it took a little bit of time to get used to processing raw files but I find I can do it quickly enough now and the results are incredible - you can take what looks like a useless photo and with a few sliders flicked it looks great particularly on the new Sony sensors which have an incredible amount of headroom to pull back data in over and underexposed areas

 

John

[Hedge]

I'd suggest to do some reading Richard.

 

Try this book for starters it will explain everything and is non-camera specific.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Bryan-Peterson-ebook/dp/B004FEFS5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420149871&sr=1-1&keywords=understanding+exposure

[Exeterj]

I'd suggest to do some reading Richard.

 

Try this book for starters it will explain everything and is non-camera specific.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Exposure-3rd-Bryan-Peterson-ebook/dp/B004FEFS5E/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420149871&sr=1-1&keywords=understanding+exposure

Yep second Hedges recommendation - understanding exposure is a good book to start, old and originally film although had bits added to relate to digital based but the medium of recording (film or digital) doesn't change the basics.

Re the second image as John says the shutter speed is fast but the bright sky has required this vs the dark areas of the trees and thus the dynamic range (dark to light areas)is pretty wide - a slight change in composition I.e, having the camera higher to reduce amount of sky, would probably given a longer shutter speed and thus less noise in dark areas. Or a change in metering, possibly spot metering taken on the car would allow it have longer exposure. if you like this specific composition, taking the shot at different time of day, would probably help, even if this means using a tripod to avoid camera shake.

Also always worth reading the manual front to back with a camera, nor ally I font bother with elec equipment but cameras are pretty complicated out of auto.

[JohnMcL7]

Re the second image as John says the shutter speed is fast but the bright sky has required this vs the dark areas of the trees and thus the dynamic range (dark to light areas)is pretty wide - a slight change in composition I.e, having the camera higher to reduce amount of sky, would probably given a longer shutter speed and thus less noise in dark areas. Or a change in metering, possibly spot metering taken on the car would allow it have longer exposure. if you like this specific composition, taking the shot at different time of day, would probably help, even if this means using a tripod to avoid camera shake.

 

This is not correct, the underexposed and overexposed areas are affected by the overall exposure (comprising the shutter speed, aperture and iso) but not the shutter speed on its own - in this case a very high shutter speed was of no benefit as there is no motion to capture.  Indirectly however the dynamic range of the image has been reduced as the dynamic range is widest at base isos and reduces as the iso is increased therefore if the shutter speed had been four stops lower, the iso setting could also be four steps lower which would give the same overall exposure but a lower iso which in turn would mean less noise and wider dynamic range.

[The Zee]

Hi Richard,

 

Nikon UK run a training school specifically for their products. They are running one on the 13th Feb for the D810 for £129.00

 

The best place to learn is from the the people who made it. I attended one many moons ago when I got my D2X.

 

Andy

[BossFox]

Got this pic tonight, was quite pleased with it.

Reduced the ISO to 64.

 

Not bad for a first attempt anyway.

 

The Auto-ISO seems to set it too high.

[JohnMcL7]

By default the auto iso will increase the iso to maintain the minimum shutter speed to match the focal length you're using, the longer the focal length the higher the shutter speed - the rule of thumb (which is very rough) is one over focal length for the shutter speed so in your case at 28mm, that would be 1/30.  It looks like your shutter was just 1s (I'm assuming the camera was tripod mounted or stabilised in some way?) so the auto-iso would want to increase the iso setting five stops (doubling the iso value is one stop, it doubles the sensitivity of the sensor).

 

The auto-iso is very handy as you can set either a minimum shutter speed (such as when shooting a fast object and wanting to avoid the subject being blurred) or you can set the minimum shutter to match the camera focal length and avoid camera shake.  The Nikon auto-iso system is very configurable as you can have it behave pretty much any way you want by setting the base iso, minimum shutter speed and maximum iso.  In some situations though it can be a hindrance though and likely to be better turned off, if the camera is on a tripod or similar and the scene is static (such as above) then it's better to have auto-iso off off as there's no need to avoid camera shake/subject motion plus I find auto-iso can be a pain when using the flash so I usually turn it off for that as well.

 

John

[BossFox]

Had my day out with Nick from Unshaken Photography today.

 

Learnt a lot.

 

Some of my pics, taken freehand (no tripod) on a breezy day at a RHS garden.

The originals are about 500-600% these resized images with great detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[B33fy]

Nice efforts Richard love the bokeh and colours especially in the forth and fifth shots detail is great. In contrast heres one of my efforts  with a £50 camera,

 

 

 

[Chris GB]

Looks like you are gelling with the kit nicely there!

[kilted]

Some nice works Richard.

 

Getting used to the controls? Did you take the camera off Auto? Can't tell from the images

[AllanDJ]

Bit of a jump going from a. D3200 to a D810! Sounds like the. D810 is a lot more camera than you maybe need? It is really aimed at semi professional, professional and keen amateur photographers. Using that with a Nikon 24-70mm lens which is maybe slightly behind the times in not having VR built into it, does mean that you need to really watch how you use your camera. The camera probably actually out resolves this lens, which was designed when the 12 megapixel D700 was the main Nikon full frame mass market model.

I've got a D800, bought just as soon as it came out, it is a really good camera but in no way is it designed to be used as a snapshot camera. I use mine for landscape and macro photography, virtually always on a tripod with mirror lockup engaged and a remote release for the shutter. With 36 megapixels of image capture, any mistake you make in terms of using the camera at too slow a shutter speed, assuming no tripod use, is going to show up far more readily than with the D3200. These cameras demand rather a lot of care and attention in how you use them, if you want to get the best results from them. Maybe the. D750 would have been a better full frame option for you as it is much lighter, even less than a D610, has a fold out viewing screen and still has a fairly impressive 24 megapixels, that camera with a Nikon 24-85mm VR or 24-120mm f4 lens would have been more forgiving. Or even a crop sensor. D7100 with the 18-140mm lens, which in itself would have been a substantial upgrade from a D3200 in terms of fine control and better autofocus performance.

Easy way to work with this camera is to leave it in Aperture Priority mode, try not to go much under f8 for most pictures as you actually start to lose image quality to diffraction at f11, f16 etc. You can set auto ISO too if you wish but. I usually keep mine between 100 and 400, according to light levels and whether I am trying to photograph anything which is moving much.

You'll find lots of online information on websites such as:

www.photo.net under the Nikon Forum

Or

www.nikonrumors.com

[AllanDJ]

PS Nicely composed images from the RHS Garden but none of the macro ones are sharp when you zoom into them a bit, you need to use a tripod to hold the camera absolutely steady, hand holding this camera for macro is an absolute no no, that and learn to use Live View which seems to be rather better on the D810 than on my camera. You can actually select which part of the image you really want to be pin sharp, then massively zoom into the image displayed on the rear screen so that you can manually focus the lens to best effect, changing aperture as you stop down you will see your depth of field increasing. Macro is one area where you will routinely use apertures like f16 or f22 just to get the important bits sharp.

If you were in my area I'd run through all of this stuff with you for nothing, I used to work full time taking photographs for Tourist Boards, Calendars etc. Like most things the devil is in the detail but you have bought yourself a fantastic camera, a wee bit more practice with it and you will really start to get the very best out of it!

[domhnall]

typical bossfox eh? The D3200 to D810 route is the equivalent of putting a jet engine in your yeti :-)

 

I've got a D700 for full frame and this week bought a D7100 second hand for £400

 

 

You should have a look at nikonians,org it is the photo version of Briskoda

[BossFox]

PS Nicely composed images from the RHS Garden but none of the macro ones are sharp when you zoom into them a bit, you need to use a tripod to hold the camera absolutely steady, hand holding this camera for macro is an absolute no no, that and learn to use Live View which seems to be rather better on the D810 than on my camera. You can actually select which part of the image you really want to be pin sharp, then massively zoom into the image displayed on the rear screen so that you can manually focus the lens to best effect, changing aperture as you stop down you will see your depth of field increasing. Macro is one area where you will routinely use apertures like f16 or f22 just to get the important bits sharp.

If you were in my area I'd run through all of this stuff with you for nothing, I used to work full time taking photographs for Tourist Boards, Calendars etc. Like most things the devil is in the detail but you have bought yourself a fantastic camera, a wee bit more practice with it and you will really start to get the very best out of it!

 

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

It's too late now as I've already bought it and I have to say I really like it.

I figured getting this was eaiser than upgrading two or three times as I got more interested in photography.

 

The pictures might not be sharp when you zoom in because the images have been significantly resized so I could put small jpegs on here rather than 10mb ones.  IIRC they are around 10-15% of the originals.

Also non of these were taken with a macro lens.  That's something I'll probably look at getting.

[BossFox]

I also bought a new 3200 for point and shoot.  Less value to worry about.

 

For my old one on a minimum part exchange deal I got £375.

Then I bought a new one for £270.