nidding's first year of shooting - 365 2014

nidding

Senior Member
Hello Nikonites.
I've been contemplating having my own 365 for some time, as this just seems like an awesome way to force oneself to improve and think creatively. So HERE WE GO! :)

I will have to warn you before we start, that this 365 will probably contain a load of aquarium shots as well as a bunch of baby shots, as by wife to be is expecting in the spring and I'm a bit of a saltwater aquarium geek. But apart from that I'll try to keep this as varied as possible.

Unfortunately this very first picture of the thread, is not really worthy of this forum - the ever-present, boring food shot. But hey, New Years day is a day of hang overs, shitty movies, and couching. So here you go; my excuse not to go out and take a better photo ;)
Day 1


From here on, we only go forward :D
 
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Michael J.

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Unfortunately this very first picture of the thread, is not really worthy of this forum - the ever-present, boring food shot.

Every photo is worth to this forum cos I think that every capture has something for me, maybe as well for others, to learn in/on it.
 

RockyNH_RIP

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Hello Nikonites.
I've been contemplating having my own 365 for some time, as this just seems like an awesome way to force oneself to improve and think creatively. So HERE WE GO! :)

I will have to warn you before we start, that this 365 will probably contain a load of aquarium shots as well as a bunch of baby shots, as by wife to be is expecting in the spring and I'm a bit of a saltwater aquarium geek. But apart from that I'll try to keep this as varied as possible.

Unfortunately this very first picture of the thread, is not really worthy of this forum - the ever-present, boring food shot. But hey, New Years day is a day of hang overs, shitty movies, and couching. So here you go; my excuse not to go out and take a better photo ;)
#1


From here on, we only go forward :D

Nidding, Welcome and Congrats on taking the leap into a 365.... Two things to remember.... try to make it a learning experience and HAVE FUN!

Do not worry about "what", just keep shooting... challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone.. Many fish pics, no problem, try and make each better and more original than the previous... as time passes, the fish you capture in June will hopefully please you more than those you take in January! :)

Good Start!

Pat in NH
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Every photo is worth to this forum cos I think that every capture has something for me, maybe as well for others, to learn in/on it.
You are definitely right! Actually I do think I learned a bit about flash photography - about which I know almost nothing. But here I needed to set i a bit below full power, and crank up the ISO to get what I wanted. So yes. In that way every photo is aa good photo - because we can learn from it :)
From there to being interesting to look at. that's a whole other story ;)

Nidding, Welcome and Congrats on taking the leap into a 365.... Two things to remember.... try to make it a learning experience and HAVE FUN!

Do not worry about "what", just keep shooting... challenge yourself, get out of your comfort zone.. Many fish pics, no problem, try and make each better and more original than the previous... as time passes, the fish you capture in June will hopefully please you more than those you take in January! :)

Good Start!

Pat in NH
Hello. And thank you very much. You are most certainly right as well!
The goal with this thread is precisely to have fun and get better. I think that ultimately my goal with photography is to be able to tell something with a single photo, and to make photos that are interesting to look at, just as well as capturing a moment, both for myself, but still being a photo worth looking at for a complete stranger.
So the "warning" was in some way ironic. I will tend to shoot pictures that mean something to me because of the subject matter. This I can already do (most of the time), as this is simply a matter of getting focus and exposure right, and framing to some degree. But the real challenge, I believe is to capture these very images in a way so that they convey the impact the made on me when I took it, or at least the feeling that I try to convey.
Obviously I have A LOT of techniques to learn yet. But striving to achieve the above should be the end goal :)
Well this is maybe setting the goal high. But hey, if just one of the 363 days to come achieves this, I'm more than happy :)

Good luck i like fish,especially with chips boom boom

Haha. McClown Fish. That's bound to raise some eyebrows :D

Anyway. Thanks for the cheering to all of you.

Here we go for day two, with a little idea that popped into my head this morning
Day 2


Also by band started some pre-recordings, which seemed to be a perfect excuse to whip out the camera for a few BW shots.





Cheers to you all
 
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piperbarb

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Hello Nikonites.
I've been contemplating having my own 365 for some time, as this just seems like an awesome way to force oneself to improve and think creatively. So HERE WE GO! :)

I will have to warn you before we start, that this 365 will probably contain a load of aquarium shots as well as a bunch of baby shots, as by wife to be is expecting in the spring and I'm a bit of a saltwater aquarium geek. But apart from that I'll try to keep this as varied as possible.

Unfortunately this very first picture of the thread, is not really worthy of this forum - the ever-present, boring food shot. But hey, New Years day is a day of hang overs, shitty movies, and couching. So here you go; my excuse not to go out and take a better photo ;)
#1


From here on, we only go forward :D

Welcome. Don't apologize for any photo you post here, even if you think it is mundane and boring. Believe me, I have posted more of those types of photos than I like to admit. Mine are usually the opportunistic feline photo. :)

Just try to take at least one photo a day and post it, sit back, and enjoy the ride.
 

piperbarb

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Nidding,

Just noticed from your day 1 posting, you're running Ubuntu Linux! You are not alone here. :)
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Heh. I suspect the feline photos will be be interchanged by watery creatures from my end ;)

The computer isn't actually mine, but my girlfriend's. I somehow convinced her to take the Linux jump. Her daughter is on the picture as well, by the way, so I think she hasn't chosen it out of pure narcisim.
What programmes do you use for photo editing?

...and nicely spotted :D
 

piperbarb

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Heh. I suspect the feline photos will be be interchanged by watery creatures from my end ;)

The computer isn't actually mine, but my girlfriend's. I somehow convinced her to take the Linux jump. Her daughter is on the picture as well, by the way, so I think she hasn't chosen it out of pure narcisim.
What programmes do you use for photo editing?

...and nicely spotted :D

Since I have both a Macbook Pro with OS X 10.9 and a Dell XPS 17" (L702x) laptop running Ubuntu Linux 12.04, I like to have as much software as possible that is cross-platform compatible. I have found that Corel's AfterShot Pro fits the bill. I can do stuff on either computer without any problems. AfterShot Pro is basically Corel's answer to Aperture and Lightroom. They have a 30 day trial on their Website. If you buy it, you get the license key which can be used on any number of computers on any platform they support (OS X/Linus/Win). That's handy for multi-platform users. For editing that AfterShot Pro cannot do, I'll use Gimp. I like how it works on Linux, but it isn't as graceful on OS X. When I edit stuff in OS X that AfterShot Pro can't do, I use Pixelmator or Photoshop Elements.

I really didn't like DigiKam. I thought it was rather clunky. I have also used Darktable, which works pretty well, it's free, and there is also a Mac version. It does not have all the features of AfterShot Pro but it works pretty well.

I want to start playing around with tethering my camera to my laptop. In the Winter 2013 issue of Ubuntu User, I saw that gPhoto2 is a Linux-based tethering program. It runs either from the command line, or it allows you to tether and control your camera through Darktable. I have not tried it yet, so I cannot tell you how well it really works. I have to look into it more.

Hope that helps.
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

It most certainly does!
I'll check out after shot pro for sure. I've been using darktable, but it is a little unhandy for my tree taste. And raw therapy which I have used as well, simply doesn't deliver good enough IQ, I think. But thanks a bunch for the recommendations :)
 

piperbarb

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

It most certainly does!
I'll check out after shot pro for sure. I've been using darktable, but it is a little unhandy for my tree taste. And raw therapy which I have used as well, simply doesn't deliver good enough IQ, I think. But thanks a bunch for the recommendations :)

I did not like raw therapy at all, and agree about the IQ. I also thought it was rather slow. I am glad I could help. Enjoy!
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Another great days pictures,i like a bit of B/W wont enter the OS talk ime with that easy system windows 8 :D
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

So I downloaded the trial version of Aftershot Pro, and WOW! That is just nice to work with. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to afford it the next couple of months, so I'm really gonna miss this, I'm sure. But till then, I look forward to playing with this.

Today I noticed a nice old car on the parking lot outside my window, and went down there with my old manual focus Vivitar 135mm. On the way however, I saw some leftovers from New Years, and thought they might be worth a shot.

So here goes

Day 3

and


See you tomorrow :)
 
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piperbarb

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

So I downloaded the trial version of Aftershot Pro, and WOW! That is just nice to work with. I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be able to afford it the next couple of months, so I'm really gonna miss this, I'm sure. But till then, I look forward to playing with this.

See you tomorrow :)
The download version is $49 US. Not sure what it is in Euros.
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

It's about the double over here, as far as I can see. It's not that bad, but being a student and having a wedding and a new born during the spring, I don't think it'll be possible to put to much to the side, to use for photography.
I am planning on getting a 35mm f/1.8. Maybe I should reconsider that investment...
 

nidding

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

Looking at the collection of lenses you already have I would invest in some software.
I tend to agree with you.
The main reason that I have the 35mm in mind, is that I've found myself shooting just around that focal length with the kit lens, maybe 80% of the time. So it would really make sense to have a good lenses with that length. The 28mm that I have was one I got from someone who had it lying around, but I simply cannot get it to shoot sharp pictures. However the kit lenses isn't that bad, and I probably could do with that.

Another thing that has kept me far away from buying software, is that I really like the freeware idea of Linux. But if I keep liking aftershot this much better than darktable, I might have to reevaluate this idea of mine ;)
 

Moab Man

Senior Member
Re: nidding's first year of shooting

I tend to agree with you.
The main reason that I have the 35mm in mind, is that I've found myself shooting just around that focal length with the kit lens, maybe 80% of the time. So it would really make sense to have a good lenses with that length. The 28mm that I have was one I got from someone who had it lying around, but I simply cannot get it to shoot sharp pictures. However the kit lenses isn't that bad, and I probably could do with that.

Another thing that has kept me far away from buying software, is that I really like the freeware idea of Linux. But if I keep liking aftershot this much better than darktable, I might have to reevaluate this idea of mine ;)

The kit lenses often get an undeserved bad wrap. Part of it has to do with people starting out and they think the lack of sharpness and correct color has something to do with the lens because it's ONLY a kit lens. However, with experience, you can generate really good photos. Both of these below are from the lowly 18-55mm kit lens. Not disputing the quality of primes, but the kit lens it much better than people usually know.

As for software, before you make a final decision, consider the Adobe Elements 11. My wife likes to use it (I'm a Photoshop CS6 guy) and I have really been quite impressed. I believe it also has a free trial period. Just a suggestion before you cough up cash.

Day321Flower.jpg


Day326Flower.jpg
 
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