Beginner going on holiday.

punit12

Senior Member
Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum, and to photography in general- using my iPhone 4S as my main camera until now. I am a university student and bought my Nikon D3100 with 18-55mm kit lens last week. I've been reading up a lot and trying to take cool photos- it's a real distraction at the moment with 6 exams coming up, starting tomorrow! I have also bought a second hand Nikkor 55-200mm DX VR AF-S zoom lens, and a portable FujiFilm tripod too.

After exams finish (in 3 weeks) I am going on a family trip to California (Palm Springs) for a week and then to Las Vegas (can't wait!). I bought the camera to take some beautiful photos when I am there. In California it will mostly be "snapshots" at theme parks and beaches etc, while in Vegas I am looking to try and take some cool night shots and sweeping landscape shots of the Grand Canyon, National Parks and Hoover Dam etc...

I'm just looking for any tips for the different types of photo that I want to take? For example when I am at SeaWorld and want to zoom in and take a quick shot of Shamu (the whale lol) jumping in mid air, would I use a quick shutter speed and small aperture, and an ISO of 100-200? For the more scenic shots what sort of settings would I use? Same for the night ones? I'm assuming a tripod is a must to get best results, with a middle ISO to reduce noise, and a slow shutter speed?

Thanks for the help!
 

jdeg

^ broke something
Staff member
Welcome to the site :)

Depending on what you want out of a photo while going to different places/settings/lighting conditions, you'll have to have different settings for all. Most of the time I keep my camera on auto or A mode because I simply don't have time to mess with settings while moving around, and you may find yourself doing the same until you get the hang of things some more. Otherwise a shot that would have come out great is going to be blurry or underexposed. A tripod will definitely help with those low light situations.

One thing that I wish I did when I first got my camera, and brought it with me on vacation, was to shoot things in RAW. When I went back to edit some shots, they would have came out better if I had that additional resolution and data that shooting in RAW provides. I should've had more memory cards with me to accommodate for the additional space that NEF files take up.
 

Phillydog1958

Senior Member
Welcome aboard. I've been to Vegas and Palm Springs. Palm Springs is a dessert oasis. You will love it. When I was a there, my company set up a dessert tour. It was nice. You can get some great pics on such a tour. Vegas is Vegas . . . As far as specific advice on shooting during your vacation, just continue to research the internet and this site. Good luck with exams.
 
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punit12

Senior Member
Thanks for the replies- I'm trying to steer clear of Auto as my camera always seems to bump up the ISO to like 800 even in bright day light! Leads to a very noisy and unsharp picture. I also use RAW as it is very useful in editing my photos- some come out extremely overexposed when I shoot them but a simple adjustment in iPhoto (don't have Aperture yet) makes them turn out fine!


I've uploaded some on Flickr- what do you think?


Close-up | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Pine | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
 

punit12

Senior Member
Thanks for the replies guys, I replied earlier but apparently a mod has to approve my reply :S And it hasn't been approved for 9ish hours so I'll try again. I usually don't like to use Auto as my camera seems to bump up the ISO very high- sometimes to 800 or 1200 in bright daylight! And yeah I've been using RAW too- some of my overexposed photos can be easily transformerd using a simple tool in iPhoto and they come out great after that!!
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Thanks for the replies guys, I replied earlier but apparently a mod has to approve my reply :S And it hasn't been approved for 9ish hours so I'll try again. I usually don't like to use Auto as my camera seems to bump up the ISO very high- sometimes to 800 or 1200 in bright daylight! And yeah I've been using RAW too- some of my overexposed photos can be easily transformerd using a simple tool in iPhoto and they come out great after that!!

Try turning auto-iso "OFF" from the setup menu. This should take care of the high iso jump.
 

punit12

Senior Member
Try turning auto-iso "OFF" from the setup menu. This should take care of the high iso jump.

The iso options seems to be greyed out in the menu in auto mode? That's why I tend to use Aperture or Shutter priority modes. Is there any way to enable it in Auto?
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
The iso options seems to be greyed out in the menu in auto mode? That's why I tend to use Aperture or Shutter priority modes. Is there any way to enable it in Auto?

Don't think so. Auto will do that, remove all your preference to give you a shot whatever… You'd be best to keep it at Aperture or shutter priority and keep your iso down.
 
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