Learning photography

I have had my Nikon D50 for almost one year now, i go out most weekends for walks and take photos. I do find it difficult understanding photography, i love my camera and have a 15-55mm nikon lens I read my manual quite regularly and do still struggle understanding some of the basics. Now i have joined this site i am sure i will be on here pestering everyone for information shortly. For now i just wanted to introduce myself. i will also get a few pics on here and look forward to receiving any feedback.

Thanks for reading!

Caroline

Welcome Caroline. All I can offer is practice practice practice. One digital photo cost no less than 50 so take LOTS of shots. Pick a subject. Set up the camera in auto and get a shot. Look at what the camera chooses. Then try the same shot in Manual with Aperture Shutter and ISO at close settings. Then alter one at a time shutter and ISO. Keep notes on what you changed and later compare the images.

Don't forget to try out Aperture priority. Set your ISO Set you FStop and the shutter is selected for you.

You might also look for a local photography club that you can join. You can learn a lot from the people in these clubs.

Just make sure you keep it fun and don't make a chore out of it.

Hi Caroline, welcome...

Hi Caroline, welcome

My advice is pretty simple - read. Read everything you can about photography. Read about how a digital camera produces an image, how optics dictate deep of field and what and where the hyperfocal distance is and how to use it, and finally read about composition and why diagonal lines produce tension vs. "S" lines and what the "golden triangle" is and how it differs from the "golden rectangle". And the principles at play in photography are the same in fine art, especially when it comes to landscape and portrait art so add fine art books on your reading lists.

And if you're anything like me and you finish reading all these books your photography might not be any better but at least you'll know why most of your photos suck! LOL!!!

Welcome Caroline!

Hello and Welcome,Caroline.Have fun.Thats what it's all about.

Thank you for everyone's messages. I really enjoy taking photos and now i have more time to get stuck in and learn all the basics of digital photography. Having joined this site i am sure i will be picking up lots of tips and help. Thanks again

You've got some nice photo's in your gallery .... keep up the good work !

Reading is a very good way of learning the basic's, but probably cheaper in the long run is to buy a few good books on the subject, I had a few when I was starting off and helped me out a lot .... start off with the basics, such as what using a larger or smaller aperture will do for the photo, fast or slow shutter speed etc, and as digital is so much cheaper these days than using rolls of film, keep taking the photo's and learn from them, you can always delete the bad shots ...

Thank you for your nice comment

I have found one or two websites which explains how to use my camera/the basics etc. i am starting to understand the exposure and shutter, i usually take about 10 photos on one subject changing the exposure etc each time and then upload them on to my laptop to see how each one looks.

The main points i cannot get my head round is the white balance and af lock etc. I keep going over it in the manual but i think it is just something that will fall into place the more i read up about it. I have a lady at work who is a photographer and she brings her old magazines in for me. At least is its a lifetime hobby, one i will enjoy forever and will one day understand everything that comes with a digitial camera.

White balance is simply telling the computer (or camera) what color white should be and then based on what you tell it white should be to then adjust all the other colors accordingly. Instead of using units like "light red" or "dark red" you will use units usually associated with heat called Kelvin. And in a weird way it makes some sense because as you lower the Kelvin numbers, the overall hue of the image gets blue (cold) and you raise the Kelvin the over all image gets red (warm). But if you shoot your images in RAW then white balance becomes somewhat unimportant and can be adjusted later on your computer.

cazarty said:

Thank you for your nice comment

The main points i cannot get my head round is the white balance and af lock etc. I keep going over it in the manual but i think it is just something that will fall into place the more i read up about it.

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AF lock was pretty useful for the early AF camera's, but now modern AF cameras have more focus points and most if not all you can select the focus point yourself, the main point of the focus lock is to be able to focus on something that isn't in the centre of the frame, you focus on the subject you want in focus, say a person that might be on the left or right of the frame, focus on that, select focus lock, re-position your camera then take the photo, the person will then be the main point of the focus and not the background, although I have my AF/AE lock set on A/E as I find that a much better option for me ...

Focus on the subject and self the A/F lock



Re-position the camera



And the subject will still be in focus and not the background, without the A/F lock the background would be the point of focus and not the people, hope that helps you understand a little better ...

White balance is just what is say's, years ago in the good old days of film, film was balanced to the light it was going to be exposed for, i.e daylight, or tungsten, or if you were using the wrong film you could use either a warm up or cool down filter, these days of digital you can do all that in the camera, most of the time leaving it on auto should do the trick, but this little chart should help you ...

This is very misleading. The Kelvin poster you put up is one for actual temperatures whereas in photography the Kelvin scale is completely reversed and higher Kelvin is red and warm and lower Kelvin is blue and cold. In the real world, like the poster you show, it's the other way around. Hopefully the OP can see the differences and not get herself overly confused.

keep your camera on aperture priority and auto white balance. shoot photos. Then, try and understand while switching around your fstops what the camera has chosen. you'll likely still get good shots and you'll start learning things pretty fast. That's what I did when I first started and now I shoot full manual (still auto white balance though most of the time save sunsets and things..)

Here's a scale straight from the manual.
I rarely use anything but Auto White Balance (with an Amber trim) myself.
Nikon does an excellent job keeping accurate balance.

Mojo-Fstop said:

This is very misleading. The Kelvin poster you put up is one for actual temperatures whereas in photography the Kelvin scale is completely reversed and higher Kelvin is red and warm and lower Kelvin is blue and cold. In the real world, like the poster you show, it's the other way around. Hopefully the OP can see the differences and not get herself overly confused.

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Really ?? I would like to see the chart you use, as even all the online photography courses today and the photography books that I read over 30 years ago list candle light as RED and clear skys as BLUE ....

In the world of photography red is hot (high Kelvin number) and blue is cold (smaller Kelvin number) however your chart says just the opposite. Take a look at your chart if you don't believe me!

Mojo-Fstop said:

In the world of photography red is hot (high Kelvin number) and blue is cold (smaller Kelvin number) however your chart says just the opposite. Take a look at your chart if you don't believe me!

Click to expand...

I think your getting slightly confused ... this is another Kelvin chart that is meant for photography



I'm not sure if you've used film in the past and exposed daylight film in tungsten lighting ?? the image will turn out with an orange glow, however use a film meant to be exposed in Tungsten lighting, light the old Extachrome 160, and there will be no colour cast, however use a Tunsten balanced film in daylight and the image will have a very cold blue image ... but the kelvin scale never changes, it will show a low temperture (1,000K) as RED and a warmer (10,000K) as BLUE.

While I completely agree with you in the "real world", in the world of digital photography you couldn't be more wrong. Small number Kelvin = cold = blue, high number Kelvin = warm = high number Kelvin. This is exactly opposite of the scale you posted and is very confusing for people just starting out in photography.

OK now, no fighting on the forum. We seem to have confusion on this. I'll try to make sense out of these truths.

First, Nikon Photographer's Kelvin scale is right. Lower numbers produce warmer light than higher numbers.

Where it gets confusing is how we apply these numbers to our photography. When you slide the color temp slider to a higher number, your image will get warmer (more red). This is simply because you are adjusting the picture to a colder light. You are telling your (camera, digital file) that the conditions of the light when you took the picture were colder so that your picture will look normal. The software then makes the picture to look warmer.

Now I'm getting confused myself. It's harder to explain than I thought… When you raise the K number on the camera or software, you are telling the camera that the light is very cold (blue), this makes the camera produce a warmer tone to compensate for the cold light.

Maybe I did help…Hopefully...