Which digital camera? - Page 3

quakerroatmeal · 06-29-08, 04:59

I'd definitely pick a slr over a p&s compact camera, does it need to be compact? Manual mode is much better, have much more to play with.

evenflow · 06-29-08, 05:02

Sounds good. Is it hard to learn the manual commands?

drew.haynes · 06-29-08, 05:49

Not really. Especially shooting non-moving objects like cars!

You just need a basic understanding of the effect of Film Speed (ISO Setting), Aperture (f-stop setting), and Shutter Speed. Learning what to set them to in different situations will just come with time, but a general understanding of their effects will speed up the process a lot!

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer as best I know how! Again, fredmiranda.com would be another useful forum for picking up photography tips - it's like the autopia or the camera world!

d

evenflow · 06-29-08, 06:26

Awesome, thanks for all the help!

One thing I want to learn to do is take rolling shots

Is something like that learning hard to do?

Quote:

Originally Posted by drew.haynes

Not really. Especially shooting non-moving objects like cars!

You just need a basic understanding of the effect of Film Speed (ISO Setting), Aperture (f-stop setting), and Shutter Speed. Learning what to set them to in different situations will just come with time, but a general understanding of their effects will speed up the process a lot!

Feel free to ask any questions and I will answer as best I know how! Again, fredmiranda.com would be another useful forum for picking up photography tips - it's like the autopia or the camera world!

d

drew.haynes · 06-29-08, 07:58

If the speed of your car is somewhat matched to the speed of the target, not really, although it will take some experimenting with the shutter speed and aperture to get whatever amount of motion blur and background blur that you want. If the shutter speed is TOO fast, the ground will be clear even though you are moving fast, too slow and it will be possibly TOO motion blurred, and it may be hard to keep the car from having it's own motion blur due to your hand movement. Know what I mean?

Do you have a basic idea of the effect of those parameters?

drew.haynes · 06-29-08, 08:09

Here are two examples of a very fast shutter to help demonstrate what I last said. Both these shots have a fast shutter, leaving little time for the road to blur at all, you can really only sense the motion of the bike by the motion blurred tires.

These ARE NOT my images, don't want to take credit. They belong to Fred Miranda user Damon Spencer - merely using them to demonstrate, as he is clearly a better photographer than I'll ever expect to be.

And now one with a slower shutter that gave the ground time to blur:

d

evenflow · 06-29-08, 08:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by drew.haynes

If the speed of your car is somewhat matched to the speed of the target, not really, although it will take some experimenting with the shutter speed and aperture to get whatever amount of motion blur and background blur that you want. If the shutter speed is TOO fast, the ground will be clear even though you are moving fast, too slow and it will be possibly TOO motion blurred, and it may be hard to keep the car from having it's own motion blur due to your hand movement. Know what I mean?

Do you have a basic idea of the effect of those parameters?

Absolutely not. Looks like I have a lot of camera reading to do. But I now understand with those two pics you just added. Thanks.

drew.haynes · 06-29-08, 08:25

Well, brief explanation...

You need enough light to fully expose an image. How you get that light is a combination of film speed (iso), shutter speed, and aperture (f-stops). Adjusting each has possible pros and cons.

Aperture -
Measured in f-stops (f1.8, f4, f22, etc). The lower the f-stop #, the larger the aperture (the opening where light enters). f1.8 is quite a large aperture and will let alot of light in quickly. f30 for example is tiny, and won't let as much light in at once.

A large aperture like f2.8 will produce a SHALLOW depth of field. For example, if you take a picture of a person's face at f1.8, everything behind and in front of the focal point will blur intensely and rapidly. At a small aperture like f22, you'll have a broad depth of field, and for example, you could have your friend in focus @ about 5 ft away, while ALSO having a mountain in focus 1 mile behind him. Make sense?

So, assuming you have plenty of light, the primary purpose of changing aperture is to adjust your depth of field. If you are confused i'll find good example pictures. The second effect is that larger apertures let more light in, and thus you can get the same TOTAL amount of light in less time (faster shutter speeds). For example, a picture taken at f1.8 and a 1/250sec shutter speed may be as well exposed as a picture taken at f32 and a 1sec shutter speed. If you should a long shutter speed like 1sec, you'll likely have motion blur you don't want caused by your hand shaking, that's why if you are shooting in lower light situations, a big aperture like 2.8 or 1 is very handy. You can use a large aperture to let you get the same light with a faster shutter and avoid hand shake!

Shutter speed-
How long does that aperture stay open? You can use a longer shutter to allow intentional motion blurring, or just if you need more light at your current iso and aperture.

ISO-
This is how fast the image sensor evaluates incoming light. Ideally, lower ISOs are always better. The higher the ISO, the faster light comes in, and therefore you can handle using shorter shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures. Also though, on the downside, higher ISOs produce more image noise.

If you have enough light, stick with the lowest ISO you can - it will produce the most noise-free images. If you are in a lower light situation and a big aperture alone is not cutting down your shutter speed enough to avoid motion blur, raise the ISO so light is evaluated faster. Now you can decrease the shutter speed some, eliminate motion blur, and the cost is just more image noise - depending on what ISO you are on.

Have any questions?

jfelbab · 06-29-08, 09:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by evenflow

I just sold my Canon Powershot A620 camera.

I'm looking for a good point and shoot type camera. I sold the A620 because I didn't think it had good color to it, the photo's kind of looked washed out and bland. I could never really get a good "flake" shot of car paint either, it never really popped out in the pics.

I'm looking at the - Canon Rebel EOS XT. However, I see this camera comes in a silver and black color what are the differences? Just basically looking to use it to take pics of the car I really want the pics to be colorful, and show the depth of paint and what not.

I was also reading up on the Nikon D70...seems to be a little less than the Rebel. Reviews?

There a few things not to like about the A620 put picture quality and color fidelity aren't among them. I'd look to your computer and monitor calibration settings for the problem. Did you run a hardware calibration of your monitor? What colorspace are you using? If not you will probably be disappointed with the results from any camera, IMO.

Ignition · 06-30-08, 01:01

Good budget p&s camera from canon is a720is or SX100is. Both produce good quality sharp pictures for a point and shoot. Only thing which isn't that good is low light performance. Noise is very visible at higher iso. Other than that it is hard to find anything really wrong.

Laptop displays are these days the worst. With most on default settings colors look washed out and the display has wrong color temp. First sign if you have a cheapest display is that the brightness changes if you slightly tilt the display. What you want from flat display is for example S-PVA panel instead of TN type. (which all of the cheaper ones are)

More explanation from here about the types:

Thin film transistor liquid crystal display - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

evenflow · 06-30-08, 06:12

Doubt its my monitor I have a $400 Samsung 24" with a high resolution. It's not that the A620 is bad, its just the colors don't seem vibrant and colorful.

Thanks for the explanation Drew I understand now.

Ignition · 06-30-08, 06:55

It still can have TN type panel at that price range, some are very good though and it isn't such a bad thing if you are happy with it.
Try playing with settings Photo Friday: Monitor Calibration Tool
Spending some time tweaking the display settings made huge difference on my laptop.