How to make good pictures: share your experience

William · Post by **William** » 02 Mar 2005, 23:07

Indeed, Top-foto is a good shop and the owner is really friendly ànd speaks dutch BUT you can find cheaper shops !! I was also looking to buy my cam at top-foto but instead I bought it at TopVisionShop in Luxemburg also via the web ... ordered on a saturday and had my package delivered on thursday ! Very cheap and also customer-friendly !

But uhm, guys, can we get back ontopic in this thread ?

Tommypilot · Post by **Tommypilot** » 03 Mar 2005, 11:58

My equipment:

Canon 300D

2*128MB Sandisk
1*16MB Sandisk
1*256MB Sandisk
1*1024MB Sandisk

Canon EF-S 18-55
Canon EF 90-300 USM

UV filters and lenshoods for the lenses

Nikon 995 Coolplix
Teleconvertor 3X

Regards,

Post by **Bottie** » 03 Mar 2005, 13:22

Robin_Bamps wrote:How nice to see the usual members again with off-topic replies to my messages

I was just warning you that you don't have to be too sure about the fact they can't prove it ... They can, and it's very easy to do ...

Stoney · Post by **Stoney** » 03 Mar 2005, 14:12

guys, keep it on topic please...

Ok, try the following... Take your cat, dog, mother, or girlfriend or whatever and put them in front of you...

Put your camera on aperture priority. Put the aperture on say 4.5, focus on your subject and make a picture. (pic1)

Now put your aperture on 22, focus on your subject and take a picture.(pic2)

Compare the two pictures.

Pic1 will have the subject in focus and the background will be blurred. Perfect for portraits. This way you attract the attention on the subject and blur out anything irrelevant to the picture...

Pic 2 will have a lot more of the pic in focus. Perfect for landscape photography for example.

The above is a small and simple explanation to a more complicated subject : Depth of field (DOF)(in dutch : scherptediepte)

A lot of DOF : A large area of the pic is in focus
Small DOF : Just a small area is in focus, rest is out of focus

Just try it, you can do a lot of creative things with this.

William · Post by **William** » 06 Mar 2005, 22:00

I've got a question !

Do you always wait for the same point to photograph the plane and take for example 1 or 2 pics or do you follow the plane and then zoom back to take multiple pics ?

Avro · Post by **Avro** » 06 Mar 2005, 22:17

I often take multiple shots of one plane, from different angles.

Chris

Robin_Bamps · Post by **Robin_Bamps** » 06 Mar 2005, 22:30

Hello William,

In case of special planes, I always take a "safety shot" when the plane is still in approach angle, in case my AF should fail when the plane is right in front of me (I mean a shot like this : http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=305329), and than I wait for the right moment to take one or two sideshots, preferably with unobstructed tail, engines, titles and registration, like this one : http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=305050 (if possible, on some planes it isn't).

But believe me, everyone has his own way of photographing...

Regards, Robin Bamps.

Tommypilot · Post by **Tommypilot** » 06 Mar 2005, 22:36

I take multiple shots like Avro too.

In most cases up to 4-5 shots.

Why? To have some different angles(like Avro already said) in order to avoid boring sideshots all the time.

Off course you can use manual zoom before focussing as some people do

Regards and good luck!

Zorba · Post by **Zorba** » 08 Mar 2005, 10:01

Never go above ISO 100 unless really neccessairy

I don't agree here Andries! Why do you buy a DSLR? For the less grain at higher ISO levels? Why would you only use ISO 100 then?

I mostly use ISO 200 in good weather, I prefer a higher shutter speed and get nice sharp picture (a high shutterspeed at 500mm is necessery!!) then grain that you can't even see ...

Equipment :

Canon 300D
Sigma 50-500
Dane Elec Extreme 512 MB

Tommypilot · Post by **Tommypilot** » 08 Mar 2005, 11:54

Airbus_fan wrote:
Never go above ISO 100 unless really neccessairy
I don't agree here Andries! Why do you buy a DSLR? For the less grain at higher ISO levels? Why would you only use ISO 100 then?

I agree with Rutger...saying that you never may exceed ISO100, I just can't understand why. In bad weather(and even in good weather) I take pictures with ISO200. Why? Because they are sharper because I can use a higher aperture value.

Regards,

Andries · Post by **Andries** » 08 Mar 2005, 12:36

Airbus_fan wrote:
Never go above ISO 100 unless really neccessairy
I don't agree here Andries! Why do you buy a DSLR? For the less grain at higher ISO levels? Why would you only use ISO 100 then?

Well, actually I bought my camera because of the ease of interchangeble lenses ... Zoomrange is a quit important factor to me, as is shootingspeed ...

I simply follow the principle to always use an ISO speed that's as low as possible to avoid any grain, even when it's very very little. It can only help you get an even better pic. Offcourse you do need the correct light / weatherconditions and you thus can't use ISO 100 all the time. I also use ISO 200 or ISO 400, but only when I feel it is really neccesairy. It is very normal that when using ISO 100and I need 1/50th of a second to take a well lit pic, I will change my ISO setting to 200 in order to get a higher shutterspeed. That's what I meant by saying "when neccesairy".

Everyone has it's own techniques and I believe we can all learn from each other !

Greetz,

Andries

Tommypilot · Post by **Tommypilot** » 08 Mar 2005, 13:16

Andries wrote:Everyone has it's own techniques and I believe we can all learn from each other !

That's certainly true!

AN124 · Post by **AN124** » 08 Mar 2005, 14:24

My Equipment:

Nikon D70
Sigma 18-50
Sigma 55-200
Nikkor 70-300 with uv filter.
2x Accu

2x Scandisk 512MB
1x Scandisk 256MB
1x Scandisk 128MB

Corel Photopaint 8

Greetings,
Yvo

Zorba · Post by **Zorba** » 08 Mar 2005, 14:47

Just to confirm : It's Sandisk and not Scandisk!

William · Post by **William** » 08 Mar 2005, 20:52

I've seen people say Scandisk all the time ... but hey, eventually the name is not important, if we can store our pics on them it's ok, isn't it ? ...
I've got a Sandisk 512 Mb Extreme II myself !

Thanks for the replies guys !!
But will ISO 200 give me more grain or not ?
Will my pics by somewhat sharper with a slightly higher ISO ?
Cause i've noticed that with ISO 100 @ 6.1 / 7.3 my pics aren't really really sharp ?!

Jense · Post by **Jense** » 08 Mar 2005, 21:46

William wrote:But will ISO 200 give me more grain or not ?

In fact: the higher the ISO value, the higher the grain. Acutally with DSLR it's not a really big problem, that's what DSLR is all about

Here are some examples:
- http://www.airliners.net/open.file/735373/M/
- http://www.airliners.net/open.file/674768/M/
- http://www.airliners.net/open.file/777543/M/
- http://www.airliners.net/open.file/769524/M/

William · Post by **William** » 08 Mar 2005, 22:33

mhm, I see ... so in fact I could go for ISO 200 as an example ? ...
Will I have sharper shots then ? ...
I work in Av mode with my 300D at diafragma 6.3 / 7.1 ...

What do you guys use ?

Post by **Bottie** » 08 Mar 2005, 22:35

I always try to stay in ISO100

AN124 · Post by **AN124** » 08 Mar 2005, 22:36

William wrote:mhm, I see ... so in fact I could go for ISO 200 as an example ? ...
Will I have sharper shots then ? ...
I work in Av mode with my 300D at diafragma 6.3 / 7.1 ...

What do you guys use ?

The D70 doesn't have a lower ISO level then 200.
I never had problems with grain in my pictures..

Greetings,
Yvo

Stoney · Post by **Stoney** » 09 Mar 2005, 08:23

sharpness (focus) doesn't have anything to do with ISO values...

ISO is the speed of your "film". The higher your ISO value, the less light you'll need to make a correct exposure...

If you want to have more sharp pics I would suggest to get your shutter speed as high as possible and also put your aperture on a higher value...
(If lighting allows you to do this offcourse)

If you read my previous post you'll see how aperture(diafragma) can control the sharpness of your pics...
You can probably imagine that if your shooting at 4.5 aperture a very small area of the pic will be "sharp". Resulting in a general "unsharpness" on the pic. So get that aperture to a higher value and a bigger area of the pic will be in focus...

Depth of field (scherptediepte) is one of the most important rules in photography, learn it, and never forget it!!!