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mattyb · May 11, 2009, 05:09 AM

OK, bright day, but windy - very windy. I want to take a picture of some trees and get a bit of motion in there so that I can show the effect of the wind. Slow shutter speed over-exposes.

What sort of settings would I use?

MacNNUK · May 11, 2009, 06:24 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

OK, bright day, but windy - very windy. I want to take a picture of some trees and get a bit of motion in there so that I can show the effect of the wind. Slow shutter speed over-exposes.

What sort of settings would I use?

1) Tripod
2) Slow shutter speed, not too slow. Try various
3) Smaller aperture to keep exposure the same.
4) Fast shutter speed and post FX manipulation.
5) Two photo's superimposed taken quickly
6) HDR manipulation of above, two or more photo's
7) Include a flag, or similar.

mattyb · May 11, 2009, 07:21 AM

Thorzdad · May 11, 2009, 07:33 AM

Actually, you can stop at step 3 on that list. Slow shutter speed and a stepped-down aperture is all you need. If you were shooting film, I'd suggest a slow-speed stock, too, but that's not necessary.

richwig83 · May 11, 2009, 07:56 PM

Use and ND filter so youll be able to use a longer shutter speed whilst maintaining correct exposure (sometimes F/22 isnt small enough on a bright day!)

mattyb · May 12, 2009, 05:22 AM

An ND filter - interesting.

richwig83 · May 12, 2009, 06:48 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

An ND filter - interesting.

design219 · May 13, 2009, 11:14 PM

If you don't have an ND filter, use a polarizer... it will most likely improve the color saturation of the leaves anyway.

Don't have a polarizer?... GET ONE! A must have accessory.

Railroader · May 14, 2009, 06:55 AM

Originally Posted by design219

Don't have a polarizer?... GET ONE! A must have accessory.

2nded, 3rded, and 4thed!

If you shoot outside, you MUST use a polarizer.

Oisín · May 14, 2009, 08:45 AM

I’ll fifth, sixth, and seventh it, then.

mattyb · May 15, 2009, 03:38 AM

I ordered a polarizer the same time as I ordered the camera.

I'm learning guys, I'm learning !!!

Slowly I know but still.

design219 · May 15, 2009, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by mattyb

Slowly I know but still.

I love your enthusiasm. I have to say, I think it's much easier to get into photography today than it used to be... primarily because the costs. The only way to really get good and better at photography is to keep practicing. In the film days, that was an expensive proposition.

I started in the mid 70s in high school, and was very lucky to have a dad and an uncle who gave me a good fundamental start. Then, I got on with the yearbook, so I started getting film and processing paid for. The two edges of that was, if my dad, or the school was buying film, it had to be careful and not waste their money, yet I did have plenty of opportunity to develop my skills. Shooting sports for the yearbook got me noticed by the newspaper, so I got a job while still a high school senior working for money, and getting my film for free. I also got darkroom access and training at no cost.

I worked at the same newspaper all through college and worked for the college darkroom department as well as the college newspaper, so again, plenty of free experience.

My best advice is to just keep shooting, but maybe think a bit like you are shooting film and every frame has an associated cost. If you put a value on every exposure, you will probably take a little more care and build you knowledge much faster.

Best of luck!

Railroader · May 15, 2009, 03:44 PM

Originally Posted by design219

My best advice is to just keep shooting, but maybe think a bit like you are shooting film and every frame has an associated cost. If you put a value on every exposure, you will probably take a little more care and build you knowledge much faster.

Agreed. Actually, it takes a lot of time to go through pictures sometimes and as we all know, time is very valuable.

I learned the hard way on my first wedding shoot. I took a dozen pictures of each pose. Over all I had taken 3,000+ pictures that day. About 2,500 were "keepers". And almost every pose had a dozen duplicates I went through finding the perfect one. I probably wasted 40+ hours wading through all the shots and selecting the best ones. And then, I had it narrowed to about 900+ pictures. When the bride and groom saw them all online they were overwhelmed.

My second shoot I took two of every pose. I only had one or two not usable shots and it only took me a couple hours to go through them and optimize.

Time is VERY valuable.

When you take the time to do the shots right, you end up a much better photographer. And you waste much less time in the long run.

richwig83 · May 15, 2009, 03:53 PM

When you take the time to do the shots right, you end up a much better photographer. And you waste much less time in the long run.

Id agree with that 100%... thats why im starting to use Manual mode more often, it makes you stop and thing about what your doing!

Oisín · May 15, 2009, 04:30 PM

I hope you mean Manual Mode as opposed to, say, Av Mode or Tv Mode—’cause anyone with a 40D and a 70–200L IS (I believe that’s mine, by the way; I, er, lost it behind the, er, couch. Please give it back) should never be using any of the automatic modes. Oversimplifying, yes, but a good rule of thumb nonetheless, I’ve found.

Demonhood · May 15, 2009, 04:34 PM

if you have a workflow that makes sense, post-production can go rather quickly. even for thousand and thousands of images.

and i'll be the lone person to say it, but i've never found a polarizer all that useful. part of it is the burden of spending $150 for each lens i own, and part is that i can achieve similar results in 10 seconds in Aperture. but i'm open to trying it again, one day.

Originally Posted by Oisín

I hope you mean Manual Mode as opposed to, say, Av Mode or Tv Mode—’cause anyone with a 40D and a 70–200L IS (I believe that’s mine, by the way; I, er, lost it behind the, er, couch. Please give it back) should never be using any of the automatic modes. Oversimplifying, yes, but a good rule of thumb nonetheless, I’ve found.

i disagree. i shoot in lots of situations where the lighting changes rapidly enough that Manual mode isn't feasible. from shade to sun, east facing to west, indoor to indoor-near-exit, etc.
Aperture Priority comes in handy when i want to control the depth of focus and bokeh but don't have time to change the setting for all the conditions i'm in.
Shutter Priority works well for shots in which i want some motion blur. the action is so fast, i don't want to worry about whether my math is off and i'm going to miss the shot entirely.

richwig83 · May 15, 2009, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by Oisín

I hope you mean Manual Mode as opposed to, say, Av Mode or Tv Mode—’cause anyone with a 40D and a 70–200L IS (I believe that’s mine, by the way; I, er, lost it behind the, er, couch. Please give it back) should never be using any of the automatic modes. Oversimplifying, yes, but a good rule of thumb nonetheless, I’ve found.

Yeah Manual... proper Manual! Although Tv and Av do have there place.... however auto ISO is the most useless feature on any DSLR!

How do you want me to ship your lens back to you??

Originally Posted by Demonhood

and i'll be the lone person to say it, but i've never found a polarizer all that useful. part of it is the burden of spending $150 for each lens i own, and part is that i can achieve similar results in 10 seconds in Aperture. but i'm open to trying it again, one day.

That is why its a good idea to buy one polariser at your biggest lens dia. such as 77mm and use step down rings.. works out much cheaper!

Rich

Thorzdad · May 15, 2009, 07:15 PM

Polarizers are handy sometimes, to be sure. The one must-have I've always relied on, though, is a simple UV filter.

OreoCookie · May 16, 2009, 02:22 AM

Originally Posted by Oisín

I hope you mean Manual Mode as opposed to, say, Av Mode or Tv Mode—’cause anyone with a 40D and a 70–200L IS (I believe that’s mine, by the way; I, er, lost it behind the, er, couch. Please give it back) should never be using any of the automatic modes. Oversimplifying, yes, but a good rule of thumb nonetheless, I’ve found.

Huh? It's much more practical to work with A or S in most situations (yeah, I'm a Nikon guy!

) and use the exposure correction. I use M when I have a static subject and I need to.

Oisín · May 16, 2009, 04:31 AM

I think people misunderstood my comment exactly the opposite way of how it wasn’t intended to be misunderstood (misunderstand that!).

I meant that Av and Tv (or A and S for Nikon, apparently?) are also in the ‘manual’ part of the wheel dial; they’re the semi-automated manual settings. The ‘automatic modes’ I meant are the standard mode (the one that’s a green box on a Canon, and whatever represents it on Nikons), the portrait modes, landscape modes, etc. I wouldn’t go near those anymore.

Rich: Just UPS or FedEx or anything is fine.

Demonhood · May 18, 2009, 09:26 AM

ah, then we agree. yeah, never use 'P' or '[Green Box]'. especially since the green box means you can't shoot in RAW.

OreoCookie · May 18, 2009, 12:12 PM

Agreed. I only switch to P when I give the camera to someone else for a snapshot.
(BTW, S stands for shutter priority, A for aperture priority.)

richwig83 · May 18, 2009, 08:04 PM

Originally Posted by Demonhood

ah, then we agree. yeah, never use 'P' or '[Green Box]'. especially since the green box means you can't shoot in RAW.

Agreed +3.... P is a load of rubbish too... almost as usless as Auto ISO!

No Raw... Ring of fire focusing... Flash pops up in anything other than blinding sunlight!!

design219 · May 18, 2009, 08:53 PM

I assume you guys are using Canon, because I'm 98.5% sure Nikon allows raw in P.

Oisín · May 19, 2009, 03:36 AM

Originally Posted by design219

I assume you guys are using Canon, because I'm 98.5% sure Nikon allows raw in P.

Canon does, too. It’s only in ‘[Green Box]’ mode that it doesn’t. Which I suppose is fair enough—if you’re using that mode, you’re obviously not someone who knows how to work an SLR, so you won’t likely need (or know what to do with) RAW capabilities.

I’ll admit that I’ve actually used P a few times lately, when shooting in bright sunlight. For anything that’s not bright sunlight, it’s useless; but if you’re outside on a bright summer day and you’re looking to shoot bright, ‘summery’ pictures, then it actually works quite well for snaps.

mattyb · May 19, 2009, 04:12 AM

Oisín · May 19, 2009, 06:10 AM

Um, I, er, eh. Wha?

mattyb · May 19, 2009, 08:50 AM

Your conversation went right over my head.

Oisín · May 19, 2009, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

Your conversation went right over my head.

Ah, I see. The bird (and the fact that it was not in flight) confused me.

But doesn’t your bridge camera have modes like the full-auto mode and various semi-auto modes?

mattyb · May 19, 2009, 11:05 AM

Yeah, but P is to Program AFAIK. I haven't really played with it. I use Auto, Aperture and Shutter exclusively. I'm pretty good changing the shutter speed or Aperture settings now.

When I feel happy that I've mastered this, I'll look into other modes (and no I don't mean Aquarium mode or Fireworks mode).

I don't use RAW either - yet.

Slowly but surely.

Oisín · May 19, 2009, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by mattyb

I don't use RAW either - yet.

Might as well start now. Not much of a learning curve, really, just more options for image manipulation without the loss of quality you’ll see with JPEGs.

mattyb · May 19, 2009, 03:16 PM

Isn't it just for Photoshoppers though? The only editing that I do is to crop.

Oisín · May 19, 2009, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by mattyb

Isn't it just for Photoshoppers though? The only editing that I do is to crop.

No, not just for Photoshoppers. The most important thing about RAW is that it allows you to much more precisely control your output image—you can fine-tune your exposure, saturation, contrast, vibrancy, black point, highlights, color temperature, hues, etc., all without losing information. If you tweak back and forth and up and down on all these things with a JPEG file, you’ll end up with something that looks like crap, because what you see in the image is all the machine has to work with, too.

With RAW, the raw information that’s captured by the sensor in the camera is saved as the ‘image’ itself in the file, and everything else is simply an XML-based (I think) system of metadata that describes what kind of settings the program should add to the raw data.

Digital cameras will nearly always produce non-realistic colours if you don’t post-process the pictures. You need to play around a bit to get realistic, or more importantly, photo-realistic, colours (by ‘photo-realistic colours’, I mean colours that may not match what our eyes actually see in the real world, but match the colour space and saturation we’re subconsciously used to seeing as ‘real’ colours in photographs). RAW is invaluable for that.

Start shooting RAW and download a trial version of Aperture or Lightroom (or even just use Adobe’s Camera RAW, built in to the CS3 and CS4 packages, if you have that). Start playing around with it, and see what a difference to post-processing RAW makes.