General Discussion

I recieved an email from vemoi today

Hi, Seen you photos a week or so ago. I also love photography. Thought maybe you ought to make a thread telling us what set up you have for a camera.

Although i  seem to be unable to make the markup on this board work, but hopefully things will be clear. I will edit the post that vemoi refered to. If anyone else has some photos, stories or tips to share i would be keen to hear them.

Originally posted by nurgles

www.flickr.com/photos/14607952@N00/page3/

I have a Nikon D70s, it replaced the Nikon D70 that was lost by the NZ postal service when i got BGLOD, long story.

 Above was the Nikon D70s, with the Tamron 90mm F2.8 macro. No fill flash, as it was a gloomy swealteringly hot overcast day in Paris, Stopped down enough to get a soft but understandable background and a nice sharp foreground.

 

Above is a scan of a film shot. Fujifilm superia 200ASA, Nikon FE body and Nikon 45MM F2.8 P lens. I have been trying to narrow down my options a bit, thats why the fully manual body and lens. Though the body has a center weighted meter. In the magic hour at Lucerne, Switzerland.

 

Above was the Nikon D70s, with the Tamron 90mm F2.8 macro, overcast day, some shade and a very big, very fast, angry ant in Victoria, Australia. I was on a moterbike so didn't have the full camera kit with me.

 

Above was the Nikon D70s, with the Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 Super Macro II. Again overcast lighting. He was such a patient bird, he allowed me to circle around him and get pretty close. This allowed me to really choose a complimentary background. He is a Kea, and he was on the side of the road to Milford Sound in NZ. I was on a bike again.

 

 Above was the Nikon D70, with the Nikon ED AF 300mm f2.8. I got this massive lens second hand, it is quite scuffed and there is a mark on the front element. Keen to see how it worked i put it to the test in the early morning light. this is a shot that should not work as it was taken at 125th of a sec, not fast enough for such long reach when hand held like this. it was actually one photo of a burst of 8. i think the inertia of the heavy lens helped make a sharp photo.

 

Above was the Nikon D70s, with the Nikon ED AF 300mm f2.8 at f10 and 1/500s, some cropping. . Went to the Gannet colony on cape Kidnapers in NZ, the tide gave us access just before sunset making the light just right, only half an hour of shooting before I had to leave but filled a 1gig card with raw images in 20 mins. D70s, 300mm. Was on a tripod for this one. Feisl carbon fiber CT-3301 with a Kirk BH-3 ball head.

Nikon D70,  tamron 90mm f2.8 DI macro with a reversed nikkor 45mm P on the front. The spiders legspan was only about 12mm (1/2 inch). Lighting was a SB800 off camera attached by a SC-29 cord. This cute little spider was in the bathroom on the window sill. Sleet was coming down outside so thought i would see how much magnification i could crank up on the lens combo.

 

I know very little about photography, but these pic's are beautiful :)

Don't have time to look at now but I think you have some of the most professional photos for an amateur, if you are an amateur. The one thing I did look at was weather you used a digital camera or not. Makes me want to go shoot some pics.

I am an amateur and digital allows us to learn a lot easier. Occasionaly i get a bug in my head that i could do it professionaly but think that would ruin a perfectly good hobby, and also i do like my current job (research chemist).

Digital is great, you can shoot away without regard to cost, although you do need a good PC, yep my PC is for photography, not gaming . If you believe that, i have a bridge to sell you.

The digital darkroom allows a lot more flexibility as well. you can recover quite a lot on the computer, you can also shoot in a way that will give you a crap photo out of the camera but actually show the things you want to by working on the raw digital image later.

The key is to know what you can do, and then go out and do it lots. Also try something a bit different, make lots of mistakes and learn more. I have to say i have been slack about photography recently, need a bit of inspiration i guess.

I love photography as well as a hobby.  I am definitely a complete amateur but enjoy playing with my camera and trying to take some nice photos. 

I feel like I should comment on one picture (I'm sure for those who know me know which one )

The ant picture taken in Australia is a Bull Dog ant, one subspecies is about an inch long...and they are solitary foragers. There is a smaller Bull Dog species in Australia also, and it can actually jump (not sure exactly how far). Bull Dog ants are very very fast too and very aggressive, and a lot of people are deathly allergic to them. There is a treatment though, what doctors do is inject the same venom into you and after that people don't get any severe reactions from them. Even moving your shadow across their nest causes them to swarm out.

Wow, those are some very nice photos there.

Best of luck in your hobby!

I always wanted to challenge people in my guilds, or on forums like this, to come up with an interesting photo, in say....a week.  See who had the best. I am afraid I would be way outclassed with your eye for pics.

I took pictures for a couple weddings when I was a teen. While they came out good I realised I wasn't cut out for the stress of doing a good job and being aggressive at function like that.  My Father and Uncle are big photo buffs so that is where I picked it up. Father has everything from spy, TLR and SLR cameras. I brought him into the digital age and he won't stop bugging me to download his cards.

Recently I bought a slide duplicator lens to copy all my old slides I haven't looked at in years. My father has used it for a few weeks copying over 5000 pics that I have been putting on cds for him. It is great seeing all the old photos.

After seeing your photos I need to look into a more advanced camera.

Vemoi, do you have any lenses for an slr? why i ask is that it is pretty easy and cheap to pick up a 2nd hand dslr these days. Due to the rapid inmprovement in technology models are being turned over really quickly. this means that people arre replacing very good cameras with astoundingly good cameras and they are unable to get good moneyy for the older ones.

my main camera has been superceeded for a number of years now, but can still take quite a fine photo. It is 'only' 6MP, however you can crop that down to 2MP and get a very nice 4x6 print.