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Please criticise me (Photography)

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pwhodges:
We accumulate regrets; one of mine is not hanging on to my screw-thread Leicas.  I had a IIIc (with a rare red shutter blind) and a IIIf Red Dial + 50mm Summar, 50mm Summitar, 35mm and 90mm Elmars, and various finders and accessories, including a sliding copying stage and several reloadable cassettes (they opened up in the camera so that the film didn't get rubbed during winding).

Akima:

--- Quote from: pwhodges on 18 Oct 2011, 11:02 ---We accumulate regrets; one of mine is not hanging on to my screw-thread Leicas.
--- End quote ---
I covet the Leica M9, but the price of what I would regard as the minimum outfit (a body + 35mm and 90mm Summarit-M lenses) is a bit beyond me. My photo-regret is selling my Nikon F3 to help fund an F90x (N90S in the USA). I was lured by the modern bells and whistles, especially auto-focus, but it was really, really stupid. I suppose I could track an F3 down on the second-hand market, but it would be an exercise in pointless nostalgia now that I've gone digital, and I'm not old enough for that yet. ;)


--- Quote from: Elysiana on 07 Oct 2011, 11:56 ---I tell them every time: buy a used top-of-the-line camera and spend the rest on a few excellent lenses.
--- End quote ---
This. Absolutely this.

wrwight:
So I got tired of sitting around not taking photos because I didn't want to pay for film twice, and finally joined the digital age. I posted this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wrwight/6286963375/) just playing with my camera, but any thoughts on it would be appreciated, you know, if you're bored or something.

I found a good deal on a new Canon T3 and decided it was as good a starter camera as any. I wouldn't mind the extra pixels on the T3i, but I have to constantly remind myself that you can take bad pictures on an amazing camera, and you've still got bad pictures. The focus (no pun intended) needs to be on improving the picture, not the equipment used to take it. Plus I read somewhere that with the 1.6x CMOS sensors, you're not going to get much of a difference in sharpness from 12-18, so yeah. I went with the T3. Hopefully it will treat me well. I need to get that lens that I was referred to earlier, but having just dropped some decent money on the camera, and also about to drop a lot of money on moving (finally), I should probably wait until Christmas or something.

Freakie:
*throws his two cents in about DSLRs*

After using the old 300D, then a T2i, and now a 60D, I can really say that if you know you like using a lot of specific features on a product, the higher end cameras are definitely worth it. Obviously going from the 300D to the T2i was a no brainer in quality difference, those CMOS sensors back in 2003 had horrendous noise. But after using the T2i for a year, I got the chance to get my own 60D (T2i is a shared camera). Naturally, went to a Calumet store to try it out (they'll bring out $2,500 lenses to put on your own camera to see how you like them, if you ask) and WOW, the difference was instantly noticeable. I fell in love with the 60D just demoing it in the store because of just how much more professionally oriented it was compared to the T2i. I used to be the kind of person who would instantly say go for the base model and not bother with anything over $1,000, just as was previously mentioned in this thread, but I really have to change that because now I have experienced the difference first hand.

So now, I would say to get that higher end body off the bat if you already have a few good lenses. If you are just starting, then good lenses first makes sense before a good body in my opinion still, but if you are ever upgrading an old body then GET that better model. The features between the T2i and the 300D were amazingly similar and I did find myself getting bored sometimes with the lack of expanding my hardware capabilities (which did allow me to focus on software for a while which was quite useful, I will admit). Now that I have the 60D I am definitely finding myself enjoying my hardware much more and I feel like it is showing through in my photography.

Now, onto your most recent pictures take with your new camera! Loving the styles that you are going for but there are a few things I gotta nit-pick about. First, ease up on that color correction in your post processing  :-P You're over-saturating the red and green in a few of those shots, not just in regards to balancing the colors but the colors are actually being rather distorted in some places (red scarf on the woman especially). Perhaps you don't notice it because of the computer screen you are using. If you can, I'd say try to get a color calibrator for your screen so that way your edits come through better :) Also, try using the custom color settings on the camera. You can adjust for the colors you want to pop the most right on the camera, and if the camera is anything like the T2i then when you are reviewing the pictures you can display a histogram of the color space so that you can go into the settings and adjust accordingly. Like when I do my star photography, I obviously ease up on the blue a little bit :P And that makes it so that I don't have to do much, if any, post processing on the pictures. Unless I want to print them.

Speaking of colors, there are a few tricks you can do now that you are fully in the digital age! As well as the screen calibrator, you could get a color checker so that you can use it to calibrate all of your different lens/filter/camera combinations. What you do is take pictures of the color checker (it's a physical object with many colors on it, like a paint swatch) in both sunlight and shade, and you then go to your computer and the colors can be adjusted based on what the software knows the color should be and it can apply the color adjustments from then on to all of your photos taken with that combination of lens/filter/camera. It really helps in getting your colors right.

Oh, one more thing... your focusing on your new pictures could be a bit better. That and your Depth of Field. I'm seeing some odd choices for your depth of field especially. Many pictures you don't seem to have chosen whether you wanted the background to be blurry or not, so you left it partially blurry and it just feels a tad bit off, it isn't quite allowing the subject of the picture to really BE the subject as much as it could be.

And of course... layers layers layers! When doing edits to your photos on the computer, if you are using a program that has layers, USE them. That way you can do sharpness, contrast, color, ect. edits on only the parts of the picture that you want and that way the rest of the picture wont suffer.


WOW... I typed a lot... you're allowed to not read all of that :| I'm an amateur, not a pro, so my word is but hearsay when compared to the serious folk  :-P

wrwight:
Thanks, I really appreciate that. You've definitely given me a lot to consider. I do have a problem with calibrating my monitor. I'll look into getting that fixed for sure. I think I can work on the rest as well, specifically my aperture choices. I'll play around with that on the next few shoots I do and see if I can get things a little more defined one way or the other.

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