Seeking Advice - SLR Camera's - (I have purchased one...)

[NickPicks]

ive had my d40x for just over a year and think its marvellous. its my first digi but i would NEVER go back to 35mm.

Me neither. I think the film processing costs would cripple me! With a 4Gb Card, I can take 1200 photos without changing it. That's equivalent to 33 rolls of film - it would cost nearly £200 to get that lot developed!

I've also found because of that that my photo taking methods have changed, and I seem to take at least 3 photos of everything now!

[zollaf]

and when you get those 33 rolls developed you end up with a few good photos and the rest are no good, but you dont throw them away cos theve cost you so much. i can now take maybe 30 photos of something and print out just the one right one, especially when taking action shots. and theres no time delay between pressing the shutter and taking the picture with a good slr. its just like a 35mm but heaps better. and the cost is soon absorbed by the lack of developing costs. you do need a good printer though. i bought one designed for printing photos, as a general do anything one just doesnt hit the right colours.

[Crasher]

ive had my d40x for just over a year and think its marvellous. its my first digi but i would NEVER go back to 35mm.

Go on, rub it in!

[Naseem]

So Rick, have you uploaded any photos yet? Flickr is a good place to put your photos for all to see.

If you want any handy hints or advice best thing is to join a photography forum like www.photoanswers.co.uk

It's got a few tutorials on there and some decent tips and hints. I want to shoot some motosport but just haven't had the time/opportunity yet.

Here's a handful of my photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/naseem_akram/sets/

There's not that many on there, but I've arranged them into 'sets'.

You've probably already figured this out, so I risk sounding a little patronising....

One tip, use the RAW format when taking photos, it's much easier to process them after on your computer and especially if you're shooting motorsports (i.e. can't go back and get the same shot) you can correct them a lot easier. Basically a RAW file saves the photo as you took it but stores all the details of the images as 'raw' data for you modify yourself after. So for example:

You're out taking at a rally and get a once in a lifetime shot. You get home and realise the photo is underexposed because you needed a fast shutter speed or whatever. With the RAW format you can adjust the exposure settings after you've taken the photo, there's loads of other things you can adjust depending on what RAW converter you use. Photoshop has a great one, Lightroom is also great.

The only downside is that because you're saving all the 'raw' data the file size for a 10MP camera can be from around 8mb upto 15mb. This varies because of the amount of data recorded. If you have scene full of colours, highlights, shadows it's going to store more data and vice versa.

For motor sports put the camera in Shutter Priority and play around until you find the effect you want, do a couple of test shots and remember to pan with the subject, i.e. follow it well before you intend on pressing the shutter button and after you've pressed it. This will give a sharp focus on the object and blurred background.

[Terri00]

Hi,
I use the Canon 5d and the canon 400d, i rate them both highly (canon easier to hold in smaller female hands)

Lightroom is best to process photos in as each time you open a jpeg file in photoshop it degrades a bit. Lightroom was made just for processing photos.

Terri
xxx

[Naseem]

Hi,
I use the Canon 5d and the canon 400d, i rate them both highly (canon easier to hold in smaller female hands)

Lightroom is best to process photos in as each time you open a jpeg file in photoshop it degrades a bit. Lightroom was made just for processing photos.

Terri
xxx

Hi Terri, it's always best to keep RAW files. I only ever use jpeg if I upload to web and it'll be the last thing I do, i.e. do all processing and "save as" jepg always keeping the TIFF/PSD/RAW file. All other occasions I tend to keep files as RAW for storage processing or TIFF for print.

Lightroom 2 is ok for longterm storage, but I find the Photoshop RAW converter much more comprehensive. The Lightroom interface is a little too simplified. I tend to use Adobe Bridge a lot when browsing the files from the CF card.

BTW, like your wedding photo samples, some nice shots there.

[Terri00]

Hi,
Thanks

I always shoot everything in raw, i keep raw on 2 seperate hard drives as well as a disc!. If i work on them i use lightroom for the basics such as exposure correction (when its needed) but I use cs3 for everything else. I have not tried bridge, but use the canon software for conversion, it works better with vista.

Terri
xxx

[Naseem]

Hi.

To be honest I haven't even tried the Canon software. I had a 350D last year but upgraded to a 40D seeing a the prices went down a little. I like the fast frame rate 6.5fps which is great for movings objects.

Do you have an online gallery like Flickr?

[Terri00]

Hi.

To be honest I haven't even tried the Canon software. I had a 350D last year but upgraded to a 40D seeing a the prices went down a little. I like the fast frame rate 6.5fps which is great for movings objects.

Do you have an online gallery like Flickr?

No i dont have an online galley anymore, i used to but got bored of it!!

I may look into putting one up again