Getting MORE from your photos !

[LaughingBeagles]

Coming late to this thread.

I studied photojournalism at Uni. Why? Because my wife bought me a Cannon 550D and I had no idea how to use it. On top of that, my late father left me all his camera gear (also Cannon) and again, I had no idea what it was. To me an F Stop was something from a TV series.... no... wait... that was F Troop, and DOF was something you did with your hat.

The first thing I learnt was to never again use my "auto" setting. You want to be able to control your camera and your shots and not have them controlled for you by some guy in a Chinese factory. The second thing I learnt was to make sure my camera was set up to take "RAW" shots and not JPG. This is for a few reasons:

1. Camera RAW allows you more freedom to correct and adjust your shot post production
2. Camera RAW allows you to imbed info in the final result such as copyright, your details etc.
3. Camera RAW embeds details of the gear you were using including what lens and how it was set up.

So class one, day one was switch to Camera RAW and switch to Manual - even before starting to learn what F stops, Depth of Field ISO settings or any of that other confusing jazz was.

If you are really keen on taking great shots that you control, then I recommend you do the same - switch to manual and change settings to shoot RAW not JPG - you might as well; if you have gone to all the trouble of spending your hard earned on a great camera, make it work for you.

Just a note - I took photojournalism, which is all about telling a story with a camera. Scene / portrait shooting is a very different kettle of fish, but I can confidently say I learnt much (including that taking photojournalism was perhaps not quite what I wanted to achieve!).

Anyway, I am still learning every time I take my camera out so am by no means a pro - or even a semi-pro. More like a sometimes confused ameture who takes the occasional good shot. If I can help in this thread in anyway, that would be great.

Pete

[LaughingBeagles]

Just bouncing this thread with a question.

I'm slightly confused on the variety of uses of a dedicated f2.8 lens. The one in particular that I am looking at is the beaut little Olympus 12-40mm PRO lens (http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=1641) for use with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II MICRO 4/3rds camera. I know a the basics of using an SLR, and for years used a Nikon F90X before the world went digital, but I've never used a constant aperture lens before.

I want to use the lens for most situations really, but particularly for landscapes and people shots. I know it is a nice sharp lens and should give decent results with bokeh and low light situations but can these lenses be used when I want a large depth of field too?

Any thoughts?

When you say large DOF, I take it you mean long DOF? (ie everything in focus and no blurred background?). F2.8 tends to give you a shallow DOF so it might not suite what you are looking for. Also, it's a good lowlight F stop so it it's great for indoor use / low light outside but I wouldn't use it for big bright shots (for example a drive along a beach in the middle of summer) - well, not without adjusting the shutter speed and ISO to compensate (faster shutter and lower ISO).

I guess it comes down to what you want to use it for.

Believe it or not, one of my favorite lenses is a little EF 50mm F/1.8 Canon lens I picked up for about $100 or so. Does everything you outlined above and has never let me down.

[fracster]

:

1. Camera RAW allows you more freedom to correct and adjust your shot post production
2. Camera RAW allows you to imbed info in the final result such as copyright, your details etc.
3. Camera RAW embeds details of the gear you were using including what lens and how it was set up.



Pete

1.Getting it right initially sorts that problem.
2.So does jpeg
3.So does jpeg.

Your course tutor should have said that both jpeg and RAW have their uses. Yes,RAW does hold more data and does enable you to alter your final shot more,especially in shadow areas. Do I use RAW? Yes, when doing weddings and landscape. I use jpeg for pretty much everything else. Why? Because I loathe post processing shots, pissing about in photoshop and the like.

Ask sports photographers who wire shots to newspapers on the fly what they shoot, it won`t be RAW.

Ask any wedding photographer what they use, it will be RAW.

Both have their uses, saying that you must only shoot RAW is wrong and daft to be honest.

[fracster]

Just bouncing this thread with a question.

I'm slightly confused on the variety of uses of a dedicated f2.8 lens. The one in particular that I am looking at is the beaut little Olympus 12-40mm PRO lens (http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=1641) for use with the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II MICRO 4/3rds camera. I know a the basics of using an SLR, and for years used a Nikon F90X before the world went digital, but I've never used a constant aperture lens before.

I want to use the lens for most situations really, but particularly for landscapes and people shots. I know it is a nice sharp lens and should give decent results with bokeh and low light situations but can these lenses be used when I want a large depth of field too?

Any thoughts?

The lens is a constant F2.8 at the largest aperture, you can simply adjust the aperture down to F8 or 9 for your landscape shots. It is not fixed at F2.8 mate.

Sorry for the late reply to your pm, been busy at work type boring stuff.

[LaughingBeagles]

1.Getting it right initially sorts that problem.
2.So does jpeg
3.So does jpeg.

Your course tutor should have said that both jpeg and RAW have their uses. Yes,RAW does hold more data and does enable you to alter your final shot more,especially in shadow areas. Do I use RAW? Yes, when doing weddings and landscape. I use jpeg for pretty much everything else. Why? Because I loathe post processing shots, pissing about in photoshop and the like.

Ask sports photographers who wire shots to newspapers on the fly what they shoot, it won`t be RAW.

Ask any wedding photographer what they use, it will be RAW.

Both have their uses, saying that you must only shoot RAW is wrong and daft to be honest.

Thanks for your "robust" response. Makes me just want to get involved all the more.... (not). Anyway, I think I'll leave this thread alone - you've got it all covered.

[FNQGU]

Thanks guys - your advice on all things photographic is appreciated by all. Please keep it coming.

I worked out the lens today, and it is a little ripper. Can't wait to play around with it some more.

[04OFF]

@ FNQGU, that looks like a great lens to me for landscape, as for you unanswered question, I honestly think you will find a better answer reading the comments posted in the link you provided, as these are people that own and use the lens, in reality, its impossible to judge any lens purely on its specs, so unless someone has actually used it in practice, I doubt they will really have much to offer in the way of accurate advice on what the lens is (or isn't) "really" capable of.



@ LaughingBeagles, I have to agree with Fractster on the Raw v jpeg thing, when I first started out, I shot 100% raw, mostly because I thought ,if I do manage to accidentally take best shot in the world, I want it to be the best quality my camera can produce.

Whilst I 99% of the time do shoot on Manual mode, I now "only" ever shoot jpeg , although Ive never shot a Wedding, I can see clearly why raw would be worth while for such a important paid job, but in the reality of my every day shootings, pretty much agree with everything Fractser said above about raw v jpeg, and I personally feel, I want to hone my skills creating great shots with the "Camera", NOT my PC.


I should add, this is my unprofessional "opinion" only, and as with any form of "art", you do what you feel happy and comfortable with, and do what you need to do to create something you like, I don't think there are any hard and fast rules, just what suits your style, that's what makes Photography great, the same camera can do different things for different people.

LaughingBeagles, please do NOT leave this thread alone, yours and everyone else's opinion is greatly appreciated here, it great you take/took the time to reply, and I thank you for that, people will all always have a difference in opinion, and other people can learn much from "different" views, please do not take Fractsers passionate response (or anyone elses, including mine) as anyway aggressive, im sure Fractser would be dis-heartened to find you may feel that way about his post, I can assure you (without conversing with Fracster) it would not be his intention to put anyone down in any way, sometimes the intermernet thing can be misleading like this.

[LaughingBeagles]

Thanks 04OFF, appreciate your post very much. I absolutely have no issue with people disagreeing with what I post, I guess it's just how it is said that makes a difference - especially in a forum, where the non-verbals are missing.

The reason I shoot RAW is because as I get more experienced, I can revisit some of my early compositions with a fresh set of eyes. There have been plenty of shots I thought were great at the time only to look at them a few years later and think "if only".

I have to stress that there were two main reasons we shot RAW in my course - 1. So the lecture can check to see what you have done post production (you could not tweak them to begin with so had to learn to take not only a good shot but one that told a story) and 2. So you learnt more about the metadata that composed a shot. As the course progressed, you were able to do minor tweaks but again, you had to submit the RAW data so you could be assessed on your original composition (hard to do with JPG).

As it was photojournalism, we had to be able to learn things like - without a tripod; take panoramic shots and stitch together manually, shoot in low light, and so on. Our lecture Julie Millowick (worth a google - a well regarded photographer) was great. I did not finish the course as we moved back to WA so had to defer. It did provide me with enough to realise that I had much to learn, that my camera was ok but not great in low light (very noisy) and so on.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

[04OFF]

Yes look, we all have different styles, and all shoot different, I really look forward to learning some stuff from your input, so I hope you continue to post here, I am sure Fracster will be along soon to clear the air, but as I said, I very much doubt there was anything sinister meant buy his post, he is a talented Photographer who knows his stuff, but ive never read "anything" where he has deliberately degraded anyone, but as us poms can be , we certainly know how to voice a opinion (lol) unfortunately, sometimes the internet can make people appear to come across in a bad way.

I have a good friend who also shoots 100% raw , he is a computer geek , so im not surprised he likes to play with pics in the PC, he is not a bad Photographer, but still learning (I thing we all never really stop learning anyway) but some of the crap pics he "revives" with the computer are simply amazing, but he still has heaps to learn about basic composition, especially with regard to cropping, although I can say, if I ever did do a wedding, I want to share a shoot with him, because he has the PC skills to make every shot better, and our styles and skills being different, I think would make for some interesting stuff.

Either that or we would drastically fail, and never work again (lol)


So I guess what I am attempting to say is, that a persons choice to shoot raw, may also be influenced by the skills and willingness to modify images in the PC, personally I don't like to use much PC, but to be honest, that's more likely because I don't have any PC skills, and are too stubborn (lazy) to learn, I enjoy creating real time effects in the camera, and I guess I feel once you start explaining to people you used a PC, people start to think maybe you just created the whole thing in photoshop, not that that's wrong, but at some point you must cross a line between what is classed as Photography, and Computer Generated Images ?


Anyway, hope you can stick around in here

[LaughingBeagles]

My background is digital forensics (Uber Geek) so I can relate. Funny how there is a strong sense that RAW = lots of fiddling, which is not the case for me. I was taught composition, the right f stop, apeture, ISO, the rule of thirds, post ion the "story" of the shot and so on. I also strongly believe there is an art to it as well, the gut feel in seeing through the lens.

All these things I do as a beginner but it's fun.