Picture of the Day

[alpha0ne]

enlighten me i'm a noob...

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[BenchZowner]

What's possibly a better shot of the same oil refinery:



http://500px.com/photo/61762747

[alpha0ne]

^ whilst I appreciate the oil/imagery I prefer the first shot

[.::NeO::.]

Lazy Sundays di Marco88it, su Flickr

[hokiealumnus]

A new tool to use with the 70D arrived today! It's used and has obviously been well loved, but it works and that's what counts.



The nifty fifty is my first fast prime lens. Already, I love, love, love the bokehlicious backgrounds. Can't wait to have time to play with it more!



The depth of field flexibility is crazy. Here's a (very) quick test:

f/6.3



f/1.8



What fun lies ahead!

[alpha0ne]

Nice !!

I bought the Nikon 35mm f/1.8G as my 1st prime, very sharp but I've been using my 18-140mm zoom mostly due to it being so versatile

[hokiealumnus]

Yea, my preferred solution would be something like a midrange zoom with f/2.8 constant throughout, but that's not in the budget; and a used lens with this kind of aperture that starts life at $125 is. Thanks to a helpful forum member at OCF (neonblingbling), this is also a try-before-you-buy scenario, so if it's not useful for me, I don't have to keep it...it will have been a rental for the price of two-way shipping.

[[XC] Oj101]

Keep it. Everyone NEEDS a nifty fifty. It's my most used lens on all my cameras, film or digital

[hokiealumnus]

We'll see how it treats me. I'm having fun so far though and haven't really even DONE anything.

For this evening's contribution, such that it is, I thought I'd post this here too. Most of the guys that post in here already know it, but for those that don't -or those that wander in here- maybe it can be useful in some small way. I was doing some testing today (unrelated center-point supposed 'issue' on the 70D with lenses faster than f/2.8 -see here- that doesn't really exist) and decided to actually make an example collage of what aperture really does to depth of field. f/1.8 is paper thin, especially at 50 mm (and above); in the example below it doesn't even get the full center crayon in focus. Most 'kit' lenses get to ~f/5.0-f/5.6 at 50 mm, so that was my next stop (heh, stop...get it?). Then I went to f/8 and f/11.

Remember though, everything is a trade-off when it comes to aperture, shutter speed & ISO. Larger apertures have thinner DoF, but let in a LOT more light. To show this as well, I set ISO manually and let the camera choose shutter speed. You can see just how much of a difference the apertures make without letting the camera raise the ISO.


Here is a full size version (warning, it's ~3MB).

[Buckeye]

WOW that's pretty interesting, thanks for posting this.

I got my wife, for me also , a Cannon EOS Rebel T3 for Christmas and I am still a long ways from learning how to use it right. I use it mostly for my reviews.

I have a lot of problems with it on auto and getting the whole field in focus, but I think I can see by your example what I need to do.

[alpha0ne]

Your full size linkage crashed my fox ???

Always a worthwhile contribution from you hokie, I've been doing something similar using different f/ for the same shot but no where near as enlightening/easy to comprehend as your crayons, thanks

I cant decide which one is the keeper ??, not really 'into' B&W as a rule but it sure does/can add 'something'

I wonder what the seagulls are lining up for

[BenchZowner]

Your full size linkage crashed my fox ???

Always a worthwhile contribution from you hokie, I've been doing something similar using different f/ for the same shot but no where near as enlightening/easy to comprehend as your crayons, thanks

I cant decide which one is the keeper ??, not really 'into' B&W as a rule but it sure does/can add 'something'

I wonder what the seagulls are lining up for

Oh man, you missed such an opportunity there!
You should've prone down on the ground and shoot from their eye level.
It would make a huge difference, you'd be amazed to see how much of a difference changing your perspective there would do.

[hokiealumnus]

WOW that's pretty interesting, thanks for posting this.

I got my wife, for me also , a Cannon EOS Rebel T3 for Christmas and I am still a long ways from learning how to use it right. I use it mostly for my reviews.

I have a lot of problems with it on auto and getting the whole field in focus, but I think I can see by your example what I need to do.

The T3 is a nice camera, I used to have one.

A couple quick tips to make your photos pop -
-The T3 tends to over-expose, especially in lower light. Mine stayed set at -1/3 to -2/3 eV all the time. In low light, that sometimes moved to -1 eV and even -1.3 eV, depending on the situation.
-If you're using out of camera JPEGs (instead of processing RAWs yourself), use your user defined picture profiles. Set Sharpening to +6 in all of them**, then set them each to different levels of saturation. One 0, one 1 and one 2. The vast majority I used the Sharpening +6 and Saturation +1 profile. It will help your photos pop more than they probably do now.

**One caveat - you don't want to set that kind of sharpening if you're taking portraits that will be looked at by women with a fine-toothed comb. If you'll be doing a lot of people work, I'd ditch the +6/+2 profile and probably go with +2/0. For snapshots of people at family gatherings and the like, +6/0 is fine.

Lastly, if you do use aperture to adjust your depth of field, make sure you're on a tripod and set your ISO manually. It will very quickly raise to the highest automatic ISO when shrinking aperture, which can get noisy on the T3. Set ISO 100 or 200, put it on a tripod and let it choose the shutter speed. That way you won't have a noisy image, but still have the depth of field you want.

Your full size linkage crashed my fox ???

Always a worthwhile contribution from you hokie, I've been doing something similar using different f/ for the same shot but no where near as enlightening/easy to comprehend as your crayons, thanks

I cant decide which one is the keeper ??, not really 'into' B&W as a rule but it sure does/can add 'something'

I wonder what the seagulls are lining up for

Thanks! If you still want to see it, try right-clicking & Save As if it's crashing trying to load the huge image in your browser. It's something like 8000px wide, to give you an idea.

As to your photo, I like the composition very much but BZ has a great point about getting down to their level, it would have had even more of an impact. Not sure whether I like color or B&W better though. It doesn't help you at all to choose one, but I think I like them both the same.

[alpha0ne]

Oh man, you missed such an opportunity there!
You should've prone down on the ground and shoot from their eye level.

Agreed, I'll try to keep that in mind re perspective from now on

Thanks! If you still want to see it, try right-clicking & Save As if it's crashing trying to load the huge image in your browser. It's something like 8000px wide, to give you an idea.

Thanks, I got it on the 2nd try

[BenchZowner]

Sad because he missed the train...



http://500px.com/photo/62368551

[alpha0ne]

Sailing

[alpha0ne]

BO ???

[Soulburner]

Keep it. Everyone NEEDS a nifty fifty. It's my most used lens on all my cameras, film or digital

As an APS-C user, I've been changing my mind on this standard bit of wisdom.

I have a 16mm f/2, 17-50 f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.8 along with my 70-300. I'm actually planning on selling the 50 when Tamron updates their 60mm Macro with a better focus motor. 50 is too short for portraits on APS-C, and too long for a general walkaround. The 60 will become my macro/portrait lens, and the 17-50 will be the general purpose walkaround.

[labs23]

One of the first few shots I've taken after I got my 70D last Dec. Lovin this camera so far, a steep step up from the 1000D.



Hightide and Sunset by Le ARchie, on Flickr

[hokiealumnus]

This one's for Buckeye.

Here's a DoF test that makes things a little clearer (heh). The shamrock light is about 1.5' behind the bear and I'm about 2ft from the bear with the nifty fifty.



This is what happens when you don't have a chance to get out of the house and take photos...you get bored and start taking photos of random stuff. Happy St. Patrick's day!

[alpha0ne]

I didn't even notice the dolphins till I got home


spot the fins @ Flickr

[BenchZowner]

kind of reminds me of this alpha

[[XC] Oj101]

As an APS-C user, I've been changing my mind on this standard bit of wisdom.

I have a 16mm f/2, 17-50 f/2.8 and a 50mm f/1.8 along with my 70-300. I'm actually planning on selling the 50 when Tamron updates their 60mm Macro with a better focus motor. 50 is too short for portraits on APS-C, and too long for a general walkaround. The 60 will become my macro/portrait lens, and the 17-50 will be the general purpose walkaround.

Really? I used to use a Rokkor 85mm f/1.7 for portrait shots, which is very close to 50mm on APS-C (with the 1.6x crop factor, it's an 80mm equivalent).

[Buckeye]

This one's for Buckeye.

Here's a DoF test that makes things a little clearer (heh). The shamrock light is about 1.5' behind the bear and I'm about 2ft from the bear with the nifty fifty.

This is what happens when you don't have a chance to get out of the house and take photos...you get bored and start taking photos of random stuff. Happy St. Patrick's day!

HAHA I know this feeling all to well !!

Thanks man

[alpha0ne]

Hahaha I wonder if he was bitten BZ

Didn't go out today, getting sick of the heat........nearly 3 months without a drop of rain and in the mid 30'sC here everyday so I did a reflection of me



Reflection @ Flickr