mswnow
January 1st, 2007, 11:14 PM
Help! I believe that kimh and I are on the same page about not being impressed with the photos recent taken by our new DSLRs. I am going to try to explain my situation, so bear with me even if it sounds like I am rambling a little; I'm very frustrated at the moment.
I have been using a Kodak Z740 for exactly a year now, and it was my first (useful) digital camera (or camera at all for that matter). It takes great photos and if this keeps up I will go back to using it solely. I have been considering a DSLR since last summer, and finally decided that it was time to spend a little "grandparents money" to supplement the limited Christmas budget and invest in a D80.
I got a good deal on a D80 and two lenses for $1199 at Ritz camera, and considering it was the last one within 30 miles and it happened to be at the wolf camera very close to my, it seemed like the perfect camera. (This was determined after countless hours reading reviews and comparisons b/t the D80 and the XTi). I had to wait 4 days before I could open it so by the time I opened it on Christmas day I could barely wait.
Everything I have read have said that the D80 is the best DSLR in the $1000 range for both the advanced amateur and the newbie looking to get into the DSLR world. I am very impressed with all aspects of the camera, everything I have taken before this weekend has turned out wonderful. It brings new meaning to the world of living room photos taken by new camera owners.
This weekend was my first chance to test it out in my equivalent of "fieldwork". We went to my grandparent’s 197 acre mountain property to spend new years with my grandparents. (My grandmothers birthday is on new year’s eve and she has just gotten out of being in a rehab center for 3 months with a broken leg, which was then re-broken when her foolish orthopedic surgeon prescribed a brace came up to within an inch of the break, but don’t get me started on that...)
I have a 512 mb card, and was limited to 87-112 shots before having to upload to my laptop. I took about 400 shots in the 3 days we were there. I have a tendency to take multiple shots at a time, usually no more than 3, with varying exposures and angles, etc. Of the 400 shots I took, about 200 were blurry (not extremely, but enough to make the photos hard to look at) and none of the photos had the sharpness and clarity as I have come to expect from my z740. Of the 200 not wrecked because of focus, at least 50 were too dark (indoors with a flash), and at least 100 were either overexposed or underexposed (when I say underexposed, I mean it.) Some of the shots taken during a mild drizzle reminded me from the scene in Jurassic park where the computer geek is escaping in the rain storm, (they were of my grandfather at the wheel of the old International Scout, being towed by the tractor). This kind of shot is important to me because it is the kind of shot that captures the essence of my family (which comes from a long line of Wisconsin farmers, now relocated to North Carolina who have made great engineers (for obvious reasons, need I say more?). Here are a few examples; the first is a picture of my grandfather in the scout at about 3 in the afternoon.
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1gK21hoV5n4GM505p4xbOUqX3ac4391_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1gK21hoV5n4GM505p4xbOUqX3ac4391)
While I am enchanted by this photo in hindsight, and It does a great deal more than I could hope for of expressing who my grandfather is (they said DSLRs were a lot smarter than P&S, but are they really that smart?), it is nowhere near the image I intended to capture and I am very dissatisfied with the cameras automatic settings for that Image. The second image is to prove that it did this multiple times and was not just a fluke exposure, and the third is an image taken about 15 minutes earlier and a good deal down the road, note that the lighting did not change significantly, and it stopped raining before the first photos were taken, (reverse chronological order).
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1ipRFbyCu1d6WyKlJB2nTEIEV5Dyad0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ipRFbyCu1d6WyKlJB2nTEIEV5Dyad0)
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1HnCsfcT72SMU0kdznVL4voejBCa0G0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1HnCsfcT72SMU0kdznVL4voejBCa0G0)
I don’t think I have explained the situation of those photos quite enough. It was a wet overcast day, and, in my opinion, a great day for picture taking. The scout had been on the top of the list for things to get done for awhile, as it was stuck in the old tobacco barn. The back park brakes had both seized up, and so we planned to use the hydraulics on the back of the tractor to lift the back wheels off the ground, and pull it up the mountain to the house to work on it under a dry roof with such conveniences as electricity and fire extinguishers. What a photo op!
The situation could not have been better for capturing those images that you see on greeting cards and calendars with a simple caption of three symbols: “?!?” The situation was made even more idyllic when one of the wheels broke loose, causing the scout to naturally turn to the right as we attempted to pull it out of the barn, around the sharp steep turn down to the road, and then maneuver the tractor around it to pull it up the hill. I would have expected better results from my new DSLR! (though I know all of this can be corrected rather easily, I just don’t know how yet, I would expect better from full auto mode none the less)
While I know that the real advantage of DSLRs is being able to control manual settings, that is exactly my disappointment with my D80. With my Kodak, I got to understand what iso, aperture, shutter speed, etc did just by playing with manual settings during lax moments, and was able to produce good photos with manual mode, without any kind of photographic understanding of what these meant. All of these settings could be adjusted in full auto mode. This was so handy, because if auto mode messed up, you could fix it and get good results, with my d80, you have to switch to manual, and it defaults to the settings used the last time you shot manual, not from the settings just applied in auto. I often used this on my Kodak to get an approximate range of settings and then tweak them manually. With my D80, I have to start from scratch as far as settings go. I don’t think that Nikon understands how even advanced camera users can benefit from automatic modes.
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/13MzCRhd4Vo4kfPU532zwO5Ym3lMo81_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=13MzCRhd4Vo4kfPU532zwO5Ym3lMo81)
I took three of these from different angles and none of them came out correctly exposed, but was in too much of a rush to be able to completely set the settings in manual mode.
Of the other photos I took this morning in the normal sunlight, along with that pic of the ATV, some came out very contrasty, some came out too bright, none came out great, even though it was a very beautiful clear morning with not too much sun but very clear air that usually produces crisp photos.
Overall, none of the photos I took this weekend came out great. I got a few good shots of my dogs, but even the photos I took using a tripod (in full manual so that it theoretically would produce the same exposures) planning to make one of those collages where you line up a lot of photos taken randomly of a landscape from the same spot. All of these photos came out with different exposures. Some the sky was highlighted, some the sky was dark but the land was right, even though I didn’t care which it was as long as it was the same and progressed gradually as I went across the sky. No such luck.
Part of the problem is that I cannot learn to take good manual photos without being able to take good auto photos as I go along. I have to be able to take good photos in the mean time to make it worth the effort of lugging my camera around with me. Can someone help me, I have no clue what I’m doing wrong and really need some help!
I have been using a Kodak Z740 for exactly a year now, and it was my first (useful) digital camera (or camera at all for that matter). It takes great photos and if this keeps up I will go back to using it solely. I have been considering a DSLR since last summer, and finally decided that it was time to spend a little "grandparents money" to supplement the limited Christmas budget and invest in a D80.
I got a good deal on a D80 and two lenses for $1199 at Ritz camera, and considering it was the last one within 30 miles and it happened to be at the wolf camera very close to my, it seemed like the perfect camera. (This was determined after countless hours reading reviews and comparisons b/t the D80 and the XTi). I had to wait 4 days before I could open it so by the time I opened it on Christmas day I could barely wait.
Everything I have read have said that the D80 is the best DSLR in the $1000 range for both the advanced amateur and the newbie looking to get into the DSLR world. I am very impressed with all aspects of the camera, everything I have taken before this weekend has turned out wonderful. It brings new meaning to the world of living room photos taken by new camera owners.
This weekend was my first chance to test it out in my equivalent of "fieldwork". We went to my grandparent’s 197 acre mountain property to spend new years with my grandparents. (My grandmothers birthday is on new year’s eve and she has just gotten out of being in a rehab center for 3 months with a broken leg, which was then re-broken when her foolish orthopedic surgeon prescribed a brace came up to within an inch of the break, but don’t get me started on that...)
I have a 512 mb card, and was limited to 87-112 shots before having to upload to my laptop. I took about 400 shots in the 3 days we were there. I have a tendency to take multiple shots at a time, usually no more than 3, with varying exposures and angles, etc. Of the 400 shots I took, about 200 were blurry (not extremely, but enough to make the photos hard to look at) and none of the photos had the sharpness and clarity as I have come to expect from my z740. Of the 200 not wrecked because of focus, at least 50 were too dark (indoors with a flash), and at least 100 were either overexposed or underexposed (when I say underexposed, I mean it.) Some of the shots taken during a mild drizzle reminded me from the scene in Jurassic park where the computer geek is escaping in the rain storm, (they were of my grandfather at the wheel of the old International Scout, being towed by the tractor). This kind of shot is important to me because it is the kind of shot that captures the essence of my family (which comes from a long line of Wisconsin farmers, now relocated to North Carolina who have made great engineers (for obvious reasons, need I say more?). Here are a few examples; the first is a picture of my grandfather in the scout at about 3 in the afternoon.
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1gK21hoV5n4GM505p4xbOUqX3ac4391_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1gK21hoV5n4GM505p4xbOUqX3ac4391)
While I am enchanted by this photo in hindsight, and It does a great deal more than I could hope for of expressing who my grandfather is (they said DSLRs were a lot smarter than P&S, but are they really that smart?), it is nowhere near the image I intended to capture and I am very dissatisfied with the cameras automatic settings for that Image. The second image is to prove that it did this multiple times and was not just a fluke exposure, and the third is an image taken about 15 minutes earlier and a good deal down the road, note that the lighting did not change significantly, and it stopped raining before the first photos were taken, (reverse chronological order).
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1ipRFbyCu1d6WyKlJB2nTEIEV5Dyad0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ipRFbyCu1d6WyKlJB2nTEIEV5Dyad0)
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1HnCsfcT72SMU0kdznVL4voejBCa0G0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1HnCsfcT72SMU0kdznVL4voejBCa0G0)
I don’t think I have explained the situation of those photos quite enough. It was a wet overcast day, and, in my opinion, a great day for picture taking. The scout had been on the top of the list for things to get done for awhile, as it was stuck in the old tobacco barn. The back park brakes had both seized up, and so we planned to use the hydraulics on the back of the tractor to lift the back wheels off the ground, and pull it up the mountain to the house to work on it under a dry roof with such conveniences as electricity and fire extinguishers. What a photo op!
The situation could not have been better for capturing those images that you see on greeting cards and calendars with a simple caption of three symbols: “?!?” The situation was made even more idyllic when one of the wheels broke loose, causing the scout to naturally turn to the right as we attempted to pull it out of the barn, around the sharp steep turn down to the road, and then maneuver the tractor around it to pull it up the hill. I would have expected better results from my new DSLR! (though I know all of this can be corrected rather easily, I just don’t know how yet, I would expect better from full auto mode none the less)
While I know that the real advantage of DSLRs is being able to control manual settings, that is exactly my disappointment with my D80. With my Kodak, I got to understand what iso, aperture, shutter speed, etc did just by playing with manual settings during lax moments, and was able to produce good photos with manual mode, without any kind of photographic understanding of what these meant. All of these settings could be adjusted in full auto mode. This was so handy, because if auto mode messed up, you could fix it and get good results, with my d80, you have to switch to manual, and it defaults to the settings used the last time you shot manual, not from the settings just applied in auto. I often used this on my Kodak to get an approximate range of settings and then tweak them manually. With my D80, I have to start from scratch as far as settings go. I don’t think that Nikon understands how even advanced camera users can benefit from automatic modes.
http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/13MzCRhd4Vo4kfPU532zwO5Ym3lMo81_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=13MzCRhd4Vo4kfPU532zwO5Ym3lMo81)
I took three of these from different angles and none of them came out correctly exposed, but was in too much of a rush to be able to completely set the settings in manual mode.
Of the other photos I took this morning in the normal sunlight, along with that pic of the ATV, some came out very contrasty, some came out too bright, none came out great, even though it was a very beautiful clear morning with not too much sun but very clear air that usually produces crisp photos.
Overall, none of the photos I took this weekend came out great. I got a few good shots of my dogs, but even the photos I took using a tripod (in full manual so that it theoretically would produce the same exposures) planning to make one of those collages where you line up a lot of photos taken randomly of a landscape from the same spot. All of these photos came out with different exposures. Some the sky was highlighted, some the sky was dark but the land was right, even though I didn’t care which it was as long as it was the same and progressed gradually as I went across the sky. No such luck.
Part of the problem is that I cannot learn to take good manual photos without being able to take good auto photos as I go along. I have to be able to take good photos in the mean time to make it worth the effort of lugging my camera around with me. Can someone help me, I have no clue what I’m doing wrong and really need some help!