# SLR Photography



## Kenbo (Jul 27, 2014)

Years ago.......and by years, I mean 30 years ago, I used to dabble in photography. I was an art major in school and loved to take photographs. I only played in black and white and I developed all my own film. Playing around with different aperture settings and shutter speeds was fun to me but I never got into it for very long because I couldn't stand the learning curve and the disappointment of developing a role of film, only to find that all the pictures were either over exposed, blurry, or just plain horrible. I recently purchased a new DSLR camera and have been enjoying playing around with the different settings to get the effects. The good news? I don't have to wait for the developing of film to see my failures, and I am able to learn much faster by comparing the settings of failed photos, to the settings of successful ones. I have only resorted to the "automatic" settings a few times, when I couldn't get the photos to work for some reason. I then compared the aperture and shutter speeds of the automatic photo with my failed photo to see where I went wrong. My goal? I want to be able to assess the lighting of a room and know the settings to dial in to the camera, in order to get the effect that I want, without even thinking about it. I want the point and shoot days to be gone for me........except in the shop, where the dust would not be good for the slr's sensor.
Either way, I thought that I would use this thread to post, what I think, would be some of my successes. I have only kept a few photos thus far and I have no intention to post them all but I will be posting some of my favourites from time to time. I invite your comments, advice, tips and of course, your SLR photos, complete with aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings if you know them.


I shot this one, of my daughter's chameleon this morning. She was more than happy to pose for the camera. I used a 50mm lens, with an aperture of 5.6 and a shutter speed of 1/30 and an ISO of 100

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## Kenbo (Jul 27, 2014)

This one was taken with a 50mm lens, ISO100, f4 aperture and 1/80 shutter speed. It was an earlier attempt, but not bad.

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## Mike1950 (Jul 27, 2014)

Looks like the reptile has a stick and is thinkin seriously about wackin ya with it. 

Nice pics Ken

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## Johnturner (Jul 27, 2014)

Ken
Nice Pix. - I am like you, used to my own developing of B&W years ago. I also have a dslr but I have not gotten it off auto yet. The learning curve seems steeper for the dslr than the old film stuff.
Here is a pix of a pen. I'm still working on my lighting. Do you know of any articles to help get me off auto???


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## Molokai (Jul 28, 2014)

Nice photos ! What camera you bought ?


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## cabomhn (Jul 28, 2014)

Kenbo said:


> Years ago.......and by years, I mean 30 years ago, I used to dabble in photography. I was an art major in school and loved to take photographs. I only played in black and white and I developed all my own film. Playing around with different aperture settings and shutter speeds was fun to me but I never got into it for very long because I couldn't stand the learning curve and the disappointment of developing a role of film, only to find that all the pictures were either over exposed, blurry, or just plain horrible. I recently purchased a new DSLR camera and have been enjoying playing around with the different settings to get the effects. The good news? I don't have to wait for the developing of film to see my failures, and I am able to learn much faster by comparing the settings of failed photos, to the settings of successful ones. I have only resorted to the "automatic" settings a few times, when I couldn't get the photos to work for some reason. I then compared the aperture and shutter speeds of the automatic photo with my failed photo to see where I went wrong. My goal? I want to be able to assess the lighting of a room and know the settings to dial in to the camera, in order to get the effect that I want, without even thinking about it. I want the point and shoot days to be gone for me........except in the shop, where the dust would not be good for the slr's sensor.
> Either way, I thought that I would use this thread to post, what I think, would be some of my successes. I have only kept a few photos thus far and I have no intention to post them all but I will be posting some of my favourites from time to time. I invite your comments, advice, tips and of course, your SLR photos, complete with aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings if you know them.
> 
> 
> ...



Nice shot! It's always nice to have a willing participant in the photoshoot. One suggestion or at least something to consider, is bumping up your ISO to somewhere in the 250-400 range in order to increase your shutter speed up. On newer DSLRs you don't start getting significant noise until the 1000+ range and it can really be a tool to get your image sharpness much higher, especially hand held. Other than that it's a good composition and nice background bokeh too!


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## Kenbo (Jul 28, 2014)

Johnturner said:


> Ken
> Nice Pix. - I am like you, used to my own developing of B&W years ago. I also have a dslr but I have not gotten it off auto yet. The learning curve seems steeper for the dslr than the old film stuff.
> Here is a pix of a pen. I'm still working on my lighting. Do you know of any articles to help get me off auto???View attachment 56447
> 
> ...


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## Nature Man (Jul 28, 2014)

I've discovered through taking thousands of digital photos that when it comes to nature shots of plants and animals that shutter speed is a critical component. Auto functions often just aren't fast enough to accommodate for movement. Thus I tend to prefer shutter speed priority over auto or aperture. Of course, lighting conditions often dictate otherwise. Chuck

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## JR Custom Calls (Jul 28, 2014)

I used to enjoy macrophotography. Sadly, I haven't got the camera out of the bag since I sold off my monolights.





















And I'd occasionally slap on a w/a lens.






Wish I could find these pics on my laptop.. I'd pull them up in photoshop and grab the settings. Luckily I put them on Facebook before they disappeared. I do know that these were taken with a T3i and/or a 5Dii, along with a canon 100m f/2.8 L macro, and the last was taken with a tamron 28-75 f/2.8.

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## Schroedc (Jul 28, 2014)

I was an early adopter for DSLR, Caught the market just right and sold off my Nikon FTN's and lenses when they were still in high demand on the collector market, went to a first gen Canon Digital Rebel and never looked back, Recently upgraded to the current Rebel, I also have a beat up Nikon D100 I use in the shop for photos of work, I figured that for the 50.00 I paid for it at an estate sale I could get it dusty. I have a place near me that will still process and print 120 and 220 roll film so the Mamiya RB67 comes out occasionally when I want to play with film (I have about 60 rolls in the freezer still)

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## Kenbo (Aug 4, 2014)

Still playing with this depth of field thing. I'm starting to think that Mrs Kenbo is getting tired of having a camera lens shoved in her face.......although you wouldn't know it by the smile.

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## Kenbo (Aug 4, 2014)

Here's another one that I took yesterday. Although I know it isn't perfect, I still think it's pretty neat.

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## cabomhn (Aug 8, 2014)

I don't know if you've looked into it at all but something you might enjoy with your camera is star trails photography! It's pretty easy to do for the most part and there is a lot of free software on the internet to process your pictures after you're done so you don't need photoshop. Night photography is something that is fun to dabble around with and you don't need a ton of fancy equipment to get some really cool images. This one isn't that great but here's one I messed with last night but unfortunately it was pretty bright and a little hazy but it's still pretty cool to see the results you get.

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## Sprung (Aug 8, 2014)

Great pictures, everyone! I used to be a little bit into photography, but never had anywhere near enough $ to get myself a DSLR like I wanted to. I had a friend that also wanted one and he thought it was a good idea to spend a few grand on credit for one and some lenses. Then bragged about his shiny new camera. Then complained about the high interest rate his credit card company was charging.

I managed to take some really awesome pictures, even without a DSLR. I have a Canon S5 IS that I purchased at the beginning of 2008 that I have taken a ton of pictures with and that still sees occasional use. I think the next big vacation we take I'm going to try and do some good picture taking with it. For what it is, the thing's got lots of manual setting choices and I always did my good picture taking with it on manual.

I hope it's ok to share these here, even though I didn't take them with a DSLR or SLR. 



 
Grand Teton National Park, August 2008


 

Rocky Mountain National Park, August 2008


 
A Bedouin with his camel (he was trying to sell camel rides) in the Judean Wilderness in Israel, January 2009


 
Petra in Jordan, January 2009

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## Kenbo (Aug 11, 2014)

cabomhn said:


> I don't know if you've looked into it at all but something you might enjoy with your camera is star trails photography! It's pretty easy to do for the most part and there is a lot of free software on the internet to process your pictures after you're done so you don't need photoshop. Night photography is something that is fun to dabble around with and you don't need a ton of fancy equipment to get some really cool images. This one isn't that great but here's one I messed with last night but unfortunately it was pretty bright and a little hazy but it's still pretty cool to see the results you get.
> 
> View attachment 57171




These are some great photos guys. How about an explanation of the star trails and some settings that you used for the picture.
I messed around with some night photography on the weekend. Mrs Kenbo and I spent 3 days at the cottage and there was a "super moon" in the sky for the 3 nights so it gave me an opportunity to play around with some ISO settings, and some slower shutter speeds.


 
And, we had to hit a few light trails while we were there, and I took the opportunity to take a shot of my rig. Black vehicles just photograph so well to me.


 
Either way, keep the photos coming. I'm loving seeing your pictures and playing around with mine.

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## duncsuss (Aug 11, 2014)

I've enjoyed photography for many years, but my enjoyment really took flight when I got my first decent digital camera (an Olympus C5050). It's not a dSLR, but offers complete manual control (in addition to P, Av, and Tv modes) -- and best of all, as far as I was concerned at the time I bought it, there was an underwater housing for it so I could take it scuba diving. That necessitated buying an underwater strobe and a couple of wet-mate macro lenses too, but it made for some great wall-hangings. Nearly all my underwater shots are taken using 100% manual settings (focus, exposure and flash) as cameras built for air don't understand what happened to the light when you take them underwater.

Here's one of my favorite u/w shots -- I have this printed on a 30" x 20" poster ... not bad from a 5Mpixel "point and shoot". His head is about 1/4" diameter.



 

I've since bought a dSLR as well -- but again, I mostly shoot it manual, especially when taking macro shots of flowers, bugs, etc. Close-up of a Christmas cactus, which I took using a lens from an old Topcor camera and a home-made adapter so I could mount it on my Pentax dSLR:

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## HomeBody (Aug 12, 2014)

Some close ups. Gary

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## Kenbo (Aug 12, 2014)

Wow, those are great!! Love the Christmas cactus and the Bee photo. Nicely done. Just awesome.

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## duncsuss (Aug 12, 2014)

Just realised I hadn't mentioned how much I like your soap bubble shot, @Kenbo -- the Newton's rings effect makes it look like you were able to conjure up the aurora borealis just as you took the photo.

I took this one of a morning glory last week, for me it's an unorthodox viewpoint with the sunlight coming through the flower.

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## cabomhn (Aug 12, 2014)

Well I'll just post some more on here! Most of these were taken using my D2x or my D40 over the past 3 or 4 years. 



 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Sorry that was a lot of them! Definitely one of my other main passions outside of woodworking.

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## Kenbo (Aug 12, 2014)

Don't be sorry. Post more. I love looking at them and it gives me something to strive towards. Nice pics guys.


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## duncsuss (Aug 12, 2014)

Here's one that I took with my most expensive lens: the Tokina AT-X 90mm/2.5 macro (nicknamed "the Bokina"). I was very lucky, this Anax junius (Green darner dragonfly) flew off immediately after I grabbed this shot -- I hadn't composed it properly, but at least it was in focus and exposed correctly, and I was able to crop it to a pleasing form.

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## Schroedc (Aug 20, 2014)

I was outside sweeping the sidewalk in front of my shop this morning and I noticed this guy by the corner of my building, Grabbed the Canon Rebel with the 18-55 macro lens and grabbed a shot before he ran away.

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## Kenbo (Aug 21, 2014)

Nothing really to say about these shots. Just playing around with some settings.

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## Molokai (Aug 26, 2014)

and one from me, HDR i made from my balcony. Merged from four photos.....

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## Kenbo (Sep 25, 2014)

Here are a couple of shot from the off roading trip last weekend. It wasn't a bright sunny day as forecast but I was still able to get a few shots in.

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## HomeBody (Oct 5, 2014)

I had to dig this out for your thread. Not digital, but a neat time capsule. This was my camera outfit in the 80's. I was single, had a great job and bought lots of neat toys. I looked on ebay for the Canon A1 body and they are now selling anywhere from $25-$100. Like someone said above, I should have dumped this stuff as soon as digital took off. Oh well, another 30 yrs. and it might be worth something again...after a solar flare destroys all our computers and we go back to film. Gary

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## Kenbo (Oct 5, 2014)

That's really cool. I still have my old Practika 35mm. I don't have my Canon anymore. It was an AE-1 Program. Nice camera body and it served me pretty well.


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