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humorist-workshop
Canon 1100D
Hey guys... I need some tips on how to make the most of my DSLR. I have a Canon 1100D. I know its not a great a dslr. Im just a beginner on this i want to photograph great picture with this entry level camera. The things that i want to photograph are landscapes, nightsky ( milkyway), roads with trees on the side. I took pictures of this but its not that good. I also have 75-300mm lense other than the kit lense. Could anyone of you guys tutor me on this. I really want to this not because its just a hobby I aslo want to make it a profession. Please..
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Hi there. Got a photographer? Grea stuff. I'll confess I'm not really a scenic/landscape man myself but I hope you might get something from my reply? Don't worry about your dslr, or your lenses not being 'good enough' for one minute. It's what you point the camera AT that makes a great picture. If you'd said you wanted to get pro results at events and sports or press/reportage work then the long focus/fast aperture lenses (maybe a 300mm f2.8, or 80-200 2.8) are virtually essential. Since the only way to freeze fast action is a fast shutter (even in less than great light) which the big 2.8 apertures give you. And some very sure-footed AF tracking from the camera itself. But don't think the pro lenses are leaps ahead in image quality, they're not. The kit lenses from the likes of Canon and Nikon are capable of superb clarity and resolution. Now landscapes (urban or country) don't move much. If you can control aperture and shutter speed that's all you need anyway. You might have heard of Ansell Adams? Look at his stuff. Long before digital imaging existed, and stunning they are too. There's an art in capturing stuff like this, and the artistry is all tied up in the light, and the composition. You're carving a picture from nothing in many way, a view that maybe others miss. (I need a definite subject/model and a brief myself, I haven't got 'the eye' as you might say!). The light will make or break this stuff. Diffuse light from an overcast sky rarely gives a great landscape. Too flat, no contrast. Sunlight from behind is also often a let down. Shadows are always behing the subject, and very dark (black even) and hard edged. Too much contrast. With the sun lower, and from one side textures and leap out. Close to sunset and sunrise the lighting can be very beautiful. Clouds in the sky can enhance landscape work very much. The sky is always much brighter and can burn-out unless you underexpose the foreground (not good). Check out Circular Polarising Filters, and Grey Gradient filters ( often called Grey-Grads or ND Grads) to control skies and keep the detail in them. How about shots totally against the light (aka 'contre jour')? Gives you sparkling highlights of sun on glossy leaves or water and glass or gright metal, sparkling halo's behind objects. Seen plenty of shots like that I bet? You'll have to work on exposure to get results you want here, not point-and-shoot type automatic exposure programs. Part of being a photographer, eh? How about deliberately making those trees (leafless in winter?) striking sharp black silhouettes against the reds and orange/yellows of a sunrise or sunset? Here you'd expose for the sky, lock the exposure and frame-up the scene and shoot. Easy, but great pictures! Composition makes a picture interesting and engaging. Best way to learn it is look at great urban and country landscape work. One recurring motif you'll see is the 'rule of thirds'. Look at what you are shooting and imagine the scene divided into three, vertically and horizontally. Now make sure points of interest are positioned on the intersection of thirds. It's easier to see than explain. But imagine shooting a sailing boat on the sea. Half the shot sea, half sky, boat in the middle looks boring and not good, somehow. Now think, bottom third sea, top two-thirds sky and clouds, boat a third of the way in from the left (sailing 'into the scene' as it were). Looks dynamic and will hold the viewers attention. We could natter on for days about composition. Best way to learn is look at great photos and analyze in your mind WHY they are great, and use it in YOUR work. Banging a very wide-angle (short focal length, like 14 to 288mm is NOT a way to get good pictorial/landscape work, despite the belief (wish it was that easy!). You often ended with just loads of pictures of simply clutters of small, indistinct detail. With no real point of interest. You'll often want to set a tight aperture (f8 to f11 or smaller) to get everything sharp from front to back in a shot (a large 'depth-of-field' in technical terms. That will slow your shutter right down, especially in those 2-hours either side of sunset/sunrise shots. So if you want a pin sharp shot with no blur from movement, a good tripod is essential. If you're seeing shutter speed of 1/30th of a second or less in your viewfinder when you shoot the pic you'll find a lot of your shots just won't be truly sharp, especially viewed when viewed at pixel-size on a monitor, and even more so printed at A4 or bigger. Also a 'pod makes you think more, takes more time to set-up the shot, makes you more likely to carve out that winning view and perspective. Most landscape men use a pod. And for you night shots, it's absolutely essential. Here we've got to say, don't let your camera randomly push up the sensitivity (ISO number) to push up your shutter speed. As the ISO goes up image quality goes down, especially in the darker/shadowy areas. Control it youself by switching off any 'Automatic ISO' options. Or at least limit it to 'No more than ISO 400'. Because above that quality dips. A lot of the time a pro is told 'nothing over ISO 400' for high quality work. The best quality is always going to be ISO 100 if you can. Of course, if you want to draw attention to one feature over others, use your wide apertures (smaller f.numbers) and focus accurately on that. The background will then be softer, delibreately blurred, and so less distracting. Your zoom set to 300mm at full (wide open, smallest f. numner) aperture will be able to give you some good stuff in this respect. It's possible to get a very soft 'wash' of colour with the subject standing out pin-sharp against it, almost a 3D look, with a long focal length/wide aperture setting. Nice chatting, could go on all day! Our Kit list isn't too scary. No four-figure optics or pro bodies required. Good pod, ND grad filter and a circular 'pola'? Mostly it's about technique and having that 'good eye'. Oh yeah, deep valleys and high mountains usually don't look good in photos, however breathtaking it was being there. The viewer has no sense of scale from a photo. Unless you include a person/group of people in the forground. Then the shot projects the imapct of the real scene to the viewer, who wasn't there . You'll have them standing on an "intersection of thirds", of course!! Hope there's a few ideas to kick around here? Have fun and loads of luck with the photography. I guess the main point is don't get too bogged down with equipment issues, which is very easy to do in photography. A great picture is a great picture. Nobody much cares what you shot it using. Drop a line to my inbox sometime if you want to chat about anything photographic? ps. Really scientifically detailed astro-photograpy uses properly big telescopes and camera body adapters, and even a 600mm f4 isn't going to rival that and show the rings around saturn or something!. Way beyond my understanding mate. A great horizon with an interesting arrangement of the brighter stars in a deep blue/black vista above it is more what a photographer might be looking to get? pps If you're really into urban landscapes at twilight or at night and want snapshots (without a pod) of people/cars/shop and street lights going on etc. try and get a 50mm f1.4. They're a bit dearer than the f1.8 but you'll get a shutter twice as fast. They're great for bands on stage at small venues too (without using flash to blitzing-out the stage lighting/atmosphere) which I shoot myself sometimes. It doesn't sound as exciting as a 'zoom lens' but they're optically super-sharp and you can get pictures otherwise impossible. And it's probably fair to say every serious lensman has a 'fast fifty' lens in his bag somewhere.
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