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| Moderated by: chrisbet, | ||
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chrisbet
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Hi and Welcome! I, for one, am totally with you - I started with a box brownie with only a couple of available apertures and no focus to worry about, mostly black and white Ilford film, but took some photos I am still proud of today! Digitally. I have a D610 and some pro lenses that do all I want - the big benefit I find is that I can take burst shots and choose the best from the bunch. Look forward to seeing some of your images. NOTE: Allen A has left the forum and asked for his posts etc to be deleted - I have left the rest of the topic in place - those involved can read between the lines! |
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Eric
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Welcome Allen We are a small band of regular contributors to this forum with a mix of backgrounds including some retired professional photographers. You are very unlikely to have any dissenters with you summary of the differences between yesterday and todays methods of photography. It’s very much like chatting down the pub with some mates. The recent AI thread perhaps highlights how much we feel pure photography is on a slippy slope! Was it Ansel Adams, who when asked about the quality difference between large format cameras and SLRs, replied that it was the ease and speed of use of the SLR, that dictated its quality?(or words to that effect). His point being, when you have 24,36 exposure chances in the camera, onboard exposure and portability ……you can rush yourself into mediocrity. Modern cameras and especially phones have exacerbated this condition. I suspect the things you can do in the modern electronic darkroom result more in ‘digital art’ than ‘photographs’. |
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Graham Whistler
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Hi Allan glad to have you on board I started my life as a professional advertising photographer as a trainee photographer with Kodak in 1958 at Ruilip. My first serious camera was a Rollieflex 3.5F Planar Lens 1959 cost £150.00 and I still have it in good working order! Worked with Nikon and Hasselblad and Sinar for years, I now use a Sony A1. Photo 1960 sorry had hair in those days! Click here to comment on this image. |
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Eric
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Still striking the same pose though, Graham.  |
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chrisbet
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That's what I want - a camera with its own light and built in pub!  I used Pentax cameras when I worked in the Customs & Excise investigation dept and we blew the pictures up pretty large for short sighted judges! Yes lenses and sensors relate in the same way as lenses and film. DX sensors have crop factor of 1.5 : 1 so 50mm on a DX camera would be 50mm / 1.5 = 33.33mm. Yours is not the only land of dinosaurs - I run classic cars and much prefer something that can be fixed with a bent screwdriver than needing to be plugged in to a bank of computers to tell the mechanic to change the offside brake light bulb.....  Click here to comment on this image. |
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jk
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Welcome Allen, I have to say that film is fine and good as long as you dont want to go past 'just printing it', but if you want or need to go beyond that digital is better as the smelly and environmentally unfriendly silver process, either b&w or colour, is nowhere as sophisticated as digital. That said whilst I have fairly good Photoshop and other digital software skill I dont claim to be expert so i dont do any of the fancy compositing and extended digital manipulation we see in magazine. Indeed I prefer real world to virtual reality!! I hope that you can find fellow kindred spirits here and that we can provide each other with additional inspiration and enthusiasm in what might have been our profession or hobby. I have to say that my short periods of work as a professional photographer or photographic assistant have been very enjoyable. |
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Eric
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You can of course still do those methodical set up steps, on a digital camera. Set in manual mode, choose your aperture, shutter speed and ISO (ASA) to suit the occasion. You can even use a handheld exposure meter if you don’t think the onboard offering accurate and focus manually. Like most things in life, a degree of laziness creeps in with convenience…auto gearboxes, tv remotes, battery watches, mobile phones etc etc. How much you embrace it or kick against it is a personal matter. I confess the immediacy of digital photography is something I embraced at the first opportunity in my commercial life. Saved a fortune on Polaroid previews for customers! Product images signed off before they left the studio or location. Incorporated into brochure designs in the studio within 24hours and emailed for approval. Artwork then uploaded direct to printers server….move on to the next job. It didn’t stop me setting the camera on M and taking control of the exposure as well as the composition. But very quickly I learnt how good the onboard systems could be AND where to mistrust them enough to overide them. I don’t miss the dark room. As a former industrial chemist I was only too aware of the nature of the chemicals being used and inhaled. Sitting in a comfy chair in a brightly lit studio, looking out on the garden while ‘processing’ my work in Photoshop was (is) an improvement to the quality of life. None of this stops me taking control of the camera or effecting the end result I desire. That’s the new pleasure I get from digital photography. |
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chrisbet
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I haven't got a D700 but on my D610 when set to manual, the aperture is controlled manually by the front command wheel, speed by rear command wheel, ISO by ISO button + rear command wheel - seems fully manual to me! I see no difference in twiddling the lens aperture ring to move the iris blades or the command wheel to move the iris blades.... |
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chrisbet
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Horses for courses I guess - I find the command wheels sit easily under my digits and I watch the display in the viewfinder to let me know where the settings are - just as I used to watch the led lights on the FM - much easier than trying to get my fingers round the aperture ring on the pro lenses - especially when they are busy with the zoom ring keeping the horse framed as it gallops around...  |
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chrisbet
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OK - so I have a horse cantering around a dressage manege - partly in full sun and partly in the shade of overhanging trees - the "correct" leg shape occurs at various times on the circuit, sometimes in shade and sometimes in sun - then the rider changes reins and the horse is going round in the opposite direction - I need to be able to juggle settings to get the right exposure on the bit of the horse I am wanting to capture - sometimes the whole horse, sometimes just a part. Click here to comment on this image.  Click here to comment on this image.  Click here to comment on this image.  Click here to comment on this image. |
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Eric
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Sounds like you’ve got the wrong digital camera for your needs. |
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Eric
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You can lock aperture and shutter settings on many digital cameras. I used to do it regularly when studio shooting products for catalogues. Like I said, maybe you’ve got the wrong camera for your particular needs. |
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Eric
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Allen, you have either misinterpreted what I said or decided to be confrontational and unnecessarily insulting. Stop and take a deep breath…. You said you couldn’t manually control aperture & shutter ….you can. I’ve done it for 25years since I went digital. You said you were moving the dials and losing settings….you can lock the aperture & shutter. I do it regularly. My simple point was, if your digital camera hasn’t got these features which you deem important, then change it. I have been through more than a dozen digital cameras over this time, even changing the camera for specific jobs. No matter how much experience you may have accumulated over the years, when it comes to a new technology we all have to accept there is always something more to learn. I thought that was why you joined the forum? Please note : I have made no comments about your train photograph and burnt out sun problems because I was assured with your experience you would know exactly what you did wrong. So please accept that no one is trying to denegrate your long experience. There are already people on this forum with more experience than me ……and maybe even you. Until you start engaging with them rather than attacking every comment or suggestion, you will never know. We can all learn something we didn’t know. |
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chrisbet
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Hi Eric- he has departed - I don't think he ever wanted any advice! It seems to me that all he wanted was to pick an argument, we can do without that sort of member  Well I have learnt about locking the aperture and shutter - did not know that - but it seems that the D610 doesn't have that functon or I haven't found it! |
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Eric
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chrisbet wrote:Hi Eric- he has departed - I don't think he ever wanted any advice! It seems to me that all he wanted was to pick an argument, we can do without that sort of memberNot all Nikon cameras have that feature….that was my point about changing camera. However had he come back to discuss in a civil manner, I might have been able to advise him that he didn’t need to change his camera as his D700 DOES have that feature. All he needed to do was RTFM……page 326 to be exact….  Click here to comment on this image. It’s also sad, because instead of spouting on about all the things he has done and how expert he was, he didn’t give any time to get to know us. Had he done so he might have realised that we ALL have skills and interesting experiences often hidden under our bushels. I only had to share a meal and a few glasses with a certain forum member to realise how much of a sheltered life I have led.  But then, I did present one of my own wildlife documentary films to the Queen & Queen Mother at a select gathering at Sandringham in the 1980’s…….never got a Royal Warrant on my projector though.  |
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chrisbet
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Boo hoo - D610 doesn't do that.... BUT you CAN switch aperture from command wheel to the lens ring.... as you say RTFM with knobs on..... |
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Eric
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chrisbet wrote:Boo hoo - D610 doesn't do that.... BUT you CAN switch aperture from command wheel to the lens ring....Gaffer tape works just as well. |
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chrisbet
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Eric wrote:Gaffer tape works just as well.Hmmm .... gaffer tape can be VERY useful |
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| A small amount of member data is captured and held in an attempt to reduce spammers and to manage users. This site also uses cookies to ensure ease of use. In order to comply with new DPR regulations you are required to agree/disagree with this process. If you do not agree then please email the Admins using info@nikondsl.uk Thank you. |