Photography Question From An Amateur

[GroobyKrissy]

GroobyKrissy,

OK had to reread your intro. If I am understanding you properly...the answer is no.. it isn't impossible to get great pics from a D5100. A D5100 is a pretty darn good camera for the money.

A couple of thoughts that might help..

1) Shutter speed matters. As a rule don't go below about 1/60th of a second shooting people. Based off of their movement increase your shutter speed. typically in studio I will shoot no lower than 1/100th to 1/125th.. on locations I drop it to a minimum of 1/80th of a second (since I am generally using flash). UNLESS you are using a longer lens..don't ever drop below the focal length of your lens when shooting people. if you are using a 105mm then try not to drop below 1/100th.. a tripod will give you a bit of fudge factor to go lower but your results may vary( camera shake, wind, etc). People are 3 dimensional.. even if you think they aren't moving.. they are :P

2) Be aware of ambient light and how it affects your images. There are times when we can still SEE in the evening, but the camera doesn't see like our eyes. Your camera has limitations, all cameras do. ISO 200 will yield much better results than ISO 3200 or 6400 (less channel noise, and will look sharper) Do you shoot with a flash? If not you might think about getting one

3) RAW vs. Jpeg... I would choose RAW any day of the week. There is so much more information there that you can use to recover a shot if you overexpose or underexpose it. I always shoot RAW+Jpeg Fine. It is redundant, but works for my needs. Try shooting RAW and playing with it a bit. Do you use Photoshop/Camera Raw or Lightroom?

Hitting post..

1. I bought the camera as a kit so I just use the wide-angle lens that came with it... it is 52mm if that means anything. I always use a tripod when shooting. The camera guy said this Vanguard one ($206.99) is good and I've been happy with the results from when I switched from a cheapo Sony one ($29.99)

2. I NEVER shoot with a flash... Seanchai gave me that little bit of knowledge a long, long time ago. What frustrates me is when the lighting is fine but the picture comes out washed out. (see sample). It is like the camera cannot focus... or else I am just too white and I need my Asian card taken away from me. This just seems like it should have been a better picture. If I was wearing black stockings, it would have turned out fine... Is there a setting to compensate for that?

3. I use Photoshop CS6... I have Lightroom but haven't really spent the time to figure it out. Basically, I spend about 5 seconds editing / cropping / resizing / watermarking each picture. And that is how I need it to stay. I just don't have the time otherwise. That is mostly why I've stayed away from RAW but if there is going to be a huge increase in quality, I may change that and reduce my gallery sizes to compensate for the extra time involved.

[GroobyKrissy]

The picture I was talking about in the previous post.

[MacShreach]

It really depends on the lighting. In good light, sun over the shoulder, the camera's program functions should perform well. As soon as you go away from that, against the light, low-light, whatever, you're making more demands, and eventually you'll run in to problems. The real question is 'Is your camera better at making exposure decisions than you are?' and for most beginners, the answer to that is 'yes'. The simple truth is it takes a long time to learn to be a good photographer. The best investment would be a workshop or two with a pro who has a proven track record in teaching.

I'm still curious about these 'washed out spots' and wonder if the problem here might be lens flare. Modern zooms have a lot of glass/air surfaces. They are not that easy to shade, but as soon as you work into the light they'll flare. Need to see um.

Having looked at the pics you posted in the other thread, I don't think the problem is your equipment. Even the RAW/NEF/jpg issue is not going to make much difference, because to see the difference, using RAW, you need a really good image to begin with....

[MacShreach]

The picture I was talking about in the previous post.

Right, that's just over-exposed. Use your peview screen to check and then set the exposure compensation a stop under and see how that looks.

[GroobyKrissy]

Krissy,I looked at the pics in the k4u thread and I don't see a lot I'd put down to a problem with the camera. Some of your pictures are heavily backlit, and modern cameras will automatically expose for the foreground, which on digital will just blow the bright background to white. (Digital is actually more like transparency in its dynamic range, or latitude, than colour neg.) In backllit situations, use fill flash or a big white reflector to kick light back in without having to expose so much. In movie use a fixed light.

Your bedroom scenes appear to be lit by not very bright available light (which some of us know as 'available darkness'). To take in situations like this, in film, you'd use a wider aperture, a slower shutter and a faster emulsion. Digital cams it's the same, wider aperture, slower shutter, and more gain on the sensor. More gain on the sensor means more noise, which makes the image look 'grainy'. In situations like that you really do have to use lights to get a decent result. In addition, BTW, your camera is struggling to give a decent white balance in those pictures. Lights will fix that.

If you have a sharpness problem then that could be an equipment issue--autofocus problem most likely--but I can't see that in the pics. The camera you are using is well capable of decent images. Don't waste money replacing it just now, invest in lights and learn how to use them.

The advice to use manual is good but you need to learn quite a bit more before you can use that properly. The pictures look well-enough exposed, just the lighting situations are fiendish.

Post some others here to give a better idea of the issues.

As I take the majority of my pictures outside in public areas, I really don't have the luxury of having a big, complicated setup with reflectors and such.

Indoors though, I do have more than ample lighting (around 10,000 lumens of LED 6,400 (5?) K lights on three tripods. I think it is probably because I suck at interior decorating and always shoot against a glossy white wall. I have much better results when I actually set up a shoot against a darker backdrop. I was thinking about getting some reflectors and such though... perhaps that will help.

[MacShreach]

continuing (phone) keep playing with the exposure comp till the images look right. Now there are advantages tomoving off program to one of the priority functions, but you should understand depth of field first. If the camera is on a tripod as I think you said, you can safely go down deom the hand-holdiong minima someone suggested, in static poses like that.

[MacShreach]

As I take the majority of my pictures outside in public areas, I really don't have the luxury of having a big, complicated setup with reflectors and such.

Indoors though, I do have more than ample lighting (around 10,000 lumens of LED 6,400 (5?) K lights on three tripods. I think it is probably because I suck at interior decorating and always shoot against a glossy white wall. I have much better results when I actually set up a shoot against a darker backdrop. I was thinking about getting some reflectors and such though... perhaps that will help.

In the studio ALWAYS GO MANUAL. It would not be dumb to buy an inexpensive incident light meter, or even an 18% Grey Card and meter off that. The reason is that white backdrops etc play hell with the camera's meter.

You can get Lastolite-type folding refelctors of Ebay for silly cheap. Good investment.

[GroobyKrissy]

4) Try shooting in a priority mode or manual mode instead of full auto. If you give the camera full control of itself.. then it will do great on a sunny day shooting with the sun. Otherwise it usually fails miserably. your camera has a built in light meter reading a bit on how it operates will help you immensely (+ is overexposing - is underexposing) regarding proper exposure. Try to keep the exposure to in the middle of the meter. You will have situations where you need to adjust this on a case by case basis.

5) Gear matters. The quality of a Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 vs. a Kit lens 18-55mm. The 24-70 will blow it away for sharpness. If you stick in the DX range the 17-55mm 2.8 is a fantastic lens too. It doesn't mean the 18-55 is horrible, it just means the 24-70 is THAT much better. I shoot a D3 as my main camera and it still rocks because of the sensor. There is a big difference in sensor ability and results between a D3200 and a D4, but unless you plan on dropping 6k on a body you make trade offs. Never underestimate the importance of good glass(lenses).


Hitting post...

4. I have tried both of those and almost ALL the pictures in the gallery came out blurry. The ONLY setting that I've had that actually takes good pictures on the Interval Setting at 1 sec. is the Full-Auto setting. All others seem to come out way blurry.

5. Hmmm... this seems to be pretty widely contested. I've spoken with people who say that the lens doesn't matter when you use a full-auto fuction... only when you are behind the camera itself...? I don't have a problem dropping money on another lens as long as the results are sure... So you think a different lens would help?

[MacShreach]

The picture I was talking about in the previous post.

And....that picture desperately needs fill but not from the camera position but over to the right, deep, to lift the shadows which, when the highlight skin is exposed correctly, will be very dark. A reflector on one of your pods would transform it

[MacShreach]

It's quite amusng, (not at you Krissy) that everyone thinks digital makes photography easy. Actually digital is like transparency, long the standard that separated the sheep from the goats in exposure terms. It has very little tolerance for over-exposure. That image you posted above would still have been tricky, but would have held on chromogenic no trouble.