Yo...

[David Wood]

hey guys, long time no post... again. I've been here just I haven't posted anything so SHUT UP! Anyway just letting you know I got a camera. WOO HOO!!! Now I can do some photography and will have pictures to add effects to. It's a Sony NEX 5 with an 18-55mm zoom lens. It takes full HD video which is the main reason I got it. You guys can read more about it here.

So I'm currently looking for stuff to take pictures of, any ideas?

[Arzoroc]

Tbh ... go out on sunset or sunrise and walk into a park/forest/old district/anything. Then shoot away That's what I do when I'm bored, even though my cam isn't that fancy.

[David Wood]

That's what I've been wanting to do but I haven't had a chance yet.

[Maffe811]

Walk around, take random pics, and like.... make em look epic!

[David Wood]

I don't want to change pictures, I want to show what the camera is capable of.

[Arzoroc]

Well.. I can't do that with my camera Just because it's a 50 bucks unit

[virtualTune]

I hope you brought some time!

For now you have some limitations to think about. First of all, you will have a hard time getting pictures of Birds or wildlife animals that are shy, which at least in Europe is pretty much anything besides snails.

So what are the advantages of having an 18-55mm lens?

Well for starters you are able to focus to an are closer to the lens than if you were using a 200mm. So Macros or semi-macros are an option. So basically anything that is either really small and then fills most of the image or textures that the human eye wont see from afar. Also try to get used to shooting in "M" (manual) so you know what settings change what aspekt of your image and you get a better idea of how to set you focus at any distance. When the camera is set to Autofocus, you wont always get it to focus right.

Another advantage may be, and this is a matter of taste, that at 18mm you will see some deformed edges that curve a little bit, kind of like a small fisheye. So you can use that distortion to focus on something that is deadcenter, instead of a RoT point. So start taking pictures at totally new perspektives (like below). Yes it has been done before, we have all seen it, but it will still make you feel better, knowing that you can do it as well.

At last you can try your luck with panorama shots, though I got to warn you. Depending on the Time of the day and the wind/other weather changes it can be very hard to make it look like one picture.


Also If you don't have one yet, get a Flickr account and join the following two groups:

Flickr Central- the bggest group on flickr open for anyone with over 5.35 million pictures, thousands of new ones added daily. One user can only enter one image a day, thus this only goes to show how many users are there. It is almost guaranteed that at any time of the day someone in the world will look at the group pool and see your picture, open for critique and help.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/central/

Explore my Photostream- Basically says it all except that once you join the group it asks you that after adding a maximum of 1image/day to check out the other peoples pictures and leave at least 5 quality comments. Thus you also have a good chance of getting some nice feedback.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/exploremyphotostream/

Below are some links to useful accounts and websites:

http://www.digitalrev.com/article_categ ... ips/Mw_A_A
http://www.youtube.com/user/PhotoExtremist/videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/the365daysproject

-virtualTune

[Maffe811]

First of all, you will have a hard time getting pictures of Birds or wildlife animals that are shy, which at least in Europe is pretty much anything besides snails.

Pfft! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaase!!!
In my town there is this forest, and the deers... are everywhere.... like... if you go there without seeing any, you're blind
And they are so tame, you can almost pet them...

[virtualTune]

fine then i will cut it down to central europe. either way this is not what the post is about anyways -.-

[David Wood]

Hey VT, thanks for the links, I'll check them out. Believe me, I don't plan an leaving any of the settings on auto. I'm already getting good at focusing. And the camera has a panoramic setting, that's the only preset I'll ever use. I actually took some semi-macro shots this morning, they're on my DA account. The only things I did to them were some minor CC.

http://davidwoodfx.deviantart.com/gallery/