Getting Into Nature Photography- Any Good Dslr?

[Ragmaala]

^ thanks bro, good to hear experts encouragement

[CdnSikhGirl]

Its not just photography I also sketch quite a lot. For photography though I use the standards.... Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. That chipmunk though is as shot. The Ladakh Kashmir mountains were shot in HDR. Here are a couple sketches I have done.. I only have a couple accessible at work right now haha. The second was actually at a restaurant just drawing on the table lol.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Satkirin_Kaur

[Ragmaala]

^ thats nice, satkiran .

love the wolf

the wolf and eagle remind me of the 2 acrylic paintings that i once did, the tiger & the eagle

srry neo, for hijacking ur post .

Edited May 4, 2015 by Ragmaala

[Ragmaala]

Heres the tiger & eagle.

[Singh123456777]

This is my awesome picture that I recently drew.. Hopefully you guys like it..

http://images.clipartpanda.com/sad-girl-stick-figure-image.png

[Ragmaala]

^ haha, its the best one out there

Edited May 4, 2015 by Ragmaala

[BhagatSingh]

Lol

[Guest]

Ok i have researched..what a delimna is been..lol..it all came down to three models - sony a7 ii full frame (newest), canon eos 6d or cannon 5 d mark iii...what you guys think? I dont know much about nikon..i will look into nikon dslr today.

[Sat1176]

It's definitely an expensive hobby mate and you seriously have to think about how serious you are as one can get carried away. When I first started out I was so excited I spent £1000s on gear and now it just sits in the corner of the room gathering dust. You have probably read that once you buy into a system then your locked in as you start building on your gear and lenses so in light of that whilst the Sony's are getting good reviews I would be personally inclined to stay on the canon or nikon side.

I would love a Canon 5D mk iii but just a body and 1st lens will set you back £2600+. If I were to buy a camera today I would probably go with this one even though it is way above my ability.

The problem I have with the 6d is that only the center focus spot is cross type sensor. My camera also has this short coming and I read it is better to use the center spot as it will lock on to the focusing better. What that means is you have to lock your focus on a point using the center point, but them move the camera to recompose slightly which sometimes breaks the accuracy of your original focus lock. Would be great to be able to use other points without having recompose.

 

Let us know what you decide to go with in the end and look forward to seeing some of your work.

 

[SAadmin]

So ended up bitting a bullet got brand new DSLR nikon d750 with nikor 70-300mm vr lense..now gotta take quick small course on how this works..i was able to finally figure different auto focus setting... shutter speed, and other setting are next.

[CdnSikhGirl]

Easy way to think of aperture vs shutter is that as aperture gets bigger, you have to compensate with faster shutter to avoid over exposing.  Smaller aperture means less light so you need a slower shutter speed to compensate.  Aperture is measured as F-Stop. Smaller F-Stop number = larger aperture (larger hole for light to get through).  So, F1.8 (if your lens can do it) is super big aperture and usually used for portraits etc to get that bookeh effect and nice blurred background due to depth of field.  Most telephoto kit lenses start at F2.8 or smaller aperture at the wide angle end, and go to 5.6 or so at the tehephoto end meaning less light gets to the sensor. 

A on the dial means aperture priority so it will automatically compensate the shutter speed based on your chosen aperture. Aperture gives you nice blurred background behind a portrait or bokkeh (those delightful circles in a blurry background). S means shutter priority, and will automatically compensate the aperture for you.  You'd use this for capturing fast objects like race cars, or freezing helicopter blades etc. It lets you choose the shutter speed and automatically chooses the appropriate aperture to compensate.  

The times you will need to go outside this box (and use M for manual allowing you to choose both aperture and shutter speed) are on a bright day for example, but you want to use a slow shutter speed to get that blurred look to a waterfall or stream to show the movement... (you don't want to stop the water - you want to see the motion) then you will still need a slow shutter speed to get that, but you can't compensate with the aperture or else you lose depth of field - and that nice 'bokkeh' effect etc.  So instead you can keep the large aperture and to keep from over exposing the image, you throw on a Neutral Density filter which darkens everything. :)  Or if its night time and you are shooting a moving object that you don't want to blur due to long exposure time. It's easy to understand once you play with it.  

P.S. stay away from the P on the dial if you can, because you won't learn.  Its built in scene selection modes, and A is automatic. Definitely stay away from that!!! 

Edited August 8, 2015 by Satkirin_Kaur

[Sat1176]

P for professional mode. When you don't have time to faff about with A, T or M

[SAadmin]

I have been experimenting with dslr. Can anyone recommend some good setting for landscape/wildlife photography?

I have it as aperture 8, iso 500 maximum 1000 and shutter 1/60 up to 250...is that good? I understand when it comes taking pictures of moving lakes i can decrease my shutter to 1/6 to get mist type of effect?

 

[CdnSikhGirl]

ISO go low number... higher number is for darker scenes, but is usually more grainy. Use around 200-400

Aperture 8?  Its usually in f-stop like 1.8 etc. (big aperture) to 5.6 etc for smaller aperture.  Do you mean 1.8 or 2.8?

It also depends on how bright it is outside... there won't be one setting that will work across the board.  If you pics turn out too dark, then either use slightly longer shutter speed or larger aperture. If its too bright then go the opposite way.  If it's close to what you want, but just slightly too dark or light, you can use your exposure compensation... and go + or - a a few Evs.  

[SAadmin]

good lord..opps sorry wrong numbers..lol.i put aperture as f/8...i might as well stick to auto mode at this rate..need to play around with it..going to rockies in two days...lol

Edited August 10, 2015 by N30 S!NGH

[SAadmin]

Getting settings from this site:

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2272157&seqNum=4

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2272157&seqNum=5

 

 

[Sat1176]

This is a good forum

http://photocamel.com/forum/

[SAadmin]

We got back thursday night from canadian rockies..it was awesome experience..we saw so many wildlifes including amazing stand off between coyote and deers, i am putting all the pictures on to my computer, as we speak but here are some of resized samples of elks, mule deer, black bear, grizzy bear, goat, deers and coyote

 

 

[CdnSikhGirl]

Wow!  Neo what camera did you get again?  And which lenses?? It looks like you got a good lens with high f-stop number (small hole) which allows pin sharp landscapes.  

 

[SAadmin]

Nikon d750 with NIKON AFS-VR 70-300 F4-5.6 TELEZOOM LENS

[Sat1176]

You got some nice shots there.

[Ragmaala]

love your shots neo, esp 2 3 4 th last ones..  :)

[Ragmaala]

neo paji , can you provide the details of your trip for me and the sangats benefit. I live in toronto.

I would like to do this in near future. Some questions :

Did you rent a car or an RV ?

where did you camp on your way to BC if you traveled from Toronto?

how many were in the group ?

where did you stay, camping under stars or in a hotel?

Any safety precautions that one should take?

What would you have done different ?

And how much was the cost of whole trip ?

If somethings are pvt, please pm me.  Thanks paji

Canada is beautiful, I still have to explore it.

ps. or we can start a thread about worth visiting destinations in canada that people have personal experience with & details on staying there, kinda like trip advisor.

but paji tell me about this one first,  I am in love with ur pics, its so serene :)

[SAadmin]

Yeah no worries, we (wife and i) took a flight to calgary and took a rental from calgary- first stop at golden, bc- stayed 2 nights there, 2 nights at valemount, bc 3 nights at hinton, alberta. So basically, if you want to see lot of wild life with mountain/lake back drop i would suggest the following with group of atleast three people to reduce the cost:

- Take a early flight to calgary, get a car rental of drop off option to same location for cheaper price, 

Day 1 - take it easy and relax just stay at canmore(cheaper stay than banff- based on trip advisor) for a night about 1 hr drive from calgary- explore canmore and minewanka lake (loop) near banff (loads of wildlife there) you will get good shots with mountain backdrop.

Day 2 and 3- drive to scenic radium hot spring highway towards golden - we saw pack of wolves back in 2013, loads of wildlife and mountain ranges there as well. stay at golden two nights, 2nd day- explore yoho national park- emerald lake, lake o'hara, waterfall-wapta/takkawa falls- pick small a lodge outside of golden for cheaper price

Day 4- check out from golden, visit lake lousie, moraine lake, peyto lake bow lake (highly rated) take icefield parkway hightway, drive to valemount- stay a night there  

Day 5- take 1 hr trip to blue river, this town is home for black bears, loads of black bears sighting around this area due to large vegetation, drive towards jasper- explore mount robson/ kinney lake- you need 6 hrs for that - stay near jasper- you can find cheaper accommodation if you look hard book multiple nights in advance.- stay 3 nights at jasper to explore

Day 6/7/8-  explore columbia icefield glaciers/sunwpta/athabasca falls loads of wildlife in icefield area- mountain goats, then take highway back towards jasper make a slight right towards hinton take a highway in jasper towards hinton- we saw 70 percent of wildlife there in this highway- stay 3 nights in jasper atleast there to explore jasper,