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Old 05-11-2014, 06:45 PM   #3773
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Default Re: Photography Thread

Out of your three shots, two are fine for the conditions you were in and one has too much grain to suit me.
You can try to fix noisy shots, and if you HAD to have the shot you might keep it or like it, but I know I never get over it, haha.
You can sometimes miracle a pic into visibility with Photoshop, but it will never suit you in terms of quality, so the best thing to
do is avoid noise and especially over-exposure. Over exposure is like leaving money on the table, in that you are wasting shutter
speed or aperture leeway and getting a crappy result you can't use. I say this like I shoot a lot of good pics, I don't. I get 10-15
crappy shots to every one people might see.

Removing grain is a trade-off every time. If you got the grain through letting the camera run the show completely on Auto,
you might find you can get better results through making all the decisions for yourself. Manual is fun, I love it. Read in
you paper manual or in a pdf you can get online about how to use manual mode, which features a little light meter
in the bottom of the viewfinder. You just manipulate the shutter speed or aperture or even ISO to move the needle
into the zone of proper exposure. Use the LCD to tell yourself if you are where you want to be.

On your camera you have two advantages. You can set your AUTO ISO to have a ceiling over which it will not allow
itself to go. That will keep you out of unwittingly taking maxxed out ISO shots and therein create ugly grain. You also
have a camera that will allow you to meter perfectly with old manual focus lenses through the menu item
"Non-CPU lens data." (AI and AIS lenses only). With a few months of research I whittled my choices down to a few
choice lenses for which I was willing to pay a premium. So far the results have been as expected, inline with the praise
they have gotten over the years. As far as what I use for the situation YOU were in, I have a 105mm f/2.5 lens,
a 200mm f/4 lens, and a 180mm f/2.8 ED. All of em were a little more than I wanted to pay, but these are very sweet
lenses that can hang in the conditions you were shooting in. You just have to work the aperture and the focus.
It doesn't take long to get good with it.

Indoors like this you have to find a way to shoot close to the focal length in shutter speed, 200mm zoomed in you
need to be hitting that in shutter speed to keep blur in check. Try shooting in "S" mode and set your shutter speed high
enough to stop motion a bit without wasting it. Another thing that improves the more you shoot is the creeping feeling
that your camera is allowing way too high a shutter speed for conditions. When you think something is wrong, it usually is.
I was shooting in a bar last night and I was getting 800 shutter speed and thought WTH? Its dark as hell in here.
I had the ISO cranked up to HI-2 or something that looks like complete crap.

The reason I mention the manual focus lenses is that this seems to be the only way a cheap guy like me can BUY SPEED.
You can't shoot photos that impress you indoors like that with a slow lens. You have to be able to get down to 2.8 or 4 to
give yourself any kind of chance indoors like that. But fast MODERN lenses are WAY too expensive for me.

The 55-200, even if you have VR, is kinda stingy under adverse light conditions, butif you use extreme shot discipline,
you can get good shots. The 18-55 is a good lens to make sure you have SOMETHING wide, and its very sharp.
Its just slow. Indoors you will need the flash with both of those DX lenses. Both of them are SO SLOW as to be almost useless
indoors. But they still work very well and do their job. Before you buy another DX lens though, take a look at one of the 4-5 big
camera companies online that sell used gear and see of you can't pick up either a great classic portrait lens or a classic long lens
for theater or sports. If that's what you SHOOT. The only time I EVER use any of those DX lenses is when I want lightness and
worry-free focusing. When I want a special look, I use old lenses.

If I had any advice it would be to do some shopping around and read some reviews of some CLASSIC Nikkor
oldies where the SPEED you really need is a LOT cheaper. You just have to work harder to use them, but it seems like that
knob turning is why I shoot to begin with. And My blind butt has nerve using manual focus lenses, but the rewards are high.

Now that all the best modern Nikons have 'non-CPU lens data' ability, the prices are not as cheap as they used
to be when I got mine, but there are some awesome lenses out there that will work fine with your camera.

Last edited by OLS; 05-11-2014 at 06:55 PM.
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