dslr camera lens for dummies image
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I want a new life hobby and I'm really interested in photography. The problem is I have no idea how to start. I want a camera like those professional photographers who carry them everywhere strapped to there chest looking for the perfect pic lol!! I'm also in high school so my budget is tight. I heard Nikon cameras were good but I have no idea so could you give me some great suggestions for cameras. Especially ones that i could take great nature photos with and sunrises and roof buildings. Also any tips on photo taking and well any beginner advice would be very appreciated! No kiddy cameras i want it to look professional but fun so i can make a portfolio. Thanks! :)
Answer
There is a big difference between having a professional looking camera and making competent photos with said camera. You didn't mention a budget. If you want really professional stuff, be prepared to spend anywhere from $5000 up to the tens of thousands for just the body.
The reality is that any entry level dSLR with its kit lens will do just fine for a beginner. It will be a great start to learning the basics and will serve for quite a long time. Indeed, the majority of photographers will never outgrow their first dSLR. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony and Olympus all make fine entry level cameras starting at about $500. Here is a list of possibilities from dpreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/9566705626/buying-a-digital-slr
After you get your camera, plan to spend lots of time in the user's manual. Also pick up a book on basic photography and composition. Maybe Digital Photography For Dummies as well. (Not that you're a dummy at all, but it is a good simple book that explains things from the start, assuming you know very little about the entire process.)
Then do a Google for photography tips or lessons, and you will find lots of great sites for learning. I am leaving you a link to some good/excellent photography so you will know how good work looks.
http://photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter
There are lots of forums and tutorials on Photo.net as well as work from every genre all over the world.
Don't plan on having much portfolio worthy material for some time. It takes applied effort both in learning and practice before you will put out consistently decent work. Everyone starts at the beginning and builds from there. Have fun and happy shooting!
There is a big difference between having a professional looking camera and making competent photos with said camera. You didn't mention a budget. If you want really professional stuff, be prepared to spend anywhere from $5000 up to the tens of thousands for just the body.
The reality is that any entry level dSLR with its kit lens will do just fine for a beginner. It will be a great start to learning the basics and will serve for quite a long time. Indeed, the majority of photographers will never outgrow their first dSLR. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony and Olympus all make fine entry level cameras starting at about $500. Here is a list of possibilities from dpreview:
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/9566705626/buying-a-digital-slr
After you get your camera, plan to spend lots of time in the user's manual. Also pick up a book on basic photography and composition. Maybe Digital Photography For Dummies as well. (Not that you're a dummy at all, but it is a good simple book that explains things from the start, assuming you know very little about the entire process.)
Then do a Google for photography tips or lessons, and you will find lots of great sites for learning. I am leaving you a link to some good/excellent photography so you will know how good work looks.
http://photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter
There are lots of forums and tutorials on Photo.net as well as work from every genre all over the world.
Don't plan on having much portfolio worthy material for some time. It takes applied effort both in learning and practice before you will put out consistently decent work. Everyone starts at the beginning and builds from there. Have fun and happy shooting!
A question for Photo shop users, I am new to photoshop and digital photography I downloaded a few lynda
thomashone
.Com videos on photoshop and I am amazed at what the program can do. However some of the terms they use I don't really understand for example hue and saturation to me seems to be the same thing, I am probably wrong. Camera raw is another term I don't really get, I checked the photoshop help and the definations they give is confusing to me, I guess because I am new. I checked on line and the one site defines the terms one way another site another way. Is there a site or resource where I find the definitions of the most commonly used terms in I guess you would call it photography or digital artistry? What I am asking is where can I find the definitions of these terms so I can fully understand what the instructors and other tutorials are trying to explain? Thanks
Answer
Hue is essentially color or color variation. Saturation you can think of as the richness of a color or the color density. You will see people refer to "highly saturated colors" meaning the colors are bright and strong and rich, sometimes almost unreal looking. Think of a newly opened red rose in bright noontime sunlight on a summer day. The red is very rich, very intense. That same red rose in the afternoon with shadows over it is still the same red, but not nearly as rich looking, so not nearly as saturated. In fact, you will run into the term "desaturate": it means to pull color from an image. A completely desaturated image has no color, just shades of gray.
Many good quality digital SLR cameras (DSLR, SLR meaning Single Lens Reflex) can shoot in RAW. Unfortunately each camera company has a different RAW standard, which can make things confusing, and Adobe's RAW in Photoshop is another standard. Luckily what Adobe has been doing is making its RAW interpreter, if you will, able to understand the RAW settings of many different camera companies. RAW is the raw information that the sensor on the camera records, with no compression. JPEG or .jpg files, the most common format and what all cameras can pretty much shoot in (from your very low end cell phone camera on up) are compressed files and automatically lose some information. This depends on the camera too. RAW files are everything, every bit of data that the camera's sensor or sensors can pick up and record, it's why they are HUGE files. You might see information that states your camera can shoot 10 RAW files on a 1 GB memory card, but can record 50 high quality large .jpg files.
Photoshop includes the ability to open edit with RAW; you can also then convert after editing to .jpg if you wish, and of course for printing, publishing, sending images via e-mail or uploading to a website, generally you will need to save your images as .jpgs. Do be aware that you don't want to EDIT in the .jpg format. If you are editing an image in Photoshop, save the image as a Photoshop or .psd file format (.psd is the "native" Photoshop file type). The main reason, aside from being able to use all the tools, filters, etc in Photoshop is that the .jpg format is what is called "lossy." Every time you open, edit, and resave a .jpg file, the compression algorithm it uses throws away data. So over time you will find a .jpg will lose quality. There's nothing you can do about that: it's built into the .jpg file type and it does this automatically.
You may want to invest in a couple of books. I think you probably don't need the Photoshop for Dummies book (I am assuming you are using Photoshop CS3?), but you might want to look at the Photoshop CS3 Visual Quickstart Guide and the Photoshop CS3 Bible.
Hope that helps you!
Hue is essentially color or color variation. Saturation you can think of as the richness of a color or the color density. You will see people refer to "highly saturated colors" meaning the colors are bright and strong and rich, sometimes almost unreal looking. Think of a newly opened red rose in bright noontime sunlight on a summer day. The red is very rich, very intense. That same red rose in the afternoon with shadows over it is still the same red, but not nearly as rich looking, so not nearly as saturated. In fact, you will run into the term "desaturate": it means to pull color from an image. A completely desaturated image has no color, just shades of gray.
Many good quality digital SLR cameras (DSLR, SLR meaning Single Lens Reflex) can shoot in RAW. Unfortunately each camera company has a different RAW standard, which can make things confusing, and Adobe's RAW in Photoshop is another standard. Luckily what Adobe has been doing is making its RAW interpreter, if you will, able to understand the RAW settings of many different camera companies. RAW is the raw information that the sensor on the camera records, with no compression. JPEG or .jpg files, the most common format and what all cameras can pretty much shoot in (from your very low end cell phone camera on up) are compressed files and automatically lose some information. This depends on the camera too. RAW files are everything, every bit of data that the camera's sensor or sensors can pick up and record, it's why they are HUGE files. You might see information that states your camera can shoot 10 RAW files on a 1 GB memory card, but can record 50 high quality large .jpg files.
Photoshop includes the ability to open edit with RAW; you can also then convert after editing to .jpg if you wish, and of course for printing, publishing, sending images via e-mail or uploading to a website, generally you will need to save your images as .jpgs. Do be aware that you don't want to EDIT in the .jpg format. If you are editing an image in Photoshop, save the image as a Photoshop or .psd file format (.psd is the "native" Photoshop file type). The main reason, aside from being able to use all the tools, filters, etc in Photoshop is that the .jpg format is what is called "lossy." Every time you open, edit, and resave a .jpg file, the compression algorithm it uses throws away data. So over time you will find a .jpg will lose quality. There's nothing you can do about that: it's built into the .jpg file type and it does this automatically.
You may want to invest in a couple of books. I think you probably don't need the Photoshop for Dummies book (I am assuming you are using Photoshop CS3?), but you might want to look at the Photoshop CS3 Visual Quickstart Guide and the Photoshop CS3 Bible.
Hope that helps you!
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