srt101fan

These comments are mostly aimed at fellow climbers of the learning ladder but input from the more seasoned shooters on this forum would be much appreciated.

I shot film for many years, mostly black and white; did my own processing and printing. Moved to digital; Nikon D50 camera with 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses. Did some post-processing but never fully exploited the capabilities of digital cameras and editing software. So, I am not a novice, but I’m a long way from being an accomplished photographer, especially in the digital world.

I think of two types of photographs. As UHH member gvarner said recently, “You can either take a photograph or make a photograph.” The “taken” ones (“snapshots”, “grab shots” or “photographs of opportunity”), are taken “on the fly” without advance planning or preparation for specific shots. Let’s call these type 1 shots. Others are the product of careful planning, setup and camera adjustments. Let’s refer to these as type 2 shots. An oversimplified categorization, of course. “Street” photography, for example, is probably somewhere between 1 and 2.

Most of my pictures since my film days have been type 1 shots, with not a lot of thought, planning or preparation for the individual pictures. Some of that is due to situations that don’t allow for the time and maneuverability required to “make” a type 2 photo. Traveling with a tour group is one example (I raised that issue in an earlier post - “Camera Settings for Tour Travel Photography”.) Another type 1 shooting scenario is trying to photograph when walking with someone (I don’t think my wife really appreciates my constantly stopping to take pictures!). In any case, I decided it was time for more serious learning/practicing digital, especially after I got a Nikon D5300.

Since my subject interests are anything and everything (both a curse and a blessing!), I need to learn more about the type 2 specialty areas (architectural, landscape, wildlife, close-up, portrait, etc.). I realize I’m equipment limited in some of these areas (wildlife photography, for example). But, more importantly, I will continue to “take” mostly type 1 pictures, and I want them to be as good as I can get them to be in any given situation. So this is my near-term goal, to get the best “snapshots” I can!

Here are some observations on a few issues I have been tackling this past year. (As an aside, I recently learned that if you include any website links in the first post of a new topic, UHH admin will move the thread to the “Links and Resources” section. So I will avoid links in this post.)

1 - GENERAL: Most of my comments below address the mechanics of taking a picture. But ahead of that is the issue of subject/content. Without a visually interesting subject there is no photo. I generally take too many pictures of the “why did I take that?” variety. I have to remind myself that not all things I find visually interesting make good photos. I think the transition from film to no-cost digital made it too easy to just hit the delete button on those you don’t like. But I think I lost something too. In the film days I was more thoughtful, more deliberate, had more discipline. So I want to re-learn to be more selective when I hit the shutter release.

Even though type 1 shots don’t allow much prep and setup, you still need initial settings in the camera. And, depending on the shooting scenario, you may have an opportunity to adjust some of these settings before you take a particular shot. How to do this has been part of my quest for better type 1 images, and “pre-setting” the camera has been a big issue for me. Should I use full Auto for group travel as some have suggested? Or one of Nikon’s semi-auto modes - Program mode (P), Aperture Priority (A), or Shutter Priority (S)? What about Manual (M)? I am currently playing around with Manual and Auto ISO (more on this below)

2 – EQUIPMENT: I love the Nikon D5300. I know it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of a “pro” model but it suits me fine. And at my age, the lighter weight of a crop sensor camera is a distinct advantage. And the articulated screen is a blessing for getting those low level shots that my old knees just might not accommodate anymore! I’m still using the 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses from the Nikon D50 but I’ve added a 35mm 1.8 lens (as recommended by several UHH posters – thank you!). Sweet lens, and relatively inexpensive too! My main film camera was a Minolta SRT-101 and I have a bunch of lenses for it. I bought an adapter to fit them to my Nikon but that was a big disappointment. My next lens might be a macro (or “micro” as Nikon calls it). A longer lens for birds would be also nice. We’ll have to see.

Obviously familiarity with the equipment is one of the most important factors, even more so for type 1 photography where fast reactions are required. Fumbling with adjustments because I’m not sure where the buttons or dials are won’t get me there. I need to practice until the adjustments become second nature.

3 – LEARNING RESOURCES: There’s lots of info online – maybe too much! That’s one reason I appreciate UHH. If you can ignore the jerks with their snarky remarks, this forum is a wonderful resource. Not only can you ask questions and get helpful answers but you are also given good links to online resources by folks like jerryc41 and others. I also bought Brian Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure” and Steve Perry’s “Secrets to the Nikon Autofocus System”. Steve is a great photographer and teacher who is also a member of this forum.

A word of advice to novices and newcomers to UHH. As good as most of the UHH posters are, you need to understand where they’re individually coming from. A landscape photographer used to shooting on a tripod may not give you the best advice for taking pictures on the run. Some obsess about sharpness and have no tolerance for “noise” (like grain in the film days). So read the comments in context. And remember that an expert colonoscopy image maker does not necessarily a good landscape photographer make.

4 – RAW vs JPEG / POST-PROCESSING (PP): Until very recently, I only shot JPEG. I made limited forays into PP using a program called “Photoimpact” but never was quite comfortable with it. I looked for a new editing program; much info on this forum with most leaning towards Lightroom/Photoshop. Since I already had a good cataloguing program (IMatch), I didn’t need that feature of Lightroom. So I decided on Affinity Photo. I am now shooting RAW + JPEG (started so recently that I haven’t even processed any of the images!). I’m looking forward to learning RAW and Affinity. BTW, many of the more seasoned UHH posters question the logic of shooting RAW + JPEG, why not RAW only they say. If all goes well I’ll go RAW only. In the meantime the added JPEG is a bit like a security blanket.

5 – BACK-BUTTON FOCUS (BBF): Thanks to Steve Perry and others, I decided to try BBF. I love it and I ain’t going back to focusing with half-press of the shutter release. BBF seems more logical and has very definite advantages. If you haven’t tried it, do so. Go to Steve Perry’s website “Backcountry Gallery” and link to his YouTube channel to learn all about it. And if you’re a Nikon user, also look at his book “Secrets to the Nikon Autofocus System” – a great resource. If you try BBF, and it doesn’t feel comfortable right away, stick with it for a while because there is a period of adjustment.

6 – MANUAL MODE: There have been lots of posts about “Manual”. SharpShooter got it right in a recent post when he said “… people make WAY too much out of shooting manual.” If you are a novice, I suggest you ignore all the hoopla about the definition of Manual and the alleged (by some) superiority of this shooting mode. And put to rest the silly notion that it will make you a better photographer. Manual is undoubtedly best for some shooting scenarios. But there’s also a time and place for the other shooting modes and no mode is better than the others all the time. You need to decide which of the aperture/shutter speed/ISO settings you want to set yourself and which you want to turn over to the camera. If you want to do everything yourself, fine, set the camera to “Manual”, pick your settings, and fire away. Otherwise use one of the other modes. Whatever works for you is the right one.

7 – MANUAL WITH AUTO ISO: So this is where “manual” stops being “manual” and moves into the semi-auto realm. You set the aperture and shutter speed and let the camera select the ISO. I’m not sure why so many here object to this approach. For most of my type 1 shots I need a fairly high shutter speed to avoid camera shake (I’m not as steady as I used to be!). And I might want to set the aperture at the “sweet spot” for max sharpness, or at some other f stop based on depth of field. So if I have good reasons to fix aperture and shutter, why not let the camera pick the ISO?

“Oh, you need to keep the ISO low to avoid noise” some will say. True, but I may not have enough light for a low ISO setting. So, it may be better to get an image with a little noise than not to take the shot at all. And don’t automatically assume high ISO is bad. It may be so for purist landscape photographers and “pixel peepers”. For others, some noise may not be objectionable. And some might even consider high ISO noise a creative tool to be used like grain was in the film days. From a DP School article: “Grainy or noisy shots can give your image a gritty and raw quality that creates a completely different mood in your shots”.

In any case, I have, for the time being, adopted Manual + Auto ISO as my pre-set shooting mode for my travel and other type 1 shots. If time permits, I can still easily adjust aperture and shutter for specific situations where that might be advisable. And I can use Exposure Compensation when I feel that going over or under the meter is warranted.

Don’t get me wrong, M + Auto ISO is not the best for all scenarios, certainly not for most type 2 shots. And there are potential problems with its use. High ISOs may not only increase noise but can also reduce dynamic range and affect color. And I found myself more than once with appropriate settings for a low light environment only to get overexposures when moving to a brighter area. The ISO had pegged at the lower end (100) and I needed to increase shutter speed or decrease the aperture to get a proper exposure. So you have to keep an eye on the meter.

Those that want to know more about this important shooting mode should look at two UHH topics by John Gerlach: "Is aperture and shutter priority obsolete?" 9/24/17, and "Are both aperture and shutter priority obsolete?" 12/23/17. John is a nature/wildlife photographer, author and safari guide. Steve Perry (Backcountry Gallery) also has a great YouTube video on M+Auto ISO. These guys really know what they are doing so there must be something to this shooting mode!

8 – MISCELLANEOUS: At times I see a subject (an architectural detail for example) that I don’t photograph because I don’t have the right lens reach to fill the frame. But maybe cropping in post-processing could have given me an acceptable image. So I need to learn more about my camera’s image quality and the extent to which I can consider pre-planned cropping in some scenarios. I don’t do large prints (I’m more interested in slide shows), so this is a viable option for me for some shots.

Also, some travel shots, especially of crowded areas, may have a number of embedded images that can be pulled out with selective cropping. Again, I need to learn the extent to which I can do this based on image quality constraints.

Lots for me to study and work on in this year. Using histograms; bracketing; Expose-to the-Right (ETTR); RAW; photo-editing (Affinity); dynamic range…. But most importantly, I need to keep working on familiarity with the camera and making adjustments faster!

I hope this long-winded post is of some interest to at least some of you fellow learners. If you've gotten this far, thanks you for reading!

Wise words of wisdom are welcome....

blackest Loc: Ireland

Great Post
You do have to watch for over exposure when you choose a wide aperture and a slowish shutter speed. Your camera warns you about that.

It can warn you the other way too if you set a limit on how high to take the Iso then if it is going to under expose it will also warn you. You might be able to reduce shutter speed or increase your aperture or maybe you might want to add flash. Or maybe revise how high you want the iso to go.

My camera can go to 25,600 ISO or 51,200 ISO but I've never produced an image at that high an ISO i'd ever want to show anybody So I will not let it use those ISO values.

Donald duck

Thank you

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

A good set of observations, and you have clearly set yourself in a good direction. I'm usually disappointed when I look at my images and think "That's definitely a number two!"

Dan Downie Loc: Rochester, NY

Thanks for taking the time to provide such a thoughtful post; great observations. I shoot manual everything and have played around with M+Auto ISO, but have nother been impressive this far, but I know it's got to be me. Whenever I've tried it I have always been disappointed because my subject (BIF) are always underexposed. I haven't figured out what my problem is yet, but I will. Coincidentally, I was just playing around with exposure compensation earlier this evening whIle in manual+Auto ISO, but did not see a difference up to 3+ stops. But, I love the challenges that arise even though they can be frustrating at times. I have great gear - I was out this afternoon testing my new 5D Mk IV that the brown truck delivered yesterday - which can make things easier in my opinion, merely because most everything can be controlled by a dial or button instead of having to access menus, but it takes time and practice to master the fundamentals no matter what gear you're using.

The important thing really is the enjoyment that we, as hobbiests/enthusiasts derive from both the artistic and technical perspectives where our left and right brains play well together.

Thank you again for the thoughtful post. Happy shooting, brother!

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

I may not be a newbie, but like yourself and all active photographers I do work hard at this business of climbing the learning ladder. As such your article was a pleasure to read. To some degree elders need to keep in touch with what it is like to face the massive technical and artistic morass seen by newer photographers, and your description was very clear and refreshing.

I do have a couple specific comments, not so much as a criticism as a specialised addition.

Your very general division of photography into these Types 1 and 2 may have been useful, but in at least one case it is far too simplified. And you specifically added to the problem with comments. I want to generalize in the opposite direction, showing how much more broad the definitions have to be.

Street Photography, and you are invited to our UHH Street Photography Section at

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/s-121-1.html

is not a genre that can actually be called a Type 1, nor should it be thought of as between 1 and 2. It is clear why it appears to be, and many beginners approach it as exactly that. They may continue that forever too... unless they begin to understand what Street actually is.

Many think anything that is a snapshot of a street scene is Street Photography. But it is actually very purposeful and has nothing at all to do with a road. It is not a haphazard endeavor. Consider that I have a couple high end Nikon cameras, but own a Fujifilm x100s specifically for Street. There is gaffer's tape all over it, to prevent preset focus and aperture from changing. It is not for random, but for very much pre-planned, photography.

Read how Henri Cartier-Bresson, Joel Meyerowitz, or Garry Winogrand worked. There was little that was unplanned about how to find subject matter.

I suspect that is true of all genres that appear in any way "random". The only random part is what new photographers do before they understand. That is true for wildlife, landscape, portrait and just about everything. Even shooting grandchildren!

Another amusing artifact of this can be people who learn a list of rigid rules and insist that if not applied then the photographer gets nothing but "snaps", often rerisively claimed not to be art or even photography.

You tended to over generalize, but many go a step beyond and claim what they don't like is by definition not good art or not even art at all!

I believe that a clear understanding of just how purposeful all well done photography is, and how little it has to do with Rules-of-Thumb is important for beginning photographers to realize early on.

alolewis

I shot mostly Manual as I feel I have more control over the settings. I use auto ISO when shooting indoor sports such as basketball as I know I want a high shutter speed, typically 1/500 and I set my aperture to the maximum opening (2.8 on my 70-200 lens). As the lighting in the community college I shoot at is poor and uneven using auto ISO helps. I did learn that I need to set a maximum ISO as the camera has gone up to the maximum (26,000 Nikon D7200) and the results are too grainy. I set the maximum usually to about 8000, if the photos are too dark, I lighten in Lightroom. Since the photos will be used mostly on the college website and in the school newspaper, this works as neither need the best quality.

IBM

I agree with apaflow , all so I think that l and 2 stuff is a waste of effort. They will be that way any way with out even trying .
If you look in the mags, of pictures taken by cameras that were taken 30 years ago , you have in your hand a camera that can
Do what they do and more , a more fancy expensive camera won't help . You just learn how to make your settings and what every thing does when your making changes , now getting the photos to be good looking is another ball of wax , you have to learn to see
And a lot of looking through your lens well teach you how to see as looking through good books will. Go out and take a lot of photos. Of same subject and compare them some will be better, others will not , it's all there once you got your camera set up
Whit balance , speed ,f stop , iso, lens all set , now all the rest is what you see in the lens , need more depth , or less , how old are you it's going to take years , I am 76 and I don't get as many keepers as I want. But I'm ruthless if it's not family members, and if it's not scarce I deleat pretty fast when I'm going through them , your on the right track it's just a lot of usage and practice with that camera

IBM

What stop and speed are you using , what lens , is it sunny or a dull day , how far is your bird away ,

glasskey Loc: Rockwood, Ontario, Canada

Thank you for your insightful post. This eerily describes my "learning ladder" to a tee!

rayr

Thanks for a very insightful post. Like you , and a lot of the folks here, I started with B&W film and processed it myself when I worked as a newspaper photographer in the 70's. I switched to digital several years ago and I still continue to learn everyday. Keep up the good work, photograph what you like and enjoy doing it.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I usually visualize what I want to see in the final print before I go out shooting. I try to get the exposure and composition right when I take the shot. I use post processing to finalize my original visualization.

HallowedHill Loc: Chattanooga, TN

[quote=srt101fan]These comments are mostly aimed at fellow climbers of the learning ladder but input from the more seasoned shooters on this forum would be much appreciated.

My experience pretty much exactly. Two things I especially agree with.

To much is made of shooting manual at the expense of other modes, and there are times where auto is the preference. The goal is the end product, not how you get there although the how needs to be understood well to make the appropriate choices.

And the advance of digital has made all to many of us lazy: just keep firing away until we get what we want. I am guilty as charged all to often.

Great post.

cabbagemama Loc: AZ

You addressed a lot of the same issues that I have and expressed them in a very thoughtful way. I appreciate the references for more info and am anxious to try them. Thank you for a great post.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Thank you for referencing my initial post. We get lots of info here that causes us to think. It's comforting to discover that others think the way that we do, the old feed back loop.