Hello All!! This my introduction. I am a 53 year old AF Veteran out of Texas. I started in photography as a teen with what I believe was a 110 camera. Needless to say the photos weren’t that great but I digress. When I joined the military in 1985 my first major purchase was a Pentax A3000 (with Auto Aperture) and I acquired multiple lenses in approximately 10 years of being stationed in Germany. I learned a lot from that camera by experimentation and continued to use it up until 2004. At that point I purchased my first digital, an Olympus Camedia C-5000. This little camera was purchased for a trip back to Europe. It had a grand total of 5MP and a 3X Optical zoom with no capability of additional lenses. This was a great beginner camera that took some awesome shots! Next camera came in 2009 for a cross country trip along the Rocky Mountain range from Texas all the way up to Glacier National park. It was a Olympus SP600UZ with 12 MP and 15X Optical Zoom. It took some darned good pictures as well. Now it is 2018 and I am going on my probable last trip to Europe. The old Olympus is not working as well as I like and I wanted my manual focus back. I want control back in my hands and I want to learn the finer points of photography to include what aperture, ISO, Depth of Field and all of the other general terms mean. I want to understand how each affects the shots that I take. I decided upon the Nikon 3400 because I wanted the best I could get at the price that wouldn’t send my wife in to financial panic!!! I got it on sale through the Military Exchange which saved me the cost of taxes. It was the dual lens bundle. So basically I am a beginner and want to glean what information and knowledge from what I can tell are some very experienced and professional photographers. I admire your work. I am interested in all types of photography. Thanks for bearing with my lengthy diatribe!!!
Longarm wrote:
Hello All!! This my introduction. I am a 53 year old AF Veteran out of Texas. I started in photography as a teen with what I believe was a 110 camera. Needless to say the photos weren’t that great but I digress. When I joined the military in 1985 my first major purchase was a Pentax A3000 (with Auto Aperture) and I acquired multiple lenses in approximately 10 years of being stationed in Germany. I learned a lot from that camera by experimentation and continued to use it up until 2004. At that point I purchased my first digital, an Olympus Camedia C-5000. This little camera was purchased for a trip back to Europe. It had a grand total of 5MP and a 3X Optical zoom with no capability of additional lenses. This was a great beginner camera that took some awesome shots! Next camera came in 2009 for a cross country trip along the Rocky Mountain range from Texas all the way up to Glacier National park. It was a Olympus SP600UZ with 12 MP and 15X Optical Zoom. It took some darned good pictures as well. Now it is 2018 and I am going on my probable last trip to Europe. The old Olympus is not working as well as I like and I wanted my manual focus back. I want control back in my hands and I want to learn the finer points of photography to include what aperture, ISO, Depth of Field and all of the other general terms mean. I want to understand how each affects the shots that I take. I decided upon the Nikon 3400 because I wanted the best I could get at the price that wouldn’t send my wife in to financial panic!!! I got it on sale through the Military Exchange which saved me the cost of taxes. It was the dual lens bundle. So basically I am a beginner and want to glean what information and knowledge from what I can tell are some very experienced and professional photographers. I admire your work. I am interested in all types of photography. Thanks for bearing with my lengthy diatribe!!!
Hello All!! This my introduction. I am a 53 year... (
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Welcome to the forum. Have fun with your Nikon 3400 and create some lovely images. Post them and get critique if you want or ask questions. Have fun.
My first official photo post!
Welcome to the forum.
Jack
Longarm wrote:
Hello All!! This my introduction. I am a 53 year old AF Veteran out of Texas. I started in photography as a teen with what I believe was a 110 camera. Needless to say the photos weren’t that great but I digress. When I joined the military in 1985 my first major purchase was a Pentax A3000 (with Auto Aperture) and I acquired multiple lenses in approximately 10 years of being stationed in Germany. I learned a lot from that camera by experimentation and continued to use it up until 2004. At that point I purchased my first digital, an Olympus Camedia C-5000. This little camera was purchased for a trip back to Europe. It had a grand total of 5MP and a 3X Optical zoom with no capability of additional lenses. This was a great beginner camera that took some awesome shots! Next camera came in 2009 for a cross country trip along the Rocky Mountain range from Texas all the way up to Glacier National park. It was a Olympus SP600UZ with 12 MP and 15X Optical Zoom. It took some darned good pictures as well. Now it is 2018 and I am going on my probable last trip to Europe. The old Olympus is not working as well as I like and I wanted my manual focus back. I want control back in my hands and I want to learn the finer points of photography to include what aperture, ISO, Depth of Field and all of the other general terms mean. I want to understand how each affects the shots that I take. I decided upon the Nikon 3400 because I wanted the best I could get at the price that wouldn’t send my wife in to financial panic!!! I got it on sale through the Military Exchange which saved me the cost of taxes. It was the dual lens bundle. So basically I am a beginner and want to glean what information and knowledge from what I can tell are some very experienced and professional photographers. I admire your work. I am interested in all types of photography. Thanks for bearing with my lengthy diatribe!!!
Hello All!! This my introduction. I am a 53 year... (
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Welcome to the forum. You will find there are a lot of 'born again' photographers here with stories similar to yours.
sr71
Loc: In Col. Juan Seguin Land
Welcome to the hog..... and you just picked one of the best beginners camera out there, but don't let that stop you it's still a very
capable camera with a very nice sensor. It reminds of a slr back in the day just the basics of what you need and nothing more. Thank you for your service I'm a retired Coastie and will probability will get back into photography. If you are stuck some where give me a shout I'm up in Col Juan Seguin Land... will be glad to help.....sr71backbird@att.net
Wylie
Maybe a photo walk or somethin......
Welcome to the Forum Longarm, enjoy.
Welcome to the forum. These guys here can give you some great advice and youtube is full of videos on each individual term however if you don't take time to practice what each term means and does then your just going to end up with a lot of displeased shots. I personally ask questions here for a couple days before time off from work. Get up that morning and watch about 2 hours worth of video with my camera in hand to practice adjusting the settings then spend the day shooting in that particular mode weather its Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. Unfortantly I don't feel comfortable to shoot in full manual mode yet. The faster you learn to get off the preset modes the better your photographs will be.
Longarm wrote:
My first official photo post!
one of the things I would do is trun off the date and time stamp.I think it distracts from the picture.then take it out and shoot using all the diff. setting until you are happy with the results. I hope you have fun with the new camera.
Great advice!! Thank you!
out4life2016 wrote:
Welcome to the forum. These guys here can give you some great advice and youtube is full of videos on each individual term however if you don't take time to practice what each term means and does then your just going to end up with a lot of displeased shots. I personally ask questions here for a couple days before time off from work. Get up that morning and watch about 2 hours worth of video with my camera in hand to practice adjusting the settings then spend the day shooting in that particular mode weather its Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. Unfortantly I don't feel comfortable to shoot in full manual mode yet. The faster you learn to get off the preset modes the better your photographs will be.
Welcome to the forum. These guys here can give you... (
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I was wondering about that too. I am getting a bit dazed and confused these days and put it there to remind me when I took it! I forget that you can check the properties to see that. I will remove that thank you!!
the hiker wrote:
one of the things I would do is trun off the date and time stamp.I think it distracts from the picture.then take it out and shoot using all the diff. setting until you are happy with the results. I hope you have fun with the new camera.
Welcome! Looking forward to your posts and pictures. Happy shooting!
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