Photography- My Hobby

[BikeLoverKai]

I've all-ways loved photography, and on the 17.10.15 I went to Cornwall to visit my family & my auntie got me a camera.

So for about 2 days I've started taking photos & only starting today I made a Facebook page and website!

Please like my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PhotographyKaiSmith

And please check my website out: http://www.photographykai.tumblr.com

Please check my my photos and please tell me what you think of them (Please be honest) and after you liked my Facebook page please share it with all your mates

I'm planning to take photos to do with motorbikes.

Thank you!

[Mr Fro]

I like the one of the road/cliff top.

An easy way of taking pro looking shots is to use the rule of thirds - essentially placing the subject towards the corner of the frame.

What cam have you got?

[BikeLoverKai]

I like the one of the road/cliff top.

An easy way of taking pro looking shots is to use the rule of thirds - essentially placing the subject towards the corner of the frame.

What cam have you got?

 

cannon SX160 IS

[Arwen]

Photography can be a very enjoyable, if not expensive hobby!

You have some nice shots there, a couple of things I would add to Fro's tip is to not zoom in and/or crop the pictures too tightly that they become blurry (the swimmer, the boat, the white castle thing). The picture of the little house is nice, but if you kept more of the background in frame you would have shown the scale of the building better. You do not always need to zoom right up close to things to take good pictures. Experiment and keep up with it and you will get much enjoyment from photography.

The waterfront walk picture is rather nice and the pug is lovely

Have you through about joining a camera club or class in your area? If you can find a friendly group then you can learn a lot from them.

What I enjoy doing is going on Flickr and finding pictures taken with the camera I have. It gives me an ideas for what I can do and different settings to try.

This is the link to Flickrs "information" page about your camera - https://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/po ... _sx160_is/

If you go down the bottom there is a search box where you can search for a topic, and it will return pictures on that topic that have been taken with that model of camera.

When you click on some of the pictures, at the right hand side it will give you the camera settings used to take that picture. You can use these to try and recreate similar pictures if you like.

Have fun!

[BikeLoverKai]

Photography can be a very enjoyable, if not expensive hobby!

You have some nice shots there, a couple of things I would add to Fro's tip is to not zoom in and/or crop the pictures too tightly that they become blurry (the swimmer, the boat, the white castle thing). The picture of the little house is nice, but if you kept more of the background in frame you would have shown the scale of the building better. You do not always need to zoom right up close to things to take good pictures. Experiment and keep up with it and you will get much enjoyment from photography.

The waterfront walk picture is rather nice and the pug is lovely

Have you through about joining a camera club or class in your area? If you can find a friendly group then you can learn a lot from them.

What I enjoy doing is going on Flickr and finding pictures taken with the camera I have. It gives me an ideas for what I can do and different settings to try.

This is the link to Flickrs "information" page about your camera - https://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/po ... _sx160_is/

If you go down the bottom there is a search box where you can search for a topic, and it will return pictures on that topic that have been taken with that model of camera.

When you click on some of the pictures, at the right hand side it will give you the camera settings used to take that picture. You can use these to try and recreate similar pictures if you like.

Have fun!

 

thank you

[MarkW]

I have a funny relationship with photography, partly because it is pretty much the only point of connection I have with my father. He'd been a keen photographer all his life, and back in the 1980s he used to do a lot of his own processing and printing. I spent many hours in the darkroom watching him at work, and although he never welcomed my presence (I was always tolerated rather than encouraged) I learned a lot. He kicked the bucket when I was 15, and having been given all his gear by my mother I carried on for a few years.

For one reason or another I drifted away from it for a long time, and only really got interested again about ten years ago. Another short hiatus followed, and then I took the plunge and went completely digital a couple of years ago.

Anyway - neither here nor there. It took me a long time even to understand what sort of photography I like, especially as almost everything I saw or took myself left me cold. As much as I love nature I can't stand photographs of animals (I have a particular hatred of photos of horses, dogs, cats - pretty much anything on legs really) and I loathe artsy landscapes: if it's a blurry image of water taken with a filter I'm guaranteed to hate it, anything that says 'in the gloaming' just makes me cross, and if it's a night-time sky shot of swirly stars I'm going to chuck the magazine across the room.

I have come to the conclusion that what I really like is street photography - B&W or colour - and probably urban shots from the 1950s to 1980s best of all. I'm not very good at it - I went out on Friday night around town, and binned every image I took - but I have plans to get better!

[Bill_on_a_bike]

Agree about the zoom. To get good quality pics zoomed in you need a very expensive lens (those great big canon L series lenses)

I bought a cheaper 80-300mm lens for my DSLR, it's alright for £80 second hand, great if all you want is to capture something far away, but you do end up with blur/ light seperation with cheap optics.

Stick to a ~55mm lens (same rough focal length as the human eye) they tend to look best.

I would highly reccomend a second hand, last generation DSLR. I have a 400D and it's not the best thing ever but the speed and ease with which you can adjust everything that matters compared to a compact is crazy. Mine's always in manual and you get very fast at judging settings for something. You can also use 'bracketing' where it will take three shots in quick sucession but with 3 different settings (3 different f stops for example).

[Gin]

Some good shots, where abouts in Cornwall were you, I think I recognise some bits but not 100% sure..

[RantMachine]

I have to try soooooo hard to bite my lip in threads about photography

Irresistible urge to go through and correct any little factual inaccuracies or go off on rants about all kinds of stuff

But to keep it down to sage advice instead of grumbling...

1 - Always be proud of what you create, but also always push yourself to take an even better photo the next time!

2 - Remember that talented photographers are not made overnight, and even the best ones only let you see the handful of shots that they were happy with. Never be afraid to take the same photo over and over again from every angle and at every exposure until you polish it into the best it can be. Next time it won't take you as long and you'll likely get a better photo too, because you're building on your skills and developing your eye.

3- Photoshop is a crutch, don't fall into the trap of propping yourself up with it. A little crop and rotate is fine, but don't go nuts - build on your photography skills before you worry too much about post production. You'll be a better photographer for learning how to produce a great image straight out of the camera.

And on the equipment front... I agree that sticking to a fixed focal length lens can be a good choice, although it's perhaps a little restrictive when still finding your way in photography. Better to have a cheap zoom that cover a large range and invest in a decent prime once you know what focal length you spend most of your time it. A spectacular composition captured with a rubbish lens will always look better than a bland one taken on a lens that cost three months wages. And of course, megapixels count for bugger all.

Enjoy snapping on your SX160, use the flexibility to hone your composition and find what kind of photography speaks to you the most. Then grab an old Canon AE1 or Olympus OM10 from Oxfam for a tenner and use film to get to grips with exposure. More control over it than a Powershot SX will give you, but also the cost of processing it makes you think more about each shot

Unless you're making a living from it, there is very little need to sink vast amounts of money on photography gear - and even then, 1/3 of professional photography is bodging things together

[Hoggs]

Ooh makes me want to get my behind in gear and get some good snaps.

I only have a film camera though. Tis a very nice 80's Nikon SLR one that my dad gave me. It has lots of buttons on it that I have no idea what they do.. and then there's a little flip panel on the front that has even more buttons! I have no idea what they do either. Also it's manual focus which took a while to get used to.

I still maintain it takes better pictures that digital cameras (when I get them in focus).

[Gin]

I adore film!

When I did my A-level I spent hours in the school dark room

Ahh miss the smell and quiet so much..

[JRH]

I Never be afraid to take the same photo over and over again from every angle and at every exposure until you polish it into the best it can be.

 

I agree with that, but my OH doesn't understand the need to retake shots of the same item at different settings, times of day or year

[Fozzie]

I agree with that, but my OH doesn't understand the need to retake shots of the same item at different settings, times of day or year

 

Better they don't understand I find

I can stand in one spot for an age. But Bikermoo has a degree in photography, and she will stand in the same spot all night because she's got a bee under her bonnet. I'm of the opinion you should have balance, and not focus too hard on one thing as it reduces the time you have for another.

And I'm a bit of a purist in that I never used photoshop to edit pictures, as I used to see it as cheating, although now I accept it eliminates the limitations you find in the field. But I mainly shot derelict buildings, which was a hobby from about 14 and I found some flaws could actually give the picture atmosphere.

I'm really keen on the Canon SX60. Not a full on DSLR like my 700D but it covers such a wide range of shots wonderfully. I had a go with one and was really impressed. So that's a possible Christmas present to myself.

[Joeman]

I've got a Nikon DSLR... I just put bigger lens on for far away things and smaller lens for closer things and leave it on "Auto"..

You won't be seeing my photos on exhibition anytime soon.. Lol

[RantMachine]

I've got... hang on, let me count for a minute.

Three Nikon SLRs (including an all black press model FM2 with rapid advance and an F5), one Nikon DSLR, and half a dozen lenses and a couple of flashguns to go with them, a Fuji X100 with a ring flash (the only one I regularly use for personal stuff, the Nikon gear is all for work these days!), a Canon superzoom compact camera, a Canon bridge camera, a Samsung smart camera, some Bowens studio flashes, and a half-plate tailboard camera of unknown make.

And then somewhere else I have a box with two Minolta SLRs and another half dozen lenses, a couple of Zenits with 50mm lenses, and some other bits and bobs that I forget.

I'm not doing too bad, I've managed to cut down quite a bit

And then at work, we've got an H3D50, a couple of Mamiyas, two large formats (including a speed graphic!), a D3s and a D800E with a bunch of lenses, and a dozen peli cases each containing a 5Dmk2, 24-70, 50, and 70-200. Oh, and about 80 Gemini 500 kits

[Six30]

My phones got a camera.

[winchman]

I feel you need to spend more time composing the shots.

The castle thing isn't vertical? did you use a tripod?

Have a good play with depth of field and you should see some marked improvements, whilst I don't want to sit here and do them down I feel with a bit more practice you could do better.

I am inspired by this guy he has some of the best images of Llandudno I have ever seen

http://www.davenewbould.co.uk/

and this one

http://charlesgurche.com/

I did my City & Guilds a long time ago with film, the photographer who taught us was fantastic and still inspires me know. I am still not very good my daughter who is 18 is way better than me and has no formal training!

[MarkW]

A couple of years ago I was listening to a professional underwater photographer who was talking about this being the 'age of lost images'. His point was that back before digital there was a cost associated with buying film and having it processed, so you'd be more inclined to consider each shot before you took it, and when you got your images back from the lab you'd go through them all individually and chuck out the rubbish. If anything stood out as being particularly good you might get it blown up and framed, and stick it on the wall. Nowadays you can take a machine-gun approach, firing off fifty shots of the same thing in a few seconds, possibly reviewing them in-camera if you can be bothered, and then going on to the next thing with 700 shots still left on your memory card. Then when you get home (or run out of memory) you upload them to the computer to be reviewed at a later date. And there they stay.

I know I was guilty of that: I'd had a few digital compacts over the years, but when I finally bought a digital SLR a couple of years ago I got an EOS 5D mkIII and used it a lot. And as much as I love it, it has made me lazy: I ended up with a lot of shots that I didn't have time to sit down and review properly, and when I did I'd end up cursing myself for having been so trigger-happy. I'm getting better though!

I also avoided Photoshop and Lightroom for a long time, I suspect like other people because I saw it as cheating. But even with film, once you've pressed the shutter there is still plenty you can do in the darkroom to alter the final result, from basic dodging, burning-in and masking to more complex retouching operations. In fact some of the most iconic photographs from the pre-digital era were massively manipulated in the darkroom. So I do use Lightroom quite a bit now, but not to do any gross manipulations: generally speaking, the more I tinker with an image the less I like the end result. I have also picked up my old OM20 an OM40 again, partly because my eldest is interested in how film is processed and printed, but partly because I still like the feel of a really basic SLR in my hand.