Cameras

[touchingcloth]

There's a photography thread in HS Art, but I thought I'd start something about GEAR.

I got "into" photography in 2008 when I bought a Canon 450D (an entry-level DSLR), but prior to that I'd had a handful of point-and-shoot jobbies, and I think maybe a phone which took godawful pictures.

I've been thinking lately about how my whole shooting technique which was learned on that camera now doesn't really apply because a lot of the limitations of a 2008 camera don't apply any more. Noise was the big issue, and basically anything shot at or above ISO 800 would have visible noise in anything but the brightest of conditions, so I would try and "expose to the right" and invariably end up losing some of my highlights in the process.

I've always known that my newer camera suffered far less from noise ruining images, but for some reason it's only recently that I've switched to change my technique to reflect this, mainly by erring on the side of under rather than over exposure as it's at least possible to recover things in post that way.

Also lenses. I've owned a lot over the years, most of them in the early days when I was relatively flush with cash from my first proper job, but also inexperienced with things so I would buy the "best" lenses I could afford without thinking whether I actually needed them. For instance I bought an "L" lens which was a 135mm f/2 thing, and it was astonishingly good and cost more than my camera, but wasn't something I ever actually used because a 135mm lens is something that only a professional portrait photographer would have any need for. I've since realised that most of my snaps are taken at 35mm to 85mm equivalent ranges, so I have lenses in that range and have sacked off all of the others.

Not too sure what the point of this was, but fuck it, post.

[Endicott]

Why are you losing highlights when you expose to the right? It sounds like you're going too far to the right. The technique is sound in itself, if you do it right. By underexposing, I can't help but think that you're losing detail in the dark areas (you might not need or want it of course, but that's a different question).

[greenman]

Why are you losing highlights when you expose to the right? It sounds like you're going too far to the right. The technique is sound in itself, if you do it right. By underexposing, I can't help but think that you're losing detail in the dark areas (you might not need or want it of course, but that's a different question).

Modern digital sensors are very good at retaining shadow detail but they still struggle with highlights, "exposure to the right" was I'd say more a relic of B&W film which was often very good at retaining highlight detail but struggled more in the shadows than digital does today.

A lot depends on what your shooting as well obviously, could be for example that losing some highlights on a bright sky that are out of focus anyway isn't very important on a portrait. Shooting landscape my basic setting would tend to be 2/3rds of a stop under exposed on aperture priority.

[touchingcloth]

Why are you losing highlights when you expose to the right? It sounds like you're going too far to the right. The technique is sound in itself, if you do it right. By underexposing, I can't help but think that you're losing detail in the dark areas (you might not need or want it of course, but that's a different question).

I don't shoot things like landscapes too often, so exposing to the right properly is really difficult. Things like the in-viewfinder histogram are based on a jpeg preview rather than the raw sensor capture, so the histogram will often show as if there are clipped highlights when in fact the raw capture is fine. If highlights are a small proportion of the overall image then these won't show particularly obviously in the histogram or the blinking clipped highlights warning. Spot metering to try and get there suffers from some of the same issues, mainly in that even the smallest spot is too large to get an accurate read on small areas of highlights.

Basically sound theory or not, I never got ETTR to work satisfactorily for me, so I switched to using aperture or shutter priority with one of the evaluative/centre-weighted/matrix metering modes. This works really well and automatic metering is in many ways akin to magic, but I often ended up with contrasty scenes being fucked, and two shots taken seconds apart might show the subject in full detail but with a blow background, or the background in full detail with a silhouetted subject.

I've forced myself to go fully manual recently, mainly because I never have before and have started to feel like I'm too much at the mercy of the camera's decisions. I'll spot meter and set the exposure on my subject where I want it to be, and swing the spot onto some highlights and shadows (and check the histogram) to make sure I'm not losing details I'd like to keep in either place. I'm slow as fuck at doing all of that currently and basically all of my shots need to be processed from raw now - I used to get maybe 80% which were acceptable-ish as jpegs from the camera, and that rate is way lower now. On the flip side I feel like I'm taking fewer but better-exposed pictures (because I'm not taking extra shots for safety in case the camera's meter goes nuts), so I'm not starting out in post-processing by junking big swathes of things where the highlights and shadows aren't recoverable. I'm not sure I'll keep the fully manual approach indefinitely (certainly not for snapshots), but it's quite exciting at the moment and I feel like I'm re-learning photography all over again. I feel like I've got a good grasp on composition, focus and depth of field, but exposure has always been a dark art where I've felt scared of leaving auto modes.

[greenman]

Honestly I think experience is the best way to deal with highlights, you get to know at what level they start to lose detail with a certain camera.

Sometimes that's simply unavoidable and there are often workarounds, a bit of cloning can often get rid of some blown out details on clouds for example.

[Endicott]

@gm It's still a very popular technique among digital photographers. It's impossible to generalise, of course, but then that's why you check your histogram.

@tc sounds like you are getting to grips with it pretty well.

For what it's worth I take most of my pictures using aperture priority (unless I need to freeze action), and dial in some exp comp if I feel a need to shift the histogram. I post process most of them now, but back when I was trying to avoid the need to post process, I also tended to underexpose my landscapes slightly.

[touchingcloth]

Modern digital sensors are very good at retaining shadow detail but they still struggle with highlights

I think my recent realisation is pretty much this. My earlier cameras were noisy beasts in the shadows, so I would shoot in a way to capture them as brightly as possible while not blowing out the highlights, which isn't really ETTR but is related. I feel more confident with putting more efforts into reducing the highlighting clipping now because shadows don't behave the same as on my old camera, obviously with the caveat that I don't want them to get too dark.

Actually it's not so accurate to say that my newer camera is less noisy, just that the noise is pretty much 100% grain and 0% colour, which for my own tastes is plenty acceptable.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I had (have). A 300d, fucked off the kit lens and used the 50mm prime that was a fucking bargain, although a bit too long on a crop sensor, so I also got a 20mm F1.8 sigma.

I tended to under-expose things anyway at high iso and accept the noise or use noise ninja, if noise became an issue I tended to slow-sync flash (with the flash compensation set a couple of stops down).

Now I've got a 5d the 50mm is perfect and the 20mm a bit too wide, it also vignettes more noticeably high apertures.

Main technique change is being able to accurately spot-meter in lower light rather than use centre weighted or evaluative (I almost always use aperture priority unless using a flash then it's shutter priority). And being able to use higher iso. Also the colour reproduction on the 5d is so lovely I'm far less likely to convert to monochrome (I shoot in raw so always take things in colour even if I've no intention of the end result being so).

[Non Stop Dancer]

Re: histograms being dictated by the jpeg rather than raw data, I use a custom setting which tries to replicate what raw looks like, eg turn all the saturation, contrast etc down,so you get a better idea on the back screen what data you've actually captured.

[touchingcloth]

Re: histograms being dictated by the jpeg rather than raw data, I use a custom setting which tries to replicate what raw looks like, eg turn all the saturation, contrast etc down,so you get a better idea on the back screen what data you've actually captured.

I do this, but dialled down to its extremes it makes for a very unappealing jpeg, so they're essentially useless out of the camera now. I fucked about with the "UniWB" technique where you set a custom white balance which is designed to get closer still, but that results in every image having a green cast which isn't worth the extra 1/3 stop of accuracy you get. I'll probably just spend some time getting my eye in using this approach, and switch back to shooting mainly to get jpegs out of the camera (they're lovely on my little Fuji), and swap back to the uncontrasty version to ensure decent raws if it's ever critical.

[touchingcloth]

I had (have). A 300d, fucked off the kit lens and used the 50mm prime that was a fucking bargain, although a bit too long on a crop sensor, so I also got a 20mm F1.8 sigma.

I tended to under-expose things anyway at high iso and accept the noise or use noise ninja, if noise became an issue I tended to slow-sync flash (with the flash compensation set a couple of stops down).

Now I've got a 5d the 50mm is perfect and the 20mm a bit too wide, it also vignettes more noticeably high apertures.

Main technique change is being able to accurately spot-meter in lower light rather than use centre weighted or evaluative (I almost always use aperture priority unless using a flash then it's shutter priority). And being able to use higher iso. Also the colour reproduction on the 5d is so lovely I'm far less likely to convert to monochrome (I shoot in raw so always take things in colour even if I've no intention of the end result being so).

Yep I hardly ever shoot for B&W (though I'll sometimes edit a contrasty scene in B&W to make the tones go where I want them and then switch back to refine the colours).

I really like 50mm on a crop sensor, but I shelled out early on for an f/1.4 lens so I spent my early days hooked on the bokeh and pretty much stayed at 50mm for that reason, and got used to shooting with that view. I prefer my 23mm on a crop sensor now, though, as the other way was an unorthodox approach I just happened to get used to.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Yeah, I liked my 20 on the crop, would consider a 30 something on my full frame but don't take enough photos at the moment to justify it.

50 was fine outside, just a bit much indoors etc.

[touchingcloth]

If I ever go full frame I'll definitely be getting a 35mm lens, as that's what my equivalent range is now (it's an X100, which is a crop sensor with a fixed 23mm) and I love that viewing size now.

[greenman]

A used D810 and Sigma 35mm F/1.4 is probably some of the best value performance you can get and would give you significantly more depth of field control.

What I end up using a lot of the time now is actually a D850 and Voigtlander 20mm and 40mm pancakes, small enough you can have the other in your pocket fairly easily and a nice range for landscapes plus a fairly compact package. That's been my low weight walking setup recently, if I ever do another serious Himalayan trek I'll probably just take those two, maybe a tele zoom as well.

I do this, but dialled down to its extremes it makes for a very unappealing jpeg, so they're essentially useless out of the camera now. I fucked about with the "UniWB" technique where you set a custom white balance which is designed to get closer still, but that results in every image having a green cast which isn't worth the extra 1/3 stop of accuracy you get. I'll probably just spend some time getting my eye in using this approach, and switch back to shooting mainly to get jpegs out of the camera (they're lovely on my little Fuji), and swap back to the uncontrasty version to ensure decent raws if it's ever critical.

Again I think knowing the camera well ends up being more effective than an automated system showing over exposure. Besides the above part of the reason I prefer SLR's still is that an optical viewfinder gives you wider dynamic range, an EVF might give you a closer preview of your basic file but being able to see detail in the shadows that you can get lift in post is much easier for me. if I was shooting people more were quick feedback was needed perhaps I might have gone mirrorless but landscape I find that more important.

[touchingcloth]

Again I think knowing the camera well ends up being more effective than an automated system showing over exposure. Besides the above part of the reason I prefer SLR's still is that an optical viewfinder gives you wider dynamic range, an EVF might give you a closer preview of your basic file but being able to see detail in the shadows that you can get lift in post is much easier for me. if I was shooting people more were quick feedback was needed perhaps I might have gone mirrorless but landscape I find that more important.

My camera has an optical as well as electronic viewfinder - it's styled after a rangefinder so the viewfinder is offset from the lens slightly rather than being through a prism like in an SLR. I pretty much never use the EVF for the same reasons as you, but I'm finding now that I'm trying to manually set my exposures that I'm paying much more attention to shadows and highlights and working out how bright or dark I want things in the final image.

[greenman]

My camera has an optical as well as electronic viewfinder - it's styled after a rangefinder so the viewfinder is offset from the lens slightly rather than being through a prism like in an SLR. I pretty much never use the EVF for the same reasons as you, but I'm finding now that I'm trying to manually set my exposures that I'm paying much more attention to shadows and highlights and working out how bright or dark I want things in the final image.

Its an effective system I'd imagine, being able to quickly bring up an EVF as needed whilst having the benefits of an optical finder.

If your taking pictures of high contrast scenes I think you need to accept that you'll never be able to capture/display something exactly as in reality because the dynamic range of the camera and even moreso the display mediums is significantly lower than human vision. Its more a question of compressing the dynamic range to within the limits of your display medium and getting something that looks somewhat realistic(if that's your aim).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Can you not err on the side of caution with that and bracket?

Personally I've never really felt that necessary because the raw post tools have always offered enough of a safety net. I'd have to be much better than I am, know photographic software better than I do and know my camera much better than I do to feel constrained by it. I'm very amateur though.

[greenman]

Can you not err on the side of caution with that and bracket?

Personally I've never really felt that necessary because the raw post tools have always offered enough of a safety net. I'd have to be much better than I am, know photographic software better than I do and know my camera much better than I do to feel constrained by it. I'm very amateur though.

You can I spose, maybe in a very fast moving situation it might be worthwhile but for landscape a bit of chimping isn't that difficult to get your exposure roughly in the right area.

For what I do I haven't found the learning cuvre with post processing is one of knowing more advanced softwhere, I mean things like noise reduction advance with time but mostly its been a case of using a few basic photoshop tools and the learning process being to hopefully do so more tastefully.

[touchingcloth]

Its an effective system I'd imagine, being able to quickly bring up an EVF as needed whilst having the benefits of an optical finder.

If your taking pictures of high contrast scenes I think you need to accept that you'll never be able to capture/display something exactly as in reality because the dynamic range of the camera and even moreso the display mediums is significantly lower than human vision. Its more a question of compressing the dynamic range to within the limits of your display medium and getting something that looks somewhat realistic(if that's your aim).

Yep, it's really good - I love the OVF for framing pictures (as I can do a quick check with the power off just to see if a certain scene is well framed or I need to walk a little closer first), plus I can do chimping with my eye to the finder which is quite handy when shooting people, as the leaf shutter means they're not actually aware when the pictures are being snapped, generally speaking.

I've always been aware of that with high contrast scenes, I'm just starting to really, properly think about it for the first time, so assessing the dynamic range of the scene and whether that's within the capabilities of the sensor. Basically Ansel Adams' zone system but applied to colour digital photography rather than B&W film. And simplified a lot, of course.

Can you not err on the side of caution with that and bracket?

Personally I've never really felt that necessary because the raw post tools have always offered enough of a safety net. I'd have to be much better than I am, know photographic software better than I do and know my camera much better than I do to feel constrained by it. I'm very amateur though.

I'm not a fan of bracketing, because when I shoot for pleasure these days it tends to be street photography where bracketing might nail the exposure but not necessarily on the subject I was trying to hit, and when I do "work" that tends to be of crowds and events ("work" being stuff like photos of theatre groups I'm involved with, or gigs of mates' bands, or friends' weddings - I've not done much actual paid work, but I do a fair amount where it's as a favour or for payment in kind).

I feel like I'm in a phase of stepping my skills up a notch at the moment, as my approach previously has been to stick things in aperture priority, less often shutter priority, and just take a LOT of photos and throw a lot of them away when I'm post processing. It's nice getting favourable reactions when shooting things for friends, but I find the secret is just being ruthless with binning things off during post, rather than erring on the Facebook album side of things and giving them a shit ton of a mixed bag of pictures just because I have them. I honestly think that ruthlessness is  a crucial difference between a bad and an OK/good photographer, as it's within anyone's reach to just take a lot of photos, and as long as their technique isn't complete garbage the chances are they'll get a handful of keepers. So I guess my goal at the moment is to up my rate of keepers.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I agree with ruthlessness. Less is definitely more.

Although I don't think that's new, my dad said at his wedding they guaranteed 12 'good' photos, and more if they could get them, and that was from 5 rolls of film.

[touchingcloth]

Shooting a wedding for a friend is great fun if you ever get the chance. My friends were totally chill about their day and didn't have a Pinterest board of the kinds of shots they wanted or any of that bridal magazine/blog shite which makes me quite certain I would kill myself if I had to work full time as a wedding photographer, so I had free rein and something to keep myself busy with during the day rather than the usual boring wedding stuff. Still shit scary, though in a good way.

[peanutbutter]

I bought a Canon EOS M, stuck Magic Lantern on it, got it running enough to be able to record rather impressive results but never bothered learning well enough to actually remember any of the setup specifics. Seemed really cool considering it was like £80 including the lens and everything, then I got an M42 lens to use some old russian lenses I had lying round.
Currently back using film cos someone got me a development kit and some chemicals, using point and shoots cos I can't be arsed and just want to get on to developing.
Kinda think I just don't care about photography very much.



Would anyone be able to suggest an especially good old phone or digital camera to use if I wanted to go to an event and get a ton of shitty photos in the style of Facebook circa-2008? Big obnoxious built in flash and all, ideally for no more than £30.

[touchingcloth]

Canon Powershot SX-blah or Nikon Coolpix P-blah model cameras are the kind which look like SLRs while being fixed lens."Bridge" cameras, they called them. Flippy up flashes, too.

Powershot SX10:



They're going for under twenty quid delivered on eBay. Have at this list and search for them on eBay until you find your one - they're all guaranteed pieces of shit.

[greenman]

Nikon do still put out those kinds of bridge cameras these days aiming at the wildlife shooting market with insane ranges up to 3000mm..

Seriously thinking about selling my 300mm F/2.8 AF-S, just doesnt get enough use being such a beast at 3 KG and I'v never really gotten into wildlife shooting as much as I'd hoped. Might put it towards a new ultra fast 50mm instead.

[Noodle Lizard]

The Sony RX-100 series is perfect for the needs of an "average photographer". I've taken better shots with my Mk. III than on my far more "professional" DSLR, better low-light capability out of the box, has just as many options and you're able to bring it anywhere without much hassle. Obviously if you want to fiddle with different lenses or plan on doing a lot of static/tripod set-ups it's no use, but it's about a good a point-and-shoot as you're going to find (for under a grand anyway). The video is great quality as well.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-rx100

EDIT: Just found out they've released about 4 new versions since my one, but my one's great and I'm sure you could find it used for fairly cheap.

[touchingcloth]

The Sony RX-100 series is perfect for the needs of an "average photographer". I've taken better shots with my Mk. III than on my far more "professional" DSLR, better low-light capability out of the box, has just as many options and you're able to bring it anywhere without much hassle. Obviously if you want to fiddle with different lenses or plan on doing a lot of static/tripod set-ups it's no use, but it's about a good a point-and-shoot as you're going to find (for under a grand anyway). The video is great quality as well.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-rx100

EDIT: Just found out they've released about 4 new versions since my one, but my one's great and I'm sure you could find it used for fairly cheap.

I had a MkII, and you're right they're great point and shoot cameras. I bought it because I wanted something which had the option for shooting raw and with manual control if I needed it, and it was great. The only reason I got rid was because shooting using a screen rather than viewfinder doesn't suit me, so I sold it and bought the smallest thing I could find with a decent optical viewfinder, but given that I don't use my SLR basically at all any more maybe I should swap it for something like another RX100...

[greenman]

I believe the modern RX100's have a pop up viewfinder, probably of quite as good as an X100 EVF but word seems to be their pretty decent. The ironic thing is that the advantage of RAW is actually stronger on smaller sensors were its offered less, the more noise you have in an image the more likely your going to want non in camera processing. I remember I used to process mostly raw on my Canon 550D but these days mostly use jpegs on my D850, only using raw when I'm doing heavy adjustment of dark areas or difficult colour temp.

The 1 inch sensor compact I was really disappointed to see cancelled was Nikon's DL 16-50, I think there have been 1-2 cameras that have gone down to 22mm equivalents but generally everything seems to limit itself to 24mm

[touchingcloth]

A popup viewfinder does make it very tempting, but I have to remember that I'm not currently making money from photography and not obsess over gear. The X100 purchase was largely to get me off always thinking about what lens to get next.

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, my RX-100 III has a popup viewfinder which is perfectly good. I always shoot RAW & JPEG, because why wouldn't you? I play around a lot (probably too much) in Lightroom, so I almost always end up using the RAW file, but every now and then a JPEG will be perfect right out of the camera.

By the way, listen to greenman over me, the lad knows his stuff and the resultant photographs prove it. I only really know about the cameras I own/use.

[touchingcloth]

I'll listen to you all THANKS. I always end up doing a lot of research before buying gear as some sites are too obsessed with single brands, others are fixated on weird laboratory tests of dynamic range and ISO settings, and others are Ken Fucking Rockwell.